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| Sruong Pheavy at Billking Korea Art Hall in Suwon, June 16. The Cambodian carom ball master hopes that one day she can play for her country. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
By Ko Dong-hwan
SUWON ― Sruong Pheavy, Korea's top-ranked three-cushion carom player and world's No.2, wants more than just to win more games. The wife of a Korean man wants to broaden the games appeal in Cambodia ― her mother land ― and throughout the Southeast Asia where snooker and other pocket ball sports are still relatively major.
Behind this ambition is her passion that was sown just less than a decade ago in 2011 when her husband Kim Man-sik, 28 years her senior, took her to a local carom parlor in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, to introduce her to the sport. That was all she needed.
"Out of all the good things that have happened here, the very first was having met a good man like my husband," said Pheavy, 31, who had come to Korea in 2010 from Kampong Cham, where she worked on her father's potato farm.
The novice then took off in the country's biggest billiard sport, scoring wins against amateurs for three years before turning professional in 2016 and winning three national tournaments. Grabbing the third spot at the 2018 world championship in Izmir, Turkey, followed by dominating the ZANCA Asian tournament in Seoul later that year, the "Cambodian express" was behind only the Netherlands' Therese Klompenhouwer and Turkey's Gulsen Degener in the women's world rankings.
With the accolades-studded career in just a few years came recognition and praise from carom fans in Korea of the only female foreigner on the nation's carom scene. With that leverage, she hosted something unprecedented in the country ― giving free carom lessons for children of multicultural families in Korea in 2019.
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| To promote carom in Southeast Asian countries, she teaches children from multicultural families in Korea. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
Choi Hyun-hee, general manager of Korean billiard custom cue brand Billking Korea, which sponsors Pheavy, calls it the "multicultural billiard academy" and sees it as a strong step toward enlarging carom's following in Southeast Asian countries.
"Children can develop skills enough to play in competitions within three years and hopefully become players like Pheavy," Choi, a carom enthusiast who has been managing the Cambodian's public relation affairs since 2015, told The Korea Times. "They can later play for their own countries in competitions like the Southeast Asian Games, which will naturally expand the pool of young carom players in Asia and thus the scale of the Asian Carom Billiard Confederation (ACBC).
"To do that, carom must be nationally supported and founded as the games' official category. That will also give Pheavy a chance to play for her country, and I am sure she can win gold."
Pheavy is also adamant about witnessing that game-changing plan happening for real. She has already garnered substantial popularity in Korea and Cambodia to promote that goal.
In Korea, in June 2019, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family appointed her, with 18 others, as a multicultural family ambassador to encourage exchanges among migrants of different nationalities. In September that year, she was the main face for a large-scale fundraising carom competition in Seongnam City Hall. It drew the city Mayor Eun Soo-mi, two Korean lawmakers, the presidents of Korea Billiard Federation (KBF) and Professional Billiard Association (PBA) and a plenty of Korean musicians and comedians with famed three-cushion carom skills.
Other publicity opportunities followed. During the South Korea-ASEAN summit in November 2019, the Korean ministry of culture, sports and tourism filmed an interview with Pheavy when she was promoting coffee from ASEAN member countries at Gwanghwamun Square in Seoul as the summit's sideline friendly event. Next month, cable TV network MBN named her one of seven female athletes of the year.
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| Pheavy has received recognition from the government and media outlets for her professional performance as well as social activities to reach out to the public through the sport. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
With her YouTube channel, Pheavy Q, which started late last year, her away-from-the-game life through a more private scope in Korea has been filmed for millions of YouTubers. A video from May 30 showed her exploring inside a new carom parlor that will bear her name being built in Cheongju.
Her popularity took a different form in Cambodia, where carom is not popular and her public relation events were rarely requested. Instead, she has been raved about on Facebook.
"I update my Facebook channel a lot, posting all the meaningful news about myself, so many Cambodians know what I do here," Pheavy said. She also frequents Instagram where she gets less formal and more down-to-earth with her friends.
Facebook is the base camp of Pheavy's Cambodian fans, who literally saved her career a few years back. Before she played international matches, one condition she lacked as a participating player was getting approval from a national billiard authority because Cambodia did not have such organization. Her predicament was shared on the social network and Cambodians on Facebook urged the government to establish the body.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's son picked up the news and offered $8,900 toward a fund to set up the Cambodian Billiard and Snooker Federation in June 2018.
"When I post something on Facebook, people help me a lot," Pheavy said.
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| While busy with professional tours, Pheavy keeps in touch with Cambodians on Facebook and Instagram. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
Her exchanges with her fans are not limited to online. When she visited Phnom Penh, she was greeted by hotel concierge employees and even by people at clothing shops in a shabby street market.
Among her Facebook posts are how she has been helping economically poor neighborhoods in her country. With the money from fundraising events in Korea, she bought parasiticides and stationery for school children and delivered them herself. She recently sent hand sanitizers to Cambodia to help prevent COVID-19.
"Because she experienced a change in her life in Korea, she wants to share her gratitude with her people to the extent she can afford," Choi said.
"Many Cambodians in need of help have sent me texts on Facebook," Pheavy said. "I revisited several places I had previously helped. These efforts don't tire me ― they give me strength."
Improving carom's image
KBF, the country's carom authority with affinity to world carom governing body of the World Union of Billiards, allowed her to play as a professional under KBF because of her international marriage migrant status and her critical role in founding the Cambodian Billiard and Snooker Federation under the ACBC.
While the Cambodian has an influential presence on the Korean carom scene, Choi expects the sport in Korea will gradually develop a better image than it has had over the years.
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| Choi Hyun-hee, Billking Korea's general manager, manages Pheavy's public relation activities and business meetings. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
"Carom parlors were best represented in Korea as a hangout spot for gangsters or delinquent youths, not to mention allowing smoking inside, patrons ordering and eating food, and keeping a legal minimum distance from schools to keep away from students," Choi said. Korean TV drama or movie scenes depicting the venues have often helped convey such an image.
Choi is determined to wipe out those deeply rooted images with after-school carom lessons. She has a contract with a carom parlor in Suwon to offer a place for teaching students, parents and teachers from the city's Gokban Elementary School. Instead of setting up expensive carom tables inside the school and having to manage them, she wanted to use a local carom parlor and have a Billking Korea player go there to teach.
Choi said after-school carom lessons could make carom a more popular national sport and encourage tardy carom parlors to refurbish with a neater environment.
"The Korean carom scene has changed a lot from its old image," Choi said. "It's now drawing more fan communities and people after work hours. Besides, with more professional carom players publicly shown in neat clothing and using good manners as they represent their sponsors, carom will spread to the wider public."
Pheavy's most recent award is from the Korean minister of gender equality and family Lee Jung-ok in May this year, acknowledging her contribution to "diverse family groups and broadening family culture" by hosting free carom lessons for multicultural children, fundraiser events and after-school carom classes.
With growing national recognition ― thanks to the skills and dedication of a female marriage migrant here ― the country's old carom story has certainly begun its next chapter.
