A Daughter's Quest: Unearthing Cambodian Identity & History w/ Dorothy Chow

In a profoundly moving conversation, host Randy Kim welcomes Dorothy Chow, the Chinese-Cambodian American host of the father-daughter podcast, "Death In Cambodia."

Dorothy shares the deeply personal and powerful genesis of her show: creating a space for her father to share his survivor experience from the Cambodian genocide. This podcast wasn't just a historical documentation; it became a transformative healing journey for Dorothy.

• The Genesis of "Death In Cambodia": Dorothy opens up about the courage it took for her and her father to start the podcast, not just as a historical record, but as a pivotal moment for intergenerational healing.

• A Personal Discovery: We discuss how the process of interviewing her own father and connecting with other survivors and diaspora folks shaped Dorothy’s understanding of her own Cambodian identity—an identity she had long sought to define.

• The Second Genocide: Dorothy sheds light on a lesser-known, yet critical, chapter of the Khmer Rouge regime: the Dangrek Genocide. This 2nd genocide, often overshadowed, reveals the complex and continuous trauma faced by the Cambodian people.

• Returning to the Motherland: Looking ahead, Dorothy shares her hopes and intentions for her next trip to Cambodia, reflecting on what she now seeks to experience and connect with as part of both her podcasting and personal journey.

  
  

• Listen to the Podcast: Find "Death In Cambodia" on all major podcast platforms.

• Follow Dorothy: @ deathincambodia

Thank you for tuning into The Banh Mi Chronicles Podcast!

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Hey everyone. This is Randy Kim from the Bunmi
Chronicles podcast. And it gives me a pleasure to
introduce to you another fellow Kamai podcaster and I've been
very excited to have this personon for quite some time.
And her name is Dorothy Chow. Dorothy Chow is a Cambodian
American podcast host, storyteller, and advocate

(00:24):
dedicated to intergenerational healing.
She is the creator and host of Death in Cambodia, Life in
America, a critically acclaimed narrative podcast that
chronicles her father's survivalof the Khai Rouge genocide and
her family's journey rebuilding life in the US.
This podcast has received over 100,000 downloads, gaining

(00:44):
international attention and features on outlets like CBS
Sunday Morning. As a first generation Cambodian
American, Dorothy speaks passionately on generational
trauma and the power of personalnarratives and is committed to
elevating underrepresented voices through her work.
It gives me a pleasure to have you on.
Thank you. How have you been doing this

(01:06):
year as we are now going to be leading up to 2026 if you can
believe it? Well, first, thank you so much
for having me and that wonderfulintroduction.
This year has been quite a journey.
I think it's been, what is it probably 3 or 4 years now that

(01:31):
I've been doing the podcast. And so a lot of this year has
been kind of reflecting on what I want to do next and what I
want to do differently, what things I want to change.
You know, we've created different programs underneath
the Death in Cambodia umbrella, such as my courageous

(01:53):
conversations and survival stories.
But I'm, I'm just, I felt like this year has a lot has, has
been a lot of me looking back atthe programs and seeing what I
can improve. Yeah, And I think as I've
learned about your podcast last few years, especially since I
stepped out of it, I also actually like listen to some of

(02:15):
your episodes with your father, which I think is something that
I really want to dig into. But also I want to acknowledge
of chats and Meth, a mutual friend and who had passed away
back like in late August, early September.
And, and I know that I have listened to his podcast, Kamae
Trees, which I do recommend. I think what he was doing with

(02:38):
that podcast really hits on so many Kamae creatives.
I think he was trying to get 100folks on and he got the 75,
which, hey, you know, that was the legacy he left.
And I'm glad that he had you on.And, and I also want to offer a
trigger warning that this conversation can or will contain
conversations surrounding genocide.

(03:00):
So when you listen to it, pleasebe gentle with yourself.
And yeah, I, I'm very curious about what led you to create a
podcast and also with your father, because I think what's
very unique about it is it's notvery common to have a Kamai

(03:25):
parent, you know, being in this medium, in this platform with,
with, with a child or an adult child talking about the genocide
in a very public space. I have definitely seen it in
like, more like in real person experiences like in through the
Cambodia Museum in Chicago and other spaces.

(03:47):
But I'm also like, very curious,how did that come about?
And how did your father agree tojoin in on this conversation?
You know, I think when I look back on it, it was the perfect
storm that really brought this project together.
It was a COVID project, and so one we had a lot of time on our

(04:11):
hands. Normally, my dad and I are
generally pretty busy people. And so had it been, you know,
just normal everyday life, I don't know if we would have
carved out time for it the way that we did.
But it was COVID and we were bored.
I've always been a fan of history, like history was always

(04:35):
been my favorite subject and even in school.
And so I remember growing up being very intrigued by what my
dad had gone through. So I mean, the curiosity has
always been there, even when I was little.
COVID happened, I had moved backhome and I just kind of had

(04:57):
something inside of me that thought maybe this is the time
for me to kind of tackle that curiosity that I've always had.
I thought about doing a blog, but I never really was super
confident in my writing skills. So I was like, maybe maybe blog
is going to be too difficult. I thought about maybe just
starting an Instagram page that would collect some of his quotes

(05:20):
that he would talk about, but itdidn't really, none of those
mediums really panned out. And so I was like, you know,
maybe at the time during COVID, podcasting was just really
getting started. And I literally Googled how to
start a podcast and watched a few YouTube videos and put
something together. And next thing you knew, I had,

(05:41):
you know, a mic, a table, and I invited my dad over.
And I was like, hey, why don't we just, you know, click record
and see where this goes. Episode 0, which is the very
first thing that you will hear when you click on my podcast, is

(06:04):
the very, very first time that we had ever clicked record ever.
And so it's a really cute littlesnippet.
It's like 10 seconds, but it's like, hello, can you hear me,
Bob? Can you hear me?
And he's like, yeah, yeah, I canhear you.
And I'm like, wow. Like, you know, so it's us,
like, playing with our mics. And it was really, really cute.

(06:25):
It was a perfect storm, really. We had COVID, so I had time.
I had curiosity and passion. And then my dad had a genuine, A
genuine want to share his story.He had looked up previous
biographers who you know, those people that you can hire, that

(06:45):
you can Share your story to and you can, you know, they would
turn it into a book. I had read a couple of those
snippets from some of the authors who had agreed to write
a story, and none of them had presented his story in the way
that I feel like was good enough.

