Star Nails in Mount Washington sits just a few doors down from Chuck’s old barbershop on Beechmont Avenue. The salon is small and colorful just like its owner, Cindy, who I talked to one morning thanks to a tip from a reader.
I was told Cindy had an amazing story to tell so I went to hear it first hand. When I arrived, Cindy greeted me cheerfully and invited me to pull up a chair from the waiting area. Two large golden earrings were draped by her dark black hair and her feet dangled off the edge of her chair without touching the ground.
It was a cool and drizzly fall morning, but we were warm and comfortable inside her shop. I told Cindy we didn’t have to talk about anything she didn’t want to talk about. The last thing I wanted to do was bring back unwanted pain or sorrow. I knew from the tip I received that her story was a difficult one, but Cindy insisted that it was okay. Pushing through waves of tears, Cindy took me with her back to Cambodia, her homeland, during the country’s civil war, where her story begins.
A Childhood of Conflict
Cindy’s real name is Boeun. It takes an Asian dialect to correctly pronounce, but it sounds like Boo-un with one syllable. She was about three or four years old when the Khmer Rouge (the Communist Party of Kampuchea) emerged from the jungles of Cambodia to overthrow the existing government. A bloody civil war would ensue and the Khmer Rouge Regime would be victorious. Following the civil war, Cambodia became Democratic Kampuchea and Pol Pot would be its Prime Minister.
Millions of Cambodians would die at the hands of Pol Pot’s autocratic regime, including Cindy’s mother, Muoy, and baby sister.
When the Khmer Rouge took power, they evacuated the cities and forced its citizens to work in rural areas. Families everywhere were separated to fill work camps in remote areas according to their skills and abilities.
“From what I was told, the Khmer Rouge received aid from a foreign government to fund their revolution,” Cindy told me. “So in order to pay them back, they basically had to turn us into slaves for production to repay their debt.”
Pol Pot used widespread violence and murder to keep control over his people. Cindy said they targeted the educated and prosperous first.
“Women and children were mostly sent to work in the fields,” Cindy explained. A farm is where Cindy, her mother, and her baby sister were uprooted to. Her father Beng, who was a skilled handyman, was sent to a separate camp. After the forced separation, their family would never be fully reunited.
Loss and Loneliness
“I don’t remember too much but I do remember sitting on some stairs and just looking and waiting for my mom to come home,” Cindy said describing the events one day on their community farm. She doesn’t remember where her mother or sister went or what they were doing, but they would never come home. Cindy learned later that her mother’s body finally succumbed to starvation and malnutrition. Her baby sister, still breastfeeding off of her mother, suffered the same fate.
Orphaned and alone, Cindy survived without her mother by the good grace of other families in the camp who would give her small rations of food when they could spare any. Eventually, Cindy’s aunt would find her and rescue her after attempting to visit Cindy’s mother. It was her Aunt Be and she took Cindy to what can only be described as a lost and found shelter for people. Again, Cindy’s survival would depend on the good nature of strangers around her who would feed her when they could.
Cindy’s father eventually got word of his wife and daughter’s death as well as the location of Cindy. After getting permission to retrieve his daughter, Cindy and her father would be reunited.
Escape
Like many others suffering under Pol Pot’s rule, Cindy’s father had an escape plan. He learned of a trail that would lead them out of Cambodia to Thailand where they could claim refugee status. With only a bicycle, Cindy and her father trekked for days along roads and through the jungle avoiding landmines and patrols until they reached a NATO camp in Thailand.
Cindy remembers the feeling of apprehension upon seeing the refugee camp, which was enclosed with barbed wire and patrolled by NATO soldiers. She didn’t know what to expect. Life was confusing for Cindy at such a young age. Cindy’s father had already cut her hair short and dressed her in boys clothing to reduce the likelihood that Cindy would be kidnapped and/or raped. Seeing more soldiers and guns at the NATO camp wasn’t necessarily comforting to Cindy.
But overall, life in the NATO refugee camp was okay as far as Cindy could remember. She doesn’t remember any trouble during her time there. In fact, most of her memories were of the families taking care of each other as best they could.
Her and her father would be transferred from camp to camp traveling through the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Cindy estimated that it took about two years moving through various camps before finally arriving in the United States. They were finally settled in Georgia during the fall of 1981.
Cindy’s grandparents, aunts and uncles, including Aunt Be who rescued Cindy, would also make the escape and be settled in Georgia as well. One of Cindy’s aunts who didn’t make it, disappeared in Cambodia before she could escape. To this day, nobody knows what happened to her.
A New Life in a New World
Catholic Charities would set them up with three months rent, supplies, and food as a head start in Georgia. Eight of them lived together in a two bedroom apartment.
Life for Cindy and her family in America was confusing and a little scary in the beginning. She remembers one night in particular when several strangers in masks repeatedly knocked on their apartment door and yelled something at them in English. Panicked, they began to question the safety of their new home. Eventually, a more experienced refugee neighbor would explain to them that it was Halloween and just a European custom that meant them no harm.
For refugees, prosperity in America required help, and not only from each other. “Nobody could speak English, they didn’t have cars, they didn’t know how to use the money,” Cindy said. “We would just walk for miles in different directions to get an idea of what was in our radius. Eventually, some local Baptist churchgoers would find Cindy’s family wandering around and offer them help. “Miss Jean and Mr. Ray were angels,” Cindy told me. They were from a local Baptist church and would mentor Cindy’s family teaching them some of the life skills required to get by in America.
Cindy thinks it took her about two years to learn English. She was known as Boeun until high school when she was given the name Cindy based on a book she was reading about an American farm girl.
It was through a bible study by the Baptist church that mentored Cindy where she would meet Sourn aka Sam, her husband, who was also a refugee from Cambodia. Sam’s father was shot and killed during a raid on his village from the Khmer Rouge. Cindy and Sam would go on to have three children, a son and two daughters.
American life has been good to Cindy and her family. Cindy opened her first shop in Pleasant Ridge in 1997 then Star Nails on Beechmont in 1999. She studied business at the University of Cincinnati.
“We all came from nothing and are all business oriented today. Most of us own businesses and properties,” Cindy told me. Cindy’s father became a mechanic after pursuing his passion for cars in America.
Reflection
“Is there anything you miss about your life in Cambodia?”
“Cambodia is much more family oriented. Families are much closer together. When children grow up they don’t just move away. Families stay together and depend on one another forever.”
“What is your biggest struggle right now?”
“Being too busy. Working too much. I need to visit with my relatives more.”
“Do you have any good memories of your life in Cambodia?”
“I remember working on my grandparents farm, helping to water the plants and harvest vegetables. My grandfather would use everything to richen the soil – chicken manure, ashes, even his own pee,” Cindy said laughing. “It was a carefree time where we would just play in the village until dark or until it was time to eat. We played a lot of jump rope and had a lot of races. We would see who could climb the tallest tree.”
Did you miss Follow Up: The White Mass? Check it out here.
Oh! my…what a story…and, TRUE! I wonder sometimes if I really appreciate the life I’ve had being born in the USA ??? Talk about “being blessed!!!” That I am..I am so happy for the mostly happy ending to this story that has filled my heart:(:(:( God bless this family/these folks/and, sooo glad your are here and safe and sound! Hugs and love from M.J.