Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites With the Sister She Left Behind

by Loung Ung

  “Are his cakes good?” Chou asks.

  “They’re delicious!” I exclaim, my mouth watering. “When I visit, he always makes me my favorite, these great cream-filled cakes the French call éclairs. Mmmm.” I smack my lips, rub my belly, and make Chou and Morm laugh.

  “Come over for dinner tonight. We’ll feed you your favorite Khmer food,” Morm tells me. By now, everyone knows I love to eat but do not know how to cook. In Vermont, Eang even calls in advance before my visits to work out a menu so that she can be sure to prepare all my dishes during my stay.

  “All right. We’ll be here for dinner,” I agree quickly.

  “Second Sister-in-Law,” Chou laughs, “Loung will never learn to cook if we all keep on cooking for her!”

  From Khouy’s house, Chou and I walk next door to visit Amah, who at ninety-four is no longer able to walk or move unassisted. However, in my prior visits, I got to spend time with this wonderful woman who asked me only for great-grandchildren and a good bottle of Hennessey. I laughed and delivered only the Hennessey, and she told me in all seriousness that a shot a day kept her blood warm and moving, thus giving her long life. Before a stroke last year caused her mind to digress, she was our living history for four generations of the Ung family.

  “Amah,” I call her and sit by her. Lying on her bed, she reaches out for my hand.

  “Ay Chourng,” she calls me by Ma’s name, her eyes squinting and squeezing out tears. “You look good. You have been gone such a long time.”

  As I stroke her bony, wrinkled hand, Amah tells me about her life, the family, and her aches and pains as if I’m Ma. When she’s exhausted herself with words, I leave her sleeping and dreaming of Ma.

  Chou and I cross the road from Amah’s house to visit Uncle Leang and Aunt Keang. With their children grown and able to take care of themselves, Aunt Keang finds joy in being a grandmother to her many grandchildren while Uncle Leang spends his time turning the land in back of his house into a lush garden. After Uncle Leang shows me his flowers, chili pepper bushes, cane sugar stalks, guava, papaya, coconut, palm, pomegranates, and mango trees that are all heavy with fruits, we join Chou and Aunt Keang on their concrete chairs around a table in the shade.

  “Your land is beautiful like the jungle,” I tell him. Then I realize that jungle was probably not what he was trying to create, and add, “I mean a beautiful garden.” When I share with him that I’m writing another book about Chou, me, and Cambodia, he nods his head in approval.

  “The young children, they don’t know,” he says, and pauses. “And it is too hard for us to tell them. The little ones, it is good they read your book.” Even though my book is published in Khmer now, I know Uncle Leang, Chou, Meng, Kim, and the adults in the family found it too painful and therefore have only read sections of it. But many of my nieces, nephews, and cousins have read it, and then gathered together to discuss it.

  “Did you know the book was read over the radio?” Aunt Keang asks.

  “Yes,” I reply. I’d given permission for two Khmer daily newspapers to serialize the whole book, and for it to be broadcast.

  “Many friends told us they cried from beginning to finish,” Aunt Keang reports.

  “I still think about your ma and pa,” Uncle Keang says somberly. “I loved them very much. They were very good people.” Then he looks up at Chou and me and continues. “That’s why they had such good kids.”

  As Aunt Keang brings out our lunch of rice and stir-fried vegetables, Chou cuts up ripe mangos and a papaya from Uncle Leang’s garden for our dessert. While we eat, I fill them in about Meng and his family.

  In 1997, Meng and his family moved into their newly built four-bedroom, three bathroom, beautifully furnished dream home. After many years at IBM, Meng and Eang now work the day shift, which over the past few years has left their evenings free to watch cheerleading captain Tori at her games and to take Maria out to dinner for making the National Honor Society. Now Maria has graduated from Saint Michael’s College and is a chemistry teacher in another town, and Tori is off in college studying to be an architect. Meng and Eang are planning their retirement, which they hope to spend splitting their time between Cambodia and America. Until then, Meng continues to watch the many hours of videotapes I’ve made for him of Cambodia over my twenty or so trips back.

