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Khmer Traditional Dresses Understanding

Traditional dress in Cambodia is similar to traditional dress in neighboring Laos and Thailand. Sampot is the lower garment worn by either sex. The sampot for urban lower class and peasant women is a tube-skirt (sarong) approximately one and a half meters in length with both ends sewn together and is worn wrapped around the waist and secured with a cloth belt. Women of the middle and upper classes preferred to wear the sampot chang kben on a daily basis until the beginning of the twentieth century. This rectangular piece of cloth is approximately three meters long and one meter wide and is worn by first wrapping the cloth around the waist and stretching the ends away from the body. The outstretched ends are then twisted together and pulled between the legs and toward the back. The ends are tucked into the waist at the back, and the sampot chang kben is lastly fastened with a cloth or metal belt. Women of all social strata wear the sampot chang kben on special occasions such as religious ceremonies and weddings. Men also wear the sampot chang kben, but the traditional textile patterns worn by males differ from those worn by females. Traditionally, neither women nor men wore an upper garment. However, when the French colonial presence grew in Cambodia in the late nineteenth century, both men and women began to wear upper garments.

Even after the French presence in Cambodia from the 1860s onwards, Cambodians continued to wear traditional clothing. The Cambodian royalty and government officials combined the shot silk sampot chang kben (in the appropriate color for the day of the week) with a formal jacket. In the beginning of the twentieth century, Cambodians adopted forms of western style clothing such as a blouse or shirt. Men more readily adopted trousers as the lower garment for daily use, and both sexes continue to wear the sampot chang kben for formal occasions. Lower class and particularly rural women still wear a tube-skirt, but the material may be printed batik-patterned cloth bought at the market rather than hand-woven silk or cotton.

Silk Textiles

The most important silk textiles of Cambodia are the ikat silks (hol), twill-patterned, weft ikat textiles. The pattern is made by tying vegetable or synthetic fibers on sections of the weft threads before the threads are dyed. This process is repeated for different colored dye baths until the patterns are formed and the cloth is woven. The two types of hol textiles have five traditional colors: red, yellow, green, blue, and black. The sampot hol is the lower garment mentioned earlier, made from hol cloth (hol cloth can also be used for sampot chang kben). The pidan hol is a ceremonial hanging reserved for religious or sacred purposes.

The pidan hol is an example of excellent craftsmanship. It may be presented to a Buddhist temple or hung it in homes to create sacred space around the family's personal shrine. In a temple this textile is hung behind, above, or around the base of, a Buddha image. The narrative motifs of a pidan hol often depict tales of the previous lives of the Buddha.

Cotton Textiles

The various ethnic groups of Cambodia also produce cotton material for religious clothing and other purposes, such as for bedding and for various household textiles. The royal courts also imported Indian chintz with patterns especially for the Southeast Asian market.

The kroma is the all-purpose utility cotton cloth used by either men or women throughout the country as a head or neck scarf, belt, or towel. It is also used as a bag to carry things. This rectangular textile has a checkered pattern, usually blue and white or red and white, with striped ends. Political groups such as the Khmer Rouge have used the kroma to symbolize membership.

The Cham, an Austronesian group, are highly skilled silk weavers who produce cotton tube-skirts or sarongs for both men and women. Three or four hundred years ago, the Cham reportedly used to produce batiks (wax resist-dyed fabrics) in cotton similar to that of their kin in insular Southeast Asia. Cham women weave a checked or plaid cotton sarong for men. Natural or white cotton is important in Cham religious activities; it is worn by Cham priests and used as a sacred object during religious ceremonies.

Other Mon-Khmer and Austronesian minorities living in the northeastern region of Cambodia weave cotton cloth on back strap looms for clothing and domestic use. The groups of both of these linguistic families weave similar textiles by attaching the warp beam of the back strap loom to a tree or part of a house in order the achieve the lengths of woven material needed for their loincloths.

The male loincloth is approximately 20 to 25 centimeters wide and 3 to 7 meters long. It is indigo blue or black with large red warp stripes and smaller yellow and white warp stripes. Supplementary patterns also decorate the stripes. The ends of the loincloth are patterned with red bands with supplementary patterns of animal or plant motifs. Red tassels and lead, glass, or plastic beading sometimes decorate the edges and ends of the loincloth. Men of the various Mon-Khmer linguistic groups sometimes wear a blanket over a shoulder during rituals, but otherwise do not wear an upper garment. Occasionally, men wear a simple tunic made from plant fibers such as bark cloth or banana leaves. These plant-fiber tunics are reported to have been more common when the technology to weave cotton was not familiar to these groups. It is now rare to find clothing made from these fibers. Men of the Jarai and Ede Austronesian minorities wear a collarless shirt of indigo or black cotton adorned with red yarn or metal beads on special occasions.

