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Buddhism and quantum physics

admin — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 01:55:23 +0000

Buddhism and quantum physics

Freiburg, Germany, March 11 — What is reality? The mindsets of the modern world provide four answers to the question and oscillate between these answers:

1. The traditional Jewish, Islamic and Christian religions speak about a creator that holds the world together. He represents the fundamental reality. If He were separated only for one moment from the world, the world would disappear immediately. The world can only exist because He is maintaining and guarding it. This mindset is so fundamental that even many modern scientists cannot deviate from it. The laws of nature and elementary particles now supersede the role of the creator.

2. René Descartes takes into consideration a second mindset where the subject or the subjective model of thought is fundamental. Everything else is nothing but derived from it.

3. According to a third holistic mindset, the fundamental reality should consist of both, subject and object. Everything should be one. Everything should be connected with everything.

4. A fourth and very modern mindset neglects reality. We could call it instrumentalism. According to this way of thinking, our concepts do not reflect a single reality in any one way. Our concepts have nothing to do with reality but only with information.

Buddhism refutes these four concepts of reality. Therefore, it confronts the reproach of nihilism. If you do not believe in a creator or in the laws of nature, or in a permanent object, or in an absolute subject, or none of it, then what do you believe?

What remains if one considers a fundamental reality? The answer is simple: it is so simple that we barely consider it being a philosophical statement: things depend on other things.

For instance, a thing is dependent on its cause. There is no effect without a cause and no cause without an effect. There is no fire without fuel, no action without an actor and vice versa. Things are dependent on other things; they are not identical with each other, nor do they break up into objective and subjective parts. This Buddhist concept of reality is often met with disapproval and is considered incomprehensible.

But there are modern modes of thought with points of contact. For instance, there is a discussion in quantum physics about fundamental reality. What is fundamental in quantum physics? Is it particles, waves, field of force, laws of nature, mindsets or information?

Quantum physics came to a result that is expressed by key words like complementarities, interaction and entanglement. According to these concepts there are no independent but complementary quantum objects; they are at the same time waves and particles. Quantum objects interact with others, and they are entangled even when separated by long distances.

Without being observed philosophically, quantum physics has created a physical concept of reality. According to that concept the fundamental reality is an interaction of systems that interact with other systems and with their own components. This physical concept of reality does not agree upon the four approaches mentioned earlier.

If the fundamental reality consists of dependent systems, then its basics can neither be independent and objective laws of nature nor independent subjective models of thought. The fundamental reality cannot be a mystic entity nor can it consist of information only.

The concepts of reality in Buddhism surprisingly parallel quantum physics.

More: http://ctkohl.googlepages.com

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Sun and Earth

Some Justice for Cambodia

admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:21:45 +0000

July 27, 2010
The New York Times
Editorial

It is disturbing that the Cambodian prime minister, Hun Sen, has said the court will not prosecute more suspects than the ones in custody. One has to ask, whom is he trying to protect?

Thirty years later, Cambodia’s “killing fields” are still haunting. A Buddhist memorial displays 5,000 haphazardly arranged human skulls — a tiny fraction of the 1.7 million Cambodians butchered by the Khmer Rouge.

While the world must never forget what happened, there is at least the beginning of justice. On Monday, a United Nations-backed tribunal convicted Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, of war crimes and crimes against humanity — the first major Khmer Rouge figure to be tried since the regime was overthrown. He has already spent 16 years in prison, and the tribunal sentenced him to another 19 years.

Duch oversaw a notorious prison where more than 14,000 people were tortured and killed. During an eight-month trial, he admitted to many of the charges against him. His defense — he was a “cog in a machine” — is no defense at all.

We understand why many of the victims of the Khmer Rouge and their families were disappointed that he was not given life in prison. He should never taste freedom, but at least he was held to account and he will be 86 years old when his sentence is served.

Four other more senior Khmer Rouge leaders — including Khieu Samphan, the former president — are facing charges of genocide and war crimes. Their trial needs to be pursued expeditiously, and many more need to be held accountable if Cambodia is to see true justice.

The conduct of Duch’s trial raises serious concerns about whether that will ever happen. Human rights experts say most of the five international prosecutors on the case did not know the file in detail and only one had senior level trial experience. There were conflicts between the tribunal’s international and Cambodian staff, bureaucratic delays, and heavy-handed political interference by the Cambodian government.

