Ancestor Day = Ghost Day = Halloween

Pchum Ben (បុណ្យភ្ជុំបិណ្ឌ, also known as “Ancestors' Day”, “Festival of the Dead” or “Hungry Ghosts Festival”, it is a 15 days celebration that starte on Tuesday, October 5, this year.  The office was quiet because staffs have 3 days off to celebrate and honor their ancestors.  Most people would travel outside the city and return to their village out in the province.  The streets were much quieter and less traffic.

History of Pchum Ben:  Pchum Ben is an exclusively Cambodian religious festival, based on their belief in karma and reincarnation. Although most people are believed to be reincarnated at death, those with bad karma can be trapped in the spirit world, unable to be reincarnated. At Pchum Ben time every year these souls are released from the spirit world to find their living relatives and repent. Cambodians use this time to visit pagodas, pray for the souls of their dead relatives and in one of the most interesting twists, feed them.

During Pchum Ben Khmers cook food, from the simple to the elaborate, and bring it to pagodas. They believe that offering food to the souls of their relatives eases their suffering. These souls are seen as hungry ghosts, with enormous appetites but pinhole mouths (a true torment). It is believed that being greedy, envious or jealous in one’s life can lead to one becoming a hungry ghost after death. Most Khmers believe that preparing food for the Buddhist monks is an act that transfers merit to the hungry ghosts. Some believe that during Pchum Ben the food offerings are transferred directly to the dead, and you’ll see people throwing sticky rice into fields for the ghosts during this time.

Since there are not a lot of people in the city, President and his wife, Chanthy celebrated with us by allowing missionaries to visit members home or eat together, in the mission home, Sister Neang prepared glutenous rice, meat, banana, mung bean and banana leaves and taught us how to make Num Om Saum and Num Kom (om Kruob Kanau).  Num Om Saum is a savoury rice cakes filled with pork and mung beans wrapped in banana leaves whereas Num Kom is sweet sticky rice mixed with shredded coconut flakes and banana wrapped in banana leaves.  We all tried our hands at make one sweet and one savory.  These wrapping reminded me of our traditional "粽子", rice dumpling.  We made it around Dragon Boat Festival using seasoned sticky rice, meat, salted egg yolk, chestnut and shitake mushroom wrapped in reed/bamboo leaves forming a pyramid shape.  It has been many years since I watched my mother made the rice dumpling - zongzi.  It was fun to make these Cambodian dumpling in a long round tubes.  Just like the Chinese zongzi, it take 8 to 10 hours to cook it before the rice is done and ready to eat.  I was surprised to see that after cooking, the banana I put into the rice and coconut turned pink!

I love seeing the local teaching their foreign companion how to make their traditional food!

I have to say the young local missionaries were wrapped prettier rolls than me!

All hands on deck teaching the Jensen how to make Num Om Saum.

very careful when using banana leaves, if you didn't do it right, the leave split down the middle!

Before and After products

Here is one done professionally, ours were not as pretty but it tastes just as good as stored bought!