Cambodians mark Pchum Ben festival for the dead

Cambodia is mid-way through its annual Festival of the Dead, a ceremony based around the country's numerous Buddhist pagodas. The festival has added symbolism due to the huge number of people who were murdered under the Khmer Rouge regime.Monks chant prayers for the dead at Wat Langka, one of Phnom Penh's key Buddhist temples. It is 9 o'clock in the morning, and for the past five hours hundreds of people dressed in their best clothes have filed through the temple gate with offerings of food for their deceased relatives. In the evening many more will come, in a ritual that lasts 15 days.

Remembering the dead is a common practice around the world, but in Cambodia the annual festival known as Pchum Ben is heavily tinged with the memories of those who died during the Khmer Rouge's rule of the country between 1975 and 1979. Very few families escaped unscathed. It is thought that up to 2.2 million people died out of a pre-war population of around 8 million.

Va Kimchheang, a 40-something civil servant, has brought food offerings to Wat Langka. Accompanied by her young son and daughter, she explains that Pchum Ben is a time to remember the family's ancestors.

KIMCHHEANG: I lost many relations during the Pol Pot regime: My aunt and my brothers, and there were others too. I was very young at that time, so I don't remember it well. One of my brothers was called Va Yong.

CARMICHAEL: Cambodia's Buddhists believe the spirits that are in hell are released for the duration of Pchum Ben. Although the spirits are powerless to act in the physical world, they come to the pagodas in the hope that their relatives have left food in their memory.

Va Kimchheang has taken food to eight pagodas so far during this year's festival. She says remembering her family makes her feel much better.

KIMCHHEANG: The spirits get all of the food that we offer to the monks. The young generation wish that those spirits who are in a bad place can go to a better place, and those that are unhappy we wish for them to be happy.

CARMICHAEL: In a quieter part of Wat Langka, the Venerable Hou Sarith, a senior monk, says most people will have had relatives who died violently under the Khmer Rouge. But the spirits of those who died in that way are not necessarily angry.

SARITH: Of course, if the person is angry at the injustice of being killed, then the spirit will take that anger into the spirit world, and if that happens then those angry spirits will not be able to find a place where they can be born again.

CARMICHAEL: Although Pchum Ben is an ancient ceremony, technology has recently caught up. Switching to English, the Venerable Hou Sarith tells me that a year ago he started using PalTalk, a online chat room. That allows him to communicate with fellow Theravada Buddhists around the world, as well as lead and follow ceremonies. Sitting in his room, where a laptop is hooked up to a router, he shows me the chat room, which has several dozen people in it. Through the computer's speakers you can hear another monk chanting prayers.

CARMICHAEL: This must be useful for you?

VENERABLE HOU SARITH: Yes, useful. If I do not have this programme, I can't contact around the world.

CARMICHAEL: And the man singing now is in Sri Lanka, is that right?

VENERABLE HOU SARITH: Now is USA - Colorado state.

CARMICHAEL: He says the monks in the USA, Canada, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Europe take turns to lead the PalChat sessions.

SARITH: Today my colleague, the Venerable Karna, is delivering the sermon. And tomorrow I am. Yes, this one you can chat, you can listen, and you can talk on the mike.

CARMICHAEL: Back at the pagoda's main building a more traditional ceremony is unfolding. Underneath a ceiling of colourful paintings depicting scenes from the Buddha's life, several dozen monks sit on a red-carpeted floor. In front of them is a low wooden table heaped with bowls of fruit. A golden reclining Buddha dominates one end of the room, flanked by dozens of standing Buddhas. A band plays at the other end of the room. Va Kimchheang enters the building having lit incense sticks for her relatives, and sits on the floor with a group of men and women awaiting the prayers. It is a scene that will be repeated thousands of times as the country's people remember the dead before the 15-day festival finishes on October 9.

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