MR. HEARN ON
BORN IN 1957 IN BATTAMBANG,LIVES IN SOUTH AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND.

Hearn On was born into a family of musicians. His father had known how to play the Chapey Dong Veng and his uncle had his own band of wedding musicians and a group performing Lakhon Bassac (a type of Cambodian opera) before the Khmer Rouge regime. When he was a little boy looking after cows in the field near his village, he used a spade as a pretend Chapey Dong Veng to play and sing for his childhood mates. By 1972, he had learnt how to play Chapey Dong Veng and would sometimes accompany his family band to play in villages. During the Khmer Rouge regime, he worked in a mobile unit planting tobacco. He also played the Chapey Dong Veng and sang to soldiers of the regime. In 1978, there was a fight between Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge soldiers in the night, and the soldiers forced people to go with them to the mountain, Phnom Toch. During this time of unrest, while running, Hearn On lost all of his musical instruments.

Early in1979,Hearn On fled to Sras Keo camp on the Thai-Cambodian border. On the way, a lot of people died from exhaustion, starvation, or because they had caught malaria. His father passed away there as well. At the camp there was enough food to live on and less work to do, so love started to blossom again among young people. They started wanting to get married. Because of this Hearn On was able to form his own wedding music band. On any given day there could be five to ten couples getting married, but the ceremonies had to be completed quickly because the Khmer Rouge soldiers, who were also
in the camp, did not allow people to get married. For each couple he played for, he earned 15 Thai Baht (equivalent to 75 cents today). Hearn On remembers very well that at the camp he used firewood and milk cans to make stringed fiddles or bowed lutes as well as discarded negative films to cover buckets and make drums.

In 1992, Hearn On and his family were accepted for resettlement in Auckland, and he brought along his musical instruments. Upon arrival at airport customs, all of his instruments had
to undergo long checks as some were made of snake skin. Hearn On said, “As refugees, we felt like animals. We didn’t know any of the rules of our new lands.” In New Zealand, he and his son made two Chapey Dong Veng. His favourite musical instrument is the Chapey Dong Veng because every time he plays it, he remembers his lost, beloved father.