The documentary goes back and forth between Ngoy and the present-day lives of second- and third-generation donut shop kids or what Gu refers to as Donut Generation 2.0. It took longer than 40 years. When they were released, the cash was gone. He joined Gamblers Anonymous but was back at the tables in no time. Read about our approach to external linking. LAist is part of Southern California Public Radio, a member-supported public media network. When people know about the bad reputation, people are not going to vote for me. I just first hurt my wife, Christy, my children and hurt many, many other people, too, because, when we needed money. At the end, I win. 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. As far as the immigrant experience and my parents what it really did for me is open my eyes and I just cut them some slack about growing up here in conflict with wanting to be an American kid and their Chinese ways of raising me. Her parents and cousins hid behind curtains so they could hear him break off the relationship. Ngoy had become an example to other Cambodian immigrants, who began to follow his business model for their own entrepreneurial endeavors. He has found his way to be wealthy again. Yeah, My Family Doesn't Either, Soup Dumplings, Kimchi Burritos And More Fast, Cheap Eats In Glendale, At Masarap Cafe, West African and Filipino Cuisines Find Their Pairing, Drinking At Disneyland? Las Vegas was the new thing, he said, besides making money and making doughnuts,. [5], Ngoy was hesitant to return to California for the film; he was estranged from his children and former friends. Theres a hustle to it, and director Alice Gu captures it in her debut documentary The Donut King.. But on a later trip Ted had a go on the blackjack tables, and soon he was hooked on the glamour and the adrenaline. I go to borrow. He also figured that as a prominent politician, he would be forced to control his gambling habit. "It is the purest form of risk-taking, the distilled anxiety and thrill behind every business decision and bold declaration of love," he writes in his autobiography. "[7] In a positive review, Richard Whittaker with The Austin Chronicle said that "Gu does stellar work compiling and constructing Ngoys life story through interviews and archive and contemporary footage," and added "the animation sequences by Chapeau Studios and 1881 Animation that make the perfect drizzle of icing. "I learned to bake, to take care of payroll, cleaning, sales - everything," he says. Each morning, he walked with the monks, begging for food from peasants, crying as the rocky roads tore at his bare feet. L.A. became the country's epicenter of donut culture when Ted Ngoy, a Cambodian immigrant, arrived in California during the 1970s. When he was working in the donut shop, he went to his sponsor and said he was having a hard time. Interviews can sometimes feel like a therapy session. Like Ngoy, most of the people who leased his stores were Chinese Cambodian. Ngoy believes he is suffering Gods punishment for having betrayed the blood vow he made as a young man under the moonlight in Phnom Penh. On the porch of a friends mobile home in Long Beach, the Cambodian doughnut king falls asleep each night shivering. The ubiquity and low overhead of these Cambodian mom-and-pop donut shops helped drive Dunkin' Donuts out of California in the late '90s. He and his family barely escaped and were among. He turned down a job as a security guard because it required standing for eight hours. "I just wanted to raise pigs and chickens and have enough meat and eggs to take to . Ted did try to curb his habit. The couple had flash cars, bought a million-dollar mansion with a pool and an elevator, and went on holidays abroad. Did working on this film change or contribute to your perspective of the American dream or immigrant stories?It seems like these days the American dream is harder and harder to attain. They both drank and vowed to be faithful. They barely talked to him. Although there is still some resentment towards him in the Cambodian community, whose hard-earned cash he gambled away, he is also revered by many. COVID-19 has hit her store and most other shops hard. Doing this film was really an exploration for me of understanding where you come from. In 1993 Ted and Christy moved back to Cambodia. The film flashes back to the horror of life in 1970s Cambodia, a tragic offshoot of the Vietnam war that eliminated thousands of lives. He was, however, invited to become a government adviser on commerce and agriculture. Ted remembers hiding from her behind the slot machines. "When Alice called me, she described something that I have always wanted to tell but never thought that it would get picked up anywhere," Tao says. In English, Mandarin and Cambodian with English subtitles; Not rated, Playing: Regency South Coast Village, Santa Ana, and in limited release where theaters are open; available via virtual cinemas, including Laemmle Theatres. Ted Ngoy, his wife and family pick up the story and walk us through their unbelievable experience, flying to a . To make sure he went through with it, they insisted on hiding behind a curtain