Showing posts with label Cambodian culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cambodian culture. Show all posts
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Friday, March 30, 2012
Event highlights Cambodian culture
03/29/2012
By Greg Mellen, Staff Writer
Long Beach Press Telegram
By Greg Mellen, Staff Writer
Long Beach Press Telegram
Want to go?
- What: Cambodian Culture Festival
- When: Sunday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
- Where: MacArthur Park, 1321 Anaheim St.
- Admission: Free
- Info: 562-570-6816 or 562-367-7770
LONG BEACH - In the absence of a Cambodian New Year parade this year, organizers of the fourth annual Cambodia Town Culture Festival are expecting a big turnout for the daylong event Sunday.
"We've gotten a lot of feedback," said Richer San of Cambodia Town Inc., which is co-sponsoring the event. He predicted up to 2,000 visitors could attend.
A variety of music, fashion and dance presentations will be held on the main stage throughout the day and about 60 booths will be on the site with artisans and performers providing exhibitions and information on a wide array of art forms from Cambodian culture.
"This year will be very special," San said, noting that for the first time representatives for Cambodia's Islamic community, or Cham, have said they will attend.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Lowell monks steadfast on controversial temple plans
 |
| Temple-steering-committee members met with Sun staff yesterday in Lowell. From left are Samkhann Kheoun, Sam Meas, Maya Men and Sambath Soum. SUN/David H. Brow |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgasDeNxbJA
12/29/2011
By Jennifer Myers, jmyers@lowellsun.com
Lowell Sun (Lowell, Massachusetts, USA)
LOWELL -- The goal is to build a 20,000-square-foot Buddhist temple and Cambodian cultural and educational center on a 12-acre parcel in the city's Pawtucketville neighborhood -- the largest such complex on the East Coast.
It will take money. It will take time. It will take communication and compromise with a contingent of neighbors who, thus far, have stood in opposition to the Community of Khmer Buddhist Monks' project.
Yesterday morning, four members of the steering committee -- Samkhann Khoeun, Sam Meas, Maya Men and Sambath Soum -- met with Sun Editor James Campanini and a Sun reporter to discuss the project's purpose and challenges.
"The center we are planning to build will hold religious services and be a place where people from all faiths can come to meditate, receive formal religious teaching from monks and learn about Cambodian culture," said Meas.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
CAMBODIA: Something is happening among Cambodians on which democrats can build
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Dr. Gaffar Peang-Meth
In my column in this space in August, "A look at the future of Cambodia's youth and education," I posited that, "If youth is the future of the country and education is a sine qua non element of a country's development, without change in the status quo ante, Cambodia's future will be anything but bright." In my concluding sentence, I suggested that, "Broad-based application of Buddhist values and principles can help Cambodian society make its way to a future those on the current path may never find."
Dr. Gaffar Peang-Meth
An article by Dr. Gaffar Peang-Meth published by the Asian Human Rights Commission
Venomous comments those who sign themselves "Anonymous," posted on Khmer (and non-Khmer) blogs disregard the "due recognition and respect for the rights and the freedoms of others" (UDHR Article 19.2; ICCPR Article 19.3 (a) and (b)). Expletives, profanity, and uncorroborated charges that poison public discourse among Cambodians serve no good cause. This needs to change.
In my column in this space in August, "A look at the future of Cambodia's youth and education," I posited that, "If youth is the future of the country and education is a sine qua non element of a country's development, without change in the status quo ante, Cambodia's future will be anything but bright." In my concluding sentence, I suggested that, "Broad-based application of Buddhist values and principles can help Cambodian society make its way to a future those on the current path may never find."Then last month, in my column, "Perhaps Cambodians' soft power will advance their struggle for rights and freedom," I noted with relief that I may have overlooked what could be a promising trend in Khmer behavior.
The 2000-year-old Khmer tradition in "smoh trang, korup, bamroeur, karpear" ("to be loyal to, to respect, to serve, to defend") the divine leader (king) that has boxed in Cambodians' creative thinking, has not disappeared. Rather, more Cambodians are developing self-awareness; find ease in speaking openly, even if what they say is not popular; and are demonstrating analytical, rational, and thoughtful voices in their writing.
