Cherished holiday arrives for Cambodian community [in Stockton]

Monk Kong Tith works on renovating the main stage last month in preparation for the Cambodian New Year celebration that starts today at Wat Dhammararam Buddhist Temple on Carpenter Road in south Stockton.CALIXTRO ROMIAS/The Record

New Year celebration to draw thousands to Stockton temple

By Elizabeth Roberts
Record Staff Writer
April 13, 2012

STOCKTON - Thousands of people will converge this weekend on the Wat Dhammararam Buddhist Temple for the Cambodian New Year festival to mark the end of the Buddhist year 2555 and the beginning of 2556, year of the Dragon.

The event draws people from all over the region to celebrate the New Year. It is the year's most significant holiday for Cambodians, who number more than 16,000 in Stockton, giving the city one of the largest concentrations in the nation.

Held each year in early spring, the celebration blends traditional dances, games, foods and rituals with modern entertainment at the Carpenter Road temple, a special source of pride and connection for the local Cambodian community. Wat Dhammararam is among the largest Cambodian Buddhist temples in California, and temple leaders envision it as a Northern California hub of Cambodian culture.
Preview

Cambodian New Year celebrations run today through Sunday and include entertainment, games and food.

When: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. today and

Saturday; 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday

Where: Wat Dhammararam Buddhist Temple, 3732 E. Carpenter Road,

Stockton

"I remember going to the temple when it was merely a mobile home in rural Stockton," recalls Sophaline Mao, who grew up in Stockton and is co-founder of Association of Khmer-American Professionals of Northern California. "Since its humble beginnings, I have seen the temple evolve into what it has become today - a sanctuary for those who seek Buddhist spirituality from the everyday stresses, families who come to offer their sons into monkhood or seek spiritual advice/blessings from the monks. It is the one place that members of the Cambodian community feel connected, a bit of their 'old home' in this new country.

"Going to the temple for the New Year ... is the next best thing to visiting a home that they left three decades ago."

The official new year - Chaul Chnam Thmey in Khmer, literally "Enter Year New" - starts at 7:11 p.m. today to mark the descent down on a water buffalo of the new year angel, Khemara Tevy, the sixth daughter of Kabil Moha Prum - he who oversees all the realms. This year's special offering to Khemara Tevy will be bananas, so each household will offer them on an altar for this year's angel, along with sweets, desserts, drinks and cosmetics to welcome her in hopes that she will offer protection and blessings for the entire family.

The New Year celebration is the temple's biggest event of the year, and visitors this year will see improvements to the grounds and a new stage alongside the unique garden of senior monk Kong Tith's massive sculptures that depict the story of the life of Siddhartha Gautama, the man who would become Buddha. Along with the chance to observe the traditions of the culture and pray and offer incense at the large sand mounds, visitors come to pray with, make offerings to and receive special blessings from the monks at the temple.

Many times, these prayers help ease the pain and trauma still lingering from the country's genocide from 1975-1979, which left about 1.7 million people - one-fifth of Cambodia's population - dead, according to Yale University's Cambodian Genocide Program.

"Every family that goes will often pay respects and remember their family members who were lost during the Khmer Rouge regime," explained Mao, who works in global sales and as a training analyst at Salesforce.com while she pursues dual master's degrees at the University of San Francisco. "During those days, there were no proper funerals or religious ceremonies for the deceased, and so it is very common that family members will visit the temple to simply remember those who passed during that horrible time in Cambodia."

Events such as this week's celebration become, at least in part, a means of preserving age-old traditions in the lives of the young, allowing "the parents' and grandparents' generations to share and preserve the culture and religion with their American-born children and grandchildren who may not even speak Khmer that fluently," Mao added. "As a Cambodian-American, we always knew that we got to celebrate TWO New Years a year - on Jan. 1 with the rest of the world, and uniquely on April 13-15 with our fellow Cambodians."

Contact staff writer Elizabeth Roberts at (209) 546-8268 or eroberts@recordnet.com.