Between 1874 and 1921, the total population increased from about
946,000 to 2.4 million. By 1950 it had increased to between 3,710, 107
and 4,073,967, and in 1962 it had reached 5.7 million. From the 1960s
until 1975, the population of Cambodia increased by about 2.2 percent
yearly, the lowest increase in Southeast Asia. By 1975 when the Khmer
Rouge took power, it was estimated at 7.3 million. Of this total an
estimated one million to two million reportedly died between 1975 and
1978. In 1981 the PRK gave the official population figure as nearly 6.7
million, although approximately 6.3 million to 6.4 million is probably a
more accurate one. The average annual rate of population growth from
1978 to 1985 was 2.3 percent. Life expectancy at birth was 44.2 years
for males and 43.3 years for females in 1959. By 1970 life expectancy
had increased by about 2.5 years since 1945. The greater longevity for
females apparently reflected improved health practices during maternity
and childbirth.
In 1959 about 45 percent of the population was under 15 years of age;
by 1962 this figure had increased slightly to 46 percent. In 1962 an
estimated 52 percent of the population was between 15 and 64 years of
age, while 2 percent was older than 65. The percentage of males and
females in the three groups was almost the same.
The population of Cambodia has been fairly homogeneous. In 1962 about
80 percent of the population was ethnic Khmer. The remaining 20 percent
included Chinese, Vietnamese, Cham, Khmer Loeu, Europeans. By 1981, as a
result of the Vietnamese repatriation in 1970 to 1971 and the deaths and
emigration of large numbers of Cham and Chinese, ethnic Khmer accounted
for about 90 percent or more of the population.
Dynamics
Rapid and drastic population movements occurred in the early 1970s,
when large numbers of rural Cambodians fled to the cities to escape the
fighting in the countryside, and between 1975 and 1979, when the
government forcibly relocated urban dwellers to rural sites throughout
the country. Large scale emigration also occurred between 1975 and 1979.
Distribution
Population density varies throughout Cambodia. The national average
in 1972 was about 22 persons per square kilometer. At one end of the
density scale were the provinces around Phnom Penh, where the number of
inhabitants per square kilometer could reach as many as 500, but more
generally varied between 200 and 500. At the lower end of the scale were
outlying provinces, like Rotanokiri (Ratanakiri) and Mondulkiri (Mondol
Kiri) in the northeast and Kaoh Kong in the southwest, where the density
was as low as zero to five persons per square kilometer. For almost
two-thirds of the country, the density was approximately five persons
per square kilometer.
Ethnic Khmer were concentrated in central and in southeastern
Cambodia. The Cham lived in their own towns and sections in larger
cities. The Chinese lived mainly in urban centers; in Phnom Penh they
were concentrated around the markets. The Vietnamese tended to live in
their own villages and in certain sections of Phnom Penh. The Khmer Loeu
were concentrated in the northeastern and southwestern areas of
Cambodia.
Migration and Refugees
Over the decades, some movement of the rural population in Cambodia--
either to urban areas in quest of employment or to other villages in
search of more favorable agricultural sites--has been customary. Many
highland tribal groups practice slash-and-burn agriculture that requires
movement to a new area once the soil is exhausted in a given location.
Warfare in the early 1970s drove large numbers of rural people to the
cities in search of safety. The population of Phnom Penh, for example,
increased from 393,995 in 1962 to about 1.2 million in 1971, but had
decreased to about 500,000 by 1985. With their takeover in April 1975,
the Khmer Rouge forced most of the population out of Phnom Penh into the
countryside, where large numbers either died because of hardship or were
executed. Many such population movements were forced upon the populace
under the Khmer Rouge regime. Many Cambodians who had left the country
to study abroad became de facto emigrants when the communists took over.
Thousands more fled into neighboring Thailand and Vietnam in 1975 and at
the time of the Vietnamese invasion in late 1978. Cham, Vietnamese, and
Chinese communities alike were persecuted, and their members were
killed, under the Khmer Rouge. Forced repatriation in 1970 and deaths
during the Khmer Rouge era reduced the Vietnamese population in Cambodia
from between 250,000 and 300,000 in 1969 to a reported 56,000 in 1984.
Postwar emigration of Vietnamese civilians to Cambodia remained a
subject of controversy. Some social scientists believed that the number
of Vietnamese in Cambodia in 1988 had reached at least the prewar level,
and, indeed, many Khmer feared that even more Vietnamese immigrants
would inundate their population.
During the Khmer Rouge era, about 50,000 Cambodians fled to Thailand,
and an estimated 150,000 fled to Vietnam. As soon as the Khmer Rouge
regime began to crumble under the onslaught of the Vietnamese in late
1978, a massive exodus of Cambodians began. About 630,000--braving
hostile fire, minefields, bandits, and border guards--left the country
between 1979 and 1981. In subsequent years, about 208,000 resettled in
other countries; these included 136,000 in the United States, 32,000 in
France, and 13,000 each in Australia and in Canada.
In late 1987, about 265,000 Cambodians--about 150,000 of them below
the age of 15 remained in Thailand. The Khmer refugees were supported by
the United Nations Border Relief Operation (which assumed the task from
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the early 1980s)
and private agencies at an annual cost of US$36 million in 1986. The
refugees were grouped in nine camps on the Thailand side of that
country's common border with Cambodia. Of the nine installations, the
most prominent was Khao-I-Dang, located near Aranyaprathet, Prachin Buri
Province, Thailand. It was controlled by the Thai military, and its
inhabitants were the only ones to be regarded legally as refugees by the
Thai government. In 1987 Khao-I-Dang had a population of about 21,000 to
25,000 (down from a peak of 130,000 at its founding in 1979), of whom
about 12,000 to 15,000 were eligible for resettlement.
The other eight camps were under the control of the three Khmer
resistance factions. These camps were considered reception centers
rather than bona fide refugee facilities by the Thai government, and
their inmates, unlike the residents of Khao-I-Dang, were considered
displaced persons rather than refugees. Of these eight installations,
five were controlled by the Khmer Rouge; two, by the Khmer People's
National Liberation Front (KPNLF); and one, by the Sihanouk National
Army (Arm�e Nationale Sihanoukiste - ANS). Khmer insurgents freely
visited the camps controlled by their own resistance factions and used
them as rest and recuperation centers.
The Khmer Rouge camps sheltered between 50,000 and 60,000
inhabitants. Access to them was granted grudgingly, if at all, even to
United Nations officials. Occasional visiting journalists reported in
the 1980s that an atmosphere of repression and fear prevailed at these
facilities. The largest Khmer Rouge installation, located on the
southwestern part of the border between Cambodia and Thailand, was known
as Site 8 and held about 30,000 persons. Smaller installations,
inhabited by 20,000 or more people altogether, were reported at Na Trao
and Huay Chan, in Sisaket Province, Thailand, and at the seldom-visited
encampments of Borai and in Ta Luen, Trat Province, Thailand.
The KPNLF controlled two camps containing a total of about 160,000
persons. The principal installation was Site 2, with a population of
between 145,000 and 150,000 and an environment noted for its rampant
lawlessness. Site 2 was located in the vicinity of Ta Phraya, Prachin
Buri Province, Thailand, and, at one time in the early 1980s, held the
largest concentration Cambodians outside of Phnom Penh.
The lone camp controlled by the ANS was Site B, also known as
"Green Hill," which was located about 50 kilometers north of
Ta Phraya and had a population of between 40,000 and 50,000. Site B was
considered by observers to be the most orderly and well-managed of the
refugee camps; it offered more living space, including room for personal
gardens, than did the others.
<>Social Structure
and Organization
Household and Family Structure
In the late 1980s, the nuclear family, consisting of a husband and a
wife and their unmarried children, probably continued to be the most
important kin group within Khmer society. The family is the major unit
of both production and consumption. Within this unit are the strongest
emotional ties, the assurance of aid in the event of trouble, economic
cooperation in labor, sharing of produce and income, and contribution as
a unit to ceremonial obligations. A larger grouping, the personal
kindred that includes a nuclear family with the children, grandchildren,
grandparents, uncles, aunts, first cousins, nephews, and nieces, may be
included in the household. Family organization is weak, and ties between
related families beyond the kindred are loosely defined at best. There
is no tradition of family names, although the French tried to legislate
their use in the early twentieth century. Most Khmer genealogies extend
back only two or three generations, which contrasts with the veneration
of ancestors by the Vietnamese and by the Chinese. Noble families and
royal families, some of which can trace their descent for several
generations, are exceptions.
The individual Khmer is surrounded by a small inner circle of family
and friends who constitute his or her closest associates, those he would
approach first for help. In rural communities, neighbors--who are often
also kin--may be important, too, and much of housebuilding and other
heavy labor intensive tasks are performed by groups of neighbors. Beyond
this close circle are more distant relatives and casual friends. In
rural Cambodia, the strongest ties a Khmer may develop--besides those to
the nuclear family and to close friends--are those to other members of
the local community. A strong feeling of pride--for the village, for the
district, and province--usually characterizes Cambodian community life.
There is much sharing of religious life through the local Buddhist
temple, and there are many cross-cutting kin relations within the
community. Formerly, the Buddhist priesthood, the national armed forces,
and, to a lesser extent, the civil service all served to connect the
Khmer to the wider national community. The priesthood served only males,
however, while membership in some components of the armed forces and in
the civil service was open to women as well.
Two fictive relationships in Cambodia transcend kinship boundaries
and serve to strengthen interpersonal and interfamily ties. A Khmer may
establish a fictive child-parent or sibling relationship called thoa
(roughly translating as adoptive parent or sibling). The person desiring
to establish the thoa relationship will ask the other person
for permission to enter into the relationship. The thoa
relationship may become as close as the participants desire. The second
fictive relationship is that of kloeu (close male friend). This
is similar, in many ways, to becoming a blood brother. A person from one
place may ask a go-between in another place to help him establish a kloeu
relationship with someone in that place. Once the participants agree, a
ceremony is held that includes ritual drinking of water into which small
amounts of the participants' blood have been mixed and bullets and
knives have been dipped; prayers are also recited by an achar
(or ceremonial leader) before witnesses. The kloeu relationship
is much stronger than the thoa. One kloeu will use the
same kinship terms when addressing his kloeu's parents and
siblings as he would when addressing his own. The two friends can call
upon each other for any kind of help at any time. The kloeu
relationship apparently is limited to some rural parts of Cambodia and
to Khmer-speaking areas in Thailand. As of the late 1980s, it may have
become obsolete. The female equivalent of kloeu is mreak.
Legally, the husband is the head of the Khmer family, but the wife
has considerable authority, especially in family economics. The husband
is responsible for providing shelter and food for his family; the wife
is generally in charge of the family budget, and she serves as the major
ethical and religious model for the children, especially the daughters.
In rural areas, the male is mainly responsible for such activities as
plowing and harrowing the rice paddies, threshing rice, collecting sugar
palm juice, caring for cattle, carpentry, and buying and selling cows
and chickens. Women are mainly responsible for pulling and transplanting
rice seedlings, harvesting and winnowing rice, tending gardens, making
sugar, weaving, and caring for the household money. Both males and
females may work at preparing the rice paddies for planting, tending the
paddies, and buying and selling land.
