00:00Hi everyone, that's really me in the photo, without makeup, and that's also my real voice.
00:05Today, I want to pay tribute to a great figure in Khmer cultural history, Nguyen Khan.
00:11Even though I am far from my homeland, my heart is still in Cambodia.
00:16And that is precisely why I feel it is my duty to speak about those whom our people should not
00:21Never forget.
00:22Nguyen Khan was not just a Cambodian writer.
00:25He was also a composer, music teacher, performer, keeper of memories and guardian of the Khmer soul.
00:33Born on June 18, 1937 in Phnom Penh, he dedicated his life to art, education and
00:38to culture.
00:39He studied in France at the Sorbonne, then returned to share his knowledge at the Royal University of
00:45Fine Arts.
00:46This was during a period of great turmoil for Cambodia, when the Khmer Rouge regime destroyed lives and
00:53artists.
00:54Nguyen Khan had to flee, but even in exile, he never abandoned the Khmer people.
01:00From the United States until his return to Cambodia in 1992, he continued to teach, write, and
01:08to compose.
01:09His works, his songs, his plays, and especially the history of the Khmer people are not simply
01:16artistic creations.
01:18These are cries of memory. These are traces left to remind the world that the Khmer people exist.
01:25That he has suffered, that he has resisted, and that he carries within him an immense, ancient, and worthy civilization.
01:32The world too often knows Cambodia only through war, genocide or the ruins of Angkor.
01:38But the Khmer people are much more than pain and stones.
01:42It is intelligence, literature, music, beauty, and depth.
01:48A culture that men like Nguyen Khan protected at the cost of their entire lives.
01:53A people who forget their writers end up letting others tell their story for them.
01:59And we, the Khmer people, must know, name, and honor those who carried our voice.
02:04A tribute to Nguyen Khan, artist, intellectual and living memory of the Khmer people.
02:09May he not be just a name in the archives, but a light in the conscience of our people.
02:16And may the world finally come to know the Khmer people through their greatness, their culture, their resilience, and their humanity.
02:42Deep in sorrow, beneath a certain number of memories, our great dream, amidst stories, in songs, in
02:52ancient gestures.
02:54He hears the heartbeat we become, doesn't hear it, carries a flame of inquiry, from the monthly flow of words,
03:03that no wind can ever extinguish.
03:06And in his hands, like a destiny offered, is the music of a people who hope.
03:13The history of the Khmer people is a river of winter butter, of the soul, of the sample,
03:20of heartfelt prayer, but still standing, still proud.
03:25The history of the Khmer people is the same, only more intense than the war.
03:30A living fire, in the night, on the earth, the heart of the fight, I have never been sincere.
03:37He went all the way to France to seek the art of the stage, and the truth is in the sordidness.
03:47He forged his own path to give back to his own, forcing a choice.
03:53Then twenty years of chaos and bloodshed, of days shattered by fear and wind.
04:00In the silence, among the vanished masters, he knew how to preserve the lost fields.
04:09The history of the Khmer people is like a river of winter butter, tears, songs, and prayers.
04:16heartbroken, but still standing, still proud.
04:20The history of the Khmer people is the same, only more intense than the war.
04:25A living fire, in the night, on the earth, the heart of the fight, I have never been sincere.
04:32Exile is far away, from the sacred land, he carried his country in his thoughts.
04:39And from the shadows, to the river of a time, he sowed hope in the hearts of children.
04:48When you came back to teach the Russians, it was to say that nothing really dies.
04:56As long as a voice reclaims the name, as long as a poem illuminates the dust.
05:03The history of the Khmer people is a sure thing that became a heap, and without repeating, like a banner, a people
05:11Standing tall, free and proud.
05:15The history of the Khmer people is an oath passed down to the whole world, by those who sing to the
05:22'help the borders.'
05:23Along the thin rock, in eternity, a message.
05:29Everyone is finally hearing the voice of the repied people.
05:32Despite wars of exile and imposed silences, we die standing tall in the face of history.
05:37We are taking up this kind of identity, the universe of civilization, which nothing has yet been able to erase.
05:41And we, in canon, was one of the most eloquent messengers.
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