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Last Sunday it was double parking, lots of vendors, and hundreds of people crowding the big wats in Phnom Penh in anticipation of the Pchum Ben rituals.
Now, in the middle of the three-day holiday for Pchum Ben, the wats in Phnom Penh are devoid of people. The locals are, for these days, in their homes and in the wats in the provinces where they grew up. Phnom Penh is largely deserted.
Today is the first of the three days of the official Pchum Ben holiday. Most people have already left town, but there are always some whose departure is delayed by their jobs or other circumstances. This morning here were some of the late-departers cramming themselves and their belongings into an overcrowded van for a trip that can’t be too enjoyable but is just part of life for the majority of the populace who depend on this kind of transport.
Tomorrow is the first day of the three-day public celebration of the Pchum Ben Festival honoring deceased relatives, but prayers and various activities started a week and a half ago. This past Sunday many Cambodian people took the opportunity to visit a wat to make offerings and say prayers for their family who have gone before them in death.
Every morning Phnom Penh gets ready for a new day of business. Here is how a street selling medical supplies is transformed each day. Click here to see the change.
This is No. 9 of the nine examples of incompetence and corruption that appeared in the headlines of The Cambodia Daily in just two days. People trying to preserve their houses and lands in the face of sand-dredging are visited by government thugs.
Here’s another all-girls overload, just a day after the first one!
It isn’t only the guys who overload motorcycles!
Ms. Miwako Fujiwara is a musician with our English Catholic Community and she is also the founder of Musica Felice, a classical choral group. On September 10th, Musica Felice had a concert at the Sofitel Hotel in Phnom Penh.
Every year deaf communities around the world celebrate a Deaf Day (sometimes a Deaf Week) to give deaf people a chance to come together and to put on programs of deaf awareness so that others can understand about deaf people. Click here for pictures of our Deaf Day celebration in Cambodia.
Pchum Ben is a religious holiday celebrated in Cambodia on the fifteenth day of the tenth month of the Khmer year. It is a time for Cambodians to pay their respects to the last seven generations of the their deceased ancestors. The last three days of the Pchum Ben period are a major public holiday when everyone goes to his or her home village. This year the holidays are September 19-21.
There are many rituals associated with the festival although most do not come into full play until the holidays when the populace flocks to the wats (pagodas) to pray. Leading up to those holidays, many people, especially the elderly make visits to the wats and make offerings of lotus pods. These are pictures of women on the streets bunching the pods together for sale.
