Chao Soymala Inieum na Jampasak, 67, shows a tray of her glittering inheritance.January 22, 2009
The Nation
Chiang Mai - A descendant of Laos' Luang Prabang royals yesterday announced she was selling 200-year-old silks and jewellery worth Bt30 million to raise funds for monks' education.
Chao Soymala Inieum na Jampasak, 67, said she wanted to help cover fees for more than 200 monks from Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Bhutan, Nepal and Chiang Tung City to study at Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University in Chiang Mai, her adopted home.
Treasures for dharma
Chao Soymala, whose great great grandfather was Phrachao Chaiyachettha, a ruler in the Lan Chang Dynasty, escaped to Thailand as a 30-year-old after the Laotian revolution of 1975. After marrying, she settled in Chiang Mai and sold Laotian silks.
She is selling 1,000 antique silks decorated with gold and silver threads, some estimated to be worth Bt150,000, as part of a collection that's expected to fetch Bt20 million or more. Century old gold ornaments worth about Bt10 million in total are also for sale, she added.
Bt600,000 from the sale will go towards the tuition fees. The rest will form a fund to assist monks on dharma study missions and to buy clothes for needy female prison inmates, she said.
Those interested can contact Chao Soymala at (053) 832 854.
Chao Soymala Inieum na Jampasak, 67, said she wanted to help cover fees for more than 200 monks from Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Bhutan, Nepal and Chiang Tung City to study at Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University in Chiang Mai, her adopted home.
Treasures for dharma
Chao Soymala, whose great great grandfather was Phrachao Chaiyachettha, a ruler in the Lan Chang Dynasty, escaped to Thailand as a 30-year-old after the Laotian revolution of 1975. After marrying, she settled in Chiang Mai and sold Laotian silks.
She is selling 1,000 antique silks decorated with gold and silver threads, some estimated to be worth Bt150,000, as part of a collection that's expected to fetch Bt20 million or more. Century old gold ornaments worth about Bt10 million in total are also for sale, she added.
Bt600,000 from the sale will go towards the tuition fees. The rest will form a fund to assist monks on dharma study missions and to buy clothes for needy female prison inmates, she said.
Those interested can contact Chao Soymala at (053) 832 854.
19 comments:
I wish her good luck and longivity for leading a role model for all Asian women to do charity. I wish Bun Nary Hun Sen would do the same by selling their Tuol Krasang resident by auction and put all the monies into Charity too.
If they look back and think that if all their moneys stolen from Cambodia and have posited in a fail bank in Island or others, all their illegal moneys have gone already and they still have the name as robbers. But to put their moneys in Charity, at least people will still remember them. Areak Prey
To above comment. Stop your wishful thinking. Since when Khmer have a decent hero???
Hello Poster 4:19AM,
You cannot write off some Khmer Hero of the past and present. Without Khmer Hero in past Cambodia would have been completely finished like Champa.
We must remember all the hero who have worked tirelessly for Cambodian such as Son Kuy, Samdech Chuun Nath, Lon Nol, In Tam, Sim Va, Trinh Voanh etc.. and the present one such as Chea Vichea, Rong Chhun, Ou Virak, Mam Sonando, Pa Ngun Tieng, Pong Siv Guech, Seng Theary, Lao Mong Hay, Suon Sereyratha etc... We must appreacited all their sacrifice to help others to survive with pride and dignity. We cannot just talk yes and No but act collectively, then we can make a change. Without these people Cambodian would have suffered even harder. Areak Prey
Did we forget to include one-eyed PM among the heroes in the list?
Oh yeah, he is a Khmer hero that got many lives perished for K-5 project.
Laos people must not be very happy about it. Their culture history certainly will be lost along with the sales. Thailand will happily buy these artifacts with pride for the newly acquired pieces and slowly turning them into their culture collection.
Thai navy is heartless when it comes to rescue and save the lives of the people in the open sea. They simply don’t give a damn about the people and that’s making no different than the pirates and assassins at sea that waiting for it’s’ pray.
