A day to celebrate a culture

Cambodian dancers bow to the audience Sunday after performing at the festival at Millersylvania State Park.

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Millersylvania State Park: Event honors Cambodian music, dance, food and fashion

The Olympian
09/14/09

MAYTOWN – When one thinks of Cambodia, one typically thinks of a war-torn country in Southeast Asia, a country that underwent a four-year reign of terror at the hands of the Khmer Rouge and its leader Pol Pot during the late 1970s.

On Sunday, Cambodian nationals who now make their home in Thurston, Pierce and King counties took part in the second Cambodia Cultural Celebration, an annual event created to shed light on a culture largely overshadowed by a 30-year-old war.

For the second consecutive year, the event was staged at Millersylvania State Park near Maytown and organized by Sreytouch Ryser of Tumwater, a woman who left Cambodia in 1981 with her 10 siblings and mother and moved to Lacey after spending about 18 months in Thailand. Her father died in the war, she said. Today, she works as a Washington State Parks and Recreation administrative assistant.

About 300 to 400 people attended the cultural event, which started at 11 a.m. and ended about 4 p.m. Sunday. Booths were set up to showcase Cambodian food, arts and crafts and a stage was erected for traditional Cambodian songs and dances. One of the day’s highlights was a Cambodian fashion show. Musicians also performed on stage, playing Cambodian instruments that one might see at a Cambodian wedding, weddings that can last three days, Ryser said. For some Cambodians in the audience, it was the first time to see some of the traditional instruments played because they came to the United States when they were children, she said.

The event also was sponsored by Wat Prachum Rainsey Buddhist Association in Yelm, which provided volunteers who cooked the food and created some of the cultural displays.

“It means more and more to me,” Ryser said about the festival. “We need people to step up to show who we are.”

Joyce Crawford of Tenino attended Sunday’s event for the first time because she has a co-worker from Cambodia, she said. Little by little she was learning more about that country’s culture and was looking forward to the fashion show, Crawford said. During the show, men and women appeared in outfits that were worn at various times in Cambodia’s history.

Although Ryser said the Cambodian population in Thurston County is small, it numbers in the thousands throughout Pierce and King counties.

Rolf Boone: 360-754-5403

rboone@theolympian.com