by Carl L. Bankston III
The Kingdom of Cambodia is a country of about 8,000,000 people, approximately the size of the state of Missouri, located in Southeast Asia. It is bordered on the west and northwest by Thailand, on the north by Laos, on the east by Vietnam, and on the south by the Gulf of Thailand. The climate is tropical, with monsoon rains from May to October and a dry season from December to March. There is little variation in temperature, which is hot most of the year. There are mountains in the southwest and north, but most of the country consists of low, flat plains. Three-quarters of the land is covered with forests and woodland, and much of the land is cultivated with rice paddies. Cambodia has few roads and bridges, and many of the existing roads and bridges are in poor condition due to years of war and political upheaval. Aside from rice, the main crop, Cambodia also produces rubber and corn.
The Cambodian people and their language are also known as "Khmer." About 90 percent of the people in Cambodia are ethnic Cambodians, or Khmer; five percent are Vietnamese; one percent are Chinese; and four percent belong to other ethnic groups, including the Cham who are predominantly Muslims and who migrated from Vietnam long ago. Most Cambodians are wet-rice farmers. Eighty percent of them live in the countryside and practice subsistence farming. It is estimated that about 48 percent of Cambodian men and about 22 percent of Cambodian women can read and write. Cambodia is an overwhelmingly Buddhist country; 95 percent of the population practices Theravada Buddhism, the type of Buddhism found in many of the countries in southern Asia. Other faiths include Roman Catholicism, Islam, animism, and Mahayana Buddhism— the type of Buddhism found most often in northern Asia. The flag of Cambodia contains two horizontal blue stripes divided by a wider, red stripe in the middle. In the center of the red stripe is a white temple, representing the main temple of Angkor Wat, the capital city of the Khmer empire from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries.
Before 1975 almost no people of Cambodian ancestry lived in the United States. The 150,000 Cambodians who immigrated by 1990 settled in the United States as a result of the tragic events in their native country in which the United States was deeply involved. Because Cambodian Americans are such a new part of America, to know something of their history is especially important in order to appreciate their culture and their unique situation.
Cambodia is an ancient country with a long history that has been a source of pride and pain to the Cambodian people. The Cambodians probably lived originally in western China, but they migrated down the Mekong River valley into Indochina sometime before the common era. In Indochina, they came into contact with the highly developed civilization and culture of ancient India. From India, they took the religions of Hinduism and Buddhism and the idea of state organization as well as the concept of kingship. These religious and political ideas became the basis of the early state of Funan (second to fifth centuries) whose territory encompassed present day Cambodia and the southern part of southern Vietnam. Funan's port city of Oc Eo received traders coming from India and China. Funan was also well known for the irrigation and drainage canals that crisscrossed its land.
The greatest period in Cambodian history was the Angkor period, named after a huge complex of religious and public monuments. Funan's two capital cities, Angkor Wat (City-Temple) and Angkor Thom (Great City), were the most spectacular of these monuments. Most scholars date the Angkor period as having lasted from about 802—when its founder declared the independence of Cambodia and conferred on himself the title of God-King (Deva-Raja)—to about 1431 A.D. During much of this time, Cambodia, or "Kambuja-Desa," as it is called in old inscriptions, was the most powerful kingdom in Southeast Asia, governing great expanses of territory that are now part of Thailand and southern Vietnam, as well as the land that constitutes Cambodia today.
By the end of the Angkor era, the kingdom of Kambuja-Desa came under increased pressure from the Siamese (Thai) on the west and the Vietnamese on the east. The ability of the royal bureaucracy to manage the complex irrigation system may also have weakened. Gradually, the center of the kingdom shifted from Angkor to Phnom Penh, today's capital city. Trade had become more important for the Cambodians, and Phnom Penh was located where the Mekong River and the Tonle Sap come together, an easier location from which to control trade with Laos and China.
From the 1400s on, the Cambodians lost territory to both the Siamese and the Vietnamese. By the 1800s, Cambodia had fallen almost entirely under the control of Vietnam and Siam, and Cambodia was sealed off from the outside influences that were beginning to affect other Southeast Asian countries. In 1864, Cambodia became a French protectorate.
King Norodom, the King of Cambodia at the time the French established control, appears to have seen French protection as a way of keeping his neighbors at bay and perhaps also as a help in defeating the numerous revolts against him by his own subjects. France gradually tightened its control over Cambodian political life, though. After Norodom died in 1904, the French made his half-brother, Sisowath, the king instead of Norodom's son, whom the French considered too independent. French officials also hand picked and placed in office the two kings who followed Sisowath.
While there was a steady growth of Cambodian nationalism, the country remained at peace through the early part of the twentieth century. When World War II broke out and France was occupied by Germany, the French remained in control in Indochina, with the agreement of Germany's allies in Asia, the Japanese. In 1941, Monivong, the king who had followed Sisowath, died, and the French made Monivong's grandson, Norodom Sihanouk, king. Sihanouk was only 19 years of age at the time. Although he was highly intelligent, artistically talented, and apparently sincere in wanting to be a good ruler, Sihanouk had had no training for the throne and relied heavily on his French advisors in the early years of his rule.
Sihanouk was to dominate Cambodian history for most of the half century following his coronation. He also developed from a protégé of the French into a determined, if cautious, adherent to the cause of Cambodian independence. The occupation of Japanese troops over Southeast Asia provided many Asian colonies with evidence that the European colonists could be defeated. Anti-French feelings intensified in Cambodia when the French attempted, in the 1940s, to replace the traditional writing system with a system based on the letters used by Europeans. In 1945, Japanese troops disarmed the French colonial forces in Cambodia. At their instigation, Sihanouk declared Cambodian independence from France on March 12, 1945.
The French reestablished themselves in Cambodia after the defeat of Japan, but their power had been seriously weakened. Nationalist feelings continued to grow stronger in Cambodia. In France, some young Cambodian students, influenced by the French Communist Party, began to formulate ideas that combined extreme nationalism with Communist ideology. Three of these students were to become the most important leaders of the Khmer Rouge: Saloth Sar, later known as Pol Pot, Khieu Samphan, and Ieng Sary. All nationalists looked back to the time of Angkor Wat as a symbol and ideal of Cambodian greatness.
By 1953, the war in neighboring Vietnam was becoming a problem for the French, exacerbated by its momentous unpopularity in France. Cambodian resistance and the prospect of fighting another full-scale war in Cambodia led France to grant Cambodia independence on November 9, 1953, while retaining much control over its economy. In 1954, after the French had failed to reimpose their rule on Vietnam, delegates to the Geneva Conference agreed that elections would be held in all three of the countries of Indochina. In order to participate in the elections, Sihanouk abdicated his throne in 1955 in favor of his father, and assumed the highest office in the country as its Prime Minister.
Sihanouk managed to keep his country neutral during many of the long years of war that raged in Vietnam and Laos. He was, at the same time, intolerant of Cambodian leftists, whom he labeled the "Khmer Rouge," or "Red Khmer." Many of these leftists fled into the countryside.
The United States became involved in Southeast Asia to preserve a non-Communist regime in South Vietnam. In Laos, Cambodia's northern neighbor, there was an extension of the Vietnam war in the 1960s, in the form of an armed conflict between Pathet Lao forces allied with North Vietnam and the Royal Government of Laos which was pro-American. The policies of Prince Sihanouk were primarily aimed at keeping Cambodia out of these wars and, until about 1970, he was largely successful. His constant attempts to play the different sides in the Vietnam conflict against each other, though, resulted in hostility toward him by the pro-American governments of Thailand and South Vietnam and in a suspicious attitude toward him on the part of the Americans. By 1966, Sihanouk had forged a secret alliance with North Vietnam because he felt certain that the Vietnamese Communists would win the war and because the North Vietnamese agreed, under the treaty, to respect the borders of Cambodia, to leave Cambodian civilians alone, and to avoid conflicts with the Cambodian army.
War in the surrounding countries undermined the economy of Cambodia and threatened to spill across the border. Prince Sihanouk blamed the United States for engineering the 1963 coup against the Vietnamese government that resulted in the killing of its leaders. He subsequently refused all forms of American assistance and severed diplomatic relations with the United States. With regard to Vietnamese communists, in a secret treaty, Sihanouk agreed to allow them to station troops inside Cambodia, along the border with south Vietnam, and to receive weapons brought from China and North Vietnam through the port of Sihanoukville. South Vietnam and the United States were greatly concerned about the presence of Vietnamese communist troops in Cambodia and the facilities reserved to them by the government of Cambodia. In a secret move, the United States ordered a carpet bombing of Vietnamese communist sites in Cambodia that caused untold sufferings for the Cambodian population living in these areas.
In 1970, apparently with American support, General Lon Nol staged a coup while Prince Sihanouk was on his way to France for health reasons. As the United States welcomed a more cooperative Cambodian regime, the Vietnam War had finally overtaken Cambodia. In May of 1970, American and South Vietnamese forces invaded eastern Cambodia, driving the Vietnamese communist forces farther into the country.
Out of power, Sihanouk joined forces with the Khmer leftists whom he formerly persecuted. Having the prince on their side gave the Khmer Rouge an enormous advantage in drawing support from the peasants, many of whom still regarded Sihanouk as an almost divine figure. At the same time, American aerial bombing in the Cambodian countryside, directed against both the North Vietnamese and the Khmer Rouge, caused enormous disruption of the traditional society. In the first half of 1973, before the U.S. Congress prohibited further bombing in Cambodia, American planes dropped over 100,000 tons of bombs on the country.
It is difficult to say to what extent the extreme radicalism of the Khmer Rouge was due to the bombing, or to far-left Maoist ideas developed by Khmer Rouge leaders as students in France, or to the carrying out of these ideas by generally very young and uneducated peasant soldiers. However, the Khmer Rouge appears to have already been uncompromising and brutal in the areas it controlled even before it took control of the whole country. In April of 1975, with the United States having pulled its troops out of Vietnam and Saigon about to fall to the Vietnamese Communists, the Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh.
Cambodia became an experiment in revolutionary social change known as Democratic Kampuchea (D.K.). In order to create a completely new society in which everyone would be equal, the Khmer Rouge, under the leadership of Pol Pot, ordered everyone, including the elderly and sick, out of the cities and towns of Cambodia and into the countryside. Family life, all traces of individualism, and all attachments to old institutions, including religion, were abolished. A new calendar for a new era was invented, with 1975 renamed "Year Zero." All Cambodians were put to work at agricultural labor in order to build up the agricultural surplus of the nation to finance rapid industrialization. In effect, these uncompromising ideals turned the entire country into a collection of forced labor camps: soldiers whose young lives had consisted mainly of bitter warfare acted as armed guards.
Estimates of the number of people who died under Pol Pot's Democratic Kampuchea regime vary from one million to two million. The number of people actually executed by the Khmer Rouge is unknowable. How many people died of starvation and poor living conditions, some of which may have been the after-effects of war and U.S. bombing, also remains uncounted. Still, the period from 1975 to 1979 was traumatic for all Cambodians. Cambodians in the United States and elsewhere tell of seeing close friends and family members being killed by the Khmer Rouge and of enduring great suffering.
Democratic Kampuchea, in addition to espousing an extreme form of socialism, was also committed to extreme nationalism. The Khmer Rouge wanted to recreate the greatness of the Angkor period, which meant retaking the areas that had become parts of Vietnam and Thailand. Border skirmishes between Cambodian and Vietnamese forces led Vietnam to invade Cambodia on Christmas Day in 1978, and by early January the Vietnamese held Phnom Penh. In the chaos of war, the rice crop went untended and thousands of Cambodians, starving and freed from the Khmer Rouge labor camps, began crossing the border into Thailand. Television cameras brought the images of these refugees into the homes of Americans and other westerners, and immigration from Cambodia to the United States began as a response to the "Cambodian refugee crisis."
Under pressure from the United States and other anti-communist and anti-Vietnamese nations, Vietnamese troops pulled out of Cambodia in 1989, leaving behind the Cambodian government they had created—the People's Republic of Kampuchea. In the meantime, with the help of anti-Vietnamese governments, a Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea was formed with the participation of forces loyal to the now infamous Khmer Rouge and to the Khmer People National Liberation Front. In 1991 all Cambodian parties signed the Paris Peace treaty, which called for United Nations Transitional Authorities in Cambodia to prepare the country for a general election. In 1993 the elected representatives voted to form a coalition government composed of the two political parties that had garnered the most votes. They also decided to reestablish the monarchy with Sihanouk as king and head of state. The Khmer Rouge refused to take part in this election and continued to oppose the new government.
Large numbers of refugees from Cambodia have come to the United States only since 1979, when the U.S. refugee program began accepting Cambodians from refugee camps in Thailand. Most of these arrived in the early 1980s. Of the 118,823 foreign-born Cambodians identified by the 1990 Census in the United States, only 16,880 (or about 14 percent) had arrived before 1980. As thousands of refugees from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia began to come into the United States each year, the United States developed organizational procedures for resettlement. Voluntary agencies (or VOLAGS), many of which were affiliated with American churches, had been set up by 1975 to assist the first wave of Vietnamese refugees. These agencies had the task of finding sponsors, individuals, or groups who would assume financial and personal responsibility for refugee families for up to two years. By the early 1980s, refugee camps had been set up in various countries throughout Southeast Asia. Most Cambodians stayed in refugee camps in Thailand, but many who were being prepared for resettlement in the United States were sent to camps in the Philippines or elsewhere. Agencies under contract to the U.S. Department of State organized classes to teach English to familiarize refugees with American language and culture. In 1980 and 1981, 34,107 Cambodians entered the United States. From 1982 to 1984, the influx continued, with 36,082 Cambodians entering the United States. After that time, the numbers began to diminish. In 1985 and 1986, 19,921 Cambodians reached American soil, and from 1987 to 1990, only 11,843 Cambodians were admitted. By the early 1990s, prospects of a political settlement in Cambodia removed much of the perceived urgency of accepting Cambodian refugees, and immigration from Cambodia to the United States decreased to very small numbers.
The 1990 U.S. Census found almost 150,000 Cambodian Americans in the United States, although those active in working with Cambodian immigrants warn that the Census may have undercounted this group, since the Cambodians are so new to American society and many may not have responded to the Census. The largest concentration of Cambodian Americans is in California, where close to 70,000, or nearly half of the people of Cambodian ethnicity, appear to have settled. The largest Cambodian community was Long Beach, California, where over 17,000, according to Census, made their home. Again, however, Cambodian American spokespersons maintain that these estimates are dramatically low and that the actual number of Cambodian Americans was probably closer to twice that many. Nearby Los Angeles also had a significant population of Cambodians of at least 4,250. Stockton, California, had the second largest Cambodian community, numbering at least 10,000. Outside of California, the greatest number of Cambodian Americans were found in Massachusetts, where over 14,000 lived. About half of the Massachusetts Cambodians lived in the city of Lowell. Other states with large Cambodian populations include Texas (at least 6,000), Pennsylvania (at least 5,500, located mostly in Philadelphia), Virginia (at least 4,000), New York (at least 4,000, over two-thirds of whom lived in New York City), Minnesota (at least 4,000), and Illinois (over 3,000). Despite their large numbers, Cambodian Americans remained very
Cambodian Americans are members of one of the youngest ethnic groups in American society. According to the 1990 Census, the median age of people of Cambodian ancestry in the United States was only 19.4, compared to 34.1 for other Americans. Almost half of the Cambodian Americans counted in that Census year were under 18 years of age. About 42 percent of these Cambodian Americans below the age of 18 were born in the United States; most of the others arrived between 1980 and 1986.
Cambodian Americans also live in larger families than other Americans. The average number of people in their families was 5.03, compared to an average of 3.06 in white American families and 3.48 in black American families. Both the youth of Cambodian Americans and their large families indicate that, small though their numbers are, they will continue to grow as a proportion of American society.
Adjusting to American society has been difficult for most Cambodians, who come from rural areas and have few relevant job skills and little familiarity with mainstream American culture. One of the difficulties has been the problem of differences between generations, between older people who see themselves as Cambodians and sometimes speak little,
Cambodian Americans won the sympathy of many Americans in 1979 and in the early 1980s, when the plight of Cambodian refugees in Thailand became world news. Since their arrival in the United States, though, some unfortunate stereo-types of Cambodians have developed. Because Cambodian culture places a high value on courtesy and avoidance of direct confrontation, other Americans sometimes stereotype them as passive. Among older Cambodian Americans some of this appearance of passivity results from their unfamiliarity with the larger American society or with the English language.
Music is important to traditional Cambodian culture, and Cambodian Americans put a great deal of effort into maintaining this link with their heritage. Traditional music ensembles perform in almost all large Cambodian communities in the United States. There are six types of music ensembles, but the type known as areak ka is considered the most traditional and is used for popular religious ceremonies and wedding ceremonies. The instruments used in the areak ka ensemble are a three-stringed fiddle, a type of monochord, a long-necked lute, and goblet-drums. Other instruments that may be found in Cambodian ensembles include a quadruple-reed oboe, several types of gongs, a large barrel drum, a flute, a two-stringed fiddle, a three-stringed zither, hammered dulcimers, cymbals, and the xylophone. Cambodian music may sound somewhat strange at first to those who are unfamiliar with Asian music.
The best known Cambodian dance is called the "masked dance," because the dancers wear the masks of the characters they portray. The masked dance always tells the story of the Ramayana, an epic that the Cambodians took from ancient India. All parts in the masked dance, even those of women, are played by men. Cambodian classical ballet, or "court dance," on the other hand, has traditionally been danced by women, although men have been entering classical ballet since the 1950s. There are a number of Cambodian dancers in the United States, and the art of dance is also beginning to revive in Cambodia. Bringing this part of the culture back to life, however, is difficult, since an estimated 90 percent of all trained dancers died during the Khmer Rouge regime.
Linguist Karen Fisher-Nguyen has observed that proverbs in Cambodia before 1975 were so important a means of educating the young that they could be found in almost all of the teaching materials of the public schools, and that studying proverbs was actually a part of the school curriculum. Many Cambodian Americans continue to treasure their proverbs as expressions of the traditional wisdom of their people. The sayings below reflect many of their values and ideals: The new rice stalk stands erect; the old stalk, full of grain, leans over; Travel on a river by following its bends, live in a country by following its customs; The small boat should not try to be a big boat; Don't let an angry man wash your dishes; don't let a hungry man guard your rice; Drop by drop, the vessel will fill; pour it, and everything will spill; Men have words—elephants have tusks; If you don't take your wife's advice, you'll have no rice seed next year; Don't rush to dump your rain water when you hear the sound of thunder; Losing money is better than wasting words; If you are an egg, don't bang against a rock; Gain knowledge by study, wealth by work.
For three days in mid-April, Cambodians observe Chaul Chnam, the solar New Year, which is the most important and most common Cambodian holiday. Many parties and dances are held during these three days, and traditional Cambodian music is usually heard. The game of bos chhoung remains a popular New Year's tradition among Cambodians in the United States. In this game, young men and women stand facing each other, about five feet apart. A young man takes a scarf rolled into a ball and throws it at a young woman in whom he is interested. She must catch the scarf, and if she misses it, she must sing and dance for him. If she catches the scarf, she will throw it back to him. If he misses it, he must sing and dance. For Buddhist Cambodians, the New Year Festival is an important time to visit the temple to pray, meditate, and plan for the coming year. The Water Festival, held in November when the flooding has stopped and the water starts to flow out of the great lake into the river again, is celebrated in both Cambodia and the United States. It usually involves boat races and colorful, lighted floats sailing down the river.
In addition to the health problems faced by other poor groups in the United States, Cambodian Americans face special mental and physical health problems resulting from their tragic recent history. Almost all lived under the extreme brutality of the Khmer Rouge regime that ruled the country from 1975 to 1979, and their native country has been in a state of war both before and since that time. Most Cambodian refugees also spent time living in refugee camps in Thailand or other Southeast Asian countries. Health professionals and others who work with Cambodian Americans often note that these experiences have left Cambodians with a sense of powerlessness that affects many, even in America. Physical ailments often result from the emotional anguish they have suffered and continue to suffer. Among those who have been resettled in Western countries, there has appeared a strange malady often referred to as the "Pol Pot syndrome," after the leader of the Khmer Rouge. The "Pol Pot syndrome" includes insomnia, difficulty in breathing, loss of appetite, and pains in various parts of the body.
