Photos

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Chong Kneas sunset

This is a snapshot I took of two Vietnamese vendors on their mobile grocery boat over Tonle Sap Great Lake, Siem Reab, Cambodia. They belong to the Chong Kneas Vietnamese Floating Village at northwest tip of the lake.

Within the Tonle Sap Great Lake, there are many floating villages similar to the one shown in this photo. While the Cambodian residents would have land or relatives residing inland, Vietnamese villagers of Chong Kneas having no land and no relative off the water. Most of them have been born here. Their parents may not want to reveal the original commune in Vietnam, or may not remember. They eat Vietnamese foods, celebrate Vietnamese holidays, speak Vietnamese language, dress Vietnamese clothes.

In Cambodia, they are considered foreigner because they maintains all Vietnamese tradition, language and costume. If ever they had a chance to visit Vietnam, they would be foreigner right on the ancestral soil because they couldn’t even tell where their parents were from: they are the derelict citizens.

To them, fatherland is nothing since they never spent a night overland, just over water. Their life is a synonym of Chong Khneas. Cambodia and Vietnam, to them, just as abstract and out of reach as the airplanes crossing by on the sky.




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* Info in Vietnamese









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