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30/03/2023

30/03/2023

29/03/2023

28/03/2023

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27/03/2023

Dany in Khmer New Year

Cambodian people celebrate Khmer New Year in April every year. It is coming soon. Dany is thinking about activities that she will do. First, she will go to the pagoda in the village with her parents.
She will offer food to the monks. She will take the lotus, candles and incense to the Buddha statues. She will pray to the Buddha and angel for good health, happiness and good luck. Second,she will visit her grandparents' house . Finally, she might play Angkunh and other Khmer traditional games with her friends, but she might not sing and dance.

Answer the question
1. When is Khmer New Year?
2. What will she do first on Khmer New Year’s days?
3. What will she do next?
4. What might she do last?
5. Do you think she will have a happy time?

27/03/2023

Learning From The Past

Dara: Would you like to attend Pchum Ben in my village, Susan?
Susan: Thank you, Dara. Is that when you go to the pagoda to pay your respects to your ancestors?
Dara: Yes, that's right. I want to pay my respects to my ancestors and especially to those who died during the Khmer Rouge regime. I believe you worked in the border camps during that time?
Susan: Yes, that's right..
Dara: So you must have known what was happening?
Susan: Yes. Many people told me about their experiences. I remember trying to calm their feelings. It was difficult, but if I were them, how would I have felt? Sometimes I found their stories really hard to bear.

Dara: When I look back, it's like remembering a nightmare.
Susan: If I were you, I think I'd try to forget about it.
Dara : Yes, but if we forget, it's like closing our eyes while a dangerous animal creeps up on us. We must know about the past in order to learn from it, otherwise more people will be killed and our society, culture and traditions will be turned upside down again. So I would rather remember that past than forget or ignore it.

Vocabulary

1. Bear (V) អត់ធន់
2. Calm (v) ធ្វើឱ្យចិត្តស្ងប់
3. Camp ជំរុំ
4. Creep(V) ដើរថ្នមៗមិនឲ្យលឺ
5. Nightmareសុបិន្តអាក្រក់
6. Regime (n) សម័យ/ របប
7. Upside-down ( Phrase) ប្រែក្រឡាប់

27/03/2023

At a funeral

A Khmer funeral is both a regular ceremony that we may experience any day and part of our ancient culture and tradition. We ought to be able to learn something from it.
Some one we knew and loved is now nothing but bone and ash. How is it possible? How can someone we knew, who was active, who we loved become just bone and ash? But this is the body, which is actually made up of earth, fire, water and air. When it is cremated, it returns again to these four elements. Examine the ash and bones, which are displayed after the cremation. The bones now look like coal dug out of the earth. They are hot, but after the heat they may be poured gently into the cool river, or blown into the air by the wind, or thrown onto the field like seeds for planting. But are these scenes the whole story?
When we attend a funeral, we may start to think about our own. We may say, “If we both come into the world with nothing and leave with nothing, what does our life mean? Does it mean anything? This is the same question that the Buddha asked many years ago. He also answered it.
What is born, dies. That is the story of both the body and all material things. If we think we are our body, the story ends there. But if we examine who we are and understand that we are not our body, then we may begin to recognize something else. “There is that which is not born, which does not die”

Questions
1. Why should we be able to learn something from Khmer funerals?
2. How does our body return to the four elements?
3. We come into the world and leave the world with nothing. What does “nothing "mean here?
4. How can we examine who we are, do you think?
5. Who said, “There is that which is not born, which does not die ” do you think?