Distraught, she took an overdose of sleeping pills and fell into a coma. If you're enjoying this article, you'll love my daily morning newsletter, How To LA. When you hook up with gambling, your life's finished. Ted Ngoy, his wife and family pick up the story and walk us through their unbelievable experience, flying to a . So he named his own political party the Free Development Republican Party. But one night, he had an idea. Instead, she told him about a training programme run by the doughnut chain, Winchell's. Las Vegas was the new thing, he said, besides making money and making doughnuts,. And he said he saw her heart break before his very eyes. I ate the whole thing. Ted Ngoy stands in front of his first independent donut shop in La Habra, named after his wife Christy Ngoy. I thought I would just get an exterior scene for context. He has converted to Christianity, he said, and prays often, asking God for help. Christy would search for him in the casinos, the children in tow. They both drank and vowed to be faithful. Don't die. He would have no more donuts to sell so he could be with his wife for the rest of the day. I think there's nothing wrong for them to lie to the embassy because everybody needs a chance to survive. Until then, she was kept sheltered. Gu realized his story was also an epic romance. Then Ngoy would fly to Las Vegas without telling her, sometimes staying as long as a week. In 1967, his mother sent him to study in Phnom Penh, the capital. At 16, she had no friends, could not talk to boys and was forbidden to leave home alone. Channy also wholesales doughnuts to other minimarts. Suganthini was terrified, but she let the stranger stay. The Ngoys decided to keep uniformity amongst their shops, naming subsequent acquisitions Christy's. He returned to a refugee community in transition. Ted Ngoy: Yeah. I am the flute player, he said in a note passed through the familys maid. ", But in the end, he says, he beat it. The two had met as teenage classmates in Phnom Penh. Faced with such determination, her family allowed the young lovers to be together. "New documentary 'The Donut King' follows Cambodian refugee Ted Ngoy's journey to multi-million dollar empire", "Review: A Shakespearean SoCal tragedy, 'The Donut King' charts the rise and fall of Ted Ngoy", "Director Alice Gu Wants You to Meet The Donut King", "The Donut King who went full circle - from rags to riches, twice", "Review: The Donut King, a sweet documentary that doesn't tell the hole truth", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Donut_King&oldid=1131760803, This page was last edited on 5 January 2023, at 16:51. He moved from church to church, until an elderly Cambodian woman allowed him to live on the covered porch of her mobile home. 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. We had an instant connection and it felt like we were meant to be doing this story together. Theres so much competition. He co-signed loans for supplies and equipment. Ngoy doesnt remember how many stores he started or bought -- 40? Ted kept a low profile until the LA filmmaker Alice Gu got in touch a couple of years ago. By 2005, after a failed political career in Cambodia, Ngoy was penniless and living on the porch of a fellow Parkcrest Christian Church parishioner's mobile home. Six weeks later, Gu and her producer, Jos Nuez, were on a plane to Cambodia where they spent three days interviewing Ngoy and shooting B-roll. [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." [5] Upon looking into the matter, she learned about Ted Ngoy and became fascinated with the topic. Her parents and cousins hid behind curtains so they could hear him break off the relationship. Theyre savvy, young, hip. By the mid-1980s, he was a millionaire. 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. Upon deeper glance, it was so personal for me. Thank you for investing in your neighborhood. Every evening, he sat by his open window and played the flute. Cambodia was having its first democratic elections since the war and he wanted to stand for office to help rebuild his country. Broke, Ted and Christy returned to Cambodia. "The note said, 'I appreciate you blowing the flute. 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. In 1990, after disappearing for another disastrous trip to Las Vegas, he flew to Washington, D.C., and joined a Buddhist monastery. 'How I got rich beating men at their own game'. Christy Ngoy now owns a Peruvian restaurant in Irvine. But from then on, every store Ngoy and his wife bought or opened they named Christys Doughnuts. There were some hurt relationships. It was really wonderful. 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. The family members worked 17 hours a day and saved for a year. At the peak of his success, Ted owned something like 65 donut stores many of them named Christy's and was bringing in about $100,000 per month. He also figured that as a prominent politician, he would be forced to control his gambling habit. Volcanic tiki drinks. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. With the help of his brother-in-law, he was promoted to major and appointed military attache at the countrys embassy in Thailand. It's so amazing, so touching.' 