Do Thai people have mercy on human being and indiscriminate against other natives?
What other countries think about Thailand regarding this event?
What credibility does Thailand earn in the eye of the world community?
Please read this article:
Thai navy is alleged to have forced several hundred migrants onto a barge in the middle of the ocean, where as many as 300 later drowned. More than 100 were rescued by Indian authorities in the remote Andaman islands. (AP Photo/Indian Coast
Areak Prey,
I agreed with you that some of the people u mentioned are deserved to be heores..BUT
"Lon Nol, In Tam"? WTF, are they your heroes or Khmer's heroes? Man, they live a emperor life when they were in power..Not different from Mr. Hun Sex now...
Pong Shiv Guech: could be a patriot not yet enough to be a hero?
Pa Ngun Tieng?: Who the hell?
Seng Theary: Check her salary and check her activity whether she has done enough for what she is paid..
Lao Mong Hai?: he can earn 100 times more than Cambodians who work their ass as him..Speaking is not difficult, my friend..
Suon Sereyratha: Who the hell?what has he done? just write a letter and then sleeping fucking in the US is counted as hero?
Ta Cyclo
5:56am,
That is the price to pay for demolishing someone who lives to retain their cultures and artifacts and those people are their royal family. It's just too bad.
Hello Ta Cyclo,
I am gladed that you have at least agreed to some of my list. If you check Lon Nol policy and Hun Sen policy is totally different. Lon Nol has protected Cambodian interest and is very much less corrupted than Hun Sen. If you look at Nol Lon house in Tuol Tumpoong during his position as Prime Minister of Cambodia, his house was much smaller. He can have only a few body guards ( they limited two Boys at that time for all military leaders). But how many hun Sen bodyguards? He dared to stand up with ennemy. When he left Cambodia, the whole of his entourage can take only one millions dollars with them. How much Hun Sen has at present?
For In Tam, I knew him very well. He lived opposite to University of Phnom Penh in a small wooden house. He ate all Cambodian traditional foods no luxury at all. I have been to his house many times during presidential election in 1973. He has a modest life. That was for a former Prime Minister and former Leader of the House.
Pa Nguon Tieng is working for a NGO in Cambodia for Human right. His life is always in danger. How many people dared to stand up like him.
Seng Theary, a young Cambodian woman graduated in overseas and is working in Cambodia. Don't you think it is a sacrifice of her? She can earn much higher salary in Overseas. Do you believe it?
Lao Mong Hay is another one who has graduated in overseas. He can have a good life in overseas with his family. But he has determined to promote democracy in Cambodia amoung all the monsters, don't you feel he may face many risk?
Suon Serey Ratha, a young Cambodian who dare to make many critical statement to improve Cambodia justice system. How many young people have done like him?
If we don't appreciate with these people, no one else will do it for Cambodia at all. I may have missed so many man and woman who have done the same thing.I pray them to continue their good works for Cambodia so that Cambodian people can live with pride and dignity. Areak Prey
i think cambodia should not try to do the same as this lao person is doing. i think royal legacy should be placed in the national museum, not selling them because once they are sold, these rare but invaluable relics might disappear forever. so, i hope the khmer royal members won't selling our great khmer ancestors' relics whether they are jewelry, stoneworks, etc... plus, these precious items belongs to the nation of cambodia, too, not just our royal family. i think having these items in the national museum will be good for the nation and our younger generation of khmer posterity as well. thank you and may god bless our khmer royal treasure.
i hope some rich individual from cambodia will buy all from her. but make sure it is real, though. then put all of it in the national museum of cambodia.
Good for her, better than let the Youn took, right? She is doing good deeds. I am sure she has more valuable stuffs like diamond and golden crowns than these she keeps with her and her family memebrs for future museum.
Maharaja of India who lives in the US cleaned up her palace and brough most everything into the US. She is an old women now with servants and bodyguards still crawling to her feet.