It is disturbing that the Cambodian prime minister, Hun Sen, has said the court will not prosecute more suspects than the ones in custody. One has to ask, whom is he trying to protect?

The United Nations, the United States and other donor countries need to insist that the tribunal have the independence to do its job openly, fairly and thoroughly. The Documentation Center of Cambodia, which collects evidence of Khmer Rouge crimes, estimates that five million survivors of the regime are still alive. They deserve to see their tormentors held fully accountable.

Cambodian ‘Justice’: Without major personnel changes, the Khmer Rouge trial risks descending into farce

admin — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 18:07:23 +0000

By SOPHAL EAR

While my mother, four siblings and I escaped Pol Pot’s Cambodia in 1976, my father died of dysentery and malnutrition after a brief stay at a mite-infested Khmer Rouge “hospital.” Although I have harbored grave doubts about the ability of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal underway in Phnom Penh to punish the guilty, I hoped for the best and even filed a civil complaint with the Tribunal’s victims unit last year.

But I can no longer in good conscience sit back in silence and watch this theater of the absurd. As with so many other donor-financed projects, the Tribunal—set up in 2006 to bring justice to millions of Khmer Rouge victims—has been mired in an endless stream of corruption and mismanagement allegations.

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David Klein

The latest news came on August 11, when Uth Chhorn was named to the court as an independent counselor. Mr. Chhorn is Cambodia’s auditor-general and heads the seven-year-old National Audit Authority, which is supposed to audit the government’s activities. It has yet to make a single report public. His appointment was sanctioned by the United Nations, which manages the court alongside the Cambodian government.

This news is only the most recent window-dressing in the Tribunal’s brief history. In February 2007, a kickback scheme was exposed by the George Soros-funded Open Society Justice Initiative. Two years and seven international investigations later, basic questions of accountability remain unanswered. The Cambodian authorities have stonewalled and denied wrongdoing.

Confidence in the Tribunal was further shaken by the resignation in May of Keat Bophal, the Cambodian head of the victims unit and an experienced human-rights defender. She was replaced on May 18 by Helen Jarvis, an Australian citizen, in a move to “strengthen” the Tribunal. Several years ago Ms. Jarvis was awarded Cambodian citizenship for her many years of loyal service to the authorities.

Ms. Jarvis’s independence came under further question in May when Michiel Pestman, a defense lawyer for one of the Khmer Rouge defendants, Nuon Chea, discovered a 2006 open letter written by the “Leninist Party Faction” of the Democratic Socialist Perspective, an Australian political party, and signed by Ms. Jarvis and her husband. It provides a disturbing window into the mind of a person who played a key role in the Tribunal as its chief of public affairs until her redeployment earlier this year to handle victims’ complaints:

“We too are Marxists and believe that ‘the ends justify the means.’. . . In time of revolution and civil war, the most extreme measures will sometimes become necessary and justified. Against the bourgeoisie and their state agencies we don’t respect their laws and their fake moral principles.” Ms. Jarvis refused to comment publicly about the letter. At a June 10 press conference, a U.N. legal communications officer said that Knut Rosandhaug, deputy director of the Tribunal and coordinator of U.N. assistance to the Tribunal, “fully supports the appointment of Dr. Jarvis as the new head of the victims unit.” Never mind victims, their concerns, and their rights.

To be sure, a coterie of other left-leaning academics and contemporaries of Ms. Jarvis were to varying degrees little more than apologists for the Khmer Rouge during their reign of terror, including the late Malcolm Caldwell and linguist Noam Chomsky. At the time, Mr. Chomsky hedged his statements of support for the Khmer Rouge with caveats that could later provide plausible deniability. But he and others praised the work of Caldwell and Khmer Rouge groupies George Hildebrand and Gareth Porter whose “Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution” (Monthly Review Press, 1976) ranks with Walter Durranty’s New York Times coverage of Stalinist Russia.

Although the Tribunal has shuffled personnel, the wrong people are leaving. Ms. Keat’s exit deprives the court of both credibility and a passionate defender of victims’ rights. International co-prosecutor Robert Petit will retire from the court today because of obligations to return to work for the Canadian government. Mr. Petit gained acclaim for insisting that the Tribunal try more than five individuals—contrary to the Cambodian authorities’ wishes. The bungled testimonies in mid-July of witnesses such as a nurse and a deputy head of S-21, a notorious Khmer Rouge torture center, were an embarrassing comedy of errors for the Tribunal’s judges, lawyers and victims alike.

