Category: Culture

Musica Felice (October)

Twice a year, Musica Felice, a musical and choral group founded and directed by Ms. Miwako Fujiwara, presents benefit concerts at the Sofitel, a 5-star hotel in Phnom Penh. This October performance benefited the Deaf Development Programme.

We arrived early and it gave our students some time to explore and look around the lobby of the grand ballroom. For almost all of them, it was their first experience in a five-star hotel.
We had reserved seats at the front where the deaf people had good visibility, and when we gathered at our seats, Miwako came over to welcome us!
The grand ballroom just before the lights dimmed for the opening.
At the intermission Miwako had arranged for each of the students to get a croissant or other pastry.
This concert didn’t have the videos and visual effects of some previous performances, but in the second half, featuring music from Les Miserables, the singers wore costumes and staged some of the settings for the lyrics.
At the end all our students marched up to the stage as part of a finale, and then they gathered for photos with the cast and with Miwako. The deaf students really couldn’t enjoy the music but it was a real learning experience for them.

Coming up….

For serious Christians, the upcoming Holy Week may be part of their thinking and planning. Palm Sunday is next Sunday and the beginning of the special and holy for belivers in Jesus. For most Cambodians, however, what is coming up and is on their minds is the Khmer New Year, April 13-15.

Here are some DDP students and a staff member from the Deaf Community Center practicing a traditional dance that uses dried coconut shells to make a clacking sound.

Cryotherapy

Over the past few years, as I have aged I have developed spots or lesions on the skin that the dermatologist said could develop into skin cancer. He recommended removing them with liquid nitrogen (cryotherapy). Here are some photos from my last visit to the dermatologist which also give some glimpses of Cambodian medical culture.

I usually try to get to the doctor early in the morning. This doctor starts at 7:30 AM. Because of Covid, he moved his waiting area out on to the sidewalk, and even though Covid is much less a concern now, his patients still wait on the street.
This is inside the real waiting room. Notice the heavy, luxury-wood chairs. They are a sign in every business that you “have arrived,” that you are successful. They certainly don’t contribute anything to comfort. I bet your doctor doesn’t have fine chairs like these! The picture on the wall is the dermatologist with his wife (also a doctor) with the prime minister.
This is the rest of the waiting room. Notice all the wooden chairs and statues and other objects.
This is a cryotherapy gun that shoots liquid nitrogen on to the spot or mark to be removed. The temperature of the nitrogen in the gun is -320ºF!

Brown Bag Lunch

This is the equivalent of brown bagging lunch in Cambodia. In a culture where a meal is not a meal without rice these metal section containers are used. Rice wouldn’t fare so well in a paper bag, but these containers have one section for the rice and then two or three other sections for vegetables or whatever to go with the rice.

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.