LTO Cambodia: It's New Year again

Thursday, February 3, 2011

It's New Year again

Chinese New Year revelers at Wat Phnom, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Urn Jostling at Wat Phnom

It's lunar New Year today, commonly known as 'Chinese New Year' here in Cambodia - 'Tet' in Vietnam. It's Cambodia's second new year of 2011 - international New Year (January 1) being the first, Chinese New Year (today) the second and Khmer New Year in April will be the last and most important. This particular New Year is not an official holiday in Cambodia, though one might guess otherwise from the appearance of the city.

Many businesses were closed today and will be tomorrow as well - gates shut, bulbous Chinese lanterns hanging from the eves. In my walk around the city this afternoon, the streets were comparatively quiet - traffic very light as many stayed home with their families today. The smell of incense hung and still hangs in the air. Noisy troupes of Lion Dancers were making the rounds, visiting homes and businesses. Many houses in the city are decorated with New Year ornaments, almost all in red and gold - paper lanterns and coins, Fu Lu Shou, New Year children, stylized flowers and animals and other traditional Chinese images. Offerings of a red pig, food and fruit, incense, tobacco and drink sat on blankets and tables in front of houses. Some displays at the richer houses were quite elaborate. People burned ghost money at the streetside throughout the day, leaving little piles of ash and fake US$100 and Chinese bills blowing down some roads.

It's 1AM and I've just returned home from Wat Phnom here in Phnom Penh. My clothes reek of incense smoke and my eyes are burning and tearing from the same. Wat Phnom is the most popular pagoda in town for the local Chinese, Vietnamese and Khmer-Chinese to usher in the New Year. After 11PM hundreds of people crowd the pagoda grounds to await the new year. Like international New Year and unlike Khmer New Year, the Chinese New Year enters at midnight.

Dozens of vendors set up at the entrance and along the paths, selling joss sticks, flowers and ghost money. In previous years beggars lined the steps to the top of the hill. People would bring piles of small bills (100 Riel notes) just for the beggars. This year there were no beggars. None at all. I don't know why.

Revelers pay homage at the various shrines around the pagoda, offering incense, food and prayer to the spirit houses at the outer corners of the vihear, at the Ya Penh shrine and of course to Buddha inside the vihear. But the real action is on the north side of the hill at the 'Chinese shrine' - uncomfortably crowded and the air thick with the smoke of a thousand joss sticks, sometimes suffocatingly so. The mood is energetic as people vie for space and move from shrine to shrine. Crowds of men jockey and jostle for position around the preferred urns, jamming in giant joss sticks and holding on as if for dear life, sometimes for several minutes, so the stick can be retrieved and taken home still alight. Standing on the level above the urns for the best view, spectators (including myself) choked on the dense clouds of rising smoke, only able to watch for a couple of minutes at a time before having to flee for fresh air.

The midnight crowd at Wat Phnom was significantly lighter this year than previous years. Still several hundred people there, but probably half of last year's number. The pagoda area was not as well or festively lit as in the past, there seemed to be fewer vendors, and as I mentioned no beggars at all. I'm not sure if people have found someplace else to go or if perhaps they just aren't feeling as flush this year.

Still, it's all a pretty photogenic and exciting scene, and I've been going for years, but I almost never see foreigners there on New Year Eve. Tonight I think I was the only one. I find that a bit surprising.

A few photos and videos from around Phnom Penh yesterday and at Wat Phnom this last evening…

Chinese New Year, lion dance helper, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Lion dance trouper

Chinese New Year Lion Dance, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Feeding the lion

Red pig for sale on the street, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Red pig for sale on the street today.

Vihear and stupa at Wat Phnom

'Chinese Shrine' at Wat Phnom

At the urn, Wat Phnom

At the urn, Wat Phnom, almost midnight...

The 'Chinese shrine' at Wat Phnom, just after midnight...

(Videos were taken with my iPhone.)

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Cambodia

Cambodia is Srok Khmer, the 'Land of the Khmer,' the primary ethnic group in the area since at least the Neolithic and an Indian influenced civilization with origins near 2000 years old. Centered on the lower Mekong and tributaries the Khmer people have dominated the region for millennia. From 2nd century AD Khmer kingdoms rose and fell, culminating in unification and the 500 year reign of the Angkorian Empire, the builders of the temples of Angkor near Siem Reap. The Empire stretched from Burma to the ocean. But by the 1400s Cambodia fell to centuries of change and decline squeezed between the expanding Siam and Vietnam. Colonized and by the French in the 1860s, independence 90 years later in 1954, a brief post-colonial 'golden period' under Sihanouk, coup in 70, civil war, fall to the communist Khmer Rouge in 75, 3 years 8 months 20 days of madness, Vietnamese rescue in 1979, occupation, low level war and international sanctions in the 80s, the UN, ostensive democracy and an adventure party destination in the 90s and now mainstreaming, tourism, rapid development, rapacious capitalism and NGOs, missionaries and other international busybodies aplenty.

Southeast Asia

As the term implies, Southeast Asia encompasses the southeastern corner of the Asian continent, loosely speaking, the area between India, China and Australia. It is made up of two distinct regions: the mainland zone, a bulbous peninsula jutting into the Pacific Ocean, bounded by China to the north and India to the west; and the insular (island) zone in the Pacific Ocean. The name 'Southeast Asia' is a comparatively recent invention, first coming into use into the 20th century and still a bit indefinite in definition. Mainland Southeast Asia is generally considered to include Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Burma (Myanmar) and peninsular Malaysia. The mainland is sometimes referred to as Indo-China though Indochina (Indochine) also designates the 19th/20th century French colonial conglomerate of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Sitting south of the Tropic of Cancer, most of mainland Southeast Asia lies in the hot, humid tropics and sub-tropics with a climate dominated by a monsoon cycle which divides the year into two distinct seasons: a dry season and an extremely wet monsoon season. Much of the mainland is mountainous and thickly jungled, with large river systems and wide, low-lying, flood-prone plains, much of which is, in modern times, deforested and blanketed with geometrical rice paddies. Several major river valleys including the Mekong River, the Red, Ma and Ka rivers and the group of rivers draining to the Chao Praya Delta played host to the rise of early civilization in the area. The Mekong River is one of the world's greatest rivers, the seventh largest on the planet, and since pre-history has been closely associated with the land of the Khmer.