Buddhist Monks Give Blessings For Cambodian Festival

August 8, 2002

Source: The Boston Globe

On August 8, 2002 The Boston Globe reported that monks and organizers from the Cambodian Buddhist Temple in Lowell, Massachusetts participated in a ceremony for the Aug. 17 festival that expects "an estimated 50,000 [visitors]... The monks in their bright orange robes and sandals, some visiting from the Trairatanaram Temple in North Chelmsford, chanted for several minutes to bring good luck to the Southeast Asian Water Festival... According to the monks, the Lowell festival loosely mimics another successful water festival that is held every year in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital, for three days each November during a full moon. The local event is sponsored by a coalition of public and private groups... Lowell is believed to have the second-largest Cambodian population in the United States... [with] 35,000 Cambodian residents."