Men, Saray

LB Poly/PAAL

Know! Understand! Learn!

            Higher education is very important in the 21^st century, as a Cambodian educated person, I would encourage Cambodian people to learn about Cambodian in many ways.  I would encourage people to know about history, understand the culture, and to learn the language.  In March 1970, Cambodian fell into darkness.  Communist spread through Cambodia rapidly.  Millions of innocent people died.  All the people who survived could never forget the experience they have had.  A way to encourage the younger generations to know about Cambodian history, I would tell the elders to talk about their experience during the time they were in Cambodian and what they know about Cambodian.  In Cambodian culture there are many types of dances, such as Rom-Vong, Sa-ri-van, Kbach, etc.  The dance that I’m going to be talking about is the folk and classical dance.  The folk dance was made up by the working class such as farmers fishermen, etc.  On the other hands, classical dances were performed for only the king.  Each dance has story behinds it.  To encourage the younger generation to understand the dances, I would show them by performing the classical and folk dance so that they would have an idea of how it looks like.  Khmer language is very hard to learn.  We lived in America so we have to learn how to speak English, but as a Cambodian person, I believed that we should know how to speak our own language.  I’m scared that pretty soon our language would disappear because most of the younger generation could not speak it correctly.  I would encourage young Cambodians to go to the United Cambodian Community Center (UCC), Khmer Cultural Center (KCC), or Wilson High School because they teaches the language.  These are the ways that I would encourage the younger generations.  I hope that I could make a difference with the younger Cambodian children because they are the future.  I will give as much advice that I can and I will cross my fingers and hope that they will take my advice and use it for their daily lives.