Tuesday, August 02, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Ohio University Prepares for Varied Khmer Forum
Im Sothearith, VOA Khmer
Washington, DC Tuesday, 26 April 2011
Washington, DC Tuesday, 26 April 2011
“The Khmer Studies Forum is very import because it allows the opportunity to study Cambodia specifically, to talk about Cambodian history, Cambodian culture..."
Ohio University holds its 3rd annual Khmer Studies Forum later this week, offering a rare opportunity for scholars of Khmer issues to share their work.
For two days starting from April 29, researchers, experts and enthusiasts will gather in Athens, Ohio, to share their thoughts and findings.
Christine Su, organizer of the forum, said the event combines academic and intellectual pursuit with community and cultural interests.
“The Khmer Studies Forum is very import because it allows the opportunity to study Cambodia specifically, to talk about Cambodian history, Cambodian culture, Cambodian contemporary issues, and also allows for our faculties and the community, who may not know very much about Cambodia, to learn from the students and from the presenters,” she said.
Su said the forum will cover a wide range of topics, including linguistics, ancient Khmer scripts, genocide survivors, film, media in Cambodia, border crossings, forced deportation, forced relocation, development and politics.
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
Khmer Culture is Being destroyed by Corruption but not by Short Skirt
(Photo: Reuters)Tuesday, April 06, 2010
Op-Ed by Khmer Borann
My daughters who study at Beltei School also wear short skirt. If you see the female uniform at Beltei School, you will say the skirt is too short. For me, wearing short skirt is not the problem and those who claim that short skirt is the Western tradition are just stupid. Why don’t you look at Apsara at Angkor Wat? What are Apsaras wearing? I think Khmer culture are being destroyed not because of short skirt but because corruption and dictatorship.
I think the campaign by Khmer Teacher Association is politically motivated rather than to preserve Khmer culture. Those who lead the campaign are hypocrite. They claimed that short skirt is the Western tradition and no Khmer culture. I just would like to ask them why they were wearing tie during the demonstration. Everybody knows that tie is not Khmer dress and was brought from the West. Why those people did not say wearing tie is destroying Khmer culture?
It is unfortunate that the Khmer Teacher Association did not focus on the real problem facing Khmer kids and Khmer culture. Everybody knows that the education quality in Cambodia is very low and this is because of lack of school facilities, textbooks, and qualified teachers. In some places, the children have to study under the tree shade because the school building is not available. Why the Association did not think about this?
Because they are paid to low, some female teachers force students to buy candy and cakes. Also some teacher force students to pay unofficial fees. I think the Khmer Teacher Association should think about the increase in teachers’ salary rather that about short skirt. You should be ashamed when you force students to pay unofficial fee which against the professional conscience of the teachers. I think instead of campaigning against wearing short skirt, the association should demand the pay rise from the government because when the teachers have enough salary, they can focus of teaching profession. Forcing students to pay unofficial fees is not Khmer culture; it is corruption. Corruption destroys everything, including the teachers’ salary. One can ask why the salary of the teachers could not be increased. This is because corruption eats all the money supposed to be paid for the civil servants.
I think, as the Cambodian, we should have long vision and should look to the future rather than going back to the Stone Age. Khmer children need more textbooks, libraries, computers, and internet. We need to catch up with the neighboring countries, so we have to focus on the real issues rather than wasting time to think on unimportant thing.
Khmer Borann Phnom Penh
I think the campaign by Khmer Teacher Association is politically motivated rather than to preserve Khmer culture. Those who lead the campaign are hypocrite. They claimed that short skirt is the Western tradition and no Khmer culture. I just would like to ask them why they were wearing tie during the demonstration. Everybody knows that tie is not Khmer dress and was brought from the West. Why those people did not say wearing tie is destroying Khmer culture?
It is unfortunate that the Khmer Teacher Association did not focus on the real problem facing Khmer kids and Khmer culture. Everybody knows that the education quality in Cambodia is very low and this is because of lack of school facilities, textbooks, and qualified teachers. In some places, the children have to study under the tree shade because the school building is not available. Why the Association did not think about this?