(07:06):
So he had a genuine want to share his story, but he also was
kind of struggling to find the medium of like, OK, who is going
to tell my story in the most authentic way?
And so it was all those three pieces that really came together
that brought us to what the podcast is today.
Wow, that is incredible. And I like wonder, did you have

(07:28):
any public speaking experiences?Did you have any experiences
like there's that led you to podcasting in a way, like, you
know what, maybe I could actually do this work, you know,
was this a space that you felt comfortable doing?
Because I know with COVID when it began, like I think I started
my podcast several months beforethat and I didn't even realize
that that was going to happen and that, you know, really made

(07:52):
me to continue doing that work. But I'm very curious about what
your experience was prior to thepodcasting.
Nothing actually. Yeah.
I did not have any public speaking skills, although I
think speaking in general, I, I felt I've always felt pretty
confident in like it. I've never even in high school

(08:13):
and stuff when I did speeches for school, I never really was
like that nervous, whereas maybesome people would get really,
really nervous public speaking. It just never really was
something that really, really kind of hit my nerves.
So I, I did feel confident aboutspeaking.
And so that's why when it came to time to look for a medium, I

(08:36):
thought about the different mediums.
But to me, I just thought podcasting would be the easiest
to because I could just turn on a button and I can just start
talking. So.
So yeah, no, I didn't have any prior experience.
I think about like when you started this podcast for your
father, when he was actually trying to find someone to help

(08:59):
write his memoir. I also think about how often
times the stories of the VietnamWar, the Laos civil war, the
Cambodian genocide have also been like told from a very white
lens. And I think that when we think
of stories from our people, there is a lot of power to that

(09:19):
because it's it's making sure that our narratives are told in
an authentic way, but also that actually paints or brings life
from the experiences of folks that went through this.
And, and I think that's incredibly important.
What did you when did you first learn about your father's story

(09:44):
about him surviving the genocide?
And what was that like for you to receive that information, to
receive that knowledge? I had, I had heard snippets of
my father's experience. He never officially said that he
had survived A genocide, but there was always like an

(10:06):
elephant in the room. And I think that's quite common
amongst, you know, my kids growing up where it was
something that you knew something really bad happened in
the past, but you never truly understood or under, you know,
never really knew what. It's not like we learned about
it in history books. People would talk about the

(10:27):
Vietnam War, but again, through the lens of the American
experience. And so, you know, the Vietnam
War, definitely no history aboutthe Lao, the Lao bombs, the the
war that happened there and barely about the genocide, if
that, if anything. So I felt like a lot of this was
kind of following the curiosity and piercing things together.

(10:51):
My dad occasionally would share maybe one or two sentences
during a dinner. Usually, you know, we'd all sit
at the table table, and then he'd, like, sip his glass of
wine. And then all of a sudden he'd
kind of look away. And then he would say something
like, you know, when I was when I was a teenager, I, I watched

(11:16):
my best friend die and then no context, you know, it was just
one of those things that he would just let out and the
entire terrible really didn't know how to handle it.
Like I didn't really know how tohandle it because it was like,
oh, wow, like that's, that's crazy.
And then he would say one other small thing and then we would go

(11:36):
back to normal. So it was like he was regressing
for bits and pieces but never fully letting himself share the
full thing, probably because it just hurts so much.
So I didn't really know how to handle it and it and and that
curiosity kind of stayed with meas I got older.

(11:57):
I think that's a very interesting experience that
you're sharing here because I have heard this from other of
Kamai folks, my peers. And they would say, yeah, my mom
would just talk about it just randomly and saying like if
it's, let's say it's Chicago winter, like, yeah, I remember
not having shoes on or like whenit's or like a Chicago hot
summer that is. And, and I remembered having no

(12:20):
shoes on for four years. And like these random comments
and from myself, I learned aboutthe genocide when I first saw
the the televised Pol Pot interview, which I know that you
had talked with the interviewer.And that was 1997.
I was 14 years old at the time. And I remember coming

(12:40):
downstairs, my dad was watching and his eyes were glued.
And he said this guy tried to kill me.
And and he had the sullen look on his face.
And then the next day, next morning, he said, I cannot
sleep. And I think since then I
realized the gradual change in him over the years that it
started to take over. And when I would get into fights

(13:02):
with my dad, that's when he would bring up the genocide.
He would, he would, he would useit to weaponize.
So if I start arguing with him, his response, his response would
be like, well, I lost 20 membersof my family.
You know, you don't understand this, blah, blah, blah.
And I'm just like, taken aback. I'm like, is he making this up?

(13:22):
And then there was a there was some gas lighting on my end,
which I deeply regretted becauseour relationship was so toxic.
But the way he raised me was outof fierce protection.
He was afraid of me going to theother side, you know, me joining
a gang or be falling through thecracks or, you know, being

(13:43):
poisoned. I mean, that was how serious it
was growing up. And so I think for myself, I was
both curious about the history, but I was also repelled by it.
I was very much like, why shouldI even bother to learn
Cambodian? Why should I bother to, like,
really be in front of the community that that has so much

(14:06):
harm and so much that has causedso much damage to my father.
So I wonder about how did your father's experience affected the
way you were raised by your bothof your parents in this case?
Yeah, no, that's a great question.

(14:28):
I think very similarly to a lot of Southeast Asian kid
experiences who have parents whohad survived war and who had
survived very horrible things. It is unfortunate but majority
of them still struggle with how to approach that trauma that

(14:49):
still lives within them. And unhealed trauma manifests
itself in so many different ways.
One of them being the most common I feel like is parenting
out of fear. Right.
Their reality is not 100% this reality because they know and

(15:12):
I've hung onto a period of time where they truly were in this
warped, like violent, very dark,unusual time in life and time in
history, actually. And so, yeah, I, I did grow up
with a dad who parented from a place of fear and as well.

(15:37):
So especially being a girl, I grew up under very, very strict
rules. Like I couldn't go out and see
friends. I wasn't allowed to go to prom.
I wasn't had to sneak out for, for a lot of like, just like
socializing with my friends. Like I just wasn't allowed.

(15:57):
And I couldn't wear skirts over a certain, you know, over a
certain height. I couldn't get my ears pierced
until I was like 16. So it was I, I held a lot of
resentment for my parents and I didn't at the time understand
why because I didn't know the trauma and I didn't understand

(16:21):
the trauma they were that they had yet to process because no
one talked about it and no one, no, the history books didn't
talk about it. So, you know, in a lot of ways,
one of the things that I'm most proud of with this podcast is
that this fully allowed me to tounderstand who my father is.

