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TED Fellow Sophal Ear shares the compelling story of his family's escape from Cambodia under the rule of the Khmer Rouge. He recounts his mother's cunning and determination to save her children.
Sophal Ear leads research on post-conflict countries -- looking at the effectiveness of foreign aid and the challenge of development in places like his native land, Cambodia.
TED Fellow Sophal Ear is an Assistant Professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the US Naval Postgraduate School. He has taught on the hospital ship USNS Mercy in support of the Pacific Partnership 2008. He completed his postdoc at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, where he taught Policy and Administration in Developing Countries.
Before entering academia, he consulted for the World Bank and worked for the United Nations Development Programme. Early in his career he traveled to the West Bank and Gaza, and to Algeria, on social protection projects, where he gained a firsthand understanding of the realities of foreign aid on a national scale. Having grown up on Aid to Families with Dependent Children, he personally knew there were pitfalls to welfare system.
He came to the US at the age of 10 as a Cambodian refugee via France after his mother escaped with him and his four siblings from the Khmer Rouge by posing as a Vietnamese woman. She recounted her journey to him in an article in The New York Times.
Sophal Ear leads research on post-conflict countries -- looking at the effectiveness of foreign aid and the challenge of development in places like his native land, Cambodia.
TED Fellow Sophal Ear is an Assistant Professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the US Naval Postgraduate School. He has taught on the hospital ship USNS Mercy in support of the Pacific Partnership 2008. He completed his postdoc at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, where he taught Policy and Administration in Developing Countries.
Before entering academia, he consulted for the World Bank and worked for the United Nations Development Programme. Early in his career he traveled to the West Bank and Gaza, and to Algeria, on social protection projects, where he gained a firsthand understanding of the realities of foreign aid on a national scale. Having grown up on Aid to Families with Dependent Children, he personally knew there were pitfalls to welfare system.
He came to the US at the age of 10 as a Cambodian refugee via France after his mother escaped with him and his four siblings from the Khmer Rouge by posing as a Vietnamese woman. She recounted her journey to him in an article in The New York Times.
22 comments:
That indeed incredible story. All Khmer oversea have the same stories to tell during Pol Pot time. Very sad indeed... thanks.
Sophal Ear,
You're a courageous man who takes risk to help others in the West Bank, Gaza, and Africa countries. You're one of Khmer educated men and we're all proud of you.
I, myself,won't take that risk to go to the unsafe places.
Thank you for sharing your past with us. We're all having been through that dark period.
I hope the KR tribunal court will punish the bad people including Hun Sen, Chea Sim, Heng Samrin, Sok An, Sor Kheng, Tea Banh, Sihanouk, etc...
I could not recognize Sophal Ear from his last picture posted on the Internet. You have a great new look now, congatulations!
Please post your opinions on the effectiveness of UNATAC and foreign aids on the so called liberated Cambodian regime.
so young and smart. congrats, dr. sophal ear.
Congratulation Sophal for your extraodinary achievement in life. It is shocking that you and your mother and siblings survived by pretending to be none other than Vietnamese, which the Khmer Rouge despise. Ironic indeed.
Are, is real?
Congratulations,Khmuy Sophal!
Cheers,
Pou Ung Bunheang
I am glad that Sopha Ear mentioned about his experience how his family escaped from Cambodia to Vietnam in 1977.
In 1977, It is a time that Polpot and Khmer Rouge started having conflict. By that time, Polpot regime really hated Vietnamese.
Why do Vietnamese people had a deal with the Polpot to let the Vietnamese go home, but not the Khmer-Krom people?
Most of the Khmer Rouge officers near the border of Cambodia and Vietnam are the Vietnamese disguised. Thus, that why it had that deal. This is also reason why we saw lots of Cambodia were killed during the Polpot regime in the provinces near the border of Vietnam and Cambodia because most of the Polpot soldiers in those areas were disguised Vietnamese soldiers
According to my Khmer-Krom friends, it is not easy to speak Vietnamese in one or two days to trick the Vietnamese officers that you are Vietnamese. Even you know how to speak, but your accent is still Khmer unless you are Vietnamese. Secondly, even the Khmer-Krom people who live in Vietnam almost their entire life, if they speak Vietnamese, they still speak with the Khmer accent. The Vietnamese easily recognized that....
The Khmer-Krom tried to pretend to be Vietnamese during the Polpot so they could go back to Kampuchea-Krom all ended up in the prisons in Takeo, PulSat, Battdambong and all got killed.
What Sophal Ear mentioned about his journey to Vietnam was lucky and amazing to me.....
I hope that Sophal Ear, with his knowledge and experiences during the crossing border from Vietnam to Cambodia can explain more details to our Cambodian why the Vietnamese could go to Vietnam, but not Khmer-Krom during that time...... Khmer-Krom is Khmer, why Polpot killed Khmer-krom, not the Vietnamese who the Polpot regime hate the most and let them go home easily like that....
