TRADITIONS
According to a2zcamerablog, Cambodia is a country located in Asia. Folkloric events, in various Asian countries, are indissolubly linked with the art of acting, dance, cooking, due to a dimension of life linked, more than elsewhere, to customs inherited from the past and kept intact.. A perfect synthesis of ancient Khmer traditions is magnificently witnessed for example by those celestial dancers who adorn the bas-reliefs of the sandstone temples of the city of Angkor and who, together with the columns, demons, stairways, mark a path engraved in the stone that unites nature and sculpture., past and present. In Cambodia, national holidays and private celebrations equally welcome choreography, music, dishes and ceremonials of strong intensity and delicacy, rediscovered in a particular way after the revival of most of the traditions banned during the dictatorship of the Khmer Rouge. Cambodian cuisine, in line with the other aspects of the country’s history characterized by the mixture of different influences, welcomes ancestry from the varied panorama of the Far East: therefore we find traits of Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai gastronomy, but also ingredients and dishes of French tradition. The peculiarity is certainly the freshwater fish, consumed in quantity, with soups and rice. Many of the typical dishes use coconut, and there is no shortage of more particular specialties, such as crickets and frogs. it welcomes ancestry from the varied panorama of the Far East: therefore we find traits of Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai gastronomy, but also traditional French ingredients and dishes. The peculiarity is certainly the freshwater fish, consumed in quantity, with soups and rice. Many of the typical dishes use coconut, and there is no shortage of more particular specialties, such as crickets and frogs. it welcomes ancestry from the varied panorama of the Far East: therefore we find traits of Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai gastronomy, but also traditional French ingredients and dishes. The peculiarity is certainly the freshwater fish, consumed in quantity, with soups and rice. Many of the typical dishes use coconut, and there is no shortage of more particular specialties, such as crickets and frogs.
LITERATURE
The early introduction of Brahmanism and Indian Sanskrit culture favored the development of a huge epigraphic production from the first centuries of the Common Era. Epigraphy assumed a conspicuous importance in the country and, among a literature almost entirely anonymous and still difficult to date, the epigraphic texts of historical and religious celebration are the only ones that allow us to reconstruct the history of the Khmer or Cambodian language, currently used in inscriptions from the century VII d. C. Later literary genres centered on an epic or pedagogical production in poetic form, of which examples of Chbâp Kram (Code of morals), Chbâp Pros (Ethics of children) and Chbâp Srei remain (Ethics of girls), the latter attributed to King Ang Duong. The plays in verse inspired by the fifty jātakas, the Pañcatantra or the legends of the epic cycle of Rāma are even more edifying.. Of lively freshness is the love poem, of a certain originality are the apologue and the fairy tale and adventures. With the colonial domination, Cambodian literature has approached European culture, especially French. The regained independence marked the rebirth of a national literature. In the decades that preceded Pol Pot’s coming to power, hundreds of historical, sentimental and detective novels were published in Cambodia, also thanks to the birth, in 1956, of the Khmer Writers’ Association. The dictatorial parenthesis stifled many of the literary and artistic voices, but it was then the subject of a series of contemporary or later works (often published abroad, in the artists’ new countries of residence), such as The Killing Fields (The fields of death) by Dith Pran (b.1942), from which the film Screams of silence was based, winner of three Oscars. The government campaign of the 1980s against illiteracy also favored the circulation of literary works, although the few funds available did not allow many texts to be printed and published: in fact, numerous novels began to find their place in the daily strips of some newspapers. The reopening of the Buddhist Institute further contributed to the reprinting of many traditional texts. The new generations of Cambodian writers and poets, of which only a part manages to live on the proceeds of their business, are encouraged with prizes and festivals promoted by the government: among the most widely read authors Ouch Vutha, Uom Niroth, Sok Sothon, Yem Samna.
