PHNOM PENH – A ceremony was held Sunday to open Cambodia’s first dedicated school for Japanese children living in the country.
The Japanese School of Phnom Penh, which consists of an elementary and junior high school, has 21 students and 14 teachers and is about 1.5 km northeast of Phnom Penh International Airport.
According to the education ministry, it is the 89th Japanese school to be opened overseas.
“It is my hope that this school will serve as a bridge between Cambodia and Japan. I want to make it the most exciting school in the world,” Principal Nobuhiro Miura said at the ceremony.
Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron told the gathering he expects to see the school improve the living conditions of Japanese in Cambodia, and to see an increase in local investment by Japanese companies.
Attracted by Cambodia’s rapid economic growth and cheap labor, many of Japan’s firms have established offices and factories there in recent years.
According to the Japanese Embassy in Phnom Penh, the number of Japanese residents in Cambodia now exceeds 2,300, more than double the number five years ago. The number of employees transferred from Japan and who have taken their families with them has also risen, a factor that led to calls for the establishment of a Japanese school.
Groups including the Japanese Business Association of Cambodia set up a Japanese school establishment preparation committee in 2013, and the following year the school was approved by the education ministry in Tokyo. Classes began in April, the same time that the school year traditionally starts in Japan.
1 comment:
You have to be careful with the Japanese living in Cambodia. These people identify themselves more readily with the Vietnamese rather than the Khmer people. Khmer always boast that they can easily identify a Japanese person from those of the Vietnamese stock, but oh are they dead wrong. Remember what the Japanese did to the Khmer territory back in the day. They dismembered parts of Cambodia and granted them to their ally Thailand. In fact, even the trustworthy, nonthreatening Chinese also carved a territory inside Cambodia for themselves and later on they detached it for the Vietnamese aggressors. Read up on the "Chinese Kingdom" found in Cambodia at Peam by Tana Li.
There are some Japanese who currently live in Cambodia and they hate everything Cambodian ranging from language, customs, music, show, and food. For example, there is this one Japanese guy who sell coffee drinks to the Cambodians. He wrote that the Cambodians do not trust the Vietnamese and prefer to trust the Japanese instead. However, he too sells to the Cambodians the fake coffee that is a "blend of roasted soybeans, blackened corn and cherry with added flavorings poured over to soak into the bean grinds."
Cambodians must be watchful of all the foreigners coming to live in their country. Look at this one foreigner who wrote, "Foreigners can come to Cambodia and live for many years without learning a single word in Khmer. This demonstrates that Khmer is a dead and worthless language." Information used here is found on the Khmer440 website
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