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| Rev. Kong Chhean |
By Greg Mellen, Staff Writer
Long Beach Press Telegram
LONG BEACH - For more than 30 years, the Rev. Kong Chhean helped give Cambodian refugees a spiritual sense of home in a foreign land.
Chhean died Friday at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center after battling a series of ailments. He was 66.
Chhean was the head monk or abbot at the Khemara Buddhikarama Temple, popularly called Wat Willow, Long Beach's largest Cambodian Buddhist temple.
Born in 1945 in Cambodia, Chhean was ordained as a monk after he entered the temple at the age of 12. He studied Buddhist religious thought at Benares Hindu University in India, receiving a doctorate in 1975.
The Buddhist monk came to the United States in 1979 with the first wave of refugees, who fled Cambodia after the Vietnamese drove the genocidal Khmer Rouge from power.
Upon arriving in the U.S., Chhean set up his first temple in an apartment on Clarkdale Avenue in Hawaiian Gardens and his second in a Lakewood home. When the Lakewood site proved too small, Chhean began holding services at El Dorado Park before moving to the current site, a former union hall on the industrial Westside border with Wilmington.
The building was renovated and decorated with distinctive Khmer artwork and architecture, including signature curved spires and red tile roofing.
In addition to leading his congregation, Chhean worked as a mental health counselor and earned a master's degree in psychology from Pepperdine University in 1986 and a doctorate in clinical psychology in 1989.
He worked for the Long Beach Asian Pacific Mental Health Program, part of the Los Angeles County Mental Health Department.
Because of his background both as a Cambodian and a monk, Chhean was uniquely suited to treat Cambodians suffering from mental disease and trauma, such at post traumatic stress disorder and depression.
"He helped a lot of Cambodians with mental problems," said Borann Duong, a member of the temple and its board of directors. "He was on call all the time, and he was very good when we had problems."
Describing his approach to therapy to the Press-Telegram about nine years ago, Chhean said, "Rational living creates balance in the mind and body, but for many people suffering from mental illness, medicine and therapy must also be used. There is no reason for the spiritual and medical treatments to be mutually exclusive."
In its early years, Wat Willow also offered a variety of social, community and cultural services, including weekend basketball tournaments for Khmer youth and adult day care for the elderly parents of working adults.
Recently it has been more concentrated on religious activities.
Buddhist ritual services will be held at Wat Willow, 2100 W. Willow St., daily between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. until 7 p.m. through Thursday. Viewing and Buddhist memorial services will be held at the Wat on Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
A funeral service will be held Sunday from 1 until 3 p.m. at All Souls Mortuary, 4400 Cherry Ave. The service will be followed by a funeral procession to Wat Willow where the final Buddhist ritual service will be held. The cremation will be staged at Stricklin Snively Mortuary, 1952 Long Beach Blvd.
Anyone wishing to make a donation in Chhean's memory can make it to Khemara Buddhikarama Temple, 2100 W. Willow Street, Long Beach, CA 90810. A Khmer language announcement of services is at www.presstelegram.com.
For more information, contact Pinthuy Tim at 562-980- 6710, e-mail: pinrt301@yahoo.com or Borann Duong, 562-577-5481, e-mail: Borannd@hotmail.com.
greg.mellen@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1291
7 comments:
May your souls rest in peaces.
This Buddhist monk had bad reputaion. His real age is at least
over 80 years old. Anyway I wish that his soul would rest in peace.
i remembered him when i was a little girl, my parent always take me along whenever they go and have appointment with him at some kind of clinic. He would always used to give me and my younger sister candy. well, he's only three year younger then my dad. MAY HE SOUL REST IN PEACE. ( He used to deal with life insurance and steal people money) but who cares,....life goes on and when you die you don't take any money with you.
He also impregnated a girl in the 80's. Later he gave the girl some mnoey and told her to move out of Long Beach.
Venerable Kong Chhean,
May your soul rest in Peace.
For your new life, Praying for your new life care more about poorest people in Town, so that you will not look at people with money and rich.
Your love and associate with people who's always say "YES" you can not look close to people who dare to say "NO".
Nevertheless as a pure buddhism:
May God bless Monk and all buddhism who love and practice the path of buddhism pure soul and mindset to be altruist and serve other, mainly the poorest and the unfortunate people in town.
Wait, he was only 66? Isn't that young or what? Oh my god. Now the Press Telegram says that he has a doctorate from India, a master's in America, AND another doctorate from the same Pepperdine University in America. He was some smart man when he was alive. However, the bottomline is what had he contriubute to the Cambodian community in Long Beach when he was alive. There used to be lots of problems with His "Life Insurance Plans" designed to help Cambodian elerly, but the plans turned out to be just a money raising tool that became too much of a burden for the cashstrapped Cambodian elderly. That is one bad aspect of him or his leadership when he was alive. In addition, his temple is not open to the public at all. People used to complain that the ABBOT himself would stared at them and then chased them out of the temple ground. In fact the temple is not even popular with any of the Cambodian people. They only go there because other smaller Cambodian temples are so small and can't accomodate any more visitors. Mostly people go to the Abbot's temple on a few of the traditional Cambodian New Year's Day and Holy Days. Other than that, nobody cares to go at all.
What, he's only 66 years old??? I thought he was around 80 years old. He looks so old.
Back in the late 80's, we used to go study Khmer at his temple every weekend. He seemed like a nice monk. Atleast to us children.
He's a smart man, with a bad reputation. Not sure if what people said about him is true or not, or if people just made up all the bad things about him cuz they didn't like the fact that he went to work and also own that temple.
Mmmm...why do they address him as "Reverend or abbot" when he's a buddhist monk?
May he rest in peace.
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