Kenny Lim...This is your life

Kenny Lim yesterday morning having breakfast with us before we say goodbye.



Kenny Lim is a 45 year old American... NOW. He looks to be about 34, tops.
Kenny was born in Cambodia and as close as we can work out the math, it must have been around 1977 or 78 towards the end of Pol Pok's genocidal regime, that Kenny's Cambodian parents were murdered... like so many others. At age 12, Kenny saved his own life by hiding out and as soon as was possible, he and a handful of other now orphaned children swam across a river from Cambodia to Thailand to seek escape and freedom. They were picked up and told they had to return. They explained that doing so would be a certain death for them. Somehow an agency of some kind took them in and either through the U.N. or such, word got out that there were these young children needing homes. Kenny was the oldest of them... and the smallest, he says. An American from Ventura county, an owner of an R.V. sales business, had been traveling through Asia looking to adopt and heard of this bunch of kids. He found his way to the agency and pointed at Kenny and that meltdown smile, took him to Bangkok for his shots and brought him home to Ventura... immediately putting him in front of a television to watch American cartoons... and to learn English.

Kenny says his adopted father was the best man in the whole world... they were more like buddies than father and son. He taught me to be a good student, to keep my native language and the R.V. business. In 1999, following a brief cruise down to Baja, Kenny's adopted father only lived three more weeks after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Kenny still tears up retelling this story... he was my best friend and roll model. "He would never refuse anything to anybody."

I ran his R.V. business for the next 20 years along with two Mongolian Bar B Q establishments that I created. I still own them but have put friends in charge of them now while I am in Asia this past year and one half. He has never returned to Asia until now. His second wife is Thai and lives in Thailand until she can meet the 7 year requirement to get her visa to come to the U.S. They met in the U.S. There is more.

Kenny came to Cambodia to do some good... to find need and help people out. On Bamboo Island he built a set of primitive bungalows with a restaurant to help some local islanders get a business going. When he finished, they took it away from him without any reimbursement of his investment as was the plan. He is now stuck here and works for Dariash at BimBamBoo to get enough money together (while waiting to see if he can gain some economic resolution of his loss), and a worker he is. He is constantly running around doing it all... from putting people in units, to arranging transportation, boats, helping locals and cooking. Dariahsh says "he works five times harder than I do and I don't pay him anything but a place to stay and food". Of course I will help him as much as possible but business here is very meager as well." We decided we would help Kenny out and he has been very grateful. Hopefully we will see him sometime in California.

Kenny has three kids. The oldest son is on a full scholarship in his second year at Harvard. Denies any connection with his Cambodian blood, says Kenny. He is a stellar student. Middle daughter is studying various Asian languages in college in Thailand on a field study program from her university in the states. Another success.

Kenny says all his business earnings, after they are divided with his partners, go into a trust that his children live off. As we are eating breakfast at the ferry dock in Sihanoukville, our last time together with this amazing man who seems to give all his money to others, we hear of yet another amazing story around this ever so positive and genuine human being. "My youngest son is the most amazing of all my kids" he says. "He was born with many organs not fully formed or working properly... especially his esophagus, not connected to his stomach." He survived a difficult first year, many surgeries and a developmentally delayed childhood with many setbacks. "Throughout this all... he is the most positive person alive. He refuses to be set back. I took him to hospitals in Thailand to get more medical help because it is so much cheaper there. I speak 8 languages because I love to study them and they come to me easily. Even in Ventura, I always sought out Chinese people to speak with" Kenny says. "In Thailand, because I cannot stay always with my son, I find a nanny for him while I go home to run my businesses. She falls in love with my son and he with her. After years of this, she wants to adopt my son and I will help make this happen because she cannot have children... but I will always provide the money for them."

The next time I think I have too much on my plate... I will try to think of Kenny... and how lucky we all felt to have met him. Hopefully we will see him down the road.




On a different note, this was our thatched hut the first night on the west side of BamBooIsland.
I'm going to try to upload some more pix in the next blog as this place seems to be fairly fast.