Women participate in a traditional Cambodian
Holland, MI —Beautiful traditional Cambodian dancers and lilting Cambodian hymns combined for unique expressions of culture and religion in the Holland Civic Center Saturday night.
The event was meant to be a combined celebration of the Cambodian New Year and the Christian holiday of Easter. The celebration was organized by the Cambodian Fellowship Christian Reformed Church and sponsored by the Community Foundation of the Holland/Zeeland Area.
Pastor Socheth Na said the Cambodian New Year — celebrated according to a lunar calendar which is different than the calendar used by China and Japan — falls on April 13 this year.
Participants dressed in traditional costumes and ate ethnic dishes at the celebration. Musicians sang Cambodian hymns, which are a mixture of traditional tunes re-fitted with Christian lyrics in the Cambodian language of Khmer, and Western hymns translated into Cambodian.
Holland Township resident George Pen has made a hobby of recording the songs digitally. He said the Cambodian hymnal was finished as late as 1985, completed by refugees in a camp in Thailand.
Holland resident Mark Wilson, a missionary to Cambodia who attended Saturday’s event, said that most of the Cambodians who live in the Holland area came as a refugees to America, sponsored by the Christian Reformed Church following a bloody regime change in the mid-1970s.
“Here in Holland, I believe ... the Cambodians are the second-largest ethnic minority after Hispanics,” he said.
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