The stress that has led to such illnesses often tends to create a low general level of health for Cambodian Americans. In the entry on "Khmer" in Refugees in the United States: A Reference Handbook, May M. Ebihara reports that 84 percent of Cambodian households in California have reported that at least one household member was under the care of a medical doctor, compared to 45 percent of Vietnamese households and 24 percent of Hmong and Lao households. The syndrome known as "post traumatic stress disorder," a type of delayed reaction to extreme emotional stress that has been found to affect many Vietnam veterans, is also common among Cambodian refugees in the United States.
Traditional Cambodian healers, known as krou Khmer, may be found in many Cambodian American communities. Some of the techniques used by these healers are massages, "coining," and treatment with herbal medicines. "Coining," or koh khchal, is a method of using a copper coin dipped in tiger balm to apply pressure to acupuncture points of the body. Many Western doctors believe that this actually can be an effective means of pain relief. Coining does leave bruise marks, however, and these can alarm medical personnel and others not familiar with this practice.
Cambodian, or Khmer, is classified by linguists as an Austro-Asiatic language, related to Mon—a language spoken in Burma and western Thailand—and various tribal languages of Southeast Asia. Although many major Asian languages are tonal languages, Cambodian is not tonal: as in the European languages, tones of voice may indicate emotion, but they do not change the meanings of words. The Cambodian alphabet, which has 47 letters, is derived from the alphabet of ancient India, and it is similar to the Thai and Laotian alphabets, as the Thai and Lao people borrowed their systems of writing from the Cambodians.
Cambodian has many sounds that are quite different from those of English, and these are represented by the letters of the Cambodian alphabet. Linguists usually use a phonetic alphabet to write these sounds in the characters used by English and other European languages, but the phrases below are written in a fashion that should provide nonspecialist speakers of American English with a fairly close approximation to their actual pronunciation: Som Chumreap Sur —Good Day; Loak sohk suh-bye jeeuh tay? —Are you well, sir?; Loak-srey sohk suh-bye jeeuh tay? —Are you well, madame?; Baht, knyom sohk suh-bye jeeuh tay —I'm fine (from a man); Jah, knyom sohk suh-bye jeeuh tay —I'm fine (from a woman); Som Aw Kun —Thank-you; Sohm toh —Excuse me, or I'm sorry; Meun uh-wye tay —Don't mention it, or you're welcome; Teuh nah? —Where are you going?; Niyeh piesah anglay bahn tay? —Can you speak English?; Sdap bahn tay —Do you understand?; Sdap bahn —I understand; Sdap meun bahn —I don't understand; Som Chumreap Lea —Goodbye.
Much of the early literature of Cambodia is written in Sanscrit and known by modern scholars primarily from inscriptions on temples and other public buildings. Classical Cambodian literature is based on Indian models, and the Reamker, a Cambodian version of the Indian poem the Ramayana, is probably the most important piece of classical Cambodian literature. The Reamker is still known by Cambodians today. In the years before 1975, episodes from this poem were often acted out by dancers in the royal court or by villagers in village festivals. A collection of aphorisms, known as the Chbab (or "laws"), exists in both written and oral literature. Until recently, children were required to memorize the Chbab in school. Similar to the Chbab are the Kotilok (or "Art of Good Conduct"), which are fables designed to teach moral lessons.
European literary forms, such as novels, had taken root in Cambodia by the 1970s, but almost no literature was produced under the Khmer Rouge, and many intellectuals were killed during the Khmer Rouge regime. Since 1979, suffering under the Khmer Rouge has been a major theme in Cambodian literature, both in Cambodia and abroad. Among Cambodian Americans, also, the urge to bear witness to the horrors of the years from 1975 to 1979 has inspired many to write, and as a result, the autobiography is the most commonly employed literary form. Many of these Cambodian American authors have taken coauthors, but some have mastered English sufficiently to write solely authored works.
The family is extremely important to Cambodian Americans, in part because so many of them lost family members in their previous countries. They tend to have very large families. Children—especially young children—are treasured, and parents treat them with a great deal of affection. Despite the importance of family for Cambodian Americans, they have relatively high numbers of households headed by a single, female parent; in 1990 about 20 percent of Cambodian American households were headed by women, a factor that contributes to their poverty. This high proportion of female-headed households does not appear to be primarily the result of divorce, but rather of the fact that women outnumber men in the Cambodian population, due to years of war.
In Cambodia, men are responsible for providing for their families. Only men can occupy the prestigious status of the Buddhist monk. They also receive formal education, whereas Cambodian women are trained certain tasks in the home. Contrary to other Asian cultures, the Cambodian woman occupies a key position in the household. Generally, the wife budgets the family assets, and cares for the children. She is highly regarded by the men in her own family and by Cambodian society at large. In the refugee camps, many Cambodian women had their first taste of formal education. In the United States, young Cambodian American women are pursuing their educations in large numbers, and they have often become important as breadwinners for their families.
Traditional Cambodian wedding ceremonies are still held by Cambodian Americans, and even members of other ethnic groups who have married Cambodians have celebrated these ceremonies. Although in Cambodia marriages are often arranged by the parents, it is becoming common for Cambodian American young people to choose their own partners. The bride in a Cambodian wedding wears a sampot, an ornate brocade wrap-skirt. She also wears many bracelets, anklets, and necklaces. Grooms sometimes wear the traditional kben (baggy pantaloons) and jacket, but western-style suits are becoming common.
A procession will bring gifts of food and drink to the bride's home. At the beginning of the wedding, the couple sits at a table covered with flowers, fruit, candles, and sometimes with a sword to chase evil spirits away. Friends and relatives take turns standing up in front of the crowd to talk about the new couple. A Buddhist monk cuts a lock of hair from the bride and the groom and mixes the two locks together in a bowl to symbolize the sharing of their lives. Gifts, frequently in the form of envelopes with money in them, are offered to the couple by the guests. At the end of the wedding, the couple goes through the ritual known as ptem, in which knots are tied in a white string bracelet to represent the elders' blessing.
Because Cambodian Americans have settled most often in urban areas, they have frequent contact with disadvantaged members of other minority groups. Often these encounters are troubled by cultural misunderstandings and by the social problems frequently found in poor communities. In some areas where there are large Cambodian communities, Cambodian youth gangs have developed, in part as a matter of self-protection. Older Cambodians often see that they have much in common with their poor Asian, black, and Hispanic neighbors and will frequently distinguish these areas of "poor people" from the comfortable middle-class neighborhoods of "the Americans." Most Cambodian Americans are fairly dark-skinned and they are acutely aware of prejudice in America. They sometimes internalize this prejudice and express feelings of inadequacy because of it.
It has been noted that Cambodian Americans in Texas have frequent contacts with Mexicans or Mexican Americans, and that the members of the two ethnic groups accommodate one another easily. Cambodians may frequently be found as participants in Mexican American weekend markets. Many Cambodians in Texas have learned Spanish and follow Mexican customs in interacting with their Spanish-speaking peers.
Buddhism is the traditional religion of Cambodia. Before 1975, the ruler of the country was the official protector of the religion and the monks were organized into a hierarchy overseen by the government. Monasteries and temples were found in all villages, and monks played an important role in the education of children and in passing on Cambodian culture. The people also supported their local monasteries, through gifts and by giving food to monks. Monks were forbidden to handle money and had to show humility by begging for their food. Every morning, the monks would go from house to house, with their eyes downcast, holding out their begging bowls into which the lay people would spoon rice. Although the religion was attacked by the radical Khmer Rouge during their regime and many monks were killed, the vast majority of Cambodians remain Buddhists and the faith remains an important part of the national culture.
Buddhism in India is divided into two schools of thought. The "Northern School," known as Mahayana Buddhism, is found most often in China, Japan, Tibet, Korea, and Vietnam. The "Southern School," called Theravada (or Hinayana) Buddhism, predominates in Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, and Sri Lanka. Theravada Buddhists stress the importance of becoming a monk and achieving Nirvana, a state in which there is no self or rebirth, through one's own efforts. Mahayana Buddhists lay more emphasis on help from Bodhisattvas, enlightened beings who have delayed achieving Nirvana in order to help others become enlightened.
Fundamental to the Buddhist doctrine are the Four Noble Truths: (1) Existence inevitably leads to unhappiness which follows from the impermanence and disintegration of all living elements; (2) Unhappiness is caused by desire inherent in human nature; desire causes man to become attached to the impermanent; (3) Unhappiness can be avoided by the crushing of desire; and (4) Desire can be crushed by strict adherence to a prescribed moral path. In Buddhism all worldly things are considered changing and impermanent. Those who are not aware of the impermanent nature of the world become attached to worldly things, and this leads to suffering. The suffering will continue as the soul goes through a cycle of rebirths, continually drawn back to worldly desires. Meditation and a moral, disciplined life can enable a believer to overcome desires. The soul that successfully overcomes all desires may reach Nirvana.
The law of Karma ( Kam in the Cambodian language) controls life and rebirth. This law may be seen as a kind of spiritual accounting; good deeds, or "merit," help the soul to be reborn in better circumstances and to earn rewards in the present life; bad deeds cause the soul to be reborn in worse circumstances and can bring about bad luck. For these reasons, "making merit" is a central part of religion for Cambodians. Cambodian Buddhists see making merit as more than simply piling up spiritual credits by performing good works. Correct behavior and merit-making activities such as attending religious ceremonies or donating money to temples and food to monks are seen as upholding the order of the universe. These beliefs have often led Cambodians to wonder if the sufferings of their people might be due to some collective fault of the nation.
Some Cambodian Americans have converted to Christianity, either in the refugee camps, or after arriving in the United States. Often these conversions have been the result of spiritual crises brought about by the tragedies of recent Cambodian history. In many cases, people felt that Buddhism had somehow failed because of the death and destruction that had occurred in their country. In other cases, Christianity has seemed attractive because it is the religion of the majority of Americans, and conversion has seemed a good way to conform to American society and to express gratitude to the religious organizations that played an important part in resettling refugees in the United States.
The majority of Cambodian Americans, however, continue the practice of their traditional religion. As more of them have settled in this country, and as they have established their own communities, observing their religious rituals has become easier. In 1979, there were only three Cambodian temples in the United States. By the early 1990s, more than 50 of these temples had been established in Cambodian communities throughout the United States. Even in those communities in which no temples exist, living around other Cambodian Americans has made it possible for Buddhists to observe their rites in private homes or in community halls and other meeting places. Monasteries, or places where Buddhist monks live, are usually attached to the temples, or places of worship, and the monks are in charge of the temples and the religious rituals held in them. Most American Buddhist temples are in houses or apartments, but there are some more traditionally styled temples, such as the large temple-monastery complex in Maryland.
Adapting to the American economy has been difficult for many people of Cambodian ancestry in the United States. Most of them were farmers in their previous country, and in the United States they have generally been settled in cities. They have high rates of unemployment and the jobs found by
Cambodian Americans are, for the most part, a poor group. According to the 1990 U.S. Census, 42 percent of the families of Cambodian ethnicity were living below the poverty level and 51 percent of all Cambodian households rely on public assistance income. The median household income of Cambodian Americans in 1990 was only $18,837, compared to $30,056 for Americans in general. Cambodian Americans have a high rate of unemployment: About ten percent of those in the labor force in 1990 were unemployed. This high rate of unemployment is largely a result of having arrived in this country so recently. If rates of unemployment are examined by years of arrival, it is clear that the longer Cambodian Americans have been in the United States, the higher the probability they will be employed. Nearly 17 percent of Cambodians in the labor force who arrived in the United States between 1987 and 1990 were unemployed in 1990. Among those who arrived in 1985 or 1986, though, only about 12 percent were unemployed. Among Cambodians who arrived between 1982 and 1984, the percentage of unemployed in the labor force dropped to 11 percent. Only about nine percent of those who arrived in 1980 and 1981 and only about seven percent of those who arrived before 1980 were unemployed. These figures provide evidence for a trait noticed by many familiar with Cambodians in the United States: their eagerness to find work, even low-paying work, as soon as they have acquired sufficient language skills and familiarity with American society.
Lack of formal education is a serious handicap for Cambodian Americans. Census statistics show that about 53 percent of Cambodian American men have a sixth grade education or less and 90 percent have less than 12 years of schooling. Women are faced with even more serious difficulties, since 66 percent of them have sixth grade educations or less and 95 percent have completed less than 12 years of schooling. Even when Cambodian Americans are from highly educated backgrounds, however, they often find that their educations are not relevant to the American workplace, and they are handicapped by their language skills. Author Someth May, for example, worked before the publication of his book as a janitor, despite his elite background in his home country. Regardless of the limited educations of their parents, however, Cambodian American young people often do quite well in school and show themselves dedicated to acquiring more education. Only about six percent of Cambodian Americans between the ages of 16 and 19 are high-school dropouts, compared to about ten percent of white Americans and about 14 percent of African Americans in the same age group.
Most Cambodian Americans are concerned with questions of survival in the new country. They are not actively involved in U.S. politics but remain keenly interested in the reconstruction of their native country. Some Cambodian American organizations, such as the Cambodian Network Council, contribute to the rebuilding of Cambodia by sending trained Cambodian Americans and others to Cambodia as volunteers.
Im Proum is a prominent linguist who taught at Cornell University. There he coauthored several of the standard texts on the Cambodian language with Dr. Franklin Huffmann. Sam Ang-Sam is a scholar, musician, and activist. He studied music at the University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh and afterward continued his studies in the United States, where he received a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University. He served on the faculty at the University of Washington in Seattle until becoming director of the Cambodian Network Council in Washington, D.C. He travels around the world performing and teaching about Cambodian music. Chinary Ung is a scholar and musician who teaches about Cambodian culture at Arizona State University. As a musician, Dr. Ung specializes in playing the Cambodian xylophone.
Maha Ghosananda is a Buddhist monk who lives in the United States but frequently travels to Cambodia. Founder and director of the Khmer Society of New England, he is one of the world's most prominent peace activists and has organized two marches for peace in Cambodia. He has also been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Vora Kanthoul is an authority on contemporary Cambodian issues and an influential figure in the Cambodian American community. He is executive director of the United Cambodian Community and teaches comparative world cultures at Long Beach City College. He studied in France, Russia, and Taiwan, and earned a Cambodian law degree in Phnom Penh and a Master's degree in political science from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. From 1973 to 1975 he served in the Cambodian Foreign Service. In 1983 he served as minister and counselor of Cambodia's permanent mission to the United Nations.
Haing Ngor is among the most famous Cambodian Americans, best known for his Oscar-winning portrayal of the Cambodian interpreter and journalist Dith Pran in the film, The Killing Fields. Born in rural Cambodia, he worked his way through medical school and became an obstetrician and surgeon in Phnom Penh. After the Khmer Rouge takeover in 1975, his family was killed by their execution squads. He escaped to Thailand in 1979 and came to the United States in 1980. Aside from a successful acting career, he headed six organizations devoted to caring for Southeast Asian refugees and resettling them in the West. In 1996 he was murdered outside his home in Los Angeles, California.
Dith Pran, the subject of the film The Killing Fields, worked as an assistant and interpreter for New York Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg in Cambodia. When Pran's family escaped from Cambodia on the eve of the Khmer Rouge takeover in 1975, Pran stayed behind to help save Schanberg and other journalists from execution. While Western journalists were able to leave, Pran was trapped in Cambodia. In 1979 he escaped to Thailand, where he reunited with Sydney Schanberg. In the United States he has continued work as a photographer and journalist. His book of interviews with Khmer Rouge survivors entitled Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors, was published in 1997.
Angkor Borei News.
Cambodian community newspaper in English.
Contact: Mr. Diep Ly, Manager.
Address: 2565 East Chapman Avenue, Suite F, Fullerton, California 92631.
Telephone: (714) 773-5519.
Semi-annual journal that contains academic news of Thai, Laotian, and Cambodian studies.
Contact: Michael R. Rhum, Editor.
Address: Association for Asian Studies, Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Studies Group, Department of Anthropology, Northern Illinois University, Dekalb, Illinois 60115.
Telephone: (815) 753-8577.
Newsletter that discusses Buddhism and Cambodian culture and civilization. Text is primarily in Khmer but partly in English.
Address: Cambodian Buddhist Society, Inc., 13800 New Hampshire Avenue, Silver Spring, Maryland 20904.
Telephone: (301) 622-6544.
Cambodian Americans have formed a wide variety of organizations during the short time they have been a part of American society. Most of these exist to help newly arrived Cambodians adjust to American society, but they also provide information about Cambodian American culture, business, and other aspects of Cambodian life in this country.
Art of Apsara.
Encourages the development and exhibition of contemporary Cambodian art. Runs a gallery in Long Beach, open to the general public.
Contact: Mon Duch, Director.
Address: Suite 105, 2338 East Anaheim, Long Beach, California 90804.
Telephone: (310) 438-3932.
Serves Cambodian Americans in the Philadelphia area. Helps newly arrived Cambodians with problems in education and housing, assists in preserving Cambodian culture, acts as an advocate for the interests of Cambodian Americans.
Contact: Walter Chin, Director.
Address: 5412 North Fifth Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19121.
Telephone: (215) 324-4070.
Serves Cambodian Americans in the Santa Ana area. Offers English language training to Cambodian refugees, provides help in finding employment, gives classes in health education and parenting skills. Also offers programs for Cambodian American youth, including a gang prevention program, after-school classes, and Cambodian language classes.
Contact: Rivka Hirsch, Director.
Address: 1111 East Wakeham Avenue, D, Santa Ana, California 92705.
Telephone: (714) 542-2907.
Cambodian Network Council (CNC).
The primary national organization of Cambodians in the United States. This is an umbrella organization that seeks to facilitate communication among local Cambodian organizations, to help set up new local organizations, and to build coalitions. The CNC hosts an annual convention of Cambodian American associations. It also maintains a data bank of Cambodian American professionals and runs an international program sending volunteers to Cambodia to help in rebuilding the country.
Contact: Dr. Sam-Ang Sam.
Address: 713 D Street, Washington, D.C. 20036.
Telephone: (202) 546-9144.
Folsom Cordova School District.
Provides educational materials, such as bilingual texts for Cambodian Americans.
Contact: Ms. Judy Lewis.
Address: 2460 Cordova Lane, Rancho Cordova, California 95670.
Telephone: (916) 635-6815.
National Association for the Education and Advancement of Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese Americans (NAFEA).
Seeks to provide equal educational opportunities for and advance the rights of Indochinese Americans; encourage appreciation of Indochinese cultures, peoples, education, and language.
Contact: Ms. Ngoc Diep Nguyen, President.
Address: 1855 Mt. Prospect Road, Des Plaines, Illinois 60018.
Telephone: (708) 803-3112.
United Cambodian Council (UCC).
The largest Cambodian agency in the United States, the United Cambodian Council is located in Long Beach, the site of America's largest Cambodian community. Organized in 1977 by a group of Cambodian intellectuals to serve the needs of the Cambodians in Long Beach, the agency now helps anyone who needs its services. Although most of its clients are Southeast Asians, it assists low-income Americans of all ethnicities. In addition to the employment and language training generally offered by Cambodian service organizations, the UCC is a partner with St. Mary's Church in the Long Beach Southeast Asian Health Project, which provides a wide variety of health services and information.
Contact: Mr. Vora Kanthoul, Executive Director.
Address: 2338 East Anaheim, Suite 200, Long Beach, California 90804.
Telephone: (310) 433-2490.
Indochina Studies Program
Integral unit of Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California at Berkeley. Focuses on contemporary and historical Indochina, Vietnam, Cambodia (Kampuchea), and Laos.
Address: Institute of East Asian Studies, 2223 Fulton Street, Sixth Floor, Berkeley, California 94720.
Telephone: (510) 642-2809.
Fax: (510) 643-7062.
Cambodian Culture Since 1975: Homeland and Exile, edited by May M. Ebihara, Carol A. Mortland, and Judy Ledgerwood. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1994.
Chandler, David P. A History of Cambodia. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. 1992.
Criddle, Joan D., and Teeda Butt Mam. To Destroy You Is No Loss: The Odyssey of a Cambodian Family. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1987.
May, Someth. Cambodian Witness: The Autobiography of Someth May, edited by James Fenton. New York: Random House, 1987.
Scott, Joanna C. Indochina's Refugees: Oral Histories from Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, 1989.
Southeast Asian-American Communities, edited by Kali Tal. Woodbridge, Connecticut: Viet Nam Generation, 1992.


