Prince Yuvaneath with daughter Pekina in Beijing in the 1970s.By Debbie Carvalko
Connecticut Post Staff Writer
October, 1993
Once upon a time, there was a child prince in the Asian nation of Cambodia. They called him His Highness Prince Norodom Yuvaneath.
In his palace, the prince has things beyond most boys’ wildest dream - a private theater, a target shooting range, an in-ground swimming pool and a farm with pigs and his favorite dog.
But the royal boy was sad.
He wanted to leave his bodyguards and his princely persona behind to run and play with the regular kids. That was forbidden.
So he felt imprisoned . And lonely. But the prince grew up and found a magical place where he could do and be whatever he wanted - Connecticut.
Now he’s here working in an assembly line - struggling to pay a mortgage and raising a family.
A few weeks ago, after many years in exile, the prince’s old and ailing father regained the throne. The prince could go back to the palace if he wanted to.
No, he says. He never wanted to leave Connecticut. He’s never been happier.
Why? “The freedom”, Yuvaneath says.
Yuvaneath’s brown eyes sparkle. He is no longer a boy. He is 50. “I’m no prince”, he says bashfully.
That’s what he tells co-workers at the factory where he assembles medical equipment when they ask about his surname being the same as that of the Cambodian king.
He laugh at the question. He acts as if the thought is preposterous. So his co-workers are left to wonder.
He is the first-born child of king Norodom Sihanouk, who dominated Cambodian politics from 1941 until 1970, when a military coup sent him into exile. The coup and subsequent civil wars also sent the prince’s family into hiding for a decade in China and Hong Kong.
Finally, in 1980, they came to America.
Yuvaneath agreed to tell his story last week to bring attention to the International Institute in Bridgeport. Now marking its 75th anniversary, the institute helped the prince resettle in Connecticut.
Institute director, Myra Oliver, asked that neither Yuvaneath’s current hometown in west Connecticut and his employer be identified. She fears reprisals from a murderous group excluded from the new Cambodian government - the Khmer Rouge.
Yuvaneath, speaking through interpreter, says he has no fear of being assassinated, still, both of his arms bear rows of thin, black tattooed there by a Buddhist monk in Massachusetts.
“It is a prayer for safety - my safety”, Yuvaneath explains.
The prince became a royal rebel early in life. He was not permitted to play with commoners’ children. He could not leave the palace ground. He love American cowboy movies, but could view them in the palace theater.
“I always had to watch by myself… it was just loneliness”, Yuvaneatn says.
At age 7, the king enrolled him in a private school in the capital, Phnom Penh. But the prince hated it. The other students were children of lofty officials and Ambassadors, they were stuffy, no fun.
After two years, the prince begged to go to public schools. The king consented. Finally, with a bodyguard watching from a distance, the prince could run of the ground with ordinary kids. Later he would invite them to the palace to play soccer. It did not work out. “We made a lot of noise and my father told us to be quiet”, Yuvaneath says.
So his friends left to play elsewhere. The king would not allow his son to follow. But the persistent prince, then 10, would sneak out to join his pals at the playground.
The palace guards knew. But they never did tell. Maybe they admired Yuvaneath’s push for independence. He was a chip off the royal block in that sense.
The French did control Cambodia’s government since 1800s. In 1941, they bypassed the heir-apparent to Cambodia’s throne and chose 18-year-old Sihanouk, great-grandson of a king who had died 40 years earlier.
They assumed the young, shy Sihanouk would be a puppet of the French. They were wrong. In 1953, about the time his son was sneaking away to play with his friends, Sihanouk announced Cambodia’s independence from France.
Several years later, he sent Yuvaneath off to a military school in central Cambodia. The sign of impending turmoil were everywhere. “There was a lot of corruption”, Yuvaneath says. Everyone wanted their own power. Nobody was concerned about the country. They just wanted their own money.”
After two years, he quit school. But not before he found his wife. Yuvaneath, then 18, had become infatuated with a girl working in a bookstore near the school. But the shy 14-year-old avoided his brazen smiles and refused to talk with him. Still, the prince wanted to marry the girl, Tea Yin Kim. So the king sent the governor of Yin’s province to her home to make an official proposal.
“The whole family sat and talked about it over a week”, Yin says. Why so much debate about marrying a prince? “My parents were concerned he’d had a lot of women”, Yin explains, laughing. “But it was hard for them to say no.”
