Category: Culture

October in Buddhist Cambodia

Every two months I write a column about life and ministry in Cambodia for The Record, the newspaper for the Catholic diocese of Louisville, Kentucky. The latest column mentioned Pchum Ben, the Buddhist festival of the dead that we are experiencing this week.

For some reason one of the paragraphs of the published version of the article appears to be corrupted so rather than give the link to the newspaper, I’m trying to make a link that will send you my original copy I sent to The Record. See if you can click on this link below:

The-Record-Article-32-Sep2024Download

Pchum Ben 2

Some more photos of the pre-departure fun before the DDP students went home for the Pchum Ben holidays. The students were playing LOUD music and showing off dance moves they picked up from Tik-Tok.

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Pchum Ben at DDP

Pchum Ben is the Buddhist equivalent of the Catholic All Souls Day, a time to remember, respect, and pray for deceased family and ancestors. Unlike All Souls Day, it’s a 15-day celebration with the last three days as public holidays. The holidays will be next Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday but our students went home today.

In the morning the students walked to a nearby wat for a service with the Buddhist monks. Then after returning they had games in the morning.
In the afternoon, they had pizza before they all started their journeys home to their provinces.
Pchum Ben is a major religious and cultural festival and at home the students will go to the wats there with their families for prayers and ceremonies.

Cambodia houses 3

One characteristic of houses in the cities in Cambodia is that all the windows and doors are barred. On the left above is my front door. On top is the kitchen. The lower right corner is in my bedroom. None of the window bars or grills open. If there is a fire and the door is blocked, it’s bad news for the room occupants.

Cambodia houses 2

This is the front room of the shop house where I am living. It is two stories tall. At the other end of this room is a mezzanine room looking down onto this floor. That is for the shopkeeper to keep watch over his stock when the ground floor is set up as a shop or business. I use that mezzanine room as an office.

The point to notice here are the vents over the front doors. Everything in the house is designed to let air circulate and flow through. Electricity, e.g., for fans, is quite expensive now. 25 years ago, when this house was built electricity was still in its infancy so houses were “cooled” by increasing air flow.