dukekhmer

Good morning to all ! Thank you for your faithful readership of my Cambodian travel & study blog.

Today you'll get a brief introduction to Buddhism and some insight the religious situation here in Cambodia.  As mentioned before, a Buddhist temple her is called a ' Wat'.  For example, people talk about Ankor Wat. 

Buddhism has been around some 2,500 years and started out with Siddhartha ("he who has accomplished his objectives") Gautama. in what is today, India.  He was also called Sakyamuni ("the wise sage of the Sakya clan"), Ghagavat ("blessed  with happiness"), Tathagata ("the one who has gone thus"), Jina ("the victorious"), and, probably most common, the Buddha or "the enlightened one".  He was a from a wealthy, royal family and lived the life of luxury.  The King believed that if Siddhartha was exposed to any human misery, he would leave his home to seek the truth.  Therefore, he ordered his subjects to shield Siddhartha from any form of evil or suffering.  However, one day curiosity gets the best of him and he ventures outside.  It is said that he sees three figures : a dead person, a leper and an ascetic and deduces that all of life is suffering and pain and that happiness is a mere illusion.  He decides to leave his pampered lifestyle and sets out to learn more about himself.  He dabbles in ascetism and strict mediation and even starves himself.  He finally finds the path to enlightment after an event under the fig tree.  Mara tries to persuade him not to become Budda.    He then had to decide either to retreat into solitude like many monks or remain with the people and share his spirtual knowledge.  He chose the latter (fortunately for millions of believers !).  According to Budda there are 4 truths : (1) life is suffering (2) desire is always present, in effect we are never satisfied (3) it is indeed possible to extinguish desire and (4) you must follow the eight-fold path.   Two months later, the Buddha gave his first sermon and began the "Wheel of the Law", a symbol of the Buddhist faith.  For more than 40 years, he dedicated himself to the spread of this new religion.  At 80 years of age, a blacksmith fed him poisonous food and the Buddha became extremely ill.  He died at Kusinara in the district of Gorakhpur (India).  His last recorded words were "Decay is inherent in all component things!  Work out your own salvation with diligence."

Buddism was introduced in Cambodia in the 3rd century BC.  There are two traditions of Buddhism: Hinayana and Mahayana.  In the late 13th century, Theravada buddhism started and remains today in Cambodian.  

In buddhism, people respect 'precepts'.  For example, absention from killing or from taking drugs and drinking alcohol. We already mentioned the idea of gaining 'merit' which all buddists try to do in various ways (some more than others like in all faiths...). This might be through the sponsorship of temple construction, giving time to clean the temple or feeding the monks on almsrounds. If you are wealthy, you can sponsor ceremonies such at the Kathin, a festival during which the monks receive new robes.  You might even pay to do the 'Buchai Buon',a ceremony to extend one's life.

Almsrounds is when the monks march in order of seniority once a day through the village or even in large cities to collect food.  They subsist entirely on the generosity of followers.  Almsrounds are generally done around 9 am.  In our research here, we will be doing a 'structured observation' where we will actually be following the monks in our
assigned village on these almsrounds in order to observe the behaviour of the monks and those people giving or not. 

Monks generally were orange or burgundy coloured robes.  Here are some photos of monks walking in Phomn Pehn.  

  
Almost all Cambodian men, at least up to the Revolution, become monks for some period of their lives.  It might just be for 3 months during the rainy season or for longer periods of several years.  Monks can marry and have families after they leave the monkhood and it is actually seen as a rite of passage to have spent some time wearing the robes. The majority of young rural or village boys use the monkhood to gain an education although this is slowing changing. Many people say the younger generation is no longer interested in Buddhism what with technology, new sexual mores and the drinking of alcohol.  Some wose Buddists say "Buddhism is still the same, people are just different".

Buddist monks and nuns suffered terribly under the Pol Pot regime.  They were tortured and murdered and could longer practice their faith.  Some however did brave the KR but hidden from view. Wats (temples) were destroyed and thousands of precious hand-written Buddist texts were actually burned.  Very few texts have survived  that horrible Khmer Rouge period.  One monk had the foresight to hide his temple's texts in a fake wall that he had constructed between two other walls.  These texts can be read today and serve as a vital link to the past.

Buddism was declared the state religion in Cambodia in 1993.  Theravada buddism in Cambodia has two orders : Mahanikaya and Dhammayuttanikaya.  There are some difference between the two orders such as the way the Pali (Sanskrit) texts are chanted or the monks of Mahanikaya use alms-bowls with cover and string while the monks of Dhammayuttika use it without them.  The colour of robes may also differ between orange/pale yellow for one and green for the other order.

