My name is Mr. Sothea, but everyone calls me Sunny. I was born in 1973 in Siem Reap Angkor, which is the home of the ancient capital of the Khmer Empire.

In 1975, two years after I was born, a ruthless communist dictator took over our country. Pol Pot ruled with an iron fist from 1975 to 1979, and we will never forget this bloody period of Cambodian history. Many people died during his tyranny. My lovely father was one of those who perished, and I never knew my father’s face at all because I was very young when he died.

During Pol Pot’s time, my family and I were forced to live in a remote part of Angkor far away from Siem Reap. We became slaves of the evil regime, working very hard with barely enough food to survive. My mother told me that I almost died many times from starvation.

After four years under his cold-blooded rule, Pol Pot’s brutalregime collapsed, and the leaders retreated into the jungle along the Thai border. Finally, my family and others were able to return to our native villages and begin rebuilding our new lives.

But Pol Pot was not finished, because he fought the new government from there. Even after he was finally arrested in 1998, he opposed the government until the end of his life.

Thanks to the Khmer Rouge, I was required to serve in the military when I graduated high school in 1991. I spent the next five years at the Thai border, battling the Khmer Rouge in the jungle. I cannot begin to tell you how difficult life in the army was at that time. Fighting communist insurgents was bad enough, but fighting the army of mosquitos was even more difficult. I almost died many times from malaria.

I finally finished my military service in 1996 and returned to my native village to live together with my family. However, I knew that the Viet Nam War and Pol Pot had left Cambodia with over 6 million landmines and unexploded bombs. I was one of the few men who survived the war, and I wanted to join the de-mining team to save my country. But my mother became very sad because she didn’t want me to work such this dangerous job, and so I decided to honor her wishes and not go to work as alandmine worker.

Fortunately, at the same time, the government of Cambodia decided to promote tourism by inviting people to come to visit Angkor. We Cambodians were encouraged to study foreign languages, so I chose to learn English so I could be trained as an English-speaking tour guide in Siem Reap Angkor. I received a qualified licensed tour guide from the ministry of tourism in 2000.

Thank very much for spending your valuable time to read my brief background history.