Early Years
Ieng Sary was born in Hoa Lac hamlet, Nhan Hoa village, which is located the subdistrict of Luong Hoa (also known as Loeung Va in Khmer) Chau Thanh district in Tra Vinh province, Southern Vietnam in 1932. His father, Kim Riem was a Khmer Krom while his mother Tran Thi Loi, was a Chinese immigrant who moved to Vietnam with her parents when she was a little girl. Sary changed his name from the Vietnamese Kim Trang when he joined the Khmer Rouge. He is the brother-in-law by marriage of the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot (real name: Saloth Sar). Sary and Saloth Sar studied at Phnom Penh's Lycée Sisowath where their future wives, the sisters Khieu Thirith and Khieu Ponnary also studied. Before leaving Cambodia to study in Paris, Sary was engaged to Khieu Thirith.
Sary and Saloth Sar also studied together in Paris. Whilst there, Sary rented an apartment in the Latin Quarter, a hotbed of student radicalism. He and Saloth Sar met with French communist intellectuals, and formed their own cell of Cambodian communists.
Sary and Khieu Thirith married in the town hall of Paris' 15th arrondissement the summer of 1951 and Thirith took her husband's name, becoming Ieng Thirith.
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Famous quotes related to early years:
“If there is a price to pay for the privilege of spending the early years of child rearing in the driver’s seat, it is our reluctance, our inability, to tolerate being demoted to the backseat. Spurred by our success in programming our children during the preschool years, we may find it difficult to forgo in later states the level of control that once afforded us so much satisfaction.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)