Khmer New Year

It is Wednesday morning, the middle day of the 3-day Khmer New Year, and Kathy and I are in my office taking advantage of the internet (our home internet is acting particularly weird), and I thought I'd mention a word or two about the Khmer New Year. Or in this case, copy from a site called ethnomed.org:

Usually, Khmer New Year is celebrated for three days:

The first day of New Year is called as Moha Sangkran, and it can be described simply as the inauguration of the New Angels who come to take care the world for a one-year period. This year is the year of Snake (Msanh), and Moha Sangkran of the New Year will begin on April 13th at 11: 36 PM. The leader of Angels is named KimiteaTevi. People need to clean and decorate the house and also prepare fruits and drinks for the New Year inauguration and to welcome the New Angels at every single home. Elderly people like to meditate or pray the Dharma at that time because they believe that any angel who comes to their houses at that time will stay with them and take care of their family for the whole year. Actually, in the morning at the first day of New Year, most Khmer people prepare food to offer the monks at Khmer temple to get blessed. It is a great time for boys and girls to play traditional games together at the temple or any field or playground in their village because it is only at the New Year time that boys and girls are allowed to play or to get together. Also it is a wonderful time for single people to search for the special partner to get married in the future. In the past 30 years, "Dating" did not exist in Cambodia.

The second day of New Year is called as Wanabot, which means day of offering gifts to the parents, grandparents and elders. Usually, Khmer People like to share gifts or presents to employees and also donate money or clothes to poor people. In the evening, people go to temple to build a mountain of sand and ask the monks to give them a blessing of happiness and peace.

The third day is called as day of "Leung Sakk;" that means the year starts to be counted up from this day, for example it is when the year of 2000 would change and begin to be 2001. Traditionally, in the morning, we used to go to the temple to perform the ceremony of the mountain of sand to get blessed. In the evening, to complete the New Year festival, our Khmer people need to perform the last ceremony, called as "Pithi Srang Preah", which means giving a special bath or a special shower to Buddha statues, the monks, elders, parents, grand parents to apologize for any mistake we have done to them and to gratify them. Every one must have a wonderful time during this ceremony because it is a great opportunity for every one, young and old, man and woman to have much fun by spreading out water to each other.

You can also read more at :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_New_Year


The most striking thing so far is that Phnom Penh almost completely clears out. I mean, completely. It makes August in Paris look overrun with Frenchmen. I'd say traffic is down by 90%. Apparently everyone who does stay in Phnom Penh (those who were born here and have family here, presumably) goes to Wat Phnom in the evening, so we ran into a little traffic jam there yesterday evening, but otherwise you can just sail around on the boulevards, where traffic normally averages maybe 15 mph.