The lao royalists doing this only to try to boost up their popularity in Laos. Their popularity is dead in the last few decades or so.
oK! oK! SO HOW MUCH RANARITH IS GOING TO PUT LA PHALA FOR OCTION?
Why the Khmer always have to go to Thailand to learn about Buddhism?
If these Khmer people are so stupid that they can't even learn about Buddhism in their country and why bother believe in Buddha! Only smart people believe in Buddha! I am wearied of Siam brand of Buddhism because the Khmer people had been a victim of Siam naked aggression many times before! And if the Siam brand of Buddhism had taught the Siam people anything is that they must learn to live in harmony and peaceful with their neighbors!
By the way, Buddha wasn't born in Thailand!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
buddha was an india's prince; just like jesus was a hebrew or jews. i hope more khmer people will visit india, the birthplace of lord buddha; same with those who believe in lord jesus christ, they visit bethleham, in modern israel. god bless cambodia.
Gautama Buddha was born in Nepal not India. The archeaological evidence already proved that Buddha was born in Nepal. The place of his birth needs to be built as a monument so visitors can visit.
Gautama Buddha was a greatest man of peace who may be sent from God, but he was no God. He reached the enlightment at the age of 35 after 49 days of meditation.
Immanual or Jesus Christ or Isa means God is with us. God conceived a Holy Child Jesus (Nasu) to a 14 years old vergin Mary. God made his own image into flesh and He who was Jesus.
Matthew 1:18-25 "Behold, The Virgin Shall be with Child and shall bear a Son, and they Shall call His name Immanuel".
This were the words of God spoke through prophet Mathew before happened.
We believe a child born from a male's sperm fertilizes a female's egg. Scientists cannot prove how the DNA created and how life created, they assumed God can do everything. He created a sperm cell in Mary's egg while Mary was engaged to Joseph (prince), King David's line under Herod ruled and under Ceasar of Rome. Joseph was told by the angel that the Holy Child was conceived by God, and he then believed.
The Holy Child was born in Bethlehem. He who needed no Enlightment because He was Immanuel.
Gautama Buddha knew after His Enlightment, He predicted of Se-ar metrya is on His way. Many Buddhists don't understand by many do, at least His Hilliness Dala Lama knew.
Areak Prey and Ta Cyclo
I agree with you, but you still missed sssooo many of them. For instance, there is an important person who comes to compromise the whole lot of her youth, happiness, wealth, and health to serve the POOR and the UNDERPRIVILEGED ONES in CAMBODIA but also AROUND THE WORLD. Not only she is the BEACON OF HOPE for Cambodia but also a ROLE MODEL for the new generation. When thinking of where the future leaders of Cambodia may come from we must of course look first to the members of the new generation themselves. These are the youth who, as they say, “think globally and act locally.” Inspired and determined individuals, both male and female, across our impoverished country and abroad who fight against the odds to gain education and practical work experience even though their PERSONAL SACRIFICE is great!!! We need not look further than the recently inaugurated President Barack Obama as an example of how a national leader can emerge from a modest and unpretentious background.
My Dear Charles,
Thank you so much for sharing the story of your friend Amara with us all. Based on her credentials, contacts, lineage and accomplishments, we can surely expect her to be profiled on the Khmer Biography Channel sometime soon. I just hope that the producers dig a little deeper than relying on your quoted ‘facts’ to verify the story, because your recent blog entry has more holes in it than Swiss cheese. I also hope that your future contributions will be more than just spell-checked. A reality-check would also be helpful before referring to society’s highest institutions such as Royalty, world-renowned universities and international organizations. No matter how much you choose to embellish one person, while attempting to diminish others, please remember that your audience, the Khmer people (native Khmer) in Cambodia and abroad, have sharp sensibilities, and are not easily mislead.
Once again Charles, thank you for your charming story. We all love a good fable.
Sarotee Sri Krsna
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