The record of the past two years suggests the Tribunal isn’t serious about delivering real justice. The best way to correct this course is for the court to reboot with a new set of personnel, including the director of administration, deputy director and head of the victims unit. We, the victims, deserve no less.

Mr. Ear is an assistant professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

Modern Masterpieces

admin — Fri, 28 May 2010 15:37:01 +0000

Independence Monument; Vann Molyvann, architect (All photos: Luke Duggleby for The Wall Street Journal)

A lone figure walks the stands of Vann Molyvann’s Olympic Stadium.

The Chaktomuk Conference Hall, one of Mr. Molyvann’s earliest designs, was built in 1961.

The library at the Institute for Foreign Languages, now part of the Royal University of Phnom Penh

More of Mr. Molyvann’s work at the Institute for Foreign Languages

Yet more of the institute

Modern Masterpieces

MAY 28, 2010
By TOM VATER
The Wall Street Journal

Vann Molyvann, Cambodia’s greatest living architect, recalls that the night his Olympic Stadium in Phnom Penh was completed, in 1964, “I took my wife to see the work.” Sitting in the top tier of the stands, they listened to Dvorák’s “New World Symphony” over the stadium’s speaker system. “It was one of the great moments of my life.”

In the years after Cambodia won independence from France in 1953, Mr. Molyvann—then scarcely in his 30s—set out under the tutelage of King Norodom Sihanouk to transform Phnom Penh from a colonial backwater into a modern city. But in the late 1960s the country was drawn into decades of war and terror, including years under the murderous Khmer Rouge regime, and Mr. Molyvann’s vision was virtually forgotten. The architect himself had to flee the country.

And while he returned in triumph after more than 20 years abroad, it was to find that grand titles didn’t translate into influence in today’s Cambodia. His legacy—structures in a style dubbed New Khmer Architecture—lives on, contributing significantly to the flair of the city, but even that is in danger as Phnom Penh, like other Asian capitals, clears historic buildings to make room for skyscrapers.

Cambodia is best known for its magnificent temple ruins at Angkor, remnants of a great Southeast Asian empire that covered the country’s current territory as well as parts of Vietnam, Thailand and Laos. After Angkor fell to the Siamese in the 15th century, a new Cambodian capital was founded on the banks of the Tonlé Sap River. That city, Phnom Penh, remained an unstable settlement, caught up in the geopolitical ambitions of Cambodia’s more powerful neighbors, until the French arrived in the 1860s. The colonial administrators drained the neighboring swamps and created a grid street plan, dotted with sumptuous villas, Art Deco markets and impressive government structures.

Even then, Phnom Penh was modest, small-town colonial France—and when Mr. Molyvann received a scholarship from the colonial government and set off for the Sorbonne in Paris, it wasn’t with the dream of returning to remake it. He was a law student. But as he pursued his degree, and struggled with the compulsory Greek and Latin, he had an encounter that changed his life.

“I met Henri Marchal, the curator of Angkor for the École Française d’Extrême-Orient [the French School of Asian Studies],” Mr. Molvyann remembers, “and suddenly I knew I wanted to be an architect, so I changed to the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts, where I studied until 1950 under Le Corbusier.” He regards that modernist architect and designer as his greatest teacher.

After that, Mr. Molyvann stayed on in Paris for several more years, studying Khmer art. While he looks back fondly on the period, he is also keenly aware that some of Cambodia’s later traumas had their origins in the Paris of that time.

“The Khmer Rouge was born in the Latin quarter of Paris,” he says. As they debated their country’s postcolonial future, Mr. Molyvann says, the city’s 400 or so Cambodian students split between nationalists and Marxists. Khieu Samphan, whom he knew as a fellow Sorbonne student, would go on to become head of state in the Khmer Rouge government.

By 1956, Mr. Molyvann was back in Phnom Penh. Independence had broadened Cambodia’s horizons, in part thanks to the efforts of King Sihanouk, who at various times officially dropped his title to serve as prime minister, head of state or president, though Cambodians continued to refer to him as king. With tremendous energy and not a little royal eccentricity, the young monarch—also politician, artist, filmmaker, womanizer and host to a series of foreign heads of state and celebrities—worked to create a modern nation with an eye on the past. The leading members of an emerging urban elite, many of whom, like Mr. Molyvann, had returned from Paris, sought to create architecture, music, films, literature and art that married Cambodian tradition with modernist thinking.

