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 | Loung Ung: Activist, Author, Lecturer
"Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."
~ Chief Seattle |
Loung's Blog
Thoughts from day to day...
From time to time I will make updates to this page -- while I
travel, have a passing thought, or feel inspired to share with the
world something interesting I will post here.
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Long Beach dancer among winners of NEA's Heritage Fellowship |
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05/15/2009 @ 10:06 am |
Los Angeles Times
May 14, 2009
A Cambodian dancer and choreographer from Long Beach and two other California artists are among the 11 winners announced today of the 2009 National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Sophiline Cheam Shapiro is a critically acclaimed dancer and the only U.S.-based choreographer of Cambodian dance who also tours internationally. Since moving to the U.S. in 1991, she has created training workshops in classical dance and music for Southern California's Cambodian refugee population.
Her recent commissions include works for the Los Angeles Master Chorale and the Guggenheim Museum's Works & Process Series.
Her dance for "Spiral XII" was performed in November at Walt Disney Concert Hall.
The fellowships include a one-time award of $25,000 each and are intended to honor people who work in the folk and traditional arts.
The other winners of the NEA fellowship include singers, visual artists and even a "cowboy poet."
"Queen" Ida Guillory is a Zydeco musician based in Dale City, Calif., who won a Grammy Award in 1982 for her album "On Tour." Chitresh Das is a San Francisco choreographer who specializes in the Indian dance tradition known as Kathak. Joel Nelson, a cowboy poet from Alpine, Texas, writes and recites verse focusing on the frontier lifestyle of the western U.S.
Also receiving fellowships this year are the Birmingham Sunlights, an a cappella gospel group from Alabama; Dudley Laufman, a dance caller and musician from New Hampshire; Amma D. McKen, a Yoruba Orisha singer from Brooklyn, N.Y.; and Edwin Zayas, a cuatro player from Puerto Rico.
The recipients also include two artists from the field of basket weaving: LeRoy Graber from South Dakota and Teri Rofkar from Alaska.
Each year, the NEA honors an arts advocate in the field of cultural heritage, and this year, the award goes to Mike Seeger, a cultural scholar and musician from Virginia.
-- David Ng
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/05/long-beach-dancer-among-winners-of-neas-heritage-fellowship.html
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New York Times: Torture Survivors to Testify at Khmer Rouge Trial |
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05/14/2009 @ 9:07 am |
New York Times: May 14, 2009
Torture Survivors to Testify at Khmer Rouge Trial By SETH MYDANS
PHNOM PENH — Looking across the courtroom where he is on trial for crimes against humanity, the chief Khmer Rouge torturer cannot avoid seeing an artist and mechanic who sit together side by side, watching him but mostly avoiding his gaze.
One short and forceful, his feet dangling just above the floor, the other melancholy and drooping a bit, the men are rare survivors of the torture house he commanded, Tuol Sleng, where at least 14,000 people were sent to their deaths three decades ago.
In the weeks ahead, the two survivors will take the stand to testify against their torturer, Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, and both have terrible stories to tell about a place of horror from which almost no one emerged alive.
Bou Meng, 68, the short one, survived because he was a painter and was singled out from a row of shackled prisoners to produce portraits of the Khmer Rouge chief, Pol Pot.
The other, Chum Mey, 78, was a mechanic and was spared because the torturers needed him to repair machines including the typewriters used to record the confessions — very often false — that they extracted from prisoners like himself.
Mr. Bou Meng and Mr. Chum Mey are living exhibits from the Khmer Rouge years — tangible evidence like the skulls that have been preserved at some former killing fields, or like hundreds of portraits of their fellow prisoners that are displayed on the walls of Tuol Sleng.
The photographs were taken at the moment detainees were delivered to the prison, before they were stripped and fettered and tortured and sent to a killing field.
Those killed at Tuol Sleng are among 1.7 million people who died during the Communist Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979 from starvation, disease and overwork as well as from torture and execution.
