Khmer New Year Festival 2012 - San Jose-Bay Area, California

The Cambodian-American community of Santa Clara County will celebrate its

27th Annual Cultural New Year,

Year of the Dragon,

on

Saturday, April 14th, 2012 (3pm to midnight)

at the

Unify Event Center

765 Story Road, San Jose, CA 95122

(Behind Walmart)

This year, Cambodian New Year Festival 2012 Committee lead by Miss Davy Chea and, will bring us two parts of events.

Part-I (3pm - 7pm): will feature Khmer Classical Dance & Folk Dances and Traditional Games. The afternoon admission is FREE to watch the classical dances performed by the Cambodian Cultural Dance Troupe. The first time in Khmer New Year in San Jose history there will be a participation of 4 classical dance teachers during this New Year celebration, two teachers are from San Jose, one from Long Beach and one from Santa Rosa.

Part-II (8pm - Midnight): the social dance, will feature Angkor Wat Band and Ms Pinaly.

The celebration of "Khmer New Year" is a symbol to remind us of our culture and heritage. The Cambodian New Year Festival showcases the richness of Cambodian life in our community. The treasured folk culture and history of Cambodia delight the senses in colorful display of art, music, and dance.

For more information:

Please contact Miss Davy Chea at 408.667.4015 or visit http://www.caraweb.org

For Poster - Download Khmer New Year 2012 Poster

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Khmer New Year at Wat Khmer San Jose

Will begin on Thursday the 12th of April 2012

in the San Jose Cambodian Temple located at:

2751 MERVYN’S WAY

SAN JOSE, CA 95127

(408) 770-9171

1. Thursday, April 12th, 2012: Beginning of the NEW YEAR
2. Friday, April 13th, 2012: This day is called MAHASANGRAN
3. Saturday, April 14th, 2012: This day is called VANABAT
4.  Sunday, April 15th, 2012: This day is called LOEUNGSAK

1)- Thursday, April 12th, 2012

• 8:00AM - 12:00AM Homage, taking precepts, offering food to Monks.
• 1:00PM - 4:00PM Mound up the sand.
• 4:00PM - 6:00PM Homage, taking precept & Parrida.

2)- Friday, April 13th, 2012 (VANABAT)

• 8:00AM - 12:00AM Morning schedule as in Thursday.
• 1:30PM - 3:00PM Mound up the sand.

3)- Saturday, April 14th, 2012

• 8:00AM - 12:00AM Morning schedule as in Thursday.
• 1:20PM - 4:00PM Resolving to be CHOLAMONICHITIYA.
• Monks recite JAYANTO & Sprinkle Holy Water over the CHOLAMONICHETIYA

4)- Sunday, April 15th, 2012

• 8:00AM - 12:00AM Schedule for the BUDDHISM.
• 1:00PM - 4:00PM Getting all participants & MONKS in front of Senasanack, homage to CHOLAMO….,
• 4:00PM - 6:00PM raising CHOLAM to be normal sand, Bathing the Buddha’s RELIC, Sprinkle Holy Water over the Monk’s hand and all old women-men, pardoning to the Three GEM, All Monks recite PAHOUTEVEAR and Bangsokaul for inaugurating THE NEW YEAR CELEBRATION.

More info: http://press.caraweb.org/
Download: Program in Khmer | Program in English

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Khmer New Year at Wat Khemarak Rangsey

Will celebrate our CAMBODIAN NEW YEAR on Friday,

Saturday and Sunday April 13-14-15, 2012 from 8:30AM – 9:30PM

at 1594 Cunningham Ave,

San Jose, CA 95122.

Your present at our New Year celebration is an honor for our community. We are looking forward to meet you at our New Year celebration.

For donation to Wat Khemara Rangsey, please write your check payable to: UKKNO.INC

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Horoscope - Year of Dragon

http://www.camnews.org

http://www.box.com/s/0930b7dce80d0106b880

Cambodian family finds home in Restaurant Row

Sovan Boun Thuy, left, of Chez Sovan Express in Restaurant Row, helps guide a customer to the drinks. With her are daughters Kelly Nou, middle, and Laura Chum. (CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM)
Sovan Boun Thuy, of Chez Sovan Express in Restaurant Row, cooks in the kitchen. "I was not sure people in the United States would like my food," she recalled before opening her first restaurant in 1987. (CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM)
Thuy, middle, with daughters Kelly Nou, left, and Laura Chum. (CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM)

Noodle soups and amok curries are the staple dishes at the popular Chez Sovan Express

STORY SUMMARY

Sovan Boun Thuy has always loved feeding people.

