Cambodian Elite & their Rich Kids & Destruction of Cambodia, Cambodia is hopeless as long as these leeches are still in power Options

[preahvihear]

"KHMER RICHE" Written by Andrew Marshall in the Good Weekend Magazine for the Sydney Morning Herald, published last Sunday 12/12/09

They live in one of the poorest countries on earth, yet they drive flash cars, dwell in mansions and scorn their impoverished brethren. Andrew Marshall meets the rich sons and daughters of Cambodia elite.

“I’m going to drive a little fast now. Is that Okay?” There is one place in Cambodia where you can hold a cold beer in one hand and a warm Kalashnikov in the other, and Victor is driving me there. We’re powering along Phnom Penh’s airport road with Oasis on his Merc’s sound system and enough guns in the boot to sink a Somali pirate boat. Victor is rich and life is sweet. His father is commander of the Cambodian infantry. He has a place reserved for him at L’Ecole Speciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr, France’s answer to Duntroon. And, in his passenger seat, there is a thin, silent man with a Chinese handgun: his bodyguard.

“His name is Klar,” says Victor. “It means tiger.”

Victor is only 21, but when reach our destination—a firing range run by the Cambodian special forces—the soldier at the gate salutes.

Devastated by decades of civil war, Cambodia remains one of the world’s poorest nations. A third of its 13 million people live on less than a dollar a day and about 8 out of every 100 children die before the age of five. But Victor—real name Meas Sophearith—was raised in a different Cambodia, where power and billions of dollars in wealth are concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite. This elite prefers to conceal the size and sources of their money—illegal logging, smuggling, land-grabbing—but their children just like to spend it. The Khmer Rouge are dead; the Khmer Riche now rule Cambodia.

I first met Victor at a fancy Phnom Penh restaurant called Café Metro. Outside, Porsches, Bentleys and Humvees fight for parking spaces. The son of a powerful general, Victor has his future mapped out for him. He went to school in Versailles, speaks French and English, and now studies politics at the University of Oklahoma. “My mother wanted us to get a foreign education so we could come back and control the country,” he says. The shooting range is where Victor and his friends go to relax. “I’ve grown up with guns and soldiers all around me,” he says, laying out a private arsenal on a table: two automatic assault rifles, two Glock pistols, one sniper’s rifle, one iPhone.

Victor and his generation are Cambodia’s future. Will they use their education and wealth to lift their less fortunate compatriots out of poverty? Or will they simply continue their parents’ fevered pursuit of money and power? Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID), which gave almost $US30 million of its taxpayers’ money to the country in the last fiscal year, offered one answer in June, when it announced the closure of its Cambodia office by 2011. The official reason? “It was felt UK aid could have a larger impact … where there are greater numbers of poor people and fewer international donors,” said a DFID statement. But the development agency might also have tired of throwing money at a nation where so much poverty can be blamed on a grasping political elite—and their luxury-loving children. (Australia clearly has not: it has allocated $61.4 million in development assistance to Cambodia for 2009-10.)

Depressingly, the Khmer Riche Kids sometimes seem indistinguishable from the old colonial ruling class. They were educated overseas—partly because their families’ wealth made them targets for kidnapping gangs—and often speak better English than Khmer. They carry US dollars – only poor people pay with Cambodian riel – and live in newly built neoclassical mansions so large that the city’s old French architecture looks like Lego by comparison. And their connection to the Cambodian masses is almost non-existent.

Sophy, 22, is the daughter of a Deputy Prime Minister. Rich, doll-like and self-obsessed, she could be the Paris Hilton of Cambodia. She imports party shoes from Singapore, brands them “Sophy & Sina” (Sina is her sister-in-law), hen displays them in her own multistory boutique. It has six staff, no customers and a slogan: “It’s all aboutme.” Sophy’s name is spelled out in sparkling stones on the back of her car, a Merc so pimped up that I have to ask her what make it is. “It’s a Sophy!” she replies.

We meet at her hair salon, where she is prepping a model for a fashion shoot for a magazine she is starting up with her brother Sopheary, 28, and their cousin Noh Sar, 26,. All three were educated abroad and prefer to speak English together. Sopheary, who studied in New York state, seems both amused and slightly embarrassed by his wealth and privilege. “What can you do?” he asks. “Your parents give you all these things. You can’t say no. If someone gives you cake, you eat it.”

