4.8.2023 Cambodian New Year Celebration

so uh thank you so much for coming this afternoon um

we will start pretty soon we are here to raise the Cambodian flag in celebration of uh Cambodian New Year that is happening on April 14th 15th and 16th uh this month so certainly a great turnout this is a traditional annual event that I as far as I know uh that is growing uh yearly so I like to uh thank Vandy Chun and we'll start off with uh Vandy tune and Dave Lavoy raising the Cambodian

flag uh please Gentlemen please step up and let's start the process

so um Andy's uh getting ready he's just uh going through the uh yeah yeah

yeah yeah

yeah yeah yeah yeah he's waiting for you yeah yeah so uh Randy's making a little offering for our musician masters it's a tradition uh to ensure that uh we follow tradition and appease the uh uh spirits of the musicians that are uh passing on Knowledge from one generation to another okay Mandy and Dave Lavoy please uh uh join with the flag raising

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so right now we can only uh raise it half staff because the technical difficult guilties but uh yeah but certainly uh we are here to in the spirit of raising the flag and uh so next I'd like to introduce our mayor of the great city of Fall River uh mayor Paul Coogan uh welcome well it was pointed out to me that the weather's a lot better this year than we

when we were here last year really Rocky in this I remember the snow and the ice was flying but it's very special day to honor the Chameleon New Year and I had a proclamation made up from the city we have some citations that Sophie's going to give out later acknowledging certain people's efforts and why don't we uh read this Proclamation so we can move this ceremony right along whereas cambodia's most important

holiday command New Year or child Dom generally falls on the 13th or 14th of April every year as per the ancient Khmer horoscope reading come here New Year marks the official end of the harvest season in Cambodia and the commencement of the rainy season whereas like other celebrations in Cambodia the command New Year involves practicing the best of rituals and traditions whereas the holiday includes three days

of Celebration with their own names and Associated traditions and whereas MOA sankran is the first day of the New Year celebration and the inauguration of the Khmer New Year on this day each member of a family has to work hard in cleaning and decorating the house arranging food and drinks on the table for welcoming the angels and whereas on the second day of the Khmer New Year signifies a day of

donating gifts to the Elders of the family which includes parents grandparents offering money food and clothes to the less privileged and whereas the third and the final day of the Khmer New Year is about bidding farewell to the year gone by and welcoming a new year with new hopes people celebrate this day by performing PC strong para a ritualistic ceremony of washing and cleaning the Lord Buddha's

statue with scented water and whereas the Khmer New Year or child Chim Dame falls on April 14th to 16th in 2023 therefore I Paul Coogan mayor of the city Fall River through hereby Proclaim April 14th to the 16th now as the Khmer New Year in the city of Fall River and we urge all citizens and residents to join us in this very solemn celebration witnessed by me today Paul Coogan the mayor of Fall River

and I do want to congratulate our entire Cambodian families in Fall River for all of their contributions to our city and all they've done to make Fall River a better place to live and welcome and let's get on with the ceremony and to that end it's very special for me to introduce a close friend of mine long time friend of mine Sophia hunt president of the Cambodian community

okay huh oh thank you go ahead um hello everyone thank you for being here I just want to say good afternoon everyone my name is Sophie Han so oh so honor to see such a beautiful face today to be here for our community I'm gonna talk a little bit longer this year um please take a minute to silent to all the family that pass away including modern world who passed away to call it

he's one of Cambodia leader before me and please take a moment to silence thank you okay first thing I want to say thank you Mr Mayor always be here I remember when I first in middle school I see his smiley face every morning I walked in and he made my day thank you okay and also um thank you for all his admissions that they helped to make the days better for Cambodia flag race every year very

important to us that we get opportunities to put up a place and um

I want to say thank you to all the instruments that be here volunteer that time and all the parents for the dance group we not just practice dancing we practice our instrument and I want to say thank you for the crew time is and also I want to say thank you for all my amazing team that volunteer I want to say Thank you Pam from Fred TV I love you and Linda

and Jim Hans will be first of all Mr Jim where are you oh yeah I want to say uh Jim was the first man tall that I saw on the airport when he picked me up and 1986 when I first talked to arrived to America don't laugh okay I saw snow my first time in my life I thought I was in heaven you know why I never see snow

so Jim picked me up and my family at the airport brought her to Forever 1986.