And so Yuvaneath and Yin married and went to live in their own palace, with their own guards, a few miles from the king’s. In 1966, Yin bore a son, Chirazouth. In 1969, came another son, Eakcharin.
In the spring of 1970, the royal couple left the infant with Yin’s mother and took the old boy on vacation. They were in Hong Kong when a telegram came from Lon Nol, a former Cambodian Army chief and prime minister. Yuvaneath reads it in shock: “Sihanouk’s family will not be allowed back into the country.”
In the absence of the prince and the king, who was on a diplomatic mission to Russia and China, Lon Nol had led a U.S.-backed military coup. America, entangled with the Vietnam War, was upset with the king because he did not let U.S. troops into Cambodia to pursue the enemy soldiers.
Now Prince Yuvaneath was caught abroad, with his youngest son and all of his possessions still in Cambodia. He was despondent. Yin was pregnant with their third child, and he had no way to support his family. “I thought of death”, Yuvaneath said.
Instead, he joined the king in China. Again, Yuvaneath found himself a prisoner, hiding out in a palace-like Chinese home.
Five years later, in 1975, he moved his family - he now had four children - back to Hong Kong. At about the same time, Sihanouk and the radical communists were attempting to take back Cambodia.
They did. But the king failed to foresee the brutality of his communist allies, the group he had dubbed the Cambodian Reds, or Khmer Rouge. Over the years, their reign of terror left more than a million Cambodians dead.
King Sihanouk himself was held prisoner in his palace and beaten. Even worse, the Khmer Rouge troops stormed the house of Yin’s mother. They murdered the son the prince left behind and seven members of Yin’s family.
Meanwhile, the prince’s family hid in the outskirts of Hong Kong, in a small house provided by that city’s branch of the International Institute. Yuvaneath was training to be an auto mechanic. But he could not work because of the threat of assassination.
The prince sought a place he could live safely. Some diplomats suggested America. Yuvaneath like the idea. He remembered the cowboy movies he loved so much.
Because of the red tape, it would be for years before his American dream came true. But in the summer of 1980, Yuvaneath, his wife and three surviving children were finally whisked away to a new home in Fairfield County.
The children, who had been learning English in Hong Kong, were enrolled in public schools. Yuvaneath went to work at the International Institute, helping to resettle other refugees.
In 1981, Yin got a job as an assembler at the medical supply company. A week later, Yuvaneath joined her. They both work the 7 a.m to 3:30 p.m shift. “But she makes more money than me”, the prince says, feigning shock. Yin laughs. She’s simpler faster. Yin earns about $13.75 an hour, Yuvaneath makes $12.
They are proud of the life they’ve made. Five years ago, they bought a three-bedroom condominium outside Fairfield County. They drive a 1989 Chrysler LeBaron convertible. For fun, the prince cooks Chinese food and watches boxing on television.
He’s sent two of his three surviving children to college and one to art school. Talk about Americanized: One plays music on electric piano. One works part time in a video store.
A princess? “I don’t feel like one”, says Pekina who holds a secretarial job while studying for a degree in management. “I’m working like everyone else.”
The family takes work seriously. When the then dethroned Sihanouk visited New York eight years ago to drum up support for his cause, he called and asked his son to visit him. “I said I couldn’t. I didn’t have any sick days left [from work]”, Yuvaneath says. “So my father asked, ‘How much does your factory pay you for one day?’ I said $60. He said, ‘I will give you $300.’ I did go to see him.”
The family has closely followed event in Cambodia.
The Khmer Rouge were eventually ousted by the Vietnamese, who installed their own regime. In 1989, the Vietnamese withdrew, and a coalition of Asian nations helped Sihanouk and four non-communist groups to restore self-rule. In free election held this year, voters voted to restore the country’s monarchy. Sihanouk took the throne in September, though shares power with an elected assembly.
Yuvaneath is thrilled for his father. But he has no desire to return, no desire to again be imprisoned by palace life.
He says he would go back, reluctantly, only if his father asked. He prefers the working-class life. “And I only hope the same for my people,” Yuvaneath says, “to have a democratic system and freedom.”
---------------------------------
For further reading on Yuvaneath:1. Khmer king's brother opposes tribunal.