(16:48):
And for the first time after recording with him for eight
months, I actually understood why maybe my childhood wasn't
the way that I had maybe wanted it to to be or expected it to
be. And I, and I do hope that other

(17:08):
people around there, I mean, other people around the world
can use this story and use theseinterviews as a way to also
build that bridge of empathy with their parents.
Because if we don't know, how are we ever going to know?
I mean, we were born here. We've never survived a war.
We don't know what it's like to starve.
And that doesn't negate our pain, but without fully

(17:34):
understanding, without fully hearing the story, like how are
we supposed to know? So.
So it is one of the things that I'm very, very proud of that
came out of this podcast. Yeah.
And kudos to you for that, because one of the things I've
told people when I did my secondseason, I think it was that it
was the 45 year of and I was covering like the Vietnamese,

(17:58):
Lao Mong and Cambodian folks that season.
And one of the things I used to say is that time is not on our
side. And we're now in 50 year at the
50 year mark. And, and I think about how how I
don't want to leave or I don't want, I don't want to, or when

(18:22):
the time comes when my parents are not here, I don't want to be
walking around with question marks.
And I think that's something that has stayed with me for
quite some time. I think this is something that
has that has resonated but so many sucking 1.5 the second
generation come by American folks that or come by diaspora
folks. They're living in this
existence. One thing I did hear about is

(18:44):
your mom and that how your mom has to stay not talked about the
genocide. What has that been like for you
to try to somehow bring up that experience, but also when she
sees you and your dad talking about the genocide very openly?

(19:09):
She is very, very supportive in her, you know, she's very
supportive and she loves seeing how far this whole thing has
gotten. You know, my mom and I are, are
close, are very close. Even during, you know, certain
periods of my life where I felt like I held a lot of resentment

(19:31):
for my dad, I was always close to my mom.
So she sees it from afar. I had asked her to come on many
times, as I had mentioned, and she's not interested.
And I can tell that, you know, unfortunately, different people

(19:51):
and different survivors process it differently.
I think for my father, it was really, really, he wanted, the
main thing was he wanted to share his story.
He wanted something to come out of all the pain that he had gone
through. My, my mom, I think her way of
dealing it has just been to shutthe door completely, you know,

(20:16):
And I can tell that it's, it's so painful for her, like
sometimes. I even ask her very, very
general questions with the mic off.
This is just like between me andher.
And she just instantly like freezes and she kind of drifts
to a different place. And then she kind of like shakes

(20:38):
her head, you know, and I have to be sensitive about that
because, you know, woman, especially woman had it very,
very hard, especially young women during the war, as you can
imagine, the kind of atrocities that happened to young women at
that time. So I don't blame, I don't blame

(21:04):
maybe if woman had a harder timesharing their Khmer Rouge
stories. And not saying that men had it
bad, but it's just unfortunately, if you were a
teenager or a young woman at that time period, that was just
not the place to be at all. And so I, I don't know what she
has lived through. I know that she was a young

(21:26):
woman, a young girl at that time.
And, and, and, and that's, that's going to have to be OK
with me too. You know, I can't, you can't
force people to talk about things they don't want to talk
about. And so, you know, that's why I
have so many people who come up to me and ask me like, whoa,

(21:47):
what's, what's the guide to get your parents to open up?
Oh my God, I, I really don't have any guide.
I and I don't feel comfortable giving one either because there,
there probably isn't 1 because every single parent, every
survivor deals with it differently.
And so who am I to say these arethe 123 steps to get somebody to
open up. It's just, you know, the things

(22:09):
that I have learned through thisprocess.
The one thing that I have learned is if you want to try,
if, if you want to get your parents to open up, they have to
know that they are in a safe space for them to be vulnerable.

(22:30):
So don't ask them in front of a crowd.
Don't ask them in front of maybeeven a bunch of family members.
Do it quietly and do it with, with seriousness, right?
With like intent to learn. Because every single time that

(22:51):
you ask a parent to peel back a layer, you are taking them back
to a traumatic time. You are you are making them
hurt, you know, and they don't mind, but they need to know that
they're doing it for a purpose. And so for my father, I think
the reason why he opened up so, so easily maybe is also I, I had

(23:16):
put in the work to create the space for him.
I had, I had bought the mics, I had connected the thing.
I've done my research. Like I'm not just like, hey, BA,
like what'd you live through? No, I'm, I'm like, here's the
quiet space. Like, let's actually do this.
So it's different for every parent.
And and that's going to give me.Yeah.

(23:37):
And I really appreciate you taking on this journey and, and
modeling what it has looked likefor you.
And, and, and to your point, it's every parent has a
different way of processing and there's something to be said
that when you open the box, how do we close it together?
And I think that's something that resonates with me.

(24:00):
When I first met Ocean Vong, like in 2016, and at that time,
I was trying to figure out my dad's story.
I was trying to write about it. And I asked him a question and I
said, how was it that you were able to get your mom to tell you
her story because she was illiterate, She couldn't write.
And then the first thing he saidwas to consider asking a parent

(24:22):
is considered betrayal to them. You're making them relive a past
that you had no part of. And that just I felt that knife
just stuck into my heart when I heard that I, I was so floored
by that. And I want to have a
conversation with Ocean ever since then.
But you know, he's not an Oprah.I think I'm kind of out of reach

(24:43):
by now, but like, but I think that's something that really a
lot of our community members do struggle with because we are at
the 50 year mark and our parents, our uncles, aunts,
grandparents, they're aging. A lot of the adult survivors are
now in their 70s in transitioning.

(25:05):
And so I think that's something that your podcast came in right
and a very important time. Have you also, I don't know if
you have siblings, but or other family members that you talked
to about, you know, the experience of the genocide.
I wonder how have you been able to navigate those conversations

(25:26):
with other family spaces? I think out of my entire family,
I'm probably the most passionateabout this.
And so it's been quite a journeyfor me because I, I, I don't

(25:48):
live next to a whole lot of family members in the Bay Area.
Most of them are actually in Southern California.
And so we're kind of like in ourown little bubble up here, up
here in Northern. And so I, I and I also grew up
not really being super proud of being Cambodian.