Nowhere was this more apparent than in new administrative, public and private building projects that sprang up all over the capital—transforming Phnom Penh, within little more than a decade, into one of Asia’s most dynamic cities.

“It was difficult at the beginning, as Cambodians had never heard of architects,” Mr. Molyvann remembers. “All they knew were engineers and builders. There was a real dearth of qualified Khmer experts, as the French had used Vietnamese to administer my country. But within 10 years of independence the management of the country and its capital was Khmer. It was incredible.”

Mr. Molyvann was made chief architect for state buildings and director for urban planning and habitat in 1956 and given a number of ministerial posts in the following years. “I was designing the Independence Monument and was asked to present the king with a selection of marble,” he recalls. “I was too afraid to speak to him personally, but he made some suggestions and we got on perfectly after that.” Shaped like a lotus flower, the monument tower, completed in 1960, remains one of Phnom Penh’s landmarks.

Mr. Molyvann had part of the floodplain south of the Royal Palace drained and filled, and on this “Front de Bassac” constructed the country’s first high-rises, initially for visiting athletes for the 1966 Ganefo Games, a short-lived Asian alternative to the Olympics.

“We built the stadium for 60,000 people and surrounded it with a moat, so that the waters could run off in the rainy season,” he says.

Stefanie Irmer, whose KA Tours focuses on New Khmer Architecture, sees the relation between water and city as crucial to the architect’s vision for Phnom Penh. “Besides creating the ‘Front de Bassac’ area from wetlands,” she says, “almost every building Vann Molyvann designed was surrounded by water—to keep the termites out, but also to integrate the buildings into the flood plain.”

Many of Mr. Molyvann’s buildings are traditional in one sense—they are shaped like familiar objects. Chaktomuk Conference Hall, one of his earliest designs, is like an open palm leaf. The library of the Institute of Foreign Languages (now part of the Royal University of Phnom Penh) was inspired by a traditional Khmer straw hat. The lecture halls of the institute rest on sharply angled concrete pillars that give them the appearance of animals, about to jump. They are still in use today, as is the library.

By the early 1960s, for the first time in almost 800 years, Cambodia was blooming. The Angkor ruins were the region’s biggest tourist draw, and Phnom Penh had doubled in size and become a city others in the region admired.

But the politics were turning ugly. Norodom Sihanouk, serving as prime minister, began to suppress dissent. By the mid-1960s, the U.S. had combat troops in Vietnam; as American planes began bombing North Vietnamese positions in Cambodia, the country’s policy of neutrality became a farce. The former king’s repressive policies alienated the political left and some rural Cambodians, who began to join a shadowy communist movement, the Khmer Rouge. Meanwhile, the right and military had become fed up with his capriciousness and nepotism. When he left to visit China in 1970, a coup replaced him with army general Lon Nol. The Swinging ’60s, the meteoric rise of a young nation, the building boom in the “Pearl of Asia”—it was all over.

Mr. Molyvann remembers days with hard choices. “Shortly after Lon Nol came to power, the Israeli ambassador advised me to take my family out of the country,” he says; the ambassador, a friend of his, warned him about the crumbling security and the increasing persecution of those connected with the previous government. So when Mr. Molyvann left for a conference in Israel, with his wife, Trudy, and their six children, they didn’t return. Instead they moved on to Switzerland, his wife’s home country.

Five years later, the Khmer Rouge marched victoriously into Phnom Penh. The new rulers immediately emptied the cities, and for almost four years Phnom Penh was a ghost town. At least 1.5 million Cambodians, nearly a quarter of the population—Mr. Molyvann’s father among them—lost their lives in the killing fields. The fledgling intellectual elite was snuffed out.

“I had no contact during those years,” says Mr. Molyvann. “I had to give my children a new life, so we stayed in Lausanne.” He continued to work as an architect in Switzerland, Africa and Laos, for the United Nations and the World Bank. The Vietnamese pushed out the Khmer Rouge in 1979, but Mr. Molyvann “could not think of going back.” The new rulers ” were still communists.”

“It was not until 1993 that I returned—with the U.N.,” he says. Initially, his homecoming was triumphant. He was appointed minister of state for culture and fine arts, territorial management and urban planning and contributed to the application for Angkor’s successful recognition as a Unesco World Heritage site.

