Then when dinner is ready, she knocks on the door and I open the door to have dinner.". Why are we still having these debates? Oklahoma-style smash burgers and Georgian dumplings make for some excellent cheap bites in Glendale, Husband and wife Felix Agyei and Hazel Rojas combine food from their heritages, creating a marriage of West African and Filipino cooking. Seasonal Halloween donuts at DK's Donuts in Santa Monica. Some of the interviews in the film seemed that way.It was actually really wonderful to speak with particularly his older kids Chet and Savy, who until that interview, they didnt have much to do with him. A new documentary chronicles the fascinating saga of Ted Ngoy, "The Donut King," who made a fortune and then lost it all to a gambling addiction. "Some of them were cousins, uncles, nieces," says Ted. Ted was a poor boy from a poor family while Christy was the daughter of a high-ranking official. In the end, filming the documentary was a healing experience for Ted. "[1] In 1977, the Ngoys took a trip to Las Vegas where Ted saw Elvis Presley. When he couldn't pay them back because he had gambled the money away, Ted signed away his ownership stake in those stores. [5] Having grown up in Los Angeles, she was doubtful when her children's nanny made a reference to "Cambodian" donuts; she thought all donuts were simply "American. He turned down a job as a security guard because it required standing for eight hours. "You can't find any prettier woman besides her.". "[5] Upon looking into the matter, she learned about Ted Ngoy and became fascinated with the topic. Christy Ngoy now owns a Peruvian restaurant in Irvine. No days off. A map of Christys Donuts, Winchells and Dunkin Donuts across California during the height of Ted Ngoys entrepreneurship in the 1970s through the 1990s. Soon, Cambodians began copying the Ted Ngoy business model. To think about what Ted did years ago letting bygones be bygones. In our very first phone call, he asked if I was American and I told him that I was Chinese American. The entire family Christy and the three kids worked alongside him. After cry, go back gambling.. Because of the Ngoys, a Cambodian refugees first American job was often in a doughnut shop. [8], Author Ryka Aoki describes Ngoy as legend in our Asian-American community and inspiration for her award-winning novel Light From Uncommon Stars for both his stealing books process and the legacy of Cambodian-American donut shops in Southern California. Ted negotiated well and got a good commission. Suganthinis parents kept her locked in her room for days. Suganthini became the smiling face behind the counter, even though she hardly spoke any English. Like Ngoy, most of the people who leased his stores were Chinese Cambodian. 2023 Southern California Public Radio - All Rights Reserved, Rising Egg Prices Are For The Birds. Your tax-deductible financial support keeps our stories free to read, instead of hidden behind paywalls. And then we started communicating, bringing back and forth the messages," Ted says. Also Jerry Brown, who weve seen in California as our beacon of hope and morality, in 1975 was actually the opposite. As many as I could.". In The Donut King, we learn that a teenage Ted won over his wife, Christy (ne Suganthini), by spending 45 straight days laying under her bed. Besides, he reasoned, as a politician he would not be able to gamble. We believe when reliable local reporting is widely available, the entire community benefits. He subsists on small handouts from friends. In 1985, Ngoy and his wife became American citizens assuming the American names of Ted and Christy, respectively, and were enjoying a lavish lifestyle including a million dollar home at Lake Mission Viejo, a vacation home in Big Bear, expensive cars, and vacations to Europe. Christys Doughnuts in La Habra never did great business. Pit bosses, floor men and dealers at Caesars Palace, the MGM Grand and the Mirage got to know the Cambodian doughnut king. According to Gu, Christy's family brought her into the room and Ted started reciting his speech. Yes, you read that right. The film details how Ngoy fled Cambodia with his family during the Vietnam War and later went on to build a donut shop empire, only to lose it all because of a gambling addiction. He was Chinese Cambodian, part of a despised underclass. Doing this film was really an exploration for me of understanding where you come from. When there was an overrun of pink doughnut boxes Ted bought them cut-price, and the pink boxes became his trademark. When they were released, the cash was gone. On one of his Las Vegas trips, Ngoy took up gambling. Ngoy asked to visit. And she said she knew a lot of people in