Chek Mach was 10 years old when she started her training as an opera singer, and she became Cambodia’s leading female singer, actress, and opera star before the Khmer Rouge came to power. “At that time, I was a rich woman… I had gold and a lot of diamonds," said Chek Mach as she recalled how her life changed under the rule of the Khmer Rouge. "But when Pol Pot took me to the countryside, I had nothing. I survived because I worked in the fields like they told me to."
When Arn Chorn-Pond found her in 1999, Chek Mach and her husband were running a small stand in front of their house near Toul Kork. Cambodian Living Arts (then called the Cambodian Master Performers Program) provided her with a stipend to support her as she taught a new generation of singing masters. In 2003, the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts recognized Master Chek Mach as a Virak Selapakarini (Grand Master of Arts). One of the greatest voices of lakhaon bassac, a kind of Khmer folk opera, Master Chek Mach passed away in 2002.