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By
: Ann Creevey, Picture by : Nathan Dexter.
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Chuon Sok Chan, 16, creates a
vase. She hopes her hobby will one day allow her
to travel Cambodia.
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Pottery
is a way of life in Kampong Chhnang province.
Chhnang in Khmer means pot, and trundling oxcarts
along roads all over the country carry pottery from
the province to markets as far away as Poi Pet on
the Thai border.
But the pottery that is traditionally made here
is fired over wood fires, and is good only for use
as cooking pots, water containers or to hold fires.
Recently, a different sort of pottery has started
to come out of the province. Fired in kilns and
made for decoration as much as function, this new
pottery is sold as far away as the United States.
The Cambodian Craft Cooperation (CCC), a German
funded non-government organization, began to change
the way local people made pottery in 1997.
"Traditionally, Cambodians here have fired
the pots over a low, uneven heat, meaning they are
brittle," explained Chea Sophon, who works
with the NGO Prasac (Program de Rehabilitation et
d'Appui au Secteur Agricole du Cambodge) in the
province. |
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Prasac oversees
the program at a local level in co-operation with CCC.
Khmer pottery was once famous throughout the region. Pottery
dating back to Angkorean times (around the 12th century)
was sophisticated and of high quality.
Pottery fragments from the Kampong Chhnang area have been
found and dated back as far as 5000 years.
But for reasons that are not really clear, as the empire
declined, so did the ancient craft of pottery.
By the 1960's, Cambodian pottery had become almost purely
functional and basic. When the Khmer Rouge came to power
in 1975, they banned the making of pots altogether in
Kampong Chhnang.
"No one made pottery during that time. People forgot
how, or those that knew died," Mr Sophon said.
"Afterwards, a few people started making pots again
from memory, but they were not such good quality." |
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The CCC
decided that teaching local people a few new designs
and basic pottery techniques like how to fire a
pot in a kiln was a good, sustainable way of greatly
increasing local incomes for very little outlay.
At first, none of the locals wanted to volunteer
for the new course. They were suspicious of new
ways of doing something as basic as pottery and
couldn't see how these foreigners were going to
raise the price of an average pot from the 10 cents
or 500 riel it brought then.
Only 15 women could be found to apply for the first
course. In Cambodia, pottery is a job done by women.
Yeay On was one of them. Now she works from her
Andong Russei village home, churning out pot after
pot of all sizes and shapes. Andong Russei is about
seven kilometers from Kampong Chhnang town down
a rough dirt road. Kampong Chhnang town is nearly
100 kilometers north of the capital, Phnom Penh.
Now 64, the old lady says she is too old to be working
in the rice fields.
"Even this is hard work, but it is better,"
she grinned. A timber sign in English says "Pottery
Shop 100 m", and points the way to her house.
The workshop is the area underneath it. Pots dry
in the sun all
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Grandmother On makes pottery
that will be sold as far away as the United
States in a little workshop underneath her
house.
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around the yard.
She makes pottery the traditionally way, walking around
and around the lump of clay and beating it into the shape
required with a flat stick, and the modern way, on a potter's
wheel.
She fires her work in a kiln, which makes it much stronger
and more durable.
"These ones here are for a 'middleman'. He has ordered
them to sell in America," she said, pointing out
some smaller pieces with fitting lids. "But they
often want so many that I have to get others to help so
I can finish the order in time."
The middleman will buy these for 50 cents each already
much more than she could sell a cooking pot finished over
a wood fire.
Down the road, a little shed with chicken wire walls in
the middle of a rice paddy is a hive of activity. Half
a dozen girls are in their second semester of the CCC
course, busily turning out a new style of vase under the
watchful eye of their teacher.
"The courses are three months each. They do four
hours per day, three times a week and they can learn for
a total of nine months before they complete a full course,"
said Mr Sophon.
"We took the first group to Phnom Penh but it is
better to train them in their home village. Everything
is here now. They don't have to leave." |
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Porttery Shop Here
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After 16-year-old
Chuon Sok Chan finished her first three-month course,
she began making pottery in her spare time to sell.
She has sold a few pieces already, and she is keen
to learn more styles and designs to widen her market
so she was quick to enroll for her second semester.
For a small fee, students can continue to use the
CCC kiln and equipment for personal projects.
"The (potter's) wheel makes it easy. I can
make 10 pieces a day when I'm not busy helping out
in the family rice field," she said.
Like most girls in the province, she left school
young. School is expensive and the average local
wage is only one or two dollars a day. Instead of
just helping out on the farm until she marries,
she now has a hobby she loves that can potentially
earn the family valuable income. |
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One of the conditions
of entry to the course is that the family is not already
involved in traditional pottery making, as that might
make them less adaptable to new methods.
"My family used to make pottery, but they stopped
because they didn't believe there was any money in it,"
Miss Chan said.
But a large vase made with the new methods she learned
at the CCC training center can sell for $10.
"My sister Chuon Sok Cheat is 13. She is still at
school and some of my money goes towards her schooling,"
she said.
She is also teaching her sister some of the basics of
pottery so they can work together in the future.
Seeing the success of people like Grandmother On and Miss
Chan, more and more people from the province have realized
the benefits of the newer methods in improving their incomes.
From just 15 people willing to participate in the first
course, the CCC had 60 applications for the last course
they advertised.
There have been spin-off industries that have grown out
of the program, too. Local carpenters quickly learned
to make the potter's wheels, which sell for about $65
each.
But the main benefit is that local people are relearning
methods lost long ago and using them to improve their
lives.
"This pottery is sold in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh.
It brings much better prices and rich people in Phnom
Penh and tourists want to buy it to make their homes beautiful.
People see how successful the graduates of the CCC course
are and they want to learn, too," Mr Sophon said.
Now her work goes to places she has never dreamed of,
like Siem Reap and even America, Miss Chan has begun to
wonder about the world outside of Andong Russei village.
"I have never left here. I would like to. One day,
I would like to go to Siem Reap very much," she said.
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