Khmer culture is featured on WHYY TV's "Art of Life" series.

Extended  Interview with Rorng Sorn

The WHYY website now features an extended interview with Rorng Sorn, who was born in rural Cambodia in 1968. In the interview, Rorng Sorn recounts the difficult road from the countryside of Cambodia to the urban streets of Philadelphia.

Rorng Sorn interviewed on WHYY TV

Despite the challenges, Rorng Sorn achieved the education she so desired, earning a Masters degree from the University of Pennsylvania. In return, she serves her community through her role as Executive Director of the Cambodian Association of Greater Philadelphia.

A portrait of Rorng Sorn's family before the war.

In her inspiring interview, Rorng Sorn describes her personal experience of what life was like for her family during the Khmer Rouge and the devastation that followed. Most important, she talks about how she became a leader in Philadelphia’s Khmer community so she could contribute to preserving her culture.

Links

The Cambodian Association of Greater Philadelphia

WHYY Art of Life features on Cambodian culture

Cambodian Dancer Chamoeun Yin – Philadelphia Folklore Project

Khmer Art Gallery – Philadelphia

At the ancient Khmer temple of Angkor Wat, an American artist discovered a special peace that she carried throughout her life…and beyond.

Angkor Wat sunrise. © Copyright Gary Ng.

By STEPHEN GOLDFARB, Alabama Heritage Magazine

IN 1926 LUCILLE SINCLAIR DOUGLASS (1878-1935) visited the ancient Cambodian ruins at Angkor for the first time. That December the forty-eight-year-old artist wrote to her friend Leona Caldwell of her first impressions of this far-off and exotic place:

“Angkor is one of the really great experiences of my life-a more intellectual than emotional experience — not that it left me cold, quite the contrary — but it was more of an uplift — an inspiration.

“Our stay — longer than most tourists — was all too short — Angkor Wat alone requires years of study — living with understanding — a few days seems but a mockery.

“I have never had a place affect me so peculiarly. . . . I shall go back for a time as long as I can stand it and do further study on the spot.

“You see the ruins are set in the midst of the jungle — which held them in its clutches for so many centuries that it still seems jealous of them.”

Douglass described the Angkor climate as “the most trying [that] I have ever encountered … [with its] great humidity and high temperatures — an oppressive heaviness which brought all the moisture to the surface [of one's skin] and left you exhausted with the slightest effort.” And this complaint comes from a woman who grew up in central Alabama.

Douglass rendered Angkor Wat's western entrance in 1927 in this 10 7/8" x 14 1/2" etching. Courtesy US Library of Congress.

But Douglass did return the very next year.

She spent five months there with the purpose of rendering the temples and other ruins in etchings, which could capture their grandeur and intricacy in a way that photography could not. These etchings were first exhibited in April 1928 in Washington, D.C., under the auspices of the French ambassador, and then at the French Colonial Exhibition in Paris in 1931. The story of just how Douglass made her way from the Black Belt of Alabama to the jungles of Cambodia is one of equal parts natural talent, hard work, and fortuitous circumstances.

LUCILLE DOUGLASS WAS BORN ON NOVEMBER 4, 1878, in Tuskegee, Alabama, the daughter of Walton Eugene Douglass (a Civil War veteran) and Mary Sinclair (Mollie) Douglass. She grew up in a large house but in the genteel poverty that characterized so much of the nineteenth-century, postbellum South.

Little is known about Douglass’s early years, except that she was a sickly child who spent a great deal of time reading, favoring books about travels to distant and exotic lands. In interviews she gave after gaining a measure of fame, Douglass singled out the all-but-forgotten travel stories of Hezekiah Butterworth — whose seventeen volumes of Zig-Zag Journeys enjoyed considerable popularity among young readers near the end of the nineteenth century — as having stimulated her yearning for adventure.

Lucille Douglass - 1896. Courtesy Birmingham Public Library, Leona Caldwell Collection.

Douglass received her A.B. (baccalaureate degree) in 1895 at the age of seventeen at Alabama Conference Female College, a forerunner of Huntingdon College, where her mother taught. Unfortunately, records do not survive to describe Douglass’s course of study, though it seems safe to assume that she continued to receive art training from her mother, a practice begun when Douglass was a child.

In 1899 Douglass moved to Birmingham, where she made a living as both an artist and an art teacher. She occupied a studio in the old Watts Building between 1901 and 1908. The 1907 city directory listed her as a “china painter.”

Years later Douglass made reference to the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of roses that she painted on teacups and other crockery. The sale of this china, as well as hand-painted place cards, financed her future art training. In 1908 she banded with fellow artists Delia Dryer, Hannah Elliot, Carrie Hill, and four other female artists as founding members of the Birmingham Art Club.

Lucille Douglass in her studio with Hannah Elliot, 1907. Courtesy Birmingham Public Library, Hill Ferguson Collection.

Even before Douglass left for Europe in 1909, she sought art training beyond what was available in Birmingham. For several summers she attended the Art Students League in New York City, though there is no record with whom she studied. Between the years 1909 and 1912, she received art training in Europe.

In Paris she studied with Lucien Simon and René Menard. Of greater importance was the time she spent with Alexander Robinson. With his classes she traveled all over Europe-Holland, Spain, and Italy-and North Africa and became his assistant and an art teacher. After her first year with Robinson, she asked him for a frank evaluation of her work; his reply was indeed frank: “You have less talent than many, but you will go farther than the rest because once you undertake a thing you see it through.”

Lucille Douglass in Paris, 1911. Courtesy Birmingham Public Library, Hill Ferguson Collection.

A collection of her drawings and pastel sketches held in the Birmingham Museum of Art reflect her traditional art training, which emphasized the anatomically correct rendering of the human figure, and depict the local folkways of the places she visited. With two exhibits of her paintings displayed in Paris in 1911, she was on her way to establishing herself as an artist.

By 1913 Douglass had returned from Europe. She spent that summer with artist Isabelle Percy (who married George P. West in 1916), painting in the northern part of Percy’s home state of California.

World War I ended any further hopes of European travel and training and proved a trying time. City directories show that she kept a residence and studio in Birmingham from 1915 to 1917. Some sources claim that she took training as a nurse and worked with soldiers who were “shell shocked,” and that she herself had some kind of mental breakdown, for which she spent time recovering in Texas and California.

Her life took a fresh turn in 1920, when the forty-two-year-old Douglass accepted a position with the Methodist Missionary Society. She was employed to oversee a workshop in Shanghai in which Chinese women hand-colored an early form of photographic slide used by speakers to publicize the missionary work of the society. The job did not absorb all of her time and energy apparently, for she became first a writer and then associate editor of the weekly English-language publication, Shanghai Times, a position she held until 1924. During these years she traveled extensively in China as a member of the press. These trips were often dangerous, as China was in the midst of revolution and civil war.

While in China, Douglass became close friends with two female writers whose books she would eventually illustrate. Florence Wheelock Ayscough was born in Shanghai to missionary parents and educated in New England. She became a scholar of China and its literature, writing books about China and translating the works of early Chinese poets. Four of her books were illustrated by Douglass, the first three with ink drawings and the last with etchings.

