Sep 1, 2007 By Shawn W Crispin
Asia Times (Hong Kong)
PHNOM PENH – Kith Meng's is the bold new face of Cambodian capitalism. Widely considered the country's richest entrepreneur, the Sino-Khmer businessman presides over a sprawling business empire held under his Royal Group of Companies which has leveraged into and helped drive Cambodia's recent economic boom.
With impeccable political connections - including not least his role as a personal advisor to Prime Minister Hun Sen - Kith Meng, 37, has secured a growing trove of lucrative government concessions, licenses and land deals that his Royal Group has in sometimes controversial fashion translated into big business profits.
Those include his controlling stakes in CTN television, mobile telecom leader Mobitel, the Camlot lottery company and a 45% stake in a commercial banking joint venture with Australia's ANZ Bank, where he serves as board chairman and reportedly drives strategic decision-making.
Last year he purchased the swanky Cambodiana Hotel, newly established the Infinity Insurance company and accumulated extensive property holdings and development concessions in the capital Phnom Penh, in what his critics contend are often opaque deals brokered with various line ministries. (Kith Meng could not be reached through his Royal Group for comment.)
His growing service sector empire has drawn both favorable and unfavorable comparisons to neighboring Thailand's telecom tycoon-cum-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's commercial and political ascent. He reportedly will seek a seat on the national senate at upcoming elections and some Phnom Penh-based analysts see him one day as a potential successor to the 55-year-old Hun Sen, who they note rose to political prominence through his military prowess rather than business acumen.
A former refugee from political violence, Kith Meng's is one of Cambodia's most compelling rags to riches stories. His father, Kith Peng Ike, a Sino-Khmer businessman and landlord, was singled out as a "class enemy" during the Khmer Rouge's genocidal purges and he reportedly died from starvation in one of the radical Maoist group's labor camps.
Kith Meng and his family fled the country for Australia, where he was raised and educated. He returned to his war-torn homeland in the early 1990s to help his elder brother, Sophan Kith, to develop the resurrected family business, which upon reestablishment was first known as the Royal Cambodia Company. The enterprise started modestly, supplying furniture, food and office equipment to the United Nations authority that ushered Cambodia's rocky transition from civil war to parliamentary democracy.
In 1991 the Royal Group won the rights to distribute exclusively Canon copiers throughout the country and it quickly spun those monopoly revenues into a joint venture in 1993 with Motorola to establish one of Cambodia's first wireless communication networks. It later did a deal with Luxembourg's Millicom International Cellular, which over the years has grown into the country's leading mobile telecom outfit, Mobitel.
In 1994 Sophan Kith died under mysterious circumstances and, peculiar to cultural norms of seniority as the youngest sibling, Kith Meng took control over the family business. He now serves as both the company's chairman and chief executive officer and his cut-throat approach to business expansion has rapidly transformed the Royal Group into Cambodia's leading service sector conglomerate.
Young gun
As a Western-educated, 37-year-old entrepreneur, Kith Meng's resume stands out among the older generation of ethnic Chinese businessmen who dominate Cambodia's traditional economy. Cambodian politicians have long relied on Sino-Khmer businessmen to run crucial sectors of the national economy, similar to the ethnic-based government-business nexuses seen in Thailand and Indonesia.
In Cambodia that privilege comes with a royal title known as Okhna, which is bestowed on those who make sizable financial contributions to the royal family. Kith Meng is believed to be one of the youngest businessmen to ever receive the honorific and his meteoric commercial rise includes his recent selection as the head the Cambodian Chamber of Commerce.
As Cambodia becomes more integrated into the global economy, Kith Meng has emerged as the government's de facto spokesman for selling the country to potential foreign investors as a profitable and desirable place to do business. He is regularly seen on local television wining and dining foreign business delegations. On the Royal Group's website is a pitch to potential foreign investors to help build its proposed Royal Caesar Casino, which it's billing as "the largest and most dazzling gaming facility in the Cambodia hemisphere".