Ownership of property among the rural Khmer was vested in the nuclear
family. Descent and inheritance is bilateral. Legal children might
inherit equally from their parents. The division of property was
theoretically equal among siblings, but in practice the oldest child
might inherit more. Each of the spouses might bring inherited land into
the family, and the family might acquire joint land during the married
life of the couple. Each spouse was free to dispose of his or her land
as he or she chose. A will was usually oral, although a written one was
preferred.
Private ownership of land was abolished by the Khmer Rouge in the
1970s. Such ownership is also not recognized by the PRK government,
which for example, refused to support former owners when they returned
and found others living on and working their land. Some peasants were
able to remain on their own land during the Khmer Rouge era, however,
and generally they were allowed to continue to work the land as if it
were their own property. In 1987 the future of private ownership of land
remained in doubt. According to Cambodia scholar Michael Vickery, the
PRK government planned to collectivize in three stages. The first stage
involved allotting land to families at the beginning of the season and
allowing the cultivators to keep the harvest. The second stage involved
allotting land to each family according to the number of members. The
families in the interfamily units known as solidarity groups (krom
samaki) were to work to prepare the fields, but subsequently each
family was responsible for the upkeep of its own parcel of land. At this
stage, each family could dispose of its own produce. In the final stage,
all labor was to be performed in common, and at the end of the season
any remuneration was distributed according to a work point system.
Livestock at this stage would still belong to the family. By 1984 the
first stage groups accounted for 35 percent of the rural population, but
the third level accounted for only 10 percent of the farms.
Housing
The nuclear family, in rural Cambodia, typically lives in a
rectangular house that may vary in size from four by six meters to six
by ten meters. It is constructed of a wooden frame with gabled thatch
roof and walls of woven bamboo. Khmer houses typically are raised on
stilts as much as three meters for protection from annual floods. Two
ladders or wooden staircases provide access to the house. The steep
thatch roof overhanging the house walls protects the interior from rain.
Typically a house contains three rooms separated by partitions of woven
bamboo. The front room serves as a living room used to receive visitors,
the next room is the parents' bedroom, and the third is for unmarried
daughters. Sons sleep anywhere they can find space. Family members and
neighbors work together to build the house, and a house-raising ceremony
is held upon its completion. The houses of poorer persons may contain
only a single large room. Food is prepared in a separate kitchen located
near the house but usually behind it. Toilet facilities consist of
simple pits in the ground, located away from the house, that are covered
up when filled. Any livestock is kept below the house.
Chinese and Vietnamese houses in Cambodian town and villages
typically are built directly on the ground and have earthen, cement, or
tile floors, depending upon the economic status of the owner. Urban
housing and commercial buildings may be of brick, masonry, or wood.
Diet
Dietary habits appear to be basically the same among the Khmer and
other ethnic groups, although the Muslim Cham do not eat pork. The basic
foods are rice--in several varieties, fish, and vegetables, especially trakuon
(water convolvulus). Rice may be less thoroughly milled than it is in
many other rice-eating countries, and consequently it contains more
vitamins and roughage. The average rice consumption per person per day
before 1970 was almost one-half kilogram. Fermented fish in the form of
sauce or of paste are important protein supplements to the diet. Hot
peppers, lemon grass, mint, and ginger add flavor to many Khmer dishes;
sugar is added to many foods. Several kinds of noodles are eaten. The
basic diet is supplemented by vegetables and by fruits--bananas,
mangoes, papayas, rambutan, and palm fruit--both wild and cultivated,
which grow abundantly throughout the country. Beef, pork, poultry, and
eggs are added to meals on special occasions, or, if the family can
afford it, daily. In the cities, the diet has been affected by many
Western items of food. French, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Indian cuisine
were available in Phnom Penh in pre-Khmer Rouge days.
Rural Khmer typically eat several times a day; the first meal
consists of a piece of fruit or cake, which workers eat after arriving
at the fields. The first full meal is at about 9:00 or 10:00 in the
morning; it is prepared by the wife or daughter and brought to the man
in the field. Workers eat a large meal at about noon in the field and
then have supper with their families after returning home around 5:00
P.M.
Before the early 1970s, the Cambodian people produced a food supply
that provided an adequate diet. Although children gave evidence of
caloric underconsumption and of a deficiency in B vitamins. During the
Khmer Rouge era, malnutrition increased, especially among the people who
were identified as "new people" by the authorities. Collective
meals were introduced by 1977. Food rations for the new people were
meager. Refugees' statements contain the following descriptions:
"[daily rations of] a tin of boiled rice a day mixed
with...sauce"; "we ate twice a day, boiled soup and rice
only"; "one tin of rice a day shared between three people.
Never any meat or fruit"; "Ration was two tins of rice between
four persons per day with fish sauce." People were reduced to
eating anything they could find-- insects, small mammals, arachnids,
crabs, and plants.
The food situation improved under the PRK, although in the regime's
early years there were still serious food shortages. International food
donations improved the situation somewhat. In 1980 monthly rice rations
distributed by the government averaged only one to two kilograms per
person. People supplemented the ration by growing secondary crops such
as corn and potatoes, by fishing, by gathering fruit and vegetables, and
by collecting crabs and other edible animals. A 1984 estimate reported
that as many as 50 percent of all young people in Cambodia were
undernourished.
Dress
The traditional Khmer costume consisted of a shirt or blouse and a
skirt-like lower garment--sampot for women and sarong for men,
a tube-shaped garment about a meter wide and as much as three meters in
circumference. Made of cotton or of silk in many different styles and
patterns, it is pulled on over the legs and fastened around the waist.
On ceremonial occasions, elegant sampot as sarong, embroidered
with gold or silver threads, may be worn with a long piece of material
gathered at the waist, passed between the legs, and tucked into the
waistband in back. Members of the urban middle and upper classes may
wear Westernstyle clothing at work and more traditional clothing at
home.
At home both sexes wear the sampot and the sarong. In rural
areas, working men and women may wear loose-fitting pants and shirts or
blouses. Many men wear Western-style pants or shorts. A third essential
part of Khmer dress is the krama, or long scarf, that is worn
around the neck, over the shoulders, or wrapped turban-style around the
head. School children wear Western-style clothing to school. The boys
wear shirts and shorts; the girls wear skirts and blouses.
The Khmer Rouge were noted for their unisex black
"pajamas." Their typical garb was the peasant outfit of
collarless black shirt--baggy trousers and checkered krama (a
scarf knotted loosely about the neck). French anthropologist Marie
Alexandrine Martin reported that the wearing of brightly colored
clothing was prohibited under the Khmer Rouge and that women, young and
old, wore black, dark blue, or maroon sampot with short-sleeved
plain blouses. Women were forbidden to wear Western-style pants at any
time. The conical hat characteristic of the Vietnamese has been adopted
to a certain extent by Khmer in the provinces adjacent to Vietnam.
Families
The birth of a child is a happy event for the family. According to
traditional beliefs, however, confinement and childbirth expose the
family, and especially the mother and the child to harm from the spirit
world. A woman who dies in childbirth--crosses the river (chhlong
tonle) in Khmer is believed to become an evil spirit. In
traditional Khmer society, a pregnant woman respects a number of food
taboos and avoids certain situations. These traditions remain in
practice in rural Cambodia, but they have become weakened in urban
areas.
No extensive information exists on birth control or on the use of
contraceptives in Cambodia. Before the Khmer Rouge takeover, no
organizations in Cambodia were known to be concerned with family
planning. Traditional Khmer families were normally smaller than Chinese
or Vietnamese families; the desired number of children was five. Reports
suggest that several methods of contraception are currently available in
Cambodia and that these are practiced in the PRK. A recent study of
Cambodian women in France reported that 91 percent of the sample wished
to use some method of birth control and that 74 percent knew of at least
one method. The most common methods used in that group were the oral
contraceptive pill and some form of sterilization. It is not known to
what extent the attitudes of this group reflect those of Cambodian women
in general.
A Cambodian child may be nursed until he or she is between two and
four years of age. Up to the age of three or four, the child is given
considerable physical affection and freedom. There is little corporal
punishment. After reaching the age of about four, children are expected
to feed and bathe themselves and to control their bowel functions.
Children around five years of age also may be expected to help look
after younger siblings. Children's games emphasize socialization or
skill rather than winning and losing.
Most children begin school when they are seven or eight. By the time
they reach this age, they are familiar with the society's norms of
politeness, obedience, and respect toward their elders and toward
Buddhist monks. The father at this time begins his permanent retreat
into a relatively remote, authoritarian role. By age ten, a girl is
expected to help her mother in basic household tasks; a boy knows how to
care for the family's livestock and can do farm work under the
supervision of older males.
In precommunist days, parents exerted complete authority over their
children until the children were married, and the parents continued to
maintain some control well into the marriage. Punishment was meted out
sparingly, but it might have involved physical contact. Age difference
was strictly recognized. The proper polite vocabulary was used in the
precommunist period, and special generational terms for "you"
continued to be used in the late 1980s. Younger speakers had to show
respect to older people, including siblings, even if their ages differed
by only a few minutes.
Between the ages of seven and nineteen, but most commonly between the
ages of eleven and nineteen, a boy may become a temple servant and go on
to serve a time as a novice monk. Having a son chosen for such a
position is a great honor for the parents, and earns the individual son
much merit.
Formerly, and perhaps still in some rural areas, a ceremony marked
the entrance of a girl into puberty. Upon the onset of menstruation, a
girl would participate in a ritual called chol mlup (entering
the shadow). Certain foods were taboo at this time, and she would be
isolated from her family for a period of a few days to six months. After
the period of seclusion, she was considered marriageable.
Adolescent children usually play with members of the same sex. The
main exception to this occurs during festivals, especially happy ones
such as the New Year Festival, when boys and girls take part in group
games. Young people then have the opportunity to begin looking for
future mates. Virginity is highly valued in brides, and premarital sex
is deplored. The girl who becomes pregnant out of wedlock brings shame
to her family.
The choice of a spouse is a complex one for the young male, and it
may involve not only his parents and his friends, as well as those of
the young woman, but also a matchmaker. A young man can decide on a
likely spouse on his own and then ask his parents to arrange the
marriage negotiations, or the young person's parents may make the choice
of spouse, giving the child little to say in the selection. In theory, a
girl may veto the spouse her parents have chosen.
Courtship patterns differ between rural and urban Khmer. Attitudes in
the larger cities have been influenced by Western ideas of romantic love
that do not apply in the countryside. A man usually marries between the
ages of nineteen and twenty-five, a girl between the ages of sixteen and
twenty-two. Marriage between close blood relatives is forbidden. After a
spouse has been selected, a go-between meets with the parents and
broaches the subject of marriage. Then each family will investigates the
other to make sure its child is marrying into a good family. When both
sides agree to the marriage and presents have been exchanged and
accepted, the families consult an achar to set the wedding
date. In rural areas, there is a form of bride-service; that is, the
young man may take a vow to serve his prospective father-in-law for a
period of time.
