Holidays in Cambodia, 2016

Religious holidays, UN nominated days, national commemorations – visitors are often confused by unexpected holidays.

Confused by all the unexpected holidays in Cambodia? Booking a journey and wanting to include Pchum Ben?  Here’s an official list of holidays in Cambodia – 2016

January 01	International New Year Day
January 07	Victory over Genocide Day
February 22	Meak Bochea Day
March 08	International Women Day
April 13, 14, 15, 16	Khmer New Year Day
May 01	International Labor Day
May 13, 14, 15	King’s Birthday, Norodom Sihamoni
May 20	Visak Bochea Day
May 24	Royal Plowing Ceremony
June 01	International Children Day
June 18	King’s Mother Birthday, Norodom Monineath Sihanouk
September 24	Constitutional Day
September 30, October 01, 02 (Note, some sources include October 3rd as well.)	Pchum Ben Day – or Ancestors Day
October 15	Commemoration Day of King’s Father, Norodom Sihanouk
October 23	Paris Peace Agreements Day
October 29	King’s Coronation Day, Norodom Sihamoni
November 09	Independence Day
November 13, 14, 15	Water Festival Ceremony
December 10	International Human Rights Day

Big Trouble at Killing Fields Pagoda

Praying for a harmonious, righteous future.

In late 2004, I was working in my New Zealand office when a startling email arrived. It was sent from an internet cafe near Pub Street, Siem Reap where half an hour online cost poor students two dollars.  Back then internet access was not common.

The startling thing about the email was the headline: Big Trouble at Killing Fields Pagoda.

An incident had occurred at Wat Thmey which is on the northern edge of Siem Reap. This is the general scene of the local killing fields; though an international hotel now occupies some of that tragic land. Wat Thmey, because of its location and history has, since the late 1990s, seen a lot of tourist buses.  It is a reflective place to visit I feel, with the stupa containing skulls and bones collected by my friend Savong’s father – pictured above.

But what was the Big Trouble? It turns out a couple of the senior monks were pocketing most of the donations from visiting groups – mostly Japanese and Koreans – and were doing this at the expense of the wider work of the monastery which ran a school, gave homes to homeless children, and trained young monks.

Savong described how a big group of locals had gathered, how angry words were exchanged and how the ‘bad monks’ had been sent packing. A case of village justice I think.

That account quickly unravelled my beautifully stitched together impression of all monks as being very holy people. As with any faith we might care to name; there are bound to be a few bad apples.

Here the lead paragraph from a 2010 story:

Two Cambodian Buddhist monks have been arrested in the popular tourist city of Siem Reap for smoking crystal methamphetamine along with two women in their pagoda.

Or from the Phnom Penh Post, again in 2010.

Phnom Penh – Following the turmoil surrounding the distribution by Bluetooth phone of videos showing several naked women taking their holy bath, the police uncovered more than 300 other pictures in the phone memory of a former monk. The pictures were recovered during a search and arrest made on 26 June 2010. Some of pictures were videos while others were still photos.

In that case the monk was defrocked, (he changed into civilian clothes,) before his arrest.

In 2015 in Phnom Penh six monks were arrested after beating up a mot driver, but charges were dropped. The story is complicated, but the Cambodia Daily account suggests that the driver is the one who started the fracas. He was compensated a million riel.

In 2016 there have been at least three news stories: two very serious cases of rape by individual monks, and just recently a case of 19 young Cambodian monks arrested in Phuket, Thailand for failing to have visas into Thailand, and for soliciting – begging for cash.

Stories like these occur from time to time and rightfully shock the Cambodian community, but unless I’m badly mistaken, the Buddhist church does not cover things up or further victimise victims.

I should end on a note of warning. Not all monks are legitimate. Read this excerpt from the helpful website MoveToCambodia.com

The fake monk scam. Fake monks are usually Chinese and are often (but not always) dressed in brown or mustard-colored robes, unlike the bright orange garb of their authentic Khmer counterpart, and will wear pants underneath their robes. They are usually middle-aged, while most Cambodian monks are in their twenties or even younger. Fake monks don’t usually speak any Khmer and very little English, other than to demand more money. They often wear wooden prayer beads and offer people bracelets or amulets. Fake monks will often collect money well into the night, unlike real monks who only collect in the morning. Perhaps most importantly, it’s reported that they don’t seem to know anything about Buddhism.

Love that last telltale detail!

Another characteristic of fake monks is that they argue and insist you give more than the few riel or dollars you may have donated. They’re big trouble.

For more: Another case of village justice.