Helen Churchill Candee

The second friend Douglass made in China was Helen Churchill Candee, who had, among other things, the distinction of surviving the 1912 sinking of the HMS Titanic. Roughly two decades apart in age, the two traveled together from November 1926 until January 1927.

This journey led them through the Far East-first to Indochina, then to Siam, and on to Java and BaIi. This adventure resulted in the 1927 publication of Candee’s book, New Journeys In Old Asia, for which Douglass executed twenty-one etchings. It was also on this journey that Douglass first visited Angkor. Candee had been there before and had published the book Angkor the Magnificent in 1924.

Angkor was the seat of the ancient Khmer empire from the ninth to the fifteenth century and was abandoned, only to be rediscovered in the 186Os by French explorers after Cambodia became part of the French overseas empire. Angkor — best known for the two complexes, Angkor Wat and the larger Angkor Thom — was the center of what is considered the most prosperous and sophisticated civilization in the history of Southeast Asia.

Angkor was not only a religious center but also the administrative center of the Khmer empire, with a vast system of reservoirs, canals, and moats-the basis of an extensive irrigation system for agriculture. Eventually the Khmers were overthrown, and the jungle reclaimed Angkor, though the ruins remained a pilgrimage site for Buddhists.

Etching of the Bayon rendered by Lucille Douglas in 1927, measuring 15 9/16" X 11 13/16". Courtesy Library of Congress.

Douglass saw more in Angkor than simply an exotic artistic subject. She gave detailed lectures on Angkor in both the United States and Europe. She also spoke on Angkor at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the School of Oriental Studies at the University of London, the Royal Asiatic Society (also in London), and at Oxford University, as well as many less august bodies. On January 10, 1930, she gave a talk at the National Geographic Society entitled “Angkor — A Royal Passion.” The brochure announcing the lecture gave the following description:

Knowledge of present conditions at the site of the ancient Cambodian metropolis will come to the Society through this interesting speaker, writer and artist, who will illustrate her talk with lantern slides, colored by herself, and motion pictures.

…In company with French archeologists Miss Douglass carefully examined the new excavations…. Her account will be authoritative, as well as entertaining.

For the last years of her life, Douglass made New York her home base, though she traveled frequently to Europe and occasionally visited Birmingham. From November 1928 until late spring of 1929, she was a faculty member of a “floating university.” On the ship President Wilson, Douglass taught art history, sketching, and painting to a hundred “boys and girls” of unspecified age as the ship sailed around the world.

An article in the November 6, 1928, New York Evening Post referred to Douglass as “one of America’s best known painters and etchers” and stated that the ship’s itinerary would include such exotic places as Siam, BaIi, Java, and Singapore, as well as “all the cities … on the more usual type of tour.”

In a letter to her friend, Leona Galdwell, Douglass wrote of her “floating university” experience: “I am glad … to have had the experience, though I should not care to repeat it.”

Lucille Douglas poses for a portrait in North Africa, date unknown. Courtesy Birminham Public Library Archives.

In a 1933 interview she gave to the New York World Telegram, a fifty-five-year-old Douglass reflected over her life of art and adventure:

I have made my life as I wanted it. I have given up marriage and home ties, because I know they would not be possible with my career. I am sorry not to have a home, but one must not be greedy. I have planned my life just as it is, and I am content with it.

After an illness that lasted several months Douglass died on September 26, 1935, in the home of a friend in Andover, Massachusetts.

Her remains were cremated and, in the following year, flown to Angkor where they were spread around what was described as “a magnificent mango tree.”

Under a spreading mango tree
(Encircling continuity)
There lies for all eternity
What particles survive the flame
Of one who now is but a name.

Civilizations long forgot
Left beauty in old Angkor Vat
An artist loved it well and true:
In paint and print she saved the view.
When she was called, she had one thought:
That was to lie in Angkor Vat.

What doth her Spirit — Who shall say
Where beauty reigns both night and day?
Free as air she is to roam.
With spreading mango tree for home.

Angkor Wat lotus pond sunrise. © Copyright Gary Ng.

Lucille’s Artistic Legacy

In the five years following her death there were three exhibits of Douglass’s works in New York galleries and a fourth after World War II in her adopted hometown of Birmingham.

Lucille Douglass pastel created between 1909 and 1913. Courtesy Birmingham Museum of Art. Gift of the estate of Leona Templeton Caldwell.

In January 1951 the Birmingham Historical Society and the Birmingham Art Club sponsored a retrospective of her works at the Birmingham Public Library, which brought pieces owned by museums together with those held by local collectors.

However, very little was written on Douglass over the next half-century, nor was her art exhibited. This was due no doubt to the triumph of abstraction and other modernist movements in art that made the works of Lucille Douglass seem old-fashioned.

Fortunately, there has been a renewed appreciation for her art in recent years, fueled by the current interest in female artists. The publication of Art of the New South: Women Artists of Birmingham, 1890-1950 (Birmingham Historical Society, 2004) by Vicki Leigh Ingham, which devotes an entire chapter to Lucille Douglass, is likely to be the beginning of a revival of interest in this accomplished artist and world traveler.”

About the Author

Stephen J. Goldfarb holds a Ph.D. in the history of science and technology from Case Western Reserve University. In 2007-2008, he curated the exhibit entitled “Howard Cook: Drawings of Alabama” for the Mobile Museum of Art and at the Huntsville Museum of Art.

Goldfarb has written articles previously for Alabama Heritage on artists Marian Acker Macpherson and Lucille Douglass. He now serves Alabama Heritage Quarterly History Magazine as a contributing editor for the “Reading the Southern Past” column. No stranger to Southern reading tastes, Goldfarb retired from the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library in 2003. He has reviewed books for both newspapers and scholarly journals.

© Copyright 2006 University of Alabama – This article previously appeared in Alabama Heritage magazine (Summer 2006, Issue 81) and is reproduced here with the kind permission of the author and the University of Alabama.

An apsara or celestial dancer in classic Southeast Asian art

Between the covers of countless books lurks a mystical creature with multiple masks…

Submissive and beautiful.

Cunning and domineering.

Shy virgin. Adventurous lover.

She is the Asian woman…

Or rather what passes for her in fiction.

Author and Jakarta Post reporter Sara Veal lifts the veil on the inscrutable images.

* * *

For thousands of years, ever since the West encountered the East, an exotic vision of the Asian woman has inhabited Western literature, symbolizing the allure, danger and mystery of the unknown.

“In the Western mind, the fictional image of the ‘Asian woman’ is the most imagined, misunderstood and ‘fetishized’,” says Sheridan Prasso, author of The Asian Mystique: Dragon Ladies, Geisha Girls, and Our Fantasies of the Exotic Orient (2006), adding this ultra-feminine exoticism has been juxtaposed onto the Asian male, “effectively wiping out his masculinity in Western culture”.

Academic Elaine Kim writes in a similar vein, observing “the inscription in American popular culture of Asian men as sexless automatons is complemented by the popular view of Asian women as only sexual beings, which helps explain … the enormous demand for X-rated films featuring Asian women in bondage, the demand for ‘Oriental’ bathhouse workers in US cities, and the booming business in mail-order marriages”.

