Christmas Part Deux

Ok, I'm a little behind the times with my Christmas posts, but here you go anyways. Thought you might like to see my gift from our office gift exchange. Everyone picked someone else's name from the pot and bought them a gift--in the US equivalent, a decently nice gift, in maybe the $15-20 range (here, $5-10). In Asia, you do not give gifts halfheartedly, even if you are not the wealthiest person in the world and it is only a random office gift exchange. Anyways, on the big day, we all gathered together and one person at a time retrieved the gift they brought and gave it to the receiver. This must be done in the following manner:

1. When it is your turn to give your gift, get very excited, and also a little embarassed. The other participants will aid you in this by clapping and hooting.
2. Stand in the middle of the circle with your gift. Melodramatically make a big show of pretending to give the gift to several of those present. Again, the other participants will aid you by standing and pretending to take the gift from you.
3. After an appropriate length of time, present the gift to the actual recipient. The clapping and hooting will continue. IMPORTANT: do not actually let go of the gift until you and the recipient have both paused and smiled at the camera for the official "handing over of the gift" photo.
4. You can sit again as things calm down and the recipient opens the gift. Once the gift is opened, everyone will be happy about it, and the recipient will thank you very politely, and the next gift will now be given.

So--here it is, a video of my gift. Keep in mind that this was not a white elephant, gag-gift type of exchange--this is considered a quality gift. And I must say, my pens and pencils have never had such an exhilerating place to reside. Turn your sound up and watch the clip. Prepare to be jealous...

Good Eats

So, Cambodian cuisine--it offers quite a few tasty dishes (and a few more...interesting options. Tarantula or fermented fish paste, anyone?). And one of the highlights of food in Cambodia is the number of yummy fruits available, most of which are unlike anything available in the States. Culturally, fruits are often given as gifts, or served occasionally as a dessert. They are also eaten as snacks, and many fruits can be eaten while unripe--when eaten this way, they are often dipped into a mixture of salt, sugar, and chili flakes.

Earlier this week one of the fruit trees in front of the FHCambodia Phnom Penh office produced some ripe fruit, and after ripening further in the office kitchen, we cut them up and ate them today. May I introduce you to--jackfruit! This is a jackfruit from our office tree--you can tell it's almost ready from the big split up the side, and when it's all the way ripe you can tell by the strong, jackfruity smell.

Jackfruits are large--most of them are the size of a watermelon (the big ones, not those little seedless ones). They can grow larger, though; according to Wikipedia, a single jackfruit can grow up to a length of three feet and weigh 80 pounds. In fact, they are the world's largest fruit that grow on trees. They are tasty, too, with a flavor like a mix of pineapple and banana (and I think some overtones of peach and strawberry). A jackfruit is hard and knobby outside, and lined with a number of seeds on the inside. Each seed is similar in size to a peach pit, and is surrounded by a "pod" of fruit. This pod is what you eat, although the seeds themselves can also be cooked and eaten, and are supposed to be similar to chestnuts. Also according to the internet, jackfruit is full of vitamins, minerals, cancer-fighting antioxidants and phytochemicals, and even fights ulcers and indigestion (and here I thought it just tasted good!). For more variety, jackfruit can be eaten cooked (some Indian dishes use it in curries), dried, or unripe, when it can be used as a vegetarian substitute for chicken (who would have thought?). If you need a few more factoids, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackfruit or Google "jackfruit".

The one downside of jackfruit--eating it fresh leaves you with sticky fingers (in fact, unripe jackfruit pulp can be used as glue). This stickiness wears off after a few hours, but can't be washed, rubbed, or even hand-sanitized away before then. Luckily, the ingenious Cambodian people have figured out a simple and workable solution: human hair. Rubbing your jackfruity fingers through your hair in some magic way takes the sticky off your hands without transferring it to your locks. I don't know why, but I can vouch for it working!

Soo-us-die Ch'nam Tuh-my!!!

And that, my friends, is Khmer for "Happy New Year"!!!! (a loose direct translation of it is "hello year new.") So--welcome to 2009! Hope you were all able to celebrate as last year wrapped up and we head into this one. I have had good intentions of blogging some more about Christmas, but here it is already past New Year's and that hasn't happened, so...we'll see if I can get to it in January. But--might as well spread a little New Year's cheer while I'm still on top of that.

New Year's Eve is not a huge holiday in Cambodia--it gets usurped by the celebration of Chinese New Year and Khmer New Year later in the spring. In fact, New Year's Eve I spent at yet another Cambodian Christmas celebration (think sitting in a chair for a few hours listening to people sing and then eating some kind of fishy Cambodian food) with the extended family of the family that I live with. We also had a big rain storm, unusual for this time of year (the dry season). New Year's Day--a holiday from work, so I spent a lazy day catching up on some reading and heping to clean up the flooded first floor of our house, compliments of the rain storm (Happy New Year!).