  We are finishing up with our lunch when Chou suddenly says, “I would love to see America and your home one day.” Her voice is soft and wistful. “I’m very happy here in Cambodia. I love it here and would never think to leave it and my family, but I would love to see where you live.”

  While Kim, Meng, and I have visited them many times, none of my Cambodian family has ever been to America to see us. Through the years, they haven’t been able to make the trip—first for political reasons, then it was the poor economy, their small children, the Asian market crisis, 9/11, and SARS. Now, however, their children are old enough to care for themselves, Cambodia’s political situation is stable, and the planes are flying. Meng’s next big dream is to bring Khouy and Chou to America for a visit.

  “Eldest Brother and I would love to show you around America someday,” I assure her.

  “Meng,” says Aunt Keang. “He’s very kind and gentle like your pa.”

  The four of us lounge on the outdoor plank bed under the cool shade, talking and eating fruit off Uncle Leang’s trees until the sun lowers itself in the sky. When Pheng arrives, he finds us lying on the bed in a state of food coma, letting our stomachs do all the hard work of digesting our food.

  “Pheng, it’s late afternoon,” Chou calls. “Let’s take Loung to look at her land!”

  And together we’re off again, with me straddling the back of the bike, while Chou sits sideways next to her husband. Five minutes out of the village, we arrive at the 2.5 acres of green, flat land I just bought last year, after Pheng informed me it had been de-mined.

  “It’s beautiful,” I tell Chou, staring at my green grass, thick shrubs, and prickly bushes.

  “When you build your house here, we’ll only be a few minutes’ motorbike ride from each other,” she smiles and leads me deeper into the field. “And here is your own water well already.” She points to a crumbling ring of gray concrete sticking two feet out of the ground. My first thought is that the well wall is too low.

  “Someone can easily fall in,” I say to her.

  “Not in Cambodia,” she laughs. “Here we are careful about everything.”

  I stand at the edge of the well and stare down into the black hole, briefly expecting to see a dead body floating in the water and smell decaying flesh up my nose. But there is no ghost in my well.

  “The well is deep,” Chou states. “The water is very clear and tastes good.”

  I nod to her.

  “Your water is right here so you don’t have to go to the pond. All you need is a pail and a rope and you have all the water you need for your house!” Chou tells me excitedly.

  I smile and say nothing, but think to myself, When I build my house here, I’m covering up the well and putting in a pump and a flushing toilet.

  “It’s not only beautiful land but very rich earth,” Chou informs me. “Anything will grow on it!”

  I turn from the well to survey my land. In the dusky sunlight, the long grass looks like it’s been colored with a green Crayola crayon, and moves like waves in the breeze. Hand in hand, Chou and I walk on my very own little piece of Cambodia, and in my mind I envision a jungle garden like Uncle Leang’s shading my future small wooden house.

  When we arrive back at Khouy’s house, I find him in the kitchen, one hand on his hip, the other holding a ladle to his lips.

  “Second Brother.” I greet him. “What smells so good?”

  “Sour fish soup with morning glory vegetables,” he replies.

  “Mmm, my favorite!” I exclaim as Khouy smiles knowingly. As the man of the house, and a deputy police chief, Khouy rarely makes their meals, yet he is a surprisingly good cook. And when I’m in town, fo
r a few nights he can be found in the kitchen making his special soups for me.

  Over dinner, I slurp down Khouy’s soup noisily while little black bugs fly into the strips of clear tape hanging below a long fluorescent tube. Between mouthfuls, I answer questions about my college sweetheart, Mark, whom I married in 2002 after many years of friendship and courtship. When we came together to Cambodia for our honeymoon, the family accepted him as one of their own. By the time we finish dinner, the tape strips are black with bugs.

