During Cambodian new year, traditionally we go to temple to offer food to the monks and pray for our ancestors. Unfortunately this year, I couldn’t make it. We stayed home and I made food. I did a little praying and offered my dear father some food. I also prayed for Cambodian who were killed and who are still suffering. I begged the angel of this new year to help bring peace to Cambodia, especially for the Khmer Krom.
Somlor Pro`haer: Cambodian vegetable and fish soup with a touch of rhizome, lemon grass and prohok base. Pumpkin, Khmer squash, fern-like vegetable, bamboo, fish, taro and chicken broth. This soup is rich in vitamin A, B, C, E and DHA from fish. Serve with steam rice.
1) Tirk suup monn
2) Tirk, tirk suup monn, kthem sor, slek krei, kcheay, prohok, skor,lmiet, msao suup monn.
-Trei ros (you can use tilapia or catfish, snapper if you’re in the US). Yoak trei sohk sro`kah, leang tirk heuy katt kong kong. *Bonlae: Lpeou, throlach, thrav, chet doum toch toch lmom -sa`om bess slek heuy leang tirk -tro`paing hann prothess sderng sderng -Chee proher bess yoak slek heuy threm thirk
I am back from my camping trip. I spent several days and nights with American school children. The trip made me realize and taught me many things. Children are great people, they live a simple life. All they want is love, fun and shelter. It was fun… As a child of war, I did not have my childhood like these children, during this trip I took the opportunity to be one of them, I pushed my adult life and pretended to be one of the little girl in the group. I played, sang and laughed with them to my wildest. It was very special, I cannot describe the feelings. When nights fell, the children came closer and circled my bed, they shared stories with me about their lives, shockingly many of them broke into tears. These beautiful children have broken families, the majority of their parents are divorced or experienced domestic violence. Most of them live with single parent and some live with grand-parents. I was aware and have heard about the high divorce rate in America but never thought that these issue terribly affect children. They were traumatized! They told me that they are scarred their father might beat up the mother, or the step dad would rape them, or the mom have boyfriend and leave them alone. As I was listening to them, I got infuriated and so frustrated. WHY ADULTS can be so cruel? We have something in common, our experiences are different but these children and my war stories both were caused by the stupid adults. Adults should seriously reconsider peace and stop the violence.
Mr.Dith Pran the author and a survivor of Killing Field died today Sunday morning of pancreatic cancer at the age of 65 at a New Jersey hospital. My thoughts and condolences to mr. Pran and all his families. I am already missing him… so sad to see him leaving. I grew up hearing many great things about him and he was the man whom I looked up when I was in college, his ambition inspired me in many ways. He contributed his life for the Khmer community and educated people around the globe about the suffering of Cambodian. This man will always be remembered. May you rest in peace…. ___________________ Details of mr.Dith Pran’s life: NEW YORK - Dith Pran, the Cambodian-born journalist whose harrowing tale of enslavement and eventual escape from that country’s murderous Khmer Rouge revolutionaries in 1979 became the subject of the award-winning film “The Killing Fields,” died Sunday, his former colleague said. Dith, 65, died at a New Jersey hospital Sunday morning of pancreatic cancer, according to Sydney Schanberg, his former colleague at The New York Times. Dith had been diagnosed almost three months ago.
Cambodia is bound to a set of obligations under the international agreements that were concluded in 1991 to end the war in the country. Cambodia has undertaken, among other things, to adopt democracy, to observe and respect human rights and to be governed by the rule of law. The country’s Constitution, which emanates from a U.N.-organized constituent election in 1993, incorporates all of its international obligations and provides for all basic institutions for a parliamentary democracy and the rule of law. It is a constitutional monarchy with a separation of powers. It has an independent and impartial judiciary whose duty is to protect the rights and freedoms of its citizens.
Cambodia has since then abandoned communism, embraced a market economy and become a more open society. However, communist legacies have stalled the creation of institutions for parliamentary democracy and the rule of law worthy of their names and their functioning. The government is not accountable to the National Assembly, for example, when the prime minister and other government ministers flout their constitutional duties and spurn the assembly’s summons to answer its questions.
Doesn’t this look inviting? As much as American love their potato chips, this is what we devour for snack. Cambodian green mango delight with fermented fish dipping sauce! Anyone? Svay Tirk Prohok:
I wanted to do something different with the photos, so I decided to use Adobe Photoshop software to do photo editing. I stumbled on instruction from various sites. They weren’t clear and too long to follow. Therefore, I gathered all the information and simplified into my own. Here is my instruction. I hope this will help you beginners out there.
Adobe Photoshop 101: VIGNETTE style (softening the edge of the photo). According to webster online, “a photograph whose edges shade off gradually.”
Original photo: before
After
Instruction: 1>Create a layer from layer pallet. Click on ‘create new layer’ icon as shown on the red arrow.
2>Click on paint bucket tool. Then fill the new layer with white paint. (Notice the white screen).
3>Decrease the layer opacity around 80 or 85 percent(or as desire). Now, background picture starts to appear in faded white.
4>Click on Elliptical Marquee tool and drag from top left to bottom right of the back ground picture.
5>Go to Select>> then click on Feather botton as shown above. Enter a value of 50 (depends on the size of your photo). Then click OK. >>Next go to Edit>> then click on Clear (to get rid of the elliptical).
