Cambodian Living Arts at the National Museum

Cambodian Living Arts at the National Museum. Last Friday.

So proud of CLA, its co-founder and inspiration Arn Chorn Pond, its other founders John and Charlie, its current director Phloeun, all the board members from its inception and all the amazing masters and artists since groomed.

I remember vividly when Arn and I were both volunteers with CANDO* in 1995, I clinging for dear life on the back of Arn's motorbike (not because of his driving but because of moon-size craters and potholes of a Phnom Penh yet perfectly preserved from all the wartime physical scars from the KR years (yet with all the charm completely lacking now!).

As there were no cafes, no wine bars, no internet shops, no electricity save the private generators buzzing in the villas and buildings that can afford them, going on dates meant riding around town in the dusty streets not infrequently pelted by flying pebbles (at times it felt like boulders -- no helmets then) visiting the aged musicians, masters, who survived the many wars.

I am baffled to this day how Arn know how to find each master musician, but each he found in a shack here, in a crumbling building there, eking out a living selling knickknacks on the roadside or resting from years of exhaustion in a dark corner of their dwelling.

And from these ashes arose Cambodian Living Arts. 

 I think with great warmth of these memories and my time as one of the original Board Members of CLA.

* Cambodian-American National Development Organization, funded by USAID.

Seen and heard on Ms. Theary C. Seng's Facebook accounts: 
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