  After dinner, I return to Chou’s and to her comfortable bed. As I drift off to sleep, I travel back to 1998—the year of the Ung siblings’ big family reunion in Bat Deng. That summer, while the rest of the world focused on Pol Pot’s death, Kim flew in from France while Meng and I came in from America to meet Chou and Khouy. With all the siblings together for the first time in eighteen years, we organized a big Buddhist ceremony to honor Pa, Ma, Keav, and Geak. On that day, over five hundred relatives and friends old and new came to our gathering from the surrounding villages. In between the loud Chinese and Cambodian ceremonial music, Ma’s childhood friends told me how she loved to ride bikes and an old friend of Pa’s laughed about Pa’s love of eating stir-fried clams and day-old rice.

  When it came time for all the siblings to pray to them, I kneeled in front of Ma and Pa’s picture. With three burning incense sticks pressed between my palms, I raised my hands to my forehead. I stared into their faces, thinking there was so much I wanted to tell them. While the monks chanted and blessed me with holy water with a flick of their wet fingers, my eyes stung and my chest swelled. To Ma, I wanted to beg forgiveness for thinking she was weak and for being angry that she’d sent me away. To Pa, I wanted to thank him for not abandoning us, even though it might have meant his survival. I wanted to tell them that even though I’d witnessed the worst of man’s inhumanity to man, in my family and my life experiences I’d also seen the very best of man’s humanity to man.

  To Keav and Geak, I wanted them to know that sisters are forever. I touched my hands to my forehead three times and bowed once to the Buddha for wisdom, to Dhamma for truth, and finally to Sangha for virtue. But in my silent prayers, I told my lost family only that I loved them and missed them. Suddenly Chou was praying beside me. As I stood up and placed the incense into the bowl, I looked at Chou and she smiled at me reassuringly, just as she still does every time our eyes meet. Then she rose, took my hand, and we walked together back into the crowd.

  Resources and

  Suggested Reading

  To learn more about the Khmer Rouge genocide contact:

  Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam)

  70 E Preah Sihanouk Blvd.

  P.O. Box 1110

  Phnom Penh, Cambodia www.dccam.org

  Email: dccam@online.com.kh

  To inquire about speaking engagements for Loung Ung contact:

  Creative Well Inc.

  P.O. Box 3130

  Memorial Station

  Upper Monclair, NJ 07043

  E-mail: info@creativewell.com

  Tel. 1-800-743-9182 www.creativewell.com

  For updated information about the Ung family, Max Bakery, or Loung’s scheduled appearances and work with other charitable organizations:

  www.loungung.com

  For information on the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation’s Campaign for a Landmine Free World, contact:

  WAF

  1725 I Street, NW

  4th Floor

  Washington, DC 20009

  Tel. 202-483-9222 www.waf.org

  Suggested Reading

  Becker, Elizabeth. When the War Was over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution. New York: Public Affairs, 1998.

  Chanda, Nayan. Brother Enemy: The War After the War. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988.

  Chandler, David P. Brother Number One: A Political Biography. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1999.

  Dith Pran, ed. Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999.

  Gottesman, Evan. Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge: Inside the Politics of Nation Building. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004.

  Haing Ngor and Roger Warner. Survival in the Killing Fields. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2003.

  Kamm, Henry. Cambodia: Report from a Stricken Land. New York: Arcade Books, 1999.

  Kiernan, Ben. How Pol Pot Came to Power. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004.

  McCurry Steve. Sanctuary: The Temples of Angkor. New York: Phaidon Press, 2002.

  May, Sharon, and Frank Stewart, eds. In the Shadow of Angkor: Contemporary Writing from Cambodia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004.

  Shawcross, William. Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia. New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 2002.

  Swain, John. River of Time. New York: Berkley Publishing Group, 1999.

  Wagner, Carol. Soul Survivors: Stories of Women and Children in Cambodia. Berkeley, Calif: Creative Arts Book Company, 2002.

  Acknowledgments

  To Bobby Muller, my boss, mentor, and friend; Bruce Springsteen’s description of you is right on—you are a “cool rocking daddy!” To my hero, Senator Patrick Leahy, thank you for making this world a better place for all of us. Mark Perry, you are a great teacher. Tim Rieser, you are a true prince. And, Emmylou Harris—who not only sings like an angel but has a heart of one—thank you for all your support with WAF.

