Posts Tagged "Buddhist holidays"

APAD 121: Suosdei Choul Chnnam Thmey!

Posted by The Insider on Apr 18, 2013 in A Photo a Day, Addicted to Meme, All things Khmer, Cambodia, Cambodia life, Cycle 2, Expat Life, sights, Signs of Times, That's My World, What's On in Cambodia | 6 comments

… Happy New Year.

Yes. We just celebrated the Cambodian New Year over the weekend, April 14-16 to be precise. It is a three-day celebration, according to the lunar calendar. It is also a celebration of the end of the harvest season. Hence, it is a colourful, festive and fun celebration.

This year, we welcomed New Year on the early hours of Saturday (2amish). Drumbeats and prayers from the wats (temples) ushered the New Year as well as the new Thevadas (see photo). In Buddhism, they are sort of angels, if you like, who’ve come to replace the old ones guarding the Earth.

To know more about the festive Khmer New Year, please click this link.

Sousdei chhoul chhnam thmey!

Posted by The Insider on Apr 13, 2012 in Cambodia, Cambodia life, That's My World, What's On in Cambodia | 2 comments

I just want to break my self-imposed blog hiatus to greet everyone a very happy new year. Today marks the beginning of the Cambodian new year, that is, the year 2556.

Cambodian New Year Offering, by Somongkol Tan (via Twitter)

May this year be a start of something new, productive, and wonderful for all of us…

APAD 257: Meak Bochea

Posted by The Insider on Feb 14, 2012 in A Photo a Day, Addicted to Meme, All things Khmer, Cambodia, Cambodia life, Our World Tuesday, Signs, That's My World, What's On in Cambodia | 0 comments

One week ago today, Cambodia celebrated the Buddhist holy day called Meak Bochea. This is a little known Buddhist holiday, but for the devout Buddhists, it is a key holiday in the Buddhist calendar.

Falling approximately three months before the widely celebrated Visaka Bochea, informally known as Buddha’s Birthday, Meak Bochea commemorates they day that the spiritual leader Gautam Buddha announced his future; the death and accompanying nirvana into which he would enter. (Source)

Meak Bochea is a public holiday in Cambodia and all government offices and even schools are closed to allow people to go to their wats (temples) and offer food to the monks and pray.