Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2016 i Faces People, Places, and World Culture for Kids and Children

Cambodia is a country recovering from a turbulent recent past, but it is also a country with a glorious past that includes the ancient city of Angkor. Here are five facts about this Southeast Asian country to get you started on your journey. 1. Nearly 2 million people were murdered during the Khmer Rouge reign of Cambodia in the 1970s. Most of those killed were educated or professional people. The country is still dealing with the repercussions of these killings. 2. Bon Om Tuk, or the Water Festival, celebrates the receding of the Tonle Sap lake back into the Mekong River. It marks the beginning of the annual fishing season. 3. Angkor Wat is one of the most recognizable sites in the world. The temple was built around 1113 by…

Cambodia is a young democracy that struggles to modernize after decades of brutal wars. While Cambodia is among the poorest countries, it’s among the countries that have made the most rapid reduction in poverty, from 48 percent of the population in 2007 to 17 percent in 2015. Cambodians are a resilient people and look ahead to build a new future for their families. Once reduced to ghost towns, larger cities such as Phnom Penh and Battambang now bustle with new businesses, housing, and markets, while the economy continues to grow. The new parliamentary democratic monarchy has firmly declared that education is the key to jobs and poverty reduction. EMERGING FROM THE CIVIL WARS Cambodia endured decades of violence and murder of its people. The radical communist movement called the Khmer…

Board games are a great way to engage in friendly competition while developing strategic and problem-solving skills. One of the most popular board games in the world is chess. No one knows where chess originated, but it is believed to be a very ancient game. It may have been invented in India as early as the seventh century. Around the world, the game board, pieces, and rules of what is commonly called international chess are all the same. But Cambodians like to play their own traditional, national form of chess. Cambodian chess, called Ouk Chhoeu trang (uke chow-oo trang), is the most popular game in the country. Ouk Chhoeu trang can be traced to the ancient Khmer civilization of Angkor Wat. During the ninth century, Angkor Wat was a thriving…

Leng Ouch is like a secret agent working for Cambodia’s rural people and the forest. He puts his life in jeopardy to hunt down the corrupt people who have robbed the country and its people of their valuable land and trees. He’s an environmental activist who goes undercover to gather evidence on the uncontrolled illegal logging activities. For his devotion and passion, he was awarded the highest honor for environmental activism, the 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize. Environmental Devastation and Human Suffering Cambodia is losing its forests at an unparalleled rate and has the fifth fastest rate of deforestation in the world, primarily due to illegal logging. As one of the poorest countries in the world, nearly one fifth of Cambodians live in dire poverty on less than $1.25 a day.…

Rice is the most important crop in Cambodia, and throughout Asia. In fact, for about half the world’s population it is the main food. The Cambodian word for “eat,” sii bay, means, “to eat rice” when translated literally. Rice is ideally suited to grow in Cambodia’s warm, wet climate. According to the Rice Association, there are more than 40,000 different varieties of rice, but only a small variety is sold. How did the custom of throwing rice at a wedding begin? Rice is a symbol of fertility and abundance. Brown rice is better for you nutritionally than white rice. Rice is grown on every continent except Antarctica. The consumption of rice has been traced back to 5000 B.C. in several countries including China and India. Sake is an alcoholic drink…

Official Name: Kingdom of Cambodia Area: 69,898 square miles (181,035 square kilometers), about the size of Missouri Capital: Phnom Penh Population: 15.7 million (July 2015 estimate) People: Khmer, 90 percent; Vietnamese, 5 percent; Chinese, 1 percent; others, 4 percent Official Language: Khmer; English and French are also spoken Religions: Buddhist, 96.9 percent; Muslim, 1.9 percent; other, 1.2 percent Land: Cambodia’s most important geographical region is the central plain, which is flooded by the Mekong River to create fertile fields. The flooding makes this area perfect for growing rice and a variety of vegetables Highest Point: Phnom Aural (5,948 feet, or 1,813 meters)…

