A New Year surprise in Siem Reap

I had heard about Pub Street in Siem Reap before seeing it and it evoked hazy memories of alcohol soaked holidays in Gran Canaria and Crete when I was 20. I feared that I when I saw it in its (drunken, pink) flesh, it could be enough to make me ashamed of my own kind.

It isn't subtle and certainly is full of tourists wanting a drink, but it is more a street of restaurants and bars where you can sit and relax than pubs full of ripened Westerners belching lager. But this was in August, and we were going there for Hogmanay (New Year's Eve to non-Scottish readers), so any kind of transformation could occur.

Pub (St)reet, Siem Reap. There is also one on the road next to it with flashing neon arrows pointing the way just in case you were drunk enough not to find it. 

Apart from wealthier people in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, Cambodian youth are usually home by 9pm, the family reins proving strong. The importance of the family also means that traditional  celebrations take place at the family home rather than out in the streets. Maybe it is because "International New Year", Khmer New Year is in April, is not a traditional holiday that the celebrations for this holiday weren't traditional either.

We came out of the Old Market at 10pm and to witness a mass of Cambodians standing, dancing and singing in a main street. Occasional waves of cheers and screams rose up over our heads for no obvious reason. Maybe the crescendos were acting like valves releasing the swelling excitement of a public party that Cambodians didn't know how to control.

And this isn't even Pub Street! The view from Blue Pumpkin Cafe

We squirmed into the upstairs of Blue Pumpkin Cafe for ice cream (I had beer) and heard the screams and cheers rising again, prompting us to rush to the window in case they were for Psy performing Gangnam Style live, only to see that nothing had changed. They were just cheering because they wanted to.

And it was this transformation that was astounding. Cambodian behaviour could be stereotyped by rigid rules, family first and no public displays of emotion but here were hundreds of kids aged 16 - 25 whose kindred spirits might be those who danced to Bill Haley and the Comets in the 1950s. Home by 9? These kids were rocking round the clock past midnight.

Check out the 20 sec video that I took: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h91X3kB0hc

Easing through the excitement, we turned the corner into Pub Street to be met by a wall of people and noise. Cambodians were hanging over balconies, standing on pavement-bar tables and jumping up and down to the music. Then we were soaked, proof that young Cambodians knew that some traditions, throwing water during celebrations, were worth keeping.

The Cambodian youngsters in Siem Reap were probably ones who had gone to Siem Reap for the holiday meaning they are wealthier ones and more likely to be exposed to Western ways. Rigid rules are relaxed somewhat when you are not playing in your own town where it can reflect on your family. But this wasn't just a party of wealthy Cambodian tourists, I saw parents with children, very likely from Siem Reap, standing there taking it all in too.


Cambodians had retaken Pub Street, found their own expression of partying and made it a New Year to remember.

From L to R: Khmer guy in hooped polo shirt, Claire (co-author of this wonderful blog), Trish (or Pat, my Mum's cousin who was beginning a cycle ride from Siem Reap to Sihanoukville the next morning at 8am...), Alison (Trish's/Pat's friend - also doing the cycle), Sam (VSO vol and author of Hand-painted signs of Kratie), Gilly (VSO vol, muse for Sam's book), Owen (Sam's brother who was visiting). Gordon took the pic.

Sua s'dey ch'nam tmey (hello new year - what Cambodians say instead of Happy New Year)

Gordon

A New Year brings monks with gadgets

At 7:10pm on Friday 13th April, the clock ticked over to 7:11pm and the new year of 2556 was welcomed in Cambodia. 


Khmer New Year is a big deal, kind of like our Christmas. Everybody heads back to their family "homeland" and there are three or four days of celebrations. But before all of that, it's time to call in the monks for a blessing.


Before new year, it is traditional for monks to bless the office and staff. Claire was first to experience this and she came home with tales of fruit and sweets bouncing of the heads of the kneeled, bowed staff after being thrown as part of the blessing. The fruit is literally called rich and is meant to bestow wealth and the sweets represent sweetness of life.

Stole this from Google Images because we were far too respectful to take pics

So during the blessing in my office, I was sitting head bowed in a horribly awkward position comforted only at the prospect of fruit and sweets. Except it was water droplets that soon hit my head. I looked up to the ceiling only to realise that it was the monks flicking the water at us, quickly followed by flower buds.


I sat respectfully bowed and motionless with cramp setting in, whilst all around me staff were answering their mobile phones and throwing flower buds over other staff or in the gap down the back of people's trousers as they bent forward. I had become used to Khmer people answering their mobile phone no matter where they are when it rings, but I was shocked by what I saw next.


As one monk was chanting and blessing us, the other one was sitting beside him chatting on his mobile phone. Yep, not all monks are the propertyless, wizened old men that we mythologise. 

Some monks just chilling

In fact, rather than attainment of monk-hood being the result of lifelong study and sacrifice, any male of any age can just walk into a pagoda, shave their head, don some robes and hey presto you're a monk. And if you get a bit bored, you just change your clothes, walk out the pagoda and that's the end of your monk-hood. Until you maybe want to become a monk again.

I was asking him if that was the same robe Obi Wan Kenobi had

Some families send their sons to the pagoda to get educated; others go for shelter and food; and we've been told others go to avoid a jail sentence. The idea of not owning property is quaint and observed by some but others have laptops and motos etc, whilst the illusion of monks being pure was shattered on day 3 here when I saw one having a fag. Worse, vulnerable women who have gone to a pagoda for shelter have subsequently become pregnant. How this was achieved when monks are not allowed to touch women is particularly impressive. 


Despite this reality, monks still enjoy the highest reverence here. There is a special word to greet them and even the King (or God-King as he officially is) must bow down to the youngest monk. Restaurants give them free food and shops give them money. 

Monks getting a free lift

We met a monk in our first week who had survived the Khmer Rouge and walked hundreds of miles to reach Phnom Penh and a pagoda he wanted to join. He spoke passionately about Buddhism and explained its teachings. He was clearly committed and sincere about his beliefs, it just seems that there is the odd one or two that aren't how you imagined them to be.


Happy New Year
Gordon