First They Killed My Father_ A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers - Loung Ung [40]
“Kim, where are the soldiers taking all the food?” I ask.
“When the Angkar formed armies, there wasn’t enough money to buy guns and supplies for the soldiers. The Angkar had to borrow money from China to buy the guns and weapons. Now it has to pay China back,” Kim explains as he continues to drop the vegetables into our straw basket.
“If China is helping the Angkar and giving them money, why then do the soldiers hate us Chinese so much? The other kids hate me because of my whiter skin. They say I have Chinese blood in me,” I whisper to him. Kim stands up straight and sees that the other children are out of hearing distance from us.
“I don’t know. We should not talk about this. The Angkar hates all foreigners, especially the Youns. Maybe the peasants cannot tell the difference between a Chinese and a Youn, who also have light skin. To someone who’s never left the village, all white-skinned Asians look alike.”
Later that night, Pa tells Kim that the Angkar wants to expel all foreigners. It wants to bring Democratic Kampuchea back to its glorious past. The time when Kampuchea was a large empire with territories encompassing part of Thailand, Laos, and what is now South Vietnam. The Angkar says we can only do this if no one else owns us.
I do not care why or how the Angkar plans to restore Cambodia. All I know is the constant pain of hunger in my stomach.
new year’s
April 1976
It is April again and soon it will be New Year’s. After New Year’s, I will be six years old and am still only as tall as Pa’s hips. Ma is worried that I will stay this height forever. Ma and Pa worry that malnutrition will stunt my growth and I will never grow to be big like them. I have not looked at myself in a mirror since we left the city. Sometimes, I try to see my reflection in a pond, but the water is always dirty. The blurred child staring back at me looks hollow and distorted, not at all like the little girl in Phnom Penh whose neighbors called her “ugly.”
The Khmer Rouge’s Kampuchea does not permit the celebration of the New Year or any other holidays. Still, I dream and relive the New Year’s celebration we had in Phnom Penh. In Cambodia, New Year’s is our biggest and most important holiday. For three days, stores, restaurants, businesses, and schools are closed. There is nothing to do but enjoy the food and festivities. Every day there are parties at friends’ houses. At these gatherings, the host serves roast pig, duck, beef, sweet cakes, and beautiful candies. The part I liked best was when the parents took the children around to their friends Children are not given presents during this holiday. Instead, we are given money—brand-new crisp bills in decorated red paper pouches. Of course, all that no longer matters to me; my thoughts now are focused solely on food.
Dreaming of food makes my stomach growl with pain. I’d give anything now for a tiny piece of moon cake or a leg of roasted duck. My mouth waters at the thought, and a wave of sadness washes over me. I know that no matter how hard I dream, I am only wishing for the impossible. I hope Ma and Pa don’t know what we kids think about all the time. They want us to forget about our past lives and to survive in the present. It is no use thinking about food knowing you will not get any. Still, it is hard to think of anything else. Hunger eats at my sanity.
Many people in the village are risking their lives to steal corn from the nearby fields. I see the way they sneakily eat food, quickly hiding it when they see me walk by. I want to ask them to share some with me, but I know it is useless