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. But I still win. Your Guide To Everything Boozy You Can Order, A Los Angeles Family Seeks Answers And Accountability After Black Mom Dies In Childbirth. The Donut King comes out Friday, Oct. 30, online, and when you He hired his wife and nephew. . "After cry, go back gambling," he told one interviewer. Rose Donuts and Cafe I told them I'm very sorry 1,000 times. Ngoy fled with his wife, three young children, two cousins and a nephew to the United States in 1975. Ted, who spoke four languages, was offered a post as liaison officer in Thailand by Suganthini's brother-in-law, Gen Sak Sutsakhan. . And then I hate the gambling and then I hate that I treat Christy so badly, treat my children so badly, because of the gambling, so I hate myself," he says. 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. Every time I met them I said, 'Sorry son, sorry my daughter, sorry Christy. When the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia in 1975, they knew they couldn't go home. He is nicknamed the "Donut King." He is nicknamed the "Donut King." Under the Khmer Rouge leadership of Pol Pot people were forced to work on communal farms, and those with money or education were tortured and killed. Read about our approach to external linking. she says. I always thought of it as a Plan B to come back and now, it has become the Plan A and more," Tao says. [8], After Cambodia's establishment of a constitutional monarchy in 1993, Ngoy, along with his wife, returned to the country for its first elections. He borrowed money from relatives who had leased his doughnut shops. But he was more than well-off; he was respected. Ted Ngoy stands in front of his first independent donut shop in La Habra, named after his wife Christy Ngoy. 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 ubiquity and low overhead of these Cambodian mom-and-pop donut shops helped drive Dunkin' Donuts out of California in the late '90s. A bank had foreclosed on his mansion on Lake Mission Viejo. 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. Even in gambling. until 2014 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. In 1975, Ngoy fled the Khmer Rouge with his wife and three . He slept under the bed and hid when the maids came to clean. Suganthini and her mother heard the music. It actually made national, if not international, news about the kindness of these people in Orange County. And I feel so much hurt. Ted Ngoy was a high school student in Phnom Penh when he first set eyes on Suganthini Khoeun, the daughter of a high-ranking government official. When Christy returned to California for the birthday of a grandchild in 1999, Ngoy met a young woman and brought her to live in his house. Doughnuts offered an escape from years of welfare dependency. 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. He helped them apply for permits. Their fairy tale romance is so distant, she said, its as if it happened to someone else. That's a disaster," he says. "They're a good company and I owe them gratitude," Ted says. Few foods are as universally adored as fried dough. This documentary tells Ted Ngoy's story that is one of fate, love, survival, hard knocks, and redemption. War erupted in 1970. "[1] He says his Christian faith ultimately helped him abandon the habit. His mother raised him in a rural village near Cambodias border with Thailand. "I became a very, very bad man and borrowed money here and there," he says. At loose ends, she returned to Los Angeles and, once again, started helping with the family business. He wrote a note, telling her that he lived in the building opposite and was the flute player. Ted was a poor boy from a poor family while Christy was the daughter of a high-ranking official. Then he opened his first independent shop in La Habra, eventually covering the rest of O.C. Once, I said I would die if something happened to him, Christy said of her ex-husband. None of the people Ngoy helped get started lent him a hand, he said: I trained them. Alongside doughnuts, they sell imported American goods - everything from Pop-Tarts to Starbucks Frappucinos. 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." . "It's a devil, it's a monster. At school, Ngoy fell in love from afar with a beautiful girl. When they were released, the cash was gone. 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. 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. One of their sons is a financial consultant; another is a computer-networking technician. 