Arn Chorn-Pond (born 1966) is a Cambodian musician,
human rights
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hum ...
activist, and a survivor of the
Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge (; ; km, ខ្មែរក្រហម, ; ) is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and by extension to the regime through which the CPK ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. ...
regime. He is an advocate for the healing and transformative power of the arts, and especially music.
Biography
Early life
Chorn-Pond was born in
Cambodia
Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand ...
in 1966 into a
Battambang
Battambang ( km, បាត់ដំបង, UNGEGN: ) is the capital of Battambang Province and the third largest city in Cambodia.
Founded in the 11th century by the Khmer Empire, Battambang is the leading rice-producing province of the coun ...
family of performers and musicians. According to Chorn-Pond in a 2006 article:
: "My family owned an opera company. The National Charity Company, as we were called, performed in temples, opera houses and mayors’ compounds throughout the country. Many people knew my father, grandfather, and uncle through their performances, which had become legendary. Since the family ran the company, all of us performed. When I was six or seven, I often played the role of a baby. Somebody would say “Cry!” and I’d cry...My father and uncle trained my older cousin, in his teens at the time, to perform the main roles in traditional Cambodian operas."
Survival during the Pol Pot Regime
When the
Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge (; ; km, ខ្មែរក្រហម, ; ) is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and by extension to the regime through which the CPK ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. ...
came to power in 1975, Chorn-Pond and hundreds of other children were sent to
Wat Ek Phnom
Wat Ek Phnom is an Angkorian temple located on the left side of the Sangkae River at the small creek of Prek Daun Taev northwest the Peam Aek spot approximately 9 km north of the city of Battambang in north western Cambodia. It is a Hindu t ...
, a
Buddhist
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
temple near Battambang converted into a prison camp, where he survived by playing the flute and keeping the soldiers entertained.
In five days a master trained Chorn-Pond and four other children to play the flute and the
khim
The ''khim'' ( th, ขิม ; lo, ຂິມ ; km, ឃឹម ) is a stringed musical instrument derived from the Mesopotamian or Persian Santur. It is similar to the Hammered Dulcimer or Cimbalom. This ''khim'' was introduced to Thailand fro ...
, a Cambodian
hammered dulcimer
The hammered dulcimer (also called the hammer dulcimer) is a percussion-stringed instrument which consists of strings typically stretched over a trapezoidal resonant sound board. The hammered dulcimer is set before the musician, who in more trad ...
. The children learned to play a traditional
lullaby
A lullaby (), or cradle song, is a soothing song or piece of music that is usually played for (or sung to) children (for adults see music and sleep). The purposes of lullabies vary. In some societies they are used to pass down cultural knowledg ...
known as ''Bombay''. At the end of that time, Chorn-Pond and another boy were chosen to play
propaganda
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...
songs for the camp guards. The other three children and the master were led away and killed. "When they brought in another old master for more lessons," Chorn-Pond recalled, "I begged them not to kill him. I told them I didn’t have enough skills yet, and I offered them my own life instead." On a visit to Cambodia in 1996, he was reunited with his teacher.
In a 2002 interview Chorn-Pond described how his survival depended on repressing his emotions and distancing himself from the horror of his situation:
: "I was in a temple where they killed three or four times a day. They told us to watch and not to show any emotion at all. They would kill us if we reacted...if we cried, or showed that we cared about the victims. They would kill you right away. So I had to shut it all off...I can shut off everything in my body, practically, physically. I saw them killing people right in front of me, the blood was there, but I didn't smell it. I made myself numb...The killing was unbearable. You go crazy if you smell the blood."
When the Vietnamese
invaded Cambodia in 1978, Chorn-Pond was handed a gun and forced to fight:
: "The Khmer Rouge gave us guns and pushed us into the front line. Children who refused were shot in the head. Many of us ranged from eight
ndup, so long as we could carry guns. I was then about twelve. The Khmer Rouge would shoot us from behind if, against orders, we tried to leave the battleground. Thousands of children got shot to the left and right of me, many of them good friends."
: "Many kids got killed because the Vietnamese are very good. Most of the Vietnamese soldiers had experience with Americans, and we didn't know that...And I became good friends with some of the kids, and on the battlefields sometimes they got shot in the left and the right from me, in the stomach and the head. Many times I held them, blood all over me. The worst feeling I had was that you can’t help them at all...I saw kids and adults got hit in the head, by the bullets, crawling. So I don't believe in crawling anymore. I just stood up and shoot like hell...I fought about two or three months. The thing that I couldn't take is to watch my friends dying every day. That's the worst feeling."
Eventually, he escaped into the jungle where he survived for months by himself. "I followed monkeys and ate whatever they ate. I fished with my hands and ate fruits, and killed monkeys, too." In late 1980 he crossed the border into
Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...
and a Thai soldier took him to the
Sa Kaeo Refugee Camp Sa Kaeo Refugee Camp (also referred to as Sa Kaeo I or Ban Kaeng)
was the first organized refugee relief camp established on the Thai-Cambodian border. It was built by the Royal Thai Government with support from international relief agencies includ ...