Talk to Sopheary and his friends, and Cambodia’s tragic history seems very far away. The genocidal Khmer Rouge blew up banks and outlawed money before being driven from power in 1979. Later came the 1991 Paris Accords, and the plunder of Cambodia’s rich natural resources—forests, fisheries, land –began in earnest. Cambodia’s official economy largely depend on garment, exports, but there is a much larger shadow economy in which only the ruthless and the well-connected survived and prosper. “If you’re doing business, you have to know someone high up, so he has your back,” says Victor.

The closer you get to Hun Sen, Cambodia’s autocratic Prime Minister, the better connected you are. Hun Sen staged a bloody coup d’etat in 1997 and has kept an iron grip on power ever since. Opponents have been silenced while loyalists have grown rich. This includes ministers, a handful of tycoons and generals. Cambodians are often driven from their land by soldiers or military police. Formerly a French possession, Cambodia has been colonized all over again, this time by its own greedy elite.

But the Khmer Riche have a problem. “None of them can answer a simple question: where does all your money come from?” says a Western journalist in Phnom Penh. Ask Cambodian ministers how they got so rich on a meager government salary, and they will reply, “My wife is good at business.”

When I ask Noh Sar, whose father is a senior customs official, why he is so wealthy, he gives me a slight variation: “My mother works a lot.”

Victor’s mother is also good at business, according to “Country for Sale,” an investigation into the elite published by the London-based corruption watchdog Global Witness in February 2009. “She is a key player in RCAF [Royal Cambodian Armed Forces] patronage politics, holding a fearsome reputation among her husband’s subordinates on account of her frequent demands for money,” says the report. “RCAF sources have told Global Witness that military officers sometimes bribe [her] in order to increase the chances of her “close connections” to a major timber smuggler.

It is only in the past few years that the children of Cambodian’s elite have grown confident enough to show off their family’s wealth. “If you want people to respect you in Cambodia, you must have a good car, good diamonds, a good cell phone,” explains Ouch Vichet, 28, better known as Richard. “It’s an I’m-richer-than-you competition.” Richard is quite a competitor: he drives a $US150,000 Cadillac Escalade and wears a $US2,500 Hermes watch and a $US13,000 2.5-carat diamond ring. He doesn’t have a bodyguard, although some friends keep them as status symbols.

Richard was sent to New Zealand to be educated after a gang tired to abduct his brother. He is a short, affable man with an impish grin. In a city where the elite have a tribal suspicion of outsiders, he is refreshingly candid about his wealth. “My money is from my parents,” he says, and then breaks it down. They gave him a villa, half a million US dollars, and a 400-hectar rubber plantation that will generate income for the rest of Richard’s life. His parents-in-law gave him $US100,000 in cash and another villa, worth $200,000, which he sold and invested in real estate. Richard also runs a busy Phnom Penh nightclub called Emerald – his parents made their first fortune in gems – which provides him with “pocket money”. A party of rich kids can spend $US2,000 on drinks in a single night, more than an average Cambodian earns in 3 years.

His parents’ second, much larger, fortune comes from real estate. A few years ago they bought about five hectares of land just outside Phnom Penh for $US14 a square metre, then sold it for $US120 a square metre two years later, making more than $US5 million in profit. “Where else can you make profits like that?” grins Richard. “It’s crazy money.” He has a daughter called Emerald and a son called Benz. (His other Benz is a GL450.) They all live with his parents in a newly built mansion.

Yet Richard’s house is modest by the operatic standards of Phnom Penh’s Tuol Kuok precinct, part of which was once a notorious red-light district. A taxi driver shows me the neighborhood – it’s like a “homes of the stars” tour in Beverly Hills, except that Tuol Kuok’s backstreets are piled with rubbish. My driver points out giant mansion after mansion, and tells me who lives there. Hun Sen’s son, Hun Sen’s daughter, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Labour. A Deputy PM—Sophy and Sopheary’s dad. A four-mansion compound with lots of razor wire, and a gate guarded by special forces soldiers – Victor’s family.

Tuol Kuok’s houses are well-guarded for a reason: until there was real estate to invest in, many wealthy Cambodians kept their money at home in bricks of cash. “We don’t trust banks,” says Richard. “The old generation kept their money under the bed. The new generation keep it in safes in their houses.” Victor says his family also stays away from banks, but for a slightly different reason. “If you put your money in a bank, everyone will know how much you have,” he explains.