 

 

In Cambodia, on a Galaxy not so far away

One pair of figures from the Asia Foundation study into mobile and internet in Cambodia, sums up the growth of smart-phone usage. In two years smart-phones doubled in market share, and if anything that growth is accelerating. By the end of this year more than half of all mobiles will be smart-phones.

Below we see who is getting the business: Samsung, for now, has half the smart-phone market, spearheaded with its Galaxy phones.

According to the report smart-phones are becoming increasingly a preferred source of news, weather and information.

Cambodia may have made a late start, but most of the country have skipped landline technology, PC computing and have jumped straight into the possibilities of 4G. A process that took the west at least 5 decades.

For more mobile phone facts and figures – click here.

 

 

Cambodia: phone ownership hits saturation

The recent Asia Foundation report shows how rapidly smartphones have become part of the social and business landscape.

One of the most precise indicators of progress in Cambodia is the degree of ownership of telephones – and the percentage of those that are smartphones. No data in this crazy dis-aggregated market can surpass that of a well conducted market research study – and the report compiled for the Asia Foundation Mobile Phones & Internet in Cambodia 2015   is a great thorough study that surprised me in a couple of areas. The main points:

• Mobile phone ownership has basically reached saturation.  99% of adults 18-65 own a mobile.
• The market is dominated by low-end budget phones as well as by showy high-end phones that convey status, while mid range phones under-perform in this market.
• Smart phones have doubled in share from 20% of all phones in 2013 to 40% by the end of 2015.
• Khmer enabled phones are now dominant. They made up 30% of phones in 2013 but now account for 63% of Cambodian phones.

The Khmerisation of mobile –  which was technically enabled just a decade ago, has a profound effect potentially. Instead of adapting around English for texting or for online behaviour, Cambodians can do it in their mother language.

I wonder if this simple fact will dampen the seemingly universal desire among young people to learn English. What do you think?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For more on modernisation click here Growth of FaceBook in Cambodia or here  The Electric Village.

Smart-phones: on a Galaxy not so far away.

I hope you find this blog useful and interesting. Let us know if there is any Cambodian topic you’d like to see covered.

The Rabbit and the Earthquake. A Cambodian folk tale.

While many Cambodian folk tales feature Judge Rabbit as the smart wise-guy, other tales portray the rabbit as a nervous, less intelligent animal. In this story, rabbit’s nervousness leads to mass hysteria and an encounter with a creature I never expected in Cambodian folklore: the lordly Lion.  I don’t know how this creature from Africa ever popped up in Cambodian folklore, but I guess these tales travelled at some stage along the silk road a thousand years ago.

The other thing that fascinates me about this story is the reference to an earthquake. There have not been many earthquakes in Cambodia, yet everyone knows they can be frightening.

This is my retelling of the story.

THE NERVOUS RABBIT AND THE PALM FRUIT

A nervous rabbit lived under a palm tree near a forest. Like most rabbits he was always listening out for danger.

On this hot afternoon he was sound asleep, when a ripe palm fruit fell down on the ground nearby. The crackling sound as the palm fruit fell on the dried palm leaves woke the rabbit with a start!

Alarmed, the nervous rabbit jumped up: “It’s an earthquake!” Without looking behind he began running. There was no time for a backward glance, he had to escape the danger!

The herd of oxen saw him running past at high speed and, chewing on grass, one of them called out: “Rabbit! Why are you running so fast? What’s the matter?” Even the oxen were feeling jumpy now, after all, the rabbit looked totally frightened.

The Rabbit shouted in haste “Brother Oxen! It’s an earthquake! There’s no time to chew! Run for your lives!”

The Oxen began to run too. An earthquake? This could be dangerous!

The oxen and the rabbit soon met the Pigs and Deer. Startled, they too began running, joining the Oxen and the Rabbit. The Pigs heaved themselves forward and put on a burst of speed. No earthquake was going to catch these fat pigs!

When the Elephants saw them running, they too, asked “Why are you running? What is the matter?”

The Oxen told them “Haven’t you heard? The earthquake is coming!” Hearing this story, the Elephants joined them. When they all reached the Lion’s den, the clever Lion, seeing all the panic-stricken animals, stretched his paws and casually asked the Elephants, “What’s up? Why are you running?”

The Elephants were out of breath. “We don’t exactly know for sure. We saw the Oxen running. We heard something about an earthquake.”

So the Lion, lazily shook his mane and asked the Oxen, “Did you guys actually feel the earthquake?”

The Oxen confessed, “Well not directly, no.  We saw the Rabbit running, so we ran after him. He looked very frightened.”

The Lion asked the Deer and the Pigs, and they answered likewise.