Because they are paid to low, some female teachers force students to buy candy and cakes. Also some teacher force students to pay unofficial fees. I think the Khmer Teacher Association should think about the increase in teachers’ salary rather that about short skirt. You should be ashamed when you force students to pay unofficial fee which against the professional conscience of the teachers. I think instead of campaigning against wearing short skirt, the association should demand the pay rise from the government because when the teachers have enough salary, they can focus of teaching profession. Forcing students to pay unofficial fees is not Khmer culture; it is corruption. Corruption destroys everything, including the teachers’ salary. One can ask why the salary of the teachers could not be increased. This is because corruption eats all the money supposed to be paid for the civil servants.
I think, as the Cambodian, we should have long vision and should look to the future rather than going back to the Stone Age. Khmer children need more textbooks, libraries, computers, and internet. We need to catch up with the neighboring countries, so we have to focus on the real issues rather than wasting time to think on unimportant thing.
Khmer Borann Phnom Penh
Friday, September 05, 2008
Cambodian American Heritage Museum exhibit mirrors archivist's life story
Retired teacher's items chronicle life under the Khmer Rouge
September 4, 2008
By Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah
Chicago Tribune reporter
September 4, 2008
By Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah
Chicago Tribune reporter
When Ty Tim, his wife and daughter survived the Khmer Rouge's brutal regime and came to the United States as refugees in 1982, they brought with them two things from Cambodia: a small ivory Buddha he found while searching for food in the jungle and a copper coin his mom gave him before she died in a forced labor camp. Both were hidden from Khmer soldiers in the pockets of his daughter's pants.
Since 2004, Tim, who lost four of his five children during the Khmer Rouge's murderous rule from 1975 to 1979, has been returning to his homeland, bringing back what he couldn't before.
Tim, 65, has acquired wooden carvings, ancient Cambodian instruments, sacred texts on palm leaves, etchings from the Angkor Wat temple, children's toys and fishing traps. Some of the treasures—novelties and replicas of ancient works because Cambodian law bans removal of historical artifacts—grace the walls of his Skokie home.
But many of them made up the core of the Cambodian American Heritage Museum's exhibit last year on the arts and culture of Cambodia and are part of the exhibit opening Sunday on every day life in Cambodia.
The exhibits at the museum, 2831 W. Lawrence Ave., are in partnership with Northern Illinois University.
Tim, a retired teacher and the museum's archivist, says the exhibits help Cambodian-Americans remember aspects of their culture they may have forgotten. Many refugees came to the U.S. from Cambodia ready to put tragedy behind them and quickly faced the challenges of learning a new language and making a living, he said. The exhibits also can teach non-Cambodians and a new generation of U.S.-born Cambodian-Americans who may know little about Cambodian traditions.
"They need to know something about their culture," Tim said.
Although the ivory Buddha and copper coin, used by Cambodians as a massaging tool, are not on display, Tim's own story appears to echo through the exhibit.
His father was a farmer. Tim grew up harvesting rice and catching fish using the basketlike traps his father made. A fish trap like the one he used is in the exhibit, as are some of the different types of rice he helped harvest.
Knowing a bit about farming came in handy under the Khmer Rouge, which took power in 1975. The regime, which sent the population to work in rural farms and killed more than 1.5 million people, was anti-intellectual.
So teachers such as Tim often hid their profession, claiming instead to be illiterate farmers.
But the Khmer soldiers would still test them, ordering his family to grow vegetables on infertile land and forcing him to plow rice fields.
He has brought back Khmer-language textbooks and toys used by children in schools. A wooden toy that mimics the toad mating call comes from Tim's own collection. Nearby, a ceremonial silver tea set and wedding conch used to pour holy water on the couple's hands are also on loan from him.
Today, his life in America is quite different than that life in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge forced millions like him and his family to march from Phnom Penh into the jungle. On the march through the jungle, his father died. At the farming camp, his mother and four youngest children died of starvation.
"They kept 1,200 people in that one village," Tim recalls. "When we got out from that village, there were only 400 of us left."
When Vietnam invaded Cambodia and overthrew the Khmer Rouge, the family returned to Phnom Penh. Tim started work again as a teacher.
But when friends told him officials were upset over his refusal to learn Communist ideology, he and his family fled again.
This time, they walked for two months back through the jungles, without a map, desperate for water, evading land mines and soldiers of all kinds.
They eventually reached a refugee camp in Thailand.