(26:12):
And I also actually grew up not really even saying I was
Cambodian to people until I really started this project.
You know, my parents when we were growing up, they would
speak my to each other, but theywould tell me if anyone asked, I
should say that I'm Chinese and,and I am Chinese actually, you

(26:37):
know, I'm Chinese Cambodian. And I learned I went to Chinese
school. And a lot of we, we've kept
some, we've kept Chinese traditions within the family.
But it's really interesting because I feel like I didn't
really start telling people I was Cambodian until probably
like 5 or 6 years ago. And so this is a very, very new

(27:01):
identity. I feel like that I am still, I
am still developing. A lot of it, though, has come
from the fact that I had spent so much time learning about my
dad, my parents, even my grandparents.

(27:21):
Like, we ate Cambodian food at home and I heard Cambodian, my
language all around me. You know what I mean?
But but I didn't, I didn't feel like I grew up with anything
really beyond that. So a lot of a lot of my identity

(27:43):
has really changed and shifted just within the past 5-6 years.
Yeah. Yeah, it's very interesting to
see how a lot of us adult, adultkids have come to a more recent
point of trying to reclaim what they felt was lost.
And I think for me, like my Cambodian experience, like as a

(28:06):
42 year old now, I did not get involved with the Cambodian
community until I was in my 30s already.
And, and, and with the Vietnamese community too,
because I think for such a long time I had such an aversion to
it. I did not feel like I would
belong in either space. I felt that the tensions between
those two countries are very obvious.
So it never made me feel comfortable.

(28:27):
And being a queer person on top of it also made me
uncomfortable. But I think when I came back to
Cambodia in Vietnam, Cambodia for the first time in December,
it just did something to me. It was a very magical
experience. I wonder if you had that
experience of being able to visit the ancestral homeland,

(28:48):
and if so, what did it feel for you?
And if not, what do you hope to step into?
Yeah, I, I actually have not gone back to Cambodia as an
adult and, and especially in thepast since in the past five
years, it's been such a transformation for me with like

(29:09):
this project and the podcast andall the people that I've met and
kind of like my place and space in the community at this point.
It would be a, a life changing trip to go and I actually did
plan to go last year, but that didn't end up working out.

(29:29):
So I'm hoping to maybe go this this upcoming year, but we'll
see how that goes. And so I feel like also too,
because I have met so many different people now and because
I have built up such, there has been so many changes in the past
five years with my identity and my relationship with Cambodia.

(29:50):
I almost feel like when I make this trip, when it happens, I'm
going to have just like so much content to create, like things
to do, people to meet. Because it's like, you know, the
first time that I went to Cambodia, I was in middle school
and that was a long time ago andI haven't been back since.
And that's just a different experience now that I've gone

(30:12):
through this. So I am sure that when that trip
happens, it's going to be life changing for me.
Were you planning? Are you planning to go with your
father as well? Yeah, so we're trying to try to
go together and if we go, I'm it's going to be a whole thing.
I'm going to try to meet as manypeople as possible and film,

(30:34):
maybe even, you know, hire a videographer to come with me and
follow me as I kind of revisit these places because I'd love
to, you know, this community that we've created has, has
watched me through my journey. And so I definitely want to
bring them apart with me to, to actually go to the motherland.

(30:56):
So when I go, everyone's going to hear about it.
They'll see it all over. I can't wait.
Everyone will come with me. I can't wait to be on that
journey. I want, I can't wait to live
vicariously through it because when I went to Cambodia, like,
like I did not have family members to visit.
I did not go with anyone. So I was like, I was intent on

(31:18):
doing this on my, on my own and,and, and just learning to
experience it in, in a way that I feel like I have control over
and not be and not be obligated by, you know, other folks.
And, but yeah, I remembered one moment and I, I was very
emotional. I, I'm, I'm sure there's going

(31:40):
to be moments because there's certain things that would just
hit you. And I remember when I left SIM
Reap and my hotel driver, he waslike a few years younger than
me. He was very sweet.
And I was on my way to Phnom Bang, you know, and I was
getting dropped off the airport.It was sunrise.
And he was asking me about what do you think of SIM Reap so far?

(32:02):
And he and I told him I didn't think people would ask if I was
Kamai. I had never gotten that until I
got there. I mean, when I went to Vietnam,
no one thought I was Vietnamese.They just started speaking
English to me. So I was really taken aback.
And then he said something to meand he was like, when our people
come back, we treat them as family.

(32:25):
And next thing you know, once I got to the airport, I found a
domestic terminal. I just bawed my eyes out for the
next two hours. I was calling friends.
I was like, I was like, I am really hitting very hard.
And also Phnom Bang was a place that my dad escaped from, you
know, and, and so I was already feeling intensity that day and I
just could not stop crying. And, and I think I had to get to

(32:48):
a good point or to get to a goodplace.
But I think everyone's experience is very different.
But I do think there's somethingso powerful and being able to
see the different people that you come across.
And, and I think that one thing I've learned is don't have
expectations. Just go there with an open mind

(33:10):
and you'd be surprised to see who you come across along the
way. And I wonder about like the
conversations you will have withCambodian folks, whether it's
about the genocide or about the present day of Cambodia, You
know, which sometimes I think, and I, I talked to Kenneth from
the Vietnamese podcast about this.
Like, we both get very tired about the Vietnam War, the

(33:33):
genocide, like, like, like letting it be our identity
marker. And, and there's a frustrating
part of it because we need to preserve history.
We need to talk about it and at the same time I'm like, but
we're doing cool shit, we're doing cool things and we want to
highlight that too, you know, soI think that I think that's
going to be a very interesting experience, you know, to see it

(33:56):
in this manner. So I cannot wait to see it
unfold because, you know, it's going to be a heck of a journey,
you know, and I think anybody who goes through it, you know,
to any of their homeland, it's, I hope it's becomes a very
fruitful experience. And then to come back to it, you
really become different in the way you approach your own
community. So, yeah.

(34:18):
So when we are talking about the50 year anniversary, what has
the conversation been like with other Cambodian folks?
I know you had alluded to folks asking you how can I get my
parents to talk about it? What conversations have you
noticed or what have you observed?