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? What you've done is incredible.' In the early 1970s, Cambodia was in the midst of a brutal civil war that displaced two million people, more than a quarter of the country's population. He has found his way to be wealthy again. [5] By 1977 he was able to purchase his first doughnut shop, Christy's Donuts, in La Habra. The Donut King is a documentary directed by Alice Gu that covers the life of Ted Ngoy, one of the primary reasons behind the Cambodian American donut shop boom. Tell us about your wife. [9], Ngoy is the subject of the 2020 documentary film The Donut King. I could have made a special piece just on the history of donuts. Ted is my great uncle,'" Gu says. He says to me, Alice, making money its so easy. (Courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment) When you first reached out to Ted, it. Yes, you read that right. Ted soon got a job working at Winchell's, which was then the dominant donut chain on the West Coast. At the height of his success in the US he had been an ardent Republican, and an enthusiastic fundraiser for the party. Then, he lost it all. "He was a little uneasy," Gu says. Once, he was a poor boy who carried away one of Cambodias wealthiest daughters. Baby Yoda cocktails. [3] Ngoy worked at various jobs, including as a travel agent and tour guide, before joining the military in 1970. 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. "[1], Ted Ngoy was born in the Cambodian village of Sisophon near the country's border with Thailand. Pit bosses, floor men and dealers at Caesars Palace, the MGM Grand and the Mirage got to know the Cambodian doughnut king. Gab Chabrn reflects on growing up in L.A. in a Latino home that doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving and the traditions they formed instead. In Cambodia, Ngoy formed the Free Development Republican Party. He did not fare well in either the 1993 or 1998 parliamentary elections, but his friend, Prime Minister Hun Sen, made him an advisor on commerce and agriculture. Her father was a high-ranking government official. For the latest national news from NPR and our live radio broadcast, visit He lost all the doughnuts, said James Dok, director of the United Cambodian Community, a social service agency in Long Beach. The Donut King is a 2020 American documentary film which tells the life story of California donut shop owner Ted Ngoy. I just first hurt my wife, Christy, my children and hurt many, many other people, too, because, when we needed money. Also Jerry Brown, who weve seen in California as our beacon of hope and morality, in 1975 was actually the opposite. But Cambodians were leaving the business, tired of working 17-hour days and squeezing a 13-cent profit from every 65-cent doughnut. He lobbied his contacts in the Republican inner circle, including Senator John McCain, and MFN status was granted permanently in 1996. His story begins in the early 1970s when Ngoy was a commander in the Royal Cambodian Army, training soldiers in Thailand. People love her and shes beautiful. 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. Her name was Suganthini Khoeun. Ngoy became a trainee and took over a Winchell's in Newport Beach. "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. We believe when reliable local reporting is widely available, the entire community benefits. He had spent all his money on electioneering and on a failed attempt to introduce a new type of hybridised rice, which he believed would improve yields. BC Donuts The family also still had the Winchell's so now they had two stores to run. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Eventually he and Christy were left with just one doughnut shop, which they decided to sell. What was surprising for me was watching Ted, a Republican, pictured with Pete Wilson at one point in the film since Wilson supported laws that hurt immigrants.Its wild. The Ngoys helped hundreds of refugees find housing and apply for Social Security cards. "The more you chase, the more it's gone," he says in a new documentary about his rise and fall, called The Donut King. Christys Doughnuts in La Habra never did great business. I'm no good. He was very surprised that anybody would find him and want to tell his stories. Theres also the moment where Ted revisits his former home in Mission Viejo. Streaming now on PBS. Once a paragon in the community, refugees now avoided him for fear of being asked for a loan. He remarried and had four more children - the youngest two are still at school. What drew you to Teds story at the start?Finding out about his story, its fascinating a guy who comes here penniless and becomes a Donut King. His party did poorly in the 1993 and 1998 parliamentary elections, but Prime Minister Hun Sen made him an advisor on commerce and agriculture. According to Tao, the servants caught on to Ted's presence after a few days but didn't say anything. He landed in LA with less than $100 in his pocket - all the money he had left. Long hours. Ted and a lot of the Asians who came aligned themselves with the Republican party. This caused tension in the Ngoy household, being the center of many arguments between Ngoy and his wife. The whole community banded together and they all agreed to sell him out of donuts every morning by 9 a.m. A daughter owns a 1950s-style hamburger restaurant in Orange County. Former staff writer Vera Castaneda covered arts, entertainment, lifestyle and issues related to Orange County for TimesOC, a community newspaper owned by the Los Angeles Times. 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. He had met Richard Nixon, the former president, and Presidents Reagan and George HW Bush. (Elina Shatkin/LAist). 