Cambodia, the golden land (Sovanaphoum) stretched from present-day Thailand to the northern present-day Laos, to southern present-day south Vietnam. The Khmer Angkorians have left traces of culture, styles, tradition, architects throughout these countries. Khmer land have been stolen and invade endlessly, Khmer blood have been slaughtered by land mongers, what is left now is the memories and heritage of our ancestors, Angkor wat still erects to stand the Khmer pride. It was built by the blood and sweat of these great men. We are the children of these great men, we must survive. Although we lost our land, we shall not loose our spirit. Our king father said, Cambodia soon will become a tiny country like Monaco. We shall never let this happen, it’s our land, our right to live. Khmer must unite with heart, mind and soul and strength, otherwise, Cambodia will be wiped from the face of this earth.
This photograph was taken at a Japanese market but the produce is sold by Chinese. I found it unusual fruit(?). I am not quite sure what it is, it belongs to the citrus family. It looks like lemon with fingers. The Chinese called it Buddhas hand. I was going to buy it but the price was too much for just trying. $10.00 for five-six fingers is pretty expensive.
The reason behind it is that by putting too many images or videos on the same page, it gets very heavy. I noticed some of my viewers have dial-up internet connection. This can cause lots frustration to view the page, it can be very slow. My apologies!
*Satrey Khmer Online is over four months old, I am still working on my site. Occasionally, you may see changes in layout, themes, words editing after each post. Pardon me for the inconvenient. IT is a ballpark, I am still learning and developing my site.
Your input is important, I would greatly appreciate any advice or ideas.
Cambodian ancient stone inscription under the reign of HM King Udayaditiyavarman II “Udaya Aditiya = the Rising Sun” (circa A.D 11th century), found at an ancient Khmer temple in Nokor Reachak Seima “Nakhon Ratchasima, present-day Thailand.”
The inscription said “If I will be rewarded for my meritorious acts, I wish to be reborn in Kampuja [again].” If one studies the culture and tradition of Khmer people in depth, one will understand why Khmer people those days were very proud race and “loved their nation.” It is a history of an ancient extravaganza. The culture that spread throughout Thailand, Laos and most southeast Asia.
Mr. Khem Chantha, a Khmer artist who won first prize in the Cambodia National Artist contest in 2000. Mr. Khem Chantha art work depicts the beauty and the darkness of Cambodia’s daily life. His skill is a masterpiece! I’ve never seen anything like this, his arts look so real. I used to learn about world art when I was in college, I can say he’s better than Monet, Pablo, Vincent van Gogh… they cannot beat Mr. Khem Chantha’s talent! As soon as I saw his paintings, I am deeply in love with them. I cannot help looking at them over and over again…. breathless and priceless. It seriously gives me goose bump. All I can say is…. WOW! How did he do that? Some people are born with special talent indeed. I’d like readers to visit his site to see why I am confident to say that his works exceed some of the western artists.
“The original wedding dance performed by Khmer Krom dancers from the Mekong Delta.”
Brief hisotry of Khmer Krom: Khmer Krom are Cambodian from lower Cambodia or southern Cambodia. They have been inhibiting in this territory since the first century, they are also known as Khmer Nokor Phnom or Funan(in Chinese pronunciation). This part of Cambodia was invaded and illegally transferred and later became “south Vietnam” on June, 1949. This capital city of lower Cambodia was Preynokor. Prey means forest, Nokor means great, huge and luxurious. Preynokor, the great huge luxurious forest. Preynokor city was Cambodia’s center of economic and trade. Merchants around the globe such as Arabs, China, India came to buy/sell and exchange goods. The Vietnamese confiscated Cambodia’s most important city and renamed to Saigon or Ho Chi Minh city. According to Khmer Krom source, currently there are more than 8 million Cambodian living in “present-day Vietnam.” Almost the size of midland Cambodia. Under the communist authority, south Cambodian have been living under suppression and oppression. All Cambodian must change their names to Vietnamese, all Cambodian signs must be bulldozed and rebuild with new signs in Vietnamese language, temples and the monks community are being monitored by Vietnamese government.
I spent my whole evening watching presidential debate between senator Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton in Ohio. The greatest presidential debate I’ve ever lived through my life. And it IS a record that never a woman nor strong African American candidate in the American history. This is an eye opening. The two were very intellectual and civil people. What was very interesting is how they handled some tough hypothetical questions and how each take criticism. This what I want to see in Cambodia. I’ve learned about professionalism and I truly think this is how leaders should be for the role model of the countries. NOT about power, angers and intimidation. In this sense, “Cambodia’s” current government leaders are very primitive and uncivilized.
Being a president is a very tough position, one would have to be able to handle issue on all level and about anything both national and international, know how to be ready on tough issue which can be beyond comprehension. I like both candidates and I have great respect for the two, Hillary came from a very strong background years of experience in the office and has traveled to eighty countries, amazing lady! The woman whom I have always admired. There are some part which I disagree with her during the debate where she accused Obama on plagiarism to boost the votes, that was very very low-cheap approach, it changed a slight image of her. Obama clashed Clinton over the war in Iraq, Health Care and NAFTA which Hillary and her husband voted and I am not too crazy about their support.