Beyond the diplomacy and hype, there is much more at play to Kith Meng's growing prominence than mere spin-doctoring. Some political analysts contend that Hun Sen has played an instrumental role in cultivating and mobilizing the young entrepreneur's modern business image in a vigorous public relations effort to shirk his and his government's notorious reputation as the "Mafia on the Mekong".
Cambodia emerged from nearly three decades of civil war only to become known as a regional hub for illicit business, including rampant money laundering, drug smuggling, human trafficking and illegal logging. Hun Sen and his Cambodia People's Party's (CPP) have been directly linked to shadowy figures reputedly involved in illicit businesses, including his established ties to businessman Theng Bunma, who has contributed millions of dollars to the premier's past election campaigns and also implicated by US authorities for alleged drug trafficking.
As Cambodia's aboveground economy booms, state concessions are no doubt providing rich new sources of legitimate revenues for Hun Sen's government. It is unknown whether Kith Meng contributes funds directly to his CPP, but his concession payments to line ministries are no doubt bolstering state coffers. One Phnom Penh-based Western businessman who spoke on condition of anonymity and claims to have personally conducted the due diligence research on the Royal Group's recent joint venture with Australia's ANZ Bank says that his in-depth investigations failed to turn up any "dirty laundry" in Kith Meng's past or present business dealings.
Reborn landed gentry
That's not to say his business practices lack for controversy. Kith Meng's style has reportedly ruffled feathers among the more established Okhna represented in the Cambodia Chamber of Commerce, whereby the older generation of Sino-Khmer businessmen have bristled at his perceived patronizing lectures about globalization and at what some of them reportedly view as his overly direct Western-style of interaction.
Whether those complaints stem from genuine pique or instead heartfelt fear of Kith Meng's expanding reach into other Okhna's once monopolized markets is unclear. One Western aid agency representative, who spoke with Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity, says that soon after launching last year’s joint venture with ANZ Bank, Kith Meng pushed to expand the bank's local branch network much faster than ANZ first planned. That aggressive strategy, it turns, has paid off handsomely through a fast growing market share of deposits and the lion's share of loans in the nascent home mortgage market.
Other times, critics say, Kith Meng's Royal Group pushes too hard. In June 2006 police armed with batons, tear gas and AK47 assault rifles evicted at least 20 families from a contested land plot worth several million dollars next to Phnom Penh's Preah Monivong Hospital which the government had controversially awarded to the Royal Group for development. The resident families were reportedly given US$500-$1,500 in compensation and trucked to a relocation site 30 kilometers outside the capital which lacked electricity and water.
Similar complaints have arisen from his plans for the landmark Bassac Theater. In 2005, the culture ministry granted the concession, which called on the Royal Group to rehabilitate the damaged structure in exchange for the rights to outfit the theater's surrounding land with new offices and a conference center. The company has since decided to demolish the historic building and evict the scores of artists who after the Khmer Rouge's "class enemy" purges took refuge in the old theater.
Those same artists have resurrected the traditional Khmer art forms that the Maoist movement aimed to destroy and after squatting at the historic site for over a decade, each has received $300 to abandon an area where land prices now top $1,000 per square meter. The irony of such deals is not lost on Kith Meng's critics, who contend that the Royal Group is capitalizing on the legal vacuum for adjudicating land ownership rights created by the Khmer Rouge's destruction of the national land registries.
On the Royal Group's website, Kith Meng says in a statement that the company's origins trace "back to the early days of the Khmer Rouge occupation" – meaning, presumably, the property and businesses his father maintained before the radical Maoist movement killed him and drove his family, including a young Kith Meng, into exile. In Cambodia's latest capitalist incarnation, government connections often trump historical claims and reassert old social class divisions, of which Kith Meng's and the Royal Group's fast expanding commercial domain is living proof.
Shawn W Crispin is Asia Times Online's Southeast Asia Editor.
With impeccable political connections - including not least his role as a personal advisor to Prime Minister Hun Sen - Kith Meng, 37, has secured a growing trove of lucrative government concessions, licenses and land deals that his Royal Group has in sometimes controversial fashion translated into big business profits.
