Wat Phnom

The spiritual heart of Phnom Penh is Wat Phnom, the city temple that stands right in teh centre of the city.

Built at the top of a small hill (a phnom), it was constructed centuries ago, legend has it, by an old grandmother called Daun Penh. It is from this combination (Penh's Hill) that we get the name of the modern city Phnom Penh.

The temple is always busy, particularly on the full moon day when people come to make offerings and have their fortunes told.

My friend Sambath inside Wat Phnom

Inside the main Wat structure you can find statues of Daun Penh, which are rouged, draped with fine cloth and regularly supplied with cosmetics and toiletries, all the things it is supposed Grandma Penh would have liked.

Outside is another, very popular shrine to Daun Penh, overflowing with the same items. Phnom Penh's residents frequently visit their foundress and ask her spirit for help and favours.

On another side terrace there is also a very busy shrine devoted to Vishnu, the Mahayana Buddhist Goddess Kwan Yin and the spirit of an early king. This shrine seems to be popular every day of the year, particularly with the city's Vietnamese community.

If you are interested in learning more about travel writing, I will be teaching a free Travel Writing workshop at Marrickville Library on the 27th September 2014. For more details and to book your place call the library.

Got a question abut Wat Phnom or Cambodia? Why not ask it in the comments below, or on Twitter where I am @walterm - love hearing from you!

Destination Cambodia in the Fairfield City Champion

A lovely pic of me, and a great little write-up, in the Fairfield City Champion.

Cambodia around the web

Pol Pot survivor Chum Mey with author Steve Mariotti

• Everyone's talking about poop in Cambodia
• The Daily Traveler offers an insder's view of Cambodia, were you can watch history happening
• That bizarre re-creation of Angkor Wat is still going up in India, says Huff Post Religion, and it will be the world's largest religious monument
• Cambodia's marching monks don't want a dam built, says Al Jazeera
• An Australian house inspired by Angkor Wat temples

Want to learn more about Cambodia, its history, culture and people? Come along and hear me speak about my new book, "Destination Cambodia," at Cronulla Library:

 
Walter Mason - Author Talk

When: 6:30PM, 19 Nov 2013

Where: Cronulla Library 38-60 Croydon Street, Cronulla,

Curating Cambodia November 2013

A roundup of interesting things Cambodian from the www:

Ruins along the Thai-Cambodian border

• Zadie Smith's new book is called The Embassy of Cambodia. Not quite sure what it has to do with Cambodia yet.It's about badminton, according to The Independent.
• Next year there will be a 42 kilometre marathon around Angkor Wat. I have ambivalent feelings about this. Call me a killjoy, but I don't think it's a very sensitive use of what is a sacred site. What next? Weight-lifting championships in St. Paul's Cathedral? Judo in the Duomo? Still awaiting royal approval, according to the Phnom Penh Post.
• Hard questions being asked about the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.
• The Asian Human Rights Commission says the lack of human rights in Cambodia is the West's fault.
• A nice diary account of a trip to Angkor Wat. And another very brief, and wonderfully personal, account of a 3 day trip.
• There's a magic boy healing people in Cambodia, and the Gulf Times says he is blessing hundreds of people a day.
• Cambodians are famously unwilling to talk about sex. 
• Noozhawk brings us a lovely story about an exhibition of photographs taken by Cambodian orphans.
• The whole Malaysian Cambodian maids thing seems to have been fixed up, at last.

If you want to know more about Cambodia I am giving a talk about my  new book, Destination Cambodia, on Saturday November 16 at Katoomba Library. It is a free event, starting 2pm, and I would love to see you there.

Walter Mason talks about Destination Cambodia at Katoomba Library - November 16

Walter Mason on the river ferry, Phnom Penh

“Join intrepid traveller Walter Mason on a colourful adventure to one of the world's hottest new destinations. Meet taxi drivers, writers and monks as he traverses this extraordinarily beautiful country.”

