Culture – Page 15 – Welcome to Cambodia, and…..

Bird’s Nest Soup

Bird’s nest soup is a Cambodian export and because it is so valuable, special buildings are erected here as nesting places for the swiftlets that produce the nests used in the soup making. Click here to see some of the buildings.

Cultural Differences in Cambodia

I find it interesting to see the different ways different cultures do things. Click here to see some cultural practices that would vary quite a bit from what one might find in a western hotel.

Inclusion

This is the toilet at St. Joseph Church in Phnom Penh. Women on the left, men on the right, and urinals in full view. Such an arrangement might seem lacking in privacy in a country like the United States but is perfectly acceptable here in this culture.

Fading Tradition

You often don’t notice them as your ride by on modern Phnom Penh’s busy streets, but there are still quite a few old traditional wooden houses around. Often a shopfront has been added to turn what used to be just a family house into a family business so that from the street only a concrete facade is visible. As the city develops, though, these house are doomed.

A landscaping business almost hides this old house near the Maryknoll office

In the old traditional style, each room has its own peaked roof.

Here is a concrete room added to the front of the wooden house to create a business.

This used to be a neighborhood of wooden houses, but now all the adjoining traditional houses have become multistory apartment blocks.

How long will this little wooden house last on this corner?

Coronation Holiday

Cambodia is awash in holidays. The United States has 11. Cambodia has more than 23. The number has changed some in the past year or two as the government recognized there are too many such days and removed one or two, but there are still too many. Today this roundabout is decorated for the anniversary of the king’s coronation. And then tomorrow we have the first day of a three-day holiday for the Water Festival!

There goes the neighborhood

This spirit house (gold box in the circle) was erected as a new residence for the spirits who were displaced when the house on the corner was built. Now it’s in the middle of a motorcycle parking lot and the uncollected garbage is piled on its base. Not a very inviting new home.

Topics:Coffee in hand

After the first coffee carts appeared and then coffee stands were set up on the sidewalks every day, coffee became more and more common in Phnom Penh, until now it’s everywhere. Click here to see photos of the coffee bearers.

Nobody home….

Today is the second day of the three-day Pchum Ben Buddhist holiday honoring the spirits of deceased relatives. For Pchum Ben, everyone must go to their home village in the provinces so that Phnom Penh is largely empty as evidenced by this row of closed shops a long a normally VERY busy road. The resultant minimal traffic makes it wonderful for me getting around on my bicycle.

Ghost Festival

Much of the population here in Cambodia has some Chinese ancestry and celebrates all the Chinese festivals. Click here to see some of the shops selling offerings for the ancestors.

Wat’s in a name?

I remember one time, almost twenty years ago, that one of my staff told me that a wat (Buddhist pagoda) was asking us to put our DDP name on the wall. I had no idea what that meant and couldn’t get a good explanation so I said we’d pass. Later I found that it is the custom for the monks in wats to solicit donations from people, and those who contribute get their names carved in stone in recognition of their generosity. The brown marble plaques above immortalize some such donors on a Phnom Penh wat wall.