Buddhist monk Sokha Chan, right, accepts offerings from the crowd during the Khmer Buddhist Society's new year celebration. (Photo: Ed Crisostomo / The Press-Enterprise)Saturday, April 19, 2008
By DAVID OLSON
The Press-Enterprise (California, USA)
Worshippers began arriving at the Khmer Buddhist Society of San Bernardino at 8 a.m. Saturday with their offerings of fried noodles, beef curry and jackfruit-studded desserts.
By noon, disposable plates of food and drinks covered the raised wooden platform where monks chanted, the bounty spilling onto the adjoining straw mats and rugs on which worshippers sat and put their hands together in prayer.
Saturday was the biggest gathering of the year for Inland Cambodians, a new year's celebration that drew hundreds of people to a nondescript home that in 1991 was converted into a temple.
The traditional Cambodian new year festivities take place April 13-15, which in Cambodia is a national holiday. But because most people in the United States work on at least some of those days, Buddhist temples here typically celebrate on the weekend before or after the actual new year, said Sokha Chan, head monk at the temple.
That means many U.S. Cambodians get to celebrate the new year twice. Chan and the other San Bernardino monks traveled to a Pomona temple's celebration last Sunday.
Other Inland Cambodians went to Long Beach, which has Southern California's largest Cambodian community.
Buddhism has three main branches. Most Cambodians belong to the Theravada branch. Followers of the other two -- Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism -- marked the new year in February.
The San Bernardino festivities were scheduled to stretch well into the night, with traditional Khmer music and dancing.
The Khmer are the main ethnic group in Cambodia.
In the morning, as the orange- and maroon-robed monks sat against a wall chanting prayers in honor of their and others' ancestors, barefoot worshippers brought an endless series of plates of homemade food to the platform. Volunteers periodically carried the plates to other spots in the temple to make room for more offerings.
Many people placed $20, $10, $5 and $1 bills onto silver-colored trays. Some of the money will be used for a planned temple expansion.
The monks then walked outside clutching metal bowls and cloth bags.
Dozens of people gathered in a giant circle around a huge patio. Each worshipper spooned rice into the monks' bowls and placed bills of money into the bags.
When the monks' bowls filled, a temple member emptied the rice into big plastic washing tubs.
The monks then returned inside the temple. After more prayers, they began eating. When they were done, everyone else followed.
"It's like a big potluck," Vouch Kim Lun said with a smile as she held her 2-year-old daughter Savanna, the smell of incense and grilled beef wafting through the air.
Lun, 35, also brought 3-year-old Brianna to the temple, as she does throughout the year. There are few Cambodians in Lun's Colton neighborhood, and she wants to make sure that her daughters grow up with Cambodian traditions.
Kim Sreng moved from Cambodia to Moreno Valley a year and a half ago to live with relatives and to send money to family still in her homeland. Saturday made her feel a little less homesick.
"This is the one time of year I can see so many Cambodians," Sreng, 28 said.
Sokan Hunro, who moved to Long Beach in November after 17 years in Redlands, returned to the temple for the celebration. Unlike in Long Beach, there is no Cambodian neighborhood in the Inland area.
By noon, disposable plates of food and drinks covered the raised wooden platform where monks chanted, the bounty spilling onto the adjoining straw mats and rugs on which worshippers sat and put their hands together in prayer.
Saturday was the biggest gathering of the year for Inland Cambodians, a new year's celebration that drew hundreds of people to a nondescript home that in 1991 was converted into a temple.
The traditional Cambodian new year festivities take place April 13-15, which in Cambodia is a national holiday. But because most people in the United States work on at least some of those days, Buddhist temples here typically celebrate on the weekend before or after the actual new year, said Sokha Chan, head monk at the temple.
That means many U.S. Cambodians get to celebrate the new year twice. Chan and the other San Bernardino monks traveled to a Pomona temple's celebration last Sunday.
Other Inland Cambodians went to Long Beach, which has Southern California's largest Cambodian community.
Buddhism has three main branches. Most Cambodians belong to the Theravada branch. Followers of the other two -- Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism -- marked the new year in February.
The San Bernardino festivities were scheduled to stretch well into the night, with traditional Khmer music and dancing.
The Khmer are the main ethnic group in Cambodia.
