Khmer New Year

The Khmer celebrate their new year’s day on Friday April the 14th. Everyone takes off from the 13th thru the 17th and some take off more, up to two weeks! These people know how to have national holidays since there are 25 recognized days each year! The kicker is that they are not paid holidays. So you can take off, but without pay. Since everything will be shut down, we will travel to Vietnam this weekend to check on the boat project and chaperone those amazing ladies I wrote about earlier. Gail and I attended a Khmer New Years celebration party put on by the Cambodian Dental Association last night. As always, it was an interesting event with Karaoke, but I restrained Gail to not perform!

An interesting thing about their new year is the way it affects each persons birthday. Everyone has a birthday but you do not actually change your age until the next New Year comes around. That brings up a strange thing for Gail and I since her birthday is April the 13th and mine is April the 15th! She will be turning 49 this Thursday but will not change her age until the next day on the 14th, the first day of their new year. My birthday, being on the 15th, means that I will not change my age to the “BIG 50” for another 364 days! So Gail and I will be 49 together for the entire next 12 months! Neat huh? So Paula, you don’t have to worry about missing my big party this year after all. We will, however, be able to celebrate your big one when we see you in the fall! You know what they say, “When in Rome, Do as the Romans do”!