Some massive hands are propping up Venice because climate change.
Artist Lorenzo Quinn seeks to draw attention to human ingenuity — and the modern threat of climate change — with a giant statue unveiled this week, Mashable reports.
The hands, each weighing 5,000 pounds, are modeled on those of the artist’s 11-year-old son. They emerge from the Grand Canal to rest against one of Venice’s famous facades in a metaphorical gesture of support.
Over the last 50 years, rising water and subsiding land have both taken a toll on the low-lying Unesco World Heritage Site. Now, climate change threatens to raise seas around the world to disastrous levels, threatening coastal and island communities everywhere.
According to the artist’s press release, the hands “symbolize tools that can both destroy the world, but also have the capacity to save it.”
Look, if any one place can tidily sum up the power of human ingenuity in the face of enormous challenges, it’s Venice: a city built over 1,000 years ago on what is more or less a pile of mud.


Help us find out more about these amazing insects.
Not much is known about the species of butterfly and dragonfly found in Iraq. So, we are trying to collect more information by asking everyone to become scientists.
To join in all you have to do is take a photograph when you see a butterfly or a dragonfly and send them to us (firstname.lastname@example.org) or post them on Nature Iraq’s facebook page. Make sure you tell us where you saw it.
You will be able to see all the results on the map below.
Find out more about these amazing insects and the big hunt by downloading our leaflet (on the right).
The Darwin team would like to thank David Chelmick, Steve Cham, and the Norfolk Wildlife Trust (UK) for their help sourcing images used in the leaflet.
- IUCN Red list of the birds of Iraq
- Annotated checklist of Iraqi birds part II
- Annotated checklist of Iraqi birds part I
- Provisional IUCN Red List of endemic plants of Iraq
- Checklist of the flowering plants and ferns of Peramagroon
- Leaflet 'butterflies and dragonflies in Iraq' (Arabic)
- Leaflet 'butterflies and dragonflies in Iraq' (Kurdish)
- Leaflet 'butterflies and dragonflies in Iraq' (English)


