Last week I read a story from my grade 4 khmer text book & from what I can gather this is the plot (bearing in mind my khmer is still extremely grade 1 but S, my khmer teacher, keeps dragging me onwards & upwards regardless); A father & son are travelling in a boat & the son asked the father where did the rivers & mountains come from. The father told his son this story about a boy going to get a girl from another empire where the king of the monkeys had abducted her (I think). For some reason the king of the monkeys uses a sacred sword to make 2 furrows in the ground or maybe he gets the boy to do it, these become two rivers. But they need to make a causeway across to the sea so the monkey king ties clumps of earth to his leg hair & flies but meets a rain storm & the strong winds shake off the earth from his leg hair & they fall on the ground to form mountains. I think the boy gets the girl.
There was an exercise after the story with 4 questions.
1) The son asks the father about what?
2) The rivers & mountains were made how?
3) The king of the monkeys orders the boy to do what?
4) This story is true or not true? Why?
When we got to question 4) I laughed & said clearly it is not true. S looked at me sideways with an expression that I have grown very accustomed from all Cambodians, which wordlessly says "I do not believe or trust you." She said to me - No, you are wrong, I think this is a true story.
Have you ever tried to explain plate tectonics & geology in another language which you have barely 200 words of? Thankfully S has a world map, speaks at least 2 out of the 3 languages we both share with much more proficiency than me; plus her english is infinitely better than my khmer & I struck lucky with volcano in khmer being Phnom Pleung very early on in the explanation/debate/persuasion.
The larva & volcano break through got her thinking I may actually be on to something, the explanation of the boxing day tsunami was further evidence. I could see the was giving it serious consideration - so the story was fiction right? - I reasserted.
She screwed up her face & told me she still wasn't sure.
A monkey king flies in the sky & earth the size of mountains falls from his leg hair - Do we really think this is based on a real life event?
Apparently one of us still did.
Then inspiration struck, a few months ago I had purchased the grade 4 answer book, anticipating exactly this kind of situation. So I leapt up, retrieved the book & asked S to check the answer of question 4 in it.
She read out that it was indeed not a true story. The second part of the question, why? because it didn't mention the exact date that it happened.
Giant monkey king flying & dropping from his leg hair clods of earth the size of mountains apparently entirely probable but what was really wanting was a precise date when this very realistic event actually occurred.
I really am not exaggerating.
This episode not unsurprisingly inspired the superstition blog.
There was an exercise after the story with 4 questions.
1) The son asks the father about what?
2) The rivers & mountains were made how?
3) The king of the monkeys orders the boy to do what?
4) This story is true or not true? Why?
When we got to question 4) I laughed & said clearly it is not true. S looked at me sideways with an expression that I have grown very accustomed from all Cambodians, which wordlessly says "I do not believe or trust you." She said to me - No, you are wrong, I think this is a true story.
Have you ever tried to explain plate tectonics & geology in another language which you have barely 200 words of? Thankfully S has a world map, speaks at least 2 out of the 3 languages we both share with much more proficiency than me; plus her english is infinitely better than my khmer & I struck lucky with volcano in khmer being Phnom Pleung very early on in the explanation/debate/persuasion.
The larva & volcano break through got her thinking I may actually be on to something, the explanation of the boxing day tsunami was further evidence. I could see the was giving it serious consideration - so the story was fiction right? - I reasserted.
She screwed up her face & told me she still wasn't sure.
A monkey king flies in the sky & earth the size of mountains falls from his leg hair - Do we really think this is based on a real life event?
Apparently one of us still did.
Then inspiration struck, a few months ago I had purchased the grade 4 answer book, anticipating exactly this kind of situation. So I leapt up, retrieved the book & asked S to check the answer of question 4 in it.
She read out that it was indeed not a true story. The second part of the question, why? because it didn't mention the exact date that it happened.
Giant monkey king flying & dropping from his leg hair clods of earth the size of mountains apparently entirely probable but what was really wanting was a precise date when this very realistic event actually occurred.
I really am not exaggerating.
This episode not unsurprisingly inspired the superstition blog.
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