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CAMBODIAN PEOPLE
Ethnic Composition
The population of Cambodia today is about 10
million. About 90-95 percent of the people are Khmer
ethnic. The remaining 5-10 percent include
Chinese-Khmers, Khmer Islam or Chams, ethnic
hill-tribe people, known as the Khmer Loeu, and
Vietnamese. About 10 percent of the population lives
in Phnom Penh, the capital, making Cambodia largely
a country of rural dwellers, farmers and artisans.
The ethnic groups that constitute Cambodian society
possess a number of economic and demographic
commonalties- for example. Chinese merchants lived
mainly in urban centers and play middlemen in many
economic cycles, but they also preserve differences
in their social and cultural institutions. They were
concentrated mostly in central and in southeastern
Cambodia, the major differences among these groups
lie in social organization, language, and religion.
The majority of the inhabitants of Cambodia are
settled in fairly permanent villages near the major
bodies of water in the Tonle Sap Basin-Mekong
Lowlands region. The Khmer Loeu live in widely
scattered villages that are abandoned when the
cultivated land in the vicinity is exhausted. The
permanently settled Khmer and Cham villages usually
located on or near the banks of a river or other
bodies of water. Cham villages usually are made up
almost entirely of Cham, but Khmer villages,
especially in central and in southeastern of
Cambodia, typically include sizable Chinese
communities.
The Khmer Loeu
The Khmer Loeu are the non-Khmer highland tribes in
Cambodia. The Khmer Loeu are found namely in the
northeastern provinces of Rattanakiri, Stung Treng,
Mondulkiri and Crate. Most Khmer Loeu live in
scattered temporary villages that have only a few
hundred inhabitants. These villages usually are
governed by a council of local elders or by a
village headman. The Khmer Loeu cultivate a wide
variety of plants, but the man crop is dry or upland
rice growth by the slash-and-burn method. Hunting,
fishing, and gathering supplement the cultivated
vegetable foods in the Khmer Loeu diet. Houses vary
from huge multi-family long houses to small single
family structures. They may be built close to the
ground or on stilts. The major Khmer Loeu groups in
Cambodia are the Kuy, Phnong, Brao, Jarai, and Rade.
All but about 160,000 Kuy lived in the northern
Cambodia provinces of Kampong Thom, Preah Vihear,
and Stoeng as well as in adjacent Thailand.
The Cham
The Cham people in Cambodia descend from refugees of
the Kingdom of Champa, which one ruled much of
Vietnam between Gao Ha in the north and Bien Hao in
the south. The Cambodian Chams are divided into two
groups, the orthodox and the traditional- base on
their religious practices. The orthodox group, which
make up about one-third of the total number of Chams
in the country, were located mainly in Phnom Penh -
Oudong area and in the provinces of Takeo and Kapot.
The traditional Chams were scattered throughout the
midsection of the country in the provinces of
Battambang, Kompong Thom, Kompong Cham, and Pursat.
The Chams of both groups typically live in villages
inhabited only by other Chams; the villages may be
along the shores of watercourses, or they may be
inland. The inhabitants of the river villages engage
in fishing and growing vegetables. They trade fish
to local Khmer for rice. The women in these villages
earn money by weaving. The Chams who live inland
support themselves by various means, depending on
the villages. Some villages specialize in
metalworking; others raise fruit trees or
vegetables. The Chams also often serve as butchers
of cattle for their Khmer Buddhist neighbors and
are, in some areas, regarded as skillful water
buffalo and ram breeders.
The Chinese
The Chinese in Cambodia formed the country es
largest ethnic minority. Sixty percent of the
Chinese were urban dwellers engaged mainly in
commerce; the other 40 percent were rural residents
working as shopkeepers, as buyers and processors of
rice, palm sugar, fruit, and fish, and as money
lenders. It is estimated that 90 percent of the
Chinese in Cambodia were in commerce and that 92
percent of those involved in commerce in Cambodia
were Chinese. In rural Cambodia, the Chinese were
moneylenders, and they wielded considerable economic
power over the ethnic Khmer peasants through usury.
The Chinese in Cambodia represented five major
linguistic groups, the largest of which was the
Teochiu (accounting about 60 percent), followed by
the Cantonese (accounting about 20 percent), the
Hokkien (accounting about 7 percent), and the Hakka
and the Hainanese (each accounting for 4 percent).
Those belonging to the certain Chinese linguistic
groups in Cambodia tended to gravitate to certain
occupations. The Teochiu, who make up about 90
percent of the rural Chinese population, ran village
stores, control rural credit and rice marketing
facilities, and grew vegetables. In urban areas they
were often engaged in such enterprises as the
import-export business, the sale of pharmaceuticals,
and street peddling. The Cantonese, who were the
majority of Chinese groups before Teochiu migrations
began in the late 1930s, live mainly in the city.
Typically, the Cantonese engages in transportation
and in constriction, for the most part as mechanics
or carpenters. The Hokkien community was involved
import-export and in banking, and it included some
of the countryfs richest Chinese. The Hainanese
started out as pepper growers in Kompot Province,
where they continued to dominate that business. Many
moved to Phnom Penh , where, in the late 1960s, they
reportedly had virtual monopoly on the hotel and
restaurant business. They also often operated tailor
shops. In Phnom Penh, the newly arrived Hakka were
typically folk dentists, sellers of traditional
Chinese medicines, and shoemakers.
The Vietnamese
The Vietnamese community is scattered throughout
southeastern and central Cambodia. They were
concentrated in Phnom Penh, and in Kandal, Prey Veng,
and Kampong Cham provinces. No close cultural or
religious ties exist between Cambodia and Vietnam.
The Vietnamese fall within the Chinese culture
sphere, rather within the Indian, where the Thai and
Khmer belong. The Vietnamese differ from the Khmer
in mode of dress, in kinship organization, and in
many other ways- for example the Vietnamese are
Mahayama Buddhists while most of the Cambodians are
Theravada Buddhists. Although Vietnamese lived in
urban centers such as Phnom Penh, a substantial
number lived along the lower Mekong and Bassac
rivers as well as on the shores of the Tonle Sap,
where they engaged in fishing.
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