Proverbs: popular wisdom in words and in photographs

Écrit par CSH (cambodgesoir)
Translated from French
by Monikhemra

In " The small boat passes, the quay reside ", Isabel Fournier-Nicolle and Anne-Yvonne Guillou give a new life in small " Cambodian meditations " and offers a new look on the evolution of mentalities in 1990s.

Editions of Mekong, society editor from " Cambodia in the Evening Hebdo ", publish a book of Cambodian proverbs accompanied with photographs and translations in French and in English.

« The small boat passes, the quay resides », write by Isabel Fournier-Nicolle, doctor working on research on the HIV in Cambodia and Anne-Yvonne Guillou, anthropologist and seeker to the NATIONAL CENTRE FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH, is the result of about fifteen working years, in the course of which them both Frenchwomen gathered aphorisms and existent sayings of popular wisdom.

" Moralistic or ironic, strict or evil-minded, [these proverbs] give to think of the sense of things, teach what it is necessary to to expect and to whom recover from it here - low, aim at alleviating evil or telling this one ", points out the press release of Editions of Mekong.

Proverbs, harvested from 1990s, give moreover a new vision of this opening period of Cambodia in the outside world: « Certain proverbs seem to give a comment as much as a bet in perspective of these events. They show that, far from consisting merely of an assortment of outdated thoughts, proverbs give a frame to the Cambodians to arrest this period of transition », add Editions of Mekong.

« Do not cross the sharp side of the ax, the step of an army », « If you are malicious, it is enough so that they fear you. If you are stupid, it is enough so that they feel sorry for you », « some water for the rice field is needed, the rice is needed to make war », so much proverbs are which, under the feather of both Frenchwomen, manifest polarity and vagaries of the Cambodian society at a time of the pacification.

" The photographs which accompany aphorisms, and that also date from this period, is anchored at the same time in their epoch and however timeless ", points out moreover the publishing company.