  To my wonderful agent, Gail Ross, at Gail Ross Literary Agency, my fantastic editor, Gail Winston, at HarperCollins, and the talented Christine Walsh and always cool Katherine Hill, thank you for all your support and encouragement. To the super team of George Greenfield and Beth Quitman at Creativewell, Inc., thank you for helping me to spread the word about the Khmer Rouge. Finally, my deep gratitude to the absolutely fabulous Jenna Free—my reader, teacher, and cheerleader. There would be no Lucky Child without you all.

  I am also blessed to have so many amazing people in my life both in Cambodia and America, without whom I would not be who I am today. A special thank-you to Lynn and Gordon, for giving life to such wonderful people. My love to all of the Priemers because there is no bad apple in the bunch. To the Costellos, the Lucentis, the Willises, the Aleiskys, the Bunkers, Beverly Knapp, Ellis Severence, and all my friends and teachers in Vermont—all of you helped to heal the hate and hurt out of this war child. To my friends Nicole Bagley, Wendy Appel, Michael Appel, Roberta Baskin, Joanne Moore, Tom Wright, Ly Carbonneau, Beth Poole, Rachel Snyder, Colleen Lanzaretta, Carol Butler, Erin McClintic, Chivy Sok, Kelly Cullins, John Shore, Noel Salwan, Sam McNulty, Paul Heald, Ken Asin, Mike Thornton, Lynn Smith, Jeannie Boone, Jess and Sheri Kraus, Chet Atkins, Terry and Jo-Harvey Allen, Bob Stiller, Youk Chhang, Heidi Randall, and many others—you all inspire me to be a better person. To Maria and Tori, I love you infinity. And most of all to my husband, Mark—I’m a happier person because you’ve kept me laughing all these years.

  To the wonderful communities at Saint Michael’s College and Essex Junction, Vermont—a place where the beauty of the foliage is matched only by the kindness of the people.

  Photographic Insert

  P.S.

  Insights, Interviews & More…

  About the author

  Meet Loung Ung

  About the book

  Loung Ung on the Inspiration for Lucky Child

  Read on

  “A Birthday Wrapped in Cambodian History”

  Food, Good Food! Loung Ung’s Favorite Restaurants

  Have You Read? More by Loung Ung

  About the Author

  Meet Loung Ung

  “In 1980 [Loung] and her older brother escaped by boat to Thailand.”

  LOUNG UNG is a survivor of the killing fields of Cambodia—one of the bloodiest episodes of the twentieth century. Some two million Cambodians (out of a population of just seven million) died at the hands of the infamous Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge regime.

  Born i
n 1970 to a middle-class family in Phnom Penh, Loung was only five years old when her family was forced out of the city in a mass evacuation to the countryside. By 1978 the Khmer Rouge had killed Loung’s parents and two of her siblings and she was forced to train as a child soldier. In 1980 she and her older brother escaped by boat to Thailand, where they spent five months in a refugee camp. They then relocated to Vermont through sponsorship by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Holy Family Church parish in Burlington.

  “The first English book I remember loving,” she says, “was Froggy Went a-Cour tin. I can still hear the music in my head. I love the humor and silliness of it all.”

  Her employment history reaches back to a local shoe store, where she sold shoes and “developed an intense dislike for smelly feet and socks.” After college, she waited tables for two weeks. (“I was fired when the management team found out I was dyslexic with numbers”)

  In 1995 Loung returned to Cambodia for a memorial service for the victims of the Khmer Rouge genocide and was shocked and saddened to learn that twenty of her relatives had been killed under the Pol Pot regime. This realization compelled her to devote herself to justice and reconciliation in her homeland. Upon learning about the destruction caused by residual land mines in the Cambodian countryside, Loung also set about publicizing the dangers of these indiscriminate weapons (which number in the millions).

  Her memoir First They Killed My Father: a Daughter of Cambodia Remembers became a national bestseller and won the 2001 Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association award for “Excellence in Adult Non-fiction Literature.” The book has been published in eleven countries and has been translated into German, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, French, Spanish, Italian, Cambodian, and Japanese (and soon will be published in Greek and Hebrew).