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Lots of people die in Phnom Penh every day. The market for funeral arrangements never slows down or takes a break. Here a woman at shops at Central Market puts together floral displays that will be used that day to note someone’s death.
Many Cambodian houses have a little spirit house on the wall or porch, a shrine to appease the spirits who were displaced wehn the people house was built. Most spirit houses are wooden but this one is made of plastic which I’ve never seen before. And it’s BIG! Most such houses will sit on a tabletop or are set on a small pole in the yard.
Today is the second day of the three main Lunar New Year days. Yesterday was a day for visiting parents. Today it’s the sisters and brothers who get visited.
It’s OK to have new year decorations still for sale in the shops–but what happens in a couple days when definitely no one is going to be buying anything like this? Can you pack up and save for a year decorations like the lanterns?
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.
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.