Rose of Pailin

At that moment, coming from the East, Lord Surya, mounted on his

crystal chariot pulled by a thousand stallions, skirted Mount Meru,

axis of the world, and went to the West following the circle of the

constellations. When the chariot turned and was hidden by the

enormous mountain, the Lord’s brilliant light dimmed and came

the twilight.

So came the twilight of Vichet’s father but it was the dawn of Vichet’s life.

Vichet, called Chet, is the main protagonist in Kolap Pailin (Rose of Pailin), the

first Khmer prose novel. Kolap Pailin followed the story of Chet, who found

himself orphaned at the beginning of the story when his father passed away.

With a recommendation from the doctor who treated his father, Chet left

Battambang for Pailin, a gem mining town, to seek an employment with

Loueung Ratana Sambat, who operated several mines. Loueung Ratana

Sambat was a widower, who had a single child, a daughter of famed beauty

named Neary. She is the Rose in the “Rose of Pailin.”

Chet found the work as a miner a tiring one, but it’s an honest work and he

was in no way deterred by it. His fellow miners were very fond of him. He

greatly enjoyed the pristine nature of his new environment where the forests,

jungles and wild mountains mingled. But even more, he enjoyed thinking about

Neary even though she was a “pretentious young lady full of haughtiness, but

of great beauty, and she looked like a rose that blossoms by exhaling its

fragrance in the rainy season.”

And pretentious she was, the heroine of the story. Neary treated Chet like a

servant, which he was not. Even when she felt Chet was beneath her, Neary

was drawn in by his character, which could be a little humble at times, and a

little braggart at others. More importantly, she was attracted to his manliness.

As their interactions deepened, both found themselves falling for each other,

but still Chet did not believe that he had any hope, given that his social position

was far inferior to that of Neary’s. However, a time came when Chet

demonstrated his feelings for her during a trip out of town. He fought off robbers

and saved Neary and her father’s lives. He also took a stray bullet during the

fight. Near the end of the story, Chet also saved Neary from an attempted

sexual assault during a home invasion by a group of outlaws. He roused his

coworkers to fight and drive out the criminals. The novel ended with the couple

married and lived happily with many children to follow.

Kolap Pailin is a short story, about 90 pages long in the French edition. It moves

at a brisk pace, but its various characters are wholly fleshed out. The action

scenes contain little distraction. They move the plot along quite smoothly. The

dialogue is engaging. Written entirely in prose in 1936 and published in 1942,

it was considered to be the first modern Khmer novel, breaking from the

traditional verse-novels of the past. Though the writing was quite lyrical at times,

it was written in ordinary language, accessible to people from all walks of life.

And it was staged in a contemporary setting with ordinary characters that

belong to diverse strata of society. It set precedence for other novels to follow.

The author, Nhok Them, was born in 1903 in Battambang province. He studied

at the traditional monastery schools in Cambodia and later in Thailand. At the

age of fifteen, he was ordained as a novice monk but left the monkhood twenty

years later. He spent several years teaching Pali in Bangkok, where he

authored many books in Thai as well. He was involved in the early stage of the

Buddhist Institute in Phnom Penh and edited its literary journal, the

Kampuchea Surya. Nhok Them also wrote curricula for the Buddhist Institutes

in Luang Phabang and Vientiane, Laos. He was considered to be a great

translator of Buddhist Pali literature. He authored two Khmer novels, the

Rose of Pailin and the Malicious Love. Nhok Them perished during the

Khmer Rouge Era.