(34:39):
That's been very common among a lot of our peers.
Well, I think we are in a very exciting time when we think
about these different Cambodian Americans.
And I say Cambodian Americans because that's just the world
that I'm in, who are reclaiming their identity in different

(35:04):
ways, trying their best to kind of rewrite the narrative on what
it means to be Cambodian, tryingto bring pride back to what it
to to being Cambodian, whether that be through food, whether
that be through art and music or, you know, Instagram

(35:25):
platforms. I'm sure you follow the infamous
Instagram page Kamae Renaissancehas constantly coined just kind
of keep walking Kon Kumai and and just what that means.
Because I think for the first time, we are far enough away

(35:49):
from the war to finally look back at it and start to kind of
question in the ways that it hasimpacted us as adults.
You know, when our parents never, never had that option
because they're still very much in it.
They're, they lived through it. They haven't even healed from
it. They're too, they're too close

(36:09):
to it. But us, we have grown up and we
have all become adults and we have the privilege and just
enough distance to finally analyze exactly what happened
there. And so we're in this time where

(36:30):
we are so many, so many second generation, one point fivers are
using that energy as fuel to create different things.
So it's a, it's a beautiful time, I think to be, to be a
Southeast Asian. It's very, very cool to see all
these different people doing, asyou said before, cool shit

(36:54):
that's happening. And it's it's, it's, it's, it's
a coin and it's a sign to see how far we have come.
I'm just really excited that we are having these conversations,
like you said, about the impact of the war, the impact of how it
how it impacted our parents who had parented us, whether and the

(37:17):
intergenerational trauma that wemay have may have inherited.
And what does that mean? And what, how can we make sure
that that doesn't pass down to our future kids in the next
generation? And so I'm glad that we're able
to, to have these conversations because without the
conversations and, and you know,if we keep treating it like,

(37:41):
like nothing happened, nothing'sgonna, we're never gonna heal
from it. And it's just gonna keep being
passed down. One of the experiences I
remembered when I would interview fellow Kamae friends,
colleagues and in talking about the genocide, I as a podcaster

(38:04):
started getting a lot of vicarious trauma through it.
Like I don't think that there are episodes that would get me
very emotionally drained until Iactually interview a fellow
Kamae person and to share these stories as so intense.
I wonder how you when you go into different spaces where you

(38:27):
do talks or whether you do spaces, you know, for other for
other folks that want to learn how to talk about their stories,
How do you handle or navigate through the vicarious trauma of
it all? Because I know that for a lot of
our own peers, it is tough. I mean, I remembered you even
being on the museum board. Every time April 17th comes by,

(38:49):
I would get very depressed for acouple of days.
Like I would be in charge of these events doing a talk and it
was always great to be around other Kamai folks.
But then after, but when I go home and the next day, I'm just
like, I feel really sad. I feel really heavy and to the
point where I stopped doing these events on April 17th

(39:11):
because it really hits me very hard.
And I wonder about for you when you're navigating, you know,
deal with the the anniversary tothe people that you come across
in the diaspora. You know, maybe maybe I'm lucky

(39:34):
that when I was interviewing my father, I had also started
therapy. I tell people that yes, the
third week of releasing episodes, we went viral, but the
third week is also when I started my therapy journey

(39:56):
because I I, there was no way that I could process what my
father was telling me because I was hearing his story for the
first time too, along with everyone else along with me
releasing the episodes like it was, it was live for me as well.
And it was a lot for me to take in to know what his exact

(40:20):
experience was. And I needed help to kind of
process all of that. So I recorded for eight months.
I also did therapy for over 8 months, like close to a year and
a half. And I actually really am
thankful that I was, you know, Iknow therapy's not not cheap,

(40:42):
but I'm thankful that I'm able to have that experience and that
I had that alongside my recording because it was like
deep work healing during that entire time.
And I was able to really learn and pick out pieces of my
childhood, pieces of the way that I was raised and

(41:04):
essentially forgive myself, forgive my father and like heal
those pieces. And I think that has allowed me
honestly, to be a better podcaster, be a better, be
stronger when it comes to havingconversations with other people
only because now I'm not, I'd say, I hate to say the word

(41:26):
fully healed, but I, but I've done a little bit of healing and
I fleshed out a little bit of it.
And so it's given me a little bit more strength when it comes
to talking about the topics. And you know, because I've, I've

(41:46):
had to actually really dissect it during that time period.
Yeah. I really appreciate you sharing
that too, because I think that therapy is very important.
I think that's that's something that we don't talk enough of.
We don't talk about the intergenerational effects that
it has on us. And I think that's also very

(42:10):
important to have therapists whoare very who are very trauma
informed, especially when it comes to war, genocide, states,
sponsored violence. I think that there's power to
that. And, and I myself got into
therapy like in the past year and I realized how much being

(42:32):
able to reflect, giving space toreflect has helped me in, in my
own interviews that I would do with other folks.
Because, yeah, the work that we do is very thankless.
It's comes from a labor of love,but it's also labor, labor,
labor. You know, it's just a lot of
intensity that you're bringing in.
And you also want to make sure that, like, you're honoring

(42:54):
people's stories. And there's a perfectionist
driving me sometimes that I had to let go of because I'm afraid
that if I don't do this right, like I'm going to ruin their
story. And those things, like get into
my head. But when you are interviewing
other folks in the Cambodian community, are there things that
you that surprises you? Are there things that really

(43:16):
stood up for you? Like, wow, maybe I really need
to lean into this. Or maybe there's a part of the
Cambodian culture that now I really want to get into.
I don't know if it's anything that I made me want to get into,
but if it's one thing that I hadlearned in the past four years

(43:42):
of not only interviewing different Cambodian people,
American Cambodians like Cambodian Americans, but
actually I've had the honor of like meeting French Cambodians,
Belgian Cambodians. When every time I go to Europe
or anytime I go to any other country, I like to do these in

(44:06):
person meetups. And I remember this one dinner
that I had in Paris. It was my first time in Paris
and there's a, my community in, in France, right?
So I, it was the first time out of the country that I did one of
these and I said, Hey, I'm goingto go to Europe.
Any Cambodian, you know, French or Cambodian, whatever, want to

(44:27):
join me at this table? It was a table of nine of us, 9
girls who had come in trained it.
One girl trained in like trainedlike drove 12 hours to come meet
us at this table. They were French, Cambodian, all

(44:48):
different type of European Cambodians, Dutch, Cambodian
like like all coming together atthe table.
There were like 3-4 languages going on at one time, but we
were all Cambodian. And it was crazy because I sat
there in the middle of the tablelooking around.

