Talking with the Past. My interview

For my interview I decided to carry on the theme I started in my first post on the Khmer, so I talked to a eastern studies Professor and to a survivor of the Khmer Rouge. For my brief summary of Cambodian History and the distinction between the Khmer and the Khmer Rouge click here.

   Once again, I was struck by the similarities of learning in the same geographic region, but separated by hundreds of years. I learned that the Hindu and Buddhist monks performed most of the prayers in Sanskrit1. The common people of the ancient empire and modern Cambodians could not understand what was being said. However, because there was a center far away where head monks and priests would go to be trained the oral tradition was insulated from political and cultural changes. Smara said that this was the reason that the Buddhist religion was not entirely lost during the reign of the Khmer Rouge. The perseverance of a well conserved Buddhist oral tradition through the many sovereignty changes can also be attributed to a learning center outside of the influence of those changes. I guess this is the equivalent of the digital age external hard drive where you can back up your files. If a virus gets in and corrupts the computer the backed up files are still secure. In our blog during our oral unit we have devoted a number of comments to the written history virtue of long term preservation. I submit that perhaps having parallel  oral cultures would accomplish the same kind of preservation.
     I also found it very interesting the different ways the same story was told. A good example of this is the sea of churning milk. See my previous post for an excerpt from and link to this story. Smara and her family knew the story but did not like it, so repeated very little of it. The professor gave a brief summary but mostly talked about the importance of the story. The poetic version I read and the two version I heard and the ones I have heard previously all differed. I felt that these differences represented the differing experiences and value paradigms of the individuals. Mike has a good post on this in a whole culture context. I submit this as another great value of an oral tradition. The essential story is preserved but the elements can shift to reflect the values of the teller. Smara and her family value their life and culture in America and were not as interested in an old story that had little connection to them. The professor valued the story's influence on a culture he loved to study. The scribe who copied down the story originally valued the story itself. These differing values are apparent in the way the story is retold.
     I found learning from someone who is personally experienced in the subject was far more engaging than reading books. I felt that I made different connections hearing rather than reading; and I have a greater urge to tell what I learned. It is like hearing a good joke or a great story, you want to tell it more than you want to write it.