February 27 2086 I was here and I'm here okay and also we so grateful that there's an agency named Pico a Portugal agency they give us an opportunity to have a camera community and help us help my community and they a mission helping out put the camera reflect at the other City Hall scene okay but um our own marriage used to be John Mitchell and his mission okay and also want to say I was

by then we don't have Temple so I went to church every Sunday I learned Church teaching us forgive forget love cheer and cheer and volunteering this is one of my big heart I love to volunteer and I want to say I love forever I want to say thank you everyone for being here okay thank you so much what's up man thank you so much I I do want to say one thing about what

Sophie said that's the first time in my life that anyone ever told me when they see snow they think of Heaven because we have about 10 other words we usually use when we see it and Heaven never came to mind so thank you Sophie thank you thank you mayor Coogan thank you Sophia uh Fall River is very vibrant uh in part because of uh a woman like volunteers like sopia has tired

tirelessly uh donated her time to help the community to bring awareness to bring diversity to our community so congratulations for all your hard work and thank you so much for all the supporters for being here because uh it encourages us to really uh to Value volunteer work you know uh it certainly takes a special person and Sophia is that a special person so I myself live in Providence Rhode Island and I wish

that our community can be Community can be as just as vibrant as diverse uh next person I'd like to acknowledge is uh Linda Pereira city council uh please uh come up and provide a little bit of a speech thank you so much I usually have a pretty loud voice so microphones don't get in my way um I met Sophia back in early 1990. I was on the council when man Mitchell was our mayor and Sophia

interned with me as she was headed to college I've always been impressed by all that she does how we in Fall River are blessed with so many different ethnic groups I'm so happy to see the monks here today and the music the dance the traditions we are certainly a Melting Pot in this community and thank you all for being here and it's my honor and pleasure to be here to raise the flag and help to

celebrate with my Cambodian Community thank you all very much uh just uh just to move things along and just to translate to our older senior folks here uh she's very happy Linda Pereira uhnang uh um

next person is a Reverend Jim Hornsby Reverend Jim Hornsby is a reverend of Saint Lucas Episcopal Church certainly uh please come up and uh

yes please come over here yes you have the podium don't be shy I'm shy too pleasure to be here uh I am Jim Hornsby and I am with soda so come on I am the director of St Louis church and many years ago along with Church of the Ascension we welcome the first family in August of 1979. am I right yes and today I learned today that one of the original family and his wife whose

ancestors were in the original family have come to visit this ceremony from New York and it is my pleasure and it went to monsign and his wife Sue when they stay and Son came in the first group and he lived with the Rector of Church of the Ascension for some time and now is a now has a store in Elmhurst New York in New York City near New York city so thank you

very much and I greet all of you and wish you a good Passover a happy Easter and a great New Year

uh thank you so much uh Reverend Jim Hornsby uh Twain uh for what church is

Buddhist temple in Cranston Rhode Island but I'm with you oh man

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okay so I'm gonna provide a really really quick translation it's a a lot of uh things to catch a lot of phrases to catch but uh he wanted uh he started off with uh paying homage to the Buddha respects to the venerable monks who are here uh certainly uh thanking our mayor and also our councilwoman for having him here to participate in this uh special occasion uh he feels honored having the

uh I've been invited here to join uh the function and he had also uh provided an introduction to another Monk who's uh came here on a visit uh in the first time to visit the United States and also he wishes everybody uh peace prosperity and happiness with the coming new years and uh because we are having celebrations both in Providence Rhode Island as well as Fall River he invites

everyone in the community who wishes to join the festivity police certainly join uh in on April 15th and 16th of this month and again he wishes everyone peace prosperity and happiness for the new year so thank you so much lucru um next is uh I'd like to introduce uh uh the chief Abbott of uh uh the uh Fall River uh Temple uh uh I I believe it's called Uh uh

and he's also the president of the Fall River uh in the Khmer Buddha Society in Fall River Massachusetts so uh the chief Abbott safai chit uh please uh uh come and uh