I had also heard that rich Cambodians had repatriated hundreds of millions of dirty dollars from Singapore banks after a post-September 11 shake up of global banking, and that his money had helped fuel the land speculation.

For the children, the wealth comes with one big condition: they must do what Mum and Dad tell them. “I wanted to go to art school but my parents wouldn’t let me,” says Sopheary. Most kids dutifully join the family business—Richard translated for his father during overseas gem-buying trips. For some, that business is politics. Concept like nepotism and conflict of interest don’t count for much in Cambodia. Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh—whose giant house resembles an airport departure hall, one with its own jet-ski lake – gave a ministry position to his wife and made his daughter his chief of cabinet. Cambodia’s ambassadors to Britain and Japan are brothers, and their boss is also their father: Foreign Minister Hor Namhong. He says he hired his sons on merit. “It’s not nepotism,” he insists.

Their parents also expect them to marry young—men in their 20’s, women in their teens—and strategically, meaning to someone from a rich and influential family. These marriages are often arranged. “It’s like medieval times in France,” complains Victor, still a bachelor. This means that many high-society Cambodians soon find themselves trapped in loveless unions; affairs are common. Sophy was married off at 17 to the son of the rich and powerful Interior Minister.

The web of marriages binds together Cambodia’s political and business elite and ensures the ruling Cambodian People’s Party’s stranglehold on power. At the centre of the web sits Prime Minister Hun Sen. His three sons and two daughters are all married to the children of senior ruling party politicians or, in the case of his son Hun Manit, to the daughter of the late national police chief. Now in his 30’s, Hun Manit is being groomed to succeed his father. He graduated from West Point, the US military academy, in 1999, amid protests by members of the US Congress over his father’s human rights record. In July, Global Witness urged the British Government to revoke the visa of the Cambodian Prime Minister, who visited Bristol University to watch Hun Manit receive a doctorate in economics.

Senior Khmer Rouge figures such as Comrade Duch, the mass-murdering commandant of Tuol Sleng prison, are currently on trial at a United Nations-based tribunal in Phnom Penh. The Khmer Riche, on the other hand, remain above the law. Victor displays a military VIP sticker on the front dash of his Mercedes. “It means the police cannot touch me,” he says. Richard is an advisor to a military police commander, which also effectively grants him legal immunity.

Many of his generations abuse such privileges. Last August Hun Chea, a nephew of the Prime Minister, hit a motorcyclist with his Cadillac, ripping off the man’s leg and arm. Hun Chea tried to drive off but couldn’t because the accident had shredded a tyre. Military police arrived, removed the car’s license plates and, according to “The Phnom Penh Post”, told Hun Chea: “Don’t worry. It wasn’t your mistake.” Hun Chea walked away. The motorcyclist bled to death on the road.

Hun Sen has yet another bad-boy nephew, the widely feared and mega-wealthy Hun To (“Little Hun”). In 2006 a newspaper editor filed a lawsuit against Hun To for alleged death threats, then fled overseas to seek asylum with the United Nations’ help. Hun To was also once spotted sitting in his luxury speedboat, its sound system cranked up high, being towed around Phnom Penh by a Humvee. A few weeks before, Victor had been in Los Angeles, where he test-drove Hun To’s latest acquisition before it was put in a Cambodia-bound shipping container: a $US500,000 Mercedes McLaren SLR supercar.” He has already built a special garage for it,” says Victor.

Victor will not – dare not—criticize Hun To. But he is critical of Cambodian society. “From top to bottom, everyone is corrupt,” he says. He hopes to one day set up a foundation to help poor Cambodians send their children to study overseas. “We want to change things, but we’ll have to wait until our parents retire,” he says.

But older generation shows no sign of retiring – not when there’s so much cake left to eat. In January, foreign donors pledged $US1 billion to Cambodia, its biggest aid package yet. The Government relies on foreign aid for almost half its budget. It could break this reliance by exploiting its reserves of oil, gas and minerals: the International Monetary Fund estimates Cambodia’s annual oil revenues alone could reach $US1.7 billion by 2021. Could, but probably won’t. Why? Because the same elite who cut down the trees and sold off the land are now poised to extract the oil and minerals, with the help of their children.

Some Hun Sen loyalists have already been allocated exploratory mining licences. One of them is General Meas Sophea, the army chief. He recently hired a temp to act as his foreign liaison officer. The temp is his son. His son’s name is Victor.

[Nikkie_nid]

I like the first sentence:
"Living in one of the poorest country, they are driving one of the most expensive car."