Duch, now 66, is the first of five arrested Khmer Rouge figures to go on trial in the U.N.-backed tribunal.
He is accused of ordering the beatings, whippings, electric shocks and removal of toenails that Mr. Bou Meng and Mr. Chum Mey describe — indeed he has admitted in the courtroom to ordering the beating of Mr. Chum Mey.
Both men endured torture that continued for days, and Mr. Chum Mey said, “At that time I wished I could die rather than survive.”
But both men did survive, and today they are describing scenes that none of their fellow prisoners lived to recount.
“Every night I looked out at the moon,” Mr. Bou Meng recalled. “I heard people crying and sighing around the building. I heard people calling out, ‘Mother help me, mother help me!”’
It was at night that prisoners were trucked out to a killing field, and every night, he said, he feared that his moment had come. “But by midnight or 1 a.m. I realized that I would live another day.”
Though many Cambodians have tried to bury their traumatic memories, Mr. Bou Meng and Mr. Chum Mey have continued to return to the scene of their imprisonment and torture, as if their souls remain trapped there together with the souls of the dead.
During the first few years after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Mr. Bou Meng returned to work in an office at Tuol Sleng, which was converted into a museum of genocide. Now he uses it as a convenient rest stop, spending the night there on a cot when he visits the capital, Phnom Penh, from the countryside, where he paints Buddhist murals in temples.
Mr. Chum Mey, retired now from his work as a mechanic, spends much of his time wandering among the portraits, telling and retelling his story to tourists and their guides, as if one of the victims on the walls had come to life.
An eager and passionate storyteller, he will show a visitor how he was shoved, blindfolded, up the stairs during 12 days of torture, and he will drop to the floor inside a small brick cubicle where he was held in chains.
“As you can see, this was my condition,” he said recently as he sat on the hard concrete floor holding up a metal ammunition box that was used as a toilet. “It upsets me to see Duch sitting in the courtroom talking with his lawyers as if he were a guest of the court.”
Apart from their survival, both men’s stories are similar to those of many Tuol Sleng prisoners — country people who joined the Communist revolution during the Indochina war to liberate their nation from what they saw as foreign domination.
They were swept up in Khmer Rouge purges, like many others in Tuol Sleng, and they were tortured until they admitted being members of the C.I.A. or K.G.B., organizations they had barely heard of.
Both men lost their wives and children in the Khmer Rouge years, and although both have rebuilt their families, the past still holds them in its grip.
Mr. Bou Meng does not wander like his friend among the Tuol Sleng pictures, but he does keep one in his wallet — a snapshot-sized reproduction of the portrait of his wife, Ma Yoeun, who was arrested together with him but did not survive.
The picture shows a small woman, dressed in black like the others, looking forlorn and lost, her hair tousled — a record of the last time her husband saw her alive.
“Sometimes when I sit at home I look at the picture and everything seems fresh,” he said. “I think of the suffering she endured, and I wonder how long she stayed alive.”
The photograph reminds him of those most terrible moments of his life, but also of the happiest.
“We were still young, a boy and a girl together,” he said. “It’s my best memory. It was the day of our honeymoon. We slept together. It was a perfect day.”
Mr. Bou Meng has since remarried twice, but he remains shackled to his memories.
“I know I should forget her,” he said, “but I can’t.”
She visits him, he said, in visions that are something more than dreams, looking just as she did at that final moment — still 28 years old, leaving Mr. Bou Meng to live on and grow old without her.
Sometimes she appears together with the spirits of others who were killed, he said. They stand together, a crowd of ghosts in black, and she tells him, “Only you, Bou Meng, can find justice for us.”
Mr. Bou Meng said he hoped that the trial would cauterize his wounds, that testifying against Duch and seeing him convicted would free him from the restless ghosts and let him live what is left of his life in peace.
“I don’t want to be a victim,” Mr. Bou Meng said. “I want to be like everybody else, a normal person.”
But he said he knows that this may be asking too much of life.
“Maybe not completely normal,” he said. “But at least 50 percent.”
