Culture – Page 6 – Welcome to Cambodia, and…..

It’s the way we do it here….

This photo shows why Phnom Penh’s traffic is so horrendous–and deadly. Notice 1) there are no lanes painted on the road; 2) there is no attempt by drivers to stay in anything resembling a lane of traffic; 3) physical barriers are widely used in Phnom Penh because lane markings are ignored, but here an opening is provided to nullify the effect of the barrier; and 4) allow a truck to make a U-turn right in front of the sign saying no U-turns. Cambodia averages about five traffic deaths a day.

Ooops…

I was trying something new with today’s post about the dance performance when the CACD went on retreat in Takeo Province. I added a 40-second video of the dancing, the first time I’ve used video here, and it’s giving me mixed results. The video keeps pausing, unable to buffer the content quickly enough. Maybe it’s my own slow Internet connection playing back the video or maybe it’s a problem with video on Mailchimp. I’ll have to experiment more but apologies for now if you’re getting results like mine.

CACD Retreat #4

The CACD (Catholic Alliance for Charity and Development) retreatants toured and heard explanations about the different programs offered at the cluster of schools set up by Bishop Olivier in Takeo Province. We also had a chance to see some of the students performing.

Here are some of the student apsara dancers backstage, waiting for their turn to perform.

There are many versions of the classical dance form these young women are performing.

Other students concentrated more on music, albeit with classical dance elements added.

And these young men add a rather non-classical musical element to the performance.

Street Shrine

You don’t see as many of them here as in Hong Kong, but there are Chinese-style shrines to deities throughout Phnom Penh neighborhoods.

CACD Retreat #3

The CACD retreat gave many of the church and NGO workers the opportunity to see some of the projects started by Bishop Olivier. One of them is CoCo de Takeo, a social enterprise which makes candy and useful and decorative objects from coconuts–of which Cambodia has an abundance!

Coco de Takeo mostly employs people with disabilities and single, poor mothers with no other source of income. Here a Little Person works with large coconut hulls. Notice the teapot and the coconut hull to its left which is being carved to be a decorative holder for the teapot.

Women then extract and trim the coarse, hairy inner shell of the coconut for use in various projects.

Some of the coconut shells are preserved, lacquered, and arranged into decorative hangings that one might find in a restaurant or a tourist business establishment.

Of course, an enterprise centered on coconuts generates a huge pile of husks that cannot be used.

Atrocity

Can you imagine such an atrocious sign at an intersection? This is what happens when you have no zoning and/or the inspectors are on the take and there is no enforcement.

Vietnamese New Year

There is not much of visible Chinese Catholic community in Cambodia but there is a huge Vietnamese Catholic community. Yesterday Bishop Olivier celebrated the Sunday mass on New Year’s Day with one Vietnamese parish. Here he is on his way to mass with them.

After mass with the Vietnamese community.

CACD Retreat #2

As part of the CACD retreat (Catholic Alliance for Charity and Development), we visited a social enterprise center where Bishop Olivier has created basically cottage industries to give employment mainly to people with disabilities and poor women who have no source of income and no possibility of jobs like in the city.

One source of employment is weaving khramas (scarfs) and other cloth on these massive wooden looms.

Weaving is a simple process basically but it looks rather complicated to the untrained observer. Here a woman guides a shuttle with white thread across the loom while the shuttle with green thread rests on the finished product.

Here a woman weaves a solid-color piece of material. It is a slow process, basically weaving one thread at a time.

This woman is able to bring her toddler child to work with her.

What’s Cambodia Like #4?

I don’t intend to dwell only on the negative aspects of life and culture in Cambodia but there are so many of them. They certainly can’t be ignored in daily life.

It seems almost every day, literally, there is another story of some government official or military officer or village chief arrested for fraud, selling government land, appropriating land of indigenous peoples, cutting protected forests–you name it.

Lunar New Year’s Eve Preparation

Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve for the Lunar New Year of the Rabbit and many people in Cambodia are preparing for the celebration. The Lunar New Year is not an official holiday in Cambodia but many, many people claim some Chinese ancestry and take two or three days off to celebrate. There were signs of preparation along the streets of Phnom Penh this week.