A Regina family’s business — and its story

Heng Bun Cau (left) and his twin brother Hee Bun Cau are the Cau family members managing the Ngoy Hoa Asian Foods location at its grand opening on the 1500 block Albert St. April 24, 2012 in Regina, SK. (Photograph by: Bryan Schlosser , Leader-Post)

April 24, 2012
By Will Chabun
Leader-Post (Canada)

REGINA — After the dancers, the musicians and the TV camera left, Mea Nee Cau wandered around his Ngoy Hoa Asian Foods, a shy smile on his face.

It had been an long journey to the high-spirited opening of his family’s new grocery store, which on Tuesday drew hundreds of people to 1580 Albert St.

It started more than 60 years ago, when he found his way from China southward to Cambodia for a better life.

And for a while, he found it.

He married a wonderful woman; they ran a bicycle manufacturing firm employing over 50 people.

Then came 1975.

The Cambodian government collapsed and was replaced by the ruthless leftist movement called the Khmer Rouge, which in four years killed between 750,000 and three million people — nobody could keep count — and terrorized the rest.

As business owners and as ethnic Chinese, the Cau family was targeted. “It was a horror story there,” said son Ngee. “They forced everyone out to work in the rice fields. They just killed anyone, for no reason.

“An example: they took my older sister ... their explanation was that our family was too big. We never saw her again. We were very fortunate that we were able to leave with only one member of our family missing. A lot of other families, the whole family was gone.”

“Leaving” meant escaping the camp, dodging patrols and walking to the Thai border. After nine months in a refugee camp, the Caus and their eight children came to Regina, where the family — penniless and speaking no English — had nothing but each other and old-fashioned hope.

Son Ngee Cau, who went to school, and delivered the Leader-Post, remembers his father budgeting $5 for family meals. His sister did cleaning, worked at McDonald’s and went to school. Everybody worked.

In 1991, the family started a small grocery store on 11th Avenue. Ngee remembers how his father drove to a wholesaler in Vancouver, and slept in his van until it opened the next morning, then drove home.

Their store did well enough that the family decided to move into bigger quarters on Albert Street — which gives the North Central and Warehouse districts the grocery store they’ve wanted since the Albert Street Superstore closed several years ago.

Half of this 10,000-square-foot store is for Asian food; the other half western food. It’s run by Mea Nee’s twin sons, Hee Bun Cau and Heng Bun Cau, but with the rest of the family still helping out. “I’m the delivery boy,” quipped Ngee, by day a Regina businessman. “We do everything here to help the family.”

Said Hee Bun: “We’ve really loved serving the people of Regina. Thank you, Regina. I love Regina.”