The Dragon Lady from Terry and the Pirates

Such sexual overtones are evident in the dichotomy of the Asian woman in literature. Whether Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Filipina, Indonesian, Malaysian, Vietnamese, Khmer, Laotian, Korean or Burmese, the East and Southeast Asian woman is either Dragon Lady – seductive, dominant – or Geisha Girl – subservient, ornamental. Between these two extremes lie permutations like China Doll, Lotus Flower, Prostitute and Mail-order Bride, all with sexual connotations.

The term Dragon Lady is thought to have originated in American cartoonist Milton Caniff’s 1930s comic strip Terry and the Pirates, and since then applied repeatedly to powerful Asian woman such as Soong May-ling, wife of former Taiwanese president Chiang Kai-Shek, and the no-nonsense dominatrix Ling Woo (played by Lucy Liu) in television’s Ally McBeal.

Madame Butterfly

The Geisha Girl of Western popular imagination has its roots in the eponymous heroine of Giacomo Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, a delicate creature who kills herself when abandoned by her American lover. Puccini’s play was likely based on novelist Pierre Loti’s Madame Chrysanthème, in which the “hero” fails to understand or master the geisha of the title. Both versions demonstrate the heroine’s otherness, but the opera strongly implies Western superiority over a submissive Asia.

Representing Asia is a common function of the Asian woman in colonial literature. Between 1900 and 1940, French novels on Southeast Asia were often named for their native female character, as in Roland Meyer’s Saramani, Danseuse Cambodgienne (Saramani, Cambodian Dancer).

Saramani, Cambodian Dancer by Roland Meyer - 1919.

In such novels, French scholar Patrick Laude observes, “the Frenchman’s contact with natives … often leads to his adoption of Asian culture and repudiating of Western culture” – the Asian women were at once “Asia herself” and “Asian Eves” tempting Western men to the other side.

An Asian Eve appears in W. Somerset Maugham’s 1924 short story The Letter, based on a true scandal in Kuala Lumpur, in which the wife of a headmaster shot a male friend. The victim, Geoff Hammond, had married a Chinese woman, which lost him favor with the expatriate community. Despite her importance to the plot, his wife lacks a direct voice and is simply referred to as “Mrs. Hammond”. She is described as neither beautiful nor young – evidently not a Geisha Girl, her cunning actions and desire for revenge situate her as a Dragon Lady.

However, the beauty and ultra-femininity of Asian woman is often at the fore of their exoticism, so much so that white female literary heroines sometimes had to resort to yellow-face to redress the balance. In Owen Hall’s 1896 play The Geisha, a Story of a Tea House, an Englishwoman, spurned by her soldier fiancé for a Japanese geisha, wins him back by donning a kimono and makeup to match.

The King and I

Men weren’t the only ones contributing to the Asian mystique. Anna Leonowens, a British governess who spent time in King Mongkut’s court in the 19th century, wrote two memoirs, The English Governess at the Siamese Court (1870) and The Romance of Harem (1873), which condemned her former employer’s harem, ostensibly in support of feminism.

Yet in pointing out the harem’s evils, she imbued it with exoticism, alluding to “heavy curtains of silk and gold”, and infantilized and insulted the Thai women she meant to stand up for, describing them as having “childish minds” and the potential to be attractive “but for their ingeniously ugly mode of clipping the hair and blackening the teeth”. Her observations inspired the Hollywood hit The King and I, which remains officially banned in Thailand due to the offensive portrayal of the revered King Mongkut.

“Leonowens sets up an Orientalizing framework of the Thai woman as oppressed and overly sexualized – one that then plays out in post-Vietnam War fantasies of Thailand to be found in, for example, Michel Houellebecq’s 2001 book Platform,” says Rachel Harrison, head of the Southeast Asian department at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies and co-author of the upcoming The Ambiguous Allure of the West and the Making of Thai Identities.

Do Thi Hai Yen in The Quiet American

Indeed, even as – and perhaps especially as – colonialism lost its grip on Asia in the mid-20th century, stereotypes of Asian women persisted and were eagerly lapped up by Western readers, with the Prostitute (with a heart of gold) in Richard Mason’s 1957 novel The World of Suzie Wong, and the Geisha Girl in Graham Greene’s The Quiet American (1955).

In Greene’s novel, middle-aged British journalist Thomas Fowler and young American idealist Alden Pyle quietly tussle over the most beautiful girl in Saigon. The lovely and inscrutable Phuong is Saigon herself, caught between two colonial powers – the older, entrenched Europe and the radical America – waiting to see which will benefit her the most.

Around the same time, Asian women began to speak for themselves in Western literature, mainly through autobiography and history, suggesting that the best weapon against Orientalist fiction was well-articulated fact.

One of the earliest of such texts was Jade Snow Wong’s Fifth Chinese Daughter (1950), which proved so popular that the US State Department sent the author to 45 Asian locales between Tokyo and Karachi.

“I was sent,” Wong writes, “because those Asian audiences who had read translations of Fifth Chinese Daughter did not believe a female born to poor Chinese immigrants could gain a toehold among prejudiced Americans.”

Maxine Hong Kingston

Maxine Hong Kingston’s 1975 memoir, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, sought to present a nuanced account of 20th-century Chinese-Americans living in the US in the shadow of the Chinese revolution. However, reflecting ingrained, sweeping assumptions about Asian women, at least one reviewer found this ambiguity too perplexing.

“It’s hard to tell where her fantasies end and reality begins,” Michael Malloy wrote for the National Observer in 1976, confused by Kingston describing some Chinese women as aggressive and talkative and others as docile and silent.

Still, even these Asian women speaking for themselves may be responsible for perpetuating the Asian mystique, as their critics argue.

Kim suggests that Wong’s autobiography was “valued primarily as evidence that American racial minorities have only themselves to blame for their failure in American life”, an important view “during the Cold War period, when charges of race discrimination in the United States were circulating in developing countries that, having recently been freed from direct colonial rule, were questioning the value of American world leadership”.

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

Playwright Frank Chin, in his 1991 essay “Come all ye Asian American writers of the real and the fake”, claims Kingston and Amy Tan, who wrote The Joy Luck Club (1989), faked Chinese literature and history to further Western misconceptions about Asia.

Chin criticizes Tan for opening her novel with a fake Chinese fairytale about “a duck that wants to be a swan and a mother who dreams of her daughter being born in America, where she’ll grow up speaking perfect English and no one will laugh at her” and where a “woman’s worth is [not] measured by the loudness of her husband’s belch”, and Kingston’s rewriting of Chinese folk heroine Fa Mulan “to the specs of the stereotype of the Chinese woman as a pathological white supremacist victimized and trapped in a hideous Chinese civilization”.

He goes on to suggest that Kingston and Tan were only published because they were Christians: “… the only form of literature written by Chinese Americans that major publishers will publish (other than the cookbook) is autobiography”, and “… they all write to the specifications of the Christian stereotype of Asia being as opposite morally from the West as it is geographically”.

