Special Seminar by Prof. Ang Choulean (2008/07/17)
Date: July 17(Thu.)，2008 16:00 ～18:00
Venue:Room 207 on the 2nd floor of CSEAS East building
Topic: Related Beings: Rice and Human
Speaker: Prof. Ang Choulean (CSEAS Foreign Visiting Research Fellow)
Abstract:
From several standpoints, Cambodia still remains an under-developed country. But what she can still be proud of, she will lose, as one can guess, the day she’ll become developed. The richness I would like to introduce you to is deeply rural, highly cultural and in the same time highly fragile: the thinking and ritual practices associated with rice. In rural areas, which represent the main and profound reality of Cambodia, rice is not just a cultivation, not just the main cultivation, the main source of peasant's income. Beyond cultivation, rice is culture. Maybe I'm saying a tautology. Yet I wish to show how close to humankind rice is, for Cambodian farmers. I will present two types of ritual where you can realize that rice, topmost cultivation, and human, cultural creature par excellence, form two facets of one single being. The first ritual marks the end of the harvest and the strengthening of the seeds for the next rice cultivation cycle. The second one is a series of rites of passage marking the different steps of an individual's life.