. There he met the Reverend
Peter L. Pond. "He weighed about 60 pounds and he was very sick," Reverend Pond later recalled, "He had
cerebral malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. S ...
and he was really close to death
[Fleming, 1983, p. M5.]...This sick little child reached up and touched me, and said in English, 'Hello.' That...was Arn Chorn from the very first, reaching out and touching."
Reverend Pond took Arn to
Jefferson, New Hampshire
Jefferson is a town in Coos County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 1,043 at the 2020 census. It is home to parts of the White Mountain National Forest in the south and northeast and to Santa's Village, a Christmas-themed amusem ...
and formally
adopt
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from ...
ed him in 1984. In all, Pond adopted 16 Cambodian children, mostly
orphan
An orphan (from the el, ορφανός, orphanós) is a child whose parents have died.
In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents due to death is called an orphan. When referring to animals, only the mother's condition is usuall ...
s, including one who eventually became
Rhode Island's first Cambodian physician, Dr. Soneath Pond.
Education and humanitarian work
During his initial months in the US, Arn Chorn-Pond experienced difficulties as one of the first non-white students to attend
White Mountains Regional High School. He graduated from
Gould Academy in
Maine
Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and ...
in 1985,
attended
Northfield Mount Hermon School
Northfield Mount Hermon School, often called NMH, is a co-educational preparatory school in Gill, Massachusetts, in the United States. It is a member of the Eight Schools Association.
Present day
NMH offers nearly 200 courses, including AP and ...
and attended
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Provide ...
for two years before withdrawing to co-found Children of War, an organization dedicated to help young people to overcome suffering from war and other traumas such as
child abuse
Child abuse (also called child endangerment or child maltreatment) is physical, sexual, and/or psychological maltreatment or neglect of a child or children, especially by a parent or a caregiver. Child abuse may include any act or failure to ...
,
poverty,
racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race over another. It may also mean prejudice, d ...
and
divorce
Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the ...
. From its inception in 1984 through 1988, Children of War trained a core leadership group of 150 young people representing twenty-one countries. More than 100,000 U.S. students from 480 schools participated in the program.
["Biography: Arn Chorn-Pond](_blank)
In 1992 Chorn-Pond received a
bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six y ...
in
political science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
from
Providence College
Providence College is a private Catholic university in Providence, Rhode Island. Founded in 1917 by the Dominican Order and the local diocese, it offers 47 undergraduate majors and 17 graduate programs.
It requires all of its undergraduat ...
and in 2007 the school awarded him an
honorary Doctorate
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hon ...
of
Humanitarian Service .
Chorn-Pond was also one of the few surviving Cambodians to return to th
refugee camps on the Thai–Cambodian border While attending college in
Rhode Island, Arn devoted his summers from 1986 through 1988 to teaching and assisting those still displaced by war. He was also the youngest Cambodian involved in diplomatic efforts for reconciliation.
While a student at Providence College, Chorn-Pond co-founded the Southeast Asian
Big Brother/Big Sister Association in Providence and founded Peace Makers, a US-based gang intervention program for Southeast Asian youths in Providence. In 1993 he returned to Cambodia and founded the Cambodian Volunteers for Community Development.
In 1998 he founded the Cambodian Master Performers Program, which grew into
Cambodian Living Arts. The organization's original mission was to revive the endangered traditional performing arts in Cambodia by locating former masters or trained professional musicians and helping them to pass on their skills and knowledge to the next generation. Cambodian Living Arts has since expanded its scope of programming to include scholarships, fellowships, workshops, training, commissions, arts education, and a cultural enterprise that provides enriching job opportunities to Cambodian performing artists. Chorn-Pond remains engaged with the organization's work, both as spokesperson and in particular with the work of The Khmer Magic Music Bus, a program of Cambodian Living Arts that takes music performances and demonstrations to villages and communities around Cambodia which would otherwise lack access to performing arts, and also works closely with certain communities to keep some especially rare forms of Cambodian music alive.
Arn Chorn-Pond has also served as Director of Youth Programs for the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association in
Lowell, Massachusetts
Lowell () is a city in Massachusetts, in the United States. Alongside Cambridge, It is one of two traditional seats of Middlesex County. With an estimated population of 115,554 in 2020, it was the fifth most populous city in Massachusetts as of ...
, and since 2001 has been a special adviser on Cambodian affairs for Clear Path International.
Awards and honors
Among other honors, Arn Chorn-Pond was one of th
first recipientsof the
Reebok Human Rights Award
The Reebok Human Rights Award honoured activists under the age of thirty who fought for human rights through non-violent means. Each year, the award was given to four or five individuals. Each received a grant of US $50,000 that was to be used to ...
in 1988. He has received the 1991
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
Human Rights Award, the 1993 Kohl Foundation International Peace Prize, and the 1996 Spirit of
Anne Frank
Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank (, ; 12 June 1929 – )Research by The Anne Frank House in 2015 revealed that Frank may have died in February 1945 rather than in March, as Dutch authorities had long assumed"New research sheds new light on Anne Fra ...
br>
Outstanding Citizen Award
Arn Chorn-Pond regularly gives talks about his experiences.
