Oh dear has it really been that long since I last blogged, so long and I'm still talking about the weather! Yes I'm obsessed and when it was 12 degrees and raining on the first day of Autumn in Bowral, I was really most put out. Luckily, things have improved and in Autumn we've been inspired by earthy colours which is a little bit different from the usual bright colour that are associated with Tendance Khmere. Don't worry we still have those colours available too, but the new range of 60cm x 30cm designer cushions bring a mixture of cotton fabric with an almost Japanese feel to it mixed with the earthy tones of red, oranges and golds reminiscent of the turning leaves on a Maple Tree in Japan or an Oak Tree in Bowral during this season. Only newly available in Australia, check out this new range from Tendance Khmere:

And by "earthy" we mean we've also got those tones that will be understated and elegant, tans, browns and warm pale greens...

And if you're after the traditional Tendance Khmere trademark colours, we haven't forgotten you with lime green, plum and petrol blue...

In the recent "heatwaves" that have hit all over Australia, it has really made me think of how we handled the heat while living in Cambodia. The hot season brings an average of 35 to 40  degrees each day, with no relief for days on end, almost months...I came across this email that I wrote home to family and friends while living in Prey Veng, which I thought painted a good picture of April in Cambodia, where loud music mingles with the humid air...

"I shouldn’t speak too soon, but there’s no religious music belting out over loudspeakers near our house today…there’s almost silence…well there’s still the neighbours…they’ve been making minced pork for a while now, chop, chop, chop, chop, and there’s the bread selling lady, walking down the street yelling ‘noom paaaaan, noom paaaaan’ – she has baguettes arranged nicely in a cane basket on her head – it’s nice when you catch her and get fresh bread delivered in the morning….the dogs are barking, there’s a few mangoes and coconuts plopping from the trees…but there’s no xylophone type music playing at high decibels through crackling speakers ruining our morning….peace.

Over the past week and a half, we’ve had 6 mornings with this music starting between 4:00am and 5:30am…it’s a little difficult to bear. While we struggle very hard to respect the traditions of the Khmers, we really can’t reconcile the fact that these traditions need to wake us up at 4:00am. Ahhh, I guess it’s all part of it, we’ll get over it when we get some sleep and a few straight days of silence! We’re planning on getting away from it all over the next week when we head down to Kep for a few days…ahhh, “Verandah” goodness, it’s a lovely hotel, with beautiful, natural looking bungalows made of wood and stones, all looking out over the sea, and what’s more they now have a swimming pool. So really we shouldn’t complain – this is our reward for living through the Khmer New Year lead up in Prey Veng!

The thing is this is just the most trying time of year in Cambodia, not only is there the ceremonies and lack of sleep but the heat is really quite unbearable. You sweat just standing there…it’s around 40 degrees every day with high humidity…and pretty much no air conditioning. Well there are only fans at the office…we do actually have an air conditioner in our bedroom at home which we do tend to use to cool down the room as we’re going to sleep but the cost of it is pretty astronomical, so we try not to use it through the night…maybe every now and then we need to buzz it in the middle of the night to try and circulate the air. The thermometer on my alarm clock states that it is around 30 to 32 degrees pretty much all the time in the bedroom which makes for sticky nights…early morning brings the only relief – plus the cold shower. While in the early mornings of November the cold shower is not welcome, in the mid day heat in April, it’s the best thing ever invented! That and the fan…the transportable fan pretty much follows us around the house, it’s pretty much unbearable without a fan right on you – much better when you’re wet too, just out of the shower – no point drying yourself – you’re dry in about 3 seconds!"

  
1. Young Men working in the April heat                                                        2. A Prey Veng sunset during the hot season

Khmer Trading sizzles in Summer! Our passion for bold and bright really comes into its own during the summer months.

The Tendance Khmere cushions will brighten up your bedroom or sunroom and breathe light into your house while the temperature soars outside. Fantastic colours for that indoor/outdoor area or day bed near the pool.

Smateria have a great range of travel bags and beach bags, perfect for that holiday in the sun or day on the beach with the kids. The net range brings colour to your wardrobe, a vivid orange will match that summer dress!

Similarly, Waterlily will bring wow with your favourite summer outfit – sea blues and sunset reds will remind us what an Australian summer of sun is all about...

It is important to us that we are part of the creative process and can guide our suppliers towards what works and what doesn't work for our Australian customers. We recognise that all customers are different and perhaps what works in France and Italy may not necessarily be what is right for an Australian market. We are lucky that our suppliers understand this and really want us to be a part of developing each collection. The process is slightly different for each brand but the result is always the same, good quality, innovative products that suit Australian tastes.

Each year we travel to Cambodia to meet face to face with our suppliers (who really are much more like friends now) and discuss how to bring the new season's products to life. Given we are one of the only distributors in the Southern Hemisphere we sometimes have to be careful that the colours and products we choose suit the summer sun rather than a European winter! It is a termendous amount of hard work and always a whirlwind trip where you feel like sleeping for a week once back on Australian soil but well worth the effort given the results. And it's not all work and no play, we do find the time to share an Angkor beer, leek cake or bowl of guoy thieu with Flavien, Nina, Jennifer, Elisa and Christine while we're there. Of course the $10 massages and stunning hotel swimming pools and lovely smiles from the local staff don't make it half bad either!