2. King Sihanouk's communique.
Fast Facts
Name: Prince Norodom Yuvaneath of the Kingdom of Cambodia
Age: 50
Born: Phnom Penh in the palace hospital in 1943.
Background: The oldest son of the recently reinstated King Norodom Sihanouk. Yuvaneath served as palace chief of protocol until the king was forced from the throne during a military coup in 1970. Yuvaneath spent 10 years in hiding with his wife and children before being granted asylum in Connecticut.
Education: French private school and later public school in Phnom Penh. Officer training at a military academy in central Cambodia. While in exile in Hong Kong, trained five years as an auto mechanic.
Current home: Three-bedroom condo in western Connecticut.
Current job: Assembler of medical supplies.
Salary: $12 an hour.
Religion: Buddhist
Hobbies: Cooking Chinese and Cambodian dishes.
Favorite American Food: Thanksgiving turkey
Favorite Flicks: “Die Hard” with Bruce Willis and Jean Claude Von Damme movies.
Favorite Spectator Sport: Boxing
Connecticut Post Staff Writer
October, 1993
Once upon a time, there was a child prince in the Asian nation of Cambodia. They called him His Highness Prince Norodom Yuvaneath.
In his palace, the prince has things beyond most boys’ wildest dream - a private theater, a target shooting range, an in-ground swimming pool and a farm with pigs and his favorite dog.
But the royal boy was sad.
He wanted to leave his bodyguards and his princely persona behind to run and play with the regular kids. That was forbidden.
So he felt imprisoned . And lonely. But the prince grew up and found a magical place where he could do and be whatever he wanted - Connecticut.
Now he’s here working in an assembly line - struggling to pay a mortgage and raising a family.
A few weeks ago, after many years in exile, the prince’s old and ailing father regained the throne. The prince could go back to the palace if he wanted to.
No, he says. He never wanted to leave Connecticut. He’s never been happier.
Why? “The freedom”, Yuvaneath says.
Yuvaneath’s brown eyes sparkle. He is no longer a boy. He is 50. “I’m no prince”, he says bashfully.
That’s what he tells co-workers at the factory where he assembles medical equipment when they ask about his surname being the same as that of the Cambodian king.
He laugh at the question. He acts as if the thought is preposterous. So his co-workers are left to wonder.
He is the first-born child of king Norodom Sihanouk, who dominated Cambodian politics from 1941 until 1970, when a military coup sent him into exile. The coup and subsequent civil wars also sent the prince’s family into hiding for a decade in China and Hong Kong.
Finally, in 1980, they came to America.
Yuvaneath agreed to tell his story last week to bring attention to the International Institute in Bridgeport. Now marking its 75th anniversary, the institute helped the prince resettle in Connecticut.
Institute director, Myra Oliver, asked that neither Yuvaneath’s current hometown in west Connecticut and his employer be identified. She fears reprisals from a murderous group excluded from the new Cambodian government - the Khmer Rouge.
Yuvaneath, speaking through interpreter, says he has no fear of being assassinated, still, both of his arms bear rows of thin, black tattooed there by a Buddhist monk in Massachusetts.
“It is a prayer for safety - my safety”, Yuvaneath explains.
The prince became a royal rebel early in life. He was not permitted to play with commoners’ children. He could not leave the palace ground. He love American cowboy movies, but could view them in the palace theater.
“I always had to watch by myself… it was just loneliness”, Yuvaneatn says.
At age 7, the king enrolled him in a private school in the capital, Phnom Penh. But the prince hated it. The other students were children of lofty officials and Ambassadors, they were stuffy, no fun.
After two years, the prince begged to go to public schools. The king consented. Finally, with a bodyguard watching from a distance, the prince could run of the ground with ordinary kids. Later he would invite them to the palace to play soccer. It did not work out. “We made a lot of noise and my father told us to be quiet”, Yuvaneath says.
So his friends left to play elsewhere. The king would not allow his son to follow. But the persistent prince, then 10, would sneak out to join his pals at the playground.
The palace guards knew. But they never did tell. Maybe they admired Yuvaneath’s push for independence. He was a chip off the royal block in that sense.
The French did control Cambodia’s government since 1800s. In 1941, they bypassed the heir-apparent to Cambodia’s throne and chose 18-year-old Sihanouk, great-grandson of a king who had died 40 years earlier.
