IN the own family these values where put into practice over two generation. My grandmother was a goldsmith for the royal palace. He died very young, when my father was just ten. My grandmother kept his business going and even managed to send my father to a French school. That was a great achievement for such an education was expensive. Grandfather worked right up to the time her sons could earn their own livings. She built the house we lived in, in a business district a mile from the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh. It was a wooden house on stilts with the living quarters upstairs and a little shop underneath. She used to carry on a goldsmith's business from there during her working years but when I was ca child it was a pawnshop run by my father's older sister, another enterprising woman.
My family was very big. Apart from MH grandmother and parents, there were ten children- I was the second eldest. My father was a teacher and the only one working to support the thirteen if us so we didn't have much money to spare. We had to be thrifty, to share and to look after everything in the house, because anything broken could not be easily replaced.
Once, when I was playing cheesy with my little sister, I was running and jumping wildly and split the seam of my long skirt. It was then that my grandmother sat me down and told me for the first time the story of the two wives. You were a very careless little girl, she said. You must watch out or you will end up like the lazy wife of the fisherman. I heard the story many times after that. If I didn't hold a plate properly and it seemed I might drop it, my mother or grandmother would never scold me. They'd just say very gently that i was careless, then sit me down and remind me of the story. and I in turn would tell it to my little sister if she left her play dough scattered over the floor or did something else lazy or untidy.
I still remember this story very often. If I make clothes for myself and finish them off carelessly or buy things that aren't really necessary I think, 'If mother or grandmother were here, they'd remind me that I’ve been extravagant.' I can stop myself buying things by remembering the story. I say to myself, 'You're spending too much, just like that fisherman's first wife. If you spend all you earn, where will you go when help you out but here we have no one. There is just the bank and you can only get from there what you've put in. You have to be independent in Australia. So you see the story of the merchant's wife and the fisherman’s wife still teaches me so much. I thank my grandmother and my mother for telling it to me.
There once lived a king and queen who were sad because they had no children. They did all they could. They bathed in holy water. They made vows. They went on pilgrimages to holy shrines. All seemed lost until at last their luck changed and they had a baby girl. The christening was magnificent, as you may well imagines. The king sent out to look for all the furies in the land. Seven were found and each became a godmother to the young princess.
There will be a great feast, the king announced.
He ordered for each fairy a superb casket made of gold, with a spoon, a knife and fork, all of gold, each set with diamonds and rubies, to be laid before their places at the banquet table.
Trumpets sounded and the guess prepared to eat.
At that moment there came into the hall, through the great oak door, an old, old fairy, which no one had seen for fifty years. All thought she was long dead or enchanted.
She glowered at the guests.
'Let a place be laid for her,' said the king but, much to his embarrassment, there was nno casket left to give her.
'They will remember me in future,' the old fairy muttered angrily, but only the youngest fairy heard her.
When the time came for each godmother, from the youngest to the oldest, to give her present to the young princess, the youngest fairy hid behind a curtain. She meant to give her gift last, in case the old fairy put a course on the child.
The first godmother promised the princess that she would be the most beautiful woman in the world, the next promised that she would have the wit of an angel.
The third gave her absolute gracefulness. The fourth said that she would dance without fault. The fifth promised that she would sing like a nightingale and the sixth gave her the gift to make music of all kinds.
Then the old fairy gave her gift. He back was bent with age and all could see that her face was creased with hate.
She shall die when her hand is pierced by a spindle, ‘the old fairy cursed.
This was a terrible gift. There were shouts of anger at the old fairy but there was nothing that anyone could do about it.
Then the youngest fairy came out from behind the curtain.
'The princess will not die,' she said.' I can't undo all the evil that the ever old fairy has done, but my gift is a promise. Instead of dying, the princess will fall into a ling, ling sleep, and a sleep that will last for a hundred years. In the end she will be woken by a king's son.'
Everyone sighed worth relief at this news and the old fairy left the palace sulking and in a great fury.
A hundred years indeed,' she mumbled.' They will all be dead by then.'
The king immediately gave orders that there should be no more-spinning done in the palace. All spindles and distaffs were locked up or thrown into the moat.
Anyone disobeying the order was to be punished by death.
All went well for fifteen years and the young princess grew up without ever having seen a spindle in her life. But one summer, when the king and the queen were away on a visit to another castle, the princess explored a part of the castle she had never visited before.
There, in a lofty turret room, at the extreme north end of the palace, she found an old woman working at a spindle. You can tell how large the palace was, for the woman had never heard of the king's order nor ever seen the princess.
'What are you doing?' said the princess.
'Don't you know I'm spinning?' asked the old woman.
'That looks very pretty,' said the princess. 'How do you do it?'
She took the spindle from the old woman and at once it pierced her hand. The princess fell down unconscious in a faint.
The poor old woman was in a fearful state. She called out for help, she ran down the stairs, she poured cold water on the young girl's face, unlaced her dress, slapped the palms of her hands and rubbed perfume on her temples, all to no avail.
The palace was in an uproar. The king was recalled immediately.
'There is not much we can do,' he said. 'This is the old fairy's curse.'
He laid the young princess on a bed embroidered with gold and silver. There she looked as beautiful as an angel, even in her sleep. Her cheeks were the color of carnations and her lips the color of coral. She slept gently, breathing softly,
With her eyes lightly closed. The king commanded that no one should disturb her-not that anyone could have woken her in any case!
'We must find the youngest fairy, who promised that she would not die but would only fall into a deep sleep,’ said the king.
A dwarf in seven league boots found her twelve thousand leagues away. She returned within an hour riding in a fiery chariot drawn by dragons.
She said, 'The princess must not be alone when she wakes a hundred years from now. I'll make all ready.'
She touched with her wand everyone in the palace, everyone except the king and queen, for they were needed to rule the kingdom. She touched the governesses and maids of honors, the ladies of the bedchamber, the gentlemen, officers, stewards, cooks, under-cooks, scullions, guards, pages and footmen. She touched all the horses in the stables, the great dogs in the courtyard and the princess's favorite spaniel puppy Mosey, which lay on the end other bed.
The moment she touched them, they all fell asleep. The guards fell asleep propped up on their spears, the cooks fell asleep with their heads in the pastry and the fell asleep sliding half-way down the banisters. Even the greater fire, over which pheasants and partridges roasted on a spit, died down to wait for a hundred years. Let no one come near the palace, ‘said the king as the left, but no one could have done so anyway. There grew up instantly around the palace such a thick fence of trees with dense shrubs and possibly get through. Only the very tops of the palace towers could be seen above the trees. The princess and all the palaces slept for a hundred years. Another royal family ruled the kingdom and people forgot the old story of the sleeping princess. Strange rumors were heard about the hidden palace in the forest. Some said that it was an old castle haunted by evil spirits. Others said that witches and sorcerers held their seer meetings there. Most people believed that the castles belonged to an ogre, with long teeth and claws, who carried children away to eat them. The king's son heard these rumors when he hunted near the forest one day and asked about the distant towers just visible above the tree tops.
I don't believes a word of it, ‘he said. Then an old him a different story. ‘I heard it some fifty years ago from my father who heard it from my grandfather,' said the old man, 'that there was a wonderful princess asleep in the castle that must wait a hundred years for a king's son to wake her.'
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