Top is Bochan's rendition of "I am 16" (Chhnam Aun Dop Pram Muoy) and below is the original "I am 16" sung by the golden voice of Ros Serey Sothea.
Cambodian-American singer Bochan was born Phnom Penh and grew up in Oakland.
Cambodia was a pretty cool place to be in the 1960s and early ’70s.
Psychedelic rock music was introduced to the country by North American
soldiers during the Vietnam War. But when the communist Khmer Rouge
took over the country in 1975, they killed all the singers and banned
music (and books and dancing and poetry and pretty much anything fun or
intellectually stimulating). Not surprisingly, many fled the country to
avoid execution, but they still hold onto those rock songs as memories
of better times.
Like Bochan Huy
and her family. Bochan, now 33 and a singer in Oakland, almost died
before coming to the U.S. She says her family fled Cambodia as refugees
in 1980. They had to cross the jungle to the Thai border in the middle
of the night, while dodging bullets from Vietnamese troops. Bochan’s
mom, Sein Huy, says Bochan was one month at all the time. Read the full article and listen to more songs here.
No comments:
Post a Comment