Give it up

I've given up on trying to post well-written blog posts. Now you just get rough drafts. It's part of a bigger process of trading "just right" for "good enough" which is something I aspire to these days. I feel like writing, but I don't feel like editing, so here's what you get from now on.

      There’s a Cambodian holiday coming up. At first I thought it was called Pyeum Benh, then it seemed to be called Pyeum, then I began to understand that maybe the holiday called Pyeum lasts three days and the final day is called Pyeum Benh. Then I was told it really lasts 15 days and the final day is Pyeum Benh. I'm beginning to narrow it down.

     

     What’s this holiday all about, I wanted to know. I was told that everyone goes to their homeland for a ceremony. Details began to fill in: it’s a ceremony to honor ancestors. It’s not really religious, but it is a ceremony that happens at the pagoda. People go home to honor their parents, or their ancestors, or someone. Then I got a long explanation that went something like this: Parents have children and the parents work so hard and so long to provide for and take care of those children. After they die, they might become a ghost (possibly because they valued things like TVs too much, but this was only mentioned by one of the many Pyeum Benh explainers I questioned) and they come back at Pyeum Benh to see if their children will come home to honor them by offering cake at the pagoda. If children don’t do this, they are bad children, and presumably, the ghosts are pissed off. After the ceremony, everyone has a party and drinks beer.

     Cake and beer both sound good to me.

     I asked where the ghosts come from and was told “from hell.” A Khmer who likes to demonstrate his English vocabulary added, “They are imps.” Imps. When was the last time you heard that word?

     I am quite possibly missing some of the nuances. I’ve left out the parts that I didn’t understand at all, which quite likely account for most of the details and a coherent explanation.

     The upshot for us is that we will have three days off work in early October, and we have several invitations to join people visiting their homeland.

      I love the word “homeland.” I think the best definition for it is the place where you grew up and where your parents still live. How many Americans have something that can be called their homeland? I am one of the lucky ones who can say I do, but I seem to have left it far behind for the moment. 

     I guess I'm not going home for Pyeum Benh. I hope my father won't be disappointed.