(45:10):
Everyone was Cambodian, from different countries.
We grew up in completely different countries and we sat
there talking about the exact same things, the exact same
experience of having a parent who had survived a war, having a
parent who had who, who was either very strict or made them

(45:33):
feel different in their country and language barrier.
We talked about identity and what it meant to feel Cambodian,
Cambodian, French, Cambodian, American, Cambodian, Dutch, and
we were all, doesn't matter whatcountry you were in, we were all
connected by the same feelings. We grew up very similarly in the

(45:53):
same way, made it with differentflavors because it was in
different countries, but it justmade me realize that the
diaspora is in the in the experience of it is universal.
It doesn't matter what country you're in and what country your
parents ended up fleeing to. We all were experiencing the
exact same thing. And, and when I, when I saw

(46:18):
that, I was like, wow, there's, it's, it, we're truly all
connected. We're truly all connected.
And and that's something that I I had learned so far through
this experience. What I would give to be a family
on that wall when you had that dinner and like, like there's

(46:40):
something so exciting. I'm pretty sure this has been
your experience too. Like when I would run into a
random Cambodian person, like, oh, are you Kamai?
Oh, yes, I'm Kamai. And there's this like level
excitement. Like if I see a Vietnamese
person, it's like, oh, OK, well,I guess it's cool.
It's not a bad thing. But but when it's a Kamai
person, there's like this radiant energy.

(47:03):
Like I don't feel alone. If like, like there's something
that's very powerful when you hear someone that's also that
also shares that same ethnicity.And, and like, whenever I travel
now, like I'd like to make sure that I go to a Kamai restaurant.
Like I want to support a Kamai restaurant.

(47:25):
I want Kamai food, you know, I, I crave it all the time.
And my mom was Vietnamese like Shelby asking me, like, do you,
why do you always want to go to Kamai restaurants?
Because like, we don't really have many in Chicago.
You know, we didn't have one forsuch a long time.
Now. Now it's like, I feel like it's
a mission, you know, because I also want to connect with other
folks. I, I think there's something

(47:47):
powerful about food and, and my mom like, OK, fine, I'll go
along with you. And, you know, and she'll,
she'll, she'll join in and she'll, you know, actually have
conversations because she actually lived in hot theme,
which is next to Cambodia. So she was familiar with a lot
of the Cambodian folks, you know, growing up too.
And luckily she escaped her and her family escaped before the

(48:09):
Kamai Rouge literally came in and did a lot of damage there.
Which that is a story we don't talk about in the Kamaic realm
because a lot of my dad's immediate relatives live in the
Kamaic realm. And that's a whole nother topic
to dive into because that's a whole nother, a whole nother
layer of the Kamae Rouge going into southern Vietnam and

(48:30):
unfortunately killing a lot of Kamae folks because they were
deemed poisoned by the Vietnamese government, which I
didn't find that out until more recently.
And that just blew me away, you know, and, and then what
happened with Thailand recently,I know you had also done an
episode with you. We were bringing up, you were

(48:51):
bringing up the the Dengrek genocide.
That was the second genocide. What did you learn about that
genocide? I think for viewers that don't
know what the genocide was, thiswas like during the time of the
genocide, a lot of the Kamai refugees were in Thai refugee
camps. And in this case, there were

(49:12):
Thai refugees, Thai camp guards that were forcing a lot of my
refugees to get out of Thailand and to go back to to expatriate
to Cambodia forcefully. And they were getting into the
land mines and, and there was this like this hill where a lot

(49:34):
of Cambodian folks were pushed to their deaths.
And this is something that I didn't learn about until
actually about maybe a year ago,actually.
And something about it just really was so unsettling that we
had never talked about that partof history and, and why there
have always been historical tensions between Cambodia and

(49:56):
Thailand. And I knew that there was
tensions. I knew that there were a lot of
Cambodian refugees that were mistreated horribly by Thai
folks, by the Thai, by the Thai guards, and we did not talk
about this part of history, which still blows me away.

(50:16):
I was wondering about what was that like learning about that
history and what he would have been able to uncover.
Yeah. Well, I, I first heard about it
by my dad, even though he didn'tsurvive it, he didn't have to go
through that. I remember we were one of the

(50:39):
episodes, probably around the time that he had gotten into the
Thai camps. He had mentioned off record
that, you know, there was another thing that happened.
The Thai soldiers had loaded up a bus saying that it was going

(51:00):
to Bangkok, that it was going totake them to Thailand to be
safe. And they had loaded all these
buses. But instead of taking them to
safety, they drove them on top of a mountain and basically
threw them off of the mountain and into the peril down the

(51:21):
mountain. It's a very, very graphic like
scene if you really took it in. And I remember I couldn't sleep
that night because I, I had thatimage in my head like, Oh my
God, how, how horrific is that? You you spend three years
starving, survived A genocide, finally thought that you had

(51:43):
made it and then only to be liedto and to like literally be
cascaded down a mountain and back into the lion mines.
And, you know, the tensions thatyou talk about were very real at
that time because I think Thailand was like, well, it's
not my genocide. Like, why do I have to take it?

(52:04):
All these people like, you know,why?
Why is it our responsibility to make sure you guys are all OK?
You did this to yourselves. And so there's a lot of like,
like resentment, I think of why they needed be handling us.
We're handling the Cambodians that were flooding out by the
millions. And I think the last point to

(52:26):
that whole thing is like, you know, we don't have a lot of
history about it because the survivors are still living and
they, they had yet to one, It's probably culturally 2.
I think just within the Asian cultures, it's, it's, it's, it's
hard to, I think a lot of us aretaught to like, not share or

(52:48):
over share or whatever it is. And that has caused a detriment,
I think, to our storytelling andour, and our ability to collect
stories. But also, as we talked about,
like history has not really gaveit the platform that it
deserved. And so because of that, I think,
and a huge mission for me and mypodcast is, you know, giving

(53:14):
that validation, where validation is due.
It was the biggest genocide of Asian genocide of the 20th
century. And yet there's barely a
paragraph, if that in any history books.
And it was like, not that long ago.
I mean, 50 years ago, it was in the 70s.

(53:35):
Like, let's be real, it's reallynot that long ago and there's
nothing about it. And I think if, if I were, if I
was a survivor and I didn't hearabout it, then in my head I'm
like, well, maybe it maybe it's not that important.
Like maybe I don't have to anything.
Maybe I can just keep it in and then we can just kind of forget

(53:57):
about it and move forward, whichis the way that it's been
handled. But I feel like the problem with
that is when you do that, one, nobody learns, 2, nobody
understands. And three, it gets passed down
because us kids, even though as much as they try to ignore it,

(54:17):
as we said, it still comes out in different ways.
It comes out in the way they parent and the way they fear and
the way that they speak and the way that they get on defense.
You know, like as you said, likewhen they, they use it as like a
back pocket weapon almost whenever necessary.
You can always pull out. Well, you didn't survive the
war. It's like, well, so it does.

