ted ngoy second wife

Naturally he agreed, and set his sisters up with doughnut shops. I could have made a special piece just on the history of donuts. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. Under the Khmer Rouge leadership of Pol Pot people were forced to work on communal farms, and those with money or education were tortured and killed. Near the station was a doughnut shop. Ngoy attempted Gamblers Anonymous, but denied it helped with his situation, stating that when he went to meetings "I cry, everybody cry. Los Angeles Times He left behind his new wife and their two children, and what he had seen as his last chance at redemption. Over the years, Ted and Christy sponsored more than 100 families, often hosting them before setting them up with homes, loans, and doughnut shops. During the week they went to school, where sometimes they were so hungry they stole snacks from other kids' lunchboxes. "If I need the vote, I cannot gamble. Ngoy and his wife became American citizens and were . The Donut King is a documentary directed by Alice Gu that covers the life of Ted Ngoy, one of the primary reasons behind the Cambodian American donut shop boom. [10] Ngoy was hesitant to return to California for the film; he was estranged from his children and former friends. He would have no more donuts to sell so he could be with his wife for the rest of the day. 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. Then he opened his first independent shop in La Habra, eventually covering the rest of O.C. By the mid-1980s, he was a millionaire. At a news conference, he dissolved his party and accused the government of corruption. Ted Ngoy, his wife and family pick up the story and walk us through their unbelievable experience, flying to a . He enjoyed meeting the younger generation of doughnut makers, who are innovating and inventing new flavours. From the wall, he leaped onto the roof and crawled through an open window. You will end up destroying the whole family and no more relationship with the world, just finished. Everybody cry, he said. In less than two years, while working on other jobs and projects, Gu directed and shot the 94-minute documentary. "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. I said, 'Because it's incredible, for one. The entire family Christy and the three kids worked alongside him. Her daughter, Mayly Tao, has taken over the reigns of DK's. Your Guide To Everything Boozy You Can Order, A Los Angeles Family Seeks Answers And Accountability After Black Mom Dies In Childbirth. He tasted his first donut at a Tustin gas station, trained as a baker in a La Mirada Winchells and ran his own Winchells store in the Balboa Peninsula. Doughnuts offered an escape from years of welfare dependency. This is an incredible story of how he helped people. "It went like fire on the hill, so fast," says Ted. Although there is still some resentment towards him in the Cambodian community, whose hard-earned cash he gambled away, he is also revered by many. Eventually, her parents discovered Ngoy and threw him out. Beautiful views aren't the only thing drawing Angelenos to the region. There were some hurt relationships. Hes friends with Dana Rohrabacher. Then, after falling out with a powerful political rival he feared for his life and fled to the US. Why would anybody be interested in my story?' Once again Suganthini was the friendly face welcoming customers, and when she became a US citizen she took the name Christy as her own. He bought donut shop after donut shop, leasing them to other Cambodian immigrants, who ran the stores with their families, and taking a monthly cut of each store's profits. He remarried and had four more children - the youngest two are still at school. Distraught, she took an overdose of sleeping pills and fell into a coma. Theyre savvy, young, hip. BC Donuts It was really wonderful. "Using money to provide for others is a feeling as powerful as any drug," he later wrote. He is nicknamed the "Donut King. Driving back with $85,000 cash in the boot of the car, they were stopped by the police; they had fallen behind with payments, so the car showed up as stolen. [1], In 2013, he was living in Phnom Penh working in real estate. As many as I could.". They have social media and know how to work it to innovate their parents old donut shops with a worldwide following. Christy would search for him in the casinos, the children in tow. 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. But it was really the immigrant story. Former staff writer Vera Castaneda covered arts, entertainment, lifestyle and issues related to Orange County for TimesOC, a community newspaper owned by the Los Angeles Times. In 1975, Ted Ngoy fled the war in Cambodia with his wife and three kids and arrived in America as a penniless refugee. Chet and Savy, Ted Ngoys oldest children, sit down for an interview in The Donut King.. When you first reached out to Ted, it was a cold call. He woke her up and she was about to scream for help, when she realised it was her classmate. Ted Ngoy (born Bun Tek Ngoy) was born into a poor Cambodian family in 1942. Ted liked Cadillacs; Christy preferred Mercedes-Benz convertibles. After setting up a sweet shop of his own, he helped fellow . A day before he left, his eldest son said if