e-mail
Some may have noticed I’ve been writing about Cambodia more than usual lately. Most of the time, I limit coverage of my children’s country of birth to Friday updates of news, but this is April.
What does April have that other months don’t? Quite a few things, actually: Easter, Cj’s birthday, Cambodian New Year and the anniversary of the day Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge began to clear the city of Phnom Penh, the first organized step in the march of terror that would end up killing almost two million people.
This combination of events makes April a month of conflicting emotions, to say the least, and most certainly not just for one mother of a little girl turning two this year.
For the past thirty-two years, since the 17th of April in 1975, the joy of the Khmer New Year is inexorably linked to the horror and grief of genocide.
Cambodia is a confusion of sentiments. Much like trying to digest a history that runs from the magnificently grand to the monstrously tragic, there is no simple way to experience the country or its people, and every time I think I have a handle on the country’s ticking, I learn I’ve missed the mark.
To understand just how important the New Year holiday is to Cambodians, you only need to take in the fact that it is, in effect, a harvest festival in a country where 95% of the population are farmers. It’s the most important event in the year and takes three days to celebrate properly. Three festive days of food and love, a washing away and a welcoming toward, a time of thanks.
The date is fixed by the lunar calendar, so is variable year to year on ours, and the festival has been held in the fifth month since the 13th Century, possibly moved from the first to accommodate the rice harvest. It’s Hindu in roots, but like much of Khmer culture has transfigured to a Buddhist focus over hundreds of years.
The three days of New Year are steeped in tradition, involving cleansing rituals, the offering of gifts to families and those less fortunate, blessings and fun.
With the holiday so intrinsic to all that is Khmer, everyone participates. Business and government take the time off, so there’s not much on an official level that can happen. Anyone in the country may just as well get into the swing of celebrating and tossing water around with the rest of the people. It’s fun and light and joyous, celebratory and grateful and hopeful.
This is the happy face of New Year. For a look at another, see the next post.