How your workplace can affect employees' mental wellbeing
The recognition and acceptance of mental health and wellbeing is gaining momentum through the workplace.
Companies are becoming more aware of how psychological factors, work or non-work related, can have a significant effect on an individual’s mental state in the workplace, productivity and engagement.
Companies have a duty of care to ensure a psychologically and physically safe working environment for their employees, but there is also a growing demand for more positive and supportive workplace cultures.
Research conducted by Instinct and Reason, on behalf of Beyond Blue, found that “three-quarters of Australian employees say a mentally healthy workplace is important when looking for a job.”
Understanding psychosocial hazards in the workplace
In order to create a mentally healthy work environment, you need to know and address any potential psychological risks. Safe Work Australia refers to these as psychosocial hazards – mental and emotional stressors created when an employee doesn’t feel they have the ability or resources to cope with their job demands.
People with existing mental health conditions are not the only ones who are exposed to psychosocial hazards nor are they the only ones who respond to them. Psychosocial hazards affect anyone in an organisation.
They may be always present due to the nature of the job or work environment or they may occur from an event. Some employees may even be exposed to a combination of them.
As people react differently in certain situations, the susceptibility of exposure and harm can be very subjective and must be treated with great care and sensitivity.
From CEOs to graduates, everyone has the right to come to a positive work environment and feel they can express their views, concerns or hardships in a confidential and supportive manner.
Ignoring psychosocial hazards can have detrimental effects
If not addressed and identified properly, exposure to psychosocial hazards can lead to work-related stress, unplanned absences, staff turnover, poor work or poor product quality, and even long-term depression and anxiety.
Safe Work Australia highlights that each year 7,200 Australians are compensated for work-related mental health conditions, and approximately $543 million is paid in workers’ compensation for work-related mental health conditions.
Between 2010-11 and 2014-15, 91% of worker’s compensation claims involving a mental health condition were connected to work-related stress or mental stress. The top three causes were work pressure, work-related harassment and/or bullying and exposure to violence.
Achieving mental wellness takes an integrated approach
As mentioned in our previous article Mental wellness in the workplace identifying, managing and controlling psychosocial hazards can be done through the risk management process and incorporated into existing WHS/OHS procedures.
To truly sustain a mentally healthy workplace, however, takes an integrated and collaborative approach from people across all levels of an organisation.
Companies should implement mental health and wellbeing strategies and policies that are endorsed and promoted by senior management. It is important for leaders to commit to mental wellness initiatives and education, and even be good role models demonstrating their own healthy work habits and self-care.
It is also important for managers and supervisors to be effectively trained in discussing mental health and wellbeing with employees, and how to look out for, approach and support employees who may be struggling with work or non-work related stressors.
The key attributes of a mentally healthy workplace
Heads Up outlines some key attributes of a mentally healthy workplace:
- Prioritise mental health across all levels of employees
- Build a trusting, fair and respectful culture
- Demonstrate a commitment and shared purpose from leadership
- Match roles to employees’ skills and abilities
- Set reasonable workloads and timelines
- Encourage skills and career development
- Encourage work/life balance
- Be responsive and supportive to employees with mental health conditions
Not only can these practices and strategies help create a more positive workplace culture and reduce employee exposure to psychological risk, they can also assist those with existing mental health conditions feel more supported and accepted in the workplace.
Tips to keep you mentally well at work
If your organisation is still working on an effective mental health and wellbeing strategy or mental wellness is not a priority, there are still ways that you can contribute to a mentally healthy work environment.
- Increase your own knowledge, and your staff’s knowledge, about mental health and the support services available
- Educate yourself on how to effectively identify and support any team member who is struggling with their mental health
- Find out the most appropriate ways to have open and honest discussions with team members on mental wellbeing
- Lead by example – take regular breaks, leave on time and take care of yourself
- Take care of your health, both physical and mental
- Be aware of the signs and symptoms of work-related stress and mental health conditions and ask for support if needed
- Know what your legal rights are regarding mental health conditions in the workplace
- Provide support to colleagues especially if they don’t seem themselves
- Encourage your company to be proactive about mental wellbeing
Psychosocial hazards: causes & solutions
Below is a table of the common psychosocial hazards in the workplace as outlined by Safe Work Australia, and some possible causes and solutions.
Click here to download this table as a PDF to share with your managers and team members.
Click here to download a table of the common psychosocial hazards in the workplace as outlined by Safe Work Australia, and some possible causes and solutions.
|High job demands
Jobs that require continual high physical, mental or emotional effort
- Long work hours
- High workload
- Fast paced work or significant time pressure
- Long periods of alertness for irregular events (e.g. air traffic controllers)
- Shift work
- Monitor employee workloads
- Where possible, allow employees to self-manage their workloads
- Encourage employees to talk to their manager if they have any workload pressures
- Make sure workloads and tasks match employees’ abilities and experience
- Avoid letting employees move from one demanding project straight to another
|Low job demands
Jobs that require low physical, mental or emotional effort
- Little work to do
- Repetitive work
- Encourage employees to talk to their managers if they feel they don’t have enough work to do
- Allow employees to explore internal positions they might feel better qualified for
|Low job control
Jobs where the employee has little control over of how and when a job is done
- Machine or computer-paced work
- Tightly managed work
- Employees not involved in decisions affecting them or their clients
- Where possible, let employees set work-related goals, have a say in how their work is organised and when their breaks are taken
- Involve employees in the allocation of tasks and the establishment of objectives, timeframes and resources
- Communicate decisions with employees that might affect them in advance
Jobs or tasks where workers have little to no practical or emotional support
- Little to no inclusion or empathy from managers or co-workers for work or personal struggles
- No leave given for urgent personal matters or appointments
- Provided inadequate training and information to perform their job and tasks
- Provided inadequate tools and resources to complete tasks on time
- Provide opportunities, such as an employment assistance program, where employees can express their work concerns or personal issues
- Create a culture that encourages teamwork and collaboration, and discourages gossip
- Management should be approachable, visible in the workplace with an open-door policy
- Offer opportunities for training and mentoring to develop and enhance skill sets
- Provide flexible working arrangements and approve leave for personal matters
|Poor workplace relationships
Jobs where employees are physically or emotionally hurt, treated unfairly or work in a toxic company culture
- Workplace bullying, aggression or harassment, discrimination or unreasonable behaviour
- Poor relationships and/or conflict between an employee and their manager, supervisor or co-worker
- Lack of fairness and equity in the handling of organisational issues
- Poorly managed performance issues
- Treat all employees equally and allocate work responsibilities fairly
- Have clear and consistent procedures for dealing with complaints and inappropriate behaviour in a timely and confidential manner
- Ensure all employees have equal opportunity to respond to any allegations regarding issues of misconduct
- Make employees aware of other avenues to raise their concerns, like union representatives
|Low role clarity
Jobs where there is confusion or changes to the role
- Uncertainty about, or frequent changes to, tasks and work standards
- Important task information not available
- Being told conflicting expectations from different managers
- Make sure all employees have clear, adequately detailed and up-to-date job descriptions that clarify responsibilities and expectations
- Provide employee inductions and suitable training for each role
- Avoid giving roles that may cause conflict between an employee’s personal beliefs and professional demands
- Have clear reporting lines and avoid having employees reporting to more than one manager
|Poor organisational change management
Workplaces affected by major changes
- Lack of consideration of potential WHS/OHS issues and performance impacts during downsizing, relocation or introduction of new technology or procedures
- Lack of consultation, communication and support between key stakeholders and staff during transition times
- Inform and prepare staff in advance of any proposed major changes to their work environment, duties or responsibilities
- Provide adequate training and support before, during and after times of change
- Be honest and transparent in communications with staff, particularly regarding factors affecting the organisation such as re-structure or merger with another organisation
- Have strategies to support those who will lose their jobs and those who may feel insecure about their job future
|Low recognition and reward
Jobs where employee satisfaction or advancement is ignored
- Lack of positive feedback and informal recognition or reward
- No opportunity for skill development or career advancement
- Skills and experience are not used adequately
- Set realistic and agreed goals and deadlines, and provide the support and resources to achieve them
- Acknowledge and reward individual and team achievements, and celebrate organisational accomplishments and milestones
- Provide opportunities for learning, personal development and career advancement
- Provide positive and constructive advice in performance reviews and focus on skill development rather than failings
|Poor organisational justice
Unfair and biased work culture
- Policy and procedures are not followed consistently
- Unfairness or bias in decisions regarding who performs certain tasks or receives certain resources
- Poor management of those who are under-performing
- Recruit employees based on merit, person-job fit and competence, and promote employees based on performance
- Have a fair and transparent process for awarding salary increases and bonuses
- Engage employees in the development of policies and procedures that will affect them
|Poor environmental conditions
Jobs where there is exposure to poor quality or hazardous work environments
- Hazardous manual tasks
- Working near unsafe machinery
- Environmental factors such as poor air quality, high noise levels or extreme temperatures
- Ensure appropriate controls are implemented to reduce risks and ensure the safety of employees working on hazardous tasks
- Where possible, make sure work areas have enough lighting, are well-ventilated and are at a comfortable temperature
- For any work processes that release harmful substances, have controls in place to extract the substance at the source
|Remote & isolated work
Jobs where the work location is far from others, or where the employee is working alone or with a few other people
- Resources, communication and emergency assistance are difficult to access
- Travel times may be long
- Access to help from others may be difficult
- Job examples are farmers, real estate agents, nurses who conduct night visits, night shift workers for petrol stations or convenience stores and fly-in fly-out workers
- Make sure you are in regular communication with the employees
- Ensure employees have means of communication for emergencies
- Make sure employees have access to clean, safe and well-functioning facilities
- Manage fatigue particularly for those frequently travelling
- Where possible, give employees the option to reside in local communities
|Violent or traumatic events
A workplace incident where the employee has been exposed to or threatened with abuse or harm that has caused fear or distress
- Employees who have been robbed, assaulted, bitten, spat on, scratched, kicked or threatened with a weapon
- Job examples where this occurs regularly are first responders, disaster and emergency service workers and defence personnel
- Prepare workers, particularly police and emergency services roles, for the types of situations they may be exposed to
- Provide information, guidance and training on the impact of these potentially traumatic situations and how to respond to them with confidence and resilience
- Train leaders to have the confidence and skills to identify, and consult with, individuals who may be struggling
- Implement processes to monitor exposure to trauma, and consider screening employees for post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health difficulties
- Create a culture that removes any stigma towards mental health difficulties
|Secondary or vicarious trauma
Those who have witnessed a fatality or investigated an injury or fatality
- Employees who repeatedly listen to individuals’ detailed descriptions of traumatic and painful events
- Job examples of where this occurs are child protection workers, lawyers, police officers, journalists, custom officers