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lady and gentlemen Mr major City councilor a fire department police department today I join here to rest the Cambodian flag a week before the Cambodian New Year celebration yeah a happy I would like to thank you to Mr major officer all in the forever that always taking care of the people in the Fall River we are excited yeah appreciate it thank you thank you so much especially happy family New Year uh

uh thank you so much um basically he also invites uh venerable uh Supply team or chief Abbott supply chain would like to invite everyone to join in the festivities also at his Temple which is the udham Buddhist temple so obviously uh you know we we have a additional uh speakers uh the next person is so from the south Coastal Counties Legal Services Fall River Massachusetts uh please come up to the podium yep

thank you um this Legal Services through sccls um thank you so much okay okay um um

thank you so much wishing you guys all the very best with everything um May good health success happiness and prosperity be with everyone thank you so much uh thank you so much uh she made some announcements uh that uh uh kind of advertising uh the services legal services for our community uh in Fall River uh anybody who needs Legal Services counseling immigration issues uh certainly that uh she provides uh the

organization provides a very important role uh certainly reach out to her uh next is uh uh princess Bomba is she here okay okay she's uh the director of the unity and diversity so if he's here please come up to the podium if not we'll uh skip over to the next uh speaker okay okay so uh next individual is she's our dance instructor she's a very pivotal in training our youth she volunteers her time uh teaching passing

on the tradition and culture to the future generation to continue on her Legacy all right um

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uh thank you so much Mrs romian essentially she introduced herself what her role here in the community is and essentially she teaches a younger generation dance she's a dance instructor and also she provides the services in terms of dressing up uh people with the ethnic attire costumes as you see a few individuals walking down here that's uh that's her work so she makes sure that they're dolled up

dressed up and looks very professional in their attire uh next is uh Mr Peter Tom who he is the dancer instructor and master of the Arts Peter uh

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so uh thank you uh Peter uh he's just happy to be here and uh joining the festivities and he welcomes everyone uh uh in celebration of our raising uh ceremony as well as the new year uh the next individual that I'd like to introduce is uh Jenny Solomon she's the founder and director of the cultural Society so she has some announcements to make so uh welcome and uh I'll try and say after she speaks

thank you so much so much great so honored to be here to speak to you all cultural society is a non-profit organization we have actually um going to be responsible organizing an aapi Heritage Month in May next month so I I understand that the Cambodia Society will be performing for us on May 15th and um after I speak I will be giving out some of the Flyers um and a brochure about our activities

we're going to be holding like a AAP heritage month for three weekends um May 6 May 13th and May 20th for all of you to come this encampa encompasses all the Asian groups um On The Run umbrella of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in Rhode Island and our vicinity so I hope that everybody will join us next month and celebrate our heritage and um and and all the things that we encompasses under aapi

uh thank you so uh so much Jenny Solomon um

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do you want to pass this out yeah yeah okay so the next individual is a a person who's uh uh popular on social media he works hard uh and uh uh always uh makes it very entertaining and uh a good friend of mine who I recently uh got to know in the past couple years so uh without further Ado Mr Vandy Chun uh he is the dance director of mass abstract dance group so welcome foreign

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Whitney my boss he's his also uh uh and uh Steve Smallwood uh travel they are from my workplace and they're here thank you for you guys coming to all you guys um well I just say Thank you Mr Coogan Linda Pereira um everyone here actually the cameraman and uh and uh forever news right I'm I dare say right thank you for coming here to support us foreign

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