If you haven’t already voted, please vote for me.
My earliest memory is a traumatic one – my father leaving me at kindergarten. Why would my father abandon me in a place where I couldn’t understand anyone? I cried the whole day and then the whole week. The teachers tried to console me but I was devastated day after day. I longed for my father to come back and when he finally did, I felt overwhelming relief. And held on so tight, afraid to let go. Each morning, I clung onto him, desperate not to be left behind again. Eventually I resigned to the fact that this was life now.
Fast forward to primary school and things were not much better. I was teased multiple times daily for the shape of my eyes, the colour of my hair, the food I ate for lunch – rice, which I thought was normal was mocked because everyone else had sandwiches, something I found strange.
Let me explain. My family came to NZ in 1980 as refugees from Cambodia. We fled the Civil War where two million Cambodians were killed by the Pol Pot regime. My parents fled in the middle of the night, walking through mud, carrying me and my siblings and slept during the day to evade the Khmer Rouge. We found safety at the Thailand refugee camp until we were sponsored by the NZ government and arrived literally with the clothes on our backs.
My parents borrowed money from our sponsors, friends and with a huge mortgage from the bank they bought a dairy in Birkenhead. It was a very small dairy and my parents and us four kids lived there, worked there, 6am to 10pm, seven days a week, every day of the year except Christmas.
Strangely enough, I never told my parents of the bullying I endured day after day. I knew my world at home was completely different to school. Home was where I was loved, my haven despite having to work restocking shelves, serving customers day in and day out.
Eventually, my parents saved enough money to buy Mikayla’s orchard in Hobsonville and so we moved. We expanded to the fruit and vegetable business and then to Asian supermarkets – 11 across Auckland.
My mother passed from liver cancer 21 years ago; it was life shattering. And my daughter was born. It was only then, with the grief of losing Mum, that I began my journey of self discovery and acceptance of my history, my culture, my language – a vital part of who I am.
Why politics?
I am grateful and proud of the legacy of my parents. My late father Lim Nam Chhour was awarded the NZ Order of Merit in 2002. He gave back to the country that gave us a second chance on life, a country to safely raise us children. A country where we were able to prosper by working hard. Not only did my parents sponsor all our relatives to NZ but Dad also helped many others to find work, to start a business whether financially or give guidance and knowledge. And he never forgot our roots and matched dollar for dollar when the NZ government donated money to Cambodia to build wells in villages so they had clean drinking water, to support amputee victims from land mines to live and survive, to support schools and so the list went on.
But I ask myself: what legacy will we leave for our children? Right now, Auckland is drowning in debt that may never be paid off – not by us, not by our children or theirs?
It sounds cliche but New Zealand is my home. I worry about the direction our city is heading. Safety must come first. Transport is a very real problem with cost blowouts we simply cannot afford ($5b and counting for CRL). Wasteful spending must stop. I am not under any illusion of the massive task on hand if elected. It will NOT be a walk in the park. Rates, roads and rubbish – we need to focus on the basics and do them well.
In my own way, I am following in my father’s footsteps. This is me giving back to a city I love, offering my time, my commitment, my business experience to help build a better city for us all.
If you haven’t already voted, please vote for me – Muy Chhour and the C&R team