So--I've been in Cambodia a month and half and have made it through the celebration of my third major American holiday. In the coming months we can start on some of the Cambodian ones! May you see God's goodness and care in the coming year!

Christmas in Cambodia

Christmas is in fact celebrated in Cambodia, although I am learning bit by bit about what that actually looks like. Christmas trees appeared at the beginning of December in some of the shops and restaurants, complete with blinking lights, tinsel garlands, and big "Merry Christmas!" signs hanging under the stars at the top of the tree. I've also seen some lovely little Santa outfits for babies and toddlers--if you've been looking for one, now you know where to find it :) And advertisers and stores have partially adopted the idea of getting people to shop for gifts. I don't know if Cambodia's Buddhists (the majority of the population) do much beyond these examples to celebrate. For the Christians, however, families and churches enjoy celebrating, although it is not important to actually celebrate on Christmas Day. The Christmas celebration at the Khmer church I've been attending was on Sunday the 14th. It was a full-morning event, complete with visitors from local political leadership (a very big deal), lots of song and dance presentations, a guest preacher, and a big shared lunch. Many people stayed for an afternoon of singing and games as well. This video is from a few days after the celebration--a group of kids from the church who went caroling around the neighborhood and stopped by our house. It's a little dark and quiet, but turn up your volume and squint a bit and enjoy!

Biker Chick

So, if you haven't seen this picture yet, here you go--the official shot of me on my motorcycle! I've basically gotten the hang of driving it around--as in I feel comfortable on it, although I still take is a little slower and more cautiously that the average Cambodian :) The basket in the front is very handy for after trips to the market or grocery store. And I don't get saddle sore anymore, either, which is good :) If you also missed the bike details and are dying to know--it's a Honda Wave 100, made in Vietnam. A cheaper option than bikes made in Thailand or Japan.

Cabahl knyom hot hie!

Which means: "My head is tired!". A very useful phrase in Khmer which I made sure to learn. I can say it approximately ninety times a day when my poor brain is weary from studying and from all the general learning associated with being in a new culture. Lots of new things to absorb! As of one more tutoring session this afternoon, I will be happy to have made it through my first full week of language studies. I now am able to muddle through the entire Khmer alphabet and am starting to read and write some simple words--like going through kindergarten again! Fast fact of the day: "Khmer" is the name of the Cambodian language and is actually pronounced "kuh-my", rather than "kuh-mare". Khmer is also the word used for "Cambodian", in the way we would use "American."
And now--I have one more short study session before I get to take a break for lunch!

Bangkok

I don't know how closely the situation in Bangkok has been watched in the US news, but being as how Thailand is one of our next door neighbors, we have heard quite a bit about it. I am no expert on the situation, but if you don't know much, here are a few basics: there has been a strong anti-government group in Thailand for some time. This group has staged many demonstrations and done things like surrounding the Thai Parliament building in late November so that the parliament could not longer continue their session. A week ago, the anti-government group filled the two Bangkok airports with protestors, effectively shutting down all airport operations. This had a fairly major effect--imagine if all air traffic in and out of Chicago was halted--planes in the air enroute to Chicago would have to be rerouted to land elsewhere (other cities or military airstrips),people in the airport would be stuck there or would have to find lodging in the area and alternate forms of transportation out of the city, no air freight or shipping could move along, and so on. All of this happened in Bangkok. And because Thailand as a country is wealthier and more developed that most other South East Asian countries, Bangkok served as a major hub for the entire region. So, in Cambodia, this meant that American expats trying to fly home for Thanksgiving often had their travel plans changed at the last minute or spent some extra time in Bangkok (although the Thai government, the Thai protestors, and the airlines themselves all did quite a lot in providing free lodging, food, water, blankets, and ticket changes to those affected). Cambodian mail and imports/exports ship through Bangkok, so these services have been on hold all week. As you can imagine all of this has a huge and immediate impact financially in many ways, and a future impact as well: what blow has this dealt to the Thai economy when the worldwide ecomony is already in recession? Will Thailand be judged too unstable for tourist flights and shipping to continue to be routed through Bangkok as a major hub, and will these operations shift to another country and another city? We shall see! Here's a news link that just came up on Yahoo--the anti-government protestors got their wish and the Thai government has been dissolved:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081202/ap_on_re_as/as_thailand_political_unrest;_ylt=AvSSPWHgYYC2G99_cj93VCBvaA8F