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Leaders Are Made Not Born...
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05/11/2009 @ 6:02 pm |
An Interview With Loung Ung - Cambodian Genocide Activist & Author
© Britta Stromeyer Esmail
Suite101.com
May 8, 2009
Raised in a Chinese-Cambodian culture where women were seldom seen and rarely heard, Loung Ung finds joy and success in being ‘loud’ and ‘proud’. In First they Killed My Father and Lucky Child Loung Ung shares her story of survival, her years as a refugee in America and the sister she left behind. In this exclusive interview with Suite101 she shares her lessons on how leaders are made and not born in America.
On May 6, 2009 the author conducted a phone interview with Loung Ung.
Q. What are the top three to five lessons you have learned on how leaders are made not born?
You don’t have to lead alone, be authentic and always think outside the box. In America the leadership model is often based on individualism. There is a perception that you have to be a strong individual and push forward alone to make it. I think that’s a myth.
You Don’t Have to Lead Alone
There is a philosophy in the West that we have to do things alone to be credible leaders. If you do it alone, you leave something behind. As women we are natural connectors and organizers. During my time as an activist with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, we won the Nobel peace prize in 1997. Yes, Jodi Williams was the coordinator but we won this as a global community and we all were very proud of that team effort.
Be Authentic
When I first started working with the Campaign, I was surrounded by mainly middle aged white males and I was trying very hard to act, think and speak like my white male counterparts. I remember a meeting, waiting for the “white” voice in me to come out, but instead I was quiet.
Somehow I believed that if I could speak like them, my thoughts would be more credible. Instead this way of thinking shut me up! I realized I had to speak in my own voice: I had to be authentic and speak as a Cambodian-American who spent time in a war zone and grew up as an immigrant in a small American town learning English as her forth language. It was then; I became alive, more vibrant, and more real. I became me.
Think Out of the Box
For a long time I thought activism was about going out on the streets, protesting, screaming at rallies, speaking and giving lectures to get the message out. Instead it’s more important to be inventive with your resources, regardless how big or small. I wanted to use my personal story to draw attention to the bigger picture issues of war, peace and diplomacy and raise awareness of the challenges that come with it in the global setting.
Q. Do you think those lessons are applicable across the globe? Why or why not?
Based on my travels - absolutely! In addition, women leaders are particularly challenged across the globe. It is a patriarch world. For women it’s not enough to be a leader and break barriers but understand the barriers and be strategic about them.
As women we are natural connectors and organizers. Women are more closely connected to the earth, society and to each other. And when we get there together it feels great!
Q. If you could give one bit of advice to all emerging leaders in this new economic reality, what would it be?
There is a great quote by Archibald Mcleish that I love. He writes: "We are deluged with facts, but we have lost, or are losing our human ability to feel them.” Today, global information is constantly changing. Things are moving faster than ever. But the demand for instant gratification has to shift in this new economic reality. You can’t have the desire to change the world and expect to do it or happen in one day. Have an action plan and know how you feel about it.
Let me just tell you this story, as a freshman in college, I knew the first day of classes that I wanted to go abroad in my junior year. Instead of waiting until my junior year, I made a plan and started to set that plan in motion in my freshman year. I made friends with foreign students and signed up for language classes. I knew I wanted to go abroad and in my junior year I made it to Cannes.
It sounds simple but in the age of greed and instant gratification we seem to have forgotten about the strategic benefits of having an action plan.
http://business-success-stories.suite101.com/article.cfm/how_leaders_are_made_not_born_in_america
The copyright of the article How Leaders Are Made Not Born in America in Business Success Stories is owned by Britta Stromeyer Esmail.
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Cambodian dance troupe's US tour comes to an emotional close
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05/04/2009 @ 10:07 pm |
By Greg Mellen, Staff Writer
Posted: 05/04/2009 06:22:58 PM PDT
As Ray Chum looked at the face of the son she hadn't seen since 2003 displayed on the wall via a computer screen projection, her voice broke and the tears flowed.