The job of a Nurse involves assisting patients, maintaining medical records and implementing nursing care. Nurses can specialize in a particular field after certification and may be called nurse practitioners, certified registered nurse anesthetists, certified nurse midwives, or clinical nurse specialists. Each type of nurse has a specific set of responsibilities.
Education/Experience Requirements A successful candidate must possess a certificate from a three-year nursing program or a bachelor’s degree in nursing. All three- to five-year programs include practical experience, scientific training and liberal arts courses. All nurses with a bachelor’s degree must obtain RN licensure from their respective states. Those who wish to become advanced-practice nurses must obtain a master’s degree in nursing (MSN).
Skills Effective written and verbal communication skills, interpersonal skills, excellent reading comprehension, good logistic reasoning and analytical skills, and the ability to tell whether something is wrong or might go wrong.
Specific work elements Depends largely on the type of education he/she obtained. Registered nurses (RN) work directly with patients and perform tasks such as patient evaluation, monitoring of IV placement and vital signs, administering medication and other day-to-day nursing care. Nurse practitioners perform tasks related to care giving, while head nurses or nurse supervisors handle the supervision of nursing activities in various settings. Licensed practical nurses (LPNs) provide patient care personally with minor problems, such as dressing wounds, treating bedsores, administering medications or starting IV fluids. Other types of nurses exist, such as home health nurses, nursing home nurses and nursing aides, among others.


