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Cambodia is now celebrating the Buddhist new year of 2570. I miss being there for the annual festivities which are a source of real joy for the ordinary people who have gone through so much with the Thailand-Cambodia border war and now the effects of the U.S. war with Iran.
Here is a good article from UCAN (Union of Catholic Asian News) about the current situation.
Even as individuals maintain their comfortable consumerist isolation, they can choose a form of constant …. bonding that encourages remarkable hostility, insults, abuse, defamation and verbal violence destructive of others, and this with a lack of restraint that could not exist in physical contact without tearing us all apart. Social aggression has found unparalleled room for expansion through computers and mobile devices.
[From Fratelli Tutti, #44, by Pope Francis]
Tuesday, 17 February 2026, is the first day of the Lunar New Year (aka Chinese New Year or Tet [Vietnam]) so today is New Year’s Eve. May the Year of the Horse be a good year for you!
Bishop Olivier of Phnom Penh is a very active player in the life of the kingdom and always reaches out to the Buddhists to address issues, celebrate events, etc. In the current conflict between the kingdoms of Cambodia and Thailand, Bishop Olivier has gone to the front lines with a Buddhist delegation and has engaged with Buddhist leadership in praying for peace.
The joint prayer events take on a form not so familiar to Christian groups. Literally hundreds of Buddhist monks came together for this joint prayer service.
In the United States, many girls’ dream is to be a cheerleader for their school’s sports teams. In Cambodian culture, where there are no school sports teams, the girls want to be apsara dancers.
Every Sunday adult volunteers work with really young girls to get them started in the classical dancing.
Today I went to Russian Market to buy a few gifts for people I will see in Taiwan and Hong Kong and Macau later this week. The market is quite an experience as you might surmise from this photo.
Then it started raining–really raining–outside and water started coming across the floor from different directions.
The vendors don’t pay much attention to the rain coming through the ceiling except when it drips on their merchandise and then they have plastic sheets to cover the counters.
The rain certainly cuts down on the number of tourists, though, so all in all, it was probably not a good afternoon for the marketers.
A Buddhist monk walking a Phnom Penh street.