her parents generation who are lifelong Republicans and thats why they hate the Democratic party. In doing the research and finding that it was President [Gerald] Ford who issued the executive order to receive the refugees, a Republican president that was a huge surprise to me given that during the time that we were making this film we were hearing Donald Trumps rhetoric. You will end up destroying the whole family and no more relationship with the world, just finished. He left behind his new wife and their two children, and what he had seen as his last chance at redemption. Long-lost ship found at the bottom of Lake Huron, confirming story of tragic collision, TikTok to set default daily time limit of up to 60 minutes for minors, 19 cafes that make L.A. a world-class coffee destination, The chance of a lifetime: Five friends ski the tallest mountain in Los Angeles, TikTok faces bans in a number of countries over security fears. The Donut King diretcor Alice Gu talks about what led her to make a film about Ted Ngoy, her first intro to the phenomenon of Cambodian donut shops and how she got a Wu-Tang song in the score. The Donut King Ted Ngoy is a Cambodian American entrepreneur and former owner of a chain of donut shops in California, earning him the nickname the "Donut King." . Suganthini and her mother heard the music. Gu didn't know about any of that before she started developing this project. Here's Why It's Especially Dangerous To Hike SoCal Mountains Right Now, How 4 Words Upended A University's Journalism Program, And Stirred A Reckoning Over Race, What A Popular Yoga Teacher's Descent Into Conspiracy Theories Says About The 'Wellness To QAnon Pipeline', Ancient Lung Disease Strikes Countertop Cutters In LA. Just knowing that my great uncle Ted and the story of my parents and hearing Alice say, 'I want to really dig deep on a Cambodian donut shop,' I was like, 'Wow, this is real. I am the child of immigrants who came and moved here for the American dream. Night after night, he watched customers come and go. And he saw an opportunity. Their youngest son Chris drove them there to pick up the money - but it went horribly wrong. I'm no good. A daughter owns a 1950s-style hamburger restaurant in Orange County. Her name was Suganthini Khoeun. We were taxed to the hilt, unemployment was high and he was very reluctant to give refugees a home here when Californians were out of work. [5] By 1977 he was able to purchase his first doughnut shop, Christy's Donuts, in La Habra. Ngoy became a trainee and took over a Winchells in Newport Beach. Ted, Christy and their two kids fled to Thailand. "They're a good company and I owe them gratitude," Ted says. Then, he lost it all. To Christy, this was the final betrayal. Her brother-in-law, Sutsakhan Sak, was chief of police and would become, briefly, the countrys president. Upon his return to Orange County, Ngoy began gambling harder than ever stating "Monks cannot help me, Buddha cannot help me. Ted resides in Cambodia where he splits his time between Phnom Pen and Kep, a province in Southern Cambodia that's famous for its crab fishing industry. The family were housed in a hastily erected refugee camp on a marine training base, Camp Pendleton. He said that we didnt have room for these refugees here. In return, he played their tables and lost thousands of dollars. Despite the villa's armed security guards and guard dogs, one rainy night Ted climbed up a coconut tree and over the barbed wire and made his way in through a bathroom window. They took American names. After cry, go back gambling." At 35, Ngoy had already climbed out of poverty and into privilege once. He had sold what few shops remained. Theres a hustle to it, and director Alice Gu captures it in her debut documentary The Donut King.. Im Chinese American. More and more relatives came forward for sponsorship. Will Orange County's Fledgling Clean Power Agency Survive? When people know about the bad reputation, people are not going to vote for me. "They forgive me fully. Christy has remarried and lives in the US, Listen to Ted Ngoy on Outlook on the BBC World Service, Download the podcast for more extraordinary stories, The Donut King, is available in the US now in theatres and online and will be coming to the UK in 2021, Listen to Ted Ngoy on Outlook: How the Donut King lost his crown. This is my own speculation, but it seemed like he had come to some peace with his dad and childhood. He says his gambling is under control -- though he has no money with which to test this will power. But within weeks he was back on a plane to Vegas. Instead, she told him about a training programme run by the doughnut chain, Winchell's. When he lost big, he would sign the stores over to them. When you get to the table, youre so emotional, evil in your body, he said. That's a disaster," he says. [2], In 1967, Ngoy was sent by his mother to study in the capital, Phnom Penh, where he met and married Suganthini Khoeun, the daughter of a high-ranking government official. But while she was gone Ted had an affair. 