Sunday was Meghan's birthday! We had to celebrate of course, Cambodian style!
The celebration started Saturday night by going to dinner at a place that we had heard had traditional Cambodian dancing. This type of dance is not just about moving and shaking, it is an art form that takes many years to do correctly. Apparently, most of the dancers start out as children. You can tell that this is the case by the intense bending of both their toes and feet. The farther you can hyperextend, the more beautiful. Every single step has a certain design and must be done in a precise way in order to be preformed correctly. It looks tedious but graceful. We were really excited to see that the dancer came out in the same traditional dress that we had worn the day before for our pictures. It reestablished the authenticity our outfits, hair, and makeup. The first two dances were significantly slower, the focus was mostly on fluidity and positioning. The second dances were almost like a play. The couple acted like they were working in the rice fields but yet had this flirty appeal to it. The final dance was the most entertaining and had a story of its own. They were both workers, the boy would bother the girl and mess with her why she looked irritated by his jokes. Eventually, the girl realized he was just flirting with her and eventually started to like the boy as well. By the end they developed a relationship but decided to keep it secret at work. It is always nice to know that although we may not be able to understand one another, music can help heal cultural boundaries no matter where you are.
Sunday morning we woke and attempted to go to our first pagoda to receive a blessing. A pagoda or wat is just a Buddhist temple where the monks live and pray. Typically, you bring offerings to the monks and they bless you and give you a little red bracelet in order to protect you from harm. Due to a miscommunication with our tuk tuk driving, we missed the morning market to get our offerings (sugar, flour, jasmine, and other things we still don't know about because we failed to get it!!) and only brought ourselves to the temple. Luckily, a small skinny monk in his early 30's greeted us and took us into a large building. We followed in awkward fashion not quite knowing what was going on. Once in the large room, we discovered a huge room lined with cots for the monks. In the center of the room were about 50 Buddhas in all different positions and in all different sizes. We went around to the the front of the stack of Buddhas and were given incense from the young monk. We followed his direction and lit the incense and placed them in a vase full of incense sticks burnt all the way down past the start of the wood. We gave our offering, bowed, and followed the monk to his quarters in the next room. This was another large room that appeared empty at first glance. Looking closer, you see more cots sporadically placed by the walls, exercise equipment, a place for games, and a small mat in which we were asked to sit on. There the monk spoke to us about finding help within ourselves before we could help others. He also told us about other wats to travel to in the areas we would soon be visiting. At the finale of our visit, we exchanged emails, gave him a small amount of money to continue his studies at the pagoda, and received a small blessing. No bracelet, but I am sure there are many to come.
After this bright and early excursion, we went to a Khmer cooking class that we had signed up for. We started the class at the market. This was no touristy market either. It was littered with food, people, and the hussle and bussle of early morning. We were the awkward parade who often stopped in peoples way, but there was absolutely no avoiding this. You could poke the cross neighboring shop with a stick the aisle were so narrow. In the meantime, we were told about all the fruit, eggs (white are typical chicken eggs while brown are half fertilized eggs), and meat.
After this high anxiety event, we were swept off to a home with a large covered balcony to start our actual cooking class. We chopped, slices, banged, fried, and steamed like we had never done before. All together we made and ate 4 dishes; spring rolls with sweet and sour, fish amok (Cambodia's national dish), banana flower salad, and sticky mango rice. It was fun and fabulous to eat the final product. We laughed with our instructor as he tried to teach us more Khmer and we struggled to pronounce it right. He even brought out his friend to hear our poor pronunciation! We received a book with all the recipes in order to share with those of you who love Asian food so much when we return back to the states. One thing is for sure....we sure can make a mean spring roll.
We finished the night with a short dinner and one large slumber party in a 2 bed room in order to prepare to head to the provinces bright and early in the morning. It was a nice way to finish our finals days in Phnom Penh for the next month. Now our difficult but enlightening journey begins.
Sunday morning we woke and attempted to go to our first pagoda to receive a blessing. A pagoda or wat is just a Buddhist temple where the monks live and pray. Typically, you bring offerings to the monks and they bless you and give you a little red bracelet in order to protect you from harm. Due to a miscommunication with our tuk tuk driving, we missed the morning market to get our offerings (sugar, flour, jasmine, and other things we still don't know about because we failed to get it!!) and only brought ourselves to the temple. Luckily, a small skinny monk in his early 30's greeted us and took us into a large building. We followed in awkward fashion not quite knowing what was going on. Once in the large room, we discovered a huge room lined with cots for the monks. In the center of the room were about 50 Buddhas in all different positions and in all different sizes. We went around to the the front of the stack of Buddhas and were given incense from the young monk. We followed his direction and lit the incense and placed them in a vase full of incense sticks burnt all the way down past the start of the wood. We gave our offering, bowed, and followed the monk to his quarters in the next room. This was another large room that appeared empty at first glance. Looking closer, you see more cots sporadically placed by the walls, exercise equipment, a place for games, and a small mat in which we were asked to sit on. There the monk spoke to us about finding help within ourselves before we could help others. He also told us about other wats to travel to in the areas we would soon be visiting. At the finale of our visit, we exchanged emails, gave him a small amount of money to continue his studies at the pagoda, and received a small blessing. No bracelet, but I am sure there are many to come.
After this bright and early excursion, we went to a Khmer cooking class that we had signed up for. We started the class at the market. This was no touristy market either. It was littered with food, people, and the hussle and bussle of early morning. We were the awkward parade who often stopped in peoples way, but there was absolutely no avoiding this. You could poke the cross neighboring shop with a stick the aisle were so narrow. In the meantime, we were told about all the fruit, eggs (white are typical chicken eggs while brown are half fertilized eggs), and meat.
After this high anxiety event, we were swept off to a home with a large covered balcony to start our actual cooking class. We chopped, slices, banged, fried, and steamed like we had never done before. All together we made and ate 4 dishes; spring rolls with sweet and sour, fish amok (Cambodia's national dish), banana flower salad, and sticky mango rice. It was fun and fabulous to eat the final product. We laughed with our instructor as he tried to teach us more Khmer and we struggled to pronounce it right. He even brought out his friend to hear our poor pronunciation! We received a book with all the recipes in order to share with those of you who love Asian food so much when we return back to the states. One thing is for sure....we sure can make a mean spring roll.
We finished the night with a short dinner and one large slumber party in a 2 bed room in order to prepare to head to the provinces bright and early in the morning. It was a nice way to finish our finals days in Phnom Penh for the next month. Now our difficult but enlightening journey begins.
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