But he soon realized that the Cambodia he had left behind in 1970 no longer existed. Cambodian People’s Party leader Hun Sen, who had been installed by the Vietnamese and who continued as prime minister after the U.N.-organized elections, gave Mr. Molyvann back his villa, but the architect’s plans for Siem Reap—the province in which Angkor is located—were unappreciated. He had called for a “tourist village” set apart from both the temples and the old town of Siem Reap, integrated into the environment and with water conservation as a key goal.

“The government wanted to use the resources of Angkor to develop Siem Reap without the participation of the local people,” Mr. Molyvann says. “In 1998, I became president executive director of Apsara (Authority for the Protection and Safeguard of Angkor), the government body created to look after the temples. Three years later, I was fired.” Unchecked development in Siem Reap has led to a dramatic drop in groundwater levels, causing subsidence that has put the Bayon, one of the main temples in the Angkor area, in danger of collapse, according to experts from the Japanese Conservation Team for Safeguarding Angkor. Development has also driven up property prices and the cost of living, a hardship for the locals in a province that remains one of the poorest in the country.

But it was not just the government and developers standing against Mr. Molyvann and his vision. Bill Greaves, director of the Vann Molyvann Project, a nongovernmental organization engaged in recreating the lost plans of the remaining New Khmer Architecture sites, thinks postwar Cambodia is simply not aware of its past.

“Right now, Singapore and Shanghai are models for forward-looking cities, both for the government and the people,” he says. “Hence Phnom Penh’s different stages of history are likely to be discarded.”

In the past decade, as investment has begun to pour into the Cambodian capital once more, colonial and 1960s buildings have been replaced by chrome-and-glass edifices, floodwater lakes have been drained, local media have reported almost daily evictions and ministers have gushed over the need to build skyscrapers in order to keep up with the neighbors.

The government frequently declares that preservation has to go hand in hand with development. In practice, it seems to walk well behind. Beng Khemro, deputy director general at the ministry for land management, urban planning and construction, says his department’s hands are tied. “Many historical properties are in terrible condition,” he says. “The people who own them don’t understand the value of the past and would rather demolish them and build high-rises to make a profit. The past is not appreciated. Without a change in attitude amongst the population, we are fighting a losing battle.”

Cambodia has preservation laws, and Dr. Khemro says he is trying to pass a regulation to get them applied in particular instances. He’d like to try a pilot preservation project away from Phnom Penh, he says, noting that Cambodia’s second-largest city, Battambang, has many buildings from the French period.

“Also,” he adds, “there’s less pressure.”

Molyvann advocate Mr. Greaves is skeptical about the survival of the architect’s legacy. “The old buildings disappear at an alarming rate—even public edifices like the National Theatre, which was knocked down a couple of years ago, are not safe. We try and get there before the demolition crews arrive.”

A drive around town with Mr. Molyvann illustrates his curious position in this free-for-all scramble for change. At the Independence Monument, guards at first refuse him entry. Only after his driver reveals the distinguished visitor’s identity is the master architect, old and frail, allowed to climb the steps he designed half a century ago.

Passing the stadium, Mr. Molyvann looks at the haphazard development around his favorite creation. Appropriated by developers with government connections, the moat has been partly filled in to make space for shops and an underground car park; the result is annual flooding that threatens the entire sports complex.

With equal shades of sadness and anger in his voice, Mr. Molyvann says, “Today, it’s not the state who owns the old properties, but the ruling party, the CPP.”

—Tom Vater is a writer based in Bangkok.

Ambitious Monk Mixes Business With Buddhism

admin — Thu, 20 May 2010 03:45:13 +0000

Monk, Hoeurn Somnieng receives a degree in business management from St. Ambrose University in Iowa, USA. (Photo: Courtesy of Life and Hope Association)

Nuch Sarita, VOA Khmer
Washington, D.C Tuesday, 18 May 2010

“It was a very profound experience for me. In a period of great suffering, I was kind of not knowing what to do, and I just sat and closed my eyes and focused on my breathing.”

One determined monk says he wants to use his education and experience from the US to help fund a number of projects, including a network that helps combat child trafficking.

Hoeurn Somnieng is the deputy head of Wat Damnak pagoda in Siem Reap. He studied at St. Ambrose University in Iowa in 2008. He says now he plans to return to Cambodia with a degree in business management and ideas to help his home country.

“I want to use my education to represent people in need and to represent the poor and powerless,” Hoeurn Somnieng told VOA Khmer in a recent interview. “This education gives me a louder voice.”