They assumed the young, shy Sihanouk would be a puppet of the French. They were wrong. In 1953, about the time his son was sneaking away to play with his friends, Sihanouk announced Cambodia’s independence from France.
Several years later, he sent Yuvaneath off to a military school in central Cambodia. The sign of impending turmoil were everywhere. “There was a lot of corruption”, Yuvaneath says. Everyone wanted their own power. Nobody was concerned about the country. They just wanted their own money.”
After two years, he quit school. But not before he found his wife. Yuvaneath, then 18, had become infatuated with a girl working in a bookstore near the school. But the shy 14-year-old avoided his brazen smiles and refused to talk with him. Still, the prince wanted to marry the girl, Tea Yin Kim. So the king sent the governor of Yin’s province to her home to make an official proposal.
“The whole family sat and talked about it over a week”, Yin says. Why so much debate about marrying a prince? “My parents were concerned he’d had a lot of women”, Yin explains, laughing. “But it was hard for them to say no.”
And so Yuvaneath and Yin married and went to live in their own palace, with their own guards, a few miles from the king’s. In 1966, Yin bore a son, Chirazouth. In 1969, came another son, Eakcharin.
In the spring of 1970, the royal couple left the infant with Yin’s mother and took the old boy on vacation. They were in Hong Kong when a telegram came from Lon Nol, a former Cambodian Army chief and prime minister. Yuvaneath reads it in shock: “Sihanouk’s family will not be allowed back into the country.”
In the absence of the prince and the king, who was on a diplomatic mission to Russia and China, Lon Nol had led a U.S.-backed military coup. America, entangled with the Vietnam War, was upset with the king because he did not let U.S. troops into Cambodia to pursue the enemy soldiers.
Now Prince Yuvaneath was caught abroad, with his youngest son and all of his possessions still in Cambodia. He was despondent. Yin was pregnant with their third child, and he had no way to support his family. “I thought of death”, Yuvaneath said.
Instead, he joined the king in China. Again, Yuvaneath found himself a prisoner, hiding out in a palace-like Chinese home.
Five years later, in 1975, he moved his family - he now had four children - back to Hong Kong. At about the same time, Sihanouk and the radical communists were attempting to take back Cambodia.
They did. But the king failed to foresee the brutality of his communist allies, the group he had dubbed the Cambodian Reds, or Khmer Rouge. Over the years, their reign of terror left more than a million Cambodians dead.
King Sihanouk himself was held prisoner in his palace and beaten. Even worse, the Khmer Rouge troops stormed the house of Yin’s mother. They murdered the son the prince left behind and seven members of Yin’s family.
Meanwhile, the prince’s family hid in the outskirts of Hong Kong, in a small house provided by that city’s branch of the International Institute. Yuvaneath was training to be an auto mechanic. But he could not work because of the threat of assassination.
The prince sought a place he could live safely. Some diplomats suggested America. Yuvaneath like the idea. He remembered the cowboy movies he loved so much.
Because of the red tape, it would be for years before his American dream came true. But in the summer of 1980, Yuvaneath, his wife and three surviving children were finally whisked away to a new home in Fairfield County.
The children, who had been learning English in Hong Kong, were enrolled in public schools. Yuvaneath went to work at the International Institute, helping to resettle other refugees.
In 1981, Yin got a job as an assembler at the medical supply company. A week later, Yuvaneath joined her. They both work the 7 a.m to 3:30 p.m shift. “But she makes more money than me”, the prince says, feigning shock. Yin laughs. She’s simpler faster. Yin earns about $13.75 an hour, Yuvaneath makes $12.
They are proud of the life they’ve made. Five years ago, they bought a three-bedroom condominium outside Fairfield County. They drive a 1989 Chrysler LeBaron convertible. For fun, the prince cooks Chinese food and watches boxing on television.
He’s sent two of his three surviving children to college and one to art school. Talk about Americanized: One plays music on electric piano. One works part time in a video store.
A princess? “I don’t feel like one”, says Pekina who holds a secretarial job while studying for a degree in management. “I’m working like everyone else.”
The family takes work seriously. When the then dethroned Sihanouk visited New York eight years ago to drum up support for his cause, he called and asked his son to visit him. “I said I couldn’t. I didn’t have any sick days left [from work]”, Yuvaneath says. “So my father asked, ‘How much does your factory pay you for one day?’ I said $60. He said, ‘I will give you $300.’ I did go to see him.”