Zircon U/Pb, feldspar common Pb, whole-rock Sm/Nd, and Rb/Sr data indicate that the fine-grained granodiorite (Z103) has yielded conclusive evidence for rocks of early Proterozoic age in the eastern Arabian Shield (21o19' N, 44o50' W). Z103 may have been emplaced approx 1630 m.y. ago and subsequently was severely deformed or perhaps even remobilized at approx 660 m.y. Furthermore, lead isotope data, along with other evidence, show that the 1630 m.y. crustal rocks inherited material from an older, probably Archaean, source at the time of their formation. At that time addition of mantle material considerably modified the Rb-Sr and Sm-Nd systems so that they now yield similar, or only slightly older apparent ages (1600-1800 m.y.).-L.diH.
Additional publication details
Geochronological and isotopic evidence for early Proterozoic crust in the eastern Arabian Shield.


For too long, too many in our country have turned a blind eye to racism in the hopes that it will simply go away.
We cannot continue to ignore this problem.
Racism is not just a person of color issue. It is everyone’s issue, which makes it everyone’s responsibility to actively work against it—today and every day.
Though we can’t be together, we challenge all members of the TCNJ community to confront and address racism and hate in your own community, the nation, and the world.
We challenge you to find opportunities to share in our common humanity, and treat each other with dignity and respect. These are just a few of the qualities that reflect the values of our strong TCNJ community. We demonstrate these values as a constant reminder that George Floyd’s life and all black lives matter.
In solidarity and with commitment,
Kathryn A. Foster
James A. Felton III
Vice President for Equity and Inclusion
Faculty & Staff of The Department of Art & Art History


Learn and Play Out – How to develop your Primary School's outside space
Do your children know how to grow potatoes, where to see a dragon-fly or how to fire a rocket?
Are you one of the 82% of teachers who thinks their school isn’t making as much use of their grounds as they should?
Do you know how to make the most of your outdoor teaching and learning spaces?
Learn and Play Out is an inspirational, accessible and pragmatic set of resources for making changes to Primary school playgrounds in order to provide high quality learning and play experiences. Drawing on Learning through Landscapes’ experience in working with thousands of primary schools, it provides practical support to improve the use, design and management of your outdoor area.
More schools are seeing the benefits of their pupils spending longer periods of their school day outside, with research showing that this improves attainment, behaviour, motivation and self-esteem. For many schools however, the environment of their grounds does not meet the needs of their pupils. This toolkit helps them assess what they already have, work through what their needs are, and inspires them to take the next steps forward to make physical and practical improvements to their grounds.