(54:42):
It does have its effects. And though they think that being
silent is just going to make it go away.
So, you know, yeah, the. It's it's crazy.
And I'm so glad that James Tang had really put in the work
behind sharing his father's story, writing out his father's

(55:05):
story, because we so, so needed that.
Somebody needed to to really putthat on paper.
Yeah, I mean, just you talking about it, it leaves me
speechless. It, it, it, it breaks my heart
even more because, like, learning about what happened to

(55:27):
the Kamae folks under Thailand was jolting.
I mean, I did not realize how severe it got carried into to
the death of thousands, the murder of thousands, I should
say. And like, what does that do for
us as Cambodians still trying toheal, trying to understand and

(55:49):
uncover parts of our history that's not still hasn't been
touched? And I think I had a conversation
with a my friend of mine and, you know, she had lived on and
off in Cambodia and lives in Chicago.
And she said that even in her home, even in her hometown, no
one ever talks about the genocide.
There are people that don't evenknow that the genocide actually

(56:11):
happened, which it's startling to me because this is Cambodia.
Like how can this like it's not only 50 years, but it's also
like the last 25 years. Have they seen any kind of non
wars? I mean, so it's it's very it's

(56:31):
very perplexing, but it also tells you how bad, how badly
needed history has not been reaching to a lot of the
Cambodian communities in the in the homeland.
I don't know if that's somethingthat you've experienced so far
in your research or what. Other Cambodian folks.

(56:52):
I I don't live in Cambodia so I don't know what is being taught
in the history books and I don'thave that kind of first hand
knowledge. What I do know and what I have
heard is that it is it is a little taboo to talk a little

(57:15):
too much about it. I, I, I would have imagined in
the country that there's still alot of shame around what
happened and because it completely destroyed the country
and the country itself, I mean, is still trying to heal from it
in so many different ways. So it just completely destroyed

(57:37):
the country. So I could imagine it'd be
something that they're not superproud of talking about.
And, and what makes the Khmer Rouge very unique is that it's
not something where somebody else did something to them,
right? Like, you know, we have the
Holocaust where it was like, youknow, them against the Jews,

(57:59):
German, you know, but this, thiswas super rare because this is
our people doing it to our own people.
And the problem is when you're in Cambodia, the enemies are
still living amongst you, but there's, it's not like they're
over there and we're over here. And so I can imagine it being

(58:23):
even more difficult to really talk about it deeply.
I almost kind of feel like we, we here in America might have it
a tad bit easier because we havethat distance.
But when you're in Cambodia, I would only imagine it'd be, it'd
be harder. So I think there's a lot of
factors that probably come into play and probably politics as

(58:45):
well. Like maybe they're trying not to
because they're shamed of it. Maybe they don't want it to be
taught. Like, I don't know, You know, it
is sad what's happening. It is sad that there is not
enough education around it. And I am very, I'm happy that

(59:06):
there had been some laws passed recently that the Cambodian
history is now required in some counties to be taught in high
school. That is just a very, very recent
development within the last yearor two.
That's super exciting. But yeah, it's it's crazy.
It's crazy that, that it's just not as it's not common

(59:29):
knowledge. It's not well known about.
Yeah, and one thing I one thing I did when I was in Cambodia was
I had told folks I will not do any genocide related sites.
I refuse to go anywhere near it because I know that even through
the museum work, there is intense feelings that I get very

(59:52):
triggered by. And even though I didn't live
through it, it's reading about it, hearing the stories,
watching documentaries it. It does something to you
mentally and I feel like that what my dad feared up was
definitely passed down to me. And like, one thing was when I
was looking at my hotel, the door slang, which was the S 21

(01:00:18):
torture chamber where thousands of Cambodian prisoners were
taken in and executed. It was a mile away.
And so I was Googling. I was like, OK, when I go to
another place, I want to make sure when I Google map that it
does not that I am not going past it.
I was very adamant about it and I didn't want to go to.

(01:00:38):
And I had a tour guide that was taking me to the Gale and he we
were talking, you know, he was, you know, we had such a great
conversation. And it was a private, it was a
private tour that I was doing. It was just me and the driver
and the tour guide. And he took me on top of one of
the hills. And as we got down, he said,

(01:01:01):
well, I didn't want to take you to the other side of the hill
because that's a killing field area.
And I and I just felt like my heart just sank.
I was like, I don't want to hearthis.
I cannot, I can't, I can't hear this, you know.
But do you see yourself visitingor taking chances to visit these
places? Or how do you prepare to visit

(01:01:22):
places that carries a lot of very dark history?
Well, I, I have visited them in middle school, although again, I
was in middle school, so that was quite young.
I, I do plan on seeing them again as an adult because I, as

(01:01:45):
as I had mentioned, it's, I'm, I'm a different person now.
I'm also an adult. I've also gone through this
project and, and see Cambodia ina whole new light.
I, I would want to go, I would want to go to see how that
experience would affect me. I'm curious to see how, yeah,

(01:02:08):
how, how it would all hit me. I and I am open to whatever
feelings may kind of arise from that.
I feel like it's for me personally, I think it would be
important to to see those areas because at this point, since I

(01:02:28):
had, I had learned so much aboutit and studied and interviewed
so many historians, anthropologists.
If I go, I definitely would liketo see them.
And how about your father? Is he at at a place where he's
able to visit those places? He has gone back to Cambodia.

(01:02:53):
I remember him telling me that the very first time going back
to Cambodia was quite difficult for him, but at this point in
his life he is able to go back. Whether or not he's going to go
and see the Killing Fields with me as an adult, I don't know.
I haven't really asked him that yet, but he has seen them since

(01:03:14):
and you know, he, he got, he gotemotional the last time that he
was there and I would imagine him to be so.
So it's I, I, as I said, I'm notthere, but I would imagine it
being very, very, you can feel the aura in the land, I would

(01:03:37):
imagine of what happened there. And yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm,
I'm glad they are still there. At least they're they are
preserving some sights of it so that not all history is lost.
Yeah. And something that I experienced
was in Phnom Penh, you know, it's like I used to watch a lot

(01:03:59):
of videos of what it was before,like in the 70s and prior to
that, like these French colonialbuildings.
And it's like my like when I wasin this where my driver picked
me up and taking me to my hotel,I kept having these weird like
scenarios in my head. Oh my gosh, you know, I'm like
living between 1973 to 1975 to now.