In the morning, as the orange- and maroon-robed monks sat against a wall chanting prayers in honor of their and others' ancestors, barefoot worshippers brought an endless series of plates of homemade food to the platform. Volunteers periodically carried the plates to other spots in the temple to make room for more offerings.
Many people placed $20, $10, $5 and $1 bills onto silver-colored trays. Some of the money will be used for a planned temple expansion.
The monks then walked outside clutching metal bowls and cloth bags.
Dozens of people gathered in a giant circle around a huge patio. Each worshipper spooned rice into the monks' bowls and placed bills of money into the bags.
When the monks' bowls filled, a temple member emptied the rice into big plastic washing tubs.
The monks then returned inside the temple. After more prayers, they began eating. When they were done, everyone else followed.
"It's like a big potluck," Vouch Kim Lun said with a smile as she held her 2-year-old daughter Savanna, the smell of incense and grilled beef wafting through the air.
Lun, 35, also brought 3-year-old Brianna to the temple, as she does throughout the year. There are few Cambodians in Lun's Colton neighborhood, and she wants to make sure that her daughters grow up with Cambodian traditions.
Kim Sreng moved from Cambodia to Moreno Valley a year and a half ago to live with relatives and to send money to family still in her homeland. Saturday made her feel a little less homesick.
"This is the one time of year I can see so many Cambodians," Sreng, 28 said.
Sokan Hunro, who moved to Long Beach in November after 17 years in Redlands, returned to the temple for the celebration. Unlike in Long Beach, there is no Cambodian neighborhood in the Inland area.
15 comments:
This is typical Buddhism and Cambodian culture.
I hope the monk in the front does not smile at the girl ... or... he'll be in...............
OF COURSE MONKS ARE MEN THEY MASTURBATE AT NITE...THEY READ PLAYBOY PENTHOUSE BIG BOOBS !!!AND DREAMING...MEN HAVE SEX IS NORMAL....
Sounds like the fucking retarded gorillas in the ghetto neighborhood.
I USED TO BE MONK'S STUDENT JUST LIKE HUN SEN THE PAGODA BOY I SEEN MONKS READS PLAYBOY MAGAZINE WITH ALL ALL AMERICAN GIRL'S BIG BOOBS AND DREAMING......AND YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE AFTER THAT......
5:32 WHY? YOU DONT HAVE SEX THEN YOU ARE IMPOTENT...WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU YOU THINK MONKS ARE MACHINE LIKE YOU!!!!!!!!
5:43 PM
Listen up, gorilla!
In this day and age, I always carry enough viagara pills with me; one pill will have my baby erected all day long and strong. Bring it on!
សង្គមហ៊ុនសែនម្ដេចក៏មានតែអន្ធមនុស្សោច្រើននិយាយអត់ដឺងខុសត្រូវប្រើតែពាក្យបែបអសុភៗចឺង?
ไอ้โง่พูตไม่เข้าเรื่งเข้าราวลย
good maner please
Yes it's true monks are men too... the more they are restrained the more they are craving...that's normal for everybody life...as a result of being exposed to playboy magazine,maxim ect.. back in 1998 in chantabury monk had lured one white woman to his temple and cravingly raped her many times to fullfill his thirst for not having sex for longtime..it was in the news...
To 10:26PM
Get your Thaicong graffiti out of here!
Damn, there are lot of fake monks in the west.
How do you know they are fake monks? It is because there are more Thaicong monks in west who are pretending to Khmer monks! Ahahhahhahahh
5:52pm
Do you have to use viagra to get erection ? . Drug does have side effect.The side effect is you get hot all the time (24/7) and that's the problem.
after reading all of the comments above, it's seem to me that about one person is talking to him/herself.
Why? or What for?
Who have time to just sit down and try to make monk in the West look bad.
Believe it or not, there are common enemies should we call them YOUN that each and every second are attacking and promoting division among Khmers?
Therefore, by spreading false information about our Buddhist monk and our culture will lead our younger generation about from it. Youth these days don't like to associate themselves with unpopular thing. So when they hear thing that is not cool they tend to stay away from it.
In the long if our younger generations doesn't continue the tradition, then the struggle to help mainland Cambodia is weaker. Like the Soviet Union, it doesn't belief in any religion and it fall apart.
For any country if there is no common religion then that country will break apart. Another good example is the Roman Empire too.
The Youn government is cruel and so is it people.
No way Jose, without Yuon help, we (Khmer) would have been taken for ride by the stupid westerner political monks already.
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