The online portal "Copernico. History and Cultural Heritage in Eastern Europe" is calling for submissions for the new topic in focus "Jewish Life in Eastern Europe – Past and Present".
Jewish Life in Eastern Europe in the Past and Present
On November 22, 1924, Joseph Roth published a feature on Lemberg (L'viv, Lwów, L'vov) in the Frankfurter Zeitung. In it, he describes multilingual Lemberg, often called the "city of blurred borders," where Jews were as much at home as Poles and Ukrainians. While this image is not free of nostalgic transfiguration, given the bloody battles between the Polish and Ukrainian populations and the November pogrom after the end of World War I, the reportage rightly emphasizes the strong presence of Jewish life in eastern Europe before the Holocaust: "Near the theater that demarcates the street at the lower end, people speak Yiddish. They always spoke that way in this area. They will probably never speak any other way."
As in Lviv, Jews were one of the largest populations in many places in Eastern Europe from the Middle Ages onward, shaping culture and education, politics and the economy. Their presence was also reflected in the cityscape, particularly in the form of the shtetl, but also in the existence of individual buildings, building complexes or streets with specifically 'Jewish' connotations.
The violent conflicts of the 20th century, the Holocaust against the European Jews, ethnic cleansing and forced population displacements almost erased the coexistence of different languages and religions that was once so characteristic of the whole of Eastern Europe. After 1945, there were tentative attempts by some Jewish survivors to re-establish Jewish life in their former places of residence. This was quite often ignored, openly rejected or dismissed by non-Jewish society as a mere transitional stage before emigration.
The Call for Papers asks for contributions dealing with the history of Jewish cultural heritage in Eastern Europe. Well-known phenomena in the history of religion and culture, such as the Jewish Enlightenment or Zionism, can be put into perspective, as well as lesser-known facets of everyday life or economic history. The following aspects would also be conceivable foci:
- Shtetls and metropolises: Jewish spaces
- Landscapes of memory and “lost places”
- “Divided” history: coexistence and encounters between Jews and non-Jews
- Jewish personalities and institutions
- Spiritual-religious life
- Everyday culture and family
- Exclusion and persecution
- Object histories: Judaica in space and time
- Difficult new beginnings: New Jewish life after 1945
Guidelines and formats
Proposals may cover a wide variety of formats and content, ranging from low-threshold introductory formats to in-depth background articles on specific issues. The maximum text length is 12,000 characters including spaces. Other text forms, for example for the introduction of historical personalities, for object stories or for selected historical sources can also be significantly shorter (4,000-6,000 characters).
Contributions longer than 10,000 characters are published in parallel on the Herder Institute's publication server and assigned a DOI. In addition, all contributions in the portal have a citation recommendation, permalinks and license reference. All contributions are published bilingually and translated into English (if required, contributions can also be submitted in English and translated into German). For each entry, at least one attractive, high-resolution illustration with caption and rights clearance is required. The submitted contributions will be proofread within the framework of an internal review process. All authors retain the rights to use their own texts. Further instructions for contributors, illustrations and keywords are available on the portal itself and on request at firstname.lastname@example.org.
The rules of good scientific practice apply.
Deadline and dates
Please send an abstract of max. 300 words with a short description of your planned contribution to email@example.com by 31 May, 2022. You will receive feedback by 30 June 2022, indicating whether your contribution has been accepted for the thematic focus. The deadline for the submission of finished contributions is 1 October, 2022.


Serman Nikolaus and Tomico Selviana
Types of food processed by soybeans consumed by the people of East Nusa Tenggara Province, including the people of South Central Timor Regency, are tempeh and tofu. Raw materials produced by fabrics operated in East Nusa Tenggara Province are mostly requested from outside the Province of East Nusa Tenggara, such as from Java, Bali and West Nusa Tenggara, even from outside Indonesia, namely from the United States. This problem is supportive as an irony because it requires the natural resources of East Nusa Tenggara to support the cultivation of potential plants. The objectives of this research are: (1) to study the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges of crop farming transferred by farmers in the study area, and (2) to support the strategies used to develop agricultural crops in the area. Research results obtained include (1) the strength of agricultural crops developed by farmers in South Amanatun; (2) weakness of soybean farming in the study area; (3) opportunities for agricultural food crops in the study area are high; and (4) threats made by farmers in soybean farming in the study area. Based on Mosher’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and theories in the development of agriculture above, the strategy was applied to develop soybean farming in the study area.
Keywords: development of soybean agriculture, soybean farming, strategy soybean farming
Full Text: PDF


In 1947, ETS's founders envisioned an organization devoted to educational research and assessment that could make fundamental contributions to the progress of education in the United States.
In K–12 assessment, recent innovations in both formative and summative assessments have been studied in the CBAL™ (Cognitively Based Assessments of, for, and as Learning) initiative with several states.
Policy Information Center Reports
ETS provides policy and research publications for students, parents, educators, researchers and policymakers.
Fault Lines in Our Democracy: Civic Knowledge, Voting Behavior, and Civic Engagement in the United States
This report shows that weak civic knowledge among young people is linked to less voting, less volunteering and greater distrust in government. This report calls for sustained efforts on the part of parents, the public, the educational system, and local and national leaders to address these fault lines in our democracy that threaten our nation's civic well-being.
ETS Research Spotlight (Issue 6): CBAL™ Results from Piloting Innovative K–12 Assessments
The sixth issue of ETS Research Spotlight focuses on a report highlighting our long-term Research & Development initiative — Cognitively Based Assessment of, for, and as Learning (CBAL)
State Pre-K Assessment Policies: Issues and Status
This report identifies and describes state-funded Pre-K assessment policies and programs operating in 2012 and discusses the special challenges related to assessing young children.
The Mission of the High School: A New Consensus of the Purposes of Public Education?
This report provides a perspective on a variety of issues that need to be addressed as the mission of the high school is being transformed to prepare all students for college and careers.
ETS Policy Notes — The Family: America's Smallest School
This issue of ETS Policy Notes provides highlights from the "Addressing Achievement Gaps" symposium held in Washington, D.C., on October 18, 2010.
ETS Policy Notes — A Look Inside the Fourth-Grade Reading Classroom
This issue of ETS Policy Notes provides an interesting and informative overview of some of the data collected for the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading assessment at the fourth-grade level.
ETS Policy Notes — After the Bell Rings: Learning Outside of the Classroom and Its Relationship to Student Academic Achievement
This issue of ETS Policy Notes provides highlights from the "Addressing Achievement Gaps" symposium held in Washington, D.C. on October 5 and 6, 2009.
This publication from ETS's Research & Development team presents research in nontechnical language for educators and administrators.
Each issue highlights a particular area of research relevant to K–12 educators and discusses how it affects the field of education and offers possible real-world applications.
Some of our topics are:
- Why Bother with Research When We Have Common Sense?
by B. Bridgeman
R&D Connections No. 20
- Formative Assessment – Supporting Students' Learning
by C. Wylie & C. Lyon
R&D Connections No. 19
- Dropping Out of High School: Prevalence, Risk Factors, and Remediation Strategies
by J. Burrus & R. D. Roberts
R&D Connections No. 18
- Setting Standards on The Praxis Series® Tests: A Multistate Approach
by R. J. Tannenbaum
R&D Connections No. 17
- Why Do Standardized Testing Programs Report Scaled Scores?
by X. Tan & R. Michel
R&D Connections No. 16
- Can Speech Technology Improve Assessment and Learning?
by I. I. Bejar
R&D Connections No. 15
- The Case for a Comprehensive, Four-Skills Assessment of English-Language Proficiency
by D. E. Powers
R&D Connections No. 14
- Constructed-Response Scoring — Doing it Right
by C. A. McClellan
R&D Connections No. 13
- Leveling the Field on Math and Science Tests for Students with Learning Disabilities
by E. Stone and L. Cook
R&D Connections No. 12
- Constructed-Response Test Questions: Why We Use Them; How We Score Them
by S. A. Livingston
R&D Connections No. 11
- Measuring Learning Outcomes in Higher Education
by O. L. Liu
R&D Connections No. 10
- What Does It Mean to Repurpose a Test?
by C. Wendler and D. Powers
R&D Connections No. 9
- Ensuring Valid Content Tests for English-language Learners
by J. W. Young
R&D Connections No. 8
- Standard Setting: What Is It? Why Is It Important?
by I. I. Bejar
R&D Connections No. 7
- The Practice of Comparing Scores on Different Tests
by N. J. Dorans
R&D Connections No. 6
- Is Test Score Reliability Necessary?
by M. E. Walker
R&D Connections No. 5
- The Facts About Subscores
by W. Monaghan
R&D Connections No. 4
- The Case for Noncognitive Assessments
by P. Kyllonen
R&D Connections No. 3
- E-rater® as a Quality Control on Human Scores
By W. Monaghan and B. Bridgeman
R&D Connections No. 2
- Testing and Time Limits
By B. Bridgeman, A. McBride, and W. Monaghan
R&D Connections No. 1
ETS works closely with states and the consortia to bring technological innovations to K–12 assessment.
ETS has assisted the NAEP program in introducing numerous psychometric and assessment design innovations over the years.
Explore the big ideas in educational assessment. Sign up for K–12 Trends and Innovations, our new enewsletter at our ETS Email Preference Center.


How the weather affects farmers in Morbihan
The weather conditions have always had a significant impact on local agriculture and the town of Baud is no exception. Local farmers face challenges related to climatic variations, whether it be excessive rainfall or prolonged drought. Find out in this article the impacts that weather conditions can have on agriculture in Baud, Morbihan.
The consequences of heavy rains on vegetable crops
Heavy rains affect vegetable production in theWest of the FranceThis is particularly true in the Morbihan department. They cause many problems, particularly when the rainfall is too violent, vegetables lie on the ground and the flowers are damaged. The water can also gully and erode the soil on embankments and paths. In recent days, the average temperature has dropped with high humidity and low air pressure. The wind is blowing at around 10 km per hour with gusts, causing damage to crops weakened by the weather. To maintain stable production and ensure sustainable food supply despite the climatic challenges, local farmers need to find solutions.
Why is low sunlight harmful to plant growth?
Because the soil is soaked with water, the roots are saturated and the plants cannot absorb the nutrients they need for growth. In addition, the lack of sunlight or even cloud cover during this period limits photosynthesis (essential for vegetable growth). In other words, waterlogged soil and low sunlight is detrimental to the growth of plants, especially vegetables. To overcome this problem, several cultivation techniques are possible, such as pot cultivation, raised bed cultivation and hydroponics.
However, it depends on the geographical location of each farmer. For example, it rains less in the north of Morbihan than in the south in the afternoon. Whereas around Baud, there is a cumulus of higher rainfall.
The impact of excessive sunlight on cereal crops
When temperatures are too high, vegetables and fruit become weak and vulnerable. Since there is not enough water, the crops die and do not grow. Whether it is cloudy or sunny days, climatic hazards have a major impact on grain production. In the face of these challenges, farmers must be well prepared by following proper crop management techniques. They must refer to the weather conditions and find an effective solution adapted to the changing environment. At MorbihanRainfall is low and the year has summer marked by a severe drought. This had an impact on the quality of the crops. The covered sky has not summer sufficient to compensate for the lack of rain. Some farmers' production has fallen by up to 30 %.
Stay informed about the weather forecast
All the farmers should regularly monitor the weather forecast to act immediately in case of bad weather.
Weather Lorient Morbihan France
This afternoon, the weather is very cloudy in Lorient. There is no precipitation and temperatures are between 15 and 17 °C. The wind from the west-southwest is fairly light at about 11 km/ h with gusts. Around 5pm, the sky is still cloudy.
Weather in the sky Pontivy Morbihan France
This afternoon, the sky is very overcast in Pontivy. No precipitation and temperatures between 12 and 19°C. The weather for the next 15 days in Pontivy will be spread out with some sunny spells, showers and rain. During the next 15 days, the wind will blow at 18 km / H and the gusts will reach 35 km/h. Sunrise is at 07:00 and sunset is at 21:00.


