“Ma, look!” he calls to her, barely able to contain his glee. “Sugar!”
“Brown sugar!” Ma exclaims, taking the pot away from him. Though I am tired, those two words bring me running in the direction of the pot.
“Brown sugar!” I repeat quietly. I never knew how two little words could bring me so much happiness. “Ma, let me have a taste! There’s almost a quarter of a pot of it!”
“Shh. Don’t say it so loud,” Keav warns me, “or people will come and beg us for some.” I notice a few of our neighbors look in our direction.
“Here everyone, have a small taste. We have to save some,” Ma says as we gather around her. My siblings stick their fingers into the sugar and lick what they are able to pull out.
“Me … me … me …” I beg Ma as she slowly lowers the pot to my level. I know it is my one chance to get as much sugar as I can, so I wait a few seconds to form enough spit in my mouth. Then I put my finger in my mouth and swish the spit around my finger to make sure I wet every millimeter of my finger. When I am satisfied that my finger is wet enough, I take it out of my mouth and slowly roll it around on top of the sugar. My finger rolls so slowly that I can feel the rough grains bonding to it. When I pull it out of the pot, I am happy to see what I have achieved. I have more sugar on my one finger than anyone else does! Carefully, I place my other hand under my treasure to catch any grains that might fall from my finger. Slowly, I walk my finger back to my spot on the mat and begin to eat each grain of the sugar.
After dinner, Ma takes us girls to a nearby pond, which is already crowded with people washing their clothes and naked children, tentatively putting their heads under the muddy water. The children all look too tired to bop up and down, laugh, or splash at one another. Ma instructs us to strip off our clothes. I remove my brown shirt, a shirt that was yellow when I hurriedly dressed six days ago. Naked, Chou, Geak, and I wait while Ma removes her clothes from under her sarong and hands them over to Keav. With no soap, Keav takes the clothes to the edge of the river and scrubs them against the rocks to get them clean.
With Geak balanced on one of her hips, Ma takes my hand and walks Chou and I into the pond for our first wash in six days. Hand in hand, we stop when the water reaches my waist. The water feels cool and soft on my skin, slowly peeling away the layers of grime that has collected. The slippery grass in the water sways back and forth to the rhythm of our movements, gently brushing against my legs. Some of the blades slither around my ankles, sending chills up and down my spine. I jump and fall into the water, pulling Chou with me, who is still holding on tight to Ma’s hand. When I resurface, they are all laughing at me. I am happy to have all of us laughing together again.
In the morning, Ma wakes everyone and we get ready for our seventh day of walking. The road ahead of us shimmers in the heat, and the dust swells are everywhere, burning my eyes. In the distance, my eyes focus on a lone bicyclist. I cannot tell how tall he is, only that he is very thin. It is strange that he is traveling against the flow of traffic. All of a sudden, I am startled by Ma’s scream. Between loud, halting sobs Ma manages to say, “It’s your uncle Leang!”
With our hands in the air and bodies jumping up and down, we wave excitedly to our uncle. Uncle Leang waves one hand back and peddles his bike faster in our direction. He comes to a stop a few feet from us, and all at once we rush toward him. Blinking his eyes, he takes Ma into his arms with Pa standing quietly beside them. All the worries and fears of the past few days are now over, for at last he has found his sister. Uncle Leang hands Ma a package from his front bike rack, and while she opens the cans of tuna and other food he tells Pa that this morning other people from Phnom Penh arrived in his village. The new arrivals told him of the evacuation and how the Khmer Rouge forced everyone to leave all the cities, including Phnom Penh, Battambang, and Siem Reap. Hearing this, he got on his bike and has been looking for us all morning. He then shares with us the glorious news that Ma’s oldest brother Heang is on his way to pick us up in a wagon. A smile of joy crosses over my face, knowing I will not have to walk anymore and that in a few days we can ride in their wagon home.
