Category: Culture

What? Me, hot?

The last few days have seen the temperature at 100ºF. It is really hot in the deaf offices where we don’t have air conditioning. Heat is a relative entity for people here, though. Notice these two young women dressed in moderately heavy jackets, long pants, even gloves–and never even thinking that it’s hot!

Aesthetics–not yet

Cambodia likes to promote itself as an emerging mid-level income country rather than a least developed country, but the indications of development here are to a large degree a facade or veneer. Not much has changed for most of the country although the cities seem to bustle. In this environment, survival still takes precedence over artistic and cultural skills and values. If it works is much more important than how it looks.

An example of this is the wi-fi installation in the main corridor of our new building. The router, power supply, splitters, and the cables are all out in public view rather than hidden away or covered.

Still around…

The Lunar New Year (aka Chinese New Year) was February 10th but many homes and businesses still have their decorations on display.

These chrysanthemums are still holding up pretty well.

This store went for a more formal display and maybe they’re keeping the decorations up to feel they’re getting their money’s worth out of them.
Many smaller shops still have some decorations but for many of them I suspect it is due to inertia; no one has told the staff to take them down.

Untidy is OK

Aesthetics is not a prominent concern in Cambodia. Much of daily life is still focused on survival and so details like cleanliness, order, discipline get ignored. An example is this installation of our wi-fi router at the Deaf Development Programme. This was a new building and the installation could have been placed anywhere and taken any shape. The final result on the main corridor of our building is what is easiest and most accessible rather than might look best.

Lunar New Year – 1

The Lunar New Year (aka Chinese New Year) will be Saturday, 10 February 2024. There are a lot of people claiming some Chinese heritage in Cambodia and preparations preparing for the festival are appearing around Phnom Penh.

Some of the decorations already put up are definitely low key.

Water Festival 2023 – #2

The Water Festival is BIG. 2.5 million people come to Phnom Penh for the boat races stretched over three days.
This drone shot gives a good idea what the boats are like. Notice in the pink and light blue boats that more than half the crew are standing, to be more vigorous in paddling. It takes a really big boat to allow standing.

[The photos are from the Khmer Times newspaper.]

Water Festival 2023

Preparation

Today (Sunday) and Monday and Tuesday are the three official holidays for the Water Festival held each year at the full moon in November when the Tonle Sap River reverses its flow. Long boats, paddled by 30 to 90 men, race for three days river in front of the royal palace.

2.5 million people from other parts of Cambodia come to Phnom Penh for the festival, the national celebration second only to the Khmer New Year. Here at 9:00 o’clock in the morning, families are walking toward the riverfront. They could take tuk-tuks only so far and then the streets are blocked and they must proceed on foot.
This father takes his three daughters to the riverfront on his motorcycle. He’s probably wondering how close he can get to the water and where he is going to park.
These tourists are part of a group of ten or twelve being carried to the scene of the action by cyclo.
This woman is setting up her cart for a long day of selling bags of popcorn and cotton candy.
This vendor finds customers for small clams to crack and eat while the boy on the left struggles to set up his offering of some sort of fried bread.
Hat sellers do a good business with everyone being out in the sun all day long.

Human Rights for the Deaf 4

The training for judges and prosecutors working with people with disabilities was organized by the Office of the High Commission on Human Rights (or UN Human Rights). It was held at the Angkor Paradise Hotel which seemed to have five or six UN and NGO meetings going on while still accommodating hordes of tourists come to see Angkor Wat.

The Angkor Paradise Hotel is a beautiful facility but much of its beauty comes from its (over) use of luxury woods native to Cambodia, one of its treasures.

The hotel lobby exhibited the characteristic Cambodia display of wooden furniture, figures, and objects.
The shops in the lobby were accented by massive wooden stools. Imagine the huge luxury trees sacrificed to provide these five incredibly heavy wooden decorations in the corridor.

Another section of the lobby.
Wooden chairs and a carving worth thousands of dollars decorate one of the passageways. These chairs are really unusual because they are padded! I have never seen that in 23 years here. For me one of the curses of Cambodia is sitting in a doctor’s waiting room with these huge wooden chairs, designed for a Cambodian sense of beauty and not for comfort.
The Angkor Paradise Hotel has a beautiful pool.
And of course the pool furniture is more of the heavy wooden style.