60? By 1976, Ted had saved up enough money to buy his own shop, which he named Christy's. He began placing bets with Cambodian bookies on football and basketball games. He found a second job at a gas station. For the next 45 days, he lived in her room. After Ted revealed his presence to Christy, he hid under her bed until he was eventually discovered and her family allowed them be together. And I thought, How could that be? Hes passed away now so I cant talk to him about it, but it was a learning experience for me about my parents relationship with politics. "[1] He says his Christian faith ultimately helped him abandon the habit. Broke, Ted and Christy returned to Cambodia. She ended up threatening to starve herself, saying, "If you won't let me be with him, I'm not going to eat.". [5] Interviews can sometimes feel like a therapy session. , to name a few outlets), but Alice Gu is the first to put it on film. Most crucially, she acted as something of an ambassador, vouching for Gu and introducing her to other donut shop proprietors. The son of a peddler had no chance with such a girl, no right even to think of loving her. Following his time in the nation's capital, Ngoy spent time in a monastery in the Thai countryside where he spent his morning begging for alms. Okay, you guys can' It was a whole Romeo and Juliet story," Gu says. Refugees who had sought his advice now avoided him, fearing he would ask for a loan. A bank had foreclosed on his mansion on Lake Mission Viejo. Ted Ngoy has become a stranger even to himself. Tao did everything in her power to help Gu. With the pastor's permission he went out and got two more jobs, as a sales person from 6pm to 10pm and petrol attendant from 10pm to 6am. When time goes by it gets into your blood and you just cannot get it out," says Ted. Some of those he borrowed from were the people he had leased doughnut shops to. The family members worked 17 hours a day and saved for a year. That really broke the ice for us. Ted and Suganthini sold everything they had and arrived in California on one of the first refugee flights, with their three children, an adopted nephew and two nieces. He hired his wife and nephew. After setting up a sweet shop of his own, he helped fellow . Ted managed to escape on the last flight out of Phnom Penh but Suganthini's parents were left behind. He was a fraud, he said. By the mid-1980s, he was a millionaire. It actually made national, if not international, news about the kindness of these people in Orange County. And that's what he did. When Christy's parents eventually discovered the ruse, they were furious. At loose ends, she returned to Los Angeles and, once again, started helping with the family business. Every time I met them I said, 'Sorry son, sorry my daughter, sorry Christy. Using his Republican Party connections, Ngoy successfully lobbied the U.S. for most-favored-nation trade status for Cambodia in 1995, helping create a modern garment industry and thousands of jobs. But on a later trip Ted had a go on the blackjack tables, and soon he was hooked on the glamour and the adrenaline. "It made me homesick," says Ted. Some of his relationships didnt end well. At school, Ngoy fell in love from afar with a beautiful girl. "I'd want [people] to know about not only the journey of the donut itself but the story of the people behind it, the people making the donuts," Tao says. and Ted Ngoy had served in the Cambodian army as a major fighting communists that were trying to take over that country's government in the 1970s. "Using money to provide for others is a feeling as powerful as any drug," he later wrote. [6] Gu persuaded him to and, ultimately, he regarded his return as a 'healing experience,' and his ex-wife and children have forgiven him. Theres also the moment where Ted revisits his former home in Mission Viejo. The following month, US President Gerald Ford insisted the US should welcome 130,000 refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia, telling any critics: "We're a country built by immigrants from all areas of the world, and we've always been a very humanitarian nation.". I think thats the American way the power of connections and people. "'You want to tell my story? He co-signed loans for supplies and equipment. Because he was a high roller the casinos put him up in $2,000-a-night suites and offered