It's a history he feels younger Cambodians such as his three youngest children—one born in post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia and two in Chicago—at times fail to grasp.
So he fills his home with reminders of his native land.
And he hopes the museum exhibits will help educate them.
nahmed@tribune.com
Since 2004, Tim, who lost four of his five children during the Khmer Rouge's murderous rule from 1975 to 1979, has been returning to his homeland, bringing back what he couldn't before.
Tim, 65, has acquired wooden carvings, ancient Cambodian instruments, sacred texts on palm leaves, etchings from the Angkor Wat temple, children's toys and fishing traps. Some of the treasures—novelties and replicas of ancient works because Cambodian law bans removal of historical artifacts—grace the walls of his Skokie home.
But many of them made up the core of the Cambodian American Heritage Museum's exhibit last year on the arts and culture of Cambodia and are part of the exhibit opening Sunday on every day life in Cambodia.
The exhibits at the museum, 2831 W. Lawrence Ave., are in partnership with Northern Illinois University.
Tim, a retired teacher and the museum's archivist, says the exhibits help Cambodian-Americans remember aspects of their culture they may have forgotten. Many refugees came to the U.S. from Cambodia ready to put tragedy behind them and quickly faced the challenges of learning a new language and making a living, he said. The exhibits also can teach non-Cambodians and a new generation of U.S.-born Cambodian-Americans who may know little about Cambodian traditions.
"They need to know something about their culture," Tim said.
Although the ivory Buddha and copper coin, used by Cambodians as a massaging tool, are not on display, Tim's own story appears to echo through the exhibit.
His father was a farmer. Tim grew up harvesting rice and catching fish using the basketlike traps his father made. A fish trap like the one he used is in the exhibit, as are some of the different types of rice he helped harvest.
Knowing a bit about farming came in handy under the Khmer Rouge, which took power in 1975. The regime, which sent the population to work in rural farms and killed more than 1.5 million people, was anti-intellectual.
So teachers such as Tim often hid their profession, claiming instead to be illiterate farmers.
But the Khmer soldiers would still test them, ordering his family to grow vegetables on infertile land and forcing him to plow rice fields.
He has brought back Khmer-language textbooks and toys used by children in schools. A wooden toy that mimics the toad mating call comes from Tim's own collection. Nearby, a ceremonial silver tea set and wedding conch used to pour holy water on the couple's hands are also on loan from him.
Today, his life in America is quite different than that life in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge forced millions like him and his family to march from Phnom Penh into the jungle. On the march through the jungle, his father died. At the farming camp, his mother and four youngest children died of starvation.
"They kept 1,200 people in that one village," Tim recalls. "When we got out from that village, there were only 400 of us left."
When Vietnam invaded Cambodia and overthrew the Khmer Rouge, the family returned to Phnom Penh. Tim started work again as a teacher.
But when friends told him officials were upset over his refusal to learn Communist ideology, he and his family fled again.
This time, they walked for two months back through the jungles, without a map, desperate for water, evading land mines and soldiers of all kinds.
They eventually reached a refugee camp in Thailand.
It's a history he feels younger Cambodians such as his three youngest children—one born in post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia and two in Chicago—at times fail to grasp.
So he fills his home with reminders of his native land.
And he hopes the museum exhibits will help educate them.
nahmed@tribune.com
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Cambodian culture show enlightens students
4/10/08
Leonard Low
State Hornet (CSU Sacramento, California, USA)
On Wednesday, Sacramento State's Cambodian Student Association hosted the second annual Khmer: Culture Show to a diverse crowd of students and faculty.
The club members introduced the audience to their culture through artifacts, a slide presentation, a fashion show and dancing.
Club President Johnny Pang began the show with a synopsis about Cambodia's past and present.
Pang, a junior international business major, talked about the current constitutional monarchy, the Buddhism religion and the French influence on the educational system, which was brought on by French colonization of Cambodia.
Freshman Spanish major Julia Halligan said she is interested in Buddhism and wanted to learn more about this culture. She also learned about the Cambodian war between the Republic and the Communists, which occurred from 1975 to 1979 and resulted in the death of 2 million people.