you have $3.2 million you can buy it. . "What happens if I decide to jump into your room?" Mismanagement, Sloppy Hiring Practices, Lack Of Transparency. Despite his success, he said, he felt unhappy and isolated. He was bleeding out and her parents were like, 'Oh, God. As far as the immigrant experience and my parents what it really did for me is open my eyes and I just cut them some slack about growing up here in conflict with wanting to be an American kid and their Chinese ways of raising me. Ngoy asked to visit. He did as he was told, but then pulled out a knife and stabbed himself, declaring he would rather die than live without her. Phnom Penh Post By 2002 Ted was broke. He bought a bigger doughnut shop, and offered to lease the original Christy's to a family of Cambodian refugees, who had been working in fast food outlets on low wages. A daughter owns a 1950s-style hamburger restaurant in Orange County. The gambling is sad, the saddest part of my life.". Ted encouraged others to do the same. In doing the research and finding that it was President [Gerald] Ford who issued the executive order to receive the refugees, a Republican president that was a huge surprise to me given that during the time that we were making this film we were hearing Donald Trumps rhetoric. A woman from his church lets him sleep in the screened porch outside her mobile home, which he has fashioned into a makeshift bedroom. In The Donut King, we learn that a teenage Ted won over his wife, Christy (ne Suganthini), by spending 45 straight days laying under her bed. [5] By 1977 he was able to purchase his first doughnut shop, Christy's Donuts, in La Habra. He was very surprised that anybody would find him and want to tell his stories. Ngoy believes he is suffering Gods punishment for having betrayed the blood vow he made as a young man under the moonlight in Phnom Penh. Over the years, he says he sponsored more than 100 Cambodian families that wanted to come to the U.S. It took longer than 40 years. Ted became deeply religious. He said hes Chinese Cambodian and we spoke Mandarin for a couple of minutes. Ted's parents and sisters fled across the border to Thailand, and Ted got a call from the US embassy there asking if he would sponsor them to live in the US. He borrowed money from relatives who had leased his doughnut shops. It's so amazing, so touching.' Inspired by the economic success of Taiwan, Ted decided to lobby the US for "most favoured nation" status, which would open the door to foreign investment. California Sunday Suganthini became the smiling face behind the counter, even though she hardly spoke any English. Soon, Cambodians began copying the Ted Ngoy business model. It's something Ted feels a bit bad about. Christy has remarried and lives in the US, Listen to Ted Ngoy on Outlook on the BBC World Service, Download the podcast for more extraordinary stories, The Donut King, is available in the US now in theatres and online and will be coming to the UK in 2021, Listen to Ted Ngoy on Outlook: How the Donut King lost his crown. The world moves so quickly now, but I do believe that it is still real and it is still possible. Most crucially, she acted as something of an ambassador, vouching for Gu and introducing her to other donut shop proprietors. Peace Lutheran Church in Tustin hired Ngoy as a janitor. Once back in Orange County, he bet more than ever. Ngoy managed to escape just as Phnom Penh was falling and brought his wife, Suganthini, and their three children to America in the mid-1970s. It provided a path for refugees to settle and was a profitable business model. [1], When his wife visited California for the birthday of their grandchild in 1999, Ngoy began an affair with a young woman; Christy divorced him soon after and has not since returned to Cambodia. War erupted in 1970. Huge numbers of Cambodian refugees were arriving in California. But one night, he had an idea. He is working in real estate. Cambodia was having its first democratic elections since the war and he wanted to stand for office to help rebuild his country. 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. The Donut King: Directed by Alice Gu. The Ngoys went to Las Vegas for the first time in 1977. When he lost big, he would sign the stores over to them. He is wealthy again. Did working on this film change or contribute to your perspective of the American dream or immigrant stories?It seems like these days the American dream is harder and harder to attain. Ted kept a low profile until the LA filmmaker Alice Gu got in touch a couple of years ago. Why are we still having these debates? Ted Ngoy stands in front of his first independent donut shop in La Habra, named after his wife Christy Ngoy. LAist is part of Southern California Public Radio, a member-supported public media network. To think about what Ted did years ago letting bygones be bygones. Then Ngoy would fly to Las Vegas without telling her, sometimes staying as long as a week. I called her when I found out and asked if she knew about Ford and Brown. She was lucky that Mayly Tao, whose mom, Chuong Lee, owns the shop, answered the phone. In 1985, he and Suganthini became U.S. citizens. In 1985, Ngoy and his wife became American citizens assuming the American names of Ted and Christy, respectively, and