Those include his controlling stakes in CTN television, mobile telecom leader Mobitel, the Camlot lottery company and a 45% stake in a commercial banking joint venture with Australia's ANZ Bank, where he serves as board chairman and reportedly drives strategic decision-making.
Last year he purchased the swanky Cambodiana Hotel, newly established the Infinity Insurance company and accumulated extensive property holdings and development concessions in the capital Phnom Penh, in what his critics contend are often opaque deals brokered with various line ministries. (Kith Meng could not be reached through his Royal Group for comment.)
His growing service sector empire has drawn both favorable and unfavorable comparisons to neighboring Thailand's telecom tycoon-cum-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's commercial and political ascent. He reportedly will seek a seat on the national senate at upcoming elections and some Phnom Penh-based analysts see him one day as a potential successor to the 55-year-old Hun Sen, who they note rose to political prominence through his military prowess rather than business acumen.
A former refugee from political violence, Kith Meng's is one of Cambodia's most compelling rags to riches stories. His father, Kith Peng Ike, a Sino-Khmer businessman and landlord, was singled out as a "class enemy" during the Khmer Rouge's genocidal purges and he reportedly died from starvation in one of the radical Maoist group's labor camps.
Kith Meng and his family fled the country for Australia, where he was raised and educated. He returned to his war-torn homeland in the early 1990s to help his elder brother, Sophan Kith, to develop the resurrected family business, which upon reestablishment was first known as the Royal Cambodia Company. The enterprise started modestly, supplying furniture, food and office equipment to the United Nations authority that ushered Cambodia's rocky transition from civil war to parliamentary democracy.
In 1991 the Royal Group won the rights to distribute exclusively Canon copiers throughout the country and it quickly spun those monopoly revenues into a joint venture in 1993 with Motorola to establish one of Cambodia's first wireless communication networks. It later did a deal with Luxembourg's Millicom International Cellular, which over the years has grown into the country's leading mobile telecom outfit, Mobitel.
In 1994 Sophan Kith died under mysterious circumstances and, peculiar to cultural norms of seniority as the youngest sibling, Kith Meng took control over the family business. He now serves as both the company's chairman and chief executive officer and his cut-throat approach to business expansion has rapidly transformed the Royal Group into Cambodia's leading service sector conglomerate.
Young gun
As a Western-educated, 37-year-old entrepreneur, Kith Meng's resume stands out among the older generation of ethnic Chinese businessmen who dominate Cambodia's traditional economy. Cambodian politicians have long relied on Sino-Khmer businessmen to run crucial sectors of the national economy, similar to the ethnic-based government-business nexuses seen in Thailand and Indonesia.
In Cambodia that privilege comes with a royal title known as Okhna, which is bestowed on those who make sizable financial contributions to the royal family. Kith Meng is believed to be one of the youngest businessmen to ever receive the honorific and his meteoric commercial rise includes his recent selection as the head the Cambodian Chamber of Commerce.
As Cambodia becomes more integrated into the global economy, Kith Meng has emerged as the government's de facto spokesman for selling the country to potential foreign investors as a profitable and desirable place to do business. He is regularly seen on local television wining and dining foreign business delegations. On the Royal Group's website is a pitch to potential foreign investors to help build its proposed Royal Caesar Casino, which it's billing as "the largest and most dazzling gaming facility in the Cambodia hemisphere".
Beyond the diplomacy and hype, there is much more at play to Kith Meng's growing prominence than mere spin-doctoring. Some political analysts contend that Hun Sen has played an instrumental role in cultivating and mobilizing the young entrepreneur's modern business image in a vigorous public relations effort to shirk his and his government's notorious reputation as the "Mafia on the Mekong".
