"3-month-life in Cambodia" a Cambodia Travel Page by honestjohn

In March, 2003, I was assigned to work in the Kirirom hydropower station ( Cambodia's biggest hydropwer station ) by my company, China Electric Power Technology Imp&Exp Co. Ltd, after 3 months, I returned Beijing by way of Thailand.
Although Cambodia is a very undeveloped country, she is very beautiful full of tour resorts, such as the Angkor Wat, and Shihanouke Ville etc.

Some customs of Cambodia are very different from other countries. If you talk with the folk there. You will find some customs are very interesting. The following aspects is what I found.
1) No family name in Cambodia. Cambodian's name is very interesting. No one has his family name. or in other words, the family name is changing from generation to generation. For example, if the father's name is A B, his son's name will be B C, and his grandson's name is C D.
Only Cambodia chinese have their family name, but during one dynasty (sorry, I forget dynasty's name), cambodia chinese are forbidden to use their own family name, after several generation, they lost their family name.
2) Every male shall be a monk in the buddhist temple at least one time during his life. When he growns up, he goes to temple to be monk to reciprocate his parents. After several months or years, he can return his home to be normal again.
3)The number system is very interesting. The arabic number is from 1 to 10, but in cambodia, there is only 5 numbers. therefore, when they say 6, the pronunciate 5 plus 1, and 7, 5 plus 2, etc Is that interesting? Sure!

Due to the decades civil war, many mines was buried in the important area. About 1995, the Civil War stoped. The country was united and focused on booming its economic. But to some extent, too many mines draged economic growth. many people was injured by the mines. many mines needed to be removed before building factory or plant. For instance, my company want to build a hydropower station near Kirirom, as estimated, the mine removal will take us nearly 1.5 years.
In Phnom Penh, frequently, you see some people without legs sitting on ground. The picture on the right side is taken in Big Angkor Wat Park , the mine-injured people have no choise but to form one music band to sing for the tourists in order to live their life. don't forget leave 1 dollar to them please.
What a pity!
Let's do our best, STOP ALL WAR.