Martial Arts Bonds Grow as Shaolin Share Bokator Stage
The event, part of Cambodia-China People-to-People Exchange Year 2024, was organized by the Ministry of Tourism, Siem Reap Administration and China’s Henan province. Photo: Isa Rohany
- By Torn Chanritheara
- April 24, 2024 11:55 AM
PHNOM PENH – Cambodia and China have held a tourism exhibition event called “When Shaolin Meets Bokator at Angkor” featuring the countries’ national martial arts,
Athletes from the Cambodian Bokator Federation and monks from Shaolin Temple showed their fighting art forms on the stage at the northern site of Bayon Temple in Angkor Archaeological Park in Siem Reap province.
Combative and defensive arts were performed by the two teams, demonstrating their centuries-old cultural heritages. A comedy drunken fist fight routine was also performed by the Chinese team.
The event, part of Cambodia-China People-to-People Exchange Year 2024, was organized by the Ministry of Tourism, Siem Reap Administration and China’s Henan province to promote tourism between the provinces and to attract more Chinese tourists to Cambodia’s tourism hotspot.
Tourism Minister Sok Soken said the event contributed to strengthening cooperations and relations between the countries, boost tourism and enhance people-to-people exchanges.
He said that Cambodia received 5.4 million international tourists in 2023 including 540,000 Chinese tourists. During the first quarter of 2024, the country received 1.5 million tourists, a 22 percent rise, of which 190,000 were Chinese and which was 43 percent increase.
“In this sense, the future of Cambodia’s tourism sector can’t be separated from the growing flow of Chinese tourists and investors,” he said.
He said that the country is fully prepared to receive tourists and investors from China by facilitating hospitality in the tourism and investment environment. Chinese tourists were not only an opportunity to develop the tourism sector but also a source of investment in other sectors.
Soken said the ministry is also working with other stakeholders to organise sports, exhibition and cultural events to add to the calendar of activities to attract local and foreign tourists.
He also urged Sun Shougang, Henan’s vice-governor, to promote Cambodian tourism destinations to people of Henan and push for more direct flight from its cities to Cambodia, particularly Siem Reap.
Kun lbokator was inscribed in UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2022. Chinese Shaolin Kungfu joined the list in 2010.