Standing next to Uncle Leang, I have to tilt my head back as far as I can to see his face because he is so tall. Even then all I can see is the shape of his thin lips and wide, black nostrils that flare once every few seconds as he talks to Ma. At almost six feet tall, second Uncle Kim Leang hovers above all of us. His long thin arms and legs make him look like the stick figures I used to draw on my schoolbooks. Uncle Leang lives in a village called Krang Truop. Both Uncle Leang and Uncle Heang have lived in the countryside since before the revolution and have never lived in a city. The Khmer Rouge considers them uncorrupted model citizens for their new society. Pa says we will go and live with our uncles in their village.
The wagon, pulled by two yellow skinny cows moving very slowly, arrives later that evening. While Pa and Ma talk to my uncle, I quickly claim a seat in the wagon with Chou and Geak. Our trail takes us on a gravel road along Route 26 westward until we reach the Khmer Rouge-occupied village of Bat Deng. No matter where we go or in which direction we turn, there are people marching ahead and behind us. In the midst of the crowd, our wagon passes the Khmer Rouge village without stopping. We veer westward, leaving our roadside companions far behind. Somewhere between Bat Deng and Krang Truop, I fall asleep.
krang truop
April 1975
On the morning of April 25, eight days after leaving our wonderful home in Phnom Penh, we arrive at our destination. Krang Truop is a small and dusty village surrounded by rice fields as far as the eye can see. All around the rice paddies, little red-dirt roads wind like snakes slithering through water. In the fields, gray buffalos and brown cows graze lazily on the grass. Many have bells tied on strings around their necks, which chime when the animals slowly move their heads. When they run, they remind me of the sound of the ice cream cart in Phnom Penh. Here, instead of concrete city buildings and houses, people live in huts made out of straw that squat on four stilts above elephant grass in the middle of rice paddies.
“The kids are even messier than I am!” I exclaim, as one runs across our path, oblivious to my own ragtag appearance. “Ma’s always complaining about me—just look at them.” The children are red and dusty all over, crimson earth clinging to their clothing, skin, and hair.
Chou frowns at me and shakes her head. Though she is only three years older than I am, Chou often acts as if she knows many more things than I do. I have the larger build and can beat her up easily, though I rarely do it. Because she is shy, quiet, obedient, and doesn’t say much, all our older siblings assume what she chooses to say is of some importance and usually take her side in our fights. Because I am loud and talkative, my words are thought trite and silly. Chou looks at me now with her brows wrinkling close together, as if trying to figure out my thoughts. I stick my tongue out at her. I don’t care. I am thrilled to be here and able to return home in a few days.
After a joyous reunion with my aunts and many cousins, Pa disappears with Uncle Leang to meet with the village chief and request permission to live here. Uncle Leang and Uncle Heang say that since the Khmer Rouge have won the war, the soldiers removed the old village chief and replaced him with a Khmer Rouge cadre. Now the villagers have to seek permission for the simplest of human desires—to have family members live with them or to leave the village to visit another area.
They return shortly and report that our request is granted. My interest in the town quickly dies when Pa tells us we will all live with Uncle Leang and his family in their house. Uncle Leang and his wife have six children, so with the nine of us it makes seventeen under one thatched roof. Their house would not be called a house by city people’s standards. It looks more like one of those simple huts poor people live in. The roof and walls are made of straw and the hut has only a dirt floor. There are no bedrooms or bathrooms, just one big open room. There is no indoor kitchen, so all the cooking is done outside under a straw roof awning
. Later that night Kim took me aside, scolding me for being snobbish about our new house. Even as a ten-year-old boy he understood how brave our uncle was to beg the new Khmer Rouge village chief to permit us to stay.
“The village is so poor,” I say to Pa as the family gathers on the floor of Uncle Leang’s hut. Sitting on straw mats or wooden stools and chairs, we listen to Pa’s instructions.
“So are we.” The sternness in Pa’s voice makes my face burn with shame. From now on we are as poor as all these people here. We have to live far away from the city where people might recognize me and know who I am. If anybody outside the family asks where we are from, tell them we are country people just like your uncles.”
“Why don’t we want them to know who we are, Pa? Why can’t we go home to our own house? The soldiers promised that we could go home after three days.”