Wild Swans by Jung Chang

“Self-Orientalization complies with existing stereotypes,” Harrison explains, “the Orientalized subject absorbs this dominant sense of self-identity and uses it as a way of marketing to the outside world, remaining within understandable and understood frames of reference.”

Perhaps due to a relative lack of self-Orientalizing/culture-counterfeiting, fellow Asian women writer Jung Chang has provoked less ire from her peers with Wild Swans (1991).

British citizen Jung Chang’s phenomenally well-received autobiographical novel spanned three generations of Chinese women in the 20th century, painting a vivid portrait of the period’s political and military turmoil, and was deemed by Tasmanian academic Kaz Ross to be a forerunner to the “faction” genre – “history told by fictional narrative means”.

Becoming Madame Mao

Continuing the factual crusade against stereotyping, Chinese-American Anchee Min’s novels focus on strong female figures. Jiang Qing, Mao Zedong’s wife, is given a rounded portrayal in Becoming Madame Mao (1991), while Empress Orchid (2004) offers a sympathetic account of Empress Dowager Cixi, de facto ruler of the Mancu Qing Dynasty for 48 years between 1861 to her death in 1908, who has often been portrayed as a Dragon Lady in Western cinema.

Male Asian writers have also risen to challenge the Asian mystique. David Henry Hwang’s Tony-winning play M. Butterfly (1988), loosely based on the relationship between French diplomat Bernard Bouriscot and male Peking opera singer Shi Pei Pu, subverts Puccini’s opera to tragicomic effect.

Speaking for Myself: An Anthology of Asian Women's Writings

Gallimard, based on Bouriscot, becomes taken with opera diva Song Liling, whom he idealizes as the perfect woman. “She”, however, is a man, and a Chinese spy to boot, and ruins the diplomat’s name and breaks his heart. “Only a man knows how a woman is supposed to act,” Song informs his deluded lover, who shortly commits suicide, in a mirror of the original Butterfly.

Beyond Chinese dominance when it comes to East and Southeast Asians in Western literature, a wider range of female voices across Asia are beginning to be heard (or read) in Western press, such as in the recent, and aptly titled, Speaking for Myself: An Anthology of Asian Women’s Writings, which offers nuanced tales of the epic in the everyday, moving away from simple history and autobiography.

Such stories are needed to counter stereotypes that continue to crop up in popular Western literature, from the unseen Dragon Lady that is Mark Darcy’s Japanese ex-wife in Bridget Jones’ Diary (1996) to the Geisha Girl/Prostitute Chinese mistress in Tony Parson’s My Favorite Wife (2008), as well as the more overt Orientalization in Arthur Golden’s best-selling Memoirs of a Geisha (1997).

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

In a sign of the Asian woman being able to directly challenge her misrepresentation, Mineko Iwasaki, who reportedly inspired the memorable geisha, revealed in an interview with Prasso her distaste for the novel’s “misinterpretation” of her “flower and willow world”.

As Iwasaki and Prasso show, the Asian woman of Western popular imagination remains curiously mistaken and outdated in a world where Asian countries are increasingly powerful and Asian women are leading the way.

Presidents, lawyers, doctors, human rights defenders, teachers, writers, mothers, daughters. These are the true women of Asia. It’s time to turn the page on the Asian mystique.

-

Author Sara Veal (archive photo)

About the Author

Sara Veal is a freelance journalist based in Jakarta.

As a child, she grew up in Nigeria and Cambodia before moving to UK to complete her BA and MA.

Her travels apparently inspired a taste for exotic adventure and Sara now reviews films and books, writes about entertainment and culture, and profiles personalities from her Indonesian home with a focus on Southeast Asia.

Visit her website at SaraVeal.com

Artist, architect and historian George Groslier designed the distinctive National Museum of Cambodia building as a tribute to traditional Khmer architecture. © National Museum of Cambodia

By Darryl Collins
(First published in 2005, this article reprint appears here with the author’s kind permission)

Phnom Penh, Cambodia - Visitors to Phnom Penh from the 1920s, as they still do to this day, identified the capital of Cambodia by the graceful silhouettes of the Royal Palace buildings and the imposing façade of the then Musée Albert Sarraut that is known today by its more familiar title, the National Museum of Cambodia.

George Groslier - Feb 4, 1887- Jun 18, 1945 - Seen in his museum office. Photo courtesy Nicole Groslier.

George Groslier (1887-1945), historian, curator and author was the motivating force behind much of the revival of interest in traditional Cambodian arts and crafts, and it was he who designed this quintessential building that is today synonymous with ‘traditional Khmer’ architecture.  It is perhaps better described as a building enlarged from Cambodian temple prototypes seen on ancient bas-reliefs and reinterpreted through colonial eyes to meet museum-size requirements.

Groslier, the first baby born in Phnom Penh of French parentage, returned to Phnom Penh in 1909 after being sent to France in 1891 for schooling.  The original concept behind the museum was that it be paired with a school teaching arts and crafts to Cambodian students so they could preserve the pure, untainted forms of traditional decorative and applied arts rather than ‘modern’ debased work.  This reasoned Groslier, could best be accomplished by copying designs from original works of art on exhibition.

The museum building itself featured the work of many of these same young Khmer artisans who contributed their talents to the carving of the massive entrance doors and window shutters and decorated the interior panels with paintings featuring mythological subjects.  These treasures are fortunately still in place.

Early beginnings

Albert Pierre Sarraut - Jul 28, 1872-Nov 26, 1962

The earliest known collections that pre-date this spectacular crimson building are the Musée Khmèr that displayed only samples of Khmer archaeology in the confines of the Royal Palace (1905) and the Musée de Phnom-Penh of the same year that displayed examples of Khmer sculpture within the compound of the former Lycée Sisowath.

Conservateurs of these early collections between 1905 and 1919 were: L-A. Rousseau, L. Pétillot, Henri Marchal, Roland Meyer and J. de Villeneuve.

Groslier’s intended museum was soon associated with the Ecole des Arts cambodgiens (1917) and became known as the Musée du Cambodge in 1919.  In 1920, this museum was soon to be officially renamed Musée Albert Sarraut after the then Governor-General of Indochina. The official portrait of M. Sarraut (above) was included in the 1920 publication, Cérémonie d’Inauguration du Musée Albert Sarraut et de L’Ecole des Arts cambodgiens.

Construction of the Musée Albert Sarraut

The Musée Albert Sarraut near completion in 1920. © National Museum of Cambodia

The foundation stone for the new museum was laid on 15 August 1917.  Some two-and-a-half years later, the completed Musée Albert Sarraut was inaugurated during Khmer New Year on 13 April 1920 in the presence of H.M. King Sisowath, François-Marius Baudoin, Résident-supérieur, and M. George Groslier, directeur des Arts cambodgiens, and conservateur du Musée.

Title page Cérémonie d’Inauguration du Musée Albert Sarraut et de L’Ecole des Arts cambodgiens, 1920. © National Museum of Cambodia

The original design of the building was slightly altered in 1924 with extensions that added wings at either end of the eastern façade that made the building even more imposing.

As can be seen from period photographs, the museum currently displays many items – in particular the bronze collection, in showcases that are part of the original furnishings.