Like any culture, the Cambodians have their specific customs. Halligan found out a Cambodian bride will wear elaborate clothing using gold and silk during her wedding. The bride will change her dress seven times throughout three-day wedding, which lasts from morning until night. The groom will also offer a dowry to the bride's family in the form of bulls, cows or pigs.
Puthika Chao, a senior civil engineering major, said this year's culture show is more extensive because there are more active members to help out. He co-founded the association three years ago and was also last year's president.
Chao, a Cambodian, said many marriages in his culture are prearranged by family members and may involve different social classes. Arranged marriages are less common in the United States, Chao said.
"The Cambodian club did an amazing job of portraying the Cambodian culture," said Jomer Belisario, a senior kinesiology major. "It was an enjoyable and educational experience. It was fun watching the Cambodian dancers perform their traditional dances."
The event was cosponsored by the Multi-Cultural Center, which helped promote the show. It was a precursor to the Cambodian New Year celebration this weekend in Stockton.
Khmer means one has a Cambodian heritage, said Molly Dugan, a journalism professor and one of the group's advisers.
For more information or to join the Cambodian Student Association, Sacramento contact them at csasac@gmail.com.
Leonard Low can be reached at llow@statehornet.com.
The club members introduced the audience to their culture through artifacts, a slide presentation, a fashion show and dancing.
Club President Johnny Pang began the show with a synopsis about Cambodia's past and present.
Pang, a junior international business major, talked about the current constitutional monarchy, the Buddhism religion and the French influence on the educational system, which was brought on by French colonization of Cambodia.
Freshman Spanish major Julia Halligan said she is interested in Buddhism and wanted to learn more about this culture. She also learned about the Cambodian war between the Republic and the Communists, which occurred from 1975 to 1979 and resulted in the death of 2 million people.
Like any culture, the Cambodians have their specific customs. Halligan found out a Cambodian bride will wear elaborate clothing using gold and silk during her wedding. The bride will change her dress seven times throughout three-day wedding, which lasts from morning until night. The groom will also offer a dowry to the bride's family in the form of bulls, cows or pigs.
Puthika Chao, a senior civil engineering major, said this year's culture show is more extensive because there are more active members to help out. He co-founded the association three years ago and was also last year's president.
Chao, a Cambodian, said many marriages in his culture are prearranged by family members and may involve different social classes. Arranged marriages are less common in the United States, Chao said.
"The Cambodian club did an amazing job of portraying the Cambodian culture," said Jomer Belisario, a senior kinesiology major. "It was an enjoyable and educational experience. It was fun watching the Cambodian dancers perform their traditional dances."
The event was cosponsored by the Multi-Cultural Center, which helped promote the show. It was a precursor to the Cambodian New Year celebration this weekend in Stockton.
Khmer means one has a Cambodian heritage, said Molly Dugan, a journalism professor and one of the group's advisers.
For more information or to join the Cambodian Student Association, Sacramento contact them at csasac@gmail.com.
Leonard Low can be reached at llow@statehornet.com.
Preserving old among young
Mayranacri Moeung, 14, has her makeup done by Sothary Sou, 15, as they prepare to perform a traditional dance at a Cambodian New Year celebration at the Park Village Apartments community center Monday. (Photo: Victor J. Blue/The Record)
Sophanary Sok, 21, performs a traditional dance during a Cambodian New Year celebration at Park Village apartments in Stockton. (Photo: Victor J. Blue/The Record)
Min Ua, left, and Olthat That lead a group of musicians in a Cambodian New Year celebration at the Park Village complex Tuesday in Stockton. (Photo: Victor J. Blue/The Record)Cambodian New Year celebrates tradition with food, music, prayer
April 16, 2008
By Jennifer Torres
Record Staff Writer (Stockton, California, USA)
STOCKTON - In the last frantic minutes before the Cambodian New Year dance program was set to begin at Park Village Apartments this week, women passed handfuls of gold-colored belts and bracelets across a table and coaxed stiff, straight ponytails into curls.
Kunthea Tuy tucked flowers behind Mayuranacri Moeung's ear. Later, Mayuranacri would perform a classical blessing dance in bare feet on stage in the Park Village community center. And even later, she would take down her hair, trade her traditional dress for jeans and dance to hip-hop and Cambodian pop under lanterns and balloons on the complex's basketball court.
"I like both kind of dancing, both the same," the 14-year-old said. "It's just, like, culture. It's important."
