Master Kong Nay is blind, but his physical disability is not contagious. So whenever he hears people say whoever plays his music will become blind just like him, he always feels a lump in his throat.
"I feel bad because if people do not preserve the dying music, they should not make it even worse," said Kong, referring to the Cambodian long-necked, stringed traditional musical instrument chapey dong veng -- a dying tradition in Kong's home country.
The 73-year-old musician was this year's Fukuoka Prize winner in the Art and Culture category. Kong was in Japanese city late last month -- along with the Grand Prize winner Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker from Thailand, and the Academic Prize winner Wang Ming from China -- to receive the award and gave a public lecture on "Cambodia's Soul Toward The Future: The World Of Kong Nay's Chapey Music".
Established in 1990, the Fukuoka Prize aims to give recognition and show respect to those who have made outstanding contributions to academia, arts and culture in Asia. Each year there are three prize categories: Grand Prize, Academic Prize and Art and Culture Prize.
"I couldn't have made it this far without support from the Cambodian government and related NGOs which provide financial aid for chapey conservation," said Kong. "Young people say if they learn the chapey, they will become blind just like me. This is a very bad mindset. But I am still optimistic. With the Fukuoka Prize, people in Cambodia will be proud and hopefully chapey music will be more enjoyed." In fact, Kong lost his eyesight at the age of four due to smallpox. The young lad began to learn how to play chapey under his uncle's tuition when he was 13, and soon transformed himself into a musician. Despite the genocidal slaughter of the Pol Pot era in the late 1970s and a civil war afterwards, he never stopped playing the chapey.
In 1982, Kong won his first prize in a chapey competition before being crowned the winner again in a regional competition in Kampot -- the province where he was born -- as well as in another competition in Phnom Penh.
Between 1991 and 2007, he performed his music as a civil servant at the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, working for peace building and cultural reconstruction in Cambodia. His contributions to his nation were recognised in 2001 when he was designated as "Master of Chapey" -- a chapey legend to the Cambodians -- by the Culture and Arts Ministry.
Sadly, today Kong is one of only a few remaining heirs to the tradition. While playing the instrument, he recites the Cambodian epic Reamker, which is based on the ancient Indian epic Ramayana. More often than not, Kong also composes songs on various themes, including everyday life, people's feelings and moral and social satire, to sing accompanied by his masterly chapey.
In 2016, the chapey was registered on Unesco's list of Intangible Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding. Notwithstanding such global recognition by Unesco, Kong said it is indeed an uphill task to spread awareness and the charm of his music in Cambodia, especially among the young generation, given the influx of foreign music.
While challenged by his own disability, the task of preserving chapey music is even more daunting.
"It's quite challenging especially with the inflow of foreign music," he said.
"But I do not prevent them [the young generation] from loving it. I tell them they should also not abandon our traditional music. I try to educate young people now and there are students and the young generation who have started to love playing the chapey."
Kong's approach to preserving the chapey is to try and blend it with modern music, such as when he jointly performed with a rock band at the 2010 World Human Rights Day event in Phnom Penh, where he sang a new song, Our Rights And Woman, to raise awareness on women's rights. He also mixed chapey music with jazz in the 2013 Season of Cambodia Festival in the US. Kong has travelled throughout the globe, including in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, to get the message across as part of his effort to hand on the value of chapey music to the modern world.
"It's true that traditional music [in Cambodia] is dying due to the influx of foreign music. It's not bad that it [the music scene] changes between Western and local traditional music but we should also try to educate not just the young but all people to understand more about the importance of the preservation of traditional music in Asia. Of course, there are exchanges between countries but we need to understand the importance of preservation as well."
Like in all Asian countries where age-old traditional culture faces the threat of extinction, preservation requires collaboration from all parties. While Kong is doing his part, he hopes everyone will join together so that Cambodian traditional music is not lost from the global musical map.
"I cannot work alone without support from the Cambodian government, NGOs like Unesco and Unicef, and Khmer Amata [Cambodian Living Arts, an association to preserve Khmer traditional art] who have been very supportive to me. They also financially support me and hire me as a teacher to train young people. I can get an allowance to support my living. The government of Cambodia worked hard with Unesco to enlist chapey into its intangible world heritage list last November. This makes me happy and motivates me to work and continue preserving the music."
Of course, Kong cannot see the future but his plan is only to ensure that chapey music is kept alive.
"You reap what you sow," said Kong. "That's the Buddhist teaching I always believe. And if I can use the instrument to educate people, especially in the Buddhist way, that's what I will try to do.
"Education is key. Chapey is all about educating the young generation to see the importance and preserving the dying music. And Asia should see it likewise."
The other winners are ...
Grand Prize: Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris BakerCountry: Thailand
Eminent scholars Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker were the first winners to be awarded as a couple. They are Thailand's second Grand Prize laureate after MC Subhadradis Diskul in 1994.
The 2017 Grand Prize recognises their outstanding work on Thai society, literature and social transformation. The Fukuoka committee praised the couple's "multidisciplinary and comprehensive analysis of the social changes which Thailand has experienced since the period of rapid economic growth in the 1980s, an analysis based on a combination of Western and Eastern intellectual approaches".
"The Fukuoka Prize celebrates the great diversity among people. It's dedicated to people. It encourages cultural exchange as a means for the world of peace and harmony," said Pasuk, 71, at last month's award-presentation ceremony held at Acros Fukuoka Prefectural International Hall in Japan. "This is the first time the prize was awarded to a couple," added Baker, 69. "Somehow in our case, one plus one is equal to more than two. We made something out of our differences — female and male, Thai and English, East and West, economics and history. Today in the world of uncertainty, the aspirations underlying the prize are more important than ever."
The Cambridge-educated scholars have co-written several books on topics ranging from Thailand's economy and politics to history and literature. Among their latest works are A History Of Ayutthaya: Siam In The Early Modern World (2017), Yuan Phai, The Defeat Of Lanna: A Fifteenth-Century Thai Epic Poem (2017), The Palace Law Of Ayutthaya And The Thammasat: Law And Kingship In Siam (2016) and Unequal Thailand: Aspects Of Income, Wealth And Power (2015).
Academic Prize: Wang Ming Country: China
A scholar in public management, NGOs and civil society, 58-year-old Wang Ming works as a professor at the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University in Beijing. In China, Wang is known as one of the leaders of NGO studies and environmental governance.
Wang completed his doctoral programme from the Graduate School of International Development, Nagoya University, in 1997. He returned to China and a year later he founded Tsinghua University's NGO Research Centre — the first of its kind in China — to introduce NGO studies to his home country.
NGO studies is a new academic field which examines activities, organisation, networking and policy-making of NGOs that were founded in the 1990s with an objective to facilitate the development of stable civil society. Wang is one of the pioneers in his field.
Wang has authored and co-authored various publications mostly on NGOs and civil society.
Master Kong Nay receives the 2017 Fukuoka Art and Culture Prize in Fukuoka late last month. Arusa Pisuthipan
Unesco added Cambodia's chapey dong veng to the World Heritage list last year. Photo: MAK REMISSA
The Fukuoka Prize 2017 laureates, from left, Wang Ming from China, Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker from Thailand, and Master Kong Nay from Cambodia. Photo: Arusa Pisuthipan