The Collection

The collection is housed in high-ceilinged galleries open on one side to a square courtyard set with four pools and a manicured garden planted with palms.  It is a haven amidst bustling Phnom Penh.  The galleries are arranged systematically from the front of the building in a clockwise direction.  As Khun Samen, the present Director has whimsically noted, the majestic statue of Garuda ‘king of the birds’ that faces visitors as they enter the building, shows you the direction to take by pointing to his right.

Exhibition display in the Musée Albert Sarraut 1926. © National Museum of Cambodia

The four museum galleries are best understood by their orientation – in the east, the Bronze Galleries containing superb examples of Khmer bronze casting techniques from the 6th to 13th centuries.  Further to the south of these galleries is a new display dedicated to prehistory finds of early ceramics, metal and stone.  To the north of the Bronze Galleries, is a special exhibition space currently displaying fine and rarely- seen examples of Post-Angkorian Buddha images.

The remaining three main galleries surrounding the courtyard progress in an orderly fashion – the Southern Gallery displays sandstone sculptures from the 6th to 11th centuries (Phnom Da to Baphuon styles).  The West Gallery exhibits works of art from the classic Angkor Wat and Bayon styles from the 12th to 13th centuries – it is here the statue of King Jayavarman VII is displayed; while the North Gallery is primarily dedicated to decorative and applied arts – woodcarving, lacquer, ceramics and metalwork.

Many original museum display cases are still in use. Photo courtesy Nicole Groslier.

The porticos surrounding the garden house a wonderful collection of sacred, secular and architectural stone works that include yoni and linga, decorative doorway lintels, carved bas-reliefs on wall sections (from Banteay Chhmar temple) and important stele with Sanskrit and old Khmer inscriptions (dating mostly from 6th to 11th centuries).

Two other masterworks in the collection are the sandstone statue of Yama (the so-called ‘Leper King’, 12th century) housed under the pavilion in the centre of the inner courtyard and the monumental fragment of the bronze Reclining Vishnu (11th century) recovered from the Western Mebon temple in 1936 to be found in the north-eastern corner of the museum adjacent to the temporary exhibitions display.

Research, scholars and staff

Early directors of the museum from the 1920s-1940s contributed greatly to knowledge of the rapidly expanding collection – Groslier himself catalogued the collection, followed by Jean Boisselier and Solange Thierry (interim Director) who added their individual talents to cataloguing and management.

Madeleine Giteau - 1918-2005. Photo courtesy Andy Brouwer.

Control of the National Museum and Arts Administration was ceded by the French to the Cambodians on 9 August, 1951 and following Independence in 1953, the then Musée National de Phnom-Penh was the subject of Bilateral accords (7 November 1956).  From 1956 to 1966, the museum continued to flourish under the direction of Madeleine Giteau, Conservatrice du Musée National.

1966 marked the appointment of Chea Thay Seng, the first Cambodian Director of the National Museum and Dean of the newly created Department of Archaeology at the Royal University of Fine Arts.  This university that from its foundation as the Ecole des Arts cambodgiens in 1920 was intimately linked with students, artisans and teachers who worked to preserve Cambodian cultural traditions, can still be found to the rear of the museum.

The National Museum Today: Tourism and Culture

By the 1960s, the National Museum had become the centrepiece of a number of provincial museum collections scattered throughout Cambodia.  Today, it is regaining that status – after years of neglect, closure and uncertainty, provincial museums are re-opening across the country.

Following the highly successful ASEAN Summit, this year has been designated ‘Visit Cambodia Year 2003’.  As an integral part of appreciation of Khmer culture, visitors to Siem Reap should ensure their journey encompasses Phnom Penh for it is here the museum treasures of Cambodia are displayed.  This world-class collection of Khmer art spans the gamut of history – from prehistory finds, through pre-Angkorian masterpieces to the art of the classic Angkor periods, and the post-Angkorian Middle Period.  As Khun Samen, the current Museum Director has perceptively stated, “In order to better understand the evolution of Khmer art, it is preferable to study statuary and architecture together.”

The National Museum of Cambodia today.

Entrance to the collection is gained by purchasing a ticket at the north gate and guide services in foreign languages are available.  Visitors can also purchase souvenirs and publications (including ‘The New Guide to the National Museum’) from the bookshop just inside the main door.

How should the importance of this collection be defined?  Khun Samen dedicates this guidebook, “to young Cambodians, … that they may come to appreciate and preserve their cultural heritage”; and to all Cambodian and international visitors, “may the five blessings of the Buddha be upon them.”

National Museum of Cambodia Timeline

Inaugurated: 13 April 1920, Khmer New Year

Renovated: by architect, Vann Molyvann late 1960s (central section, main building)

Closed: 12 April 1975 to 7 January 1979 (civil war)

Re-opened: 13 April 1979, Khmer New Year

Renovated: 1994-1995, roof and sections of building renovated with Australian government funding through AIDAB (now AusAID) and OPG.  Ceremony to mark completion of work attended by HRH King Norodom Sihanouk and The Hon. Bill Hayden, AC, Governor-General of Australia, 28 April 1995.

About the author:

Darryl Collins

Darryl Collins first came to Cambodia in early 1994, to work with staff at the National Museum of Cambodia as one of a group of specialised museum staff and architects, who came to assist with a project funded by the Australian Government between 1993 and 1995.  Darryl has remained in Cambodia ever since, lecturing at the Royal University of Fine Arts (Department of Archaeology) and as a co-member of a team of three in ARK Research (researching and publishing Building Cambodia: ‘New Khmer Architecture’: 1953-1970).

For five years he lectured at the Department of Archaeology, Royal University of Fine Arts, Phnom Penh.  In mid-2004 he completed a 1-year consultancy with the Department of Culture and Research, the APSARA Authority, Siem Reap and he spends his spare time writing and researching art, architectural and cultural topics.

In late 2004, Darryl returned once more to part-time work at the National Museum, Phnom Penh as manager for the Collection Inventory Project that will, over a period of some 5 years register works of art and transfer early French records of the museum onto a purpose-designed database.

In 2010, Darryl accepted a position on the Board of Directors of Heritage Watch International, an international organization based in Cambodia that is devoted to protecting and preserving Cambodian heritage and antiquities.

Darryl resides in Siem Reap in an antique home he restored while studying traditional Cambodian houses.  To visit Darryl’s home and read more about his work please visit http://www.darryl-siemreap.com/

George Groslier designed the iconic National Museum of Cambodia. Its style remains synonymous with ‘traditional Khmer’ architecture. Photo courtesy Nicole Groslier.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia - On April 13, 1920 Cambodians celebrated the New Year of the Monkey with the grand opening of the National Museum of Cambodia, housing the world’s most extensive collection of Khmer art.

Nicole Groslier

Although she wasn’t even two years old at the time, one petite French girl named Nicole has held the National Museum of Cambodia in her heart since that day…and with good reason. Her father George Groslier designed the museum, became its first Conservator, and devoted his life to preserving and perpetuating the art and culture of Cambodia.