(01:04:23):
It's like I felt like I was kindof juxtapositioning.
My experience is like, wow, this, it was kind of a mind fuck
if I, if I have to be very honest with you, because I get
so into the history, like gosh, this building was there back in
the 50's, the 60s and it survived near disrepair.
And to see it's still there, it's like, wow, there's

(01:04:47):
something that's so powerful about that.
And that was a big take away forme because I felt like I was
going back in time back and forth, you know, and my friend
said, just think of Cambodia as now, you know, and but you just
can't help it because I used to be, I used to like watch
documentaries and I would like look at my photos again.

(01:05:08):
I'm like, wow, just imagine whatit was like back then, you know,
to walk these streets and where my dad used to like, you know,
hang out at with his cousin or his uncle.
And yeah, it's, it really takes you to a different place.
And are you visiting other family members there?
Have you commute? And if so, are you, have you
communicate with family members?Have you been able to brush up

(01:05:32):
on the Kamai? Because I know I can't speak
Kamai at all, unfortunately. And I'm actually just starting
to learn Vietnamese. Yeah, it's OK.
I I don't speak Kamai either. I can, I can say that I can hear
it and I can eat and I exactly cook.
I started I made numb joke with my dad last month.

(01:05:54):
We were following Chef Knight's recipe and it was so good.
So I'm gonna make it again soon.But I my my cry is terrible.
And in terms of family, we don'thave any more family members who
live there currently. I could be wrong.
We may have like one or two likegreat aunts or something like

(01:06:17):
that, very distant relative. Most of them are here though, in
America. So if I go, it's mostly going to
be for meeting with the people that I want to eat with, seeing
the sights, seeing my, you know,places where my dad maybe grew
up. My dad grew up in Bethenbong.
So it'd be definitely more of a a visiting sites, visiting

(01:06:44):
people sort of trip. What are you most proud of as a
Cambodian now? Probably just being able to be a
part of this community at the time that it I feel like it's
it's just growing and it's thriving.

(01:07:08):
I, as I said before, I think what's happening right now is
just so rare. We are in a time of history at
the 50 year mark where again, people are asking the right
questions. And I am just so privileged and
thankful that I am able to be a part of a part of that and a

(01:07:34):
part of the, the conversations, a part of starting these
conversations. It's such a joy to be honest.
It's so much fun to interview people, to have conversations
like this with you, to talk about, to have spaces where we
can kind of dissect our identityand our lived experience

(01:07:55):
together. So I'm, I'm honestly just most
proud of this platform, this podcast, how far we've come, how
far we've gotten and privileged to have the opportunity to
continue creating resources where I feel like it needs to
be. So I just recently got non

(01:08:19):
profit status for the Death in Cambodia Life in America
Foundation. And I wanted to create it
because I wanted an opportunity in a better, more sustainable
way to get grant money and fundsbecause up to this point, I've
just been funding everything myself.
It's like we, we don't make money off of this.

(01:08:40):
I, I, I, I don't think you make money off of your podcast
either. We do this out of the goodness
of our hearts. But in order to do, to make, to
make something actually happen and change, a lot of the times
you do need a lot of funding. So I just wanted to have the
opportunity to be able to get that and continue growing the
different things underneath the Death and Cambodia umbrella.

(01:09:02):
That's amazing. And which actually leads me to
like the next question of what are we expecting of death in
Cambodia and for you in the nextyear besides obviously looking
to make that trip to Cambodia and to document further stories.
Yeah. So next year, I had mentioned
before we started the podcast that I am, I've used this year

(01:09:25):
to try to focus on in what ways I want to shift the podcast and
what new things I want to do andhow do I want to approach things
differently. So I've decided that next year I
really want to try to do more inperson events.
Social media is great and I feellike we have gotten very far

(01:09:47):
with it, but there is something very, very different about being
in person and having in person events and spaces.
So I am trying to do like a dinner series essentially where
I would choose Cambodian restaurants in different parts

(01:10:10):
of the West Coast, starting on the West Coast only because I'm
here right now, but maybe out ofChicago.
Choosing restaurants like that are being run by second
generation one point fivers who are trying to make their mark on
Cambodian food, renting out spaces where Cambodians would
come together and we would do a live Kamai Creators

(01:10:33):
Conversations. So Kamai Creators Conversations
is a program I started with a PhD licensed therapist.
He is also Kumai and we were doing for a long time these
virtual online safe spaces. I have decided that I want to do
them in person moving forward. So like actual doing in person

(01:10:57):
meet ups with a Cambodian PhD licensed therapist where we can
talk about what it's like being and growing up Cambodian.
And then I'm also thinking maybetowards the end of next year to
actually host some sort of a retreat.
Like it's always been my dream to actually host a retreat for

(01:11:20):
Cambodian Americans and invite yoga teachers and therapists and
sponsors and like all these different things where we can
have a space for ourselves. So I am leaning towards and
putting my energy towards doing more of that for next year.
Wow, these are really wonderful and ambitious projects you're

(01:11:41):
taking on. I think that's exciting too.
And I think that there's so manyopportunities because I think
for so long we were stuck in this deficit, in this scarcity
mindset. Like how can we go from a start,
from a place of abundance? And that's something I always
think about, like, how can we step into ourselves, step into

(01:12:04):
different spaces? And I think what you're doing is
amazing. And last question, what would
you tell your young self six years ago before you started
this podcast? I'd probably tell her that it's

(01:12:27):
not going to be just my great grandkids who are gonna be
listening to these stories and this podcast.
It's gonna be actually a lot of people and, and this is gonna be
the start of a journey that I never thought that I would
embark on. I started this podcast and I, I

(01:12:50):
clicked record with my dad thinking, oh, you know, we'll
just keep these for ourselves. You know, maybe we'll, we'll
release it and maybe like 10 listeners will listen and you
know, that'll be that. And it has turned into this
whole new world and it's given me so much purpose.
And I've had so much. I, I, I've just had so much, so

(01:13:12):
much of meaning has come out of,of, of this, this project and
this umbrella that. And, and so I would just, I
would tell her you have no idea what's coming.
No idea. That is amazing and thank you so
much for your time being on my podcast.
And to every listener, please check out Death in Cambodia,

(01:13:35):
which is available on all streaming and continue to hear
stories from the Cambodian experience and other content
creators that are doing this much needed work.
You know, thank you so much fromthe bottom of my heart, Dorothy.
Thank you for having me.