Most Cambodians live in rural areas and rely on subsistence farming. They live in houses built from natural materials and organized into villages centered around Buddhist temples. Eighty percent of the population lives in poverty with rice and fish as the main diet. The country was once the site of the powerful Khmer Empire centered at Angkor, which constructed grand temples that influenced art and culture. However, decades of war devastated Cambodia and its cultural traditions.

1. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
Reported by:
Jenica H. Pacura
(BSEd 3-C, Group 8)

2. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
Way of Life
Eighty percent of Cambodia’s
people live in rural areas, where
their principal occupation is
subsistence farming on family-
operated holdings. In rural
Cambodia, most houses are built

3. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
of palm leaf and bamboo and
are often raised on stilts for
protection from annual floods. A
rural village (phum) consists of a
group of houses, usually
clustered around a Buddhist
monastery, or wat.

4. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
In the cities, life for the poor
resembles life in the countryside,
but sanitary conditions are
worse and violent crime is much
more frequent. Wealthy and
middle-class Cambodians value
material possessions, which

5. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
reflect their social standing. In
the 1990s hundreds of
extravagant villas were built for
members of the political and
commercial elite.

6. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
Most rural Cambodians wear
simple clothing and have few
material possessions. Women
usually dress modestly in cotton
shirts and ankle-length skirts,
reserving their multicolored,
locally woven silks for religious

7. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
festivals. A cotton garment
called a krama is worn by both
men and women as a head
covering, as a loincloth (for
bathing), and as a carrying bag.
Urban Cambodians usually wear

8. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
Western-style clothing. Rice and
fish form the basis of the
Cambodian diet.

9. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
Cambodian families are large,
but infant mortality, especially
from intestinal disorders,
remains high. Women head a
large proportion of family units
because many men were killed
in the warfare of the 1970s and

10. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
1980s. In most families, females
manage the household economy.
Women also constitute the
majority of vendors at local
markets. Traditionally, boys
became monks for a few months
during their adolescence,

11. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
but this practice is fading.

12. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
Culture
Throughout Cambodia’s history,
religious principles guided and
inspired its arts. A unique Khmer
style emerged from the
combination of indigenous
animistic beliefs and the

13. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
originally Indian religions of
Hinduism and Buddhism. These
two religions, along with the
Sanskrit language and other
elements of Indian civilization,
arrived in mainland Southeast
Asia during the first few

14. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
Shuang Lin Temple, the Sri
Mariamman Temple, and the
Sultan Mosque, respectively.
Singapore’s National Museum
complex consists of one museum
devoted to the contemporary art
of Southeast Asia, one to Asian

15. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
centuries AD. Seafaring
merchants following the coast
from India to China brought
them to the port cities along the
Gulf of Thailand, which were
then controlled by the state of
Funan in Cambodia. At varying

16. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
times, Cambodian culture also
absorbed Javanese, Chinese, and
Thai influences.

17. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
Between the 9th and 15th
centuries, a prosperous and
powerful empire flourished in
northwestern Cambodia. The
Khmer kingdom of Angkor,
named for its capital city,
dominated much of what is now

18. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand.
The kingdom drew its religious
and political inspiration from
India. The literary language of
the court was Sanskrit; the
spoken language was Khmer.
Massive temples from this

19. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
period, including Angkor Wat
and the Bayon at Angkor Thum,
testify to the power of Angkor
and the grandeur of its
architecture and decorative art.
The unparalleled achievements
in art, architecture, music, and

20. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
dance during this period served
as models for later cultural
development in Cambodia.

21. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
Angkor faded into obscurity
after the capital moved south to
Phnom Penh in the 15th century,
probably due in part to frequent
invasions by the neighboring
Thais. The jungle rapidly grew
over the monuments. In the

22. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
centuries that followed,
frequent wars reduced the
territory, wealth, and power of
Cambodian monarchs. However,
an independent state with its
capital near Phnom Penh
survived until the 19th century.

23. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
The most important work of
Cambodian literature, the
Reamker (a Khmer-language
version of the Indian myth of the
Ramayana), was composed
during this time.

24. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
France, which began administeri
ng Cambodia in 1863,
rediscovered the temples at
Angkor and worked to preserve
them beginning in the early 20th
century. Cambodia’s traditional
culture and the monuments of

25. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
Angkor were endangered
between 1970 and 1990 due to
civil war. The Communist Khmer
Rouge regime, which opposed
and mistrusted religion and
education, banned all of
Cambodia’s traditional arts and

26. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
language. Since 1991, when
Cambodia’s warring factions
signed a peace accord,
international organizations have
helped the Cambodian
government restore the sites at
Angkor and revive Cambodia’s
traditional crafts.

27. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
Source:
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. ©
1993-2008 Microsoft
Corporation. All rights reserved.

28. Socio-Cultural Setting:
Cambodia
Aw Khun!!!

29. Socio-Cultural Setting
as we
Understanding

30. Socio-Cultural
Community
for
establish a

33. Republic of the Philippines
CAPIZ STATE UNIVERSITY
Dumarao Satellite College, Dumarao, Capiz
Theme: “Understanding Better the Political, Economic &
Socio-Cultural
Settings of Southeast Asian Nations for
Peace, Prosperity & People”
May 25, 2015 (8:00-11:30 am)
Campus Library