R.I. Cambodian community celebrates new year

Vith Chrorm, of Attleboro, performs at Rhodes on the Pawtuxet Saturday as part of a celebration for the Cambodian New Year. The event included music, dance and displays on Cambodian history. (The Providence Journal / Ruben W. Perez)

Sunday, April 24, 2011
By Michael P. McKinney
Providence Journal Staff Writer (Rhode Island, USA)

CRANSTON — “Got Khmer?” read the message across the boys’ black shirts, a typeface-perfect take on the ads that’ve sold many milk cartons.

Serene monks wrapped in orange robes looked on from a stage behind them as the teenagers in those shirts — the Khmer City Rockers — danced in sync Saturday to a medley of James Brown and contemporary music. In front of the teens, a table covered in a spiritual “sand mountain” with incense and a solitary lit candle awaited offerings and prayers.

The Cambodian New Year — the Year of the Rabbit — was celebrated in Cranston Saturday, and old and new were joined in ceremony and remembrance that brought more than 150 people inside Rhodes on the Pawtuxet. The Cambodian Society of Rhode Island offered events that bridged generations.

In the morning, there was the Chhai Yam, a Khmer dance performed to traditional Cambodian drums. Midday, the drums were of recorded variety and came through a sound system, as the Khmer City Rockers, ILL’Umatic Dance Crew and Chaotic Foundation each performed.

After their performance, one of the Khmer City Rockers, Sopheak Ou, 19, said he feels he has a creative mind, part of which comes out in the moves that his dance crew does. He said that some day he wants to study architecture.

On a table in the room where the Rockers had performed, a book had on its cover one of the 12th-century structures from the temples at Angkor Wat, a monument to Khmer architecture. There were other books on the table, with titles such as “Murder of a Gentle Land,” “The Pol Pot Regime” and “Cambodia,” the latter by former New York Times foreign correspondent Henry Kamm.

“So long as we can preserve our culture, it’s very important,” Ken Oung, whose collection of books of Cambodian history was spread across the table, said of having a mix of the traditional and new at the New Year’s celebration. “We try to encourage young Cambodians to learn about their culture.”

Oung, education chairman of the Cambodian Society of Rhode Island, stood by the table and a photo mounted on a tripod that showed Khao I Dang, a refugee camp in Thailand to which people initially came as they fled Pol Pot’s murderous rule of Cambodia in the 1970s. Oung said many people who had been at Khao I Dang eventually came to Rhode Island.

The first recognized Khmer Buddhist temple in the United States opened on Hanover Street in Providence, Oung said. He is helping to put together a five-day series that will educate people about Cambodia. It will cover topics such as refugee settlement, those who came to live in the United States, and Cambodian arts and culture. He said he is seeking funding to do it, perhaps through a college in Rhode Island.

As much as the young and the old received an education Saturday, the day was about a new year and “the most important celebration,” Samnang Becker, president of the Cambodian Society of Rhode Island, wrote in the program. “How we celebrate our rich culture, pay homage to our families, and give thanks to Buddha.”

The young saw people dressed in traditional Khmer clothing. The older generation heard the all-female ILL’Umatic Dance Crew perform to a modern groove. In the evening, there were plans for a performance of Khmer classical dance, a raffle, speeches and a dancing New Year’s party till midnight.