World Vision staff and street children in Cambodia celebrate Christmas together. (Haidy Ear-Dupuy/WV).
By Peter Starr
Rasmei Kampuchea Daily
Publication Date : 23-12-2011
Original article here.
In recent years, December 25 has taken on added significance in Cambodia, especially among young people.
No longer only does it only commemorate the 1978 advance of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge defectors and Vietnamese volunteer soldiers which led to the liberation of Phnom Penh two weeks later on January 7, 1979.
Although not a public holiday, it also refers to the celebration of Christmas (Noel in French), a widely-recognised Christian holiday that many young Cambodians are now increasingly eager to celebrate.
With the prospect of presents, insisting even.
Like the Lunar New Year feted by Chinese and Vietnamese in late January or early February, and also like the Khmer-Lao-Myanmar-Thai New Year in April, and the end of the fasting month of Ramadan for Muslims, Christmas is a time for offering gifts to one's family and friends. It's also a time for celebration. But what is it really all about?
Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, a Jew living in what is now Palestine, by "immaculate conception" which means his parents supposedly never had sex. This occurred 2,000 years ago and ultimately led to his crucifixion by Romans for his claiming to be the "King of the Jews" some 33 years later since he was a potential rival to the emperor in Rome.
Americans meanwhile discovered in the 20th century that Europe's tradition of Christmas was a consumer money spinner, leading to many to regret that the "true spirit of Christmas" (the supposedly "immaculate" birth of Christ) had been lost. Maybe for good reason.
The evidence of American consumerism is in all those tacky decorations and "Christmas songs" seen and heard in Phnom Penh supermarkets and department stores today.
These days, however, most of this Christmas hype comes from China.
The Financial Times, a British newspaper, reported earlier this month, for example, that exports were up about 10 per cent in Yiwu, a manufacturing centre in eastern Zhejiang province that claims to be the "Christmas ornament capital of the world."
Over the past three years, it said, the number of Christmas decoration manufacturers in Yiwu has snowballed from 80 to 600.
"Christmas is like Chinese New Year: even poor people have to celebrate it," Chen Jinlin, head of the Yiwu Christmas Products Association, was quoted as saying.
"Hotels, kindergartens, schools, supermarkets, they all have Christmas decorations. As people born after the 1980s and 1990s grow up, the culture is having a growing influence."
The chairman of Zhejiang Youlide Arts and Crafts Company reportedly told the newspaper that locals wanted "more extravagant" items than foreigners as they were often used for marketing at malls, restaurants, hotels and office buildings.
"The domestic market is more profitable," he was quoted as saying.
"Foreigners know how much these things should cost, but domestic customers have just started celebrating Christmas and they have no idea."
If Chinese have no idea, why should Cambodians not?
It's true that growing numbers of people want to celebrate Christmas in this country. But at the same time, naive Cambodians who fret that Christmas is somehow eroding Buddhist values or morality should think again.
My first Christmas in Asia was 25 years ago in in 1986 in Hong Kong, then a British colony. Most of my Buddhist Chinese friends celebrated the public holiday by going to nightclubs with silly red hats and getting very drunk.
A few years later in Tokyo, I found that all of my Japanese friends, without exception, ignored Christmas. This was not unexpected. Banks were open, the Tokyo Stock Exchange was functioning and December 25 was a normal working day. As it was in China and Taiwan as well as Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. And as it will be this year once again, when many countries grind to a halt on Monday, even if they're not Christian.
These countries have little reason for celebrating Christmas, which is nothing but an obscure Christian festival introduced by Portuguese, Dutch and French colonial merchants (and later the post-UNTAC crowd of Western people living in Phnom Penh).
Christmas should never be a public holiday in Cambodia. But enterprising people should at least try to make money from Christmas decorations.
Publication Date : 23-12-2011
Original article here.
In recent years, December 25 has taken on added significance in Cambodia, especially among young people.
No longer only does it only commemorate the 1978 advance of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge defectors and Vietnamese volunteer soldiers which led to the liberation of Phnom Penh two weeks later on January 7, 1979.
Although not a public holiday, it also refers to the celebration of Christmas (Noel in French), a widely-recognised Christian holiday that many young Cambodians are now increasingly eager to celebrate.
With the prospect of presents, insisting even.