The traditional wedding is a long and colorful affair. Formerly it
lasted three days, but in the 1980s it more commonly lasted a day and a
half. The ceremony begins in the morning at the home of the bride and is
directed by the achar. Buddhist priests offer a short sermon
and recite prayers of blessing. Parts of the ceremony involve ritual
hair cutting, tying cotton threads soaked in holy water around the
bride's and groom's wrists, and passing a candle around a circle of
happily married and respected couples to bless the union. After the
wedding, a banquet is held. In the city, the banquet is held at a
restaurant; in the country, it is held in a temporary shelter and is
prepared by the two families. Newlyweds traditionally move in with the
wife's parents and may live with them up to a year, until they can build
a new house nearby. These patterns changed drastically under the
communists. The Khmer Rouge divided families and separated the men from
the women. The father, mother, and children frequently were separated
for many months. A man and woman often did not have time to consummate a
marriage, and sexual relations were limited by long separations.
Extramarital relations and even flirtations between young people were
heavily punished.
Divorce is legal, relatively easy to obtain, but not common. Divorced
persons are viewed with some disapproval, and they are not invited to
take part in the blessing of a newlywed couple. Some of the grounds for
divorce are incompatibility, prolonged absence without good reason,
abandonment by either partner, refusal of the husband to provide for the
family, adultery, immoral conduct, and refusal, for more than a year, to
permit sexual intercourse. A magistrate may legalize the divorce. Each
spouse retains whatever property he or she brought into the marriage.
Property acquired jointly is divided equally. Divorced persons may
remarry, but the woman must wait ten months. Custody of minor children
is usually given to the mother. Both parents continue to have an
obligation to contribute financially toward the rearing and education of
the child.
In theory a man may have multiple wives if he can afford them, but
this is rare in practice; the first wife may veto the taking of a second
wife. Concubinage also exists, although it is more frequent in the
cities. While second wives have certain legal rights, concubines have
none.
As the married couple moves through life they have children, nurture
and train them, educate them, and marry them off. When they become too
old to support themselves, they may invite the youngest child's family
to move in and to take over running the household. At this stage in
their lives, they enjoy a position of high status, they help care for
grandchildren, and they devote more time in service to the wat (temple).
Death is not viewed with the great outpouring of grief common to
Western society; it is viewed as the end of one life and as the
beginning of another life that one hopes will be better. Buddhist Khmer
usually are cremated, and their ashes are deposited in a stupa in the
temple compound. A corpse is washed, dressed, and placed in a coffin,
which may be decorated with flowers and with a photograph of the
deceased. White pennant-shaped flags, called "white crocodile
flags," outside a house indicate that someone in that household has
died. A funeral procession consisting of an achar, Buddhist
monks, members of the family, and other mourners accompanies the coffin
to the crematorium. The spouse and the children show mourning by shaving
their heads and by wearing white clothing. Relics such as teeth or
pieces of bone are prized by the survivors, and they are often worn on
gold chains as amulets.
Social Stratification and Social Mobility
Social strata in precommunist Cambodia may be viewed as constituting
a spectrum, with an elite group or upper class at one end and a lower
class consisting of rural peasants and unskilled urban workers at the
other end. The elite group was composed of high-ranking government,
military, and religious leaders, characterized by high prestige, wealth,
and education or by members one of the royal or noble families. Each one
of the subgroups had its own internal ranking system. Before the ouster
of Sihanouk in 1970, the highest ranks of the elite group were filled
largely by those born into them. The republican regime in the early
1970s invalidated all royal and noble titles, and the only titles of
social significance legally in use in connection with the elite group
were those gained through achievement. Military and government titles
tended to replace royal and noble titles. In spite of the legislated
loss of titles, however, wide public recognition of the royalty and the
nobility continued. The deferential linguistic usages and the behavior
styles directed toward members of these groups persisted through the
1970s and, to a limited extent, were still present in the late 1980s.
In the early 1970s, the senior military officers, some of whom were
also members of the aristocracy, replaced the hereditary aristocracy as
the most influential group in the country. To some extent, this upper
stratum of the upper class was closed, and it was extremely difficult to
move into it and to attain positions of high power. The closed nature of
the group frustrated many members of the small intellectual elite. This
group, positioned at the lower end of the elite group, consisted of
civil servants, professional people, university students, and some
members of the Buddhist hierarchy. It had become large enough to be
politically influential by the 1970s, for example, student strikes were
serious enough in 1972 to force the government to close some schools.
Somewhere in the middle of this social spectrum was a small middle
class, which included both Khmer and non-Khmer of medium prestige.
Members of this class included businessmen, white-collar workers,
teachers, physicians, most of the Buddhist clergy, shopkeepers, clerks,
and military officers of lower and middle rank. Many Chinese,
Vietnamese, and members of other ethnic minorities belonged to the
middle class. The Khmer were a majority only among the military and
among the civil servants.
The lower class consisted of rural small farmers, fishermen,
craftsmen, and blue-collar urban workers. The majority of Cambodians
belonged to this group. Most of the members of the lower class were
Khmer, but other ethnic groups, including most of the Cham, Khmer Loeu,
some Vietnamese, and a few Chinese, were included. This class was
virtually isolated from, and was uninterested in, the activities of the
much smaller urban middle and upper classes.
Within the lower class, fewer status distinctions existed; those that
did depended upon attributes such as age, sex, moral behavior, and
religious piety. Traditional Buddhist values were important on the
village level. Old age was respected, and older men and women received
deferential treatment in terms of language and behavior. All else being
equal, males generally were accorded a higher social status than
females. Good character--honesty, generosity, compassion, avoidance of
quarrels, chastity, warmth--and personal religious piety also increased
status. Generosity toward others and to the wat was important. Villagers
accorded respect and honor to those whom they perceived as having
authority or prestige. Buddhist monks and nuns, teachers, high-ranking
government officials, and members of the hereditary aristocracy made up
this category. Persons associated with those who possessed prestige
tended to derive prestige and to be accorded respect therefrom.
The Khmer language reflects a somewhat different classification of
Khmer society based on a more traditional model and characterized by
differing linguistic usages. This classification divided Cambodian
society into three broad categories: royalty and nobility, clergy, and
laity. The Khmer language had--and to a lesser extent still
has--partially different lexicons for each of these groups. For example,
nham (to eat) was used when speaking of oneself or to those on
a lower social level; pisa (to eat) was used when speaking
politely of someone else; chhan (to eat) was used of Buddhist
clergy, and saoy (to eat) was used of royalty. The Khmer Rouge
attempted to do away with the different lexicons and to establish a
single one for all; for example, they tried to substitute a single,
rural word, hop (to eat), for all of the above words.
Social mobility was played out on an urban stage. There was little
opportunity among the majority of the rural Cambodians to change social
status; this absence of opportunity was a reflection of traditional
Buddhist fatalism. A man could achieve higher status by entering the
monkhood or by acquiring an education and then entering the military or
the civil service. Opportunities in government service, especially for
white-collar positions, were highly prized by Cambodian youths. The
availability of such positions did not keep pace with the number of
educated youths, however, and in the late 1960s and the early 1970s this
lag began to cause widespread dissatisfaction.
The Khmer Rouge characterized Cambodians as being in one of several
classes: the feudal class (members of the royal family and high
government or military officials); the capitalist class (business
people); the petite bourgeoisie (civil servants, professionals, small
business people, teachers, servants, and clerics); peasant class (the
rich, the mid-level, and the poor, based on whether or not they could
hire people to work their land and on whether or not they had enough
food); the worker class (the independent worker, the industrial worker,
and the party members); and the "special" classes
(revolutionary intellectuals, military and police officials, and
Buddhist monks).
Cambodia.
The Khmer Loeu are the non-Khmer highland tribes in Cambodia.
Although the origins of this group are not clear, some believe that the
Mon-Khmer-speaking tribes were part of the long migration of these
people from the northwest. The Austronesian-speaking groups, Rade and
Jarai, apparently came to coastal Vietnam and then moved west, forming
wedges among some of the Mon-Khmer groups. The Khmer Loeu are found
mainly in the northeastern provinces of Rotanokiri, Stoeng Treng, and
Mondol Kiri. The Cambodian government coined the word Khmer
Loeu--literally "Highland Khmer"--in the 1960s in order to
create a feeling of unity between the highland tribal groups and the
ruling lowland ethnic Khmer. Traditionally the Khmer have referred to
these groups as phnong and samre, both of which have
pejorative meanings. Some of the highland groups, in fact, are related
in language to the Khmer, but others are from a very different
linguistic and cultural background.
Khmer Loeu form the majority population in Rotanokiri and Mondulkiri
provinces, and they also are present in substantial numbers in Kracheh
and Stoeng Treng provinces. Their total population in 1969 was estimated at 90,000 persons.
In 1971 the number of Khmer Loeu was estimated variously between 40,000
and 100,000 persons. Population figures were unavailable in 1987, but
the total probably was nearly 100,000 persons.
Most Khmer Loeu live in scattered temporary villages that have only a
few hundred inhabitants. These villages usually are governed by a
council of local elders or by a village headman.
The Khmer Loeu cultivate a wide variety of plants, but the main crop
is dry or upland rice grown by the slash-and-burn method. Hunting,
fishing, and gathering supplement the cultivated vegetable foods in the
Khmer Loeu diet. Houses vary from huge multifamily longhouses to small
single-family structures. They may be built close to the ground or on
stilts.
During the period of the French Protectorate, the French did not
interfere in the affairs of the Khmer Loeu. Reportedly, French army commanders
considered the Khmer Loeu as an excellent source of personnel for army
outposts, and they recruited large numbers to serve with the French
forces. Many Khmer Loeu continued this tradition by enlisting in the
Cambodian army.
In the 1960s, the Cambodian government carried out a broad civic
action program--for which the army had responsibility--among the Khmer
Loeu in Mondol Kiri, Rotanokiri, Stoeng Treng, and Kaoh Kong provinces.
The goals of this program were to educate the Khmer Loeu, to teach them
Khmer, and eventually to assimilate them into the mainstream of
Cambodian society. There was some effort at resettlement; in other
cases, civil servants went out to live with individual Khmer Loeu groups
to teach their members Khmer ways. Schools were provided for some Khmer
Loeu communities, and in each large village a resident government
representative disseminated information and encouraged the Khmer Loeu to
learn the lowland Khmer way of life. Civil servants sent to work among
the Khmer Loeu often viewed the assignment as a kind of punishment.
In the late 1960s, an estimated 5,000 Khmer Loeu in eastern Cambodia
rose in rebellion against the government and demanded self-determination
and independence. The government press reported that local leaders loyal
to the government had been assassinated. Following the rebellion, the
hill people's widespread resentment of ethnic Khmer settlers caused them
to refuse to cooperate with the Cambodian army in its suppression of
rural unrest. Both the Khmer and the Vietnamese communists took
advantage of this disaffection, and they actively recruited Khmer Loeu
into their ranks. In late 1970, the government forces withdrew from
Rotanokiri and Mondol Kiri provinces and abandoned the area to the
rapidly growing Khmer communist insurgent force, the Revolutionary Army
of Kampuchea (RAK), and to its Vietnamese mentors. There is some evidence that in
the 1960s and in the 1970s the Front Uni pour la Lib�ration des Races
Opprim�s (FULRO--United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races)
united tribes in the mountainous areas of southern Vietnam and had
members from Khmer Loeu groups as well as from the Cham in Cambodia.
In the early 1980s, Khmer Rouge propaganda teams infiltrated the
northeastern provinces and encouraged rebellion against the central
government. In 1981 the government structure included four Khmer Loeu
province chiefs, all reportedly from the Brao group, in the northeastern
provinces of Mondol Kiri, Rotanokiri, Stoeng Treng, and Preah Vihear.
