First They Killed My Father_ A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers - Loung Ung [114]
We live in Saigon for two months with Eang’s mother and father in their small one-bedroom apartment. Meng, Eang, and I sleep in the attic. Eang’s sisters live in their own place in the city. With no job, Meng and I live off of the generosity of Eang’s family. Eang and her parents speak fluent Vietnamese because they lived in a Vietnamese community in Phnom Penh. They are now able to meet people, go shopping, and not be so isolated. Eang’s family is very nice to us. Unlike Meng and me, they are raucous and laugh loudly when they eat, and especially when they drink alcohol. Meng and I do not speak Vietnamese, so spend our days watching people, and trying to learn the language.
A week after we get there, Eang tells me we are going to the salon to get our hair permed. It has been many months since Aunt Keang in Krang Truop cut my hair. Sharing a cyclo with her, we weave around the city as the driver maneuvers us through the traffic. I laugh and point out to Eang the neon signs and billboards of movies, and giggle in anticipation of having my first professional haircut in many years.
Finally the cyclo stops in front of a salon. While Eang pays the driver, I stare at the poster-sized pictures of beautiful women and men with curly brown hair, straight jet-black hair, short wavy hair, and hair piled high in a braided bun on top of their heads. Inside, the walls are covered with mirrors and more pictures of beautiful people. Vietnamese music plays continuously on the radio as women snip and clip at their customers’ hair. One woman seats me in a chair and proceeds to put my hair in small rollers. Then she pours acidic-smelling lotion onto my hair. After twenty minutes, she removes the rollers and leaves me with a head full of small ringlets instead of my old straight hair. Staring at myself in the mirror, I laugh and pull at the curls, thinking they are beautiful. That night I sleep on my stomach, afraid to crush the curls, and I dream about Keav.
In the evening, I sit on Meng’s lap as he reads and translates to me stories about America from an English book he bought in a nearby store. He describes how snow falls in flakes covering the land in a white, soft blanket. I cannot envision snow because the only two kinds of ice I have ever seen are either the blocks we use to cool our meat or the crushed ice we use for snow cones. He says it is more like the ice for snow cones but softer. I see myself making snow cones and getting rich selling them to American children. Then I can help send money home too. Meng tells me I should call the Youns by their proper name, Vietnamese. He says Youn is a derogatory name and since we are living in Vietnam, we should not use it. In Saigon, Meng’s face grows fuller each day from the spring rolls and soups that Eang makes. My body is also filling out my clothes everywhere, though my stomach is still bigger than my hips.
In December, Meng tells me we will relocate to Long Deang to live on a houseboat with one of Eang’s sisters and her family in the lower end of the Mekong Delta. When we arrive at the port, Eang’s sister picks us up in a small boat to take us to our new home. On the water, there appears to be a city of houseboats with many hundreds of them docked closely together. Some are forty feet long with two levels, sturdy wooden walls, brightly painted roofs, and strands of colorful beads hanging over the doors. Others look like makeshift cloth tents or small thatched-roof huts floating on the water. Out on the decks, women cook food in clay ovens and converse loudly with their neighbors. Little children sit on the