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. "You can't find any prettier woman besides her.". The next day, he flew back to Los Angeles. "But what shall we do in the morning? During the week they went to school, where sometimes they were so hungry they stole snacks from other kids' lunchboxes. She was lucky that Mayly Tao, whose mom, Chuong Lee, owns the shop, answered the phone. Ted Ngoy in The Donut King documentary. In the early 1990s, it was reported that California had 2,400 Cambodian-owned doughnut shops. According to Gu, Christy's family brought her into the room and Ted started reciting his speech. One of them being my interview with Michael Krondl, the food historian. 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. He ran to the shop across the street where he bought a donut. Over the years, he says he sponsored more than 100 Cambodian families that wanted to come to the U.S. On hearing the music float across the quiet city, Suganthini's mother remarked that whoever was playing must be in love. I go to borrow. If there's anything she wants people who watch The Donut King to know, it's that this seemingly simple treat has a deeper cultural resonance. L.A. became the country's epicenter of donut culture when Ted Ngoy, a Cambodian immigrant, arrived in California during the 1970s. He tasted his first donut at a Tustin gas station, trained as a baker in a La Mirada Winchells and ran his own Winchells store in the Balboa Peninsula. "I just wanted to raise pigs and chickens and have enough meat and eggs to take to . He credits his Christian faith with finally curing his gambling addiction, although he confesses he liked to bet on football games until last year. 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. goes to your local theater. Ngoy told Suganthini that he didnt love her. Ngoy became a trainee and took over a Winchells in Newport Beach. And then we started communicating, bringing back and forth the messages," Ted says. [10] Ngoy was hesitant to return to California for the film; he was estranged from his children and former friends. I told him that he has a story to tell. How to get the best eggs in town without leaving your yard. 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. Then, after falling out with a powerful political rival he feared for his life and fled to the US. Most importantly, the trip allowed him to mend relations with Christy, who has now remarried, and with their grown-up children. Ngoy tried Gamblers Anonymous. He became Ted. He had burned a lot of bridges and at the time his children hardly spoke to him. They arranged a meeting for the couple at a relatives house, where Ngoy was expected to formally end their romance. He wanted to buy more, but he was exhausted running the five he owned. One of Ngoy's first jobs in the US was as a service station attendant. Some of those he borrowed from were the people he had leased doughnut shops to. After completing the company's training program, they gave him the keys to a store in Newport Beach. Along with thousands of other Cambodian refugees, the Ngoys ended up at Camp Pendleton. For a year and a half, I struggled with how I was going to get access to that Mission Viejo mansion. Where Im going, I dont know. To think about what Ted did years ago letting bygones be bygones. One by one, Ted lost all of his donut shops. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975, and the Cambodian genocide began. Everybody went to the gold mine, Ngoy said. Hard work. "But many of them were not related, they just lived in the same village or heard of my name. 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. It really helped put some perspective on the journey to get here from somewhere else and the struggles that people go through when they arrive in a new, strange and foreign land. Ted became known as the Donut King - or Uncle Ted, because of the many Cambodian immigrants he'd sponsored. By 1985, 10 years after arriving in the US as refugees, Ted and Christy were millionaires, owning around 60 doughnut shops. He taught them the names of the doughnuts: old fashioned, jelly-filled, glazed. in Santa Monica. A map of Christys Donuts, Winchells and Dunkin Donuts across California during the height of Ted Ngoys entrepreneurship in the 1970s through the 1990s. His few shirts and pants hang from a clothesline. Ted Ngoy was reaping rewards of that success. His tenants opened their own stores and leased them out. They went to Europe twice. Ted, Christy and their two kids fled to Thailand. Suganthinis father ran out from hiding and called an ambulance. They cried and prayed for the family they had left behind. Tao did everything in her power to help Gu. Everybody cry," he said. For the next 45 days, he lived in her room. "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. the He went on to marry Suganthini Khoeun, the daughter of a high-ranking government official. Ted managed to escape on the last flight out of Phnom Penh but Suganthini's parents were left behind. He hosted Dan Quayle and Pete Wilson at his house. "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. Gambling is a devil. People made fun of his accent. 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. 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