And yes, that reflex not only the livelihood of those rich kids, but also the "stupid richie" manner of the rich in Cambodia.

Most rich people in Cambodia actually have a poor background... if you know what I mean, they come to power or wealthiness because of the aftermath of the war. And for those people who lacks aristocracy and the real culture of rich people, they are fooling themselves with their wealth, power and foreign culture.

I do feel bad when discussing this topic, cos sometimes I ride motorbike along the road and see poor students struggling for better education, when these "kids" skip schools, commit childish things and still can afford some tools which most elderly people of his could not.

For me, I think they will meet their eventual downfall, but I cannot tell how long.

The reason to base my claim is that even though these people might have power, money and "bonds" inside their workplace, but living in a working environment, dealing with public (public relation) and the complexity of policy implementation is far more difficult than they could control with those. The parent of these kids should do something with their education to ensure a strong root of unity, cos once they are fooled by happiness, they would not be able to deal with hardship. I believe that they will start depending on other people's talent... money will start flowing off their hands. I do feel that even they have money, they still require technical and interpersonal knowledge to control their status.

Trust me, "sin" does exist...

[Kingkhmer]

I bet that my hard earn Tax money goes to those bastard kids.

[preahvihear]

...

That is all you can get from the article????? Don't you see a bigger DESTRUCTION for Cambodia and its millions of citizens as long as these old and young leeches continue to abuse their privileges. I thought YOU were the BIG ONE who is into WORSHIPPING the Cambodian Judiciary system of Cambodia???? Remember the way you bashed Sam Rainsy earlier??? Well in this article alone the elite and their rich children are all ABOVE the LAW in Cambodia. They carry guns and can or a killing or a death threat to anyone outside their elite circle without getting in trouble with the law. In addition, they don't create or invest in Cambodia at all. They keep ALL of their money in their mansions or in banks in other countries. They spend their money abroad, helping other foreigners' economy instead. Basically, they leech off Cambodia. I wish and wish that these mega rich Cambodia elite people would INVEST in various needed industries in Cambodia to provide jobs to people.

[preahvihear]

I bet that my hard earn Tax money goes to those bastard kids.

Agreed with you there. The Cambodian elite are basically gangster people. They all started out with lowly origins.

[east1999]

stop hatin,

[preahvihear]

stop hatin,

Huh? why don't you read what is written: ""KHMER RICHE" They live in one of the poorest countries on earth, yet they drive flash cars, dwell in mansions and scorn their impoverished brethren. Andrew Marshall meets the rich sons and daughters of Cambodia elite.

They already HATE others already, unless you are one of them $hitty mega riche kids studying abroad and that is why you are defending these $hitty low immoral people.

[Nikkie_nid]

That is all you can get from the article????? Don't you see a bigger DESTRUCTION for Cambodia and its millions of citizens as long as these old and young leeches continue to abuse their privileges. I thought YOU were the BIG ONE who is into WORSHIPPING the Cambodian Judiciary system of Cambodia???? Remember the way you bashed Sam Rainsy earlier??? Well in this article alone the elite and their rich children are all ABOVE the LAW in Cambodia. They carry guns and can or a killing or a death threat to anyone outside their elite circle without getting in trouble with the law. In addition, they don't create or invest in Cambodia at all. They keep ALL of their money in their mansions or in banks in other countries. They spend their money abroad, helping other foreigners' economy instead. Basically, they leech off Cambodia. I wish and wish that these mega rich Cambodia elite people would INVEST in various needed industries in Cambodia to provide jobs to people.

Preah Vihear, first of all, I'd like to tell you that I don't want to get into political talks anymore. Thus, please don't try to drag me there. My comments would be more general now.

Anyway, I appreciate your effort that you spend reading my comments. If you are aware, then you should understand that this is "my opinion." And I clearly say at the end of my post that "SIN does exist." Is that clear that I am also care about the poorer now?

[preahvihear]

you should understand that this is "my opinion." ...I am also care about the poorer now?