        

It’s Pchum Ben in Cambodia which equates to a Western Christmas – it’s the time when Khmer people travel back to their homelands and spend time with their families enjoying the Buddhist Holiday. It is also a time to go to the Pagoda and pray with the monks, a process which pays respect to the families’ deceased ancestors. It is a time when much importance is placed on the preparation of food, both to eat together as a family and also to offer the food to the monks. The offering of food generates “merit” that indirectly benefits the dead, you are in effect feeding the ghosts.

As a foreigner, Pchum Ben is a great time to receive some insight into Khmer families and their strong observance of tradition. There is a great mixture of traditional ceremonies and prayer time as well as party time which always involves dancing around a tree with the music at top volume and karaoke! For some, the long prayer times can lead to some discomfort – it is not easy to kneel on a wooden floor for up to an hour, and can lead to some confusion, which bowl do you scoop the rice into and how many times do you bow to the monks? I must admit, my favourite time was always the day at the Pagoda where everyone had prepared their signature dish for the monks and we were able to sit there and eat the most delicious food with the monks – well not quite with them – we were served their leftovers, a sign of respect!

 
 
1. delivering the food offerings for the monks, 2. Dividing the rice out into the monks food bowls, 3. Presenting our donations to the Pagoda in the form of a golden money tree 4. The spread of food that we sat down to eat - the monk's leftovers!

After having a lovely couple of weeks off relaxing in Bali after a hectic Trade Fair season, we’ve returned home to Spring. For those who know the Southern Highlands where Gareth and I live, you will understand what a relief this is! I am not a cold weather person and have certainly struggled with my adjustment from 35 degrees every day for the 3 years we were in Cambodia to a Winter where an average of 12 degrees each day is mild.

Spring in the Highlands means beautiful flowers and Bowral is famous for “Tulip Time” so there are stunning bulbs just starting to open. In celebrating spring, an article recently came out in the Burke’s Backyard magazine featuring Tendance Khmere cushions and I have realised that there is a real link between the bright colours of our Khmer Trading products and the spring season –  in theory we are gearing up for the time when the “colours of Cambodia” that we like to promote, can bloom...

Like Burke’s Backyard mentioned... “After your spring cleaning has worked its magic at your place, add a touch of fresh, bright colour to your lounge with this contemporary take on patchwork cushions made from silk and cotton.” They were referring to our floral range pictured below.

And of course Waterlily’s signature colour inspiration, greens with a splash of pink is built around the most beautiful flowers dotting the landscape all over Cambodia, the Waterlily – otherwise known as a lotus which has huge symbolic significance in the national religion, Buddhism. Representing spiritual enlightenment as well as immortality and resurrection, it seems a fitting homage to spring!

 

And what better product to promote in spring, especially during “Tulip Time” – our one and only tulip keyring which is the accessory to brighten up every woman’s day.

 

When you’re at the stage when you are actually looking forward to your third year at the Trade Fairs, does that mean you’re an ‘old hand’ at this gig now? We were pleased that the recent Life Instyle Show in Melbourne went off without a hitch. We are all set with packing the car and getting on the road to travel down to Melbourne now and the terror of Trade Fairs has definitely worn off.

A relaxed attitude lead us to have a smaller stand this year and although we didn’t quite have the wow factor that the Tendance Khmere bed and curtains traditionally give us, we were happy with the traffic that we did manage to impress. The best part is now we are having a lot more repeat business and see so many more familiar faces amongst the streams of people which is so much nicer. Great to have the opportunity to have a good face to face chat with our current stockists too. 

Last week we launched a new brand, Waterlily which complements Khmer Trading’s “Colours of Cambodia” with brightly coloured button jewellery. Inspired by the landscapes in Cambodia, Christine’s products certainly caught people’s eye at the Show with a lovely presentation of fun, recycled jewellery, perfect for pending spring!

Silk weaving has been part of Cambodian culture for centuries. Women across Cambodia have looms in their homes and practice the art passed down from their mothers and grandmothers, and on to their daughters. Unfortunately however, the ancient craft is dying out as the cost of imported raw silk continues to climb while the price of finished textiles drops.

The Khmer Rouge era decimated the mulberry tree population, the only food source of silkworms making it impossible for raw silk thread to be produced in Cambodia. Now, weavers must import the thread from neighbouring Vietnam or Thailand. Before the Khmer Rouge took power, Cambodia was producing an estimated 150,000 kilograms of silk per year, which dropped to just 800 kilograms after years of political and civil unrest.

Silk coccons being boiled to make silk thread                                                        A loom under a Cambodian house in the villages

We are doing our best to protect silk weaving by partnering with Tendance Khmere. Nina and Flavien, owners of Tendance Khmere have been struggling with the rising costs associated with the purchase of Cambodian silk but they are determined to work with the producers in order to protect silk production and tell the world about the wonderful silk products that can be produced in this beautiful country.

