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Home::Reference & Education
A Glimpse Into Cambodian New Year Festival
Author : Lay Vicheka
Cambodia has very long and protracted history and culture. We
can see that merriments related to culture are almost
uncountable. The Khmer New Year is one of the most important
cultural festivities in Cambodia, so it would be of great values
to take a little hint into what is Khmer New Year.
Cambodian (Khmer) New Year is celebrated every year in the
middle of the month of April. Khmer New Year does not
single-mindedly aim at merry-making or bringing entertainment,
in fact, it contains much more useful connotations to edify
Cambodian people's mentalities. One of the aims is to refresh
the undesirable livelihood in the past, and to enter into a
better livelihood in the closely upcoming year. Cambodian people
can wish for better lives in the Khmer New Year, if their lives
in the past year was good, they wish for the better, and if
their past lives were bad, they wish for the better as well. As
we can see, the people buy new clothes, clean the houses and
Buddhist pagodas and other religious shrines. Moreover, the
elderly clergymen advise the disputed parties to resolve and to
forget the revenge and reunion as one family during this New
Year.
Khmer traditional games that are played during the New Year have
their unique meanings, besides the entertainments. All of the
game edifies the Cambodian youths, teenagers to consolidate, use
intellectual power to overcome the obstacles, empower justice,
values of forgiveness, power of love, and other desirable
ideologies.
Besides the Khmer traditional games, people always visit their
birth-land to prey for the dead ancestors, visit their parents
or grandparents (a number of people in Phnom Penh are from the
provinces, only a small number of them were born in Phnom Penh
and have parents and grandparents in Phnom Penh). It is a nice
reunion between relatives; close and distant alike, in the
province. Of course, it is fund; having meal among a huge number
of people, playing Khmer traditional games together, go
sightseeing around the communities surrounded by rice paddies
and nature. But sadly, at the end of the merriments, they have
to separate to go back to their work.
It is the law of the religion that people have to the pagodas,
at least once during the Khmer New Year, otherwise, they will be
maliciously wished from their dead ancestors, who are their
grandparents, parents, or other close relatives. Food, desserts,
and other everyday-use items are brought to the pagoda, and as
the people donate those stuffs to the Buddhist monks, the people
need to remind themselves the names of their dead ancestors. The
things the people donate through the monks, are thought to reach
to the hands of the dead ancestors in the hell, the more they
donate, the better the dead ancestors will wish for them, and so
they are called "the grateful". We can also see people of all
ages like to reunite to play the traditional games in the
pagoda, because the pagoda has huge empty area, suitable for the
play, and because the pagoda is always crowed, so it makes the
play even more exciting.
The Khmer traditional games are: Bose Angkogn, Chaol Choung,
traditional Khmer dancing, Leak Kanseng, the ambitious king,
Leang Ouk...etc. But I can't explain these games into English
words, because they are complicated to translated into English
words, and some words aren't existed in the English vocabulary.
But a small number of people are negatively turning the meanings
of the traditional games, but playing especially cards, Ha
Poung, etc to gain profits.
The Khmer New Year is always celebrated for three days; 15th,
16th, 17th every the month of April. But recently I notice a
brand new game which is "splashing water on each other". I don't
know whether splashing water on each other is the Khmer
traditional game or not.
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