Cambodian internet sensation and his mum contemplate the big time after video goes viral
- Fourteen-year-old who was videoed speaking multiple languages at Angkor temples is on his first trip to the Cambodian capital, to get a passport
- Thuch Salik hopes to travel with his parents to China to appear on a TV show. He says he had no idea tourist was filming him
Thuch Salik is wearing jeans and a pristine white button-up shirt appropriately patterned with outlines of big stars.
Sitting beside a swimming pool in a small, leafy park on the outskirts of the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, Salik, 14, is recognised by passers-by, who ask if they can have their photo taken with him. Even the pool attendant tries to chat with him, in a variety of foreign tongues, and calls out to others that “he’s the boy who speaks 15 languages”.
He was not to be seen hanging around his regular haunt last week, though, when Salik paid his first trip to the country’s capital, where he was invited to impress audiences by showing off his linguistic talents on a national television show.
With his mother and younger brother in tow, it was a busy and productive trip to the big city, where the family acquired passports for their first trip outside the Southeast Asian country – hopefully to China.
Salik’s sudden rise to fame came as a big surprise, he tells the South China Morning Post. He had no idea the tourist was filming him.
