LYNN — City Councilor-at-Large Hong Net published his first book “Given a Chance” on Aug. 4, discussing his life in Cambodia as a refugee and orphan, his move to the United States and his life ever since.
Net was born in the small, peaceful village of Chi Kha in the province of Koh Kong in southwestern Cambodia. He was 6 years old when civil war broke out in the nation and turned his life upside down.
Net was eventually separated from his family; his mother and brother died during this time and Net was sent to labor camps known as the “Killing Fields,” where he worked from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. to earn one bowl of rice soup per day.
These fields got their name from the constant execution of people suspected to be spies or those who were educated and deemed a liability, as well as their tendency to lead to death from starvation.
Net said that during his time there, children were beaten, forced to watch executions and had to work in the heat and rain.
After four years there, Net was forced to go into the mountains after the invasion of Vietnamese communist forces, where he was taught — at 9 years old — to load ammunition and use a gun.
He eventually escaped from the mountains, walking with a group of 60 people consisting of Khmer Rouge soldiers and other children, from the eastern border of Cambodia to Thailand carrying rice sacks and guns; he was the only one to survive the trek.
In Thailand, he lived in a refugee camp before the Thai government deported the refugees back to the jungle in Cambodia, where he was in the middle of constant crossfire, bombs and fighting.
“It was really hard,” Net said. “So many people died right in front of me from diseases, starvation and being killed.”
In his book, Net reflects on a time when he got caught by a farmer as he was eating his crops. The farmer held a shotgun to Net’s head and was ready to kill him, but Net pleaded for his life and survived.
“This was a moment in my life that I could never have expected in my dreams,” Net said in the book.
Net was eventually sold to work for families in exchange for food in Vietnam, before he was transitioned into another refugee camp, where he ran into his uncle and stayed with him.
The last refugee camp Net was sent to allowed him to go to school; there, he learned how to read and write around the age of 11.
Net learned English there and began writing letters to the embassy in the United States. These letters resulted in an opportunity of a lifetime for Net, as he was allowed to move to the United States thanks to a program run by the United Nations and U.S., which sent Cambodian refugee children to America.
At 15, Net was sent to live with a family in South Hadley, where he said he “felt like I was born again.
“I had hope that I could have a better life,” Net said. “They took really good care of me. I thought I was living in a dream.”
Net was sent to a Catholic high school and later attended the University of Massachusetts – Amherst to study political science.
When he graduated from UMass, he began to search for his family. When his family was located, he traveled back to Cambodia to see them. Net said that he didn’t recognize his father when the man came out of the elevator, since he hadn’t seen him in over 10 years.
“It was weird not recognizing my own father, but it had been so long and we had both been through so much,” Net said.
Even after everything Net went through, he said, the trauma is still there but he has learned to overcome it.
Now living in Lynn with his wife, Thavra, and their two children, Anna and William, and being the first Asian American elected into public office in Lynn, Net said he is so grateful for his life and hopes his story can inspire and encourage people to push through hard times.
“There’s no way I could’ve accomplished any of this if people didn’t give me a chance,” Net said.
Net decided to write this book — after encouragement from friends and family — because he saw the struggles still present when he visited Cambodia, and he wants to show that anybody can be something.
He traveled back to his village in Cambodia a couple of years ago when he began writing the book, to speak with people who knew him when he was young and to refresh his memory on everything that had happened since.
He said he learned a lot about his village and the people in it, as well as the Cambodian Civil War and the struggles the nation still faces today.
Between the travels back to Cambodia, interviews and notetaking, the book took about five years to complete and was finally published on Aug. 4.
After overcoming so much adversity, Net said he always keeps a smile on his face because “if we are all happy, the world will be a better place.”
Net’s book is available on Amazon and has been adapted into a screenplay for a cable series, pending the purchase of a producer.