Cambodian families celebrate Prachum Ben by preparing special cakes and rice balls. According to legend, the King of the Land of the Dead allows spirits to visit their earthly relatives during this festival to honor the memory of Cambodians’ ancestors. Ceremonies for Prachum Ben center on the country’s Buddhist monasteries and temples. The exact dates of Prachum Ben and certain other Cambodian holidays depend on the cycles of the moon. Prachum Ben usually occurs at the end of September. In late April, Cambodians celebrate Visak Bauchea, another religious holiday that honors the Buddha’s birth and enlightenment. Later in the fall, excitement washes through Cambodia as the country celebrates the Water Festival (Bon Om Tuk). The festival celebrates an extraordinary natural phenomenon. During heavy summer rains, the Tonle Sap River flows…

Wading across swamps and cutting through the dense Cambodian jungle was all part of the job for Henri Mouhot (moo-OH) in 1860. He was a French explorer and scientist collecting samples of local plant life for Britain’s Royal Geographical Society. After hearing rumors of a mysterious lost city and monuments hidden deep in the jungle, Henri hired a local guide to take him to the spot. He described the eerie mood at the site. “Hardly a sound echoes but the roar of tigers, the harsh cry of elephants and wild stags,” he said. Among vines and tree roots, the “size of an elephant’s legs” that choked the stone ruins, Henri gazed at the remains of a great city that lie in northern Cambodia, in a region called Angkor (ANG-kor). Angkor…

If you want to meet a striped rabbit, a poisonous dragon millipede, or a frog with green blood and turquoise bones, travel on over to the Greater Mekong region in Southeast Asia. This corner of the world including Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, and some of China is packed with fascinating critters. According to a report by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), 1,068 new species have been found there in just ten years! Here’s the breakdown: 519 plants, 279 fish, 88 frogs, 88 spiders, 46 lizards, 22 snakes, 15 mammals, four birds, four turtles, two salamanders, and a toad. “Who knows what else is out there waiting to be discovered, but what’s clear is that there is plenty more where this came from,” says Stuart Chapman, head of the WWF…

“Look, up in the tree. It’s a pinecone!” “It’s an anteater.” “No, it’s a Pangolin!” Also known as the Malayan or Javan Pangolin, this armored mammal feeds entirely on ants and termites it finds in forests and plantations in Southeast Asia. With its strong sense of smell, the Pangolin seeks out its prey, tears into an ant nest or termite mound with powerful claws, and gathers insects with its sticky tongue that is longer than its entire body. No need for teeth, the adult Pangolin swallows its dinner whole — at the rate of about 200,000 ants or termites per day, or 70 million insects a year. Talk about effective pest control! Though its body is covered by rows of scales, the Pangolin is actually a mammal, not a reptile.…

Cambodian musicians Arn Chorn-Pond and Youen Mek performed together at New York City’s Lincoln Center in 2013. Mek taught Chorn-Pond to play the flute in the late 1970s when he was just a young boy. Their lessons didn’t take place in a school or music studio; they took place in a Khmer Rouge prison camp. At the time, the thought of one day performing together at Lincoln Center would have seemed ridiculous and unimaginable. For most of Cambodia’s history, the country’s performing artists were highly respected. Members of the royal family were dancers and musicians, and the monarchy recognized the importance of all art forms. After the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975, all forms of art and music were banned except for those that glorified the government. Approximately 90…

“One less land mine, one less child without a leg.”- Aki Ra Aki Ra doesn’t know when his birthday is. In fact, he isn’t even sure of his age. He thinks he was born in 1970, a few years before his parents were killed by the Khmer Rouge. He grew up at a Khmer Rouge work camp where orphaned children were treated like slaves and forced to become child soldiers. Each day they were also expected to bury at least 100 landmines, small containers filled with explosive materials and fragments of sharp metal. Landmines, heavily used since World War II, are buried just below ground level or hidden where they aren’t easily seen. Originally used during warfare to defend strategic locations and prevent enemies from using important roads and bridges,…

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