via Khmer NZ
By George L. Winship, Editor
Anderson Valley Post
Posted August 17, 2010
elephant taxi:
Built for tourists, the elephant taxi carries several peple many miles for $20 each.
Built for tourists, the elephant taxi carries several peple many miles for $20 each.
TEMPLE RUINS:
Dating from the 12th Century, the stone ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia attract tourists from around the world to admire Khmer architecture.
going native:
A professional photographer at a resort in Camboia poses Kim Keo and her daughter, Jeanney, in traditional Khmer village dress for a souvenir photo. Visiting Cambodia inspired Jeanney to learn more about her culture.
When Pacheco School teacher Vickie Drysdale asks her sixth-grade students to report on their summer vacations, the story that Jeanney Keo, 10, of Redding tells may prove to be the most fascinating.
Jeanney, who turns 11, on Sept. 11, recently returned from a month-long visit to the Kingdom of Cambodia, a country in Southeast Asia bordered by Thailand on the west, Laos on the north, Vietnam on the east and the Gulf of Thailand on the south.
It is the country where her parents, Jack and Kim Keo, were born and grew up, although both emigrated to the United States many years ago and are now U.S. citizens.
"It has been 18 years since my mother has been in Cambodia and this was my first trip to see my cousins and other relatives," Jeanney told the Valley Post.
The main purpose for their trip, other than to catch up on family gossip, was to return the cremains of Jeanney's great-grandmother to her native soil, the loquacious pre-teen explained.
"My uncle in Texas had brought his grand-mother's ashes to the United States when he moved here, but a fortune teller recently told him that his bad luck was caused by his grandmother's spirit, which wasn't happy here."
Like most Cambodians, many in Jeanney's extended family practice Theravada Buddhism, one of the oldest surviving schools of Buddhism. According to Wikipedia, the on-line free encyclopedia, there are more than 100 million adherents to Theravada Buddhism.
Jeanney and her mother, Kim Keo, boarded an international flight in San Francisco on July 5 and flew nearly 17 hours, stopping briefly in Teipei, Taiwan.
The travelers eventually landed in Phnom Penh, the kingdom's capital and largest city, with more than 2 million inhabitants living along the Mekong River. Established in 1434, the city has many buildings surviving from the French colonial period as well as many modern structures erected since the Khmer Rouge were driven out of Phnom Penh by the Vietnamese in 1979.
"It was very humid when we landed about noon on July 6," Jeanney remembers.
Met by relatives, the American visitors were whisked off to a fancy hotel to rest up before a grueling several-hour car trip took them to Sisophon, her mother's ancestral home. Several days later, they traveled by motorcycle to Siem Reap, her father's ancestral village.
"At my Mom's home town, there was a big celebration. One of the arches made of stone had just been repaired with concrete," she said.
Preparations for the Buddhist ceremony to rebury her great-grandmother's ashes had to be done the traditional way, so gifts of currency for the monks had to be carefully wrapped inside prayer papers. Other relatives cooked special foods for the spirits that would be consumed later by the living celebrants who attended, she said.
The many unfamiliar bugs and voracious mosquitoes were the worst things the travelers encountered as they slept on mattresses placed on the floor in one of the communal sleeping rooms.
"We had to tuck our mosquito nets around the mattress at night to keep the bugs out, but before we did that, we had to chase the bugs out of the bed and the mosquito nets," which were left up during the day, Jeanney said.
Cracks in the hardwood floor boards and between the moisture-warped boards also allowed bugs to enter from below, she said.
"In the country, the houses have dogs, chickens and other animals living under the house, which is built up on stilts. There was an outside deck area with no roof where we would wash the dishes with rainwater. Some of the houses didn't have walls, just a railing so you wouldn't fall off the platform," said Jeanney, who is fluent in both English and Khmer.
Jeanney noticed that a few houses had television sets, but without electricity during the day and most nights, there was little opportunity to watch anything.
One of the hardest things for the normally active 10-year-old was to sit cross-legged and very still during the numerous and lengthy religious services that the travelers and their extended families attended. The exhumation and eventual reburial of her great-grandfather's ashes, for example, was a two-day ceremony.
One of her favorite activities while traveling involved attending any of the local carnivals that pop up in every city, town and village during the monsoon season.
"The carnival in Phnom Pehn is a yearly thing. They have carnival rides like we have here. They also have the kiddie rides that just go around in circles," she said.
While walking around in the big cities and even the smallest villages, Jeanney was surprised by the many street vendors selling roasted peanuts, caramelized popcorn and even snow cones made on the back of a motorcycle with a blender-like device powered by the motorcycle's battery.
She never tried the snow cone, however, having been warned not to drink the water or any ice made from the water due to the danger of disease.
"When I wasn't having fun, it was icky and I wanted to come home to my Dad and my sister, Jena, but when everyone was around and we had a lot of fun, then it was fine. I didn't get homesick then," she said.
While many of her cousins, nephews and nieces learn English in school, Jeanney found her own limited Cambodian language skills stretched to the limit in trying to communicate with them.
"What did I miss the most," she mused. "Probably the A/C. I missed air conditioning a lot, but I also missed my kitty cat," Jeanney said. "But every time I missed something, there was something else there to replace it. Except for my Dad and my sister," she added with a smile.
One of the highlights of the trip was a day spent just being tourists. Jeanney and her mother, Kim, visited a resort where they dressed up in traditional village clothing and posed for souvenir photographs.
They played in a waterfall, swam in a stream and even rode an elephant taxi.
And they visited Angkor Wat, a Hindu temple built for King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century. The temple is considered the highest form of classical Khmer architecture and has become a symbol for Cambodia, appearing on the nation's flag.
Jeanney and her mother returned to Sacramento August 6, and to Redding on August 7 after spending the night with relatives.
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