The Shade of the Tenth Coconut Tree

Abstract:"The Shade of the Tenth Coconut Tree" is one of several songs that Kong Bunchhoeun wrote for the singer Sinn Sisamouth. According to Kong Bunchhoeun's memoirs, this particular lyric was written during a low point in his life: his mother had died, he had abandoned writing, and he was unemployed. He often sat on a stone bench watching the Sangkae River flow through his native Battambang. He secretly fell in love with a neighbor's daughter, who promised to meet him in the shade of a coconut tree beside the river. She never showed. He recorded the incident in his journal and later turned it into this song. tw