Hoeurn Somnieng is the founder and executive director of a junior high school, a boarding house for girls, a vocational training program, an orphanage and the Life and Hope Association.

The Life and Hope Association is the umbrella organization for his school, partially funded by foreign aid programs in the US, Australia and Germany. The program pays for student transportation and meals and supplements salaries of government teachers.

The association also works to improve the lives of disadvantaged Cambodians, particularly children and women, through education, vocational training, and health services. Many of those students who attend the school are victims of domestic abuse, orphans or street children. Many of them live in misery; some are trapped in the sex trade.

Hoeurn Somnieng heads the NGO Network in Siem Reap, as well as the Chamber of Social Service Network Against Child Labor. He is a program director for the Salvation Center Cambodia, where he worked on HIV and AIDS, including as a provincial monk core trainer on the disease and drug prevention.

What has all this taught him?

“You can change your future,” he said. “Bring hope into your life and keep working hard. Your future will be bright.”

He’s even developed a mathematical formula. “Life plus hope equals change,” he said. “And life plus hope plus education equals a great change.”

John Hawry, who teaches at the nursing department of Black Hawk College and is a colleague of Hoeurn Somnieng, said the monk remains dedicated to his country and has as strong work ethic.

He “helped establish a small shrine for the Buddhist community that lived around us,” Hawry said. “We have many people that migrated from Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos that lived in our town, so that was the first time that they had a shrine.”

Another colleague, Adam Vilmont, a graduate student at St. Ambrose, said Hoeurn Somnieng taught him meditation.

“It was a very profound experience for me,” he said. “In a period of great suffering, I was kind of not knowing what to do, and I just sat and closed my eyes and focused on my breathing.”

Another support of the monk’s work, Vivian Norton, said she organized a fundraiser for enough money to purchase 12 tons of rice—about a year’s supply—for the Life and Hope Association.

“I went to Cambodia three and a half years ago at a volunteer center that Venerable Somnieng established for young girls,” Norton said. “I met him at the sewing center and saw he had a project that worked and found him to be a very effective administrator for the project. But at the same time he certainly stands by Buddhist principles, and he is very devoted to his project and to his people.”

Climbing the ladder: Hou Chhivneath

admin — Thu, 06 May 2010 00:06:05 +0000

Wednesday, 05 May 2010 15:00 Tharum Bun

Respected for their religious adherence and intellectual curiousity, Buddhist monks have long been the backbone of Cambodian society. Regardless of how religious Cambodian citizens are, the men walking around in colorful yellow-orange saffron are an integral part of everyday life and one of the main forces revitalising the Kingdom’s spirit.

When he was younger, Hou Chhivneath was difficult to deal with and his parents decided to send him to a Buddhist pagoda for a short spell, where most elders believe that the monks and serene surroundings can provide a basic foundation for young boys and adults to develop into mature and peaceful men.

“My father wanted me to be a monk for a while to learn how to deal with life and to be a good man for my family and other people,” Hou Chhivneath said of his initial entrance into monkhood in 1989.

“Dedicated monks usually work hard on their own, so that they can play a significant part in awakening citizens to the importance of culture and tradition, social morality, Khmer civilisation and Buddhism in particular,” explained the 30-year-old monk who hails from Takeo province.

The monks do not only share their religious wisdom with the general public, they also try to be good role models for society and teach people about “the merit of good deeds, good citizenship and peaceful living”, he said.

Hou Chhivneath went to a Buddhist primary school in Kandal, a province that shares its border with Phnom Penh, to learn Pali language for a year before moving to the Cambodian capital city for his Buddhist secondary school in 1994. He said that being immersed in Buddhist teaching has been great for him.

Since completing high school he has received three post-secondary degrees: a bachelor’s degree in Buddhist philosophy from Preah Sihanouk Raja Buddhist University, a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Pannasastra University of Cambodia and a master’s degree in human resource management from the University of Cambodia. “I also completed a continuing training program for senior officials at the Royal School of Administration in 2008-2009,” he said.

Things like luxury houses, new cars and cool tech gadgets don’t mean a lot to Hou Chhivneath.“The innovation of technology only helps extrinsic happiness, while the Buddhist principles instruct us to cultivate intrinsic happiness,” he told Lift.

