| Long Beach Khmer Kickboxing Center was created in 1986 by Oumry Ban, a former Cambodian kickboxing champion. Ban won his first national title in 1964 at 61 kilograms (or 135 pounds). His career shows 309 fights with 278 wins (31 losses only), 200 of them were KO!
In 1970, Ban joined the governmental army where he first started as a soldier, being part of brutal and bloody battles. Eventually, the army realized what a celebrity he was and sent him back to Phnom Penh to continue fighting. In April 1975, the Khmer Rouge took control of the whole country, Ban went to work in the rice fields like all his Cambodian fellows…
Oumry Ban arrived in the United States in 1981 as a refugee. He originally lived in Chicago and moved to Long Beach in 1986, the year he opened the Khmer Kickboxing center with the help of established Cambodian people who knew who he was. Since, Ban, the father of 5 children, has run this modest studio for 20 years and struggled to make ends meet. Several times he was offered to sell the business, but Ban can't resign to it. Kickboxing is his life and too much about Cambodian culture to be stopped like that. In the club, some consider him a living legend, for what he has been through and the fighter that he was.
I got to visit that club after I met with Phiream Sok, 20, and his girlfriend Jeanne Thoek, 17, at the United Cambodian Community of Long Beach. The two come to the kickboxing center every evening from 7 to 9pm to keep in shape, remain healthy, and get rid of the stress of the day. Most of all, they like the spirit of respect and self-confidence (among other things) that one can find in the practice of Kickboxing. Phiream was born in Cambodia in 1989. He had to flee Cambodia with his mother and other siblings in July 1997 after his father - a Funcinpec colonel and Secretary of State at the Ministry of Interior - was killed in what human rights groups alleged was an execution.
On Phiream's back, a tattoo: RIP: "Rest in Peace"…
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Khmer Women by Ryan Plummer
Dey Krahorm - Eviction Day by Peter Harris
 | January 24 2009, Armed forces surround DK for final eviction day At 6am on JAN. 24TH, 2009 residents of Dey Krahorm were violently removed and their homes. Even after months of negotiations with the cambodian government and 7NG, The development company. view this story..
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| | Khmer Islam (moments of joy and some praying time) by Eric de Vries 
| | The Khmer Islam, known as the Cham Muslims is an ethnic group that lives in villages near the Mekong and Tonle Sap river in Cambodia. Most Chams of around 450.000 in Cambodia provide themselves with fishing and agriculture. Like Islam countries around the world they also pray five times a day in arabic in their local mosques...
It was a pleasure to go into their domain and see the friendly and happy faces all around. Even in the village mosques, the elderly were fully cooperate and allow me to take the photoshoots from any angle I wanted. Also the women, wearing burka's, gave me a smile while taking their pictures for the series...
The Khmer Islam-series were shot in the Islam Spiritual Center, Russei Chrouy village, Masjid-Alrahmani mosque all north of Phnom Penh, in the Masjid Thom Dubai mosque on the borders of Boeung Kak lake and in the Nurunnaim Mosque and Chrang Chamreh village on National Road 5...
To take a look at the Soundslides with music by David Sylvian please click on this link...http://www.ericdevries.nl/edvkhisl.html view this story..
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