Friday, March 2, 2012

Wedding Season

There are weddings everywhere at the moment. Where ever we’ve cycled- through village, through city, through country side, even near Angkor. We’ve seen the same marquee pavilion strung with brightly entwined fabrics of pink, yellow, red and orange and, without fail, a major sound system expounding a mixture of temple music, Khmer pop, or hardcore techno.

Wedding organisers make good business here in Cambodia. Anyone and everyone uses the same wedding formula. And to be fair, aside from the speaker system it hasn’t changed much over time. There are also the other details like the entrance archway laden with plastic flowers. The columns of the arches are decorated with a large bunch of bananas spray painted gold on one arch and silver on the other.

Depending on the budget, the local photographer is hired for photo shoot sessions of the family which to be displayed on the day. These are displayed along side the entrance. A picture of the grooms parents is displayed on one side of the archway to indicate the groom’s side and the picture of the brides parents on the other side. The photos are both shocking and intriguing to me. The subjects’ pose with mannequin stillness, their ghostly white faces tilted ever so carefully to suggest a caring and graceful appreciation are prompted and practiced country wide.

Allow me to illustrate in more detail. These photo sessions always include a makeup and hair session to lacquer and lick the subjects into a glamour state worthy of the soap stardom. Hair is high, ringlets cascade to frame the face, and all the best jewelry is worn. Dresses and suits match in colours of pistachio green, tan, purple, to name a few popular choices we’ve seen so far. The dresses are decadently sequined with lashings of lace on satin. The finishing touch is the whitening powder dusted all over the couples’ face.

On many visits to family run restaurants in Cambodia, which is almost everywhere, Tom and I have had the pleasure of viewing these formal photos preserved on the wall for posterity.

The season is hectic and goes all through the cooler and dryer part of the year, from December to March, before the wet. ‘Springtime is wedding season’ as one local told us and despite the seasonal misnomer it really does feel like springtime here in the sub-tropics. Calves are wobbling around on new legs, young water buffalo are pink, grey and soft haired, devoid of the scar and callus of work; and grass is not yet scorched with direct rays of the dry season sun.

Springtime is wedding season and likely scheduled between rice planting and harvest. Does that mean the rest of the year is allocated to courtship and negotiation? A Cambodian man explained to us how the pressure is on for him to raise the money that allows him to propose to a Cambodian woman. It is the men who pay a dowry here to access the bride's family. He reckons that between $2,000 USD and $5,000 USD will support his proposal to a good family. Although, at the moment he is focused on raising the money. He can't start to court anyone until he does. The risk for him is if he meets a nice woman and gets attached but isn't ready to offer the right sized dowry he may lose the woman he is interested in. Although a great connection could emerge between them, if another better offer is made her parents may encourage her to accept the proposal, and parents are rarely disobeyed.

Unlike the western weddings, the courting groom's dowry is used to pay for the big day. As I described earlier, most weddings have a similar set up. But if you have the money you can invite more guests and no doubt provide more extravagant cuisine. If the money is available you can take your wedding to a special wedding venue, where everything is catered and provided for in a package.

Our Cambodian friend explains that while he could have to pay USD$5000 to propose to the right woman he is reluctant to spend too large an amount on a dowry. Not entirely because of the cost but because of the social consequences. A marriage to into a richer family means he could be set up with a business and job from her parents, however he believes that it could involve life long expenses as the potential bride may be accustomed to not working, or worse yet -spending.

While there are many social fine points to consider making the right marriage. It still seems like everyone is doing it. Not a day goes past when we don't hear first, then see the marquees being set up, pulled down or in the middle of use with people dressed in their finest, eating, drinking, giving speeches or sitting amidst thumping music blasting out to the surrounds for 48 hours.

In fact, marriage ceremonies and funeral ceremonies look almost exactly the same. Only the guests are older and there is the additional black and white fabric entwined amongst the orange and yellow instead of the usual red and pink. A gilded casket is set amongst the diners, beset with offerings and monks chanting prayers. Less formally celebrated but saturated in everyone's home, offices, villages and fields, are toddlers and babies. I have never seen so many under two's. It seems like Cambodia is in a baby boom. This isn't surprising since life has become more normal since this end of the 30 year civil war in the mid 90's.
Seeing marriages, births and deaths publicly and plentifully celebrated, drives a point home for me- That these sacred and mundane landmarks of life are a sign of security and progress here in Cambodia. Maybe, or maybe not.... Perhaps it's all about having as much 'effin fun as possible.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Goodbye Siem Reap

Early pre-dawn waking. Shuffling pannier bags to the van with sticky mango fingers while still glue eyed. We are leaving our near one month stay in Siem Reap. It is tempting to stay longer with its giant mamma and pappa trees along the broad river, Dignity of the ancient city gateway underlying in all the gatekeepers, and tempting creative and entrepreneurial potential of this vogue city to be. There was even a yoga teaching position coming up in May. But, it's time to explore again. So, we say goodbye to Siem Reap and alight the double decker longboat for Battambang.




