him VIP tickets to the best shows. Something else about Orange County that I found so beautiful and touching while we were making this film, there was a man who owned a donut shop in Seal Beach and his wife was stricken with cancer. Doughnuts offered an escape from years of welfare dependency. Money, doughnuts, sleep.. He ran to the shop across the street where he bought a donut. He bought a bigger doughnut shop, and offered to lease the original Christy's to a family of Cambodian refugees, who had been working in fast food outlets on low wages. When the couple recovered, her parents finally allowed them to marry. The couple and their three toddlers arrived penniless at Camp Pendleton, part of the first wave of Cambodian refugees. Baby Yoda cocktails. Ted remembers hiding from her behind the slot machines. That is because I had a buttermilk bar about 30 seconds out of the fryer with fresh glaze on it. The Donut King comes out Friday, Oct. 30, online, and when you "I cry. Get the day's top news with our Today's Headlines newsletter, sent every weekday morning. What new information did you learn in the making of the film?There was a lot that was new to me. "What happens if I decide to jump into your room?" And a new figure emerged on the California business landscape: the Cambodian doughnut-shop owner. They had lost their beautiful home and their chain of shops, but still had enough money to live comfortably. "I did not have time to take care of business, so business was going down. The Donut King [citation needed] Ngoy's political career ended in 2002 after breaking with two powerful allies, the commerce minister and the head of the Cambodian Chamber of Commerce, Teng Bunma. And he said he saw her heart break before his very eyes. He said hes Chinese Cambodian and we spoke Mandarin for a couple of minutes. The Donut King is a 2020 American documentary film which tells the life story of California donut shop owner Ted Ngoy. They told him Winchells Donuts trained store managers. Next to the petrol station there was a doughnut shop called DK Donuts. [8] However, the film's directorAlice Gupersuaded him to and, ultimately, he regarded his return as a 'healing experience,' and his ex-wife and children have forgiven him. "And she says, 'Because Cambodian people make them.'". That is a lie, he cried, and plunged the blade into his belly. Cambodia was having its first democratic elections since the war and he wanted to stand for office to help rebuild his country. I was addicted to a feeling, and money was simply the needle that delivered the toxic dose," he writes in his autobiography, also called The Donut King. Boozy Dole Whips. I thought I would just get an exterior scene for context. When he lost he would lash out, smashing doors, breaking furniture and frightening the children. At the weekend the oldest children, Chet and Savy, then nine and eight, helped out by pouring coffee, packing doughnuts and folding boxes. Ted Ngoy (born Bun Tek Ngoy; 1942) is a Cambodian American entrepreneur and former owner of a chain of doughnut shops in California. I just do it.. When he was working in the donut shop, he went to his sponsor and said he was having a hard time. Everybody cry, he said. Every weekday, you'll get fresh, community-driven stories that catch you up with our independent local news. The past I cannot change, but I learned the heavy way. 2023 BBC. I say, Ted, who are you? I really dont know.. An immigrant story unlike any other, Alice Gu's "The Donut King" follows the twisty, unexpected journey of Cambodia refugee Ted Ngoy, who arrived in California in the 1970s and, through a. [1], That's why I want to tell the world, "Do not gamble." Ted became known as the Donut King - or Uncle Ted, because of the many Cambodian immigrants he'd sponsored. One of their sons is a financial consultant; another is a computer-networking technician. Im also, again, the daughter of Chinese American immigrants and my dad was a big Republican party supporter. Within a decade, he had become a multimillionaire with a lakeside mansion . NICK STREET Channy is a stocky man in his mid-forties, and he runs USA Donut in Boeung Keng Kang with his wife. Ngoy and his wife became American citizens and were . Eventually Cambodians owned so many doughnut shops in California that they dominated the market, pushing Winchell's into second place. Despite his success, he said, he felt unhappy and isolated. To understand the politics, the Republican party at the time was a very anticommunist party. BC Donuts She said he would be throwing his money away. She would forgive him when he promised to stop, and he would -- for a while. 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