According to a 1984 resolution of the PRK National Cadres Conference
entitled "Policy Toward Ethnic Minorities," the minorities
were considered an integral part of the Cambodian nation, and they were
to be encouraged to participate in collectivization. Government policy
aimed to transform minority groups into modern Cambodians. The same
resolution called for the elimination of illiteracy, with the
stipulations that minority languages be respected and that each tribe be
allowed to write, speak, and teach in its own language.
The major Khmer Loeu groups in Cambodia are the Kuy, Mnong, Stieng,
Brao, Pear, Jarai, and Rade. All but the last two speak Mon-Khmer
languages.
In the late 1980s, about 160,000 Kuy lived in the northern Cambodian
provinces of Kampong Thum, Preah Vihear, and Stoeng Treng as well as in
adjacent Thailand. (Approximately 70,000 Kuy had been reported in
Cambodia itself in 1978.) Most of the Kuy have been assimilated into the
predominant culture of the country in which they live. Many are
Buddhists, and the majority practice wet-rice cultivation. They have the
reputation of being skilled blacksmiths.
The Brao, including the Tampuon subgroup, inhabit northeastern
Cambodia and adjacent Laos. In 1962 the Brao population in Laos was
estimated at about 9,000 persons. In 1984 it was reported that the total
Brao population was between 10,000 and 15,000 persons. About 3,000 Brao
reportedly moved into Cambodia from Laos in the 1920s. The Brao live in
large villages centered on a communal house. They cultivate dry-rice and
produce some pottery. They appear to have a bilateral kinship system.
A total of 23,000 Mnong were thought to be living in Cambodia and in
Vietnam in the early 1980s. In Cambodia the Mnong are found in Mondol
Kiri, Kracheh, and Kampong Cham provinces in villages consisting of
several longhouses each of which is divided into compartments that house
can nuclear families. The Mnong practice dry-rice farming, and some also
cultivate a wide variety of vegetables, fruits, and other useful plants
as secondary crops. Some subgroups weave cloth. At least two of the
Mnong subgroups have matrilineal descent. Monogamy is the predominant
form of marriage, and residence is usually matrilocal. Wealth
distinctions are measured by the number of buffalo that a notable person
sacrifices on a funereal or ceremonial occasion as a mark of status and
as a means of eliciting social approval. Slavery is known to have
existed in the past, but the system allowed a slave to gain freedom. The
Stieng are closely related to the Mnong. Both groups straddle the
Cambodian-Vietnamese border, and their languages belong to the same
subfamily of Mon-Khmer. In 1978 the Cambodian Stieng numbered about
20,000 persons in all. The Stieng cultivate dry-field rice. Their
society is apparently patriarchal, residence after marriage and is
patrilocal if a bride-price was paid. The groups have a very loose
political organization; each village has its own leaders and tribunals.
Several small groups, perhaps totalling no more than 10,000 people in
Cambodia and southeastern Thailand, make up the Pearic group. The main
members are the Pear in Batdambang, Pouthisat, and Kampong Thum
provinces; the Chong in Thailand and Batdambang Province; the Saoch in
Kampot Province; the Samre in what was formerly Siemreab Province (now
part of Siemreab-Otdar Meanchey Province); and the Suoi in Kampong
Chhnang Province. Some believe that this group constitutes the remnant
of the pre-Khmer population of Cambodia. Many members of the Pearic
group grow dry-field rice, which they supplement by hunting and by
gathering. They have totemic clans, each headed by a chief who inherited
his office patrilineally. Marriage occurs at an early age; there is a
small bride-price. Residence may be matrilocal until the birth of the
first child, or it may be patrilocal as it is among the Saoch. The
village headman is the highest political leader. The Saoch have a
council of elders who judge infractions of traditional law. Two chief
sorcerers, whose main function is to control the weather, play a major
role in Pearic religion. Among the Saoch, a corpse is buried instead of
being burned as among the Khmer.
The Austronesian groups of Jarai and Rade form two of the largest
ethnic minorities in Vietnam. Both groups spill over into northeastern
Cambodia, and they share many cultural similarities. The total Jarai
population stands at about 200,000; the Rade number about 120,000.
According to 1978 population figures, there were 10,000 Jarai and 15,000
Rade in Cambodia in the late 1970s. They live in longhouses containing
several compartments occupied by matrilineally linked nuclear families.
There may be twenty to sixty longhouses in one village. The Rade and
Jarai cultivate dry-field rice and secondary crops such as maize. Both
groups have exogamous matrilineal descent groups (consanguineous kin
groups that acknowledge a traditional bond of common descent in the
maternal line and within which they do not marry). Women initiate
marriage negotiations, and residence is matrilocal. Each village has its
own political hierarchy and is governed by an oligarchy of the leading
families. In the past, sorcerers known as the "kings of fire and
water" exerted political power that extended beyond an individual
village. The Rade and the Jarai have been involved intimately in the
FULRO movement, and many of the leaders in the movement are from these
two groups.
Cambodia.
The Chinese in Cambodia formed the country's largest ethnic minority
in the late 1960s and in the early 1970s. In the late 1960s, an
estimated 425,000 ethnic Chinese lived in Cambodia, but by 1984, as a
result of warfare, Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese persecution, and
emigration, only about 61,400 Chinese remained in the country. Sixty
percent of the Chinese were urban dwellers engaged mainly in commerce;
the other 40 percent were rural residents working as shopkeepers, as
buyers and processors of rice, palm sugar, fruit, and fish, and as
moneylenders. In 1963 William Willmott, an expert on overseas Chinese
communities, estimated that 90 percent of the Chinese in Cambodia were
involved in commerce and that 92 percent of those involved in commerce
in Cambodia were Chinese. The Chinese in Kampot Province and in parts of
Kaoh Kong Province also cultivated black pepper and fruit (especially
rambutans, durians, and coconuts), and they engaged in salt-water
fishing. In rural Cambodia, the Chinese were moneylenders, and they
wielded considerable economic power over the ethnic Khmer peasants
through usury. Studies in the 1950s disclosed that Chinese shopkeepers
would sell to peasants on credit at interest rates of from 10 to 20
percent a month. In 1952 according to Australian political analyst Ben
Kiernan, the Colonial Credit Office found in a survey that 75 percent of
the peasants in Cambodia were in debt. There seemed to be little
distinction between Chinese and Sino-Khmer (offspring of mixed Chinese
and Khmer marriages) in the moneylending and shopkeeping enterprises.
The Chinese in Cambodia represented to five major linguistic groups,
the largest of which was the Teochiu (accounting for about 60 percent),
followed by the Cantonese (accounting for about 20 percent), the Hokkien
(accounting for about 7 percent), and the Hakka and the Hainanese (each
accounting for about 4 percent). These belonging to certain Chinese
linguistic groups in Cambodia tended to gravitate to certain
occupations. The Teochiu, who made up about 90 percent of the rural
Chinese population, ran village stores, controlled rural credit and
rice-marketing facilities, and grew vegetables. In urban areas they were
often engaged in such enterprises as the import-export business, the
sale of pharmaceuticals, and street peddling. The Cantonese, who were
the majority Chinese group before the Teochiu migrations began in the
late 1930s, lived mainly in the city. Typically, the Cantonese engaged
in transportation and in construction, for the most part as mechanics or
carpenters. The Hokkien community was involved in import-export and in
banking, and it included some of the country's richest Chinese. The
Hainanese started out as pepper growers in Kampot Province, where they
continued to dominate that business. Many moved to Phnom Penh, where, in
the late 1960s, they reportedly had a virtual monopoly on the hotel and
restaurant business. They also often operated tailor shops and
haberdasheries. In Phnom Penh, the newly-arrived Hakka were typically
folk dentists, sellers of traditional Chinese medicines, and shoemakers.
Distinction by dialect group also has been important historically in
the administrative treatment of the Chinese in Cambodia. The French
brought with them a system devised by the Vietnamese Emperor Gia Long
(1802-20) to classify the local Chinese according to areas of origin and
dialect. These groups were called bang (or congregations by the
French) and had their own leaders for law, order, and tax-collecting. In
Cambodia every Chinese was required to belong to a bang. The
head of a bang, known as the ong bang, was elected by
popular vote; he functioned as an intermediary between the members of
his bang and the government. Individual Chinese who were not
accepted for membership in a bang were deported by the French
authorities.
The French system of administering the Chinese community was
terminated in 1958. During the 1960s, Chinese community affairs tended
to be handled, at least in Phnom Penh, by the Chinese Hospital
Committee, an organization set up to fund and to administer a hospital
established earlier for the Chinese community. This committee was the
largest association of Chinese merchants in the country, and it was
required by the organization's constitution to include on its
fifteen-member board six from the Teochiu dialect group, three from the
Cantonese, two from the Hokkien, two from the Hakka, and two from the
Hainanese. The hospital board constituted the recognized leadership of
Phnom Penh's Chinese community. Local Chinese school boards in the
smaller cities and towns often served a similar function.
In 1971 the government authorized the formation of a new body, the
Federated Association of Chinese of Cambodia, which was the first
organization to embrace all of Cambodia's resident Chinese. According to
its statutes, the federation was designed to "aid Chinese nationals
in the social, cultural, public health, and medical fields," to
administer the property owned jointly by the Chinese community in Phnom
Penh and elsewhere, and to promote friendly relations between Cambodians
and Chinese. With leadership that could be expected to include the
recognized leaders of the national Chinese community, the federation was
believed likely to continue the trend, evident since the early 1960s, to
transcend dialect group allegiance in many aspects of its social,
political, and economic programs.
Generally, relations between the Chinese and the ethnic Khmer were
good. There was some intermarriage, and a sizable proportion of the
population in Cambodia was part Sino-Khmer, who were assimilated easily
into either the Chinese or the Khmer community. Willmott assumes that a
Sino-Khmer elite dominated commerce in Cambodia from the time of
independence well into the era of the Khmer Republic.
The Khmer Rouge takeover was catastrophic for the Chinese community
for several reasons. When the Khmer Rouge took over a town, they
immediately disrupted the local market. According to Willmott, this
disruption virtually eliminated retail trade "and the traders
(almost all Chinese) became indistinguishable from the unpropertied
urban classes." The Chinese, in addition to having their major
livelihood eradicated, also suffered because of their class membership.
They were mainly well-educated urban merchants, thus possessing three
characteristics that were anathema to the Khmer Rouge. Chinese refugees
have reported that they shared the same brutal treatment as other urban
Cambodians under the Khmer Rouge regime and that they were not
especially singled out as an ethnic group until after the Vietnamese
invasion. Observers believe that the anti-Chinese stance, of the
Vietnamese government and of its officials in Phnom Penh, makes it
unlikely that a Chinese community on the earlier scale will reappear in
Cambodia in the near future.
Cambodia.
The majority of Cambodians, even those who are not ethnic Khmer,
speak Khmer, the official language of the country. Ethnic Khmer living
in Thailand, in Vietnam, and in Laos speak dialects of Khmer that are
more or less intelligible to Khmer speakers from Cambodia. Minority
languages include Vietnamese, Cham, several dialects of Chinese, and the
languages of the various hill tribes.