The son, Tuy "KK" Sobil, whose image was being broadcast from an Internet cafe in Cambodia, was also speechless in tears.
The exchange brought an emotional climax to what has been an amazing tour of the United States by a dance troupe KK founded and comprised of street kids from Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Dabson Tuy, KK's brother, took the microphone from his mother and talked to his brother.
"Mom just wants you to be a better person," Dabson said. "To see what you're doing today, we're just so proud of you. Just keep it positive. I'm sorry you had to see all that pain."
However, the heart rending pain underscored a success story that has been nothing short of miraculous. It is a story that would never happened but for KK's fall.
About 150 people had gathered at Chuco's Justice Center in Inglewood to see the final U.S. performance of Tiny Toones, a hip-hop dance crew, and Cambodian rapper Chan Samnang, also known as K-Dep.
The story of KK and Tiny Toones has received national and international recognition in recent years.
KK was born in a Thai refugee camp and later became a gang member in Long Beach after emigrating to the U.S. with his family. In 2003, after serving a conviction for armed robbery, he was deported to Cambodia, a country he had never visited.
After KK's arrival, kids began asking him to show them dance moves. Eventually, he relented, put his personal despair aside and formed Tiny Toones.
The lure of hip-hop has since been used not only to teach kids break dancing, but provide English language education, HIV/AIDs awareness, gang prevention and other arts and life skills. Through the help of donors and other charities, Tiny Toones now has a drop-in center for impoverished teens and children in Phnom Penh.
The U.S. trip was just the latest remarkable event in the rise of Tiny Toones. Supporters here in the United States were able to secure an invitation and funding to bring six dancers and K-Dep to the U.S. for an international hip-hop dance competition in Madison, Wis., followed by trips to perform in New York, Philadelphia, Seattle and the Southland.
Although the fund-raiser in Inglewood was the group's last performance, plans are already afoot to bring them back next year.
For the dancers, the trip has been magical. Dyrithy Sovann, who goes by the stage name Fresh, said he never dreamed he'd ever see the United States.
Sovann, 17, is particularly adept at one-hand stands and head spins. On Sunday, he was learning the excitement of skateboarding, which the group was first introduced to several days ago.
Sovann met KK four years ago after going with some friends to watch him dance.
At Saturday's performance, Sovann played a lead role in the Monkey Dance, which has become the group's signature piece.
In the dance, the troupe begins with Keo Srey Leak, aka Diamond, the lone girl in the troupe dancing in classical Cambodian style. Gradually, traditional music gives way to hip-hop and the entire troupe launches into a full-fledged tumbling, spinning, hip-hop routine.
In addition to the performances, Tiny Toones dancers have engaged in impromptu cultural exchanges.
In Seattle, they met with a group of first-generation Cambodians from a group called Khmer In Action.
Grace Kong of KIA said the two groups learned much from each other.
Kong said the dancers feared they would be looked down upon and shunned when they came to the U.S.
Instead they have been overcome by the welcome they have received.
"We wanted them to see that no matter what, they have our support, they have Khmer Americans who love them," Kong said.
Information on Tiny Toones can be found online at www.tinytoonescambodia.com.
greg.mellen@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1291
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Cambodian consulate opens in Lowell |
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04/28/2009 @ 11:11 am |
By Associated Press | Monday, April 27, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Coverage
LOWELL — The third Cambodian consulate in the U.S. has opened in Massachusetts.
The consulate in Lowell, featuring a small Buddhist shrine, was dedicated during a small ceremony Sunday attended by about 200 people.
Cambodian Ambassador Hem Heng says the facility will help Cambodian-Americans and citizens get visas, passport validations and deal with other diplomatic matters that previously were handled in Washington.
It will also help boost trade and investment between the nations.
Lowell, about 25 miles northwest of Boston, has a significant Cambodian population.
Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Hor Namhong was taken by ambulance to a city hospital after falling ill, but ceremony emcee Vesna Nuon tells The Sun of Lowell that Namhong was simply exhausted.