Let's consider an extreme example to explain how this works: a financial institution wants to place six PostgreSQL nodes, one witness server, and a backup system. This would clearly be a silly design, as shown in the following diagram:
This places every node in a single location that could lose its connection to the internet, lose power, or suffer some other catastrophe that would render the entire database stack unusable or even destroyed.
Now, let's apply the guidelines. First of all, we want to protect the backup; let's place that elsewhere, as seen in this following diagram:
Now, one PostgreSQL server and the backup are ...


Autism Spectrum Disorder Background
Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) are pervasive development disorders that are characterized by impairment in language and socialization as well as restricted and repetitive behaviors. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the prevalence among eight year olds is approximately 1%.
The CDC notes that the average age of diagnosis is 4.5 years, yet age of first concern is 19 months. Early diagnosis leads to early treatment – and early treatment is believed to yield better outcomes. Today, ASDs are diagnosed using a variety of assessments that combine direct patient observation and medical history. ASD diagnosis is often made by developmental pediatricians and other specialists after careful assessment using criteria spelled out in DSM-IV. In larger developmental medicine centers, children are often seen by a team of experts including developmental pediatricians, speech and hearing specialists, neurologists, psychologists, psychiatrists and occupational therapists.
Gene Expression Approach
Altered RNA expression between ASD and normal individuals using RNA samples derived from peripheral blood was first proposed in 2006 by Valerie Hu. Using lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) established from peripheral blood leukocytes available through the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange (AGRE), Hu and her colleagues identified gene expression signatures that differentiate between ASD and normal twins, between affected and unaffected sibling pairs, and among individuals with different idiopathic ASD diagnoses and unaffected relatives. Similarly, Geschwind and colleagues showed shared and altered expression signatures from different forms of autism involving known chromosomal copy number imbalances using LCL RNA from the AGRE collection.
In gene expression studies using RNA derived from whole blood and natural killer (NK) cells isolated from whole blood, researchers at the Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders (M.I.N.D.) Institute at UC Davis have demonstrated gene expression changes between normal and autistic children. Most recently, Kohane, Kunkel and colleagues from Children's Hospital Boston have undertaken a large gene expression study comprising 400 ASD cases and controls and have identified a signature that has robust classification accuracy.
These data suggest that differential expression of certain genes in blood cells may form the basis for an ASD biomarker. All studies conducted to date have been research studies to distinguish typical development from autism spectrum disorders.
SynapDx is working to further investigate the ability of an RNA-based blood test to differentiate between patients referred for developmental concern to a specialty center. The goal is to successfully distinguish between patients with ASDs versus those with other developmental disorders using gene expression in a prospective clinical study. Additional research will be conducted before this test will become widely available.


Let’s get one thing straight: The seminal Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung was not an anti-Semite–no, sorry, Carl Jung was definitely an anti-Semite. Or—wait. Which is it?
Let’s look at the facts.
One camp avows that Jung was a true-blue anti-Semite, and there’s plenty to back that up. In 1934, while in Germany, Jung published an article that included this statement: “The Aryan unconscious has a greater potential than the Jewish unconscious.” Though Jung said he maintained close friendships with German Jews throughout the 1930s, he appeared to not mind working for the Nazi-established Goring Institute of Psychology, as well as serving as president of the Nazi-dominated International General Society for Psychotherapy. “The Jew,” he once wrote, “…has never yet created a cultural form of his own and as far as we can see never will.”
Sounds pretty bad. At least until 1948, where Jung says the opposite: “I have never been a Nazi sympathizer and I never have been anti-Semitic…my friendly relations with a large group of Jewish colleagues…disproves the charge.”
In the (altered) words of Jung’s friend Sigmund Freud: “Sometimes an anti-Semite is just an anti-Semite.” So: Is he or isn’t he?


Bromhidrosis: Symptoms, Causes, Types, Do's, Don'ts, Yoga, Ayurvedic Reference and Treatment : Complete Ayurveda Details
Bromhidrosis is one of the most common body odor related condition. It is foul smelling of body associated with sweat. Normally perspiration do not cause any foul odor. Sweat, when combines with bacteria on the skin, it may produce a bad odor. Bromhidrosis can be prevented or treated by adopting better hygienic measures as well as by the intake of Ayurvedic medicines. Even though primarily it may cause only perceptional difficulties, if left untreated, it may lead to many complications like skin allergies, erythema etc.
Bromhidrosis can be taken as “Dourgandhya” according to Ayurveda. It is a condition caused by the aggravation of Pitta dosha. Pitta dosha in turn is aggravated by the use of hot and slimy food items, excessive anger, hot weather conditions etc. Ayurveda teachers have mentioned various treatment measures which can reduce Pitta dosha and thereby get rid of the condition “Dourgandhya”.
IAFA have also developed various medications to treat Bromhidrosis. Based on Ayurveda samhithas (classical textbooks), we have developed natural friendly soaps and shampoos which can help in improving this condition.
Causes of Bromhidrosis - Dourgandhya
- Non-hygienic lifestyle
- Anomalies in the function of sweat glands
- Other systemic diseases and
Ayurvedic reference of Bromhidrosis - Dourgandhya
Types of Bromhidrosis - Dourgandhya
It is mainly 2 types
- Due to lifestyle
- Due to errors in sweat gland function
In the body we have mainly 2 types of sweat glands. 1- Apocrine sweat glands and 2- Eccrine sweat glands.
The above mentioned types of sweat glands can lead to abnormal body odor, apocrine gland is predominantly responsible for bromhidrosis. Apocrine glands are located mainly under the arms as well as in the breast and groin areas. When apocrine gland releases sweat, it is colorless and odorless. Bacterias in the body break down dried sweat to give the foul smell and will lead to this condition. Eccrine glands are present all over the body and the same mechanism occurs when bacterias affects the released sweat from the eccrine glands.
Symptoms of Bromhidrosis - Dourgandhya
- Foul body odor
- Excessive sweating
- Sweating associated with itching
- Discoloration in sweat
Diagnosis of Bromhidrosis - Dourgandhya
Bromhidrosis is diagnosed on the basis of symptoms. It is easy to diagnose the condition based on the body odor.
Bromhidrosis, as mentioned earlier, is one of the commonest conditions occurring to the people living in hot weather environments. Foul body odor can lead to mental irritability as well as discomfort. The treatment aspects of the condition is based on severity. In some cases preventive measures itself are enough to get rid of the condition.
Bromhidrosis can be easily cured through numerous effective medicinal preparations developed by Institute of Applied Food Allergy®. IAFA is one of the most trustable and committed institutions in making the world a better place through its original and holistic approach. Dr. Gupta’s IAFA is providing very effective treatment for Bromhidrosis based on various research and studies.
Reach IAFA and get the real benefits!
– Dr. Sahil Gupta (B.A.M.S., M.H.A.)
Ayurvedic Allergy Specialist
CEO & Founder of IAFAⓇ
Diet Management in Bromhidrosis - Dourgandhya
Do's (Pathya) in Bromhidrosis
- Maintaining hygiene
- Food having room temperature ( not extremely hot or not extremely cold)
- Hearing melodies
- Spending time in nature
- Doing Yoga
Don'ts (Apathya) in Bromhidrosis
- Unhygienic lifestyle
- Anger and stress
- Hot food items
- Spicy foods
Yoga procedures for the management of Bromhidrosis - Dourgandhya
The expert physicians from IAFA have also discovered the utility of Yoga procedures in the ailments of Bromhidrosis. By doing Pranayama and asanas like
- Padmasana and
- Vajrasana on a daily basis, we can control Pitta as well as Sveda dushya which in turn benefits in this condition.
Ayurvedic Management of Bromhidrosis - Dourgandhya
The main treatment protocol for the alleviation of bromhidrosis condition is reduction of Pitta dosha as well as maintaining a healthy lifestyle. IAFA have also additionally developed numerous methods based on the knowledge provided by the Acharyas in samhithas like Ashtanga Hrudayam and Charaka Samhitha.
The treatment procedures includes
- Purgation with milk and grape juice
- Cleansing with Triphala
- Applying Ksheerabala oil on head.
Ayurveda medicines for Bromhidrosis - Dourgandhya
- Chandanadi taila
- Yashti Triphala churna
- Chandrakala rasa
- Nisosheeradi kashaya
- Saptamrit loha
- Sarivadi vati
- Padmakadi kashayam
Single medicinal herbs used for Bromhidrosis - Dourgandhya
- Yashti (Glycyrrhiza glabra )
- Amla (Emblica officinalis)
- Hareetaki (Terminalia chebula)
- Shloka No. 13, Chapter 11 Doshadivijnaniya, Ashtanga Hrudayam Sutrasthana by Acharaya Vagbhatacharya.
- Shloka No. 26, Chapter 11 Dhoshadivijnaniya, Ashtanga Hrdayam Sutra Sthana by Vagbhatacharya.
- Tripathi B, Charak Samhita, Chaukhambha Surbharati Academy Publication, Varanasi, edition – reprint 2009, p. 243.
- Chunekar K, Bhavprakash Nighantu, Chaukhambha Bharati Academy Publication, Varanasi, edition – reprint 2009, p. 296.
Article Written By: Dr. Sahil Gupta (B.A.M.S., M.H.A.)