Happy New Year Cambodia!
Those of us fortunate enough to live in Cambodia get to enjoy three different New Year celebrations. International New Year on 1st January used to be a barely celebrated event here but of late it has become more important warranting a public holiday and special events including fireworks. I remember being in a nightclub in Siem Reap on New Year’s Eve many years ago and when the DJ started counting down to New Year I was preparing to rush around greeting strangers and wishing them all the best for the next 12 months. No one was even slightly bothered though when the countdown reached zero and I found myself looking rather foolish as I leapt in the air and prepared to embrace the person next to me. Everyone else was waiting for the lucky draw (always a popular event here and the reason for such a large attendance in the club) to begin. Cambodian attitudes to International New Year are changing but it remains the least celebrated New Year event.
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| Khmer Buddhist New Year Celebration |
Chinese New Year is a much more important celebration albeit an unofficial one as, unusually, there is no official public holiday to mark the occasion. This occurs in either January or February and lasts 3 days. It seems to be celebrated by everyone regardless of any Chinese lineage and the country more or less shuts down for the duration to enable families to visit relatives and return to their homelands.
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| Khmer New Year Experience |
The most important celebration for Khmers though is Buddhist New Year which falls in mid April. This is celebrated by absolutely everyone and traditionally marks the end of the harvest and anticipates the onset of the rainy season. The holiday itself lasts three days but in the week before the roads are full of traffic as people travel around the country to join up with family and friends for the celebrations. In the days before the holiday people spring clean their houses (I usually find something important to do elsewhere while this is happening) and on the first day households erect an altar to welcome the New Year spirit. Local temples are visited with food and alms for the monks and prayers are said for ancestors. It is a time of great feasting, parties and generally relaxing with family and friends.
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| New Year Celebration Cambodia |
Obviously over this period everyone wants to spend time with family and friends and most businesses shut down for the duration of the holiday. Of course as a hotel we at Bambu Hotel Cambodia have to stay open but I tried to ensure that our staff could enjoy the festival whilst maintaining our usual excellent levels of service! We actually held an impromptu party one evening as our guests wanted to enjoy the Khmer New Year experience. Within the space of an hour or so the chefs had knocked up some delicious food, a sound system was somehow produced from out of nowhere and much dancing and fun ensued. I don’t think our guests had experienced anything like it but they thoroughly enjoyed it – or at least they told me so!
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| Cambodia New Year Celebration |
Cambodia has an extraordinary number of public holidays – 26 days – which surely must be more than anywhere else in the world. There are holidays for the major religious festivals obviously but also for more secular events – 3 days for the King’s birthday, a day each for the King Father and King Mother, Human Rights Day, International Women’s Day, Independence Day, Constitution Day, Coronation Day to name but a few. Most small businesses stay open for the majority of these holidays but banks, government departments and larger businesses shut down. Of course if some of these holidays fall over a weekend they are carried over to the Monday which means you have to be quite organized – I have often found myself turning up at the bank only to find it closed when I wasn’t expecting it. As a fairly large business – well with 22 staff – we have had to register with the Ministry of Labour and so of course we have to ensure our staff get the holidays they are entitled to. As well as these public holidays there is also annual leave entitlement so juggling the staff rosters around has been fairly difficult although to be honest most of the staff have never experienced paid holiday leave and are very grateful for it!
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