Cambodia emerged from nearly three decades of civil war only to become known as a regional hub for illicit business, including rampant money laundering, drug smuggling, human trafficking and illegal logging. Hun Sen and his Cambodia People's Party's (CPP) have been directly linked to shadowy figures reputedly involved in illicit businesses, including his established ties to businessman Theng Bunma, who has contributed millions of dollars to the premier's past election campaigns and also implicated by US authorities for alleged drug trafficking.
As Cambodia's aboveground economy booms, state concessions are no doubt providing rich new sources of legitimate revenues for Hun Sen's government. It is unknown whether Kith Meng contributes funds directly to his CPP, but his concession payments to line ministries are no doubt bolstering state coffers. One Phnom Penh-based Western businessman who spoke on condition of anonymity and claims to have personally conducted the due diligence research on the Royal Group's recent joint venture with Australia's ANZ Bank says that his in-depth investigations failed to turn up any "dirty laundry" in Kith Meng's past or present business dealings.
Reborn landed gentry
That's not to say his business practices lack for controversy. Kith Meng's style has reportedly ruffled feathers among the more established Okhna represented in the Cambodia Chamber of Commerce, whereby the older generation of Sino-Khmer businessmen have bristled at his perceived patronizing lectures about globalization and at what some of them reportedly view as his overly direct Western-style of interaction.
Whether those complaints stem from genuine pique or instead heartfelt fear of Kith Meng's expanding reach into other Okhna's once monopolized markets is unclear. One Western aid agency representative, who spoke with Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity, says that soon after launching last year’s joint venture with ANZ Bank, Kith Meng pushed to expand the bank's local branch network much faster than ANZ first planned. That aggressive strategy, it turns, has paid off handsomely through a fast growing market share of deposits and the lion's share of loans in the nascent home mortgage market.
Other times, critics say, Kith Meng's Royal Group pushes too hard. In June 2006 police armed with batons, tear gas and AK47 assault rifles evicted at least 20 families from a contested land plot worth several million dollars next to Phnom Penh's Preah Monivong Hospital which the government had controversially awarded to the Royal Group for development. The resident families were reportedly given US$500-$1,500 in compensation and trucked to a relocation site 30 kilometers outside the capital which lacked electricity and water.
Similar complaints have arisen from his plans for the landmark Bassac Theater. In 2005, the culture ministry granted the concession, which called on the Royal Group to rehabilitate the damaged structure in exchange for the rights to outfit the theater's surrounding land with new offices and a conference center. The company has since decided to demolish the historic building and evict the scores of artists who after the Khmer Rouge's "class enemy" purges took refuge in the old theater.
Those same artists have resurrected the traditional Khmer art forms that the Maoist movement aimed to destroy and after squatting at the historic site for over a decade, each has received $300 to abandon an area where land prices now top $1,000 per square meter. The irony of such deals is not lost on Kith Meng's critics, who contend that the Royal Group is capitalizing on the legal vacuum for adjudicating land ownership rights created by the Khmer Rouge's destruction of the national land registries.
On the Royal Group's website, Kith Meng says in a statement that the company's origins trace "back to the early days of the Khmer Rouge occupation" – meaning, presumably, the property and businesses his father maintained before the radical Maoist movement killed him and drove his family, including a young Kith Meng, into exile. In Cambodia's latest capitalist incarnation, government connections often trump historical claims and reassert old social class divisions, of which Kith Meng's and the Royal Group's fast expanding commercial domain is living proof.
Shawn W Crispin is Asia Times Online's Southeast Asia Editor.
33 comments:
In Cambodia, the land of oportunities is for few. He is up and go sound very promising and successfull. However, in the Country where the lawless and conspiracy (dissolve without trace) are going hand and hand, it is questionable of how long it will last of fortune. A person can earn multi-billions dollars and mass assests but the person must not forget there is a set limitation of old school boys in hype-cronies of old vs new generation among CPP. I strongly believe he is awared of this sting-ray trap awaiting before him.
AH Kith Meng is behaving more like a predator and a thug more than an investor because he is not afraid to use AH HUN SEN thuggish police force to kick dirt poor Cambodian people to the ground like a dog to get what he want! The fact that he is highly connected to HUN SEN more than any person for the protection of business monopoly and no competitor can outshine him!