“The Khmer Rouge lied. They have won the war, and we cannot go back. You must stop thinking we can go back. You have to forget Phnom Penh.” Pa has never spoken so bluntly to me before, and slowly the reality of what he says sinks in. My body trembles with fear and disbelief. I am never going home. I will never see Phnom Penh again, drive in our car, ride a cyclo with Ma to the markets, buy food from the carts. All of that is gone. He reaches out and takes me into his arms as my eyes water and my lips tremble.
As Pa continues to talk, I slide out of his arms and into Keav’s. Pa tries to make my brothers understand the history of politics in Cambodia. Led by Prince Sihanouk, Cambodia, then a French colony, became an independent nation in 1953. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Cambodia prospered and was self-sufficient. However, many people were not happy with Prince Sihanouk’s government. Many regarded the Sihanouk government as corrupt and self-serving, where the poor got poorer and the rich became richer. Various nationalistic factions sprang up to demand reforms. One of the groups, a secret Communist faction—the Khmer Rouge—launched an armed struggle against the Cambodian government.
The war in Vietnam spread to Cambodia when the United States bombed Cambodia’s borders to try to destroy the North Vietnamese bases. The bombings destroyed many villages and killed many people, allowing the Khmer Rouge to gain support from the peasants and farmers. In 1970, Prince Sihanouk was overthrown by his top general, Lon Nol. The United States-backed Lon Nol government was corrupt and weak and was easily defeated by the Khmer Rouge.
Pa says many more things to my brothers, but I don’t care much about politics. All I know is that I am supposed to act dumb and never speak of our lives in the city. I can never tell another soul that I miss home, that I want to go back to the way things were. I rest my head on Keav’s shoulder and close my eyes while gritting my teeth. She softly strokes my hair and caresses my cheeks.
“Don’t worry, your big sister will look after you,” she whispers quietly into my hair. Next to her, Ma sits on the mat, holding Geak, who sleeps quietly in her arms. Chou is next to her, focusing on her red-and-white kroma, intently folding and refolding it.
Later in the night, lying on the wooden plank for beds, I keep Chou awake by tossing and turning.
“I hate this. I am so uncomfortable!” I gripe to Chou, who is sleeping next to me. In the city, we three youngest girls slept on mattresses in the same bed. On the farm, the boys get to sleep in hammocks while the girls sleep all lined up like sardines on a rough wooden platform made of bamboo trees. I’d much rather sleep in the hammocks.
“Be quiet and go to sleep.”
“Chou, I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Go then.”
“I’m afraid. Come with me.”
Chou answers by turning her back to me. Every time I have to go, I have to walk into the woods by myself to the outhouse. We have used up our paper money and now have nothing to use for toilet paper. Chou taught me to use leaves, but at night, when I cannot see, I am afraid there might be bugs on them.
Entering the woods at night is a haunting experience, especially for someone with a vivid imagination. In the darkness, I see spirits shaking the trees, letting me know they are waiting for me. They whisper chants and spells that the wind carries through the leaves, back to my ears. The spirits call me to come to them so they can take possession of my body. I am so filled with fear about going to the bathroom alone at night that I force myself to hold it until dawn when I make a mad run into the woods.
I soon realize how early everyone gets up when they are already busy about the farm before the sun rises and long before I awake the next morning. Life on the farm is boring and dull, but at least there is enough to eat. Unlike my life in Phnom Penh, I do not have any friends outside the family. It is hard to make friends because I am afraid to speak, afraid I will blurt out secrets about our family. Pa says the Angkar has abolished markets, schools, and universities, and has banned money, watches, clocks, eight-track players, and televisions.
Since we are now a family of peasants I will have to learn the time of day and night by the position of the sun and moon in the sky. If I run into other children and speak to them, I have to watch what I say and what language I use. I cannot mention the food I wish I could eat, the movies I have seen, or the cyclo I have ridden in. If I speak about them, the children will know we are from the city. I am used to kids seeking my attention and friendship in the city. Here they look at me with suspicion and steer away from me when I approach them. No matter, I have many cousins to play with. On the days I don’t spend watching other people watch us, I help my older cousins bring their cows to the field to graze. I gradually adjust to life on the farm and let go of my dream of returning home.
