Obama given servant's greeting by Cambodian first lady.
Credits: Investor's Business Daily
Phnom Penh, Nov. 23 (ANI): US President Barack Obama's historic first trip to Southeast Asia ended with a questionably disrespectful greeting Cambodia's First Lady Bun Rany shared with him.
Obama became the first ever U.S. president to visit Cambodia earlier
this week, when he ended his four-day visit to the region by attending
the annual East Asia Summit it was hosting.
The president had made it clear he was only in Cambodia to attend the summit.
According to the Daily Mail, Obama met Prime Minister Hun Sen
that White House officials described as tense, with the president
emphasizing his concerns over the Cambodian leader's poor democratic
leadership model and the country's worsening human rights abuses.
Just before dinner, Sen formally introduced his wife, Cambodia's First Lady Bun Rany, to the president.
Rany greeted Obama with the traditional 'sampeah' greeting, a pressed-hands gesture that signifies respect for a person.
Where a person's hands are placed
and how deeply they bow during the gesture indicates their level of
respect for the person they are greeting, the report said.
Rany placed her hands at chest
level and tilted the upper half of her body slightly, leading the
editorial board at Investor's Business Daily to believe that she was
showing disrespect to the president, the report added.
"First lady Bun Rany greeted
Obama with a traditional "sampeah" pressed-hands greeting reserved for
servants, a little dig that was probably lost on him but not to Asians,'
the editorial board wrote.
A sampeah at mouth level is
reserved for bosses, elders or higher-ranking people. For parents,
grandparents or teachers, a sampeah is typically raised to nose level
and when saluting the king or monks, the sampeah is raised to eyebrow
level, the report said.
According to Investor's Business Daily and a few bloggers, however, Rany's sampeah was only 'fit for a servant'. (ANI)
3 comments:
Khmer tradition woman not shak hand with man.
Nothing wrong with this greeting Bunrany did a good job for her parts to greeted Mr Obama in khmers'traditional way,the article writer is very ignorant in his/her parts to say shit without the facts check! This how khmer's greeting each others during their first meeting.Mr Obama advisors did their part right by advised Mr Obama to greet Bunrany the way he had done.There was nothing wrong,this was khmers tradition passed down ever since Cambodia called Kambuja long before khmers empire.We don't pass germs to one another by hand shaking like foreigners did,we (sompeah) each other like Bunrany and Obama in the picture.
Can the so called "experts" tells me what is wrong with this greeting between the first lady and the President of USA? The answer is NOTHING! they greet one another correctly with respectfully and traditionally right.
Kmenhwatt
The article is out of date and baseless.
Please do not think silly like this.
You took a photo of them, then you judge a person as disrespectful to another person?
Is it so idiot to write a 1000 words about a wrong propaganda?
I think the writers, ANI or Joe Newby should go back to school again.
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