Currently attending a workshop on religion in the US, the Buddhist University teacher said that “the time to practice Buddhism is limited for laypeople; there are many things to deal with in daily life. Time flies and waits for no man; it will never be back for us when we lose a first chance in our teens,” adding that he thinks the experience of monkhood can be valuable for all Cambodian youth.

Source: The Phnom Penh Post

Health-Care System in Canada

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 05:09:38 +0000

Letters from abroad

Wednesday, 28 April 2010 15:00 Sophan Seng

The health-care system in Canada provides almost free medication and health services for all tax-paying Canadians. The local government of Alberta has recently reformed its health-care policy to provide free-of-charge health services for all Albertans, regardless of their income or social status. While many other sectors have been effectively privatised, the health-care System is still operated by the government. Having guaranteed health-care from the government has attracted more people to settle down and make their living in Alberta.

People in all countries agree that the health of citizens is a priority, and in Canada, citizens have agreed that subsidising healthcare is a great way of making it more accessible for everyone. Canada is a fully democratic country and politicians, representing ordinary citizens, have agreed that supporting healthcare is a good use of tax money. Canadians not only spend tax money on healthcare; they also pay for other public goods such as playgrounds, public parks, roads and schools. According to a news release on February 9, 2010, the government of Alberta will focus on healthcare as the priority in its 2010 budget. The report says that “despite current fiscal challenges, the Alberta government will increase funding for health, basic education and support for seniors and vulnerable Albertans, while maintaining the lowest taxes in Canada”.

As a result, Albertans won’t have to worry about the high price of healthcare like people do in the United States. Since they needn’t worry about the cost, a growing number of families have family doctors for personal health checks. Many people visit their family doctor regularly or sometimes on a monthly basis. Sopheap Ros, who migrated to Alberta with his parents when he was 3-years-old from a refugee camp on the Thai-Cambodian border, now holds an Alberta Health Card that enables him to visit doctors freely, get blood tests, X-rays and medical consultations. “I am free of frustration regarding health problems. I have regularly visited my family doctor to ensure that I am healthy,” Sopheap Ros said.

Public debate here has revolved around questions about the gains and losses of providing free healthcare to every Albertan. The conclusion has been that universal coverage will benefit the well-being of all people in the workforce, and also improve the job market for nurses, doctors and health workers.

Interestingly, there are many educational institutes that concentrate on health, yet statistics show that there is a lack of nurses and family doctors in Alberta. Therefore, many current operational nurses in the province are from foreign countries such as the Philippines.

Sophan Seng is a Cambodian living in Canada. He is the facilitator of the Khmer-Canadian Buddhist Cultural Center and president of the Khmer Youth Association of Alberta. If you are living abroad and you want to share your experiences with our readers, send your letters to lift@phnompenhpost.com

Solution for unemployment in Canada

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 13:57:16 +0000

Letters from abroad

Wednesday, 21 April 2010 15:00 Sophan Seng

There is a popular saying that “to live is to work”, and while life is not all about work, the saying seems to hold true in Canada, Cambodia and around the world. Most people cannot live without a job, but the approach from the governments in various countries to the problem of unemployment differs greatly. It might be interesting for you to hear about the ways in which Canada’s government and private sector have intervened in order to help more citizens get jobs and keep the ones they have.

First, there is a growing number of job search agencies who help both new and experienced workers find jobs suitable to their educational background and experiences. Enrolled students learn about networking strategies, curriculum vitae, cover letters and interviewing skills. These agencies also partner with private groups and the government to launch job fairs, which exist in Cambodia on a smaller scale, in order to bring together employers and employees. In fact, I was employed as a result of my participation in a job fair.

Second, the government helps unemployed citizens by providing them with short-term support through both skills training and living expenses. Many unemployed workers are directly subsidized to allow them to maintain a level of strength and professionalism while they search for a new job. The money that funds this program, called the Employment Insurance (EI) program, was deducted from workers’ salary if they worked before.

In my hometown, the government has established an organization called the Alberta Learning Information Services (ALIS) as the central hub to bridge employers, employees and educational opportunities. At the website (alis.alberta.ca/), we can learn about many things ranging from planning a career, or planning educational trajectory to finding a job. The most helpful feature for job hunters is the self-assessment tools that enable them to test their skills in various industries. For instance, if you graduated in the field of social science, you are expected to work as curator, editor, demographer, political scientist, or economist. Each industry has also differentiated job descriptions, personal characteristics, and experiences.