Austroasiatic-Mon-Khmer
Khmer belongs to the Mon-Khmer family of the Austroasiatic phylum of
languages. American linguists David Thomas and Robert Headley have
divided the Mon-Khmer family into nine branches: Pearic in western
Cambodia and eastern Thailand; Khmer in Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and
Laos; Bahnaric in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia; Katuic in Vietnam, Laos,
and Cambodia; Khmuic in Laos, Thailand, and China; Monic in Burma and
Thailand; Palaungic in Burma, China, and Thailand; Khasi in Assam
(India); and Viet-Muong in Vietnam. Of the languages in the Mon-Khmer
family, Vietnamese has the largest number of speakers (about 47
million); Khmer, has the next largest (about 8 million).
Khmer, in contrast to Vietnamese, Thai, Lao, and Chinese, is
nontonal. Native Khmer words may be composed of one or two syllables.
Khmer is uninflected, but it has a rich system of affixes, including
infixes, for derivation. Generally speaking, Khmer has nouns (including
pronouns as a special subcategory), verbs (including stative verbs or
adjectives), adverbs, and various kinds of words called particles
(including verbal auxiliaries, prepositions, conjunctions, final
particles, and interjections). Many Khmer words change, chameleon-like,
from one part of speech to another, depending on the context. The normal
word order is subject-verb-object. Adjectival modifiers follow the nouns
they modify.
Khmer, like its neighbors, Thai, Lao, and Burmese, has borrowed
extensively from other languages, especially the Indic languages of
Sanskrit and Pali. Khmer uses Sanskrit and Pali roots much as English
and other West European languages use Latin and Greek roots to derive
new, especially scientific, words. Khmer has also borrowed terms--
especially financial, commercial, and cooking terms--from Chinese. In
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Khmer borrowed from French as
well. These latter borrowings have been in the realm of material
culture, especially the names for items of modern Western technology,
such as buuzii (spark plug) from the French bougie.
Khmer is written in a script derived from a south Indian alphabet.
The language has symbols for thirty-three consonants, twenty-four
dependent vowels, twelve independent vowels, and several diacritic. Most
consonants have reduced or modified forms, called subscripts, when they
occur as the second member of a consonant cluster. Vowels may be written
before, after, over, or under a consonant symbol.
Some efforts to standardize Khmer spelling have been attempted, but
inconsistencies persist, and many words have more than one accepted
spelling. A two-volume dictionary prepared under the direction of the
Venerable Chuon Nath of the Buddhist Institute in Phnom Penh is the
standard work on Khmer lexicography.
Khmer is divided into three stages--Old Khmer (seventh to twelfth
century A.D.), Middle Khmer (twelfth to seventeenth century A.D.), and
Modern Khmer (seventeenth century to the present). It is likely that Old
Khmer was the language of Chenla. What the language of Funan was, but it
was is not at all certain, probably a Mon-Khmer language. The earliest
inscription in Khmer, found at Angkor Borei in Takev Province south of
Phnom Penh, dates from A.D. 611.
Austronesian
The Austronesian languages are spread over vast areas of Asia and the
Pacific, from Madagascar to Easter Island and from Taiwan to Malaysia.
Four Austronesian languages--Cham, Jarai, Rade, and Malay--are spoken in
Cambodia. Cham is spoken by the largest number of people. Before 1975,
there were about 100,000 speakers of Western Cham. Western Cham is the
term used to distinguish (at least two mutually related dialects of) the
Cham spoken in Cambodia and that used in adjacent inland Vietnam from
Eastern Cham spoken in the coastal areas of central Vietnam. Western
Cham is written in Arabic script, or, since the late 1960s and the early
1970s, in a romanized script devised by Protestant missionaries. The
traditional Cham script, based on an Indian script, is still known and
used by the Eastern Cham in Vietnam, but it has been lost by the Western
Cham.
The Cham language is also nontonal. Words may contain one, two, or
three syllables. Cham contains much linguistic borrowing from Arabic,
Malay, and Khmer. The normal word order is subject-verb-object, and, as
in Khmer, modifying adjectives follow the nouns that they modify. Most
Cham in Cambodia are bilingual in Cham and in Khmer and many also know
Arabic and Malay. Rade and Jarai, close relatives of Cham, are spoken by
several thousand members of both ethnic groups in northeastern Cambodia.
Both languages are written in romanized scripts based on the Vietnamese
alphabet. Rade and Jarai have rich oral literatures, and the former has
two epic tales that have been transcribed and published.
Cambodia - Buddhism
Origins of Buddhism on the Indian Subcontinent
Theravada Buddhism is the religion of virtually all of the ethnic
Khmer, who constitute about 90 percent or more of the Cambodian
population. Buddhism originated in what are now north India and Nepal
during the sixth century B.C. It was founded by a Sakya prince,
Siddhartha Gautama (563-483 B.C.; his traditional dates are 623-543
B.C., also called the Gautama Buddha), who, at the age of twenty-nine,
after witnessing old age, sickness, death, and meditation, renounced his
high status and left his wife and infant son for a life of asceticism.
After years of seeking truth, he is said to have attained enlightenment
while sitting alone under a bo tree. He became the
Buddha--"the enlightened"--and formed an order of monks, the sangha,
and later an order of nuns. He spent the remainder of his life as a
wandering preacher, dying at the age of eighty.
Buddhism began as a reaction to Hindu doctrines and as an effort to
reform them. Nevertheless, the two faiths share many basic assumptions.
Both view the universe and all life therein as parts of a cycle of
eternal flux. In each religion, the present life of an individual is a
phase in an endless chain of events. Life and death are merely alternate
aspects of individual existence marked by the transition points of birth
and death. An individual is thus continually reborn, perhaps in human
form, perhaps in some non-human form, depending upon his or her actions
in the previous life. The endless cycle of rebirth is known as samsara
(wheel of life). Theravada Buddhism is a tolerant, non prescriptive
religion that does not require belief in a supreme being. Its precepts
require that each individual take full responsibility for his own
actions and omissions. Buddhism is based on three concepts: dharma (the
doctrine of the Buddha, his guide to right actions and belief); karma
(the belief that one's life now and in future lives depends upon one's
own deeds and misdeeds and that as an individual one is responsible for,
and rewarded on the basis of, the sum total of one's acts and omissions
in all one's incarnations past and present); and sangha, the
ascetic community within which man can improve his karma.
The Buddha added the hope of escape--a way to get out of the endless
cycle of pain and sorrow--to the Brahmanic idea of samsara. The
Buddhist salvation is nirvana, a final extinction of one's self. Nirvana
may be attained by achieving good karma through earning much merit and
avoiding misdeeds. A Buddhist's pilgrimage through existence is a
constant attempt to distance himself or herself from the world and
finally to achieve complete detachment, or nirvana.
The fundamentals of Buddhist doctrine are the Four Noble Truths:
suffering exists; craving (or desire) is the cause of suffering; release
from suffering can be achieved by stopping all desire; and
enlightenment--buddhahood--can be attained by following the Noble
Eightfold Path (right views, right intention, right speech, right
action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right
concentration), which constitutes a middle way between sensuality and
ascetism. Enlightenment consists of knowing these truths. The average
layperson cannot hope for nirvana after the end of this life, but
can--by complying, as best he or she is able to, with the doctrine's
rules of moral conduct--hope to improve his or her karma and thereby
better his condition in the next incarnation.
The doctrine of karma holds that, through the working of a just,
automatic, and impersonal cosmic law, one's actions in this incarnation
and in all previous ones will determine which position in the hierarchy
of living things one will occupy in the next incarnation. An
individual's karma can be improved through certain acts and omissions.
By following the five precepts or commandments, a Buddhist can better
his or her karma. These commandments are: do not kill, do not steal, do
not indulge in forbidden sexual pleasures, do not tell lies, and do not
take intoxicants or stupefying drugs or liquors.
The most effective way to work actively to improve one's karma is to
earn merit. Any act of benevolence or generosity can gain merit for the
doer. Cambodian Buddhists tend to regard opportunities for earning merit
as primarily connected with interaction with the sangha,
contributing to its support through money, goods, and labor, and
participating in its activities. Some of the favorite ways for a male to
earn merit are to enter the sangha as a monk (after the age of
twenty) or as a novice, or to live in the wat as a temple servant; in
the case of a female (usually the elderly), the favorite way is to
become a nun. Other activities that gain merit include sponsoring a monk
or novice, contributing to a wat, feeding members of the sangha
at a public meal, and providing food for either of the two daily meals
of the sangha.
In his first sermon to his followers, the Buddha described a moral
code, the dharma, which the sangha was to teach after him. He
left no designated successor. Indian emperor Asoka (273-232 B.C.)
patronized the sangha and encouraged the teaching of the
Buddha's philosophy throughout his vast empire; by 246 B.C., the new
religion had reached Sri Lanka. The Tripitaka, the collection of basic
Buddhist texts, was written down for the first time in Sri Lanka during
a major Buddhist conference in the second or first century B.C. By the
time of the conference, a schism had developed separating Mahayana
(Greater Path) Buddhism from more conservative Theravada (Way of the
Elders, or Hinayana--Lesser Path) faction or Buddhism. The Mahayana
faction reinterpreted the original teachings of the Buddha and added a
type of deity called a bodhisattva to large numbers of other buddhas.
The Mahayana adherents believe that nirvana is available to everyone,
not just to select holy men. Mahayana Buddhism quickly spread throughout
India, China, Korea, Japan, Central Asia, and to some parts of Southeast
Asia. According to the Venerable Pang Khat, Theravada Buddhism reached
Southeast Asia as early as the second or third century A.D., while
Mahayana Buddhism did not arrive in Cambodia until about A.D. 791. In
Southeast Asia, Mahayana Buddhism carried many Brahman beliefs with it
to the royal courts of Funan, of Champa, and of other states. At this
time, Sanskrit words were added to the Khmer and to the Cham languages.
Theravada Buddhism (with its scriptures in the Pali language), remained
influential in Sri Lanka, and by the thirteenth century it had spread
into Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, where it supplanted Mahayana
Buddhism.
Cambodian Adaptations
Cambodian Buddhism has no formal administrative ties with other
Buddhist bodies, although Theravada monks from other countries,
especially Thailand, Laos, Burma, and Sri Lanka, may participate in
religious ceremonies in order to make up the requisite number of clergy.
Cambodian Buddhism is organized nationally in accordance with
regulations formulated in 1943 and modified in 1948. During the
monarchical period, the king led the Buddhist clergy. Prince Sihanouk
continued in this role even after he had abdicated and was governing as
head of state. He appointed both the heads of the monastic orders and
other high-ranking clergy. After the overthrow of Sihanouk in 1970, the
new head of state, Lon Nol, appointed these leaders.
Two monastic orders constituted the clergy in Cambodia. The larger
group, to which more than 90 percent of the clergy belonged, was the
Mohanikay. The Thommayut order was far smaller. The Thommayut was
introduced into the ruling circles of Cambodia from Thailand in 1864; it
gained prestige because of its adoption by royalty and by the
aristocracy, but its adherents were confined geographically to the Phnom
Penh area. Among the few differences between the two orders is stricter
observance by the Thommayut bonzes (monks) of the rules governing the
clergy. In 1961 the Mohanikay had more than 52,000 ordained monks in
some 2,700 wats, whereas the Thommayut order had 1,460 monks in just
over 100 wats. In 1967 more than 2,800 Mohanikay wats and 320 Thommayut
wats were in existence in Cambodia. After Phnom Penh, the largest number
of Thommayut wats were found in Batdambang, Stoeng Treng, Prey Veng,
Kampot, and Kampong Thum provinces.