AH Kith Meng is a very good example how a Cambodian government can help each individual Cambodian citizen to become very successful entrepreneurs! It is about time that Cambodian government must pass a law to protect Cambodian entrepreneurs whether it is in form of a tax break or anti-monopoly to encourage competition or the right to ownership, and above all equal opportunity to do business just likes AH Kith Meng!
Most other countries on Earth such as United States produces thousand of millionaires every year but Cambodia under AH HUN SEN leadership produces only one millionaire AH Kith Meng! It is such a shame that Cambodia still have a long way to go!
When Suon Serey Rathta is calling for the country to hold justice for the general public all royalist and Hun sen supporters are crying foul that Serey Ratha is a Youn'spie. Indeed, all animals like this Kith Meng, Yeay phu, Yeay Phann and Yeay Oy, Kong triv, Kok An, Ly yong Phat are the one whose Cambodian people should be awared off because these animals are to dagerous for Cambodia. They are the master of killings, land grabbings, drug trafficking etc.. and etc... Can anyone tell me where Kith Meng has made all his monies. He left Australia with penniless to work for his brother. Ina sudden his brother has died with mysteries. This guy took all his brother monies. Now he did land grabbings and other secret things to get rich very fast. This is how these rich people have made their monies.
we need social justice which has to start from the top like Sihanouk who has led the khmer rouge to kill millions of Cambodian innocenses people.
To poster3:14AM This kith meng is not scared with Hun sen because he has affairs with Hun Neng'daughter who was Hok Lundy'daughter in law ( according to heng Pov statement). Hun Neng'daughter has left Hok Lundy'son for Kith Meng so, Hok Lundy want to kill this Kith Meng. But now Hok Lundy is scared with Hun Neng. Hok Lundy has asked Heng Pov to kill for his behalf but this later has refused.
3:14 AM
Why do you have to be rude when criticizing? Are you jealous? I know you can't make everyone happy, but I think that your criticism lack of balance view. Kith Meng is a businessman, it is natural that he would try to do anything to build his business; at the same time he attracts foreign companies to do businesses with him, in turn there are thousands of jobs being created. Put yourself in his shoe then you will know.
I do believe Cambodia should have antitrust law. Right now there are so many people are doing monopolizing business in Cambodia or so called Prach Mok. This is Prach Mok business is not healthy for Cambodian consumers. They are practicing antitrust business which is illegal in free market economy. Cambodia ought to ban business like this. It is bad and it is regressive.
Hello 4:55AM,
If Kith Meng is a good businessman, he cannot make that much of monies for his age at all.
-First he has robbed his brother monies when his brother has passed away.
-He used his connection with Hun Sen to shut out other people opportunities to do business.
-He used land grabbings by stealing other people land for free and sell to make monies without paying a pennies to the land owner.
-He has bribed all officials each month not to sue him for running a phone company which has always problem with connections.
-How much has he paid tax on his income each year?
I love to see good and genuine businessman. But I hated people who robbed others for their own wealth.
If Kth Meng is now a lover of Hun Neng'daughter, this Kith Meng will have the same fate like Oum Chhay already. This is Cambodia where Hun Sen can killanyone and can keep anyone to be rich. His richness is out of extra-ordinary. He has been placed in gold mine by Hun Sen family like Mong Rithy.
From inside source Cambodia.
His brother was killed by him...
Hun Sen knew that he is just waiting time to judge Meng Kith.
Last year when Hun Sen came to visit Australia ,Meng Kith had organizes the whole events.
At luchtime after Hun Sen speech to
NSW's Governor,Mary Bashir....Meng Kith went to the interpreter by saying :" In Cambodia you would get shot of your translation "...
It was served right to the guy who
is pro CPP in Sydney.
Meng Kith is a new face of Khmer Mafia who's running Cambodia under Hun Sen ruling.
