I try to keep this
blog Japan centric, but ever since I started reading “First They Killed My
Father”, by Loung Ung, my mind has been going crazy with images. Most are the
mental projections of the author’s story, but some are my own.
The novel is part memoir, part memorial. It is written by a
survivor of the Cambodian genocide which took place during the 1970’s. Parts of
it brought tears to my eyes, passages made me despair at human nature, and the
final chapters made me realize the importance of resettlement agencies. Reading
the book made me remember the Cambodian students I had worked with while
interning for the International Rescue Committee. Thankfully none of them had
to live through the genocide, but their parents all survived it, and that itself
is shocking to think about.
While studying abroad, I decided to go to Cambodia. I hadn’t
had much interest in it before I started looking at my options of where I could
(cheaply) travel too. Thailand produced lukewarm feelings, but for whatever
reason Cambodia stuck out and I just knew that was where I wanted to go.
At the time of the Khmer Rouge takeover, there were roughly
7 million living in Cambodia. In 5 years time, 2 million were dead. That’s a
significant amount of people just eradicated from existence, often brutally
murdered with hammers, saws, axes and other crude implements so as not to waste
bullets.
I saw the skulls with perfectly round hammer-sized holes in
them. I saw the skulls with hacked axe marks crisscrossing their crowns. I saw
the skulls with shattered orbits and I saw a few skulls with small holes in
their foreheads. These lucky few received bullets.
I walked the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. I saw the pits,
now covered in grass with gently sloping edges. I saw the trees against which
soldiers beat civilians. I tripped once, looked down, and saw that there were
clothes surfacing on the path I was walking. A few feet away, bones wrapped
rags were protruding from the earth. There was so much death in this one small
place that it simply couldn’t all be excavated. Year by year as the rains come
and wash away the soil, more and more bits of victims are seeing the light of
day. It’s impossible not to step on them, so you just have to be careful.
At the risk of sounding like a pretentious “It changed my
life, man” snob, let me state right now that going to Cambodia did not
change my life. I went home, I still went to school, I had a part time job and
life went on.
However, I like to think that it influenced part of my
outlook on life. That life is precious. That without compassion we are nothing.
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| "Enemies" of the new regime |
Despite the sense of sadness that still lingers in the
country, it is nevertheless a beautiful place. The people were some of the
friendliest I have ever met in my travels, and they always had a smile on their
face. They were proud of their heritage, regardless of the dark spots tainting
their history, and looking forward to making Cambodia a better country for
their children.
