Author: Charles Dittmeier

Lunar New Year’s Eve

Today is new year’s eve for the lunar new year and it is a BIG day for the families that celebrate it. Like Americans needing to be home for Thanksgiving, everyone MUST be home for the reunion dinner on new year’s eve. 100+ million Chinese people have been traveling the last couple days to make it home today.

But for those in Phnom Penh who did not need to travel, it was a day for putting out offerings for the spirits of the ancestors.

This machine shop set out a large array of fruits and drinks and bread.
This business’ arrangement wasn’t quite as large but was done with real care.
Here two shops, side-by-side, put out offerings on chairs set on the edge of the street.
Amid all the offerings from family shops, this family just put out a small arrangement with fruit and candles.

Lunar New Year #5

The apartment complex, where a donor is letting me live free so the money I was paying for rent in another place can go to the deaf program, is also getting into the new year spirit with big displays of chrysanthemums. In Asia, the Lunar/Chinese New Year is like Christmas–you don’t have to be Christian or believe in Santa Claus to celebrate the holiday.

Air Quality in Phnom Penh

The past couple days I noticed there was more haze in the sky and distant buildings were harder to see but I didn’t notice any difference in breathing. But now the paper says two days ago Phnom Penh (arrow) was the second most air-polluted city in the world, behind only Dhaka, Bangladesh. Today the visibility is much greater and the air quality number is 84, much lower than the previous 190+. Air pollution is not something Phnom Penh is noted for.

Lunar New Year #4

This Vietnamese restaurant created some distinctive, non-traditional lunar new year decorations to adorn a tree at their establishment. The lunar new year, aka Chinese New Year for many people, is called Tet in Vietnam.

Lunar New Year #3

A really essential part of the lunar new year is the chrysanthemums. Here a neighborhood group of ladies went together to buys some flowers and set up shop in an empty lot near the deaf office.

Why?

I will never be able to understand Cambodian drivers’ fixation with driving with one wheel over the dividing line on streets. Here my tuk-tuk driver has his left wheel hooked over the line. Notice two vehicles ahead, the car driver has his right wheel over the same line.