Check the royal group's finances, you'll know who's getting the lion shares ! For sure, this guy can't go far without Hun Sen's blessing.
6:57 AM wrote
Meng Kith went to the interpreter by saying :" In Cambodia you would get shot of your translation "...
It was served right to the guy who
is pro CPP in Sydney."
The pro-CPP guy should know better than to translate if his English was not good enough. However, Kith Meng himself shows his lack of breeding by making such a statement. He is behaving like his ill-bred master Hun Sen. Cambodian tradition dictates that you do not insult people to their faces. What Kith meng and Hun Sen have in common is the belief that money = power and that class can be bought with money. If people get shot in Cambodia for being incompetent, all members of the government from Hun Sen down and almost all Funcinpec members of the National Assembly should be shot, too.
He would not walk away with a penny if there wasn't a group of thugs behind him.
2L
Now people have known this animal Kith Meng from inside out. Some business people in Cambodia who knew him very well have wondered how can he killed his own blood brother? Just for monies? How can this animal has any patriotist for even his brother he can killed already. The same for Veng serey vuth who has killed his sponsor.
They are all animals worst than dogs which still can recognised their master>
Kith Meng was a kid from Canberra,the Capital of Australia.
He was hang around for a while to lead a litle Khmer Band before he headed up to Phnom Penh.....He bought a Penhouse at Double Bay,an exclusive area with a waterfront view....His guests are the Hight ranking from CPP,encluded Hok Lundy,Sar Kheng ect....when they came to lavish their money at Star City,Sydney's Casino.
Veng Sirivudh is also killed his own adopted Brother,Theang,who was well known khmer lived in Wellington,NZ.
Theang had taugh & looked after Sireivudh since he arrived in NZ as a little kid.
This evil killed him without pity.
The money was missing $700,000 dollars from the Tourism dept after the misery death of Theang who was the accountant of the dept.
Veng Sereivudh wasn't present at the Theang's funeral (?).
Khmer says :" Chheam Srhek Sbek How "
We wait and see the society of :" PEAL SEE PEAL "
Hellon 9:24AM
Refering to Veng Sereyvuth killing his adopted brother Mr Theng ( a respect businessman in Wellington ), most Cambodian people in Phnom Penh has knwon this suspiscious of Veng Sreyvuth already. They said, he has set up him to have noodle breakfast with his staffs at one of the restaurant in Monivong Bld. He has bribed the restaurant owner to poison him with poison noodle. After he ate poison noodle, everyone has separated and left him to die in the road with blood come out from his skin and ears.
This is how Cambodian killed their own brother and sister. Suon Srey Ratha is right. We need social justice to clean up all the killing in Cambodia. If not Cambodia will carry on with this culture of killing for ever. The vlean up should start from the top to the bottom. The recent barking from Hun sen to protect Sihanouk from this KRtrial is indeed not to ptotect the King but in reality is to protect him and his family for terrorising Cambodian for more than 3o years already.
I'm just amazed about this guy, how can people like him sleep at night? Eventually people who do bad things on to others, especially with the whole land grabbing thing, eventually karma will find its way. I'm just sad that there are crooked business people like him who, who don't care about the countries well being and state can monopolize everything. Now he's going to run KFC in Cambodia ... the whole Bassac theater troubles is an insult to Cambodians. Wanting to depose a well known Khmer architecture, for business profit and gain? That's just no shame and insulting to our history and culture. I know Vann Molyvan is insulted, I just hope they do something about that Bassac theater. It's just sad how uneducated people run our country, people who's family before the war never knew city life, education, etc. Comparing rich families back then before the war to those of the rich of the present, they lack a lot of things, even physical appearance.
Oknha Kith Meng is worth to be Cambodia Prime Minister to replace ah Hun Sen(Criminal against humanity in Cambodia)
Just want to ask a few questions here. If you love Cambodia that much, have you all done something about it sofar?
-How many Cambodians have you employed sofar?
-How many investors have you brought to do business in Cambodia?
-Have you brought any new technologies in Cambodia?