were enjoying a lavish lifestyle including a million dollar home at Lake Mission Viejo, a vacation home in Big Bear, expensive cars, and vacations to Europe. For weeks, they watched other families leave, until finally they, too, were sponsored by a pastor from a church in Tustin, Orange County, about 35 miles south of Los Angeles. It was a strategy that ended up working for them. Before sunrise, they would climb back into her room. Ted became their first South East Asian trainee. Ngoy tried Gamblers Anonymous. youths avoid juvenile hall comes to an end, As it approaches its first decade, the Frida Cinema abides, Shake Shack gets ready to shake things up in Orange County, Santa Anas Electric City Butcher moves online, Brews&Bites beachside beer festival comes to the Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel, 13 couples say I do on Valentines Day weekend at the Anaheim Marketplace, Broadway Divas serve off-Broadway realness at Segerstrom, Dine your heart out this Valentines Day with special menus throughout Orange County, 43rd annual Orange County Black History Parade & Unity Fair a source of pride in Anaheim. When you get to the table, youre so emotional, evil in your body, he said. Where are they now?. His party did poorly in the 1993 and 1998 parliamentary elections, but Prime Minister Hun Sen made him an advisor on commerce and agriculture. "I spent about $100,000 of my own money, my time, my everything," he says. "I achieved my American dream," Ted says. He wanted to buy more, but he was exhausted running the five he owned. Ngoy's gambling had progressed from the card tables to placing bets on sports games with Cambodian bookies. One involves reggae and another focuses on Puerto Rican musicians. Rose Donuts and Cafe A bank had foreclosed on his mansion on Lake Mission Viejo. Doughnut revenue put their children through college. That is a lie, he cried, and plunged the blade into his belly. She ended up threatening to starve herself, saying, "If you won't let me be with him, I'm not going to eat.". You will end up destroying the whole family and no more relationship with the world, just finished. Ted Ngoy: Yeah. Interviews can sometimes feel like a therapy session. The Donut King comes out Friday, Oct. 30, online, and when you It was small amounts first but he was soon blowing bigger figures and he couldn't seem to stop. Where Im going, I dont know. Ted Ngoy: Well, when I was in a high school in a French school, my wife's Suganthini. Upon deeper glance, it was so personal for me. When the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia in 1975, they knew they couldn't go home. In our very first phone call, he asked if I was American and I told him that I was Chinese American. And I thought, How could that be? Hes passed away now so I cant talk to him about it, but it was a learning experience for me about my parents relationship with politics. So Ngoy snuck into her family's heavily guarded compound and climbed through her bedroom window. They married and started a family, and life was good until civil war broke out in 1970, between the government and the communist Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot. What you've done is incredible.' Ted Ngoy made a fortune in doughnuts. Never surrender. buy a ticket ", But in the end, he says, he beat it. After cry, go back gambling." But he was more than well-off; he was respected. "You can't find any prettier woman besides her.". (Courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment). Read about our approach to external linking. Well, the biggest problem I was facing, that was the gambling, and it completely wiped me out, you know, separate of the family. And he said he saw her heart break before his very eyes. She would drive there with her youngest son and go from hotel to hotel looking for him. When Christy's parents eventually discovered the ruse, they were furious. Theres this portion in the film that goes into Ted and his ex-wife Christys experiences in Orange County during the 70s. Yeah, My Family Doesn't Either, Soup Dumplings, Kimchi Burritos And More Fast, Cheap Eats In Glendale, At Masarap Cafe, West African and Filipino Cuisines Find Their Pairing, Drinking At Disneyland? The family also still had the Winchell's so now they had two stores to run. Ted soon got a job working at Winchell's, which was then the dominant donut chain on the West Coast. Family also still had the Winchell 's so now they had two stores to run corruption! He remarried and had four more ted ngoy second wife - the youngest two are still school., Cambodians began copying the Ted Ngoy stands in front of his own, he says, he says to! Everything, '' he later wrote cold call go from hotel to hotel looking for him the..., for one the years, while working on other jobs and projects, Gu directed and shot 94-minute! In La Habra, named after his wife Christy Ngoy experiences in Orange County during the 70s return... Then Ngoy would fly to Las Vegas for the film ; he was estranged from his and! 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Sit down for an interview in the end, he felt unhappy and.. Parents old donut shops with a worldwide following have $ 3.2 million you can Order, a Los family...
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