That's been good news for hungry people in California in the 21 years since she opened her first restaurant in San Jose.

For the past four years, she and her family also have filled the stomachs of Honolulu's lunch crowd with signature dishes such as amok curry and noodle soup.

Cooking is a self-taught talent that Thuy, 66, has perfected at the three restaurants she started after arriving in Long Beach, Calif., from Thailand in 1975 with little money and five children. Thuy's youngest child, Laura Chum, 30, and Chum's husband, Edison Beltran, now help her run the Restaurant Row location, while her second son manages her first restaurant in San Jose. All of Thuy's now-six children have worked at her eateries.

Her restaurants are something she wants to keep alive for years to come.

"I would like to help pass it down from generation to generation," she said.

CHEZ SOVAN EXPRESS
» Opened: 2004
» Menu: Serves Cambodian lunches, including curry chicken, noodle soups and amok
» Where: Restaurant Row, 500 Ala Moana Blvd.
» Hours: 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., weekdays
» Prices: Less than $10
» Phone: 599-8812

FULL STORY

By Jennifer Sudick
jsudick@starbulletin.com
Honolulu Star Bulletin (Hawaii, USA)

When Sovan Boun Thuy opened her first restaurant in a ramshackle area of San Jose, Calif., in 1987, she worried few Americans would eat the native Cambodian fare she had cooked all her life.

So she grilled hamburgers.

"I was not sure people in the United States would like my food," she said.

She was partly right -- the tiny corner restaurant drew only a few dozen people each day -- "mostly bums, the homeless" she said. "I came here bare-handed, right? So I looked for a cheap (location)."

That changed when a friend from the San Jose Mercury News newspaper, where Thuy helped translate Cambodian interviews for reporters, begged her to cook what she knew best. Those noodle soups and amok curries are now the staple dishes served at her newest location, Chez Sovan Express, at Restaurant Row.

The restaurant, opened by Thuy's eldest daughter Kelly Nou, celebrates its fourth anniversary this winter. Not much has changed from the initial recipes perfected two decades ago in California -- lunch items range from the popular curry chicken to stir-fried vermicelli noodles and cost less than $10.

"I see people eat good and I'm happy," Thuy said. "I like to feed people. It has always been that way, since I was born, I think."

Thuy, 66, runs the restaurant now with her youngest daughter Laura Chum, 30, and Chum's husband, Edison Beltran. She spends seven days a week prepping, preparing and shopping for food. Maintaining the restaurant, which costs more than $7,000 a month in rent and utilities, is expensive and time-consuming, she said.

"We try to tell her to relax a little bit," Chum said. "She enjoys her work so much."

Chum has worked in Sovan's eateries since she was a teenager, first in the original restaurant her brother still owns on Oakland Avenue in San Jose and then in Sovan's second -- and much bigger -- location in the city's Campbell neighborhood that Thuy opened in 1990 and sold to a friend upon moving to Hawaii in 2005. All of Thuy's six children have worked in her restaurants, as well as her now-retired husband, Ytthan Chum, 68, who once served in the Cambodian air force.

"We can fight and bicker all we want, and I can't get fired," Laura Chum said. "It's nice. It's family. We kind of work on our own pace at our own time. It's a little different."

Thuy evacuated her then-five children, ranging in age from 1 1/2 to 11 years old, to Long Beach, Calif., in 1975 after the communist Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot took over Thailand, where she had been living with her husband for five years. A member of the Cambodian army, he was killed when he returned to Cambodia that year for work.

"My house, my farm over there -- they took it," she said. "I cannot take it back. It's OK because we ran away from home."

After a year, Phnom Penh, Cambodia-born Thuy moved her family to Washington, D.C., where she met her second husband and had Laura, followed by a move to Portland, Ore., and then San Jose.

Thuy said she owes much of her success to a restaurant review published a few months after she opened her first restaurant.

"I cried that day. I cried," she said. "People were 15 tables full and outside was a long line. I had only one son help in the front of this small place and one cook inside, that's it."

Business has remained strong, drawing praise from foodie bloggers throughout the Bay Area.

"It was very successful," she said. "And then too many people were looking for my food, so I eliminated the hamburger."