Local Cambodian residents have celebrated their new year over the past three days with traditional food, music, games, dance and prayer.
After decades in California, many within the refugee community say the ties of language and culture are strained as children pursue lives that are more decidedly American.
They don't speak Khmer and they don't wear Cambodian dresses to the temple, 19-year-old Sophany Yinn said. "You can see the way they dance at nighttime. It's different."
Events such as this week's new year celebration become, at least in part, a means of preserving what's old in the lives of the young.
According to Yale University's Cambodian Genocide Program, about 1.7 million people - 21 percent of Cambodia's population - were killed in the country from 1975 to 1979 when Pol Pot-led Khmer Rouge forces took over the country.
Yinn's parents were among the thousands who fled.
Now a student at California State University, Stanislaus, she has been studying Cambodian dance for about 10 years.
She was recruited to dance through her Girl Scout troop.
"I liked it because I was learning new things, especially about my culture," she said. "We're trying to live in a new society here. I wanted to keep at least something alive."
Before the dance on Monday, she lit incense outside the Park Village community center, pressed her palms together and bowed. "I just prayed to the ancestors to give me strength to do the dances correctly."
More than 10,000 Cambodian people live in San Joaquin County. According to U.S. Census Bureau figures, about 9,000 of them speak Khmer, or Cambodian. Nearly 60 percent also speak English.
Increasingly, though, language and culture gaps between parents and their children are becoming more pronounced, said Sophaline Buth, a liaison for the Stockton Unified School District.
"It's very difficult. Kids nowadays are so Americanized," Buth said. "In order to maintain that traditional culture, the only way the parents can is through the temple."
At the Wat Dhammararam Buddhist Temple on Carpenter Road on Tuesday - the last day of new year festivities - hundreds of families prayed, danced and left offerings at the temple's giant Buddha statues.
Children could play traditional games and practice speaking Cambodian - links to their parents' culture, Buth said.
According to research published Tuesday in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, minority adolescents who maintain cultural identify, especially through their clothing, have fewer mental health problems than children who adopted the style of the dominant culture.
"If you don't know who you are and where you came from, it's hard for you to be able to stand for something," said Sovang Lam, program manager for Stockton's United Cambodian Families.
Earlier this month, the nonprofit organization led a focus group of about 30 Cambodian families to discuss concerns and priorities.
Parents were concerned about their children's education and ability to find jobs, Lam said.
Many, she said, have trouble communicating with teens who learned English in school and don't speak Cambodian well.
"I see that all the time here," Lam said. "Most of it is, 'I don't know what they're saying, and they don't know how to tell me.' "
Yinn said her parents insisted she study Cambodian. "I read, write, speak, understand," she said. "Kids are losing that too. They're losing a lot of that right now."
Keeping it is a challenge, she said, waiting to make a new year offering to monks at a temple in Lodi.
"It's hard. You have to balance it out," she said. "For one thing, you don't want to change so much that you lose your Cambodian culture. You don't want to keep so much because you want to be updated on American society. ... You keep some things and change some things."
Contact reporter Jennifer Torres at (209) 546-8252 or jtorres@recordnet.com.
April 16, 2008
By Jennifer Torres
Record Staff Writer (Stockton, California, USA)
STOCKTON - In the last frantic minutes before the Cambodian New Year dance program was set to begin at Park Village Apartments this week, women passed handfuls of gold-colored belts and bracelets across a table and coaxed stiff, straight ponytails into curls.
Kunthea Tuy tucked flowers behind Mayuranacri Moeung's ear. Later, Mayuranacri would perform a classical blessing dance in bare feet on stage in the Park Village community center. And even later, she would take down her hair, trade her traditional dress for jeans and dance to hip-hop and Cambodian pop under lanterns and balloons on the complex's basketball court.
"I like both kind of dancing, both the same," the 14-year-old said. "It's just, like, culture. It's important."
Local Cambodian residents have celebrated their new year over the past three days with traditional food, music, games, dance and prayer.
After decades in California, many within the refugee community say the ties of language and culture are strained as children pursue lives that are more decidedly American.
They don't speak Khmer and they don't wear Cambodian dresses to the temple, 19-year-old Sophany Yinn said. "You can see the way they dance at nighttime. It's different."