Sophal had done a good jobs! but PPU is fuck up still...what a pencil dick he is!
hey, it's call survival; you do whatever it takes to survive during that dark period. hello! don't be so ignorant! thank you.
According to my hellish nightmare, I firmly believe that Sophal Ear was not old enough to remember much about the story of the Killingfield. During 1977 and the early of 1978, the Khmer Rouge unhumanly killed almost the Eastern Khmer, because they unconscientiously, insanely, and hatefully believed that the Eastern folks's are only Khmer, but the brain is Youn. Therefore, I am absolutely believing that KR would be friendly sent Sophal's family to Youn land.
Amazing post-event story telling! It seemed that he was born around 1972 because the 1977 picture showed that he was no more than 4 or 5 years old.
Dear 5:09
I'm afraid I've to correct you with regard to Vietnamese language and Khmer Krom accent. What you said is partly true. My father is a Khmer Krom and when he speaks Vietnamese he doesn't have any Khmer Krom accent. The reason is he studied Vietnamese at school. Those Khmer Krom who speaks Vietnamese with accent because they didn't go to school. However, if Khmer Krom speaks Khmer he/she will always carry the Khmer Krom accent no matter he/she has studied Khmer or not.
The other painful fact about Khmer Krom is that Khmer Krom was discriminated by Vietnamese when they lived in Khmer Krom land, but when they came to Phnom Penh or Cambodia, they then were discriminated by the Khmer here. I personal experienced this. I don't understand why we, Khmer, have such attitude. Look at the Chinese and Vietnamese, no matter where they came from and where they live they always love each other and unite.
From a Khmer Krom living in Phnom Penh
I'm glad to see that such a smart and hardworking Khmer overseas. Dr. Sophal is undoubtedly the model for other Khmer overseas to follow. I've seen countless stories of Lazy Khmer living in the US for more twenty years ended up being deported to Cambodia for crime they committed. They had the opportunity to prosper but turned it away by quitting school and joined gang groups and finally being deported back to Cambodia.
I hope Dr. Sophal can bring the courage and example for other Khmer overseas children to follow and one day come back to Cambodia to help develop our country.
From a Khmer Krom living in Phnom Penh
Well done dr. sohpal! better than PPU quitting school and jointed camel prostitute...
Dr. Sophal - We need someone of your caliber to take over the direction of Radio Free Asia to fight against dictatorship in the world. You look much smarter than those in Radio Free Asia.
We hope that you will not become the spokesperson of the current regime.
1:02 AM
Now you're making me scratching my head even harder with great perplexity.
Caliber? What caliber? The guy does not have the caliber or the nerves of steel to do what we had done in the past. Remember: we saved all your sorry asses from the mass grave ... don't you forget that.
Piece of advice: stay where you're at; the country does not need this kind of species.
Pi Anh: PPU
ah Pi Anh: PPU aka Meng, you saved us from the massacre?
It is indeed a beautiful story of accomplishment of a Cambodian refugee family who survived the Khmer Rouge atrocity and insanity in tne new land of opportunity.
Congratulations to you and your family, Dr. Sophal Ear.
Anet Khmer
Pi Anh: PPU fuck you. now we want to help the country you do not let us in and you said we do not help country why ? during polpot sophal ear he is so young how could he help the country? next time stop spittint out your stupidity and ignorant brain of your out of your stinking mouth. see how ah hun familly do right now all his son out on tv to military at preaviha without letting the millitary leader lead them they do it without afraid to take the lead of military. they just take the place without hard work, they just take the lead without consulting with other leader of millitary before them. how is that ah ppu.
that was so cute of him being Americanized and all...he called the National Bank of Cambodia the "Federal Reserve Bank of Cambodia" aawww, so very cute.
also the tonnage of bombs dropped in Cambodia may have exceeded the tonnage of conventional munitions dropped on Japan in WW II, but that there were "more munitions" dropped on Cambodia that exceeded the ones droppped on Japan that included the the two atomic bombs? Seems like a bit of a stretched comparison. I thought only nouveaux fiction autobiographers would sensationalize the KR story; yes, even the writers who were merely babies/toddlers at the time, would have impeccable memories...
I guess the INS would have a record of where these "fortunate" Xmer refugees actually came from. Did this guy escape directly from Cambodia or from Vietnam. It would be more believable if he said his family were sent back from Pursat to Vietnam in 1972, and then escaped from Vietnam later. Gullible US love senational stories, even when some are a bit far off from the truth.
the ones who experienced the KR atrocity personally refer much more to the first person - the self. the story tellers like Luong Ung and Dr Ear who were small children at the time, tend to use the help from sensationalizing and fictionalizing to support their second hand story telling.
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