Women of the different ethnic minorities wear tube skirts. The long tube-skirt is worn tucked in around the breasts and is made from two pieces of material sewn together to form a tube. The shorter version is made from one piece of cloth sewn into a tube and is worn tucked in at the waist. The color scheme of the women's tube-skirts is similar to that of the men's loincloth. Women either do not wear an upper garment or wear a simple tunic made from a single piece of cloth with a hole cut in the middle of the textile for the head and the sides sewn together leaving open spaces for the arms. Ede women add sleeves to the tunic and decorate them with red yarn and metal beading.

As with other Khmer and Cham ethnicities, the minority groups of northeast Cambodia presently reserve traditional dress for special occasions. Textile production in Cambodia has experienced disruption because of political conflict, particularly during the Khmer Rouge regime of the late 1970s. Textile production increased in the calmer conditions at the beginning of the twenty-first century, encouraged by renewed local and foreign interest in hand-woven textiles, particularly in mastering the dyeing and weaving of the pidan hol produced prior to the twentieth century.

Khmer Dress Colors for Special Occasions

For special occasions, men wear a light coloured shirt and coloured trousers. Women wear a silk sampot with matching hol (a type of shirt). In the evenings they often wear a phamuong or hol which is a silk dress with intricate patterns at the hem. They choose their sampot to match the traditional colour for the day of the week when the event is held.

1- Sunday: Red

2- Monday: Orange

3- Tuesday: Violet

4- Wednesday: Greenish yellow

5- Thursday: Green

6-Friday: Dark blue

7- Saturday: Dark purple

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Khmer Behavior

How to Sleep, Walk, Stand, Sit, and Speak

Every culture trains its children to become good members of society in order to insure harmony, peace, and stability. Cambodian parents teach their children how to sleep, walk, stand, sit, and speak. For the parents, the values below capture the essence of a well-mannered Cambodian.

How to Sleep
-You must wake up before sunrise or you are lazy.
-Sleeping places in the home are determined according to status. (Cambodian families often live in one or two rooms, and everyone sleeps on the same bed, a large slatted wooden platform about eight- or ten-feet square. The parents sleep at the "head" end and the youngest children sleep at the "foot.")

How to Walk
-Tell people where you are going and when you are coming back. (This is important to show respect to others and to keep them from being embarrassed if someone asks and they don't know where you are.)
-If someone of higher status is passing you, bend lower (from the waist) than that person.
-Don't make sounds with your skirt when you walk.
-Don't wear shoes or hats when you enter a house or temple.
-Close doors softly when you go through them.
-When you meet someone on the street, ask where they are going.

How to Stand
-Stand with your arms crossed at the waist. (Arms at the side means you are signaling that you are strong. Hands on the hips or arms behind your back or across the chest means you are rich, powerful, threatening, or disrespectful of other people.)

How to Sit

-Sit with your legs straight down. (Crossing legs shows disrespect.)
-Never put your feet on a table or show the soles of your feet to others.
-Men can sit on the floor in the lotus position while eating.
-Women must sit on the floor with legs aside.

How to Speak
-You must speak softly and gently.
-Show feelings only at home.
-Children have no right to speak unless spoken to.
-A guest is polite and doesn't talk unless spoken to.
-Let others talk more than you.
-There should be limited talking at meals. Speak only if spoken to.
-If you speak with anger or emotion or express feelings, you will not be respected. You are behaving like an immature and uneducated child.
-Patience is a virtue. (Parents make a comparison between a gasoline fire which ignites quickly and burns to nothing, and a charcoal fire which is difficult to start but cannot easily be extinguished and becomes more intense.)
-Do not make aggressive movements or gestures--such as making a fist, pounding the table, or throwing something--while speaking.
-Moderated feelings are best, i.e., those that are neither very happy or very angry or sad.
-Giving criticism or discussing an individual's problems must not be done in public. (That person will lose face, want revenge, and will be unable to accept your idea.) If you must give criticism, do so in private and indirectly. Talk around the issue, ask for information about the issue, and then let the individual reach her own conclusion in her own time and way.

How to Eat

-Men can eat a lot but must not eat fast.
-Women can eat only a small amount.
-Take food only when asked or directed to.
-Use the communal spoon. Not using it indicates you are insincere or not part of the group.
-People of high rank do not expect to have to get their own food (especially at a buffet). They are often seated in a private or special place and served by others to show status and respect.
-All guests must be served water or another drink even if they come for only a short visit. Give a drink rather than ask what they want which is impolite. If asked, they are obligated to choose the least expensive drink.
-If guests come during a meal, they must be invited to eat.