The price of raw silk thread has gone up by more than 60% in the last year and at the same time the price for the finished products has dropped by 56%. Many of the 20,000 estimated weavers in the country are trying to find other work. But Tendance Khmere has not given, instead they have adapted and designed a whole new innovative range where Khmer silk is mixed with patterned cottons from around the world.

We think that Tendance Khmere is a testament to what can be achieved if small producers stick together and we are very excited to be able to contribute to the protection of such a strong cultural tradition in Cambodia, even if only in a small way.

We were upset but not necessarily surprised to hear of the death of Cambodian environmental activist, Chhut Vuthy. Vuthy, 45 years of age was killed after he refused to hand over photographs he’d taken of illegal logging to military policemen. The Phnom Penh post reported that, “his death has rocked the country, turning a spotlight on the increasingly violent nature of land disputes.”

Land disputes are something that Smateria has experienced first-hand with their establishment of their women’s project in Andong. Smateria employs a team of 22 women in the village of Andong, which is an area for displaced people on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. Smateria’s owner in Cambodia, Jennifer Morellato, describes Andong, “This village was established in 2007 when the Cambodian Government forcibly removed 8,000 underprivileged families from an area of Phnom Penh in order to begin new multi-national building projects. The families were moved to a region where there was no electricity or running water and where the large distance from the city centre made it no longer affordable for them to commute to their previous jobs, leaving them unemployed and destitute.”

These women were brought to Jennifer’s attention and she wanted to help them. They now help Smateria to manufacture the plastic fabric. “We have employed and trained them to collect the black plastic, wash it, cut it in to strips and crochet or knit it into a fabric that is both durable and soft – a recycled alternative to leather and an employment opportunity which may just save their families.” Jennifer said.


Andong lady crocheted black plastic bags for Smateria

Linked to the environmental aspect of Vuthy’s death, Tendance Khmere is a big advocate for protecting the natural environment which sadly was desecrated during the Khmer Rouge era. It is the Mulberry tree in particular that they would like to protect, the sole source of food for the ever precious silkworm which they rely on for silk production. Currently the silk that is produced in Cambodia has to rely on the importation of silk thread from nearby countries as the Mulberry tree population are not great enough to support local production. This threatens the long-term viability of silk production in Cambodia as the cost of imported thread rises rapidly.


Silk thread waiting to be woven for Tendance Khmere

When will the government step in to protect its own traditional industries and protect its citizens from the negative effects of ruthless big business?

Gareth and I were interested to read in last week’s newspapers that newly appointed Foreign Minister Bob Carr also likes to support Cambodia’s economy!

Like Bob, I was visiting Cambodia a few weeks ago and I was interested to see the pomp and ceremony associated with Cambodia’s hosting of the 20^th ASEAN Summit 2012. While Senator Carr took this opportunity to announce Australia’s $1 million support for protecting Cambodia’s Angkor Wat, I was meeting with suppliers on the other end of the scale, small grass-roots businesses battling to enter Australia’s markets and earn their slice of the pie.

After volunteering in Cambodia for 3 years, I vowed to continue to work from the ground up upon my return to Australia – through Khmer Trading, we've been able to engage small manufacturing businesses based in Cambodia and can work with them to produce innovatively designed, high quality goods suited to the Australian market. While we do not quite have a million dollars to invest in Cambodian tourism like the Australian Government, we do feel we've managed to make some inroad into supporting Cambodian manufacturers on a very small scale.

While I don't begrudge Angkor Wat's need for protection, it is perhaps a bit frustrating that foreign Government's are pouring aid into this project while as far as I understand, the fees charged to millions of visitors to the site each year goes to a Chinese company rather than directly into protecting the wonder that is Angkor Wat...or is this just a rumour or me being cynical?

Our two brands, Smateria and Tendance Khmere have fast become the “next best thing” in Cambodia with Smateria opening 4 stores locally over the past 5 years and Tendance Khmere, opening 3. Both brands have a presence in Angkor Wat’s hometown of Siem Reap and take advantage of the scores of tourists who enter this town each day to visit this national treasure.

When we saw these products when we were living in Cambodia, we immediately felt that we could assist with the brands’ expansion by offering to bring them to Australia – now with exclusive distributor rights for both brands in Australia, we are proud to not only promote the products, but also the plight of Cambodia and it’s people.

Khmer Trading supports Cambodia’s economy by:

• Assisting to employ approximately 100 workers in line with international standard Labour Laws, including higher than standard wages, sick leave, annual leave and health care;
• Providing an opportunity for Cambodian-made products to reach the Australia market;
• Promoting the fact that Cambodian manufacturers can produce goods to suit the quality standards and taste of the Australian consumers;
• Supporting businesses who use Cambodian raw materials where possible to produce their products (Tendance Khmere in particular supports the traditional khmer craft of silk weaving);
• Supporting businesses who produce ethical, environmentally friendly products (Smateria in particular addresses the problem of rubbish disposal in Cambodia by using recycled products such as plastic bags, motorcycle seats and netting to produce their bags and accessories)

-Sarah