Each order has its own superior and is organized into a hierarchy of
eleven levels. The seven lower levels are known collectively as the thananukram;
the four higher levels together are called the rajagana. The
Mohanikay order has thirty-five monks in the rajagana; the
Thommayut has twentyone . Each monk must serve for at least twenty years
to be named to these highest levels.
The cornerstones of Cambodian Buddhism are the Buddhist bonze and the
wat. Traditionally, each village has a spiritual center--a wat--where
from five to more than seventy bonzes reside. A typical wat in rural
Cambodia consists of a walled enclosure containing a sanctuary, several
residences for bonzes, a hall, a kitchen, quarters for nuns, and a pond.
The number of monks varies according to the size of the local
population. The sanctuary, which contains an altar with statues of the
Buddha and, in rare cases, a religious relic, is reserved for major
ceremonies and usually only for the use of bonzes. Other ceremonies,
classes for monks and for laity, and meals take place in the hall.
Stupas containing the ashes of extended family members are constructed
near the sanctuary. Fruit trees and vegetable gardens tended by local
children are also part of the local wat. The main entrance, usually only
for ceremonial use, faces east; other entrances are located at other
points around the wall. There are no gates.
Steinberg notes the striking ratio of bonzes to the total population
of Cambodia. In the late 1950s, an estimated 100,000 bonzes (including
about 40,000 novices) served a population of about 5 million. This high
proportion undoubtedly was caused in large part by the ease with which
one could enter and leave the sangha. Becoming a bonze and
leaving the sangha are matters of individual choice although,
in theory, nearly all Cambodian males over sixteen serve terms as
bonzes. Most young men do not intend to become fully ordained bonzes (bhikkhu),
and they remain as monks for less than a year. Even a son's temporary
ordination as a bonze brings great merit to his parents, however, and is
considered so important that arrangements are made at a parent's funeral
if the son has not undergone the process while the parent was living.
There are two classes of bonzes at a wat--the novices (samani
or nen) and the bhikkhu. Ordination is held from
mid-April to mid-July, during the rainy season.
Buddhist monks do not take perpetual vows to remain monks, although,
in fact, some become monks permanently. Traditionally, they became monks
early in life. It is possible to become a novice at as young an age as
seven, but in practice thirteen is the earliest age for novices. A bhikkhu
must be at least twenty. The monk's life is regulated by Buddhist law,
and life in the wat adheres to a rigid routine. A bhikkhu
follows 227 rules of monastic discipline as well as the 10 basic
precepts. These include the five precepts that all Buddhists should
follow. The five precepts for monastic asceticism prohibit eating after
noon, participating in any entertainment (singing, dancing, and watching
movies or television), using any personal adornments, sleeping on a
luxurious bed, and handling money. In addition, a monk also is expected
to be celibate. Furthermore, monks supposedly avoid all involvement in
political affairs. They are not eligible to vote or to hold any
political office, and they may not witness a legal document or give
testimony in court. Since the person of a monk is considered sacred, he
is considered to be outside the normal civil laws and public duties that
affect lay people. Some of these practices have changed in the modern
period, however, and in the 1980s Buddhist monks have been active even
in the PRK government.
Women are not ordained, but older women, especially widows, can
become nuns. They live in wat and play an important role in the everyday
life of the temple. Nuns shave their heads and eyebrows and generally
follow the same precepts as monks. They may prepare the altars and do
some of the housekeeping chores.
Role of Buddhism in Cambodian Life
Buddhist monks traditionally were called upon to perform a number of
functions in Cambodian life. They participated in all formal village
festivals, ceremonies, marriages, and funerals. They also might have
participated in ceremonies to name infants and in other minor ceremonies
or rites of passage. Monks did not lead the ceremonies, however, because
that role was given to the achar, or master of ceremonies; the
monk's major function was to say prayers of blessing. They were often
healers and, in traditional Khmer culture, they were the practitioners
whose role was closest to that of modern psychiatrists. They might also
have been skilled in astrology. The monk traditionally occupied a unique
position in the transmission of Khmer culture and values. By his way of
life, he provided a living model of the most meritorious behavior a
Buddhist could follow. He also provided the laity with many
opportunities for gaining merit. For centuries monks were the only
literate people residing in rural communities; they acted as teachers to
temple servants, to novices, and to newly ordained monks. Until the
1970s, most literate Cambodian males gained literacy solely through the
instruction of the sangha.
After independence from France, young Cambodian intellectuals changed
their attitude toward the clergy. In describing a general shift away
from Buddhism in the late 1950s and the early 1960s, Vickery cites the
early work of anthropologist May Mayko Ebihara and his own observations.
He suggests that the Khmer Rouge was able to instill antireligious
feelings in younger males because the latter were losing interest in
becoming monks even during their teenage years, the traditional
temporary period of service. The monks themselves had abandoned some of
their traditional restrictions and had become involved in politics. At
intervals during the colonial period, some monks had demonstrated or had
rebelled against French rule, and in the 1970s monks joined pro-
government demonstrations against the communists. Anticlerical feelings
reached their highest point among the Khmer Rouge, who at first
attempted to indoctrinate monks and to force them to pass anticlerical
ideas on to the laity. Under the Khmer Rouge regime, monks were expelled
forcibly from the wats and were compelled to do manual labor. Article 20
of the 1976 Constitution of Democratic Kampuchea permitted freedom of
religion but banned all reactionary religions, that were
"detrimental to the country." The minister of culture stated
that Buddhism was incompatible with the revolution and was an instrument
of exploitation. Under this regime, to quote the Finnish Inquiry
Commission, "The practice of religion was forbidden and the pagodas
were systematically destroyed." Observers estimated that 50,000
monks died during the Khmer Rouge regime. The status of Buddhism and of
religion in general after the Vietnamese invasion was at least partially
similar to its status in pre-Khmer Rouge times.
According to Michael Vickery, who has written positively about the
PRK, public observance of Buddhism and of Islam has been reestablished,
and government policies allow Cambodians freedom to believe or not to
believe in Buddhism. Vickery cites some differences in this
reestablished Buddhism. Religious affairs are overseen by the PRK's
Kampuchean (or Khmer) United Front for National Construction and Defense
(KUFNCD), the mass organization that supports the state by organizing
women, youths, workers, and religious groups. In 1987 there was only a
single Buddhist order because the Thommayut order had not been revived.
The organization of the clergy also had been simplified. The sangharaja
(primate of the Buddhist clergy) had been replaced by a prathean
(chairman). Communities that wanted a wats had to apply to a local front
committee for permission. The wat were administered by a committee of
the local laity. Private funds paid for the restoration of the wats
damaged during the war and the Khmer Rouge era, and they supported the
restored wats. Monks were ordained by a hierarchy that has been
reconstituted since an initial ordination in September 1979 by a
delegation from the Buddhist community in Vietnam. The validity of this
ordination continues to be questioned. In general, there are only two to
four monks per wat, which is fewer than before 1975. In 1981 about 4,930
monks served in 740 wats in Cambodia. The Buddhist General Assembly
reported 7,000 monks in 1,821 active wats a year later. In 1969 by
contrast, observers estimated that 53,400 monks and 40,000 novice monks
served in more than 3,000 wats. Vickery sums up his observations on the
subject by noting that, "The government has kept its promise to
allow freedom for traditional Buddhism, but does not actively encourage
it."
Martin offers another, more pessimistic, view of the religious
situation in the late 1980s. In a 1986 study, she asserts that the PRK
showed outsiders only certain aspects of religious freedom; she also
states that the few wats that were restored had only two or three old
monks in residence and that public attendance was low. The monks were
allowed to leave the wats only for an hour in the mornings, to collect
their food, or during holy days. Lay people who practiced their faith
were about the same ages as the monks, and they were allowed to visit
the wats only in the evenings. A government circular had also instructed
civil servants to stop celebrating the traditional New Year Festival.
Some traditional Buddhist festivals still were tolerated, but the state
collected a 50 percent tithe on donations. Martin believes that Buddhism
was threatened externally by state repression and by nonsupport and
internally by invalid clergy. She noted that the two Buddhist superiors,
Venerable Long Chhim and Venerable Tep Vong, were both believed to be
from Vietnam. Venerable Tep Vong was concurrently the superior of the
Buddhist clergy, vice president of the PRK's Khmer National Assembly,
and vice president of the KUFNCD National Council. She quoted a refugee
from Batdambang as having said, "During the meetings, the Khmer
administrative authorities, accompanied by the Vietnamese experts, tell
you, `Religion is like poison, it's like opium; it's better to give the
money to the military, so they can fight'."
Buddhism is still strong among the various Cambodian refugee groups
throughout the world, although some younger monks, faced with the
distractions of a foreign culture, have chosen to leave the clergy and
have become laicized. In the United States in 1984, there were twelve
Cambodian wats with about twenty-one monks. In the 1980s, a Cambodian
Buddhist wat was constructed near Washington, D.C., financed by a
massive outpouring of donations from Cambodian Buddhists throughout
North America. This wat is one of the few outside Southeast Asia that
has the consecrated boundary within which ordinations may be performed.
Most of the major Cambodian annual festivals are connected with
Buddhist observances. The chol chnam (New Year Festival) takes
place in mid-April; it was one of the few festivals allowed under the
Khmer Rouge regime. The phchun ben, celebrated in September or
in October, is a memorial day for deceased ancestors and for close
friends. Meak bochea, in January or February, commemorates the
last sermon of the Buddha. Vissakh bochea, in April or in May,
is the triple anniversary of the birth, death, and enlightenment of the
Buddha. The chol vossa takes place in June or in July; it marks
the beginning of a penitential season during which the monks must remain
within the temple compounds. The kathen marks the end of this
season; celebrated in September, it features offerings, especially of
robes, to the monks. The kathen was still celebrated in the PRK
in the late 1980s.
Cambodian Buddhism exists side-by-side with, and to some extent
intermingles with, pre-Buddhist animism and Brahman practices. Most
Cambodians, whether or not they profess to be Buddhists (or Muslims),
believe in a rich supernatural world. When ill, or at other times of
crisis, or to seek supernatural help, Cambodians may enlist the aid of a
practitioner who is believed to be able to propitiate or obtain help
from various spirits. Local spirits are believed to inhabit a variety of
objects, and shrines to them may be found in houses, in Buddhist
temples, along roads, and in forests.
Several types of supernatural entities are believed to exist; they
make themselves known by means of inexplicable sounds or happenings.
Among these phenomena are khmoc (ghosts), pret and besach
(particularly nasty demons, the spirits of people who have died violent,
untimely, or unnatural deaths), arak (evil spirits, usually
female), neak ta (tutelary spirits residing in inanimate
objects), mneang phteah (guardians of the house), meba
(ancestral spirits), and mrenh kongveal (elf-like guardians of
animals). All spirits must be shown proper respect, and, with the
exception of the mneang phteah and mrenh kongveal,
they can cause trouble ranging from mischief to serious life-threatening
illnesses. An important way for living people to show respect for the
spirits of the dead is to provide food for the spirits. If this food is
not provided, the spirit can cause trouble for the offending person. For
example, if a child does not provide food for the spirit of its dead
mother, that spirit can cause misfortunes to happen to the child.