Events such as this week's new year celebration become, at least in part, a means of preserving what's old in the lives of the young.
According to Yale University's Cambodian Genocide Program, about 1.7 million people - 21 percent of Cambodia's population - were killed in the country from 1975 to 1979 when Pol Pot-led Khmer Rouge forces took over the country.
Yinn's parents were among the thousands who fled.
Now a student at California State University, Stanislaus, she has been studying Cambodian dance for about 10 years.
She was recruited to dance through her Girl Scout troop.
"I liked it because I was learning new things, especially about my culture," she said. "We're trying to live in a new society here. I wanted to keep at least something alive."
Before the dance on Monday, she lit incense outside the Park Village community center, pressed her palms together and bowed. "I just prayed to the ancestors to give me strength to do the dances correctly."
More than 10,000 Cambodian people live in San Joaquin County. According to U.S. Census Bureau figures, about 9,000 of them speak Khmer, or Cambodian. Nearly 60 percent also speak English.
Increasingly, though, language and culture gaps between parents and their children are becoming more pronounced, said Sophaline Buth, a liaison for the Stockton Unified School District.
"It's very difficult. Kids nowadays are so Americanized," Buth said. "In order to maintain that traditional culture, the only way the parents can is through the temple."
At the Wat Dhammararam Buddhist Temple on Carpenter Road on Tuesday - the last day of new year festivities - hundreds of families prayed, danced and left offerings at the temple's giant Buddha statues.
Children could play traditional games and practice speaking Cambodian - links to their parents' culture, Buth said.
According to research published Tuesday in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, minority adolescents who maintain cultural identify, especially through their clothing, have fewer mental health problems than children who adopted the style of the dominant culture.
"If you don't know who you are and where you came from, it's hard for you to be able to stand for something," said Sovang Lam, program manager for Stockton's United Cambodian Families.
Earlier this month, the nonprofit organization led a focus group of about 30 Cambodian families to discuss concerns and priorities.
Parents were concerned about their children's education and ability to find jobs, Lam said.
Many, she said, have trouble communicating with teens who learned English in school and don't speak Cambodian well.
"I see that all the time here," Lam said. "Most of it is, 'I don't know what they're saying, and they don't know how to tell me.' "
Yinn said her parents insisted she study Cambodian. "I read, write, speak, understand," she said. "Kids are losing that too. They're losing a lot of that right now."
Keeping it is a challenge, she said, waiting to make a new year offering to monks at a temple in Lodi.
"It's hard. You have to balance it out," she said. "For one thing, you don't want to change so much that you lose your Cambodian culture. You don't want to keep so much because you want to be updated on American society. ... You keep some things and change some things."
Contact reporter Jennifer Torres at (209) 546-8252 or jtorres@recordnet.com.
LET NOTHING BE FORGOTTEN: New breath for the Khmer muse
Wed, April 16, 2008
Carleton Cole
The Nation (Thailand)
Carleton Cole
The Nation (Thailand)
An immigrant couple in the US helps preserve Cambodian values through poetry - and the way they raise their children
Sinan Ung became fascinated with the infinitely varied forms of Cambodian poetry at the age of nine. Over the next decade she wrote dozens of poems about life in her small village in Kandal province. Then came the Khmer Rouge - tomorrow is the 33rd anniversary of the fall of Phnom Penh - and they told her to stop writing.
Owning pens or paper was not allowed between 1975 and '79, so Ung waited for rain and wrote poems in mud with a stick or her finger - until the day she was caught.
"They kicked me," she says. "I knew if they caught me again, they'd kill me, so I wrote in my head. I didn't forget one word of my poems."
Only years later would she have the opportunity to write them down, and she's since taught many Sunday-afternoon poetry classes at Khmer Arts, a shop in the small American city of Lowell, Massachusetts, that she runs with her husband, Molyrath Sim.
Ung and Sim arrived in the United States from a Thai refugee camp in 1981, with their year-old son Poly. They lived with a couple in Lexington, Massachusetts, who had agreed to care for them under a Lutheran World Relief programme for Cambodian refugees.
Following the births of their second son Mony and daughter Molyna, Ung and Sim decided they'd better teach their children about Khmer culture. Even as the couple learned a new language and social system in America, their commitment to honour their native culture increased.