Born in Phnom Penh in 1887, George Groslier was educated in France, and then returned to Cambodia in 1909. Service in WWI called him back to Europe but when the war ended he returned to his birth country with his wife Suzanne,  spending the rest of his life devoted to the arts, culture and people of Cambodia.

Nicole Groslier was born in Phnom Penh in 1918 and, like her father, has held a lifelong love for Cambodia and her people.

On April 13, 1920 an H.M. King Sisowath presided over the inauguration of the National Museum of Cambodia. Museum architect George Groslier is seated far left. Photo courtesy Nicole Groslier.

In 1920, H.M. King Sisowath attended the auspicious New Year’s Day inauguration of Cambodia’s first national museum, along with a host of international dignitaries. The facility was initially named for Albert Sarraut, former Governor General of Indochina. Sarraut’s political efforts gave George Groslier the opportunity to design and organize this monument to Khmer art that still today is synonymous with traditional Khmer architecture.

From childhood to maturity, Nicole Groslier would visit her father at his museum office marveling at the magical world of Khmer imagination. Nicole’s first true memory of visiting the museum is in January 1922, when she attended a special ceremony welcoming Marshall Joseph Joffre to Cambodia.

Nicole Groslier attends her first formal museum event with proud parents Suzanne and George. Photo courtesy Nicole Groslier.

Marshall Joffre was honored by this ceremony at the National Museum of Cambodia. Nicole is standing directly in the center of the action. Photo courtesy Nicole Groslier.

Marshall Joffre became one of France’s most senior officers in World War I after replacing the popular Philippe Pétain during the Battle of Verdun in 1916. H.M. Sisowath himself then took Le Maréchal to tour the temples of Angkor.

H.M. King Sisowath took Marshall Joffre on a tour of Angkor after the museum event.

Throughout his career, George Groslier continued his efforts as museum director to catalog the vast collection and to share his appreciation for Khmer creativity with the world. These dramatic photos from Nicole’s personal archive show the museum nearly inundated by the seasonal floods of the Mekong River in the 1930s.

Mekong floodwaters mirror the national museum's Khmer architecture. Circa 1934. Photo courtesy Nicole Groslier.

Two men in a pirogue paddle by the museum entrance. Circa 1934. Photo courtesy Nicole Groslier.

George and his wife Suzanne had two more children in Cambodia. First, Gilbert in 1922 and then their youngest child, Bernard-Philippe Groslier (below), in 1926. Inspired by his father, Bernard-Philippe also pursued a lifetime career focused on Cambodian history and Khmer culture.

George Groslier and his son, Bernard-Philippe, who also grew up to become a noted archeologist in the field of Khmer studies. Photo courtesy Nicole Groslier.

The museum's central courtyard remains a peaceful focal point, surrounded by Khmer art.

From its opening, the museum has attracted enlightened scholars whose work illuminates the mysteries and beauty of the ancient Khmer race. Jean Boisselier and Solange Thierry both added their talents to improving the museum. From 1956 to 1966, the museum flourished under the direction of Mme Madeleine Giteau, who occupied the same official residence as the Groslier family, just behind the museum.

In 1966, Chea Thay Seng became the first Cambodian Director of the museum, as well as Dean of the newly created Department of Archaeology at the Royal University of Fine Arts (RUFA). At the origins of this university we find the Ecole des Arts Cambodgiens that George Groslier organized in 1920. It’s goals remain the same, to intimately link students, artisans and teachers working to preserve and perpetuate Cambodian cultural traditions.

Since Cambodia’s  liberation and the restoration of a government by the people the museum has grown under the guidance of two Directors, Khun Samen and Hab Touch. In 2010, the museum’s second female Director, Mrs. Oun Phalline, assumed this vital administrative role.

Today the National Museum of Cambodia houses one of the world’s greatest collections of Khmer cultural material including sculpture, ceramics and ethnographic objects from the prehistoric, pre-Angkorian, Angkorian and post-Angkorian periods. Its facility includes more than 5,000 sq. meters of space devoted to exhibits, restoration, offices and meeting rooms.

Masterpieces of Khmer Culture

In 2007, the museum catalog, Masterpieces of the National Museum of Cambodia by Helen Jessup was published by Friends of Khmer Culture, offering art lovers and historians worldwide the opportunity to appreciate this extraordinary collection.

Article by Kent Davis, www.Devata.org

Special thanks to Nicole Groslier for sharing her photographs and memories.

Sua Sdei Chnam Thmei ๒๕๕๔

Happy New Year 2010

Students learning the art of Khmer Classical Dance through the Cambodian Association of Greater Philadelphia dance project.

Philadelphia, PA – A new segment on WHYY considers the artistic side of one of the world’s greatest, and most mysterious, civilizations: the Khmer.

Many Americans are familiar with the tragic Khmer Rouge genocide that brought many Cambodian refugees to our country in the 1980’s. But few know about the magnificent Khmer civilization that began flourishing in Southeast Asia in the 8th century. The Khmer legacy still inspires rich traditions of dance, music, fashion, literature and art that survive to this day.

As a segment on WHYY’s Art of Life series, producer Karen Smyles created Bridging Cambodian Culture to focus on unique people and cultural events in Philadelphia’s Khmer-American community.

The feature included Rorng Sorn, Executive Director of the Cambodian Association of Greater Philadelphia (CAGP), a foundation that has implemented social, health and education programs for Cambodian refugees and their families in Philadelphia for over thirty years.  Visit CAGP’s Facebook page here to become a fan.

The Khmer Art Gallery in Philadelphia features a variety of traditional and contemporary art from Cambodia.

The documentary also visits the  Khmer Art Gallery to meet founders Bonna Neang & Bob Weinstein. Hidden in the heart of Chinatown, the spacious gallery displays a vast array of artwork from Cambodia’s “Millennium of Glory,” from traditional pieces to the works of contemporary masters in stone, bronze, wood and fabric.

The WHYY feature coincides with the celebration of Cambodian New Year, April 13-15, a three day event filled with special meals, cultural presentations and religious ceremonies.

Watch a clip of the WHYY documentary Bridging Cambodian Culture here by selecting CHAPTER 2.

Khmer Classical Dance students in traditional costumes study with the Cambodian Association of Greater Philadelphia dance project

NKFC dancer performs blessing ritual at Siem Reap city shrine. Photo Kent Davis.

By Aye Sapay and Cherry Thein © 2010 The Phnom Penh Post This article appears with the kind permission of the copyright holder. No further reproduction is permitted.

Siem Reap, Cambodia – Fourteen young Khmer girls, dressed in flowing white garb with coconut flowers in their hair, danced sinuously to the rhythm of traditional classical music. The Preah Ang Chiek Preah Ang Chhorm Shrine in Siem Reap, next to the Royal Residence, was the venue enlightened by their sashays.

As the girls went through their paces on the evening of January 26, a growing band of lucky tourists gathered, gob-smacked, to watch this ritual unfold. The looks of delight on the crowd’s faces proved they knew they were seeing something special, but of course they were unaware of the significance of the proceedings.

They were unaware that the shrine where the ritual was taking place was the most sacred site in Siem Reap and that the images of the divinities within the shrine are considered the most powerful in the town.

