We were taxed to the hilt, unemployment was high and he was very reluctant to give refugees a home here when Californians were out of work. He slept under the bed and hid when the maids came to clean. The rise & fall of The Donut King. By 1976, Ted had saved up enough money to buy his own shop, which he named Christy's. [5], The film received 69/100 on Metacritic, receiving "generally favorable reviews. Despite never really being a huge success under the previous owners, Christy's became popular under the ownership of the Ngoys. With the pastor's permission he went out and got two more jobs, as a sales person from 6pm to 10pm and petrol attendant from 10pm to 6am. He wrapped the note around a stone, and threw it down. Suganthini smuggled him food at night, and after many days she said she loved him too. "It's a crazy story, but it's true," says Ted, now 78. To make sure he went through with it, they insisted on hiding behind a curtain while he said his spiel. A map of Christys Donuts, Winchells and Dunkin Donuts across California during the height of Ted Ngoys entrepreneurship in the 1970s through the 1990s. He ran to the shop across the street where he bought a donut. "When Alice called me, she described something that I have always wanted to tell but never thought that it would get picked up anywhere," Tao says. It was hurtful. Through doughnuts, many Cambodians stepped out of isolation and into the American mainstream. Pit bosses, floor men and dealers at Caesars Palace, the MGM Grand and the Mirage got to know the Cambodian doughnut king. Im also, again, the daughter of Chinese American immigrants and my dad was a big Republican party supporter. He believed he could show others the path to wealth and opportunity. She was hooked. They did business on a handshake, he said, and his tenants always paid. It actually made national, if not international, news about the kindness of these people in Orange County. Tell me more about how they connected to the local community.Ted came in the 70s and it was quite homogeneously white in Orange County at the time and a lot of people had never seen an Asian person, much less heard of a place called Cambodia. And then we opened second store in Fullerton, and when they opened, I also train people and my wage, Christi, also . Working all hours, Ted and Christy knew very little about what was happening back home in Cambodia, but what they heard was bad. While Ted was immersed in Cambodian politics, Christy flew to the US for the birth of a grandchild. Ngoy's gambling had progressed from the card tables to placing bets on sports games with Cambodian bookies. The family were among the many tens of thousands of . To think about what Ted did years ago letting bygones be bygones. He suggested that Ted hang out in the back and to put Christy in the front. They both drank and vowed to be faithful. Theres also the moment where Ted revisits his former home in Mission Viejo. She said he would be throwing his money away. I dont know who I am right now, he said. His tenants opened their own stores and leased them out. To understand the politics, the Republican party at the time was a very anticommunist party. Gu first needed to find Ted Ngoy but she had no idea how to do it. Also Jerry Brown, who weve seen in California as our beacon of hope and morality, in 1975 was actually the opposite. The Donut King comes out Friday, Oct. 30, online, and when you Because of the Ngoys, a Cambodian refugees first American job was often in a doughnut shop. I just do it.. So Ngoy snuck into her family's heavily guarded compound and climbed through her bedroom window. "Ultimately, this is a story of a guy who came to the country with nothing, and with some hustle, and dreams, and a little luck, really made quite a charmed life for himself.". The doughnut king landed at LAX with $50 in his pocket. [5] Having grown up in Los Angeles, she was doubtful when her children's nanny made a reference to "Cambodian" donuts; she thought all donuts were simply "American." [5] Upon looking into the matter, she learned about Ted Ngoy and became fascinated with the topic. The past I cannot change, but I learned the heavy way. Ngoy lived in an attic apartment a few blocks from the Khoeun familys mansion. Channy also wholesales doughnuts to other minimarts. Ted Ngoy (born Bun Tek Ngoy) was born into a poor Cambodian family in 1942. Six weeks later, Gu and her producer, Jos Nuez, were on a plane to Cambodia where they spent three days interviewing Ngoy and shooting B-roll. The couple and their three toddlers arrived penniless at Camp Pendleton, part of the first wave of Cambodian refugees. In the end, filming the documentary was a healing experience for Ted. After a civil war broke out and Phnom Penh fell to the communist Khmer. He taught them the names of the doughnuts: old fashioned, jelly-filled, glazed. Christy's parents said they would let Ted live if he told Christy that he was a dog who had romanced other girls and had never loved her. [2], In 1967, Ngoy was sent by his mother to study in the capital, Phnom Penh, where he met and married Suganthini Khoeun, the daughter of a high-ranking government official. But one night, he had an idea. Cambodia was having its first democratic elections since the war and he wanted to stand for office to help rebuild his country. He says his gambling is under control -- though he has no money with which to test this will power. , chronicles Ngoy's thrill-of-victory/agony-of-defeat rollercoaster ride through the American Dream immigration, capitalism, history, hubris, romance, addiction, family and food. The film flashes back to the horror of life in 1970s Cambodia, a tragic offshoot of the Vietnam war that eliminated thousands of lives. Few foods are as universally adored as fried dough. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975, and the Cambodian genocide began. "It was a different take on a refugee story,". He left behind his new wife and their two children, and what he had seen as his last chance at redemption. ", But in the end, he says, he beat it. [8], After a particularly devastating gambling loss in 1990, Ngoy flew to Washington, D.C. and joined a Buddhist monastery where he spent a month meditating. All three were taken to the police station but they were too scared to mention the cash in the boot. His story begins in the early 1970s when Ngoy was a commander in the Royal Cambodian Army, training soldiers in Thailand. For the next 45 days, he lived in her room. Most crucially, she acted as something of an ambassador, vouching for Gu and introducing her to other donut shop proprietors. After earning a communications degree at UC San Diego, Tao worked for a while at a news station but wasn't enthused about that career path. Some of the interviews in the film seemed that way.It was actually really wonderful to speak with particularly his older kids Chet and Savy, who until that interview, they didnt have much to do with him. Through the maneuvering of his brother-in-law, chief of police and briefly future president of Cambodia, Sak Sutsakhan, Ngoy was promoted to the rank of major and appointed military attache at Cambodia's embassy in Thailand. Casino operators gave Ngoy free rooms, food, airfare and front-row seats to prize fights. "It's a devil, it's a monster. called Night after night, he watched customers come and go. Ted remembers hiding from her behind the slot machines. Ted Ngoy in The Donut King documentary. The couple had flash cars, bought a million-dollar mansion with a pool and an elevator, and went on holidays abroad. This caused tension in the Ngoy household, being the center of many arguments between Ngoy and his wife. None of the people Ngoy helped get started lent him a hand, he said: I trained them. The second time Ted came back to California, Chet took all this time off of work, took him to his timeshare in Oceanside and drove his dad around all over Southern California. Don't die. Streaming now on PBS. After setting up a sweet shop of his own, he helped fellow . Hard work. "Don't worry, I will hide under your bed," said Ted. Once, he was a millionaire who met three U.S. presidents. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, Key grant funding to help O.C. I am the child of immigrants who came and moved here for the American dream. Within a decade, he had become a multimillionaire with a lakeside mansion . You just have to see the opportunity and go for it. Those are the wise words of Ted Ngoy. It provided a path for refugees to settle and was a profitable business model. Her name was Suganthini Khoeun. Doing this film was really an exploration for me of understanding where you come from. To Christy, this was the final betrayal. One day in 2018, she cold-called I thought it was so profound that this was the very same community that just a couple of decades earlier were making fun of somebody who worked at the counter and had an accent. Huge numbers of Cambodian refugees were arriving in California. Ted wrote one day. He had burned a lot of bridges and at the time his children hardly spoke to him. He was born Bun Tek Ngoy. When you hook up with gambling, your life's finished. I was addicted to a feeling, and money was simply the needle that delivered the toxic dose," he writes in his autobiography, also called The Donut King. About 30 Christys Doughnuts were still in operation, as were hundreds of other Cambodian-owned doughnut shops. Doughnut revenue put their children through college. Then he pulled a knife. Despite the villa's armed security guards and guard dogs, one rainy night Ted climbed up a coconut tree and over the barbed wire and made his way in through a bathroom window. Ted Ngoy (born Bun Tek Ngoy; 1942) is a Cambodian American entrepreneur and former owner of a chain of doughnut shops in California. I say, Ted, who are you? I really dont know.. Ted became known as the Donut King - or Uncle Ted,. "[10], Whittaker said that "as Asian Americans face increasing racism, its closing message about how immigrant communitiesdefine America has only become more timely."[8]. Ted became deeply religious. "They're a good company and I owe them gratitude," Ted says. Over the years, he says he sponsored more than 100 Cambodian families that wanted to come to the U.S. [citation needed] Ngoy's political career ended in 2002 after breaking with two powerful allies, the commerce minister and the head of the Cambodian Chamber of Commerce, Teng Bunma. Ngoy doesnt remember how many stores he started or bought -- 40? COVID-19 has hit her store and most other shops hard. I thought I would just get an exterior scene for context. Every weekday, you'll get fresh, community-driven stories that catch you up with our independent local news. And she was heavily chaperoned. At 16, she had no friends, could not talk to boys and was forbidden to leave home alone. Ngoy attempted Gamblers Anonymous, but denied it helped with his situation, stating that when he went to meetings "I cry, everybody cry.
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