Cambodian-American wedding in Silver Spring, Maryland

Saturday and Sunday May 23/24, 2008. I attended the wedding of Marianne Koch and Robert Hendricks. Marianne, the bride (born in the USA in 1980) is the daughter of Chanthary Kuy, whom I met for the first time at the Sam Rainsy meeting in April. Marianne is now a lawyer and she decided to marry Robert Hendricks (born in the USA in 1979), prosecutor, the two of them have met in grad law school. The Cambodian ceremony was held at the house of Chanthary and Marong Kuy in Silver Spring, Maryland, on the Saturday morning. A dinner party was organized on the Sunday evening in a Chinese restaurant of Gaithersburg, Maryland. The whole weekend gathered Cambodian folks from the area, but also from Chicago, Boston, California, Canada and from France.

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Meeting of CAHRAD in Reston, Virginia

Friday May 23, 2008. In the evening I reached the house of Tung Yap in Reston, Virginia . In the past, Tung Yap used to live in Chicago for 22 years, unfortunately he was laid off from his computer company 5 years ago when the internet bubble cracked down. He decided to relocate to the Washington DC area where some of his relatives are living. He found a job here as an engineer in another computer company. Tung Yap is the father of two cute little girls and also the President of CAHRAD, the Cambodian-American for Human Rights and Democracy Association, an organization established to keep an eye (from the United States) on the judicial, political, humans rights and democracy sectors of Cambodia. The dinner that evening was to celebrate the third anniversary of the organization, gathering its 11 members and some supporters. Activities of the organization are also to raise funds to support the Students’ Movement for Democracy in Cambodia, or to seek the support of some US senators here in Washington DC to help in the release of defrocked monk Tim Sakhorn, who was detained by Vietnamese authorities in mid-2007 following his reported ejection from Cambodia.










The dinner proposed "prahok", the traditional Cambodian dish made of fermented fish.


















Tung Yap welcoming his guests.

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Fundraising Event at the Royal Embassy of Cambodia in Washington DC

Friday May 9, 2008, Royal Embassy of Cambodia in Washington DC - with the collaboration of nine Rotary Club branches, partners Halo Trust and the US State Department’s Office of Weapons Removal, and Cambodian American Heritage Inc. – held a wine (from Moldova) tasting and silent auction event to raise funds, with a performance of classical and folkoric dances by Khmerican dancers. More than $13 000 have been raised that will go towards The Halo Trust Foundation, an organization that manages a landmine removal project in 3 villages of the Northwest region of Cambodia along the K-5 Mine Belt. I joined to shoot the event and spend some more time again with the teachers and dancers that I have met in April at the temple during Khmer New Year festivities.

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See more stories about the Cambodian Americans in the archives of this blog! ..