Tonle Sap to Battambang

We piled our bikes on the top of the double decker long boat and squeezed downstairs among locals and tourists for the 6 hour river journey. I was on guard duty, holding a spare seat for Tom who was packing our 8 pannier bags in the bow. I NVC'ed my way out of an altercation with a stroppy French tourist, Who almost sat on me as I guarded my lover's seat with dog-like loyalty. It was all ok, cool was kept and in the end there was seating for all! Tom and I ditched for the roof of the boat and had a panoramic view of river life all the way at the risk of a technicolor tan. Shanty thrown up houses of sticks and plastic housing families, chickens, fishing nets and woven trap baskets, dotted all along the brown and marshy edge. These people look like they shift up and down the shore, seasonally fishing the waters. I remember reading somewhere that land can be bought in Cambodia but rivers will always be public.








Monday, February 20, 2012

Silk Farm

One hot midday, we rode outside of the city into the country side which surrounds Siem Reap rapidly and on all sides to visit a Silk Farm.

Here is both a large silk colecting and processing farm and effective exhibition. As we rode in Mulberry trees lined our entry.

After parking our bikes we were then greeted by our guide and taken through the stages.


It all starts here, with these tiny little eggs, laid by the moths that the silk worms will eventually do all their eating, and spinning to become!



Tom and our guide examine the hatching area closly. Inside the cabinet, flat wicker baskets play nursery to the young worms only as large the white sliver at the end of your nail as they begin their lives chomping on tender mulberry leaves.



Days and days go by, and the worms gorge themselves on mulberry leaves, getting bigger and fatter...




Eventually the worms are placed in these flat circular woven baskets. There is a spiral divider thinnly lining the basket where the worms are welcoed to make their new homes, their silk coccoons.




What a strange life this silk farming has these worms play out off the tree. This is the method used, source traditionally from China and spread tthrought India and Asia hundreds of years ago...




Eventually the worms spin and spin and spin themselves a silky shrouded home for their metamorphises.



The twigs collected and banded together to house the silk worms and their spinning were also used once upon a time.




The silk coccoons are boiled and with a wooden fork the outer layers of silk are rcollected in strands.

These outer layers are the raw silk. When the coccoon appears to become smooth and hard, the coccoons are removed to another boiling pot for the fine silk to be collected and spun.





The many delicate strands of fine silk are collected and spun together...


The beautiful raw silk, the yellow colour is the natural colour of the coccoon.



The silk is collected off the spool to be taken for dying.



The fine silk collected on a wooden spool.



The fine silk draped over PV plumbing pipes. Drying after dying.



Rich, lucious, earthy natural dyed raw silk.....


One of the many plant, root, seed, leaf and bark sources for bold colours...



The fine silk prepared in spools to be used in for the creation of a large spool of thousands of strands.





A handful of strands are collected and tied in bunched to the beginning of a large reel attached by lengths of material.



The large iron wheel is the mega spool that allows the thousands of strands to be kept in line and neatly attached and packed onto the reel which will used for the manual weaving machines. It looks magnificent as it spins around and around!



The many threads on the barge iron wheel....



It always amazed me how clean and careful these ladíes' exact and nimble fingers are. Below they smooth out and realign naughty threads.



Now, after the reels of many threaded silk are prepared the weaving begins...


These women are trained in the traditional art of silk weaving. Many of them are in the middle of their 3 year apprenticeship, when they complete this they have the statis of crafts woman, and in time be recognised as a traditional artisan.


They will be able to persue their own work or join other silk weaving workshops, with recognition of their skills and receiving a fair wage and fair working week.


They are taught traditional silk patterns representative of different regions and function.




The wooden 'needle' which is passed between the separated weft.



The different threads which will be sent through with the wooden 'needle' to create patterns and variation.



Some of the little bits and pieces left around the workshop, some needles and a letter.



The brightly coloured silks! These silks have been artificially dyed, compared with the earlier photos.


One example of the finished pieces.



Below one of the ladies is using a bicycle wheel rim and a pedal with chain attached to spin silk onto a spool. In many of the workshops bicycle parts were used as part of the equipment to spin silk!


Finally, a beautiful fashion creation. It's using the silk cocoons in the skirt and the big weaving needles to decorate the bottom of the silk bustier.