They were unaware, too, that the ritual was unfolding in the presence of royalty and that two of the three women sitting on a prayer mat among the dancers were princesses, including one of Cambodia’s most legendary classical dancers, Her Royal Highness Princess Buppha Devi, and her daughter, Princess Norodom Sisowath.

The third woman was the “mother” of the tribe of little dancers, Lady Ravynn Karet-Coxen, although she was quick to say, “You can drop the lady bit and just call me Ravynn Karet-Coxen as it is more in tune with the work I do with the most destitute, thank you.”

HRH Princess Buppha Devi and Ravynn Karet-Coxen preparing a morning ceremony at the NKFC school. Photo © Anders Jiras.

The dancing girls were part of a troupe of more than 160 children who had been lovingly trained by Ravynn Karet-Coxen, the founder of the Nginn Karet Foundation for Cambodia (NKFC) Conservatoire Preah Ream Bopha Devi dance school, of which Coxen is chairperson.

Princess Buppha Devi, the patron of the school, had come to the sacred shrine on the evening of January 26 to partake in the ritual and to pray for the good health of King Father Sihanouk and King Sihamoni, to pray for the government so that it can lead the country well, and to pray to the dance divinity and the dance spirit of ancient Angkor.

But more importantly, the ritual at the shrine was the culmination of a day of celebration marking the third anniversary of the Royal Patronage of Ravynn Karet-Coxen’s dance school at nearby Banteay Srey; the first and only arts school in the Angkor Archaeological Park and the only school of its kind in the Kingdom.

The onlooking tourists were lucky to see the performance because usually the dancers are hidden and protected from the prying eyes to “preserve their purity” as Ravynn Karet-Coxen put it.

Girls and boys train in folk dance and traditional music. Photo © Copyright Anders Jiras.

he said her school was not intended to train dancers to entertain people for money.

She proclaimed the dancing taught in her school helps the children learn to respect their god and divinities, and explained that the little dancers usually perform in temples and sacred areas for the gratification of the Gods and the King. Last year the dancers performed their first royal private performance for the king’s birthday.

She added that her dancers are never allowed to wear heavy costumes, jewellery or make-up on their faces, like the so-called traditional dancers who perform in public for tourists. Her dancers are also instructed to dance in bare feet on Mother Earth or on simple mats, and not on stages.

“We do not dance for entertainment or money,” Ravynn Karet-Coxen emphasised. “And certainly not to amuse tourists in the hotels. We don’t need that. We are dancing for our God.”

Rural students attend the school at no cost to their families, who live below poverty level. In 2010, NKFC initiated a program enabling supporters to sponsor young dancers and musicians. The cost is only $5 per week but even that small amount of money will change a child’s life and future.

Special thanks to photographer Anders Jiras for sharing his images for this article.

Central courtyard of the National Museum of Cambodia. The building was designed by George Groslier, who went on to become its first director in 1920.

By Kent Davis – www.devata.org

After serving as Director and Deputy Director of the National Museum of Cambodia (NMC) since 1996, Mr. Hab Touch has now been appointed to a new position in the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts.

Mr. Hab will now serve as Director-General in charge of the Department General of Cultural Affairs. This department is responsible for cultivating creativity in Cambodian within a broad range of arts disciplines and Mr. Hab will oversee five departments: the Department of Performing Arts; the Department of Cultural Development; the Department of Cinema and Cultural Diffusion; the Department of Fine Arts and Crafts; and the Department of Publications and Reading.

During his time with the NMC Mr. Hab was responsible for the world’s most magnificent collection of Khmer art managing many important projects protecting, preserving and promoting Cambodian cultural heritage.

Designed by George Groslier, who was born in Cambodia in 1887, the museum was built from 1917-1920 during the period of the French Protectorate in Cambodia (1863-1953). Groslier’s innovative design, with gabled roofs and carved doors reminiscent of ancient Khmer temples, remains a highlight of the fusion of traditional Khmer architecture and French colonial style in Phnom Penh.  On April 13, 1920 the museum was inaugurated under the auspices of His Majesty King Sisowath of Cambodia. In 1920, George Groslier became the museum’s first director, creating the historic position in which Mr. Hab has recently served.

Masterpieces of Khmer Culture - A detailed guide to some of Cambodia's most unique artistic treasures with descriptions in Khmer, English, French and Japanese.

As Director, Mr. Hab’s efforts resulted in significant improvements in the museum’s capacity to accommodate visitors and in its collection management. Important projects have included the establishment of the Conservation Laboratories, the Collection Inventory Projects, the Renewal of the Electrical System and Lighting, and many physical improvement to the gallery displays and refurbishment of the building.  The Museum Research Library has also been upgraded, and new educational programs continue to attract and train new generations of museum professionals in Cambodia.

Most recently, the National Museum of Cambodia hosted the launch of the Red List of Cambodian Antiquities at Risk, helping authorities focus on preventing pillage, theft and illegal export of cultural property.

In 2007, the museum published a multi-lingual museum catalog, Masterpieces of the National Museum of Cambodia, with the help of Friends of Khmer Culture and editor Dr. Helen Jessup.

Mr. Hab also played a large role in organizing the international exhibition of Khmer art, Angkor – Sacred Heritage Of Cambodia, attending its grand opening in Bonn Germany in 2006. The exhibition went on to inspire international audiences in Switzerland and Berlin.

National Museum Director Hab Touch meeting with DatAsia publisher Kent Davis in December 2008. Photo by Anders Jiras.

Journalist Andy Brouwer published three excellent articles on the international exhibit: Museum Pieces on the Move; Angkor’s Sacred Heritage and Hab Touch – Khmer Heritage in his Hands.

The new Director of the National Museum of Cambodia will be Mrs. Oun Phalline, who has served as Deputy Director of the NMC administration office since 1996. She follows in the footsteps of another distinguished woman director, historian Madeleine Giteau.

Devata.org wishes Mr. Hab Touch and Mrs. Oun Phalline great success in their new positions preserving and promoting Khmer culture and Cambodia’s cultural heritage.

Devata (sacred female image) defaced at Beng Melea - 2008.

Feature by Erin Linn

Phnom Penh, Cambodia - On February 9, 2010, a number of key government and foundation officials gathered to introduce ICOM’s Red List, defining irreplaceable treasures of Cambodian heritage protected under law. As staff worker with Heritage Watch International, it was my honor to present our organization’s initiatives to counter illicit trafficking of cultural objects.

The creation and publication of the RedList is a true sign of the national and international support for the protection of Cambodia’s outstanding cultural heritage.  Dr. Dougald O’Reilly, the Director of Heritage Watch, was one of many experts who contributed to compiling the RedList.   Heritage Watch is honored to be among the many organizations working to preserve Cambodia’s patrimony.

Heritage Watch was founded in 2003 due to a sharp increase in the destruction of Cambodia’s precious cultural heritage – especially the looting of ancient temples and cemetery sites nationwide.  Heritage Watch’s mission consists of five key elements:

1. To study threats to cultural heritage, including the illicit trade in antiquities, the looting of archaeological sites, and loss of historic architecture;
2. To educate and increase awareness among the public of the profound importance of heritage resources;
3. To increase access to and awareness of national and international law affecting cultural property, while working with the proper authorities to implement, enforce, and improve it;
4. To promote responsible and sustainable tourism practices that further cultural and economic development and encourage the tourism industry to support the arts, culture, heritage and development;
5. To foster communication between relevant governmental and intergovernmental agencies, nongovernmental organizations, academic institutions, and individuals.

