Coffeehouse on a Sunday afternoon

It’s been a very niiice day, the sun went on a holiday today and did not appear at all. The weather was calling me for a coffee in the afternoon, and I went to visit a coffee house to have a bit of relaxation. There were people all around me doing whatever they were doing pretty freely, not all were working, some were watching, playing, talking, or thinking. I didn’t have my Mint Lime Freeze, but the mango shake didn’t disappoint.

It’s where you can enjoy some open time well, and absorb positive energy from everything around you. You can just feel each and every byte of everything, starting from the music to the shake to the flow of tiny noises people make while conversing. How people spend this time of the Sunday in a coffee house is very interesting, everyone seem to be so different and have different situations from one another to deal with. There were friends who were just having a good time drinking a shake and shared a gossip with each other, there were also parents just completing their obligation of taking their kids out on Sundays, there were workaholisc who looked to me as if they were to somehow die if they didn’t finish their work and duty for today; so to me, a coffeehouse isn’t just a house where you drink coffee, but a simple place which complicated people go to in order to make themselves feel simple again.

Chinese New Year in Cambodia

Chinese New Year, to me, is more of a holiday than a festival. It also has few of the happiest moments in my life so far, it wasn’t about the celebration, but more of a family gathering. Of course we did the praying and what was needed to be done, but the fun was in the days after, I was really close to my cousins back then, we have a great great time. The one thing I like most is when I get to meet so many relatives, from the closest ones I know of to the ones I at least know of, we all get to chat and get to know each other more; it’s like a relative version of blind date. People came from all over the world to gather at this one place, then we start eating and praying and chatting and partying together until everyone of us goes back to where we belong. We normally go to our hometown, and I always get to become the tour guide/boss of the relatives who are expats. I’ve always given them information about the food, the name of the place, and what is this and what is that, I think I’ve always done the job great.

As a kid, Chinese New Year is like the period when you get a lot of good stuffs, but most importantly, the pocket money. I’m not saying this because I was or am greedy, but it’s the only time of the year where you get a lot of money for FREE. The more relatives you have, the more pocket money you will receive. There were some years when I still have too much money even after buying so many toys and snacks, I still remember the feeling I had back then, it was awesomeee.

One week before the Chinese New Year, people start cleaning up their entire houses, it’s believed that everything should be new and be ready to welcome the new year.

Orussey Market will be closed on the day of the festival and that’s why people would even have order everything they need before it closes. Most of the people here shops for Chinese New Year goods in Orussey Market, the market is well-known for its chinese goods.

There are so many things needed to be done for Chinese New Year, the main thing is to pray. But praying isn’t that easy as you thought it was, before you get to offer the prayers, there are things you need to buy. Foods are very important for Chinese New Year, depending on how much you want the quantity of dishes to be, that much will be the offer for the prayer. Whether you have twelve dishes or just two, if you sincerely pray for the love and care and peace and happiness for the year, God will not hesitate to give it to you. The quantity and quality of foods and goods we offer to God does not really matter, it’s a tradition I know that, but if you see it in another angle, all of it are just for the formalities. There is no way you’ll get more luck if you offer more stuffs and for those who does not offer anything at all on Chinese New Year, wouldn’t they get anything at all?

My family has a tradition of going to one specific temple to pray every single year, it’s the most visited chinese temple here in Cambodia. We normally go there by the second day of the festival, after offering food to the Gods at home. That night we would normally party very hard, we would eat, chat, play cards, drink and sleep at around midnight. But that’s not it, my parents said the adults normally will chat until three or four in the morning, then go to bed afterwards. The second day, we’ll usually wake up around eight or nine, and have a very niiice home made breakfast and we’re ready to go. The procedure of what to do in the temple is very hard to master, my parents do not even know the steps by steps as clearly as my grandparents do. There are so many Gods in their, it’s not like one has better superpowers and one has a weaker, it’s never like that, it’s just that each God has represents one power of their own. I do not know what God has to be offered to pray first, but it doesn’t really matter, as I said before, sincerely pray and you’ll get what you need.