while he said his spiel. Doughnut shops were easy to run. That really broke the ice for us. "The more you chase, the more it's gone," he says in a new documentary about his rise and fall, called The Donut King. Christy has remarried and lives in Lake Forest, not far from their three adult children, who all live in Orange County. Theres also the moment where Ted revisits his former home in Mission Viejo. I thought it was so profound that this was the very same community that just a couple of decades earlier were making fun of somebody who worked at the counter and had an accent. Ngoy forged her signature on checks. Ngoy is Cambodian and he was in Phnom Penh when it fell. After setting up a sweet shop of his own, he helped fellow . All the boys at his school were in love with her, and as a poor half-Chinese boy from a village near the Thai border he had no chance. This caused tension in the Ngoy household, being the center of many arguments between Ngoy and his wife. 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. It also reminds us that several U.S. presidents welcomed a flood of refugees with open arms. TED NGOY HAD an unrelenting obsession during his 1975 plane ride from Southeast Asia to Southern California. Peace Lutheran Church But then one of Suganthini's servants appeared at his door with a reply. Devastated that he had broken their pact, she filed for divorce. and California landscape with a familiar coat yellow strip mall signs with red lettering reading Christys Donuts. Ted did a lot of the baking at night, with his youngest son, Chris, collecting a light dusting of flour as he slept beside him in the kitchen. The Donut King comes out Friday, Oct. 30, online, and when you Money, doughnuts, sleep.. Your Guide To Everything Boozy You Can Order, A Los Angeles Family Seeks Answers And Accountability After Black Mom Dies In Childbirth. There were some hurt relationships. The family also still had the Winchell's so now they had two stores to run. Interestingly, largely because of Democratic policy we got a grant for our camera and it came from this girl, who was the daughter of Vietnamese refugees who landed in Arkansas. Long hours. 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. He had sold what few shops remained. He had burned a lot of bridges and at the time his children hardly spoke to him. Gambling is a devil. Inspired by the economic success of Taiwan, Ted decided to lobby the US for "most favoured nation" status, which would open the door to foreign investment. These are all people who present day you dont associate with welcoming refugees with open arms. He says to me, Alice, making money its so easy. In 1967, his mother sent him to study in Phnom Penh, the capital. Cambodian Americans control an estimated 80 percent of the donut market in California thanks largely to one man- Ted Ngoy, otherwise known as The Donut King. I gave her my spiel, and she said, 'Well, you've called the right person. But with great riches come great temptations. He began to disappear off to Las Vegas for days, losing $5,000, $7,000 a game, and neglecting his family and his doughnut empire. And that's what he did. Upon his return to Orange County, Ngoy began gambling harder than ever stating "Monks cannot help me, Buddha cannot help me. Director Alice Gu makes her film debut with The Donut King, following the life of Ted Ngoy. So, I just did it. Get the day's top news with our Today's Headlines newsletter, sent every weekday morning. Ngoy would often visit Las Vegas for a period of a week, unbeknownst to his wife. She would drive there with her youngest son and go from hotel to hotel looking for him. "I spent about $100,000 of my own money, my time, my everything," he says. "The note said, 'I appreciate you blowing the flute. 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. "Using money to provide for others is a feeling as powerful as any drug," he later wrote. 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. The son of a peddler had no chance with such a girl, no right even to think of loving her. That was super mind blowing for me to hear the political flip-flop and really insightful about another time when politics were more civil and there could be discussion. I never loved you.' That is because I had a buttermilk bar about 30 seconds out of the fryer with fresh glaze on it. "They're a good company and I owe them gratitude," Ted says. "Some of them were cousins, uncles, nieces," says Ted. During the week they went to school, where sometimes they were so hungry they stole snacks from other kids' lunchboxes. Ted's parents and sisters fled across the border to Thailand, and Ted got a call from the US embassy there asking if he would sponsor them to live in the US. Ted Ngoy was born in Sisophon, Cambodia. When I become big guy, then I cannot go gamble because people wont vote for you. Even in gambling. "[5] Upon looking into the matter, she learned about Ted Ngoy and became fascinated with the topic. Suganthini's family insisted Ted break it off by telling her he didn't love her. Then when dinner is ready, she knocks on the door and I open the door to have dinner.". A 2005 profile