Like the Lunar New Year feted by Chinese and Vietnamese in late January or early February, and also like the Khmer-Lao-Myanmar-Thai New Year in April, and the end of the fasting month of Ramadan for Muslims, Christmas is a time for offering gifts to one's family and friends. It's also a time for celebration. But what is it really all about?
Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, a Jew living in what is now Palestine, by "immaculate conception" which means his parents supposedly never had sex. This occurred 2,000 years ago and ultimately led to his crucifixion by Romans for his claiming to be the "King of the Jews" some 33 years later since he was a potential rival to the emperor in Rome.
Americans meanwhile discovered in the 20th century that Europe's tradition of Christmas was a consumer money spinner, leading to many to regret that the "true spirit of Christmas" (the supposedly "immaculate" birth of Christ) had been lost. Maybe for good reason.
The evidence of American consumerism is in all those tacky decorations and "Christmas songs" seen and heard in Phnom Penh supermarkets and department stores today.
These days, however, most of this Christmas hype comes from China.
The Financial Times, a British newspaper, reported earlier this month, for example, that exports were up about 10 per cent in Yiwu, a manufacturing centre in eastern Zhejiang province that claims to be the "Christmas ornament capital of the world."
Over the past three years, it said, the number of Christmas decoration manufacturers in Yiwu has snowballed from 80 to 600.
"Christmas is like Chinese New Year: even poor people have to celebrate it," Chen Jinlin, head of the Yiwu Christmas Products Association, was quoted as saying.
"Hotels, kindergartens, schools, supermarkets, they all have Christmas decorations. As people born after the 1980s and 1990s grow up, the culture is having a growing influence."
The chairman of Zhejiang Youlide Arts and Crafts Company reportedly told the newspaper that locals wanted "more extravagant" items than foreigners as they were often used for marketing at malls, restaurants, hotels and office buildings.
"The domestic market is more profitable," he was quoted as saying.
"Foreigners know how much these things should cost, but domestic customers have just started celebrating Christmas and they have no idea."
If Chinese have no idea, why should Cambodians not?
It's true that growing numbers of people want to celebrate Christmas in this country. But at the same time, naive Cambodians who fret that Christmas is somehow eroding Buddhist values or morality should think again.
My first Christmas in Asia was 25 years ago in in 1986 in Hong Kong, then a British colony. Most of my Buddhist Chinese friends celebrated the public holiday by going to nightclubs with silly red hats and getting very drunk.
A few years later in Tokyo, I found that all of my Japanese friends, without exception, ignored Christmas. This was not unexpected. Banks were open, the Tokyo Stock Exchange was functioning and December 25 was a normal working day. As it was in China and Taiwan as well as Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. And as it will be this year once again, when many countries grind to a halt on Monday, even if they're not Christian.
These countries have little reason for celebrating Christmas, which is nothing but an obscure Christian festival introduced by Portuguese, Dutch and French colonial merchants (and later the post-UNTAC crowd of Western people living in Phnom Penh).
Christmas should never be a public holiday in Cambodia. But enterprising people should at least try to make money from Christmas decorations.
2 comments:
Cambodia doesnt need excessive western ideas. so or later it will be white man this and tht. so stupid. Westernisation its just a indirect form of western imperialism, So a country has to be westernised just be civilsed, what bullshit. Eastern civilization was never INFERIOR but westernisation means just tht. But its sad because all over N-East Asia and S-East Asia many of us are so doped with this junk that we are all looking down on each other. MOdernisation should not come at a cost to asian society or civilization or we risk losing our ROOTS. as a person living in a western world everyday asian women are portray as sexualised ojbects and asian men as weird. But hearing this coming from cambodia is really worrying me.
pertkhmerguy
and the level of perverts and peodophiles flooding asia its a disease that shoul be eradicated. but the recent relase of russian criminal is so damaging, even his OWN FUCKIN country wants him from his crime BUT THE RGC REFUSED, becasue his an investor on koh kong project, mate TAKE UR DIRT MONEY AWAY FROM CAMBODIA AND ALL POLITICIANS WHO RELEASE THIS SHOULD SHOOT THEM SELVES. the king is so stupid to sign his pardon ( for the first time in mylife I degrade him)
perthkhmerguy
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