The family has closely followed event in Cambodia.
The Khmer Rouge were eventually ousted by the Vietnamese, who installed their own regime. In 1989, the Vietnamese withdrew, and a coalition of Asian nations helped Sihanouk and four non-communist groups to restore self-rule. In free election held this year, voters voted to restore the country’s monarchy. Sihanouk took the throne in September, though shares power with an elected assembly.
Yuvaneath is thrilled for his father. But he has no desire to return, no desire to again be imprisoned by palace life.
He says he would go back, reluctantly, only if his father asked. He prefers the working-class life. “And I only hope the same for my people,” Yuvaneath says, “to have a democratic system and freedom.”
---------------------------------
For further reading on Yuvaneath:1. Khmer king's brother opposes tribunal.
2. King Sihanouk's communique.
Fast Facts
Name: Prince Norodom Yuvaneath of the Kingdom of Cambodia
Age: 50
Born: Phnom Penh in the palace hospital in 1943.
Background: The oldest son of the recently reinstated King Norodom Sihanouk. Yuvaneath served as palace chief of protocol until the king was forced from the throne during a military coup in 1970. Yuvaneath spent 10 years in hiding with his wife and children before being granted asylum in Connecticut.
Education: French private school and later public school in Phnom Penh. Officer training at a military academy in central Cambodia. While in exile in Hong Kong, trained five years as an auto mechanic.
Current home: Three-bedroom condo in western Connecticut.
Current job: Assembler of medical supplies.
Salary: $12 an hour.
Religion: Buddhist
Hobbies: Cooking Chinese and Cambodian dishes.
Favorite American Food: Thanksgiving turkey
Favorite Flicks: “Die Hard” with Bruce Willis and Jean Claude Von Damme movies.
Favorite Spectator Sport: Boxing
7 comments:
Dear Khmerization,
While I laud you for bringing up these old stories, I believe that you are doing a disservice to your readers by presenting these so-called "good" royals. The article you posted appears to portray a prince who rejected his royal way of life, in fact this is false as displayed by his daughter's wedding in the royal palace and his current life in Cambodia.
The current Cambodian royals are the worst scums on earth.
Pls. do more critical research before just posting misleading info. Here are additional info about Yuvaneath's life in Cambodia:
http://ki-media.blogspot.com/2006/05/princely-story-statements-made-by.html
http://ki-media.blogspot.com/2006/05/khmer-kings-brother-opposes-tribunal.html
http://ki-media.blogspot.com/2007/01/king-father-not-being-buddha-nor.html
Great story. He lived a very humble life in Beijing, Hong Kong and in America. The first son of kings from other countries would not be so poor like this. This means that he is not a corrupt prince. The first son of the Queen of England, Prince Charles, and the first son of the Thai king, Prince Vajiralongkorn, are filthy rich.
1:33 PM, Thanks for your advice. While I've tried my best, it is not always possible to satisfy all readers. Being an unpaid freelancer without any resources would make it a bit hard to go an extra length to bring the stories that would satisfiy all readers.
I've tried to Google for more articles about Prince Yuvaneath for a few days, but Google always give me the same result- one article only- that is the article that I've posted here. Now that you have provided more, I have added the link in the article. Thanks for your critique.
Khmerization, you've done a good job and thanks for all your efforts. We appreciate your selfless sacrifice to bring us all these news for free at your own time. From time to time, there are people who are unhappy with your works, but just ignore them. It is not your fault. The article was written by an American journalist. It is a good read and entertaining. Well done.
Well, the article was written by an American journalist but you got to remember one of His son is working for CT post too. think about!
We should not lump all Cambodian royals as "bad royals". If ones hate Sihanouk and Ranariddh because, ones should just condemn them, not all Cambodian royals as a whole. Naradipo and Yuvaneath and other younger royals, as far as I'm concerned, have not done anything bad to the Cambodian society yet. This article is very objective, writing event and story as it happened. It did not lauded them with praises or anything like that. It is just a storyline about Yuvaneath's life experiences that's all. It is a well-written article and a good story to read.
Good story to read. Whether some readers like it or not, it is part of our history.
Thank you for your hard work to keep us all informed!
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