The atmosphere is very hectic, people come from all over the country to pray here. Smoke from the incense sticks are everywhere, I could not open my eyes the moment I got in the main praying area. After praying, we would get ourselves some magic water, water which was perfumed and blessed by the temple, then we would wash our faces with the water in a meaning of washing away all the dust and bad luck. Before going back home, there is still one more optional thing to do, buying sugarcane. Sugarcane are mostly bought and kept in houses until it is rotten enough to be thrown away, it is said to mean sweetness and happiness in the family due to the sweetness of the sugarcane itself. Some would go on a trip rite away after the praying site, but my family tend to go back home and have a simple lunch and take a good afternoon nap, just to make sure we’re all ready to repeat whatever happened last night, again.

Lanterns are the small side dishes that makes the Chinese New Year complete. As we all know that the Chinese do love the color red a lot, they use it nearly every where and anytime of the year. Lanterns are not just red, but the flame that is sitting inside is RED, that’s a whole lot of redness. Red means every good there is in this world, the joy, the fun, the happiness, the luck, it is the ultimate color. Though I do not play with lanterns anymore on the festival, my cousins and my little brother still do, they would just lit it up and start running around with it, and desit, it’s fun. When I was young, I enjoy it much better, I used to live with my grandparents near The Riverside, and we all know how excited The Riverside can be. At night, I would go around with them with my lanterns hanging around, the night scenery of The Riverside never fails to give me a great performance.

Chinese has been impacting the whole world these recent decades, they have been to every corner of the world to make their investment. Just recently, it was reported that China has exceeding America economically, it has been said like this for a very long time, but it’s just that the world has not accept that it has actually become a fact. To be honest, the authenticity and classics that China has, for now, the standards are not as high as America, but who knows? It’s China for goodness sake. Although when people talk about China and what’s there, we dun tend to feel as much excitement and curiosity as when we hear people talking about European countries or just AMERICA itself. It might be because the citizens of the world just have not gotten used to it yet, people just cannot believe that China has exceeding America this fast, not a single person expected this to happen two decades ago, it wasn't feasible to even predict, dun mention happening. Economically, it has probably covered the entire world, should China culturally do it as well? Well, China has sure done it here in Cambodia, that’s why we have the Chinese New Year.

Will the Chinese New Year be the next Christmas?

Cambodian Noodles

Foods are one of God’s greatest masterpieces; he was rite on point. Food isn’t just something you eat to survive and stay full, food is an unique art which satisfies us in a very indescribable way. A lot of adjectives were invented, but still, no word has come close to describe the word “Food”. It is to me, a very important source, it makes me feel very good after having eaten it. And I dun think it’s only me, everyone in the world must’ve felt the same. It does not like fills up your tummy, but also your expectations. But of course, it can sometime makes people hate it, when it tastes very bad and when it gets way too addictive. 

Noodles, same as rice and bread, is one of the most eaten food in the world. It can be eaten everywhere and anytime and almost anywhere around the world. It is not just widely known and eaten by Asians, but it is also well liked and eaten by Europeans and Americans. Actually, most of the world’s best noodles serving restaurants are from somewhere else rather than Asia. I do not mean that there is no good noodles serving restaurant here in Asia, but it seems like the countries apart from Asia think of noodles as more of a big deal than us. They do not eat as much or as often as we Asians do, but I bet they think of noodles as a homemade which has nothing special, but just a bowl of it definitely can make anyone’s day. It is considered as one of the main food, but to people, noodles somehow looks and feels slightly more special than rice or bread. 

Noodles are made from unleavened dough, and the shape and size will be decided after that. There is no specific shape or size of noodles, it depends on the cultures of that area or place or city or country. But whatever it is, we all do like it so much, that’s all that matter, isn’t it? We just have to thank the great Chinese for the making of noodles some 4000 years ago. Noodles have a rich 4000 years old history of their own, even older than Angkor Wat. Over the years, different types of noodles has been created and developed, from the famous Ramen of Korea to the famous Udon of Japan and many more varieties mostly in Southeast Asia. 