Heritage Watch is currently developing and implementing three projects in an effort to achieve the overall mission of the organization and further efforts to counter illicit trafficking of cultural objects.

1. Heritage Development at Banteay Chhmar

In November 2009 Heritage Watch received the Archeological Institute of America’s Site Preservation grant to implement a heritage protection and community development program at Banteay Chhmar.  The project goals are to educate local residents on the benefits of protecting Cambodia’s heritage, to deter looting of archaeological sites, and provide training in tourism practices that protect cultural heritage.

Heritage Watch will be working with a number of dynamic groups there including the Global Heritage Fund, the Community Based Tourism group (or CBT) at Banteay Chhmar, Meanchey University, and local government.

Our methods include implementing English language training, Guide Training, Heritage Protection education for CBT members, and village workshops to educate rural communities about the importance of protecting local heritage.

2. The DHARMA Antiquities Protection Database Project

Stolen devata (sacred female image) at Preah Kahn

In 2008 Heritage Watch began developing the Database of Historical and Archaeological Regulations for the Management of Antiquities (DHARMA).  Cambodia has taken significant and important steps towards protecting its cultural heritage, and a solid framework has been set in place.  There is still much to be done, however, to further develop that framework.

The DHARMA project presents a range of legal reforms to strengthen legal protection of Cambodia’s cultural property. Heritage Watch will work with Cambodian government officials  to compile, publish, analyze and improve the country’s legal framework for heritage management.

DHARMA has won the support of the APSARA Authority; the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts (MoCFA); the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning, and Construction (MoLMUPC), the US Embassy, the American Bar Association, and various legal professionals and academics in the field.  By unifying communications between Cambodian government departments and international organizations and experts, DHARMA will help them to identify and draft the necessary legislation to continue improving Cambodia’s legal protection of its cultural heritage.

3. The Heritage Friendly Tourism Campaign (HFT)

Educating tourists and tour operators with heritage safe practices.

Angkor Wat, the Angkor Heritage Park and other magnificent temples and monuments of the Khmer civilization attract millions of visitors to Cambodia each year, making them one of the country’s most valuable resources.   Although tourism is vital to economic development, it can often have negative impacts on heritage sites, threatening the continuing stream of economic benefits.

The HFT Campaign teaching the importance of protecting Cambodia’s cultural heritage and maintaining sustainable tourism practices at heritage sites. It accomplishes these goals by provides educational resources and training for local communities, tourism operators, and tourists.

In collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism, the APSARA Authority, the Cambodian Community Based Eco-Tourism Network and various other government and non-government  organizations, Heritage Watch is working to implement a Heritage Protection, Guide Training, Development Program for a number of Community Based Tourism  groups associated with or near Heritage sites.

Our project at Banteay Chhmar models many of the objectives of the HFT Campaign: educating local communities about protecting Cambodian heritage, deterring looting of archaeological sites, and providing CBT groups with the training and skills needed to directly benefit from tourism while protecting their cultural heritage.

In 2010, Heritage Watch is working to reinvigorate and strengthen its efforts to protect Cambodia’s cultural heritage.  The Red List is a significant step towards promoting and achieving this objective. This Heritage Watch article on VOA News details exactly how this information is used to stop crime and antiquities trafficking.

Moving forward, Heritage Watch plans to continue collaboration and cooperating with the Cambodian government, international governments, and local and international organizations.  Heritage Watch is proud to contribute to this effort and we sincerely thank all of our partners and associates for their pro-active actions in protecting Cambodia’s rich historic inheritance.

One of the world's most visually stunning heritage museums.

THE RED LIST OF CAMBODIAN ANTIQUITIES AT RISK

Hosted by The National Museum of Cambodia

Welcome address by :
H.E. Chuch Phoeurn
Secretary of State, Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts

Mr. HAB Touch
Director of the National Museum of Cambodia

Presentations by:

H.E. Mr. HIM Chhem
Minister of Culture and Fine Arts of Cambodia

H.E. Ms. Carol A. Rodley
Ambassador of the United States of America to Cambodia

Ms. CHAU SUN Kérya
Director of Angkor Tourist Development Department, ASPARA Authority

Major General KEO Vannthan
Commissariat General of National Police, National Central Bureau of INTERPOL

Erin Lin
Project Officer of Heritage Watch

Mrs. Jennifer Thévenot
International Council of Museums (ICOM) Programme Activities Officer

Arriving at the Chamcar Mon Palace for dinner, Mrs. Kennedy, glowing in a Grecian turquoise gown, smilingly offers her hand to Prince Sihanouk. Behind them, resplendent Royal Guardsmen salute her entrance with yard-long sabers.

She found time to admire Chief of State Prince Norodom Sihanouk’s own jazz compositions, November Blues, as November was the season, and The Evening I Met You, in honor of the occasion.

The Prince was obviously en­chanted with his beautiful visitor but he insisted he had not changed his opposition to America’s role in Vietnam. Asked why he had named a street for John F. Kennedy in Sihanoukville and not his capital city, he said, “Sihanoukville is very important. It is named after me. Anyway, I have run out of streets in Phnom Penh.”

Out of deference to his guest, who, he said, is “the best ambassadress America could send to Cambodia,” he omitted a paragraph from his Sihanoukville speech that declared that the U.S. would not be fighting in Vietnam if Kenne­dy were still in the White House.

In a later press conference he de­clared that “If America decides to stop the war, America would be­come popular in Asia and President Johnson would regain prestige. Even his hawks could not stop him from becoming an illustrious Presi­dent.”

Mrs. Kennedy’s compan­ions included Lord Harlech, the former Sir David Ormsby-Core, a friend of her late husband, and, in a reference to rumors that link them romantically, the Prince said he would not be shocked if Mrs. Ken­nedy married again. When she de­parted for Bangkok, weary but enchanted with the splendors of Cam­bodia, she thanked the Prince “with all my heart.”

At the towering ruins of The Bayon temple, near Angkor Wat, Jackie listens to archaeologist Bernard Philippe Groslier, curator of the Angkor monuments. Bernard followed in the footsteps of his father, George Groslier, also a renowned Khmer scholar who was born in Cambodia in 1867.

Raising toasts at the ceremonious dinner, Prince Sihanouk and his wife Princess Monique stand at Jackie's left. Cambodian Prime Minister Son Sann is on her other side.

Jackie listens to Prince Sihanouk praise her late husband John F. Kennedy.

Jackie smilingly acknowledges his tribute with a simple "thank you."

In a reception room at the palace, Prince Sihanouk and Princess Monique presented Jackie with an elaborately filigreed silver tray, finger bowls and plates. He also gave her records of his musical compositions. One of Jackie's presents to them was a leather-bound copy of President Kennedy's "The Strategy of Peace."