Cambodia's Magic Toddler Is Healing the Sickly Masses

Kong Keng and his mother Phat Soen taking their afternoon nap.

Two-year-old Kong Keng opened his eyes and furrowed his brow. He looked scared and confused by the crowd of ailing people crammed into the single room of his wooden home. Outside, a crippled mass waited—hundreds of people in wheelchairs, laid on stretchers, eaten away by diseases. Phat Soen, the boy's 21-year-old mother, placed a row of eucalyptus balm bottles in front of him and guided his hand onto each one; his touch supposedly imbued them with a potent healing power. Cambodia's youngest healer began his afternoon shift.

The Cambodian toddler's healing career started with what locals were calling a miracle. "The miracle happened to my brother," said Sung Bahn, the boy’s uncle. "He was paralyzed from the waist down after a motorcycle accident. Doctors couldn’t cure him and neither could the Kru Khmers [traditional Cambodian healers]. He went to visit his nephew and the boy asked him, 'What’s the matter?' The man told him that he couldn’t walk, so the boy found some leaves to make into a tea for the old man to drink. He drank the tea, got up, and began walking perfectly."

News of the boy’s power spread, and two weeks later—at the end of last month—the story was featured in national papers. "Twenty thousand people have come here in the last month hoping to be cured," said Sou Hen, the village chief. "Over 1,000 people have received effective treatment from the magic boy so far. I have seen people who were dumb speak, and others who were paralyzed get up and walk."

The view from inside Kong Keng's family home.

Since the magic toddler became national news, his rural village—Knor, in the Kampong Cham Province of Cambodia—has become a fairground of food vendors selling snacks of snails, salted mango, and monkey nuts. The scent of barbecued chicken and incense fills the air, and loudspeakers crackle with regular updates: "The magic boy is sleeping, so please keep quiet so he doesn’t get angry," or, "The boy is with his mother collecting magic herbs and will return in two hours."

Kong Keng's cousin, Choeun Sovannak, sat on the steps of his house, handing down sheaves of leaves and twigs to grateful pilgrims. The leaves had been identified by the boy for their healing powers, and a crowd of around 200 waited their turn to get their hands on a sheaf while massive pots of incense sent plumes of smoke over their heads.

"I came here this morning with the district governor," said Hean Tuk, from Kampong Cham Province. "His children have been sick and he wants the magic leaves to cure them. Most people have to wait, but he got some right away because he is the governor. Now he is waiting to see the boy personally."

Ordinary people have to wait two days to get leaves, and longer if they want to see the boy himself. Bok Saray from Prey Chhor District told me she had been waiting for five days: "I want the boy to cure my eyes," she said. "I have been to the doctor for many operations, but they are still failing. I’m very poor and I’m scared of not being able to work."

Lin Bon Ton

Bok is just one of hundreds who are camping in and around the village. I met Lin Bon Ton from Kampong Cham Province at his makeshift campsite—a couple of bamboo mats laid out beneath a sheet of tarpaulin. His daughter was sitting with her shrivelled legs folded beneath her, his son confined to a rough wooden wheelchair. "I’ve been waiting for nine days," he said. "I have taken my children to hospital, but the doctors couldn't cure them. Handicapped International gave us wheelchairs, but we’re still helpless. If my children can meet the boy I hope he can make both of them walk again."

The idea of Lin Bon Ton’s children miraculously standing up and walking is easy to dismiss as mere superstition, but such beliefs are part of a complex religious framework in Cambodia. "Cambodian religion believes that spirits can possess people," said Dr Jonathan HX Lee, Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University. "Illness is experienced as being possessed by a spirit, and that’s why therapy would require some kind of religious ritual."

Eucalyptus oil ready to be blessed.

Kong Keng's pilgrims all believe that the magic boy acts as a medium for an elemental spirit with healing powers. "Cambodian people believe that everything in nature has a spirit," said Keo Vichith, who is writing a book about Cambodian traditional beliefs. "These spirits can come to people in dreams and teach them healing techniques or possess them to perform healings."

Cambodian religion is a hodgepodge of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Animism. One way to understand it is to imagine visiting a western country during Christmas and knowing nothing about the culture, walking away in the belief that the holiday is based on a similarly baffling mix of Christianity, folk beliefs, and consumerism.

Bahn Kong

"I don’t know why my boy is magic, he just is," said Bahn Kong, the boy’s father—a shy man who looks younger than his 25 years. "The child cured his uncle, the news spread and now thousands have come. We give the magic leaves away free of charge, but to get on the waiting list people have to donate $1 to local Buddhist temples. Supplies are limited and sometimes they have to wait a few days."

If people want access to the boy himself, it'll cost them more. "If they want to see the boy personally, we charge them $2 or $3," said Bahn Kong. That fee is a tidy amount in a country where the average wage is $3 a day. "I'm a rice farmer, so my annual income is $1,000, but the people here have paid my family $2,500 in the last month," he said. "Some people say we are lying to get money, but that is their belief, not mine."

Kong Keng

To get into the magic boy's house, I had to bribe the village chief with $5. Inside, the single room was packed. The district governor sat alongside a blind monk who told me that he believed the boy would make him see again. The boy and his mother were taking their afternoon nap on a wooden bed. We all sat and waited.

Kong Keng woke up and Phat Soen, the boy’s mother, clearly tired, refused to speak to me at first. After some cajoling from her mother, she agreed to a brief interview. "My son and I are tired and don’t get enough sleep, because the people are noisy and demanding," she said. "Every day we go to the forest and my son points out which leaves are magic and we collect them. When someone wants a personal blessing they make an offering and the boy blesses them with a touch, or by breathing on them. He also blesses jars of eucalyptus oil that people can put on their ailments."

I asked Phat Soen what she plans on doing with all the money. "We will make offerings at every temple in the district and install modern toilets and a clean water pump in our village," she said. And what about the accusations of fraud? "If people believe I am lying," she answered, "that’s their problem."

The story of a poor farmer and his wife earning nearly triple their annual income in a month by selling access to their magic boy is bound to raise a few eyebrows, but among certain groups in Cambodia it’s not seen as unusual. "We are dealing with a religious phenomenon," said Dr Lee. "Religions the world over make a lot of money, so why should this be any different?"

I didn’t see any miracles personally, but it was clear that the transactions between the boy and the people weren't limited to just physical healings. "The main thing these people are getting is hope," said Dr Lee. "If the pilgrim believes the magic boy is going to cure them, then it could create a significant placebo effect."

I also saw the boy serving a palliative care role, bringing comfort to the dying, and allowing relatives to feel like they have done everything they can to help their loved ones.

Cambodia’s magic boy, whether he can heal the sick or not, is the result of an energetic religious faith. And in a world where spirits hold the reins of reality, people like Kong Keng are just what believers need to keep on believing.

@NathanWrites

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