Many OES students may not know Sopha Hang. The OES counselor says she really enjoys working with and helping people, especially adolescents, and teaching them skills. Sopha, who previously focused on OES dorm students, is herself from another country. She left her native Cambodia at age 11 to escape the Communist regime and came to the United States at 13 to “start a life and get an education”.

Several years ago Sopha returned to Cambodia to visit her family. She described it as a very painful experience. The country was deeply impoverished and “the people . . . had this look on their faces as if it was lifeless. . . . It was helplessness. . . . There was no smile. It was empty.”

“There were not a lot of people going back into the country at that time in comparison to now because people were scared about returning to their own country because of what happened during the Communist regime.”

Last month, however, Sopha returned to a different Cambodia, one that was happy and flourishing. This time, she went with a group of students for Winterim. “It was a blast,” Sopha said, calling the trip “a great adventure.” Sopha loved sharing joy and wonder with five OES students and an OES teacher, saying, “When they were mesmerized by the Temple, I was mesmerized by the Temple. When they were enjoying themselves, I was enjoying myself.”

Sopha added, “It was a privilege to be able to show Cambodia through the eyes of a native, myself, to OES students and Hope Stevens. It was through their journey and experience that I discovered how much more proud [I should be] of the Temple that we have in Cambodia: the twelfth-century Angkor Wat, and what a treasure that is, and what history goes with it.”

Asked whether her experiences in Cambodia as a child affected her desire to be a counselor, Sopha replied, “I think everything in life is related . . . one way or another. I think my experience as a refugee, as a Cambodian native, and as having [grown] up here, and [living] in the United States . . . all of my adult life, has shaped who I am as a counselor.”