PHNOM PENH: On the occasion of the 43rd anniversary of the reunion between Prime Minister Hun Sen and his wife, First Lady Bun Rany Hun Sen, the Prime Minister shared some unknown details behind their reunion in a message he posted on his Facebook page, recalling the painful story of the difficult history he shared with his wife.
He wrote saying, "On the evening of 24 February 1979, I was reunited with my wife and children after our separation on 20 June 1977, at a time when my wife was five months pregnant. The reunion was happy because we were still alive and able to meet each other again. For me, I was even happier to know that I had a son and that I had become his father. Unfortunately for me, my son refused to call me father, and even more difficult, he refused to let me get close to his mother. Manet had just weaned a few weeks before coming to see me. Rany told me that in the afternoon on the day of the Neak Leung ferry crossing on the way to Phnom Penh, Manet saw people selling bread, he was so hungry and he wanted to eat it, but my wife, Sinat (younger sister) and other two friends who drove them on a bike to Phnom Penh had no money or anything to buy this bread. Manet, this poor baby, just swallowed his saliva and looked at his mother, who was in tears, feeling sorry for him. After dinner, I heard about the bread story, and gave around 10 candies I had to my son. Manet accepted it, but then threw it away because he did not know what candy was. I took the candy out of its cover and gave it to Manet, but he pushed my hand away. Only when I ate the candy, Manet then realized that it was something you could eat. Manet ate the candy without removing its plastic cover, then my wife removed it for him but she only let him eat two candies because she was afraid that he would get sick. This is the story of the children of the Pol Pot regime who never got food or toys."
Prime Minister Hun Sen further described how his son, Hun Manet, continued to call him "uncle" for more than a month before finally learning to call him his "father".
He described this story by writing, "At around 9 pm on 24 February 1979, my wife let Manet sleep on her arm on the bed, which was a habit he had from before. After a while I went to bed with my wife, and suddenly Manet cried and chased me away. When I got out of bed, Manet stopped crying. I had to sit and wait for Manet to fall asleep before daring to get in the bed. I kept doing this for about three weeks. One day, I tried to joke around with my wife, by ignoring Manet and hiding under a blanket with her. After that we could not hear Manet crying or any other sounds from him. When we could not hear any sounds, we removed the blanket and saw the child had suddenly disappeared. We opened the door to look for him outside the room, but could not find him. But then we found him lying under the bed with an unhappy face. The next day we tried to play with him again, this time Manet did not cry, did not run away, but climbed on his parents’ back on top of the blanket. From then on, Manet started calling me dad."
Prime Minister Hun Sen expressed that he hopes this incident will be able to be made into a scene in the movie ‘Son Under the Full Moon,’ which is currently being filmed and in production.
He stated, "My wife and I have raised five children, and we never had a nanny, everything we done ourselves for our children. Because the story of the son under the full moon is being filmed, I hope this anecdote can be made into some scenes as well."