Hear Walter discuss his book, Destination Cambodia, followed by afternoon tea and book signing.

Walter will have copies of his book available for purchase.
This event is free, all welcome!
Bookings appreciated: 4780 5750

30 Parke Street, Katoomba NSW 2780

Author talks at Katoomba Library - Walter Mason - Saturday November 16 - 2pm -

Author talks at Katoomba Library - Walter Mason - Saturday November 16 - 2pm - See more at: http://www.waltermason.com/2013/10/author-talks-at-katoomba-library-walter.html#sthash.Ts41BtA0.dpuf

Author talks at Katoomba Library - Walter Mason - Saturday November 16 - 2pm - See more at: http://www.waltermason.com/2013/10/author-talks-at-katoomba-library-walter.html#sthash.Ts41BtA0.dpuf

Destination Cambodia at Ashfield Library

Authors at Ashfield: Walter Mason talks about his new book Destination Cambodia

Ashfield Library

Thursday, 5 September 2013 from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM (EST)

Ashfield Library, Sydney, NSW

  Walter Mason talks about and signs copies of his new book Destination Cambodia

 

 No bookings required, free event

I invite you all to come along to this wonderful event. I will tell you some funny stories and show you some lovely pictures and together we'll explore the glorious Kingdom of Cambodia! 

 

Ashfield Library

Thursday, 5 September 2013 from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM (EST)

Ashfield Library, Sydney, NSW

  Walter Mason talks about and signs copies of his new book Destination Cambodia

- See more at: http://www.waltermason.com/#sthash.7U6ILvUS.dpuf

Authors at Ashfield: Walter Mason 

 

talks about Destination Cambodia

 

- See more at: http://www.waltermason.com/#sthash.7U6ILvUS.dpuf

Authors at Ashfield: Walter Mason 

 

talks about Destination Cambodia

- See more at: http://www.waltermason.com/#sthash.7U6ILvUS.dpuf

Sampeah

I find myself writing about the sampeah quite a lot in my new book, because it is a gesture that fascinates me.

For those who don't know, the sampeah is the greeting gesture found throughout Southeast Asia where the greeter brings her/his hands up in a prayer position in front of the body. Most people know it from a holiday to Thailand, where the ubiquitous gesture manages to charm tourists and encourages them to emulate it, normally to bad effect.

For the sampeah is a complex and finely instrumented gseture, and it incorporates tiny and subtle differences that change depending on who is greeting and who is being greeted. To make matters worse, these differences can themselves change from region to region. It is such a potential minefield that, in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, I leave the gesture alone altogether, not wanting to offend unintentionally.

Poster instructs on the correct use of sampeah, Wat Phnom

Apparently the sampeah was once in common use in Vietnam, but these days it remains only as a greeting within the confines of Buddhist monasteries, where it has been hugely simplified into one basic gesture, the making of the palms together "prayer" sign at chest level, the head bowed slightly. Anyone can master this, and its use is second nature to me when I visit monks or hang out at monasteries in Vietnam.

But not so in Cambodia. The thumbs must face different parts of the upper body according to the status of the person you are greeting, and to get this detail wrong can cause serious offence. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's wife recently caused an international scandal when she greeted President Obama with a sampeah intended for someone of lower status in what some say was a deliberate act.

Did Hun Sen's wife deliberately snub Obama with her sampeah?

The sampeah, too, has an unexpectedly traumatic history in Cambodia. Pol Pot banned its use during the Khmer Rouge years, identifying the status-conscious greeting as a remnant of feudal society. When I first went to Cambodia in 1996 I rarely saw the sampeah performed - people had simply fallen out of the habit, or had instructed their psyches to stop it during the years when doing it could get them killed. These days it is undergoing something or a comeback, and young people are taught the gesture and instructed to use it when greeting adults and monks. People in the 40 - 60 age bracket still seem to dispense with it, though.