Like you said, it is your OPINION that you think and believe that you care about the poor of Cambodia. I am not talking about politics at all. I am talking about daily reality of the elite and the poor of Cambodia. For example, Kohsantepheap ran a news story about a motorscooter driver who couldn't pay tax on his motorscooter and the police ended up taking possession of it. The man pleaded with the police to return his motorscooter because it was the only means that he could provide his family with some money. The police refused. This is a reality of millions of Cambodian on a daily basis while the mega rich people don't ever have to pay any taxes at all. Mega rich Cambodians spend over 2,000 dollars per night and that much money can last a single Cambodian up to 3 long years. Again I am not talking about politics. So don't get confused. Here is another one from Dap-News: A drunken high ranking police commander sped in the alley then stopped, got out and he and his men pulled a mechanic from his workplace to beat up repeatedly without any causes. Now the mechanic sued the cop, but people do not think he will win. Again this is a reality. Andrew Marshall the author of the article clearly points out that just like foreign colonial masters, the Cambodia's elite are COLONIZING Cambodia and its people. That is a reality, not politics. COLONIZERS of Cambodia only take and they don't give back. They keep taking and are addicted to taking more. Through history, COLONIZERS of Cambodia and Cambodians did not ever choose to develop or invest in Cambodia at all. Pol Pot took over Cambodia to eliminate the corruption and the incompetence of the so-called upper class of Cambodia, and all the people even the King went through that hard life experience, so why do the parents of these mega rich kids forget their immediate past so easily. Why do they want to lead a life of corruption and destruction of Cambodia? With so much money in their hands, I mean billions of dollars, why don't they create industries to provide jobs to the poor???? The worst part is that these mega rich Cambodians HATE their own people, or maybe they don't think that they are Cambodians are at all because according to Andrew Marshall, these mega rich Cambodians are simply the new COLONIZERS of Cambodia. If you really understand Andrew Marshall's term, then you know that Cambodia and its poor are already in deep deep sh*t. Again, I am not talking about politics. Yes, the Cambodian farmers living near the boder areas along Vietnam do lost their farmland to the Viets whether you choose to accept it or not. There is no law in Cambodia that will protect those farmers' land at all. However, there is law to put those farmers in jail. Again, the elite of Cambodia are the colonizers of Cambodia. French colonizers did the same thing: They granted Khmer islands and territory to the neigboring countries without the Khmer people's permission. Again this is not politics. Ordinary Cambodians simply need an opportunity and that is all, and they can't even get that. Life is cheap and and life sucks in Cambodia because its elite are the worst COLONIZERS.

This post has been edited by preahvihear: Dec 21 2009, 04:41 AM

[snookman]

Preah Vihear, first of all, I'd like to tell you that I don't want to get into political talks anymore. Thus, please don't try to drag me there. My comments would be more general now.

Anyway, I appreciate your effort that you spend reading my comments. If you are aware, then you should understand that this is "my opinion." And I clearly say at the end of my post that "SIN does exist." Is that clear that I am also care about the poorer now?

nikkie nid is truly western now . wow, your english has improve a lot. i dont blame u for avoiding politics. u do live under hun sen.

its not hating by the way. its call be a responsible human being. these rich cambodians are the poor people who stole from the rich by killing off their competition when they had a chance like thirty years ago. funny, i thought they were communists .

This post has been edited by snookman: Dec 21 2009, 09:25 AM

[kevo]

Nikki.....I applaud you for trying to be level headed in the WASTELANDS of AF, if anybody has the authority to speak about life in Cambodia it would be you. Because, you live there 24/7-365 & are witness firsthand to what some overseas Khmers only read about/ see on tv & not get the full picture & reality of what's it like outside of the comfort & safety of living overseas.

Nikki...don't let some of the comments directed at you get you down...keep doing what you're doing for the your future & the future of the Khmer people in Cambodia....You guys are the true future of Cambodia & your hardwork & experiences can only be an asset to help Cambodia grow from the inside & get back to greatness.

This post has been edited by kevo: Dec 21 2009, 06:06 PM

[sucre]

^
Agreed. The OP isn't even Khmai that stupid loser.

[Kingkhmer]

Agreed with you there. The Cambodian elite are basically gangster people. They all started out with lowly origins.

Those bastard kids are more gangster than that the khmer gangsters in the U.S.

[Kingkhmer]

I like the first sentence:
"Living in one of the poorest country, they are driving one of the most expensive car."

And yes, that reflex not only the livelihood of those rich kids, but also the "stupid richie" manner of the rich in Cambodia.

Most rich people in Cambodia actually have a poor background... if you know what I mean, they come to power or wealthiness because of the aftermath of the war. And for those people who lacks aristocracy and the real culture of rich people, they are fooling themselves with their wealth, power and foreign culture.

