Son Soeun and his lifelong friend Bin Song are in their seventies, but they can still play a rare musical instrument called angkuoch and often play it together.
These two old hands remember a time when many boys their age kept an angkuoch in their pocket for entertainment while they worked in the fields.
What's more, for their generation and their ethnic minority culture, playing romantic tunes on the instrument for the young women they were trying to woo was a sort of rite of passage to adulthood.
“When I was single, I used to go to the houses of girls I liked at night. When I got to my girlfriend's house - if she was already asleep - I'd play my angkuoch to wake her up. If I kept playing, she'd wake up and come and join me,” recalls Soeun, 79, with a smile.
His friend Song still remembers the words of the folk songs he used to sing when accompanied by someone playing the angkuoch:
“On the bank of the old pond, I was fishing/ Pass me the rice alcohol, I'm going to dance well/ I had one hook left, so I tied it up/ I caught a crocodile, it bit me - now my trousers are half lost/ Ladies, sew up these rags that the old crocodile tore up/ And if you're a beauty, we'll get married”, his squeaky voice murmurs.
For the first twenty years of her life, Soeun grew up in the village of Preah Ko, in Siem Reap province, alongside Song, who, in addition to his singing talents, later became a skilled angkuoch craftsman.
“I'm very happy to be able to share my knowledge of angkuoch with other people. When I can show how angkuoch is made, I get very excited. Extremely enthusiastic! I'm happy about this project because I think the research team will disseminate this information widely and enable many others to learn much more about this tradition”, says Song.
More than just instruments
Angkuoch are more than just instruments sold to tourists in the nearby temples of Angkor. They are part of a musical tradition that has been interwoven into Khmer culture for centuries, even millennia, even if they are rarely played in modern times.
Fortunately, a great deal of information about the angkuoch, its manufacture and use has already been preserved by researchers who have documented various aspects of the use of the angkuoch in Khmer culture and published a book on the subject in order to preserve knowledge of this important element of cultural heritage.
The angkuoch is basically identical to the instruments commonly referred to as ‘Jewish harps’ in some parts of the world, although they are not native to Jewish culture and have no significance there.
The instrument is ancient and found in many cultures around the world, but historians believe it probably originated in China. There is a drawing that appears to depict a person playing it, dating back to the third century BC, and primitive instruments have been discovered in archaeological excavations in China, dating back to 1800 BC.
In other words, almost 4,000 years ago, Chinese musicians were playing an instrument similar to today's angkuoch.
As the instrument spread around the world, it was given a variety of names - Jew's harp, vargan, mouth harp, gewgaw, Jew's harp, khomus, Ozark harp, Berimbau de boca and murchunga - are some of the better-known names.
The angkuoch belongs to the family of lamellophone instruments, which means that it produces sound using a thin vibrating plate called a lamella or tongue, which is attached at one end and has a free end.
Cambodian cultural practices and traditions centred on the angkuoch are now in need of preservation and safeguarding due to the loss of cultural knowledge that generally occurred during the Khmer Rouge period and subsequent social and cultural changes in Cambodian society.
Today, there are only a few people left in Cambodia who know how to play the angkuoch, and even fewer who know how to make it.
En Sormanak, coordinator of Cambodian Living Arts' (CLA) arts development programme, told the Post that his organisation was carrying out research with the aim of preserving the cultural knowledge of the angkuoch for “the benefit and enjoyment of present and future generations”.
“The results of our research on the angkuouch were presented at a meeting attended by the CLA, Griffith University in Australia, UNESCO-Cambodia, the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts and the handful of remaining angkuouch makers in Siem Reap province,” he explains.
The research and documentation team discovered that the late Master Mong Koeuy was Siem Reap's most famous bamboo angkuouch maker and that one of his musical instruments was on display at the British Museum in London, but that it was attributed to an ‘unknown craftsman’, at least until the researchers met Koeuy's family.
They showed the photo of the instruments in the British Museum to Koeuy's wife, Lav Mech, Koeuy's daughter, Leakhena, and his son, Reatha.
They were all shocked to see that the many recognisable features of their father's instruments were all present in the museum piece, which resembled those he had sold in large numbers over many years to local musicians and foreign tourists.
‘When I first saw this photo of the angkuoch in the British Museum, I was very excited. I didn't know that my father's work had received such an honour abroad. Even locally, some people hadn't even heard of it, so I didn't think it was very popular or appreciated. Seeing this angkuoch, I miss him. For my family, the angkuoch symbolises my father above all else’, Leakhena told the researchers.
To help preserve Cambodia's cultural heritage in this area, the angkuoch research project was then funded by the British Museum's Endangered Materials Knowledge Programme to document the angkuoch and the methods used to make and play it among the few people who still know it and live in Siem Reap province.
And, of course, Master Mong Koeuy received his due on the exhibition poster as the man who made the angkuoch on display at the British Museum - a small monument to his talents, but one that is permanent and part of an institution that serves the public as one of the world's greatest collections of objects that - taken together - tell the story of human civilisation and history.
Song Seng, director of the CLA's Heritage Hub, explains that the research team's study revealed that there were two common types of angkuoch in Cambodia: angkuoch dek (metal harp) and angkuoch reussey (bamboo harp).
Master Bin Song, aged 80, is renowned for his metal harp playing. He hails from the village of Peah Kor Thmey in Svay Chek commune in the Angkor Thom district of Siem Reap province.
The instruments in this region originate from the Kuoy ethnic minority and were played during courting activities between boys and girls.
“For the bamboo harp, we have master Krak Chi, who is over 70 years old, but can still make them quite easily. He is the village chief and his two sons are Chi Monivong, 32, and Chi Chen, 34. They are remarkable because they are young people who know how to make and play the instruments, even if the sound of the bamboo versions is not as musically refined as that of the metal angkuoch,” explains Seng.
Monivong and Chen confide that their full-time jobs keep them too busy to devote much time to making angkuoch, but they are pleased that their father is teaching their sons (his grandsons) to make them too. They hope that the family tradition will continue and that people of all ages will know and enjoy playing angkuoch in the future.
Not many people know about angkuoch. The younger ones said to me:
Brother! What are you holding? Is that a wooden pin for fixing nets? I replied: ‘No, it's an angkuoch. People use it to make music. They didn't believe me, but then I made them listen and they wanted to know how to play it and if I could make them one’, says Chen.
Seng explains that the research team has also created a video documentary on the angkuoch, its makers and its players, which can be viewed free of charge online.
“We filmed the musicians playing the two types of instrument, the metal one and the bamboo one, and produced a 20-minute short documentary. We also filmed another hour-long video detailing the instruments for the British Museum in London and for other researchers working in this field.”
”We hope that this project will inspire Cambodians and people around the world to appreciate the beauty and importance of the angkuoch, today, tomorrow and in the future,” concludes Mr Seng.
To download the CLA brochure on angkuoch: https://bit.ly/CLA-Booklet
To watch the CLA's short film on the angkuoch: https://bit.ly/CLA-Film
And to visit their Facebook page @cambodianlivingarts
Pann Rethea with our partner The Phnom Penh Post
AV在线看 AV在线看;
自拍流出 自拍流出;
国产视频 国产视频;
日本无码 日本无码;
动漫肉番 动漫肉番;
吃瓜专区 吃瓜专区;
SM调教 SM调教;
ASMR ASMR;
国产探花 国产探花;
强奸乱伦 强奸乱伦;