Aid in dealing with the spirit world may be obtained from a kru
(shaman or spirit practitioner), an achar (ritualist), thmup
(witch, sorcerer or sorceress), or a rup arak (medium, usually
male). The kru is a kind of sorcerer who prepares charms and
amulets to protect the wearer from harm. He can cure illnesses, find
lost objects, and prepare magic potions. Traditionally, Cambodians have
held strong beliefs about protective charms. Amulets are worn routinely
by soldiers to ward off bullets, for example. The kru are
believed to have the power to prepare an amulet and to establish a
supernatural link between it and the owner. A kru may acquire
considerable local prestige and power. Many kru are former
Buddhist monks.
Another kind of magical practitioner is the achar, a
specialist in ritual. He may function as a kind of master of ceremonies
at a wat and as a specialist in conducting spirit worship rituals
connected with life-cycle ceremonies. Rup arak are mediums who
can be possessed by supernatural beings and communicate with the spirit
world. The thmup are sorcerers who cause illnesses.
Fortunetellers and astrologers--haor teay--are important in
Cambodian life. They are consulted about important decisions such as
marriages, building a new house, or going on a long journey. They are
believed to be able to foretell future events and to determine lucky or
unlucky days for various activities.
Villagers are sensitive to the power and to the needs of the spirit
world. According to observations by an American missionary in the early
1970s, villagers consulted the local guardian spirit to find out what
the coming year would bring, a new province chief held a ceremony to ask
the protection of the spirits over the province, and soldiers obtained
magic cloths and amulets from mediums and shamans to protect them from
the bullets of the enemy. Before embarking on a mission against enemy
forces, a province chief might burn incense and call on a spirit for aid
in defeating the enemy. Examples of Brahman influences were various
rituals concerned with the well-being of the nation carried out by the
ruler and the baku (a Brahman priestly group attached to the
royal court). These rituals were reportedly stopped after Sihanouk's
ouster in 1970.
Cambodia - Chinese Religion
Public School System
Traditional education in Cambodia was handled by the local wat, and
the bonzes were the teachers. The students were almost entirely young
boys, and the education was limited to memorizing Buddhist chants in
Pali. During the period of the French protectorate, an educational
system based on the French model was inaugurated alongside the
traditional system. Initially, the French neglected education in
Cambodia. Only seven high school students graduated in 1931, and only
50,000 to 60,000 children were enrolled in primary school in 1936. In
the year immediately following independence, the number of students
rapidly increased. Vickery suggests that education of any kind was
considered an "absolute good" by all Cambodians and that this
attitude eventually created a large group of unemployed or underemployed
graduates by the late 1960s.
From the early twentieth century until 1975, the system of mass
education operated on the French model. The educational system was
divided into primary, secondary, higher, and specialized levels. Public
education was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education, which
exercised full control over the entire system; it established syllabi,
hired and paid teachers, provided supplies, and inspected schools. An
inspector of primary education, who had considerable authority, was
assigned to each province. Cultural committees under the Ministry of
Education were responsible for "enriching the Cambodian
language."
Primary education, divided into two cycles of three years each, was
carried out in state-run and temple-run schools. Successful completion
of a final state examination led to the award of a certificate after
each cycle. The primary education curriculum consisted of arithmetic,
history, ethics, civics, drafting, geography, hygiene, language, and
science. In addition, the curriculum included physical education and
manual work. French language instruction began in the second year. Khmer
was the language of instruction in the first cycle, but French was used
in the second cycle and thereafter. By the early 1970s, Khmer was used
more widely in primary education. In the 1980s, primary school ran from
the first to the fourth grade. Theoretically one primary school served
each village. Secondary education also was divided into two cycles, one
of four years taught at a college, followed by one of three years taught
at a lyc�e. Upon completion of the first cycle, students could take a
state examination. Successful candidates received a secondary diploma.
Upon completion of the first two years of the second cycle, students
could take a state examination for the first baccalaureate, and,
following their final year, they could take a similar examination for
the second baccalaureate. The Cambodian secondary curriculum was similar
to that found in France. Beginning in 1967, the last three years of
secondary school were split up into three sections according to major
subjects--letters, mathematics and technology; agriculture; and biology.
In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, the country emphasized a
technical education. In the PRK, secondary education was reduced to six
years.
Higher education lagged well behind primary and secondary education,
until the late 1950s. The only facility in the country for higher
education before the 1960s was the National Institute of Legal,
Political, and Economic Studies, which trained civil servants. In the
late 1950s, it had about 250 students. Wealthy Cambodians and those who
had government scholarships sought university-level education abroad.
Students attended schools in France, but after independence increasing
numbers enrolled at universities in the United States, Canada, China,
the Soviet Union, and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). By
1970 universities with a total enrollment of nearly 9,000 students
served Cambodia. The largest, the University of Phnom Penh, had nearly
4,570 male students and more than 730 female students in eight
departments--letters and humanities, science and technology, law and
economics, medicine, pharmacy, commercial science, teacher training, and
higher teacher training. Universities operated in the provinces of
Kampong Cham, Takev, Batdambang; and in Phnom Penh, the University of
Agricultural Sciences and the University of Fine Arts offered training.
The increased fighting following the 1970 coup closed the three
provincial universities.
During the Khmer Rouge regime, education was dealt a severe setback,
and the great strides made in literacy and in education during the two
decades following independence were obliterated systematically. Schools
were closed, and educated people and teachers were subjected to, at the
least, suspicion and harsh treatment and, at the worst, execution. At
the beginning of the 1970s, more than 20,000 teachers lived in Cambodia;
only about 5,000 of the teachers remained 10 years later. Soviet sources
report that 90 percent of all teachers were killed under the Khmer Rouge
regime. Only 50 of the 725 university instructors, 207 of the 2,300
secondary school teachers, and 2,717 of the 21,311 primary school
teachers survived. The meager educational fare was centered on precepts
of the Khmer revolution; young people were rigidly indoctrinated, but
literacy was neglected, and an entire generation of Cambodian children
grew up illiterate. After the Khmer Rouge were driven from power, the
educational system had to be re-created from almost nothing. Illiteracy
had climbed to more than 40 percent, and most young people under the age
of 14 lacked any basic education.
Education began making a slow comeback, following the establishment
of the PRK. In 1986 the following main institutions of higher education
were reported in the PRK: the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy (reopened
in 1980 with a six-year course of study); the Chamcar Daung Faculty of
Agriculture (opened in 1985); the Kampuchea-USSR Friendship Technical
Institute (which includes technical and engineering curricula), the
Institute of Languages (Vietnamese, German, Russian, and Spanish are
taught); the Institute of Commerce, the Center for Pedagogical Education
(formed in 1979); the Normal Advanced School; and the School of Fine
Arts. Writing about the educational system under the PRK, Vickery
states, "Both the government and the people have demonstrated
enthusiasm for education . . . . The list of subjects covered is little
different from that of prewar years. There is perhaps more time devoted
to Khmer language and literature than before the war and, until the
1984-85 school year, at least, no foreign language instruction." He
notes that the secondary school syllabus calls for four hours of foreign
language instruction per week in either Russian, German, or Vietnamese
but that there were no teachers available.
Martin describes the educational system in the PRK as based very
closely on the Vietnamese model, pointing out that even the terms for
primary and secondary education have been changed into direct
translations of the Vietnamese terms. Under the PRK regime, according to
Martin, the primary cycle had four instead of six classes, the first
level of secondary education had three instead of four classes, and the
second level of secondary education had three classes. Martin writes
that not every young person could go to school because schooling both in
towns and in the countryside required enrollment fees. Civil servants
pay 25 riels per month to send a child to school, and others pay up to
150 riels per month. Once again, according to Martin, "Access to
tertiary studies is reserved for children whose parents work for the
regime and have demonstrated proof of their loyalty to the regime."
She writes that, from the primary level on, the contents of all
textbooks except for alphabet books was politically oriented and dealt
"more specifically with Vietnam." From the beginning of the
secondary cycle, Vietnamese language study was compulsory.
Buddhist Education
Before the French organized a Western-style educational system, the
Buddhist wat, with monks as teachers, provided the only formal education
in Cambodia. The monks traditionally regarded their main educational
function as the teaching of Buddhist doctrine and history and the
importance of gaining merit. Other subjects were regarded as secondary.
At the wat schools, young boys--girls were not allowed to study in these
institutions--were taught to read and to write Khmer, and they were
instructed in the rudiments of Buddhism.
In 1933 a secondary school system for novice monks was created within
the Buddhist religious system. Many wat schools had so-called Pali
schools that provided three years of elementary education from which the
student could compete for entrance into the Buddhist lyc�es. Graduates
of these lyc�es could sit for the entrance examination to the Buddhist
University in Phnom Penh. The curriculum of the Buddhist schools
consisted of the study of Pali, of Buddhist doctrine, and of Khmer,
along with mathematics, Cambodian history and geography, science,
hygiene, civics, and agriculture. Buddhist instruction was under the
authority of the Ministry of Religion.
Nearly 600 Buddhist primary schools, with an enrollment of more than
10,000 novices and with 800 monks as instructors, existed in 1962. The
Preah Suramarit Buddhist Lyc�e--a four-year institution in Phnom Penh
founded in 1955--included courses in Pali, in Sanskrit, and in Khmer, as
well as in many modern disciplines. In 1962 the student body numbered
680. The school's graduates could continue their studies in the Preah
Sihanouk Raj Buddhist University created in 1959. The university offered
three cycles of instruction; the doctoral degree was awarded after
successful completion of the third cycle. In 1962 there were 107
students enrolled in the Buddhist University. By the 1969-70 academic
year, more than 27,000 students were attending Buddhist religious
elementary schools, 1,328 students were at Buddhist lyc�es, and 176
students were enrolled at the Buddhist University.
The Buddhist Institute was a research institution formed in 1930 from
the Royal Library. The institute contained a library, record and
photograph collections, and a museum. Several commissions were part of
the institute. A folklore commission published collections of Cambodian
folktales, a Tripitaka Commission completed a translation of the
Buddhist canon into Khmer, and a dictionary commission produced a
definitive two-volume dictionary of Khmer. No information was available
in 1987 regarding the fate of the temple schools, but it is doubtful
that they were revived after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime.
Private Education
For a portion of the urban population in Cambodia, private education
was important in the years before the communist takeover. Some private
schools were operated by ethnic or religious minorities--Chinese,
Vietnamese, European, Roman Catholic, and Muslim--so that children could
study their own language, culture, or religion. Other schools provided
education to indigenous children who could not gain admission to a
public school. Attendance at some of the private schools, especially
those in Phnom Penh, conferred a certain amount of prestige on the
student and on the student's family.
The private educational system included Chinese-language schools,
Vietnamese-language (often Roman Catholic) schools, French-language
schools, English-language schools, and Khmerlanguage schools. Enrollment
in private primary schools rose from 32,000 in the early 1960s to about
53,500 in 1970, although enrollment in private secondary schools dropped
from about 19,000 to fewer than 8,700 for the same period. In 1962 there
were 195 Chinese schools, 40 Khmer schools, 15 Vietnamese schools, and
14 French schools operating in Cambodia. Private secondary education was
represented by several high schools, notably the Lyc�e Descartes in
Phnom Penh.