Buddhism is currently practiced by some 14 million Cambodians, about 93% of the total population. In 2006 there were 4,135 monasteries and 57,506 monks and novices of both orders throughout Cambodia.

Apart from the monks, there are the 'Donchis' and lay followers of Buddhism.  The Donchis who are mostly elderly women wear white clothes and live in the same temple premises with the monks. They follow ten precepts.  We'll come back on some other blog days about buddhism which plays a vital role in daily Cambodian life.

At RUFA, where our classes are held there is an archeology ceramics lab where old Khmer pots and artefacts found at sites are restored.  Here is a photo of a student who has been working on putting this pot back together from a puzzle of broken pieces.  It has  taken him 3 months so far !  He has worked piecing together other pots for over a year (can you imagine the patience required ?!)

My classes in anthropology are going very well.  I am delighted to have come to this field school.  Dr. Ledgerwood is really down-to-earth, speaks Khmer wonderfully and is full of knowledge after some 20 years of research in this fascinating country.  We have learned methods of how to conduct structured and semi-structured interviews as well as a life history interview.   We can choose any person in the temple or the village for this life history which will be recorded and later transcribed.   I'm learning to know my two Cambodian translators a bit more.  

Last night I returned to the shadow puppet show.  The dancers are so elegant and the kids in the audience were just enchanted by the dancing monkey characters and the funny guys in the show.   It was my colleague's 27 B-day as well last night. We ate with 3 other students in a very elegant, colonial-style French restaurant called 102.  On a bien mangé !

Well, thanks for reading today's blog!!!  Hope you know a bit more about Buddhism now.   Until next time, which might be a few days because we are visiting Angkor Wat for a few days.  In the meantime, here are some additional pictures for contemplation :

  A lotus flower seller in the street.

The new Cambodian King    

       
Today was studious day because at 8 am we took a tuk-tuk (the small four seater motorized bikes which Chris, my Harley-loving-nephew, would love...) to go to the Royal University of Fine Arts (RUFA). We had lectures on the social structure of Khmer society, a brief history with a brief introduction to the two most important Kings (see below), the importance of rice and the monsoons, kindred, the Khmer Rouge and many other interesting facts and figures. 

We also met our Khmer translators who will work in pairs with each of us.  All are archealogy students at RUFA, but will get some training in field techniques like us.  I'll be working with a young girl and guy.  They both are around 22 or 23 years old.  The girl's name is Be Sinuan and the guy's Im Kim Sreng  (certainly nothing like 'Mike' or 'Sue'!!).
Their English is so-so. I'm definitely going to have to speak slowly and not use complicated words.  Some of the interviews that we'll be conducting have already been translated into Cambodian so this should give them some good context information.  

We ate lunch at 'Friends' restaurant again.  The guy from South Carolina in our group, had the good idea to take a doggy-bag out to the street kids.  His a really cool guy and has the right philosophy about life for someone so young. He is just enjoying the ride and making the utmost of every moment we have on this Earth.  He gave our not finished lunch to a little boy who was carrying his naked brother/sister on his skinny hip.  They both look undernourished.  We have so much to be thankful for in Western nations.  Don't ever forget it ! We have the luxury of obesity (who really wants to be a blimp anyway?!), which is really quite obscene when you see these meager boned Cambodian street kids.

I ate with three members of our group.  One of them is Canadian with a pleasant accent.  She has that infamous Canadian flag on her backback like so many travelling Canadians have posted in full view.  Why do all the English speaking Canadians do that ? Is it some kind of mysterious Commonwealth code which indicates that it's safe to engage in conversation ? What is it exactly?  Please explain.  I really like my colleaugue from California.  She is funny, has a sharp mind and is very respectful of Khmer culture , herself being Asian.  

It's time for a brief geography lesson about this country! It is bordered by Laos, Thailand and Vietnam and has access to the Gulf of Thailand.  It has a huge lake called the Tonle Sap which is vital to the survival of the country's people and rice cultivation.  Not only does the Tonle Sap lake expand to 5 times its size and 70 times its volume each year, but it is also thought to have the world's highest annual freshwater fishc catch of 200k ton! 
Here's a map to help you visualize the geography :

Temples here are referred to as "Wat".  For example, people refer to "Ankor Wat", the world famous, increasingly visited world heritage site in north western Cambodia.  I'll be doing my two week research at Wat Tmat Pong. It is located about 45 minutes west of Phomn Pehn.  We will take a minivan out each day at 6:30 am for the ride out to the Wat and village.  Wat Tmat Pong is a quiet, smaller Wat.  It seems to be the poorest of the temples. There are six in total that Dr. Ledgerwood selected for this field school. She has already done 5 others in 2003 following her Fulbright research here in Cambodia.  We will be interviewing monks, students, lay persons and regular villagers.

