Sruong Pheavy risked everything to go to South Korea as a bride, hoping for a better life for herself and her family back in rural Cambodia.
She was young and naive, and thought she would have a rich life in South Korea. But when she arrived, she was hit by the harsh reality. Far from the life of luxury, her husband had a small printing shop, which also doubled up as their one-room home.
However, Pheavy was determined to succeed in her new life. Today, she is the celebrity champion of three-cushion billiards in South Korea, a form of carom billiards in which the goal is to hit the cue ball off both object balls while contacting the rail cushions at least three times before contacting the second object ball. A point is scored for each successful carom.
Pheavy is now back on home turf representing host nation Cambodia at the 32nd SEA Games in Phnom Penh; one of the few hopefuls for a gold medal.
According to South Korean media reports, Pheavy won her fourth LPLBA Tour tournament in February, the women's counterpart of the PBA. With this victory, she is now ranked among the top players in the Korean circuit.
According to Pheavy during an interview with Kiripost, she said she has lately added a total of seven trophies to her fame.
This is a story of Pheavy, whose great aunt advised her in 2009, when she was only 19-years-old, to find a South Korean husband so she would have a better life.
Growing up farming
Pheavy hails from Kampong Cham province, which is now Tbong Khum province. Her family were cassava farmers and work was so tough in Thmar Pich 3 commune that every member of the family, including Pheavy and her two sisters, had to get up as early as 5am for work.
“Work on the farm was very tiring growing rice and cassava. Even though they yielded, we worked under the hot sun and I saw my parents were tired. When I saw them having a hard life, I couldn't hold it,” she said.
“I would rather sacrifice everything I have for my family. I asked other friends to go too but they didn't want to. My family didn't want me to go, they were worried.”
One day Pheavy visited a villager’s house and said it was an eye-opener that the neighbor had a bigger house. She began wondering how she became rich.
Finding a Korean husband
“It was famous that girls applied for Korean husbands,” Pheavy told Kiripost in an interview in Phnom Penh. “So, my great aunt asked to have pictures taken and sent them to South Korea,” she added.
Another woman in the village who was married to a South Korean also recommended Pheavy go. So, she decided to look for a husband. At the time, Pheavy had three applicants and one chose her but later pulled out.
In a second attempt, Pheavy was chosen by her current husband, who was 28 years older than her.
“It was famous at the time that if we marry an older man, he will have a lot of money. I was young and I didn’t know anything, and when he chose me, I just went.”
Pheavy said that she left Cambodia in May 2010 to Cheongju, about 1.5 hours from the South Korean capital Seoul.
Discovering billiards in South Korea
When she arrived, she mostly stayed confined to her small room, she did not have a phone and was not on Facebook. For some months, her husband took her with him to play carom billiards and that is when she began to engage with the game.
Her husband then inspired her to attend training. It was the only sport that she could earn some money to send back to Cambodia to help poor children. Initially, she didn't like the sport but because she wanted to help others in her home country, she worked hard on it.
Every day, she saw a photo she had hung on her wall of children at a dumpsite in Cambodia to serve as a reminder for her to work on training.
The training, which began in 2011, was intense and her husband spent thousands of dollars on trainers.
After winning some prize money in tournaments across the world, including South Korea, United States and Europe, Pheavy began humanitarian work, establishing own non governmental organization (NGO).
Pheavy recalls the training being grueling, often taking 10 hours a day. She said her husband would leave her to focus on the training while he took care of everything else.
She added that when she traveled abroad for competitions, she was also able to raise Cambodia’s profile on the international stage through billiards championships.
“My life has been successful on foreign soil. This is history for a woman like me who grew in a foreign country, in South Korea,” she said. “I think of South Korea as my father and Cambodia as my mother.”
Pheavy will compete on May 7 at Aeon 2 in Phnom Penh.