The first time my cousin Lee Cheun puts me on a cow, I am afraid I will fall off. The cows are much taller than I am. Lee Cheun is sixteen and taller than the cows. She hoists me effortlessly on top of one. Sitting on its back, my legs hang to the middle of its stomach. My hands hold tightly to the rope tied to the ring pierced through its nose while my legs hug its body. Every time the cow moves, its huge rib cage shifts between my legs, and my heels slide over the ribs like fingers over piano keys.
“Relax your body.” Lee Cheun laughs. “Cows are lazy so they move slowly. You will fall if you sit so rigidly.” Following her advice, I stop holding on so hard and sway my upper body with the movement of the cow. After a few minutes, my fear subsides.
How much farther before we stop? It’s hot and my bottom is hurting,” I complain.
“We’re going just over the hill where the grass is greener. You’re the one who wants to come so stop grumbling.” Lee Cheun points to a group of girls walking in a distant field. “Look, at least you don’t have their jobs.”
They are peasant girls, not much older than I am, wandering in the field. They carry bags strapped diagonally across their back and their eyes look at the ground. Occasionally, a girl bends to pick up a round greenish-black patty from the ground and puts it in her bag.
“What are they doing?”
“They are collecting dry cow dung.”
“Disgusting!”
“Usually the peasants come by with their wagons and scoop up the fresh manure to use as topsoil. These girls are picking up the dry manure because it is believed to have medicinal properties. They will boil it in water and drink it like tea.”
“Disgusting!” I exclaim again.
Even the new experience of riding on a cow becomes dull when you do it everyday. Yet despite the monotony of farm life, the longer we live in Krang Truop, the more fearful and anxious I become. Everywhere I venture I cannot shake the feeling that someone is watching, following, me. Though I have nowhere to go, each morning I hurriedly dress myself so I can catch a glimpse of Pa before he goes off to work. On most days, by the time I am awake, Pa and my brothers are already gone and Ma is busy sewing clothes for the family or working in the garden.
After getting dressed I do what I can to keep up my hygiene. Pa tells us it is important, so I try to make him happy. Since we no longer have toothbrushes or toothpaste, I use a handful of hay and run it over
my teeth like a brush. To get to the back teeth, I have to reach into my mouth with my fingernails and scrape away the thick, yellow crust.
To wash, I use a bath stall similar to an outhouse. Inside, there is a big round container that looks like a three-foot-tall clay flowerpot, which Kim and the other cousins fill with water every evening. I undress and hang my clothes on a splinter of wood on the door. Then I reach into the container and take a bowl full of water and pour it over myself. There is no soap or shampoo, and as a result my hair becomes very sticky and knotted, and it is painful to comb.
Pa returns late at night looking dirty and tired. Sometimes, after a quick meal, Pa sits quietly outside by himself and stares at the sky. When he comes back into the hut, he falls quickly asleep. I hardly ever sit on his lap anymore. I miss his hugs and how he used to make me laugh at old Chinese stories. Pa’s tales were often about the Buddhist gods and their dragons coming down to Earth to fight evil and protect people. I wonder if the gods and dragons will come help us now.
waiting station
July 1975
“What’s going on?” I ask Ma, rubbing my eyes. “Why did you wake me up?” I open my eyes to see the sky is still dark but that Uncle Leang, his wife, Aunt Keang, and all the cousins are up. Beside me, Chou rolls up her thin blanket, folds her clothes, and puts them in her pillowcase. Outside, Lee Cheun scoops ladles full of cooked rice and puts it on banana leaves. Keav pokes the crackling fire to cook the dried fish while Kim fills up the petrol container with water.
“Quiet. We have to go.” Ma puts her hand over my mouth.
“I don’t want to go. I don’t want to walk again.” I want to go back to sleep. Though we have been living at Krang Truop for two months and my blistered feet have healed, the thought of more walking makes my ankles throb with pain.