Dear Editor,

Regarding your news item titled "P'chum Ben festivities kick off Sunday" (15 September). Among Cambodian annual festivities, P'Chum Ben is considered very significant.

Regarding Buddhist ethics, this festival offers a chance for all Cambodian Buddhists to pay gratitude to their deceased ancestors as well as to those living parents and elders. The principles of Buddhist practice are to get rid of all evils, to cultivate the good and to cleanse one's mind. 

P'chum Ben has bonded Cambodian society and it is the instrumental cultural thread to the nation.

In sum, P'chum Ben has been a timeline, a cultural thread, a notion of national unity and prosperity, and a bonanza of goodness of all Cambodian citizens.

Sophan Seng

political science

University of Hawaii at Manoa