阅读理解
Some young Cambodians are learning a
new sport — skateboarding. The country's first skateboard park is located on the
grounds of a local charity group at the edge of Phnom Penh, the capital.
Sports like Khmer boxing and soccer are
wildly popular in Cambodia. But Chea, who has been skating for 6 months, says
skating has already become his favorite sport.
The skaters are learning tricks like
launching off a jump or half-pipe and flying through the air on their narrow
wooden boards.
A non-governmental organization called
Skateistan Cambodia organizes weekly programs at the park. Skateistan started
its work in Afghanistan years ago. Rory Burke is working with the group which
expanded to Cambodia last year.
Rory Burke points out, "Yeah, it's
definitely not a typical Cambodian pastime (消遣). And I think the idea of 'why
skateboarding is that it's not been done before here. We want to use
skateboarding as something saying, 'Hey, this is new, this is something
different. And that kind of itself becomes a little bit of hook. People
see it and they think and they say, "Wow, 'what is that?', and they want
to get involved. "
Skateistan partners with local groups that
work with young people. The park is on the grounds of the group known as PSE,
where children attend school and learn a trade. There are almost one hundred
twenty participants. They all come from troubled lives.
Seventeen-year-old Sang Rotha is a student
at PSE. "Sometimes I don't do well on subjects like math," he says, "I
feel bad when I find it hard to keep up with my lessons. So that is why I
skateboard—to improve my bad feelings. "
He says he began skateboarding more than a
year ago. Before he started training, it seemed very easy. But it was very
difficult to learn tricks, and he got hurt a lot from falling off.
Rory Burke says learning to deal with the
difficulties is part of the lesson for these young skateboarders.