Word: penh
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When the Khmer Rouge emptied the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh of human inhabitants in 1975, one of Pol Pot's soldiers murdered 4-year-old Theary Seng's father. Later, Theary Seng, her mother and siblings ended up in a prison in southeast Cambodia. One day, Theary Seng awoke to an empty cell - the prison population had been massacred overnight. In a rare act of mercy, the Khmer Rouge soldiers allowed the handful of children to survive. Theary Seng eventually escaped to a Thai refugee camp and then to the U.S. Her story is by no means unique in Cambodia...
...another nadir in Cambodian-Thai relations occurred back in 2003 when Cambodian protesters - armed with false information that a Thai actress had claimed Cambodia's national treasure, the ancient city and temple complex of Angkor Wat, as actually being Thai - burned down the Thai embassy in Cambodian capital Phnom Penh. The incensed Thai Prime Minister at the time? None other than Hun Sen's self-proclaimed "friend," Thaksin Shinawatra...
...citizen until he was convicted. After being dropped off in Cambodia with no support, K.K. volunteered to be part of the outreach staff at Korsang, a local NGO that has employed about a quarter of the Cambodian-American deportees. K.K. started visiting the slums of Phnom Penh and educating Cambodians about drug abuse and HIV/AIDS. When word spread that he was once a champion breakdancer in the U.S., he says a group of kids he was working with kept asking him for dance lessons. "On the third time the kids came to my house, I gave...
...Some of the Cambodian-Americans now living in Phnom Penh with K.K. have been deported for aggravated felonies as minor as shoplifting and public urination. The law is also retroactive, meaning many had already finished their prison sentences and started rebuilding their lives in the U.S. before finding out that they would be deported. Sophea Heng, 28, who goes by his nickname Wicked, completed his yearlong prison sentence for assault with a deadly weapon in 2001, but was immediately transferred to an immigration detention center where he was held without a release date for two years. Wicked was only released...
...That was December 2004. In less than five years, the organization has grown to reach more than 5,000 kids every year at its six sites, most in the heart of Phnom Penh's slums. Though Tiny Toones started off as a breakdancing group, it quickly expanded to include computer literacy, art, HIV/AIDS prevention, and lessons in English and Khmer, the local language. "We're using hip-hop," says Randy Sary, 28, who works at Tiny Toones. "After we get kids in, we have other programs like English and Khmer. You can't just be athletic. You have...