New Production Center

Sometimes the unlikely similarities between Japan and Cambodia surprises me in a good way.  In Japan, before any new business starts or opens on new property, a Shinto priest is brought into do a purification ceremony. There is a religious component of warding off evil spirits and bringing good luck in for the business to prosper; but there's also a component of community in which the neighborhood comes to welcome the newcomer and for employees to celebrate their new start of the business in unison. 

LHA is expanding in every direction and with the Sewing School we've opened a new production center about 1km away from Wat Damnak. Here the girls would come into work on mass orders from clients where as the Sewing School itself would be used to train the girls and do small customized orders. 

Of course, no Cambodian celebration can be absent from large stereos and set-up had been going underway since sunrise. The girls have also been preparing food for 60 people including 10 monks. Everyone was gathered into the hall which faced a row of monks chanting and spraying holy water with flowers. The business managers, Clive and Laura came up to offer incense and get purified and given good luck prayers from the monks. 

The production center have been a long aspiration of Clive and Laura's and it's a bit step towards self-sustaining the sewing business in LHA (the sewing school is sponsored by the Park Hyatt but not the sewing business itself). Hopefully with the production center up and running, we are able to get more global customer orders as well as provide paid jobs for gradating girls from the school. 

After the ceremony and food offering to the monks are finished, now it's our time to party. With music blasting away and food going around, we all definitely had a good time.