Sophouns Kandaal Pheach, a Cambodian monk clad in a vibrant orange robe,

Sophouns Kandaal Pheach, a Cambodian monk clad in a vibrant orange robe, lights a stick of incense and cups his hands to pray in front of an altar of golden Buddha statues at Wat Jotanaram, a Buddhist temple in the Bronx.

“This temple is my life,” said Pheach, who immigrated to America from Phnom Penh in 2001.

The two-story building on Morris Avenue is a temple, a community hall, and Pheach’s home, all under one roof. Beneath its ordinary house-like exterior is a pocket of Southeast Asian culture. As a house of worship, Wat Jotanaram, also known as the Khmer Buddhist Society, caters to more than 300 Cambodian Buddhists.

Pheach leads group meditations on the second floor, as old women chant Khmer prayers. In the lobby, Cambodian health care is offered, including a treatment called kos kyhol, where a coin is lubricated in an herbal liquid balm then firmly applied to the skin to alleviate flu-like symptoms.

“This temple plays the most important role to free sufferings mentally, physically, of my people. When the Cambodian community has unity, we can be happy,” Pheach said.

There are approximately 4,000 Cambodians and Cambodian Americans living in New York, with about 1,600 of them living in the Bronx. Buddhism is the dominant religion among Cambodians, and this temple caters specifically to Cambodian Buddhists, although followers from other countries are welcome.

The first big wave of Cambodian immigrants to the U.S. arrived in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as refugees fled the extremist Khmer Rouge government that killed millions. Many could not speak English and had little professional training, taking whatever jobs they could get once in America.

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