“Hmmmn,” said the Lion. And he turned to face the Rabbit. “This earthquake.  Just how serious was it?” All the animals looked at the rabbit. They waited for his reply.

“I’m not too sure, myself. While I was sound asleep under a palm tree, I heard the sound of the earth breaking up.  It was a sharp crackling sound. I was afraid and began to run.”

“So you heard something but didn’t actually feel anything?” asked the Lion. “You didn’t feel the ground move beneath you?”

“No,” admitted the rabbit. “But the sound I heard; it was pretty terrifying.”

Arching his back and standing up, the Lion spoke: “All of you, come with me.” And slowly, swinging his tail, he led all the panicky animals to Rabbit’s palm tree. He showed them the cracked palm fruit lying on the ground. “There’s your earthquake,” said the Lion.

The embarrassed animals gave the Rabbit a sound rebuke and slowly went back to their own places.

• I have retold this tale and my source material is the Blog: Khmeridentification
• For more about Earthquakes in Cambodia
• For another Cambodian Folk Tale – You Can’t Please Everyone

Debt and poverty in Cambodia

The photo of offerings, above, is one I took during Pchum Benh in 2015 near Siem Reap. I’ve been fascinated time and again by how consumer goods are such a price in Cambodia, relative to incomes, that cigarettes are often sold individually, at least in rural markets, rather than in packs. When you choose to buy one cigarette at a time, there is a thin line between solvency and debt.

I’ve been considering lately how poor Cambodians can climb out of poverty. There is a universal desire to get ahead, but there are no easy avenues to wealth for the poor to travel. Lenders who might advance some capital, for example through a MFI or micro-finance institution are not just lending against the ability of a borrower to give their business venture their very all; they are also lending against the high tide of risks faced by lower income people who live, daily, on the precipice of disaster. A crop failure. A stolen motorbike. An illness. Westerners are well insulated from such set-backs, we have insurances or sufficient economic resilience to take these things in our stride.

MFIs also face another risk – and that is the prospect that the borrower, desperate to raise enough capital to start a thriving business, already has loans with other micro-finance organisations. The risk isn’t about dishonesty so much as about financial literacy. The hopeful entrepreneur can only see the upside without appreciating the very high risks they face.

This is causing concern for micro-finance institutions of which there are around 45 registered organisations that are signatories to a shared set of operating principles and are members of a well-respected industry association, the Cambodia Micro-finance Association.  Together these MFIs have lent to 1.8 million borrowers, which is around one in every five adults aged 22+ – a staggering number.

Or it may be less staggering, given that a significant proportion of borrowers appear to have loans from more than one MFI (which is a practice actively discouraged by the lenders themselves.) Some of these are savvy borrowers, calling into question the idea of ‘one client: one loan.’

But not all borrowers are in this boat. Some are taking out extra loans because they are having trouble meeting existing debts.

Just as troubling, a report cited in The Guardian in March 2015, conducted by the Institute of Development, found that half the borrowers had taken such measures as eating less, or eating poor quality food in order to meet their repayments. Talk about a thin line between solvency and debt.

MFIs are adapting to the changing marketplace, but a general conclusion drawn from a 2007 Stanford Social Innovation Review study, by Aneel Karnani, into the effectiveness of micro-finance concluded that the service works for those above the poverty line, but often fails – deeply – when it comes to serving the needs of those below the line.

If the MFIs are adjusting to the market, and serving a growing class of more financially savvy customers (only a 15 years ago banks were having trouble attracting retail customers who had lost everything under previous regimes,) there is another problem in the sector: the unregistered lenders of which, there are estimated to be 60 in operation, and that’s not counting the traditional pawn-brokers in Cambodia.

In fact the Government’s financial strategy blueprint Financial Sector Development Strategy 2011-2020 ,expressly tasks the Cambodian Micro-finance Association (CMA) with bringing rogue operators under their umbrella and developing stronger consumer-friendly rules with which to self-govern members as well as introducing financial literacy programs to help educate the public.

The regulation of pawn brokers and money lenders is a harder task, but the Financial Sector strategy has these operators in their sights. Again there will be a focus on developing rules that help protect borrowers from over-zealous lending, or the onerous penalties of repayment failure. A frequent practice right now is to use farmland as collateral, and if a borrower gets behind, well, they lose everything.

Getting ahead usually requires capital. Unfortunately for the very poor, the best lenders may be of some benefit, but the marketplace is full of dangers. I think Risk is a concept about which every student needs to be taught. Some education may help keep some more people on the right side of that thin line.

• For the Guardian Article – DROWNING IN DEBT – CAMBODIA’S POOR. A fine piece of reporting.