I do feel bad when discussing this topic, cos sometimes I ride motorbike along the road and see poor students struggling for better education, when these "kids" skip schools, commit childish things and still can afford some tools which most elderly people of his could not.

For me, I think they will meet their eventual downfall, but I cannot tell how long.

The reason to base my claim is that even though these people might have power, money and "bonds" inside their workplace, but living in a working environment, dealing with public (public relation) and the complexity of policy implementation is far more difficult than they could control with those. The parent of these kids should do something with their education to ensure a strong root of unity, cos once they are fooled by happiness, they would not be able to deal with hardship. I believe that they will start depending on other people's talent... money will start flowing off their hands. I do feel that even they have money, they still require technical and interpersonal knowledge to control their status.

Trust me, "sin" does exist...

R u a oversea khmer or one of those Cambodian leeches?

[Kingkhmer]

stop hatin,

Stop Hating????? my tax dollars are being spent by those Cambodia leeches. My tax dollar is suppose to help the poor, not one eye Hun Sen and those leeches.

[snookman]

Stop Hating????? my tax dollars are being spent by those Cambodia leeches. My tax dollar is suppose to help the poor, not one eye Hun Sen and those leeches.

the only solution for this is if hun sen decides to clean up the government cause he is the only man in cambodia who can change that because he controls the guns. i think a big reason why the rich in cambodia continue to amass all this money without even thinking how much money they have is because they arent expose to the modern developed way of living. when u grow up in a culture of people stepping on people and cars having the right of way over a pedestrian. it would only make sense that the rich or government could give a $hit about these other cambodians cause to them, they are just mere servants and slaves. no sense of human rights and equality. another way we can change, is to have the youth learn about the modern world and possibly they can decide for themselves, the type of country they want and to take responsibility for each other.

u see when the rich hoard all the money and dont allow a proper allocation of money to flow into society, u get the majority scrapping for money to support their families. thus, u get corrupt police officers who if paid a decent salary and have good physical and mental training with government regulation, u might clean up the dirtiness of the police officers who would do such an inhumane thing as taking a motorcyle from a poor man. thats just human injustice at its best.

This post has been edited by snookman: Dec 22 2009, 05:03 AM

[ThaiLadyBoy]

Stop Hating????? my tax dollars are being spent by those Cambodia leeches. My tax dollar is suppose to help the poor, not one eye Hun Sen and those leeches.

you exactly right

This post has been edited by ThaiLadyBoy: Dec 22 2009, 07:07 AM

[ThaiLadyBoy]

stop hatin,

This guy is an idot. how can yo usay stop hating? thsi is not hating, this is expsoing the truth abbout cambodia today

I studied in cambodia in an international private school for a few years.. yes i was amongst all the foreign kdis in cambodia as well as the RICHEST khmer kids....I know how these kids are...naturally when i arrived in the school, my best freinds were the 2 other american khmer kids who arrived the same time as me... we were frens with all the kids in the school including the rich khmer kids in our class.. but let me tell you.. everything in this article is 100% true.. Many of them are really greedy and immature.... we got in jsut a normall highschool kid basketball fight one time at school,, ther were some punches thrown.. and after the fight the khmer kid jsut threateans my freind saying hes going to shoot his @$$ and make him suffer... after school we were outside the gates and that kid pulls up in his car and starts waiving his hand gun in the air then points it at my friend.. well thank God he didnt shoot but it jsut coems to show how fu-king backwards they are.....

the funny thing is the next day he got expelled so i hope he learned his lesson lol its so messed up though cuz the kdis at my school are 16 and 17 years old and there all driving Range rovers and escalades..... i was like wtf cambodia really needs to be mroe balanced... also i noticed that some of them sort of look down on other khmers and treat them liek ther not important.. its jsut insane because they are all khmer and i odnt understand how they could treat ther own people in such a bad way!

another time thers this famous street called street 51.. one night me and my fren were walkin and this street is very narrow by the way.. well this guy in a hummer comes speeding down the road liek 50 miles per hour.. next thing we see is his side mirror smaking into some indian tourist arm.. it was a big @$$ nosie and all the sudden He slammed on the brakes... the indian guy was jsut liek wtf and and grabbed his arm in pain.. then this short fat little tough guy hops out of the car holding the biggest pistol ive ever seen in my life... ...he walks up to hsi cars mirror and checks to see if thers any scratches or if it was broken.. then he was approching the tourist but his gf or wife or whatever grabbed on to him adn they went back into the car...

