Young Cambodians know they can’t claim heaven if they’re just going to sit under it

ORDINARY Cambodians, such as Phnom Penh resident Leng Sochea – who survived genocide, food shortages, and civil war – have changed in ways they’d never thought would be possible. The signs of prosperity everywhere across the country make it hard to believe that two million people died in the killing fields between 1975 and 1979.

Leng’s life was a long struggle. He was born into a Chinese family in 1960 in a home south of Phnom Penh. His grandparents and his father had migrated from China following the Japanese invasion in 1937. They came on a Chinese junk.

The Chinese, now consisting of less than 1 per cent of the population, lived under the largely benevolent rule of the head of state, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, who made it his priority to develop the country and create wealth as much as possible. Life was good for Leng and his 10 siblings; they lived off the Tonle Sap River’s bounties, and their land. But history intervened.