Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer Hong Lau.
My name is Jennifer Lau, and I was born in Cambodia in 1970. I was merely five when the Khmer Rouge forcibly relocated my family of seven and indeed most of Cambodia to live and work in one giant concentration camp. We endured four long years of living in perpetual fear, under constant threat of disease, starvation and even execution.
After the Khmer Rouge regime ended, my family of now eight escaped to Thailand on foot. In fact, we had to escape to Thailand twice. The first time the jungles we escaped through were riddled with infighting factions and land mines. Once we set foot in Thailand after having nearly died of thirst and hunger, the Thai government rounded up us distraught refugees at gunpoint and forced us to get into awaiting buses. They drove us to the top of Dangrek Mountains, a mountain range separating Thailand from Cambodia. On the mountaintop, they forced us out of the buses and told us to go down the precipice. When we refused, the Thai soldiers emptied their rifles of what seemed like endless rounds of bullets into the bodies of thousands of refugees who had no place to hide. It was estimated 4,500 people were massacred at this mountaintop. My family was luckily spared by the bullets because we leaped off the steep cliff into a sea of land mines below. It took us 4 days and 3 nights to navigate out of the mine fields, and a total of 3 months to get back to the starting point where we took our chance once more to escape to Thailand.
Our second escape was a success! We stayed in five Thai refugee camps for a little over two years before our application was approved and we were US bound. Arriving in America at age twelve, illiterate and traumatized, I worked full-time alongside my family of now nine members in our donut shop to contribute to our fragile new beginning while concurrently pursuing my education. I graduated from the University of California, Irvine, earning degrees in Chinese and Chinese Literature and Economics.
Today, I am a Certified Public Accountant with over 25 years of diverse experience in Accounting and Taxation. I’m the sole owner, President, and CEO, with a staff of accountants to service individuals, business entities, non-profits, and trust and estate accounts.
We all face challenges but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
As a mere child, the thing I looked forward to most – that I was most excited for and proud about – was the opportunity to go to school. Unfortunately, that first day of school was delayed seven long years and began in a whole new and unfamiliar language and country. My first day of school came a few months before my 12th birthday. I embraced this opportunity with fervor and caught up to my peers.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Topp & Lau, Inc., is a full-service CA-licensed public accounting firm. We offer a broad range of services to a variety of businesses and non-profit organizations, including new business formation, strategic planning, monthly bookkeeping and accounting, tax planning and preparation, and succession planning. Our motto is “Our Business is Growing Yours.”
We have long had a significant practice in Trust and Estate accounting and tax preparation, and this has become an area of real growth for us as the boomer generation ages with greatest wealth expected to transfer this decade and the next.
We love surprises, fun facts, and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
I am an author, and the memoir garnered several awards. Beautiful Hero: How We Survived the Khmer Rouge, documents my family’s journey from an idyllic rural town, through forced marches and concentration camps of war-torn Cambodia, to a new life in the United States. My family’s daily survival depended on finding the next drop of water, the next grain of rice. One third of the population of Cambodia perished in the killing fields and concentration camps under the Khmer Rouge. Against these incredible odds, my family survived. Beautiful Hero is the story of my mother, who sacrificed some fundamental part of herself to save her children, of children who both survived and suffered from that sacrifice, and of my father, ill-equipped to protect us children from this atrocity but his belief in goodness helped to keep hope alive in us.
Since publishing the book, I’ve been engaged to speak, particularly in high schools and universities, on topics related to Cambodia Genocide or Modern Genocide as a part of students’ curriculum to enhance their perspective and understanding of how easily a country can spiral into chaos. I don’t find public speaking particularly easy, but I’m on a mission to share my experience so the world can learn a thing or two about the past.
Having been deprived early on of education, I contribute both time and money to my immediate and extended communities to combat illiteracy. I’m a board member of the Savong Cambodia Foundation, which sponsors tuitions and, when necessary, provides food and accommodation to eligible students so they may attend a private school with the aim of completing a university education. I also serve on the board of United World Schools, whose mission is to build schools and ensure access to quality education in under-developed areas of the world.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.toppandlau.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JenniferHLau/
- Twitter: jenniferhlau
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/topp-and-lau-an-accountancy-corporation
- Other: https://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Hero-Survived-Khmer-Rouge/dp/0998079898/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2UMCQ3JD9TV8C&keywords=beautiful+hero+how+we+survived+the+khmer+rouge&qid=1664487950&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIwLjY5IiwicXNhIjoiMC41MiIsInFzcCI6IjAuNjUifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=beautiful+hero%2Caps%2C129&sr=8-1
Image Credits
Book Cover – by Palaparthi Head shot- by Cathleen McGrath