My roommate is not feeling too well. He had a fever and bad headaches.  Dengue fever is rampant here and we just hope that it's not that !  Dengue is a viral disease by those not-so-welcome insects, mosquitoes.  It's usually seasonal and Dr. Ledgerwood said she saw a Cambodian news show showing the hospitals and clinics overflowing with little kids suffering from this disease.  It's curable in adults (no worries Mom !) but may be fatal to children.  I'll just now be getting the Off out and lathering it on my potentially exposed and tasty skin !!!!

Yep, that's me who climbed to the top of a Buddist temple, despite my minor fear of heights, to contemplate Nirvana with a great view of the Mekong at the same time ! 

Some interesting tidbits/facts/figures about Cambodia which I'll give you during the course of this blog :

• The Mekong river which flows through Cambodia also meanders its way through Laos and Vietnam
•  Population of Cambodia = 14 million persons
•  Number of monks = 60,000
• Cambodians can be or follow one of many religions or practices: animists, buddhists, Hindus, Christian and Islamic
• 'The Killing Fields' (1985) is a film about the Khmer Rouge period in Cambodia
•  The former monarch, King Sihanouk, abdicated in 2004 in favour of his son, King Sihamoni
• Prime Minister Hun Sen has one eye ! (they say ïn the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king''...
• Cambodia was called "Funan" by the Chinese
• Two big must-know Trivial pursuit Khmer kings : Jayavarman II and Suryavarman I
• The French 'ruled'' the country after 1864 and stayed 70 years
• Cambodia was a neutral country during the Vietnam turmoil but stupid H. Kissinger bombed it killing thousands of innocent Cambodians because the King was helping supply Vietcong
• How do you say 'Not too spicy please" in Cambodian ? "Sohm kohm tzoe huhl pek" (try saying that while your mouth's already on fire !!!)

A few more photos taken here in Cambodian country for your eyes :

                          

        "Bye bye" or as the locals say "Zhom riep lire!"

Dr. Ledgerwood came to met us at 8 am at the hotel with a Cambodian grad student who is studying with her at NIU.  He's really a nice guy and even speaks French. We waited a bit for a student who arrived last night, a nice guy from Charleston, SC.  We started out in a large public park in the centre of Phnom Pehn.  We climbed a hill to a temple where we took off our footwear to then explore the temple.  People offer small gifts of fruit and small bills to Buddha.  There was a guy with a bird cages selling tiny birds.  Judy explained that you buy one or two and release them while making a wish. The Cambodian version of wish-bone I guess? To say the least, I did not touch the critters for fear of avian flu !  We also encountered wild monkeys which sollicit lotus seeds and bananas from visitors. They are so cute but probably have a sharp bite what with their pointy teeth. 

We then climbed back into the overheated mini-van with our smiling driver and swiftly left for the Royal Palace. It's the Queen's b-day this Monday so preparations were being made for a big fiesta.  The royal enclosure is quite large and overlooks the Mekong river.  There is one section dedicated to the King's ceremonies and meetings with heads of State and diplomats and another part which is religous with the Silver Temple and other smaller temples.   There was even a small erector-set looking structure that was offered by Napolean.  It looked quite out of place among the Khmer style buildings with their beautiful pointed roofs and all the wonderful statues and blossoming plants.  Lots of palm trees in the royal compound.  The new king was a former classical ballet Parisian-trained dancer. He's single and is rumoured to be gay.  The Cambodians don't love their king as much as the Thai do, well that's the impression I get thus far.  Here's a shot of one of the main palace buildings:

We ate lunch at 'Friends', a not-for-profit Tapas style restaurant that works with street kids to help them get out of poverty and find a decent job. The food was excellent ! Must go back there ( 215 Street 13, Phnom Penh). After lunch we went to the National Museum which had a nice collection of pre-Angkor & post-Ankor sculptures.  The Musée Guimet in Paris has some equivalent statuary, but not as much as here. Cambodia has been trying to get back a lot of its artwork and sculpture dispersed around the world. Only 4% has been restituted to the government thus far.  The gardens in this museum were delightful, a real haven from the pollution of the city.  We saw the library for research students. Nothing like the librairies available to Western students though...

Tonight we are free to eat on our own. I then plan to see a traditional shadow puppet show. I'll write more later.  Bye and bisous !!