Culture of Cambodians

Cambodia is predominantly Buddhist with 90% of the population being

Theravada Buddhist, 1% Christian and the majority of the remaining
population follow Islam, atheism, or animism. Buddhist nun at Angkor
Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia. Buddhism has existed in Cambodia since at
least the 5th century CE Theravada Buddhism has been the Cambodian
state religion since the 13th century CE (excepting the Khmer Rouge
period), and is currently estimated to be the faith of 90% of the
population. Buddhist monks at Angkor Wat. Buddhism is the official
religion in all of Cambodia. Islam is the religion of a majority of
the Cham (also called Khmer Islam) and Malay minorities in Cambodia.
According to Po Dharma, there were 150,000 to 200,000 Muslims in
Cambodia as late as 1975. Persecution under the Khmer Rouge eroded
their numbers, however, and by the late 1980s they probably had not
regained their former strength. All of the Cham Muslims are Sunnis of
the Shafi'i school. Po Dharma divides the Muslim Cham in Cambodia into
a traditionalist branch and an orthodox branch. Christianity was
introduced into Cambodia by Roman Catholic missionaries in 1660.
However, it made little headway at first, particularly among
Buddhists. In 1972 there were probably about 20,000 Christians in
Cambodia, most of whom were Roman Catholics. According to Vatican
statistics, in 1953, members of the Roman Catholic Church in Cambodia
numbered 120,000, making it, at that time, the second largest religion
in the country. In April 1970, just before repatriation, estimates
indicate that about 50,000 Catholics were Vietnamese. Many of the
Catholics remaining in Cambodia in 1972 were Europeans—chiefly French.
American Protestant missionary activity increased in Cambodia,
especially among some of the hill tribes and among the Cham, after the
establishment of the Khmer Republic. The 1962 census, which reported
2,000 Protestants in Cambodia, remains the most recent statistic for
the group. Observers reported that in 1980 there were more registered
Khmer Christians among the refugees in camps in Thailand than in all
of Cambodia before 1970. Kiernan notes that, until June 1980, five
weekly Protestant services were held in Phnom Penh by a Khmer pastor,
but that they had been reduced to a single weekly service after police
harassment. There are around 20,000 Catholics in Cambodia which
represents only 0.15% of the total population. There are no dioceses,
but there are three territorial jurisdictions - one Apostolic
Vicariate and two Apostolic Prefectures.

The birth of a child is a happy event for the family. According to

traditional beliefs, however, confinement and childbirth expose the
family, and especially the mother and the child to harm from the
spirit world. A woman who dies in childbirth—crosses the river
(chhlong tonle) in Khmer is believed to become an evil spirit. In
traditional Khmer society, a pregnant woman respects a number of food
taboos and avoids certain situations. These traditions remain in
practice in rural Cambodia, but they have become weakened in urban
areas.
Death is not viewed with the great outpouring of grief common to
Western society; it is viewed as the end of one life and as the
beginning of another life that one hopes will be better. Buddhist
Khmer usually are cremated, and their ashes are deposited in a stupa
in the temple compound. A corpse is washed, dressed, and placed in a
coffin, which may be decorated with flowers and with a photograph of
the deceased. White pennant-shaped flags, called "white crocodile
flags," outside a house indicate that someone in that household has
died. A funeral procession consisting of an achar, Buddhist monks,
members of the family, and other mourners accompanies the coffin to
the crematorium. The spouse and the children show mourning by shaving
their heads and by wearing white clothing. Relics such as teeth or
pieces of bone are prized by the survivors, and they are often worn on
gold chains as amulets.[4] If the child is always ill, his or her
parents can go and change the name of child.

A Cambodian child may be nursed until he or she is between two and

four years of age. Up to the age of three or four, the child is given
considerable physical affection and freedom. Children around five
years of age also may be expected to help look after younger siblings.
Children's games emphasize socialization or skill rather than winning
and losing.[4]Most children begin school when they are seven or eight.
By the time they reach this age, they are familiar with the society's
norms of politeness, obedience, and respect toward their elders and
toward Buddhist monks. The father at this time begins his permanent
retreat into a relatively remote, authoritarian role. By age ten, a
girl is expected to help her mother in basic household tasks; a boy
knows how to care for the family's livestock and can do farm work
under the supervision of older males. Adolescent children usually play
with members of the same sex. During his teens, a boy may become a
temple servant and go on to serve a time as a novice monk, which is a
great honor for the parents. In pre-communist days, parents exerted
complete authority over their children until the children were
married, and the parents continued to maintain some control well into
the marriage. Age difference is strictly recognized with polite
vocabulary and special generational terms for "you".

In Cambodia, premarital sex is deplored. The choice of a spouse is a

complex one for the young male, and it may involve not only his
parents and his friends, as well as those of the young woman, but also
a matchmaker. In theory, a girl may veto the spouse her parents have
chosen. Courtship patterns differ between rural and urban Khmer;
romantic love is a notion that exists to a much greater extent in
larger cities. A man usually marries between the ages of nineteen and
twenty-five, a girl between the ages of sixteen and twenty-two. After
a spouse has been selected, each family investigates the other to make
sure its child is marrying into a good family. In rural areas, there
is a form of bride-service; that is, the young man may take a vow to
serve his prospective father-in-law for a period of time. The
traditional wedding is a long and colorful affair. Formerly it lasted
three days, but in the 1980s it more commonly lasted a day and a half.
Buddhist priests offer a short sermon and recite prayers of blessing.
Parts of the ceremony involve ritual hair cutting, tying cotton
threads soaked in holy water around the bride's and groom's wrists,
and passing a candle around a circle of happily married and respected
couples to bless the union. After the wedding, a banquet is held.
Newlyweds traditionally move in with the wife's parents and may live
with them up to a year, until they can build a new house nearby.
Divorce is legal and relatively easy to obtain, but not common.
Divorced persons are viewed with some disapproval. Each spouse retains
whatever property he or she brought into the marriage, and jointly-
acquired property is divided equally. Divorced persons may remarry,
but the woman must wait ten months. Custody of minor children is
usually given to the mother, and both parents continue to have an
obligation to contribute financially toward the rearing and education
of the child. The divorced male doesn't have a waiting period before
he can re-marry.

