My interview with my friend Sipo was very interesting. I learned many neat facts about their culture. I found out that majority of Cambodians are Buddhist. His religion is Christian and he comes from a small family with two older brothers. I asked him many questions that dealt with family, relationships, and education.
When discussing about his family dynamics, he told me that he came from a relaxing family. His parents would have curfews and expected certain things like doing well in school and getting an education but they didn't expect a perfect child who got straight A's and have too much pressure like many Asian parents. The structure is very similar to many other Asian cultures, I believe, with the guy being the provider and making many of the decisions outside of the household as for the women taking care of the kids and the household duties. The naming system is like my Vietnamese culture, when speaking with elders we address them depending on their age. Respect is an important factor to their culture; family values are important where they need to recognize their elders and respect them.
As I asked questions about relationships, he said that his parents did not mind who they talked to as long as they were happy. He talked about a traditional Cambodian wedding. First they have a meeting of the family where both come together and exchange gifts, eat, play music. Usually this is a family ceremony including the bridesmaid and grooms but friends are also welcome to come. After this on the day of the wedding in the morning, the groom, groomsman, and his family walk over to the brides house with gifts and food to ask for her hand in marriage and they have a small ceremony with blessing called soat mun. They then have a ceremony thanking the parents for all they have done. After all of the ceremonies they have a wedding and reception.
When it comes to education, it is an important factor but his parents never stressed him or put too much pressure on him. They just wanted him to try the best he could in school and do well to get a good job to support his family in the future. Sipo and his siblings learned their language from their parents, they only speak Cambodian at home to keep up with their culture.
Khmer New Years is coming up next month and I look forward to seeing what they do when they celebrate the new year. Till then, go out and learn something new about another cultures.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Monday, March 12, 2012
Facts about Cambodia
As I begin my research on Cambodia, I find many facts. Below is the Cambodia flag and their map. As you can see Cambodia is between Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos.
Cambodia's capital is Phnom Penh, also the largest city in Cambodia. consisting of over a million people. Their government is a multiparty liberal democracy under a constitutional monarchy. An upcoming holiday they celebrate is Khmer New Year between the 13th and 16th of April. This holiday is a three day festival that occurs at the end of harvest season. During this time Cambodians would "clean and decorate their houses with altars of offerings" ("Infoplease,") along side of this tradition they also play traditional games like Voo (below is a link that shows you how the game is played). There were also a few other games that are shown in this video. One of them looked like the game Mancala which we play here in the U.S. Along with games they have fashion shows and perform cultural dances. I hope you found this information intriguing. I look forward to finding more information from my friend Sipo Thao about his culture and traditions he grew up with. Until next time, try new things and research about other cultures to open your mind for others view.
Voo Game:
Reference:
Infoplease. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107378.html?pageno=1
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