Dogs are friends!

I know we have many problems with human rights just now, but dogs in Cambodia face a worst fate. At least humans can join and create associations to defend their rights, but dogs, evidently, no. Then I declare myself a dogs’ right advocate also, including cats, tigers, monkeys, elephants, the pristine Cambodian jungles under threat and even the tiny sea horses of the Sihanoukville Bay destroyed under the idea they are natural medicine.

Government asked to remove Judgement Day advertisement

Phnom Penh. The Judgment Day would be this coming Saturday, May 21st, according to a US evangelist pastor of 89 years old, Harold Camping, assuring that Jesus will return to the earth this weekend and that the event will cause an universal cataclysm. The suggestion was expressed in Cambodia, a mostly Buddhist country, through some signs of Cambo Advertising Co, to which the government asked to remove it in order to avoid public unrest. Camping did already a similar prediction in 1994, but his followers think that this time the religious man has found the exact end-of-the-world’s date in the Bible. In 2007 the Ministry of Religious Affairs forbade evangelical groups from doing religious propaganda in the villages, because they were crushing with pagodas. Freedom of religion is contemplated in the National Constitution, though Buddhism is established as the State official religion. Officials at the municipal department of commercial advertising said that the billboards had not license.

New Buddhist shrine opened in Sihanoukville

The Buddhist authorities of Sihanoukville opened a new shrine in the city near the Independence Monument in a program that lasted for three days (March 18 to 20.) A number of 560 Buddhist monks coming from provinces as Preah Sihanouk, Kompong Cham, Takeo, Siem Reap, Kratie and Svay Rieng assisted to the ceremonies leaded by Reverend Savoung Sarat, Buddhist authority in the province.

By Chhin Sieng

A Cambodian wedding

A Cambodian wedding, following the Buddhist rituals, takes three days and three nights. It costs to the bridegroom family about 3,000 US dollars as February 2011 and that is maybe the minimum number, but arranges can be done between the two families. If you are a foreigner willing to married a Cambodian lady, international standards will be followed The wedding ceremonies include religious moments like the blessing of the Buddhist bonzis, singers and musicians are contracted, there is a big dinner party, moments for the families, moments for the friends and guest are expected to let a money contribution inside the envelop they received as invitation. Have you been in a Cambodian wedding? How was it? Have you married a Cambodian? How is a Cambodian wedding in another religion? Are you a foreign woman and married a Cambodian man?

Christmas in Cambodia

Last week a friend of mine in US asked me how is a Christmas Day in Cambodia. Technically there is not a ‘Cambodian Christmas.’ The reason is simple: Cambodia is mostly a Buddhist country. As Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ, something parallel to Christmas in the Cambodian culture would be Vesak, held in May or June.

Pchum Ben, Ancestors’ Day

 

The crematorium of Lower Pagoda (Wat Kraom) in Sihanoukville.

 

Pchum Ben or the Ancestors’ Day, is a Cambodian Buddhist and Brahmanism festivity where Cambodians of those religions pay a respect to the spirits of their ancestors and deceased relatives. In harmony with this cultural-religion tradition, the Cambodian Catholic Church has also its annual All Souls Day that is universally celebrated on November 2, but in the Cambodian Catholic communities it is during the traditional Pchum Ben.