We do not eat noodles as often as rice here in Cambodia, but most of the adults here have noodles soup almost every morning. There are more noodles serving breakfast place than rice serving ones. Noodles have been here for a long time that are noodle serving restaurants hanging their old fotos, some are as old as nearly three decades. They might as well be not as delicious or tasteful as having rice with many many side dishes, but noodles are those very few foods I would not mind if I happened to have to eat it everyday. You just cannot get sick of it! 

We can get noodles almost everywhere, you can get it while on a trip to whatever province in Cambodia there is, you can find in almost all the streets corners and main streets here in Phnom Penh. It doesn't really matter where they serve it, whether it’s on a streets or in luxury restaurants, people will find it and they will eat it. It’s something everyone can get go and grab and desit, there is no complications to it.

Am I confident about the Education System here? Part 2

Education, to me, means LIFE. Hehehe, it might be too early to start with the heavy topic rite away. But, it is true, so let’s start.

Education = LIFE

It is as simple as that. No twists or turns. If you follow the traffic lights, there will be no traffic.

What I mean by LIFE is everything one will be doing, having, owning, taking, or whatever verb+ing there is to describe everything we do in LIFE. LIFE is a long journey, it is an unpredictable timeframe (people say God decide when and where and how God wants or needs to end our timeframe), for us to do everything we want and need. That’s why most of us always say that we each have one LIFE, live happy and well.

BUT… That happiness and wellness does not come from messing everything in LIFE or do everything we want but not need, if we do so, then it shall be pronounce as a wrong thing. Now that’s when EDUCATION comes in the topic, education is one of very few sources of power we need in order to build and organize and manage the only and one LIFE we all have. Education does not just exist in books we learn from at school, what we learn at school is just one byte of the millions of megabytes of files we have to transfer to our brains in order to know how LIFE works and work with it. Education means knowledge too, and knowledge can be found everywhere, anytime, anyhow. When a newborn sees the parents, to know and to later recognize them, that’s pure knowledge.

This article was written with the same approach as the A Cup of Joe article. So that we’ll know what has changed these recent years. When I wrote the first part, to be very very honest, our education system was pretty bad and very loose. But it has changed a lot since then, after the retest of the 12th grade exam, everything has become normal. The questions I asked myself back then, I am be able to answer it by myself now.

Is it fair to have the Grade 12 Exam repeated only because the majority have failed?

It is never fair to do so, but we had no choice but to do it. The idea of doing so is bad, but idea of what are we doing it for is good. So I do agree with the government for making it happened.

What about the past years?

There have not been anything such as retesting that I’ve ever heard of, so it was my first experience. If we’re talking about whether it’s fair for the students who have taken the test the year before the test and the year after the test, then it could never have been fair. Why, you ask? because where are the second chances? If the students who took the re-test had a second chance, why not the ones before and the ones after?

Is it going to be the same next year and the year after?

The next year I was talking about was 2015, and there were no retest. As I said, everything has changed. The retest was held to indirectly give the students a second chance, but what actually was the intention was to flip the education system around, and to do so, the government could not afford anything else but to hold a retest and after that, start to strengthen and tighten the education system. We can’t really blame them for the fairness and the unfairness. They had no choice.

Has our Education system been this twisted?

It was badly twisted, but now, it has been niiicely twisted back to its normal form.

Many of those who passed their Grade 12 Exam earlier might have become teachers, Government Officials and employees in other services and companies. How would their productivity be?

Like I said, it will never be fair. We have to move on, and not live in the past. If we mind the past too much, who’s gonna care about the present or even the future? Which comes to the point that we have to think about what’s ahead, the past will stay past, what matters more is what’s in front. What’d you say? Let’s move forward, shall we?

I want to trust and have confidence in our Education System and believe that it is only going to become better. However, a part of me is very hesitant. Am I wrong?

I am not wrong, I was right about what I said and expected. I’m not worried about my further education anymore, I do trust and believe with my full heart.