Overall, the philosophy of government in facilitating increased employment has the reciprocal benefit to the whole society as it will bring about a stronger economy for everyone.

Khmer Stylizing in Canada

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 12:42:15 +0000

Wednesday, 07 April 2010 15:00 Sophan Seng

April is a busy month for Cambodians all over the Khmer diaspora since Khmer New Year is fast approaching. Since the holiday is not recognised by governments in foreign countries, Cambodians living abroad must wait for the weekend to celebrate the holiday. Some communities celebrate the holiday at Buddhist temples, but more often than not, people celebrate the new year in public halls or other rented spaces.

While the location of the celebration may not be familiar to many Cambodians, the events themselves have changed little among Cambodians living abroad. Go to a Khmer New Year celebration in Canada and you are likely to see authentic food, religious ceremonies, popular games, and traditional arts and entertainment.

The thing that always impresses me most is the beauty of the women wearing traditional Khmer outfits. The graceful appearance of Khmer women and their styles of dress have remained intact. “I have always worn traditional Khmer outfits to attend Khmer festivals, wedding ceremonies and traditional gatherings,” said Kimleine, who has been living away from Cambodia since she was a toddler.

I would say that every Khmer family I know has plenty of traditional clothes for such events. Peddlers display different styles of Khmer cloths every time a cultural event is upcoming.

“I like the style a lot, especially Khmer traditional outfits for weddings,” said Kimleine.

While traditional styles have remained the same for many years, other styles are always changing, and it can be expensive to keep up. Kimleine complained that the rapid change of karaoke fashion is costly for her to follow. “I think popular Khmer styles like we see on karaoke videos are easily outdated,” she said. “So we always need to buy a new one, which is very expensive.”

According to researcher Janet Mclellan, Cambodian Canadians are still strongly attached to traditional styles. In a posting on the Multicultural Canada Web site, the author explained that “during cultural celebrations, women and young girls wear the traditional Khmer dress of sarong, sampot and krama (a long scarf in different colours, woven from cotton or silk)”. But these outfits are not easy to wear when you are used to more modern clothes. While wearing traditional clothes, one must be careful while walking, sitting or moving.

As with many things in Cambodian culture, the younger generation is being asked to carry on the traditions of their family and countrymen. While most of them, like Kimleine, are happy to do this, it requires an increasing amount of flexibility and adaptability for youth who have embraced modernity in the rest of their life.

Original source: The Phnom Penh Post

Hocky battling in Canada

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 23:07:18 +0000

Letters from abroad

Wednesday, 31 March 2010 15:00 Sophan Seng

Just few weeks ago, Canadians were proudly cheering on their team as they celebrated Canada’s gold-medal hockey win over America in the 2010 Olympic winter games held in Vancouver. Days afterwards, the National Hockey League (NHL) resumed its regular season, and in April the league will begin its own championship tournament. There are 32 hockey teams in the NHL who represent 32 cities with their hockey-playing prowess.

The league is divided into 16 teams on the West Coast and 16 teams on the East Coast. Canada has six teams in the East Coast league, with the other 26 teams coming from America. The playoffs are the grand finale of the season, where eight teams from each side of the continent play each other for the Stanley Cup, a trophy that is given to the league’s best team each year.

“I am cheering for the Calgary Flames to reach the playoffs,” said Kevin Troung, who is an 18-year-old fan of the Canadian hockey team. “They are currently battling with the Red Wings of Detroit to get a chance to enter the Stanley Cup finals.”

While football is the most popular sport in Cambodia, hockey is without a doubt the most popular sport in Canada, and the two games have many differences. In football, the players run around on the green grass wearing nothing but shin pads to protect themselves from injury. Hockey players, on the other hand, are equipped with helmets, padding and a stick that they use to move the puck (like a flattened ball) around the ice while they move around on their skates like hurricanes. Each side is composed of six players: three forwards who attempt to hit the puck into the opponent’s small goal, and two defenders and a goalie who try to stop the other team from scoring. Like soccer, the winner is the team that scores the most goals.

Media commentators in Canada describe hockey as the most attractive sport in the world, with the ability to bring together people from all ages and social strata. It is not only players in the NHL who devote themselves to hockey; schools and communities encourage students and youths to join their own teams for a healthy extracurricular activity, or in some cases to begin a career in athletics. And it is not only in the arena that you see hockey fans. It is common to see streetcars and houses adorned with Flames flasg all around Calgary.

Original source: The Phnom Penh Post