In October 2008, he was invited by the
Spurlock Museum
The William R. and Clarice V. Spurlock Museum, better known as the Spurlock Museum, is an ethnographic museum at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The Spurlock Museum's permanent collection includes portions of collections from other ...
and th
Asian Educational Media Serviceto the
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Universit ...
.
He was nominated Music Rights Champion by the
International Music Council
The International Music Council (IMC) was created in 1949 as UNESCO's advisory body on matters of music. It is based at UNESCO's headquarters in Paris, France, where it functions as an independent international non-governmental organization. Its p ...
in 2018.
In film, opera and literature
Arn Chorn-Pond is the subject of Jocelyn Glatzer's 2003 documentar
"The Flute Player."
The 2007 opera "Where Elephants Weep", composed by Khmer musician Him Sophy with a libretto by
Catherine Filloux, is loosely inspired by the life of Arn Chorn-Pond.
The 2008 children's book ''A Song for Cambodia'' by Michelle Lord is based on events in the life of Arn Chorn-Pond.
In May 2012, the novel ''Never Fall Down'' by Patricia McCormick was published with
HarperCollins
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...
. It retells Arn Chorn-Pond's childhood story of surviving during the Khmer Rouge regime.
As a musician
An accomplished
flautist
The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...
, Arn Chorn-Pond is credited with teaching
Ron Korb
Ron Korb is a Grammy-nominated Canadian flutist (flautist) and composer.
Musical style
Korb is best known for writing culturally diverse music and his mastery of a wide array of world music wind instruments. His work spans a range of genres inc ...
to play the
Khloy
A khloy ( km, ខ្លុយ, Burmese: ပုလွေ, ) is an ancient traditional bamboo flute from Cambodia and more specifically the Khmer people. The khloy and other similar bamboo flutes can be found throughout Asia, due to bamboo’s abu ...
(the Cambodian bamboo flute) in traditional Khmer style. In 2001 Chorn-Pond performed on stage in
Peter Gabriel
Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and activist. He rose to fame as the original lead singer of the progressive rock band Genesis. After leaving Genesis in 1975, he launched ...
's Tribute and Homage for
Harbourfront Centre
Harbourfront Centre is a key cultural organization on the waterfront of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated at 235 Queens Quay West. Established as a crown corporation in 1972 by the Government of Canada to create a waterfront park, it became ...
's "World Leaders" hosted by
Laurie Brown, sharing the stage with Peter Gabriel,
Jane Siberry
Jane Siberry ( ; ; born 12 October 1955) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, known for such hits as " Mimi on the Beach", "I Muse Aloud", " One More Colour" and " Calling All Angels". She performed the theme song to the television series ''Maniac ...
,
Tia Carrere
Althea Rae Duhinio Janairo (born January 2, 1967), known professionally as Tia Carrere (), is an American actress, singer and former model who got her first big break as a regular on the daytime soap opera ''General Hospital''.
Carrere played Ca ...
, Ron Korb,
Donald Quan,
Jeff Martin,
Andy Stochansky,
Loreena McKennitt
Loreena Isobel Irene McKennitt, (born February 17, 1957) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and composer who writes, records, and performs world music with Celtic and Middle Eastern influences. McKennitt is known for her ...
,
Daniel Lanois
Daniel Roland Lanois ( , ; born September 19, 1951) is a Canadian record producer, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter.
He has produced albums by artists including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Peter Gabriel, Robbie Robertson, Emmylou Harris, Willie ...
and
Lorraine Segato.
References
External links
Arn Chorn-Pond, Master Mek, & The Waterek Ensemble at the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln CenterYouTube: Arn Chorn Pond: "Everyone has a Story."Arn Chorn-Pond interviewed on NPR's ''Fresh Air''.2010 Holocaust and Genocide Lecture Series - April 20, 2010: Child of War, Man of Peace - Presented by Arn Chorn-Pond, Cambodian Survivor and Human Rights Activist.J. M. Bedell, ''Finding Courage: History's Young Heroes and Their Amazing Deeds,'' Beyond Words Publishing, September 2004.
Richard Stone, "We Heal by Telling Our Story," ''Personal Transformation,'' June 1997, p. 36.Arn Chorn-Pond on bridge at Wat Ek 1999Takemany Showfew's photostream: Photos of Arn Chorn-Pond"Notes From a Survivor: Playing for Life; Learning the flute spared former Cambodian refugee from death." ''Courier'', The Stanley Foundation: Number 44, Summer 2004, p. 9.
* Oral history video clips featuring Arn Chorn-Pond, originally produced by Media Entertainment, Inc., for the 2000 documentary ''The Genocide Factor''
Part 1Part 2
{{DEFAULTSORT:Arn, Chorn-Pond
1966 births
Adoptees
American people of Cambodian descent
Cambodian activists
Cambodian genocide survivors
Cambodian human rights activists
Cambodian music
Cambodian musicians
Cambodian refugees
Child soldiers
Living people
Providence College alumni
Northfield Mount Hermon School alumni
Cambodian military personnel