All of the Vietnamese schools in Phnom Penh and some of the Chinese
schools there were closed by government decree in 1970. There was no
information available in 1987 that would have indicated the presence of
any private schools in the PRK, although there was some private
instruction, especially in foreign languages.
Cambodia - HEALTH AND WELFARE
The government made a great effort to train new medical personnel,
especially nurses and midwives, following independence in 1953. By the
late 1950s, however, infant mortality reportedly was as high as 50
percent. Dysentery, malaria, yaws, tuberculosis, trachoma, various skin
diseases, and parasitic diseases were common. Inadequate nutrition, poor
sanitary conditions, poor hygiene practices, and a general lack of
adequate medical treatment combined to give the average Cambodian a life
expectancy of about forty-six years by the late 1960s. This figure
represented a significant increase from the thirty-year life expectancy
reported a decade earlier. The catastrophic effects of the war and Khmer
Rouge rule reversed this positive trend. During the unrest, many
Western-trained physicians were killed or fled the country. Modern
medicines were in short supply, and traditional herbal remedies were
used.
Public Health
According to traditional Cambodian beliefs, disease may be caused by
some underlying spiritual cause. Evil spirits or "bad air" are
believed to cause many diseases and can be expelled from the body of a
sick person by trained practitioners, who may be traditional
healers--bonzes, former bonzes, herbalists, folk healers--or
Western-trained doctors and nurses. Aside from a wide variety of herbal
remedies, traditional healing practices include scraping the skin with a
coin, ring, or other small object; sprinkling or spraying water on the
sick person; and prayer. The use of cupping glasses (in French, ventouse)
continued in widespread use in the late 1980s.
Sanitation practices in rural Cambodia are often primitive. The water
supply is the main problem; rivers and streams are common sources of
drinking water and of water for cooking. These water sources are often
the same ones used for bathing, washing clothes, and disposing of waste
products. Adequate sewage disposal is nonexistent in most rural and
suburban areas. Sanitary conditions in the largest urban areas--Phnom
Penh, Batdambang city, and Kampong Cham city--were much improved over
the conditions in the rural areas, however. By the early 1970s, Phnom
Penh had three water purification plants, which were adequate for the
peacetime population but could not provide safe water when the city's
population increased significantly in the mid-1970s. The city had
regular garbage collection, and sewage was usually disposed of in septic
tanks.
The medical situation in Cambodia faced its first crisis at the time
of independence in 1953. Many French medical personnel departed, and few
trained Cambodians were left to replace them. In addition to a lack of
personnel, a shortage of medical supplies and facilities threatened
health care. To correct the first problem, in 1953 the government
established a school of medicine and a school of nursing, the Royal
Faculty of Medicine of Cambodia (which became the Faculty of Medicine,
Pharmacy, and Paramedical Science in 1972, and probably the Faculty of
Medicine and Pharmacy which reopened in 1980). The first class of
candidates for the degree of doctor of medicine was enrolled in 1958. In
1962 this school became part of the University of Phnom Penh, and in
1967 it expanded its teaching program to include training for dentists
and for medical specialists. By the late 1960s, trained Cambodian
instructors began replacing foreign personnel at the Faculty of
Medicine, and by 1971 thirty-three Cambodian medical instructors
represented in sixteen specialized branches of medical study.
A school for training nurses and midwives was operating before 1970.
This institution also trained sanitation agents, who received four years
of medical training with emphasis on sanitation and on preventive
medicine. These agents provided medical services for areas where there
were no doctors or clinics. The number of nurses trained almost
quintupled between 1955 and 1970. In Cambodia, nursing careers had been
primarily reserved for men, but the number of women entering the field
greatly increased after 1955. Midwives delivered almost half of the
babies in the early 1970s. In March 1970, eighty-one pharmacists
practiced in government-controlled areas. By 1971 the number had dropped
to sixty three.
Cambodia never has had an adequate number of hospitals or clinics. In
1930 there was only a single 450-bed hospital serving Phnom Penh. By
1953 however, 122 public medical establishments operated in Cambodia,
and, between 1955 and 1970, many improvements were made by the royal
government. Old hospital buildings were replaced or repaired, and new
ones were constructed. In 1962 provincial hospitals, along with many
infirmaries, operated in all but three provincial capitals. By March
1970, 29 hospitals, with a total of 6,186 beds, were in operation; by
September 1971, however, only 13 still functioned.
Phnom Penh had greater hospital resources than other parts of the
country. In the late 1960s, hospitals served inhabitants in the
surrounding area as well as residents of the city. At that time, seven
hospitals (including five teaching institutions), several private
clinics, twenty-two public dispensaries or infirmaries, and six military
infirmaries operated as well. The major hospitals in Phnom Penh were the
Preah Ket Mealea Hospital, the largest in the country with 1,000 beds,
which was built in 1893; the 500-bed Soviet-Khmer Friendship Hospital,
built in 1960; the Preah Monivong military hospital complexes; the
French-operated Calmette Hospital; a Buddhist monks' hospital; and a
Chinese hospital. Eight of the eighteen operating theaters in Cambodia
in the late 1960s were in Phnom Penh.
A leprosarium in Kampong Cham Province provided care for about 2,000
patients, and the Sonn Mann Mental Hospital at Ta Khmau provided care
for 300 patients. In 1971 Sonn Mann had about 1,100 patients and a staff
of six doctors, twenty-two nurses, one midwife, fifty-four
administrative employees, and eighty-nine guards.
Modern medical practices and pharmaceuticals have been scarce in
Cambodia since the early 1970s. The situation deteriorated so badly
between 1975 and 1979 that the population had to resort to traditional
remedies. A Cambodian refugee described a hospital in Batdambang
Province in the early days of the Khmer Rouge regime: "...the sick
were thrown into a big room baptized `Angkar Hospital,' where conditions
were miserable. Phnom Srok had one, where there were 300 to 600 sick
people `nursed' by Red Khmer, who used traditional medicines produced
from all sorts of tree rooths [sic]. Only few stayed alive. The Red
Khmer explained to us that the healing methods of our ancestors must be
used and that nothing should be taken from the Western medicine."
International aid produced more medicine after 1979, and there was a
flourishing black market in medicines, especially antibiotics, at
exorbitant prices. Three small pharmaceutical factories in Phnom Penh in
1983 produced about ten tons of pharmaceuticals. Tetracycline and
ampicillin were being produced in limited amounts in Phnom Penh,
according to 1985 reports. The PRK government emphasized traditional
medicine to cover the gap in its knowledge of modern medical
technologies. Each health center on the province, district, and
subdistrict level had a kru (teacher), specializing in
traditional herbal remedies, attached to it. An inventory of medicinal
plants was being conducted in each province in the late 1980s.
In 1979 according to observer Andrea Panaritis, of the more than 500
physicians practicing in Cambodia before 1975, only 45 remained. In the
same year, 728 students returned to the Faculty of Medicine. The
faculty, with practically no trained Cambodian instructors available,
relied heavily on teachers, advisers, and material aid from Vietnam.
Classes were being conducted in both Khmer and French; sophisticated
Western techniques and surgical methods were taught alongside
traditional Khmer healing methods. After some early resistance, the
medical faculty and students seemed to have accepted the importance of
preventive medicine and public health. The improvement in health care
under the PRK was illustrated by a Soviet report about the hospital in
Kampong Spoe. In 1979 it had a staff of three nurses and no doctor. By
1985 the hospital had a thirty-three-member professional staff that
included a physician from Vietnam and two doctors and three nurses from
Hungary. The Soviet-Khmer Friendship Hospital reopened with sixty beds
in mid-1982. By 1983 six adequate civilian hospitals in Phnom Penh and
nineteen dispensaries scattered around the capital provided increasing
numbers of medical services. Well-organized provincial hospitals also
were reported in Batdambang, Takev, Kampong Thum, and Kandal provinces.
Panaritis reports that rudimentary family planning existed in the PRK in
the mid-1980s, and that obstetrics stressed prenatal and nutritional
care. The government did not actively promote birth control, but
requests for abortions and tubal ligations have been noted in some
reports. Condoms and birth control pills were available, although the
pills had to be brought in from Bangkok or Singapore.
As of late 1987, the government in Phnom Penh had disseminated no
information on the spread of the Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome
(AIDS or HIV virus) in Cambodia. In addition, the list of common
illnesses in Cambodia, as reported by international organizations, does
not mention Karposi's sarcoma and pneumo-cystic pneumonia (PCP), the
most common complications resulting from infection by the HIV virus. The
risk to the Cambodian population of contamination by carriers of the HIV
virus carriers comes from two sources. The more likely of the two
consists of infected, illegal border-crossers, including insurgents,
from Thailand, where authorities identified a hundred cases of AIDS in
1987 (triple the number in 1986). Less likely is the risk of infection
from legal travelers. Cambodia remains a closed country, and access by
foreigners (except for Vietnamese, Soviet, and East European visitors)
is limited to a few scholars and to members of international and private
aid organizations.
Welfare Programs
Steinberg cites twelfth-century King Jayavarman VII as having begun a
public welfare system in Cambodia. Jayavarman built public rest houses
along the roads, distributed rice to the needy, and banned tax
collectors from places where the sick were cared for.
Beginning in 1936, the French colonial authorities passed legislation
affecting the hours of work, the wages, and the worker's compensation
for foreign employees. Later, Cambodians were covered. A system of
family allotments was instituted in 1955. Under this system, employers
were required to contribute a monthly sum for the welfare of the
worker's family.
A few welfare organizations were established in Cambodia under the
Sihanouk regime. In 1949 the National Mutual Help Association was
founded to provide money, food, and clothing to the needy. In 1951 the
Cambodian Red Cross was organized to provide aid to disaster victims,
especially those suffering from floods. The Women's Mutual Health
Association was formed in 1953. It was associated with the Preah Ket
Mealea Hospital in Phnom Penh, where it provided prenatal and child
care. During the 1950s, the Association of Vietnamese in Cambodia opened
a dispensary in Phnom Penh. The most ubiquitous source of assistance for
the average Cambodian, however, was the network of Buddhist wats that
extended down to the grass roots level. Also, relatives and, in the case
of the Chinese, extended families and business associations provided
assistance to needy members.
In the PRK under the government's gradual evolution toward
Marxist-Leninist socialism, the ability of the wat to extend charitable
aid was seriously impaired because these institutions existed in
conditions of near penury, following their active suppression under the
Khmer Rouge, and they were barely tolerated by the PRK regime. Instead,
fragmentary evidence suggests that public welfare was decentralized and,
because of the paucity of resources, received only small amounts in
funds from the central government. According to available literature,
the care of needy persons was entrusted to local party and government
committees and, at the lowest echelon, to krom samaki
(solidarity groups). Leaders at these grass-roots levels thus were able
to evaluate true need and to extend aid varying from in-kind assistance
to informal job placement. Such decentralization avoided the
bureaucratization of welfare but, at the same time, it carried its own
potential for abuse because aid could be apportioned on the basis of
fidelity to regime and to party, or even to enforce loyalty to local
leaders. The extension to the local level of such social services,
however, indicated that the PRK was slowly extending its presence in the
countryside, thus reinforcing its claim of nationhood, and its control
over its territory and over Cambodian society at large.