A Cup of Joe Part 2

The first “A Cup of Joe” article was uploaded more than one and a half year ago. Back then, I did not really have that much history with Joe yet. Coffee, to me, did not give me any positive impact at all. To me, I have always somehow think of it as something very unhealthy and addictive; more like a drug than just A Cup of Joe. Time, once again, flew past me like the speed of light. It felt like the first part of this article was written and uploaded yesterday, and now I’m writing the second part. Now, coffee has become a very impactful part of my daily life and the life itself.

Many people think the ones drinking coffee are the ones who are very dependent, that they can’t survive without drinking coffee, well those people are wrong. I’ve understood that people who drinks many cups of Joe everyday for work, are the ones who are working the chicken outta themselves. They dun get gud sleep, most of them all-nighters, they ain’t got time to waste. To those people, a day with 24 hours is never close enough to be being enough. If you ask them if they could, would they add more hours into a day - the answer is simple, it’s a resounding YES! I’m not saying that I’m already one of them, what I’m saying is that I think I’m turning into one of them or I would love to be one of them.

There is no sweetness or yummyness to coffee, it’s just plainly black bitter water concentrated out from some beans, nothing special at all. It’s not like coke and all, where you get addicted to the sweetness and the gas. The only thing about coffee that has been attracting most of the population to drink it, is its taste, those tiny beans are just amazeball. If you get the rite bean, you get the rite coffee. And that’s about it for the explanation of how coffee is like, very simple? That’s why people like it very much, its attitude, taste, and smell. You can’t really put an age limit on drinking coffee, if you consume the rite amount, it’s okay for everyone. As students, we all have long tight day, all coffee does is that it pushes me to go forward, to end the day as properly and niiicely as possible.

The coffee I usually drink are either Cappuccino or Americano or Mocha, honestly, they do not look appetizing at all. It has been evolving, unknowingly. From the light and sweet Mocha to the slightly sweet but very deep-flavored Cappuccino to the bittersweet classic Americano, there’s Expresso left to go, but I guess I’ll pause it here for now. I talked about Starbucks last time, that they might come to me for the “coffee for kids” idea, they were not here in Cambodia yet. But now they are, although they have not contact me yet, but I bet they are playing it safe and slow, the tactic works everytime, hhehehehe. 

P.S You will only understand the line above if you have read the first part of A Cup of Joe, if you have not read it yet, please go right away.

Shuttlecock aka Sey in Phnom Penh

The first version of the JianZi dates back to the 2nd century BC in China. Jian Zi had become famous in Asia only when The International Shuttlecock Federation was founded in 1999. Known as Sey in Khmer, according to an interview, had been widely played right after the Khmer Rouge. 

Again, I’d like to say that the Riverside is an amazeball place, there are so many things you get to see there; IF you can see LIFE. Shuttlecock or Jian Zi or Sey, is not a widely fancied sport in Cambodia. There are no organizations or federations helping this sport to develop, and it seems like we know very little about it. To the people here, it’s just not as interesting as soccer or basketball is. 

The sports has gotten more development these recent years, there was a community formed where the players get to hangout with each other, trying to promote the sport. To play Sey, the players have to form a circle, consisting around 6-8 players. Each player has his own style of play, freestyle techniques, they all look very professional. 

Of course they are seniors and juniors and the newbies, one of the most respected seniors has been playing the Shuttlecock game right after the Khmer Rouge era ended. He plays very calm, he looks at the game properly, sometimes, when the timing is way above perfect, you don’t really need to hit that hard. 

It looks fun to me, but also very very hard to be mastered. You see how they kick it? I’m at loss of words to describe, all I can say is that they have to get the perfect timing and power to keep the flow going, and that is not an easy task. One more thing, I bet they are as patient as a predator waiting for its prey, silent but accurate, no space for mistakes. 

Riverside is the ice cream, and the Shuttlecock game has been the spices that are added into, it has not just made Riverside a better place, it has also made its own signature towards the locals and the expats. The Shuttlecock game has made such an impact that the Ministry of Tourism has decided to paint a proper lane and columns where the game can be properly played. Though this does not guarantee that there will be more people interested in this sport or that its popularity will rise, but it will definitely give the expats at the Riverside a good dose of excitement.

