Chuam Ben: Cambodian All Souls’ Day

Dear Friends, Family and other notable companions on this journey through Life.

What is there to say? My life has suddenly gotten very busy and complex. I have returned from language training early in order to help (write) a PowerPoint presentation for the deputy director of the Ministry of Education, Mr. Leang Nguon Ly.

There were some holidays in there, like the weekends and Chuam Ben, which is a very holy holiday for Buddhists. This is a time that everyone, it seems, goes home to visit at least seven Wats (temples) and give gifts of food, or money or something as an offering. There are a couple of reasons behind all of this. The gifts of food or money are to appease the spirits of ancestors who have passed on and are currently in Hell. They need to get out to be either reincarnated or to go to heaven. The reason that everyone goes home is that is where the ancestors passed away and since they don’t travel well, you have to go where they are. The second reason is that the living have to visit seven Wats in order that they don’t miss their proper spirit. If they do, there is great consternation, (you can read anger in this) and bad luck or retribution will follow. The spirits evidently don’t hang out in one Wat; they go from Wat to Wat. I asked, “What if there is more than seven Wats in a community? PP has hundreds.” The answer was ‘Is ok, seven is enough.”

Tomorrow and Sunday are holidays of course and Monday is yet another holiday, the nature of which, I do not have a clue. Tuesday we leave for Viet Nam. I have my ticket and visa and I will pack my bag and pray that the q/a at the conference is mercifully short. Come back on the 3rd of November and I think I will respect All Souls Day and offer several gifts of food and money to my dear respected previously departed saints and otherwise. I will visit one or two churches of which there are a surprising number here in PP.

Love to all. Richard.

Rainy season

It is pouring rain as I write – not an uncommon experience in Cambodia during these six months of wet weather. It is expected to last for about an hour or two and during that time, the streets in Phnom Penh will be flooded for the most part. Some streets will have water up to an adult person’s knees. When the rain stops however, the streets empty and very soon all is back to normal. Phnom Penh does not seem to get as much water or rain as the other provinces do. The various mountain ranges account for that. There are two of them closeby: the Elephant mountain range in the far southwest and the Cardomon mountain range in the west just above the Elephant range. Each of these two ranges protects Phnom Penh during the rainy season to some degree. In the dry season – the other six months –it is just basically hot everywhere.Tomorrow morning I leave for my first trip out to the provinces. I will take a bus to Kampong Speu, which is the next province over from Phnom Penh. I am traveling with another fellow from my department. His English is not very good and my Khmer is non-existent except for numbers, Good morning, afternoon and evening which is different from what they use, and a few other minor words. This should be a great adventure, three days speaking in numbers and salutations.

This note will focus on one of the stranger sights I have ever witnessed. When I first arrived in PP (Phnom Penh), Liz Webber my program officer mentioned that I might be interested in going to the Olympic Stadium around 5:00 sometime. That was as much as she shared in the suggestion because she didn’t want to say too much. Based on this cryptic description I was very interested but it took some two weeks before I could get over there. When I arrived it looked like any other big stadium with the exception that there were a lot of people around, most of whom were playing soccer (football) on the dirt outside of the building. There were vendors in several different places and I made my way into the stadium after buying a coke for $1.

Have I mentioned how American dollars are used for everything here? The Riel is the Cambodian currency and is worth $1 = 4000 riel. It is used for everything that is cheap or under a dollar. When the price gets above a dollar U.S. currency is used. The entire country operates on this system.

Anyway, back to the stadium. Once inside I was immediately impressed by the size. It is truly an Olympic sized stadium and the scoreboard looks as though it could be used for American football games with lighting and labeling for downs, lines that the ball is on, etc. The notable image is however, the number of people inside. There must have been at least a thousand, most of whom were on the top stand of the seats. The space up there is much wider than the seating area, 12 to 15 feet. I was seated on one side of the stadium looking across at the main sections. It was simply continuous action as there were different groups all engaged in dancing. It appeared as though there were twenty different “dancercise” classes going on with huge speakers separating the groups. In addition to all of these people engaged in dancing there were hundreds more just walking around the infield or on the steps of the stadium. Several had their dogs with them and the dogs would just trot along with their owners. I also saw several mothers who had their small children with them and it felt like a family park.

I finally made my way over to the other side and went up to the top. Here there were more vendors and in one area, which was like a central receiving or entrance/exit place of the building, there were Tae Kwan Do classes. These kickboxing classes covered all ages and were very impressive. Training seemed to consist of matches with the referee also serving as an instructor. He would occasionally stop the action and show one or both contestants how something should be done. Finally I had absorbed all I could for the time and left. I definitely will return but I don’t think I will enroll in any of the classes. I don’t think they have memberships; it looks as though one just shows up and joins in.

I hope those of you who are looking for more cultural and sophisticated descriptions will be patient with me. Right now I don’t believe I know enough about the sect of Buddhism they practice here to describe it. I also have not seen enough of the Wats (temples) to describe them or explain them in any detail. I plan on saving them for a future note.