in the Los Angeles Times described him as "broke, homeless, and dependent on the goodwill of his few remaining friends." Today, he makes a living selling real estate in Cambodia. Then he opened his first independent shop in La Habra, eventually covering the rest of O.C. Ted now sees that the same character traits that made him take bold risks in life also made it easy for him to fall prey to gambling. "I did not have time to take care of business, so business was going down. We believe when reliable local reporting is widely available, the entire community benefits. Not many professional gamblers are bipolar women, but Cat Hulbert was one of the best - and she delighted in winning money from men. Driving back with $85,000 cash in the boot of the car, they were stopped by the police; they had fallen behind with payments, so the car showed up as stolen. And then we opened second store in Fullerton, and when they opened, I also train people and my wage, Christi, also . Distraught, she took an overdose of sleeping pills and fell into a coma. ', "If you could turn the clock around, I would do that. She was hooked. "And she says, 'Because Cambodian people make them.'". Within a decade, he had become a multimillionaire with a lakeside mansion . All that money paid for expensive clothes, luxury cars, fancy trips and an opulent home in Mission Viejo. He wanted to be with her, but he had no one else to manage the shop. On hearing the music float across the quiet city, Suganthini's mother remarked that whoever was playing must be in love. "She was so beautiful," he remembers. Ted, who spoke four languages, was offered a post as liaison officer in Thailand by Suganthini's brother-in-law, Gen Sak Sutsakhan. But he admits he was also aware that conquering Suganthini's heart held out the promise of a better life. They wont trust you, he said. Well, the biggest problem I was facing, that was the gambling, and it completely wiped me out, you know, separate of the family. Ngoy ended his political career abruptly in 2002, breaking with two powerful allies, the commerce minister and the head of the Cambodian Chamber of Commerce. Ngoy doesnt remember how many stores he started or bought -- 40? [5] She reached out to Ngoy and other Cambodian families who ran donut shops, and within six weeks began principal photography. , to name a few outlets), but Alice Gu is the first to put it on film. Besides, he reasoned, as a politician he would not be able to gamble. Tell me more about how they connected to the local community.Ted came in the 70s and it was quite homogeneously white in Orange County at the time and a lot of people had never seen an Asian person, much less heard of a place called Cambodia. This 2020s documentary film-related article is a stub. A bank had foreclosed on his mansion on Lake Mission Viejo. In 1978 Vietnamese troops invaded and in 1979 Pol Pot was overthrown, leading to another wave of Cambodian refugees. He has to start a new life.. 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. Los Angeles Times Instantly acquiring the rank of Major, Ted and his young family moved to Bangkok, and every month he travelled back to Cambodia to collect the wages for his soldiers. When time goes by it gets into your blood and you just cannot get it out," says Ted. Then he pulled a knife. Most importantly, the trip allowed him to mend relations with Christy, who has now remarried, and with their grown-up children. It provided a path for refugees to settle and was a profitable business model. Every weekday, you'll get fresh, community-driven stories that catch you up with our independent local news. She would discover big losses, and they would argue, sending their children running to their rooms. He co-signed loans for supplies and equipment. Once, I said I would die if something happened to him, Christy said of her ex-husband. A child of immigrants herself, she had become curious why Californian doughnut shops were so often run by Cambodians, and why there were so many of them. Ted and Christy are divorced. Ngoys wife hated his gambling. Hes really funny. And he saw an opportunity. While working a second job at a gas station, Ngoy took notice of a busy local doughnut shop and inquired of its operators about learning the business. Their youngest son Chris drove them there to pick up the money - but it went horribly wrong. That same year, President Gerald Ford signed the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act, allowing 130,000 people from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to come to the U.S. California's Governor at the time, Jerry Brown, opposed the move, saying, in a clip that's featured in The Donut King, "When we have a million people out of work, when we have our own people taxed to the hilt, I'm just very slow to just open the floodgates and say come on in unless we provide a way to put Americans to work.". By 1985, 10 years after arriving in the US as refugees, Ted and Christy were millionaires, owning around 60 doughnut shops. An immigrant story with a (glazed) twist, The Donut King follows the journey of Cambodian refugee Ted Ngoy, who arrived in California in the 