Khmer culture is very hierarchical. The greater a person's age, the

greater the level of respect that must be granted to them. Cambodians
are addressed with a hierarchical title corresponding to their
seniority before the name. When a married couple becomes too old to
support themselves, they may invite the youngest child's family to
move in and to take over running the household. At this stage in their
lives, they enjoy a position of high status.
The individual Khmer is surrounded by a small inner circle of family
and friends who constitute his or her closest associates, those he
would approach first for help. The nuclear family, consisting of a
husband and a wife and their unmarried children, is the most important
kin group. Within this unit are the strongest emotional ties, the
assurance of aid in the event of trouble, economic cooperation in
labor, sharing of produce and income, and contribution as a unit to
ceremonial obligations. In rural communities, neighbors—who are often
also kin—may be important, too. Fictive child-parent, sibling, and
close friend relationships Cambodia transcend kinship boundaries and
serve to strengthen interpersonal and interfamily ties. Beyond this
close circle are more distant relatives and casual friends. In rural
Cambodia, the strongest ties a Khmer may develop—besides those to the
nuclear family and to close friends—are those to other members of the
local community. A strong feeling of pride—for the village, for the
district, and province—usually characterizes Cambodian community life.
Legally, the husband is the head of the Khmer family, but the wife has
considerable authority, especially in family economics. The husband is
responsible for providing shelter and food for his family; the wife is
generally in charge of the family budget, and she serves as the major
ethical and religious model for the children, especially the
daughters. Both husbands and wives are responsible for domestic
economic tasks.

In Khmer culture a person's head is believed to contain the person's

soul--therefore making it taboo to touch or point your feet at it. It
is also considered to be extremely disrespectful to point or sleep
with your feet pointing at a person, as the feet are the lowest part
of the body and are considered to be impure.
When greeting people or to show respect in Cambodia people do the
"sampeah" gesture, identical to the Indian namaste and Thai wai.
Customary Cambodian teachings include: that if a person does not wake
up before sunrise he is lazy; you have to tell your parents or elders
where you are going and what time you are coming back home; close
doors gently, otherwise you have a bad temper; sit with your legs
straight down and not crossed (crossing your legs shows that you are
an impolite person); and always let other people talk more than you.
In Cambodia it is not polite to have eye contact with someone who is
older or someone who is considered a superior.
Clothing in Cambodia is one of the most important aspects of the
culture. Cambodian fashion is divided by the people's differing castes
and social classes. Cambodians traditionally wear a checkered scarf
called a "Krama". The "krama" is what distinctly separates the Khmer
(Cambodians) from their neighbors the Thai, the Vietnamese, and the
Laotians. The scarf is used for many purposes including for style,
protection from the sun, an aid (for your feet) when climbing trees, a
hammock for infants, a towel, or as a "sarong". A "krama" can also be
easily shaped into a small child's doll for play. Under the Khmer
Rouge, krama of various patterns were part of standard clothing.
Khmer cuisine is similar to that of its Southeast Asian neighbors. It
shares many similarities with Thai cuisine, Vietnamese cuisine and
Teochew cuisine. Cambodian cuisine also uses fish sauce widely in
soups, stir-fried cuisine, and as dippings. The Chinese legacy of Stir
frying can be noted in the use of many variations of rice noodles;
while curry dishes known as kari (in Khmer, ????) that employ dried
spices such as star anise, cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg and fennel were
borrowed from the Indians and given a distinctive Cambodian twist with
the addition of local ingredients like lemongrass, garlic, kaffir lime
leaves, shallots and galangal. Pork broth rice noodle soup known
simply as ka tieu (??????) is one of Cambodia's popular dish. Also,
Banh Chao is the Khmer version of the Vietnamese Bánh xèo.
Khmer cuisine is noted for the use of prahok (??????), a type of
fermented fish paste, in many dishes as a distinctive flavoring. When
prahok is not used, it is likely to be kap? (????) instead, a kind of
fermented shrimp paste. Coconut milk is the main ingredient of many
Khmer curries and desserts. In Cambodia there is regular aromatic rice
and glutinous or sticky rice. The latter is used more in dessert
dishes with fruits such as durian. Almost every meal is eaten with a
bowl of rice. Typically, Cambodians eat their meals with at least
three or four separate dishes. Each individual dish will usually be
one of either sweet, sour, salty or bitter. Chili is usually left up
to the individual to add themselves. In this way Cambodians ensure
that they get a bit of every flavor to satisfy their palates.
Otherwise,Cuisine of Cambodians also become unique depend on some area
of different ethnics. In Kampot and Kep, famous for its cuisine known
Kampot Pepper Crab or Kdab Cha Mrin Kyai(????????????????) in Khmer.
With its name Kampot Pepper crab, this cuisine is mostly cooking with
kampot famous crap fried with the pepper from pepper field in the
area. While in Pailin, Mee Kola is was born in that place, create by
Kula people who is one of ethnic groups in Cambodia.In southern
Cambodia, most of Vietnamese cuisine had been found especially Bánh
tráng which is so famous dish in southern Cambodia but just few people
from Central, had ever eat this meals. Look forward to the area
between Siem Reap and Kampong Thom, a village with full of Chinese
Cambodians. A lot of delicious dishes from China in Khmer version
explored for the guest in family as well as its urban restaurants.