The Khmer social life is a family life.
The goal of all life is to have a large family - many children.
In the absence of a social welfare system, children are a guarantee of old age. It's an investment for retirement!
My Khmer teachers asked by me, what was the purpose of their work, in the first place they would always say: financial help for parents.
The importance of the family ties is evident at every step.
A wedding is a very important family and social event. I will have a separate coverage of it one day.
Today I will describe another ceremony.
In our street, at the intersection, a big marquise was put up two days ago. Probably for a dozen or so big tables.
In the evening music started to be very loud. The whole area was to know that there would be a ceremony in honor of the deceased.
That very loud music consisting of a monotonous, repeated hitting the strings of a traditional musical instrument (a kind of xylophone) did not give us peace for many hours.
And so it was until late evening and then for the whole next day.
This morning from 6:00 it all started again and around 8:00 the funeral procession set off, with even louder music from a magaphone.
The procession went past our home.
We had the opportunity to see this part of the ceremony from our balcony.
The cultural difference between Europe and Cambodia is mainly based on the fact that in Cambodia, family events become social and are announced in an extremely blunt manner.
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