1970s and, through a mixture of diligence and. Ted encouraged others to do the same. He remarried and had four more children - the youngest two are still at school. Broke, Ted and Christy returned to Cambodia. Theres this portion in the film that goes into Ted and his ex-wife Christys experiences in Orange County during the 70s. He did as he was told, but then pulled out a knife and stabbed himself, declaring he would rather die than live without her. Through doughnuts, many Cambodians stepped out of isolation and into the American mainstream. [5] By 1977 he was able to purchase his first doughnut shop, Christy's Donuts, in La Habra. Her brother-in-law, Sutsakhan Sak, was chief of police and would become, briefly, the countrys president. Sent to the city to study, Ngoy met the beautiful Suganthini Khoeun who was the daughter of a government. Then I went to America, Ngoy said, and created the doughnut world.. Never give up. He had lost the respect of his family and community. A cinematographer who has worked on commercials and movies with Rory Kennedy, Werner Herzog and Stacy Peralta, she stumbled onto the subject after her nanny brought her some "Cambodian donuts. When you hook up with gambling, your life's finished. NICK STREET Channy is a stocky man in his mid-forties, and he runs USA Donut in Boeung Keng Kang with his wife. "If I need the vote, I cannot gamble. Ngoy bought stores in Fullerton, Anaheim, Anaheim Hills and Buena Park over the next year. I ended up not sharing that donut. Then, after falling out with a powerful political rival he feared for his life and fled to the US. 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. He had hidden a dagger and he took it out and stabbed himself three times. When you hook up with gambling, your life's finished. He had no way of making a living until a Chinese contact from better days asked him to help out with a real estate deal. They pricked their fingers and squeezed drops of blood into a cup of water. She later discovered that they were among the first to be executed by the Khmer Rouge. It smelled delicious and when he first tasted one it reminded him of something from home - a fried pastry, also circular, called nom kong. And she let me in to take a shower. The premise of family in the film is how hard your parents work and the sacrifices they make so that you can have a life better than they did. The Cambodians worked hard and because the whole family pitched in, they did not have to pay out any wages. Ted negotiated well and got a good commission. And it was actually a donut that I refused at first from Mayly Tao, the Donut Princess. Christy and Ted bought a $1-million, three-story, 7,000-square-foot house with palm trees and a three-car garage on Lake Mission Viejo in Orange County. He cut his chest sliding under barbed wire. He returned to a refugee community in transition. I think thats the American way the power of connections and people. On one of his Las Vegas trips, Ngoy took up gambling. "[8] Giving it three-out-of-four stars, Nick Allen of RogerEbert.com called the The Donut King "a heartwarming albeit scattered documentary from director Alice Gu," and praised the film for "its balance of poppy visuals and detailed history. 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. goes to your local theater. Which donut shop do you find yourself going back to for the sake of eating a donut?I had my out of body experience at DKs Donuts and Bakery in Santa Monica. Phnom Penh Post "a short-lived comeback in Sacramento in 2002," the Massachusetts-based company didn't return to the Golden State [2][3][4], The Donut King was directed by Alice Gu, and is her first feature film. I dont think you dare come to my room, she responded. After earning a communications degree at UC San Diego, Tao worked for a while at a news station but wasn't enthused about that career path. From the wall, he leaped onto the roof and crawled through an open window. He believed he could show others the path to wealth and opportunity. What was it like?I spoke with him and he was in Cambodia. In most of America there's an average of about one doughnut shop for every 30,000 people - in LA, there's one for every 7,000 people. When he lost their money he would just sign over the shop to them - without telling Christy, whose signature he forged. "I came back to L.A. and I didn't know that I was going to create this crazy explosion in the business. The stranger who crept into her room more than 35 years ago is a stranger again. Once, he enjoyed the warmth of family and the respect of his community. He woke her up and she was about to scream for help, when she realised it was her classmate. She thought it might have been a tall tale, "But when I was in Cambodia, [Ted] lifted his shirt and I saw the puncture wounds," Gu adds. . "[1] In 1977, the Ngoys took a trip to Las Vegas where Ted saw Elvis Presley. That's because of a refugee who built up an empire, and became known as the Donut King, only to lose it all. Ted Ngoy stands in front of his first independent donut shop in La Habra, named after his wife Christy Ngoy. 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