STILL WATER, SLUMBERING DRAGON (Greeting card)

The Tonlé Sap, South-east Asia’s largest freshwater lake, has influenced the Khmer civilization since its beginning. During the wet season, the water in the Mekong backs up into the lake, turning swathes of dry land into flooded forests, which then become one of the most incredible freshwater fish spawning grounds on earth. The aquafauna depicted in this illustration were once plentiful in the Tonlé Sap, but some, such as the Irrawaddy dolphin, can now only be found in small pockets of the Mekong River. Depicted here too are the Reachisey, a mythical creature unique to Cambodian mythology, the monkey deity Hanuman and his lover, the mermaid Sovan Macha.