While raising their children in a foreign country, Ung and Sim passed on to them many of the core aspects of Cambodian society - fluency in the language, reverence for elders, Theravada Buddhism and observance of the Cambodian New Year every April.
Once they opened Khmer Arts, they set out to promote and preserve their native culture within Lowell's Cambodian community, the second largest in the US. Their store is filled with Cambodian art, handicrafts and books. Lowell has dozens of Khmer grocery stores and restaurants, but few shops offer traditional Khmer artistry.
Khmer-language books on Cambodian history, Buddhism and grammar line one wall of the shop. Ung says it's important to pass on the language to young Cambodians, who might otherwise only know English. She lends and occasionally gives books to local Cambodians who can't afford them.
In her poetry classes, Ung explains the complicated techniques and meters that allow for multiple meanings. There are more than 50 distinct forms of Cambodian poetry, she says, and all of them rhyme.
It's meant to be recited as much as it's read. Heard aloud, it sounds more like song than spoken verse. It's often recited in rubato form, in which a rhythmic flow is suddenly broken by briefly closing the larynx.
On breaks from her job at an electronics assembly plant in nearby Burlington, Ung gives regular, informal Khmer-language lessons to co-workers - immigrants who never learned to write their native language. They work the evening shift, which is popular with many Asian immigrants.
Ung and Sim are hoping that the various cultural artefacts and social norms they took for granted early in life can survive being transplanted in Cambodian communities in America, especially after they were almost wiped out by the Khmer Rouge.
Sinan Ung became fascinated with the infinitely varied forms of Cambodian poetry at the age of nine. Over the next decade she wrote dozens of poems about life in her small village in Kandal province. Then came the Khmer Rouge - tomorrow is the 33rd anniversary of the fall of Phnom Penh - and they told her to stop writing.
Owning pens or paper was not allowed between 1975 and '79, so Ung waited for rain and wrote poems in mud with a stick or her finger - until the day she was caught.
"They kicked me," she says. "I knew if they caught me again, they'd kill me, so I wrote in my head. I didn't forget one word of my poems."
Only years later would she have the opportunity to write them down, and she's since taught many Sunday-afternoon poetry classes at Khmer Arts, a shop in the small American city of Lowell, Massachusetts, that she runs with her husband, Molyrath Sim.
Ung and Sim arrived in the United States from a Thai refugee camp in 1981, with their year-old son Poly. They lived with a couple in Lexington, Massachusetts, who had agreed to care for them under a Lutheran World Relief programme for Cambodian refugees.
Following the births of their second son Mony and daughter Molyna, Ung and Sim decided they'd better teach their children about Khmer culture. Even as the couple learned a new language and social system in America, their commitment to honour their native culture increased.
While raising their children in a foreign country, Ung and Sim passed on to them many of the core aspects of Cambodian society - fluency in the language, reverence for elders, Theravada Buddhism and observance of the Cambodian New Year every April.
Once they opened Khmer Arts, they set out to promote and preserve their native culture within Lowell's Cambodian community, the second largest in the US. Their store is filled with Cambodian art, handicrafts and books. Lowell has dozens of Khmer grocery stores and restaurants, but few shops offer traditional Khmer artistry.
Khmer-language books on Cambodian history, Buddhism and grammar line one wall of the shop. Ung says it's important to pass on the language to young Cambodians, who might otherwise only know English. She lends and occasionally gives books to local Cambodians who can't afford them.
In her poetry classes, Ung explains the complicated techniques and meters that allow for multiple meanings. There are more than 50 distinct forms of Cambodian poetry, she says, and all of them rhyme.
It's meant to be recited as much as it's read. Heard aloud, it sounds more like song than spoken verse. It's often recited in rubato form, in which a rhythmic flow is suddenly broken by briefly closing the larynx.
On breaks from her job at an electronics assembly plant in nearby Burlington, Ung gives regular, informal Khmer-language lessons to co-workers - immigrants who never learned to write their native language. They work the evening shift, which is popular with many Asian immigrants.
Ung and Sim are hoping that the various cultural artefacts and social norms they took for granted early in life can survive being transplanted in Cambodian communities in America, especially after they were almost wiped out by the Khmer Rouge.
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