After receiving my photos, some of you sometimes ask me why I don't put them all together in a book - which, needless to say, flatters my ego!
For various reasons explained in the replies to those who have made this suggestion, I have so far declined this possibility. I remain faithful to the formula, now ten years old, of sending photos by internet to a circle of friends, relatives and lovers of South-East Asia in the form of slide shows, sometimes accompanied or explaining a text called a ‘road map’. The texts and photos do not follow a single theme, even if the theme of ‘disappearing worlds’ often reappears, either directly or subliminally.
On the other hand, I try, as far as possible, to stick to one object for each mailing. As the years go by, the problem is that, on certain themes, I have accumulated thousands and thousands of photos. This means that it takes more and more time to find and select them. Secondly, it means that what could initially be covered in twenty or so photos now warrants several slideshows. The theme of children, a subject to which few photographers remain insensitive, is a perfect illustration of the problems outlined above.
Their spontaneity, their smiles or laughter, their mimicry, their joie de vivre, their enjoyment of the moment, their candour and, of course, their desire to ‘immortalise’ this fleeting moment which, to an adult, may seem to be a moment of happiness and beauty, but also of a country's future, meant that photos on this theme kept piling up. But perhaps that's how things come full circle. Because the number of photos on this theme, if shown in slideshows, will be the same as those that might appear in a book!
The “Children of Cambodia” theme, for example, includes 266 photos! It's also true that a book, even a book of photos, is difficult to read in one go, especially on a single theme. You run the risk of indigestion. That's why the various ‘chapters’ on this subject - of which there are four - will be sent to you, not all at once, but in four successive instalments.
To the visitor, Cambodian children seem to know how to do only two things: cry (yes, it happens, but very rarely) and above all, and almost all the time, whatever the circumstances, laugh, laugh, laugh... To see them, it would seem that they have discovered the key to happiness or paradise on earth! The photos in this article will try to bear witness to the almost perpetual joie de vivre of these children. But Cambodian children, like all children in the world, cannot escape the context in which they live.
In other words, he has to fit in with the culture of his country, a culture, in Cambodia, still very strongly influenced by what is known as ‘Buddhism of the Small Vehicle’ - one of the variants of Buddhism - practised in South-East Asia (Thailand, Laos, Burma, Cambodia) as well as in Sri Lanka. Buddhism took over from Hinduism, which arrived around 2,000 years ago and first had to integrate beliefs - described as animist - that existed prior to its arrival. And this culture, as in every country in the world, leaves an indelible mark on its inhabitants' conception of life, death, power, family, money and love. There are also the ‘constants’ of all social life, into which the daily lives of children fit: living within the family circle, getting around, learning, etc., obviously in a context which, depending on the country, may present a few variations.
While the first three sections are, mutatis mutandis, universally applicable, the fourth and final section of this forthcoming series on the children of Cambodia will distinguish Cambodian children, who are still in the majority in rural areas, from those in our Western countries, which have been urbanised and industrialised for one or two centuries. Traditionally, in the rural world of Cambodia, children have little or no experience of the extended period of childhood that we call adolescence. Very quickly, by mimicry and/or obligation, they are plunged into the world of adults.
Of course, the gradual spread of schooling means that today's Cambodian child tends to participate in two worlds, the traditional and the globalised. We can therefore assume that increasing urbanisation and the demographic decline of the rural world will mean that the images, at least those in the fourth section, will gradually become evidence of a vanished world. Even if the adult child can also be found today in impoverished urban families, albeit in a different context.
What will the future hold for Cambodian children? It's up to them to build it, without forgetting their past, to which these photos bear witness.
Text and photographs by Jean-Michel Gallet
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