Above all, I personally think there should be organizations helping the sports to develop faster than it is now. There should be a national tournaments, I bet there are more Shuttlecock players in Cambodia than just the ones in Riverside. Schools should start teaching kids the Shuttlecock game, it does not really matter whether the sport was originated in Cambodia or not, but the Shuttlecock game is one of the few sports Khmers started playing, it should be taken care of properly. 

Gold doesn't need to be preserved niiicely or properly…..it shines wherever it is. Shuttlecock isn’t, let us do what is needed to be done and make it shine brighter.

Phnom Penh Cyclos

Cyclo was invented in Cambodia by an unknown Frenchman in 1936. Few years after the invention, Cyclo became the trend of transportation and was even exported to Vietnam. It has been around for quite some time, the only time where Cyclo did not exist was during the Khmer Rouge. The 1999 Research based on numbers of Cyclo in Cambodia stated that there were more than 9000 Cyclos, but the latest 2008 Research stated that there were less than 3000 Cyclos left, and as of now, we do not know the exact number, but I bet it has once again, massively gone down. It is said by the citizens that Cyclos are too old for them, that Cyclos aren't modern enough and definitely not as convenient as Tuktuks or Motordubs. There is one kool fact most of us probably have not heard of, Cyclos drivers are actually farmers, after harvesting their crops, they will work as a Cyclo driver as a part time job.

Courtesy for the above: Youtube

I felt very bad when I heard the Cyclo drivers themselves said that Cyclos might get extinct, and it will be incredibly hard to bring them back up. So now that we still have some left, there should be more and more organizations coming in to lend these Cyclo drivers a hand and get them out of the near-extinct zone. I honestly do remember a lot of memories from my childhood, I can’t say it was awesomeee and very niiice, what I can say is that there were many things happening around me. As I grow older, these tiny pieces of memories somehow has turned from nothing to something pretty special to me; I’m sure it has happened to all of us. Who knew riding a Cyclo with my grandma to Central Market will be special when it was done? Those things were just things we do in our daily lives and suddenly we don't get to do it anymore, that’s when you’ll realize that what you were doing was special. It can be seen in two different angles, the first one is that us humans would not realize anything at all when we still have or own it, but the moment when it’s gone, that’s when we’ll start our tantrums and regrets and sorrys. The second one is that us humans would still not appreciate things, but in a good way, and the moment we start appreciating and realizing what’s actually happened and what we have in hand now, it will definitely lead to a happy ending.

Hongyy’s Business/Organization Mode On

There are quite a few organizations which helps and encourages Cyclo drivers, but I think we can do more for them. They have been serving us for nearly a century, despite whatever happened during throughout the years, they and we have still kept it alive. But now that it is said to be extinct pretty soon, we better move quick and start doing what they deserve for all the hardworks they’ve done for us. I’m not bragging or saying that I’m kindhearted or whatsoever, but I’ve always liked the idea of sharing and giving back. In this case, in order to give back, all we have to do is to encourage farmers or people from the provinces to become Cyclo drivers. It does not pay as much as Tuktuks, but Cyclos have more history and culture behind, it’s something which the tourists will definitely know that it’s from Cambodia.

In conclusion, I think the Cyclo drivers have been giving as a lot indirectly, while us, on the other hand, has not done much in return for them. This article was also written to thanks all the hardworking Cyclo drivers out there, for the effort, for all the great meanings they have given to our culture. I wish there would be more and more organizations to come and help the Cyclo drivers, because you never know, they could be extinct faster than you expect.

This article was supposed to end like the above, but not after I’ve just experienced riding a Cyclo just few hours ago. It was pretty fun, I felt what I’ve never felt for many years, the Cyclo does not even fit me anymore, time sure went like a rocket. I was surprised by myself, that now my guts are stronger and stronger, I did what I would not do if I were the Hongyy I was years ago.