-Have you introduced Cambodian tradition, culture, language to the world so that they know that we exist.
-Would you like to see the foreigners control the economy in Cambodia or Cambodian people.
-There are two type of people here, talkers and doers which one are you?
So if you love Cambodian that much please start do something not just talk.
If you are angry why Cambodian people suffer so much. And who causes all of these, ask our king, our former king.
In Cambodia, people like Kith Meng and other CPP associated businessmen have never respected law to run their bussiness. They used only two methods: Rob and kill to gain more.
-You can ask them , how many investors have lost their lives and their monies through these predators. They lured them to Cambodia and asked them to invest in inflated price business with their small contribution and then killed them to take all their monies. Look at Long Chhin is one of the example. Without killings and robbings foreign investors, they cannot make any monies because they cannot print any monies themselve.
ANZ Royal has competitors from the "old boys camp". Canadia Bank and other other Cambodian Banks, which have existed before ANZ Royal will be itching to ward off Kith Meng. When I was in Cambodia, I find it more secure to use ANZ's ATM than any other bank. I've used them 13 times or so without a glitch. It took Kith Meng less than a year to grow ANZ Royal Bank into the second largest in Cambodia. It will be number one by the end of this year.
Like him or hate him, his business at least have "some" transparency.
With all the brain power endowed by God on AH KITH MENG and he couldn't help AH HUN SEN pass anti-corruption law! Ahahhahahhahahah!
Cambodia has a long way to go!
3:06 AM do you blame King Norodom Sihanouk too when you are dumb?
In Cambodia, from the very poor, to the very rich, it is always a culture of "money family ties". Even brothers and sisters are only "associates", as the rich sibling do not want the poor sibling to beg from them. I know of a very rich great aunt in Cambodia who does not want her rich child to associate with any of his "less rich" cousins (even though they grew up with one another). When this aunt is sick, she flew to Singapore hospital, but when her brother became very ill, and asked if she can help him to find a doctor in Singapore (he even volunteer to pay with his own money), she refuses, because she doesn't want to be seen in public with him. Family politics in Cambodia, especially when money is involve, plays a hidden role in Cambodian society.
In family gatherings, where cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews are involve, you can clearly see who the "richer kids" are. They tell their other cousins what to do, such as fetch water, and clean this or clean that. This is Cambodians in Cambodia. As a Khmer American, I'm not use to that. I have rich siblings and not so rich siblings. Yet, during Christmas, our kids get the same presents with no special treatment whatsoever. Our family are all equal. This may not hold true for all Khmer American families, but our family were raised to be equal regardless of income.
8:33PM
Ignorance is the word and the root cause of people disdaining on each other. We need to get people to school to think more critically about everything. Education is weapon of choice; without that Cambodians will bite each other like dogs like we do now. We need to support each other, not destroying each other like I see now. Kith Meng is not the best but acceptable. I see most are much worst than him. In Cambodia everything is murky, it can't be clean and enforcing like in Western country; but that the best it can get. The system is the problem. We need let go that destructive psycho on each other. Criticism is good but not get to personal and insulting.
Corruption is in all men's heart even the monks earn and stole money from the charity. But if people are more educated the corruption can be decreased. Kith is not that bad, he does a lot charity to his Khmer people but some posters in here don't see his good sides.
we can't please everyone, if we please one then we displease another one. So the hect with it.
These people know only blame but they may be the worse.
It is part of businessmen and businesswomen in this world. No body is perfect here. Even In America look at Bill Gates, Donald Trump,Steve Jobs and Leona Helmsley,and so on. Even the famous televangelist Jim Bakker and Tammy Fayes. They all live in America but still do something wrong. What if they all live in Cambodia. Would you rather have 100 Cambodian like Kith Meng or 100 uneducated, lazy, big mouth Cambodian? There is no way to find fairness in this world my friends. Like America for instant, Vietnamese killed over 50,000 American, imprisoned and tortured them even still talk trash about them. And American know what Vietnamese have been doing to poor Khmer and Khmer Krom but still American big companies still coming to do business in Vietnam not in Cambodia, Why? All about money.