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Khmer Rouge prison chief says he tried to quit
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04/28/2009 @ 11:08 am |
Tue Apr 28, 3:58 am ET
PHNOM PENH (AFP) – The former Khmer Rouge prison chief told Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court he hated overseeing torture and executions, and had requested his superiors give him another job.
Duch -- whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav -- apologised last month at the start of his trial, accepting blame for overseeing the extermination of 15,000 people who passed through the regime's Tuol Sleng prison, also known as S-21.
He said Tuesday that in May 1975, the month after the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia, he asked for a transfer to work in the country's industrial sector.
"At that time I really wanted to be away from the security office. I wanted to be in industry," Duch said.
However, he said, defence minister Son Sen told him he would have to work at S-21.
"That was the end of it. That's what the superior said, and I dared not to protest. I honestly wanted to run away and go to industry," Duch said.
Asked by English prosecutor Alex Bates whether he told his superiors he detested his job, Duch said: "I did not particularly say that I hated security work, I only told them that I wanted to do industry work."
"In Khmer language there is a proverb: is it necessary to kill the crab to show the shit of the crab?" he said.
"Whan I talked to my superiors, I did not dare to open the crab and show the shit inside the crab"
Although Duch says he oversaw the brutal prison for most of the 1975 to 1979 regime, he has maintained he never personally executed anyone and has only ever admitted to abusing two people.
The former mathematics teacher has also denied prosecutors' claims that he played a central role in the Khmer Rouge's iron-fisted rule and maintains that he and his family would have been executed if he had not followed orders.
He faces life in jail from the court, which does not have the power to impose the death penalty.
Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998, and many believe the UN-sponsored tribunal is the last chance to find justice for victims of the regime, which killed up to two million people.
The tribunal was formed in 2006 after nearly a decade of wrangling between the United Nations and Cambodian government, and is scheduled to try four other senior Khmer Rouge leaders.
But the court has been marred by corruption claims and talks between UN and Cambodian officials ended earlier this month without agreement on anti-graft measures.
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Cambodian Spiders Under Threat |
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04/23/2009 @ 9:01 am |
(I've eaten fried tarantulas but never developed cravings for them..LU)
By Rory Byrne
Voice of America
22 April 2009
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-04-22-voa67.cfm
Skun, Cambodia
Giant spiders might not look appetizing, but in Cambodia they are considered a delicacy. First eaten by starving refugees during the Khmer Rouge era in the late 1970s, they are now a popular snack in Cambodia. They are so popular their numbers are now in decline.
People travel from all over Cambodia to the town of Skun, north of the capital Phnom Penh, to eat giant spiders.
Black, hairy and about the size of your palm, they build their nests in the forests around the small town. Every day thousands are sold in the town's big spider market.
Fried in garlic and herbs, the spiders are piled high on wooden trays and sold to passing motorists.
Giant spiders are an important source of income for this poor farming community. In an area where most people earn about $1 a day, each spider costs about 50 cents. But despite their high cost, many Cambodians are reluctant to give up their favorite treat.
Spider catcher Youk Sambath says that nothing tastes as good as spider meat.
He says it is so delicious - it tastes a lot like fish, but also crunchy like a crab.
As well as being eaten, spiders are marinated in rice wine, which is sold as a healthy tonic.
Local farmer Yeam Soun says spider wine is good for your health:
He says when he drinks spider wine it makes his muscles feel better and his blood run well, and besides that, he says, he just loves the taste.
Local historian Tek Nem says the taste for spiders began during the Pol Pot regime when they were eaten by starving refugees:
He says that at that time there was little to eat and people survived on two cups of watery soup a day. So, he says, they began to eat things like geckos, scorpions and giant spiders and that is when they discovered how good they taste.
Spiders have become so popular in Cambodia that some fear that they could be hunted to extinction. Although exact figures on the spider population are unclear, local sellers confirm their numbers are in sharp decline.