yeah i was pretty pisssed but we didnt say anything.. he should have atleast went and checked if the guy was ok.. they think to highly of themselves

but atleast thers some of them who dont waste all this money on things and are acually thinkin about cambodia future and finding ways to improve the poverty in cambodia

so yeah dont say stop hating.. you an Asssshole for that

This post has been edited by ThaiLadyBoy: Dec 22 2009, 07:11 AM

[trickystyle]

This guy is an idot. how can yo usay stop hating? thsi is not hating, this is expsoing the truth abbout cambodia today

I studied in cambodia in an international private school for a few years.. yes i was amongst all the foreign kdis in cambodia as well as the RICHEST khmer kids....I know how these kids are...naturally when i arrived in the school, my best freinds were the 2 other american khmer kids who arrived the same time as me... we were frens with all the kids in the school including the rich khmer kids in our class.. but let me tell you.. everything in this article is 100% true.. Many of them are really greedy and immature.... we got in jsut a normall highschool kid basketball fight one time at school,, ther were some punches thrown.. and after the fight the khmer kid jsut threateans my freind saying hes going to shoot his @$$ and make him suffer... after school we were outside the gates and that kid pulls up in his car and starts waiving his hand gun in the air then points it at my friend.. well thank God he didnt shoot but it jsut coems to show how fu-king backwards they are.....

the funny thing is the next day he got expelled so i hope he learned his lesson lol its so messed up though cuz the kdis at my school are 16 and 17 years old and there all driving Range rovers and escalades..... i was like wtf cambodia really needs to be mroe balanced... also i noticed that some of them sort of look down on other khmers and treat them liek ther not important.. its jsut insane because they are all khmer and i odnt understand how they could treat ther own people in such a bad way!

another time thers this famous street called street 51.. one night me and my fren were walkin and this street is very narrow by the way.. well this guy in a hummer comes speeding down the road liek 50 miles per hour.. next thing we see is his side mirror smaking into some indian tourist arm.. it was a big @$$ nosie and all the sudden He slammed on the brakes... the indian guy was jsut liek wtf and and grabbed his arm in pain.. then this short fat little tough guy hops out of the car holding the biggest pistol ive ever seen in my life... ...he walks up to hsi cars mirror and checks to see if thers any scratches or if it was broken.. then he was approching the tourist but his gf or wife or whatever grabbed on to him adn they went back into the car...

yeah i was pretty pisssed but we didnt say anything.. he should have atleast went and checked if the guy was ok.. they think to highly of themselves

but atleast thers some of them who dont waste all this money on things and are acually thinkin about cambodia future and finding ways to improve the poverty in cambodia

so yeah dont say stop hating.. you an Asssshole for that

so you are from america? that was the hardest thing to read just now. where did you learn how to write? spell check much?

niki you have every right to think what you want especially because you live and breath cambodia everyday, not like the rest of us khmer kids here in the states.

This post has been edited by trickystyle: Dec 22 2009, 03:11 PM

[preahvihear]

so you are from america? that was the hardest thing to read just now. where did you learn how to write? spell check much? niki you have every right to think what you want especially because you live and breath cambodia everyday, not like the rest of us khmer kids here in the states.

You are attacking someone who is providing a real-life testimony? Lol. What a loser you truly are. You also attack his writing when his message comes through already? What a d!ck you truly are! Lol. What about your writting, have you taken a closer at it yet? Let me point some gross errors out for you, twirp. Yours is littered with miscapitalization usages and sentence fragments. So where do you learn to write, fool? Lol.Regarding Nikki, he does not condone the behavior of the newly Cambodian rich kids at all. He said that they lack the traditional aristocracy (upper class) characteristics. So what are you talking about? It is hard to be your stupid self, I know.

Reread Nikki's statement:

"...the "stupid richie" manner of the rich in Cambodia. Most rich people in Cambodia actually have a poor background... if you know what I mean, they come to power or wealthiness because of the aftermath of the war. And for those people who lacks aristocracy and the real culture of rich people, they are fooling themselves with their wealth, power and foreign culture. ...poor students struggling for better education, when these "kids" skip schools, commit childish things and still can afford some tools which most elderly people of his could not. For me, I think they will meet their eventual downfall, but I cannot tell how long. ...Trust me, "sin" does exist..."

This post has been edited by preahvihear: Dec 22 2009, 04:01 PM