We all dislike Vietnamese. But Vietnam has the highest percentage of educated people "about 80%". Even we all have the same oppotunity here in US. How many Vietnamese doctors, lawyers, engineers graduate every year, comparing to us. So start stop criticizing and start improving ourselves. Some people never blame themselves of being poor, stupid, and lazy but they blame on other to cause them that way.
Dear poster 11:07PM
If a person dare to kill his brother for monies already, that is finished. He is must be from Derachhan group. All his charity is just to chase his brother spirit out from hauting him every day. What about people who have lost their land when Kith Meng stoled from them to sell for Australian Embassy? That is one of the scams which he has accumulated his wealth from. Steal and steal and working with mafia government !!!
Dear poster 8:08am
If he kill his own Brother, why all his relative, especially his other brothers and sisters did not say anything why just only outsider like you. If your uncle kill your dad, would you still talk to your uncle? Did you personally see him kill his brother or just guessing. If he all that bad why all these big corporations, I mean public trading companies like ANZ bank and KFC etc want to do business with him. Will it cause problem with their investors. Why they risk their image and money to joint with him. I bet if you are the owner of those giant companies you will study about him thoroughly before you risk everything to joint.
Dear poster 8:08am
If he kill his own Brother, why all his relative, especially his other brothers and sisters did not say anything why just only outsider like you. If your uncle kill your dad, would you still talk to your uncle? Did you personally see him kill his brother or just guessing. If he all that bad why all these big corporations, I mean public trading companies like ANZ bank and KFC etc want to do business with him. Will it cause problem with their investors. Why they risk their image and money to joint with him. I bet if you are the owner of those giant companies you will study about him thoroughly before you risk everything to joint.
There is a saying that children can learn a lot about the world through their parent because the parent can do a better job than the teacher in term of passing on the family value, the morality, and do and the don’t when facing certain situation in society and but when their parent came from another country with disadvantage background as dirt poor Cambodian farmer to live in a 20 century culture such as United States and that itself can be a problem for the children! This is what you called culture shock!
Now it is up to children to acquire knowledge base on their surrounding and experience and that can be good and bad because there are certain knowledge and value that even public school teach don’t these children! So to see Cambodian people as updatable and backward people is one look down mother fucker! I am willing to bet that most the writers on this website is the first generation of Cambodian people whose first language is Khmer! The second and the third generation still lost in the wilderness and still trying to find their way in trying to understand their place and their understanding of the society they live in before they can project their opinion to the world! It would take them about 30 years to achieve this!
I just hope that many people who read many of the comments on this website don't see it as Cambodian people fight among themselves or Cambodian fight with another Cambodian from oversea and I want them to see as different in opinion, experience, and value!
I maybe putting apostrophe on every sentence that I wrote to make me look like an angry person but I am not because it is my style and I do try to see some of the problem from human perspective!
At any rate, I really like American system of government because the system was able to accommodate much diversity and sometime I think how that is possible!
There are more American people died in United States than all American soldiers died in the Iraq war and you can say that American society is one of the most violent cultures on the face of the Earth because 90% of American people own guns! But you can look at the bright side of American culture too and why immigrants from all over the world still want to come to America in search of opportunity! Maybe it is an American culture to promote democracy, competition, individuality and respect the right of each other as human that are some of the reasons why people from all over the world still want to come United States!
Cambodia can learn a lot from United States and for Cambodia to continue to maintain undemocratic system and disregard the right of individual Cambodian people and soon or later the political violent will erupt again! Cambodian people like most people on this Earth want respect and love, and recognition and no Cambodian government even HUN SEN Vietcong puppet government can stop Cambodian people from achieving this!
I totally agree with 12:12 comments. Finally somebody is positive and looking forward.
I am a foreign investor in Cambodia and Kith Meng has cheated our company of $1million. I WILL RECOMMEND TO ALL FOREIGNERS...do not Do business with kith meng
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