Random Memories of Lok Oam Has Salorn

The curly haired man in a white suit, shaking the maracas, is oam Lorn.




Whenever my parents and I sit down for breakfast, lunch, and dinner or when we're out and about, the topics of discussion always revolve around my father's family and relatives (past and present). I guess old age makes him nostalgic. He loves them and misses them dearly, especially those who died tragically. I guess talking about them keeps their spirits and memories alive. One of them includes uncle Has Salorn, the famous and talented musician in the Sanghum Reas Niyum's days.

To the Cambodian population, he was Has Salorn; but to my father, his brothers, and other cousins, he was Soseng (Sunray). Oam Lorn was the youngest of his much older four siblings. He had left Trangel, Kampong Laeng to study in the city before my father was aware of his existence. He actually grew up in Phnom Penh. He became a musician and lived with a city woman who was also in the music industry. She is still alive. Oam Lorn had his own band and taught music in Phnom Penh at Sala Cheat Do Dontrey, if he was not performing at special functions or concerts through out the country.

He was often seen in Trangel after his separation from his live-in girlfriend. He would always hang out with my father and their cousins whenever he visited home. The people and environment of Trangel inspired him to write many great songs. Family and relatives mocked him when they saw him humming, whistling, and trying out his vocal cord and setting it to a particular pitch. He was a progressive musician who looked for and tested out traditional Khmer instruments to infuse with western and latin music. He requested one of the villagers to make him a Roneat. He practiced on it so much that it annoyed his elderly father.

One day, when he and my father came back from hanging out with their cousins and friends, they found the Roneat on the ground, shattered to pieces, underneath his father's stilt, wooden house. He and my father looked at each other. "I guess father was annoyed," he said, smiling. They both laughed.

Uncle Deth also reminisced about oam Lorn when my family visited Trangel in May. He recalled, when he was a little boy, oam Sovandi threatened to beat him up if he didn't steal oam Lorn's chicken for him. Out of fear of being beaten by his older cousin and fear of being caught by his other older cousin, he cried as he led the chicken out of oam Lorn's farm. Oam Lorn caught him and hit him so hard on the head with his knuckles that he felt it burning.

Oam Lorn officially married a very nice and traditional fellow villager, as approved and arranged by his parents. Like many other Khmer artists, he joined the Lon Nol army to fight the communists in the early 1970s. According to our relatives, he was shot and killed. His entire family members were wiped out during the Democratic Kampuchea. My relatives are not sure if his wife and two children had survived. My goal is to locate them.

I hope to dedicate a well researched essay, in loving memory of the past Khmer artists whose legacy now lives within the Khmer Surin.