How to Greet
-Offer a traditional greeting with hands in front of face, palms together, in prayer-like fashion.
-Men can shake hands with men.
-Men should not shake hands with Khmer women unless they offer their hand.
-Men should not hug, kiss, or touch the body of a Khmer woman while greeting her. (She will lose respect and feel embarrassed.)
-Men should not look women directly in the eye. (They may become confused, feel uncomfortable, nervous, shy, and not respected.)
-Men should not give "strong" visual attention to other men.

How to Dress
-Formality is very important for respect in the office and at important occasions, when teaching, or when being welcomed as a guest.
-Men wear long-sleeve shirts, long pants, and shoes. No T-shirts and sandals.

Khmer Traditional Dresses

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By Cambodian Tailor

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Khmer Short Story:12- The Blackbird And The Monkey

There were two blackbirds, male and female who set up their nest on a tree. Mean whole it was raining; a homeless monkey who was stricken with cold came to stay under the blackbird’s tree. When the blackbirds saw him terribly shivering, one counseled him “Oh, Brother Monkey, you have two hands and two legs as a man does. Why don’t you build home for you dwelling?”
The monkey said “I have two hands and two legs as a man does. Thus I am a nestles animal. The truth is I cannot do it” The blackbird said again “You do not need knowledge to build your nest. You see the birds have only one beak and they can build the nest which they need for their protection from the cold and the rain. You had better think it over. Am I right or not? All the animals in the world have their own dwelling to protect their babies and their mates from suffering. If you cannot build a good nest, you just put branches one on another and you cover it with leaves for your own nest for a while. You do not depend on another dwelling or on a branch or on a tree. It is very difficult for you mate and your young ones. Monkey you have two hands and two legs, I think you can do it. Please do it, do not wait for your knowledge to help you.
All the animals have only strength will work in their own way. They never work like the human beings. You see even the worm, the locust and the termite which are very small, but they have their own habitations, and you, why can’t you do it?
Other animals have no more knowledge than you, but they are able to build habitations of their own.
You said that you cannot do it because you do not want to do it, and you are lazy animal”
When the monkey heard the blackbird criticize him, he became very angry, because he was ashamed before the blackbirds, and then he swung straight to the blackbird’s nest and dropped it down.

DO NOT GIVE COUNSEL THOSE WHO DO NOT WANT TO LISTEN

Choucroute Garni Recipe

Ingriedients:
4 pounds refrigerated sauerkraut, well rinsed and drained
1/2 pound bacon, diced
2 large onions, peeled and coarsely chopped
3 carrots, pared and sliced
1/2 cup chopped parsley
2 bay leaves
10 juniper berries
4 whole cloves
3 cups fruity white wine (Riesling or Mosel)
4 cups chicken broth
1 pound boneless pork loin, cubed
1/2 pound ham, cubed
1 pound smoked sausage, sliced
1 pound bratwurst, sliced
2 tart green apples, cored and coarsely chopped

METHOD:
1-In a large Dutch oven, or kettle with lid, slowly cook bacon with carrots
and onion over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 8 to 10 minutes.
2-Place parsley, bay leaves, peppercorns, juniper berries and cloves in cheesecloth
bag or large tea strainer. Add to pot with sauerkraut, wine and broth.
Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 1 hour.
3-Add pork loin, ham, sausage, and bratwurst. Simmer for another hour.
4-Add apples and simmer for a further 20 minutes.
5-Serve immediately or refrigerate overnight and reheat.

Beautiful Khmer Styles

Beautiful dresses for party. By Cambodian Tailors

Yoga for Healthy III

-Bharamari Pranayama: Bharamari has calming effect on mind, brain and nervous system. This pranayama should be done with the thought that your individual consciousness merges with the divine cosmic consciousness.

-Anulom n Viloma Pranayama: Prana breathed in through left nostril represents energy of the moon, which symbolizes peace, and has a cooling effect.

-Bahya Pranayama: Baha Pranayama exerts pressure on all the organs of the abdominal cavity and cause mild pain in this area's weak or diseased parts. For improving the health of these organs this Pranayama is very effective and it should be done using all the three Bandhas.

-Kapala-bhati Pranayama: In Kapala-bhati, the Puraka is to be done with normal, usual force but the Recak has to be done with as much of force as is at your command. In doing so, the abdominal area, also makes inward and outward movements and considerable force is applied to the Manipura, Swadhisthana and Muladhara Chakra. This Pranayama should easily be done for 5 minutes. Persons suffering from acute and chronic diseases must practice if it for 15 minutes or more as per the capability.

-Bhasrika Pranayama: Bhasrika Pranayama is revitalizing Pranayama, which increases oxygen levels and reduces carbon dioxide levels in the blood. In bhasrika Pranayama, the abdominal muscles and diaphragm are used which puts pressure on the internal organs. This Pranayama should be done for 5-10 minutes.

Khmer Dresses by Cambodian Tailors