Spider seller Ni Chanmom blames farmers for destroying the spider's nests:
She says that there were a lot of spiders until farmers began to cut and burn the forest where the spiders build their nests. She says that when that happened the spiders ran away and nobody knows where they went.
With over-hunting and slash and burn agriculture continuing to accelerate, there are concerns that Cambodia's giant spiders could be wiped out altogether.
Without urgent measures to protect them, Cambodia's favorite treat could become a thing of the past.
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Judges grill KRouge prison chief
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04/23/2009 @ 9:00 am |
April 23, 2009
PHNOM PENH (AFP) — Judges at Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court grilled the former prison chief of the Khmer Rouge regime Thursday about his notorious jail, where thousands of people were tortured and killed.
Sitting in the dock, Duch -- whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav -- politely answered questions from judges about the organisation and structure of Tuol Sleng prison, also known as S-21.
"S-21 was under the supervision of (Khmer Rouge defence minister) Professor Son Sen," Duch told the court.
"All security offices, including the S-21 office, had the duty to detain and interrogate and finally to smash -- that is to kill," he said.
Former military commander Son Sen was murdered by his comrades in 1997, and Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died of old age a year later.
Although there were some 195 Khmer Rouge torture centres around the country, Duch said he had known of only two other such Khmer Rouge security offices, including one supervised by his brother-in-law.
Duch, 66, is charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and premeditated murder over the extermination of around 15,000 people between 1975 and 1979 at Tuol Sleng.
The former maths teacher said that, when he was given the job as the chief of Tuol Sleng in March 1976, he brought along some staff from the secret jungle prison M-13, which he ran 1971-75.
Most cadres brought from M-13 were assigned to interrogate prisoners, Duch said, adding that he kept two staff close to him to interrogate Vietnamese prisoners of war and high-level detainees.
Duch apologised last month when his trial started, accepting blame for overseeing the extermination of 15,000 people who passed through Tuol Sleng.
He faces life in jail but the court does not have the power to impose the death penalty.
Many believe the UN-sponsored tribunal is the last chance to find justice for victims of the regime, which killed up to two million people through starvation, overwork, torture and execution.
The tribunal was formed in 2006 after nearly a decade of wrangling between the United Nations and Cambodian government, and is scheduled to try four other senior Khmer Rouge leaders.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
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Rock Band Dengue Fever And Wildlife Alliance Partner To Preserve Cambodia's Natural Heritage |
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04/20/2009 @ 5:09 pm |
Washington, D.C. (Top40 Charts/ Wildlife Alliance) - Acclaimed Cambodian-American rock band Dengue Fever (www.myspace.com/denguefevermusic) and the non-profit environmental organization Wildlife Alliance (www.wildlifealliance.org) are pleased to announce the launch of a partnership to preserve Cambodia's natural heritage, including threatened populations of tigers, Asian elephants, and some of the largest tracts of rainforest remaining in Asia.
"We share a common vision," said Dengue Fever guitarist Zac Holtzman. "We want to preserve Cambodia's rich cultural heritage, just like Wildlife Alliance is working to protect Cambodia's wildlife species and forests.
By rescuing and caring for wildlife species victimized by illegal trade, preserving habitat and educating and creating jobs for Cambodians, Wildlife Alliance's work is vital to preserving Cambodia's natural legacy for future generations."
"We hope that this partnership will help all of us who strive to save Cambodia's unique heritage," said Wildlife Alliance's Director of U.S. Operations, Michael Zwirn. "Fans of Dengue Fever are naturally drawn to the artistic history of Cambodia, and we want to inform them how they can be involved in saving the country's wildlife and forests alongside its cultural treasures."
The partnership officially kicks off at the State Theater in Falls Church, VA on Friday, April 17, 2009 during Dengue Fever's North American spring tour. While Dengue Fever perform, Wildlife Alliance will work a booth set up at the venue and educate and inform fans about Cambodian conservation.
Future goals of the partnership include benefit concerts, charity remixes, online commercials, and cross marketing on social networking sites and websites.
Dengue Fever began when keyboardist Ethan Holtzman discovered the traditional Cambodian pop music of the 60's on a trip to Cambodia. Along with lead singer Chhom Nimol, bassist Senon Williams, drummer Paul Smith and David Ralicke on horns, the band perform updated versions of classic Cambodian pop songs as well as a wide variety of new compositions. Since forming in Los Angeles, Dengue Fever has released three acclaimed albums, toured around the globe, and seen increasing attention from Pitchfork Media, the New York Times, National Public Radio and other media. The band's third release, Venus On Earth, was selected as one of the best world music records of 2008 by the iTunes Store while Escape From Dragon House was named Amazon's Best International Release of 2005.
In the documentary film Sleepwalking Through the Mekong, out April 14 on DVD/CD soundtrack via M80 Music, Dengue Fever performs their music in Cambodia as the first Western band to perform Cambodian Khmer rock since the fall of the Khmer Rouge.
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Happy New Year
Year of the Ox 2553 Buddhist Era (B.E.)
Begins 1:36am Tuesday, April 14, 2009
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04/15/2009 @ 10:13 am |
Moha Songkran: Moha Songkran is the name of the first day of the new year celebration. It is the ending of the year and the beginning of a new one. People dress up and light candles and burn incense sticks at shrines. The members of each family pay homage to offer thanks for the Buddha's teachings by bowing, kneeling and prostrating themselves three times before his image. For good luck people wash their face with holy water in the morning, their chests at noon, and their feet in the evening before they go to bed.
Wanabat: Wanabat is the name of the second day of the new year celebration. People contribute charity to the less fortunate, help the poor, homeless people, and low-income families. Families attend a dedication ceremony to their ancestors at the monastery.
Tanai Lieang Saka: Tanai Lieang Saka is the name of the third day of the new year celebration. Buddhist cleanse the Buddha statues and elders with perfumed water. Bathing the Buddha images is the symbol that water will be needed for all kinds of plants and lives. It is also thought to be a kind deed that will bring longevity, good luck, happiness and prosperity in life. By bathing their grandparents and parents, children can obtain from them best wishes and good advice for the future.
Khmer New Year Games:
After performing all rituals and customs to welcome the New Year, it's time to have some fun. Some physical activities become part of New Year celebrations. Popular games played at the time of New Year in Cambodia are listed below:
Tres
In this game, a ball is thrown and caught with one hand while catching sticks (pens, chopsticks) with the other hand.
Chol Chhoung
Played on the night of day one by group of boys and girls standing opposite to each other. One group throws the Chol Chhoung (Khmer scarf ball) on the other and if someone gets hit by the ball then the whole group dances to get the Chhoung back while the other group sings.
Chab Kon Kleng
In this game, one imitates as a hen protecting her chicks from a crow. It is played on the first night of the New Year. The crow tries to catch as many chicks as possible while both the groups sing a song of bargaining.
Bos Angkunh
This game is played by the groups of boys and girls. Each group throws their angkunh (an inedible fruit seed) to hit the angkunh of the other group. The winners must knock the knee of the losers with the angkunh.
Leak Kanseng
It is mostly played by a group of children. They sit in a circle. Someone holds a kanseng (Cambodian towel) twisted in a round shape and moves around the circle. The child moving around the circle secretly keeps the kanseng behind one of the children. If the chosen child realizes the kanseng behind him then he must beat the person sitting next to him.
Bay Khom
It is a game of two children. Ten holes are dug into a board in the ground . 42 stones are required to start the game. Five stones are put into each of the two holes located at the tip of the board and four stones are put in the remaining holes. The first player takes all the stones from any selected hole and put them one by one in other holes. It must be repeated until the last stone is dropped into the hole besides the empty one. Then he must take all the stones into the hole next to the empty one. Similarly, second player starts playing the game and the game ends when all the holes are empty. The player with the maximum number of stones is the winner.
http://www.cambodia.org/blogs/editorials/labels/Cambodian%20New%20Year.html
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Loung Ung
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