where cider meets condensed milk: Cambodian Ray Charles and friends

where cider meets condensed milk

Monday, May 14, 2007

Cambodian Ray Charles and friends

After the sad morning, we toured around with CLA (Cambodian Living Arts) and met some amazing artists and musicians. During the Khmer Rouge regime, thousands of people with special talents-- including musicians, artists, dancers, and educated professionals-- were killed. One result of this genocide is that traditional music and arts were nearly wiped out. CLA is an NGO founded to seek out surviving masters of dance and music who can now teach young Cambodians so that this culture can be passed along to the next generation. Neat, huh? The man above (Khmer Ray Charles) went blind when he was 12 or so from chicken pox, and began studying this instrument from his uncle. The songs sung are sometimes ad-libbed, and change depending on who is listening and what is happening that day. Thus, one of the songs was about us! (I'm pretty certaing that RC's song translated something like: Welcome to Phnom Penh, y'all/ It's blazing hot you know./ Santa and the Ho Ho Ho Ho/ Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho's/ and Sean... word up. Yo yo.)

A few "blocks" away from Ray Charles' abode was the home of an instrument maker and his son. This entire area was set up as an artists' colony, but now the land value is going up and the government wants to forcefully relocate the entire community.

We finished at the CLA studio to see a dance class. Most of the kids had been studying for about 4 years, and they tried to teach us some Cambodian groove. Apsara in the house!!

posted by Raychaa @ 11:31 PM

0 comments: