As we watch the Barang float on his back in the water, Keav chides Chou for giving me the wrong information. Dipping her freshly painted red toenails in and out of the water, she tells us “Barang” means he’s French. Because the French have been in Cambodia so long, we call all white people “Barang,” but they can be from many other countries, including America.
takeover
April 17, 1975
It is afternoon and I am playing hopscotch with my friends on the street in front of our apartment. Usually on a Thursday I would be in school, but for some reason Pa has kept us all home today. I stop playing when I hear the thunder of engines in the distance. Everyone suddenly stops what they are doing to watch the trucks roar into our city. Minutes later, the mud-covered old trucks heave and bounce as they pass slowly in front of our house. Green, gray, black, these cargo trucks sway back and forth on bald tires, spitting out dirt and engine smoke as they roll on. In the back of the trucks, men wearing faded black long pants and long-sleeve black shirts, with red sashes cinched tightly around their waists and red scarves tied around their foreheads, stand body to body. They raise their fists to the sky and cheer. Most look young and all are thin and dark-skinned, like the peasant workers at our uncle’s farm, with greasy long hair flowing past their shoulders. Long, greasy hair is unacceptable for girls in Cambodia and is a sign that one does not take care of her appearance. Men with long hair are looked down upon and regarded with suspicion. It is believed that men who wear their hair long must have something to hide.
Despite their appearance, the crowd greets their arrival with clapping and cheering. And although all the men are filthy, the expression on their faces is of sheer elation. With long rifles in their arms or strapped across their backs, they smile, laugh, and wave back to the crowds the way the king does when he passes by.
“What’s going on? Who are these people?” my friend asks me.
“I don’t know. I’m going to find Pa. He will know.”
I run up to my apartment to find Pa sitting on our balcony observing the excitement below. Climbing onto his lap I ask him, “Pa, who are those men and why is everybody cheering them?”
“They are soldiers and people are cheering because the war is over,” he replies quietly.
“What do they want?”
“They want us,” Pa says.
“For what?”
“They’re not nice people. Look at their shoes—they wear sandals made from car tires.” At five, I am oblivious to the events of war, yet I know Pa to be brilliant, and therefore he must be right. That he can tell what these soldiers are like merely by looking at their shoes tells me even more about his all-powerful knowledge.
“Pa, why the shoes? Why are they bad?”
“It shows that these people are destroyers of things.”
I do not quite understand what Pa means. I only hope that someday I can be half as smart as he is.
“I don’t understand.”
“That’s all right. Why don’t you go and play; don’t go far and stay out of people’s way.”
Feeling safer after my talk with Pa, I climb off his lap and make my way back downstairs. I always listen to Pa, but this time my curiosity takes over when I see that many more people have gathered in the street. People everywhere are cheering the arrival of these strange men. The barbers have stopped cutting hair and are standing outside with scissors still in their hands. Restaurant owners and patrons have come out of the restaurants to watch and cheer. Along the side streets, groups of boys and girls, some on foot, some on motorcycles yell and honk their horns as others run up to the trucks, slapping and touching the soldiers’ hands. On our block, children jump up and down and wave their arms in the air to greet these strange men. Excited, I cheer and wave at the soldiers even though I don’t know why.
Only after the trucks have passed through my street and the people quiet down do I go home. When I get there, I am confused to find my whole family packing.
“What’s going on? Where’s everybody going?”
“Where have you been? We have to leave the house soon, so hurry, go and eat your lunch!” Ma is running in every direction as she continues to pack up our house. She scurries from the bedroom to the living room, taking pictures of our family and the Buddha off the walls and piles them into her arms.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Don’t argue with me, just go and eat something. It’s going to be a long trip.”
I sense that Ma’s patience is thin today and decide not to press my luck. I sneak into the kitchen prepared not to eat anything. I can always sneak my food out and hide it somewhere until it is found later by one of our helpers. The only thing I am afraid of is my brother Khouy. Sometimes, he waits for me in the kitchen to make me eat proper food—or else. Heading to the kitchen, I poke my head into my bedroom and spy Keav shoving clothes into a brown plastic bag. On the bed, Geak sits quietly playing with a handheld mirror while Chou throws our brushes, combs, and hairpins into her school bag.
As quiet as I can be, I tiptoe into the kitchen and sure enough, there he is. He is feeding himself with his right hand while his left gently touches a slim bamboo stick lying on the kitchen table. Next to the bamboo stick is a bowl of rice and some salted eggs. Most evenings, the younger kids in the house will gather in the kitchen to study Chinese, and a tutor uses the bamboo stick to point out characters on the blackboard. In the hands of my brother, it is used to educate us about something else entirely. I was taught to fear what my brother will do with it if I do not do as I am told.
I give Khouy my most charming smile, but this time it does not work. He sternly tells me to wash up and eat. In moments like these I fantasize about how much I hate him. I cannot wait until I am as strong and as big as he is. Then I will take him on and teach him many lessons. But for now, since I am the smaller one, I have to listen to him. I whine and sigh with every bite of food. Every time he looks elsewhere I stick out my tongue and make faces at him.
After a few minutes, Ma rushes into the kitchen and begins to toss aluminum bowls, plates, spoons, forks, and knives into a big pot. The silverware clangs noisily, making me jittery. Then picking up a cloth bag, she throws bags of sugar, salt, dried fish, uncooked rice, and canned foods into it. In the bathroom, Kim throws soap, shampoo, towels, and other assorted items into a pillowcase.
“Aren’t you finished yet?” she asks me, out of breath.
“No.”
“Well, you better go wash your hands and get into the truck anyway.”
Glad to escape from Khouy, who sits glaring at me, I hurriedly jump off my chair and head for the bathroom.
“Ma, where are we going in such a hurry?” I yell out to her from the bathroom as Kim leaves with his bag.
“You’d better hurry and change your shirt, the one you are wearing is dirty. Then go downstairs and get into the truck,” Ma tells me as she turns away without answering. I believe it is because of my age that no one ever pays any attention to me. It is always so frustrating to have your questions unanswered time and time again. Fearing more threats from Khouy, I walk to my bedroom.
The bedroom looks as if a monsoon has passed through it: clothes, barrettes, shoes, socks, belts, and scarves are strewn everywhere—on the bed that Chou and I share as well as on Keav’s bed. Quickly, I change out of my brown jumper and into a yellow short-sleeve shirt and blue shorts I pick up off the floor. Once finished, I walk downstairs to where our car is. Our Mazda is black, sleek, and much more comfortable than riding in the back of our truck. Riding in the Mazda sets us apart from the rest of the population. Along with our other material possessions, our Mazda tells everybody we are from the middle class. Despite what Ma tells me, I decided to head toward our car. I begin to climb into the Mazda when I hear Kim call out to me.
“Don’t get in there. Pa said we’re leaving the Mazda behind.”
“Why? I like it more than the truck.”
Again, Kim is gone before answering my question. Pa bough
t the truck to use for deliveries for the import/export business he had briefly gone into with friends. The business never got going, so the truck has been sitting in our back alley for many months. The old pickup truck creaks and squeaks as Khouy throws a cloth bag onto its floor. In front, Pa ties a large white cloth to the antenna while Meng ties another piece to the side mirrors. Without any words, Khouy picks me up and loads me onto the back of the truck filled with bags of clothes and pots and pans and food. The rest of my siblings climb on board and we drive off.
The streets of Phnom Penh are noisier than ever. Meng, Keav, Kim, Chou, and I sit in the back of the truck while Pa drives with Ma and Geak in the cab. Khouy follows us slowly on his motorcycle. From up on our truck, we hear the booming roars of cars, trucks, and motorcycles, the jarring rings of the cyclos’ bells, the clanking of pots and pans banging against each other, and the cries of people all around us. We are not the only family leaving the city. People pour out of their homes and into the streets, moving very slowly out of Phnom Penh. Like us, some are lucky and ride away in some kind of vehicle; however, many leave on foot, their sandals flapping against the soles of their feet with every step.
Our truck inches on in the streets, allowing us a safe view of the scene. Everywhere, people scream their good-byes to those who choose to stay behind; tears pour from their eyes. Little children cry for their mothers, snot dripping from their noses into their open mouths. Farmers harshly whip their cows and oxen to pull the wagons faster. Women and men carry their belongings in cloth bags on their backs and their heads. They walk with short, brisk steps, yelling for their kids to stay together, to hold each other’s hands, to not get left behind. I squeeze my body closer to Keav as the world moves in hurried confusion from the city.
The soldiers are everywhere. There are so many of them around, yelling into their bullhorns, no longer smiling as I saw them before. Now they shout loud, angry words at us while cradling rifles in their arms. They holler for the people to close their shops, to gather all guns and weapons, to surrender the weapons to them. They scream at families to move faster, to get out of the way, to not talk back. I bury my face into Keav’s chest, my arms tight around her waist, stifling a cry. Chou sits silently on the other side of Keav, her eyes shut. Beside us, Kim and Meng sit stone-faced, watching the commotion below.
“Keav, why are the soldiers so mean to us?” I ask, clinging even more tightly to her.
“Shhh. They are called Khmer Rouge. They are the Communists.”
“What is a Communist?”
“Well, it means. … It’s hard to explain. Ask Pa later,” she whispers.
Keav tells me the soldiers claim to love Cambodia and its people very much. I wonder then why they are this mean if they love us so much. I cheered for them earlier today, but now I am afraid of them.
“Take as little as you can! You will not need your city belongings! You will be able to return in three days! No one can stay here! The city must be clean and empty! The U. S. will bomb the city! The U. S. will bomb the city! Leave and stay in the country for a few days! Leave now!” The soldiers blast these messages repeatedly. I clap my hands over my ears and I hide my face against Keav’s chest, feeling her arms tighten around my small body. The soldiers wave their guns above their heads and fire shots into the air to make sure we all understand their threats are real. After each round of rifle fire, people push and shove one another in a panicked frenzy trying to evacuate the city. I am riddled with fear, but I am lucky my family has a truck in which we can all ride safely from the panicked crowds.
evacuation
April 1975
After many hours, we are finally out of the city and on the road, though still moving very slowly.
“Where are we going?” I ask Kim repeatedly, after it seems like we have been traveling forever.
“I don’t know, we just passed the Po Chentong airport, which means we are on Highway Four. Stop asking me all the time.”
I burrow under my scarf to hide from the sun and resign myself to sulking.
My body sags and I begin to grow tired. My eyelids struggle to stay open against the glaring sunlight and the dust from the road. The wind whips my hair all about, tickling my face, but I do not smile. I wince as the hot, dry air enters my nostrils. Keav wraps the end of my scarf tightly over my nose and mouth to keep the dust out, and she tells me not to look over the side of the truck.
In Cambodia we have only two seasons, dry and rain. Cambodia’s tropical climate is dictated by the monsoons, which bring heavy rain from May to October. Keav says during the rainy season, the country is a green paradise. She says there’s so much water that the trees grow very tall and the leaves swell with moisture. They take on a dark, metallic green color, looking as if they will burst like a water balloon. Before the monsoons hit in May, we have to endure April, our hottest month, with temperatures often reaching no degrees—so hot that even the children stay indoors to avoid the sun. It’s this hot now.
As we move farther and farther away from the city, the high-rise apartments disappear and thatched-roof huts take their place. The buildings in the city are tall and close together, but the huts are low-lying and widely dispersed in the middle of the rice fields. As our truck moves slowly in the crowd of people, the wide, paved boulevard gives way to windy, dusty roads that are no more than wagon trails. Tall elephant grass and prickly, brown brush have replaced Phnom Penh’s blooming flowers and tall trees. A queasy feeling grips me as I watch the villages pass by. As far as the eye can see, there are people marching in the road while huts stand empty and rice fields are left unattended.
I fall asleep and dream that I am still at home, still playing hopscotch with my friends. When I wake we are parked near an empty hut to rest for the night. We are in a world very different from Phnom Penh, yet we have traveled only ten miles or so. The sun has gone down, relieving us of its burning rays. All around us, the field lights up with small fires illuminating the faces of women squatting by them to prepare meals. I can still make out thousands of people milling around or walking to unknown destinations. Others, like us, have stopped to rest for the night along the roadside.
My family scrambles to set up our encampment in the field near an abandoned hut. My brothers gather wood to build a fire, while Ma and Keav prepare our meal. Chou is brushing Geak’s hair, being careful not to pull it. When everything is set up, we gather around the fire and eat a dinner of rice and salted pork that Ma cooked earlier in the day. There are no tables or chairs for us to sit on. While we kids make do with squatting, my parents sit on a little straw mat that Ma has packed.
“I have to go to the toilet,” I tell Ma urgently after dinner.
“You have to go in the woods.”
“But where?”
“Anywhere you can find. Wait, I’ll get you some toilet paper.” Ma goes away and comes back with a bunch of paper sheets in her hand. My eyes widen in disbelief, “Ma! It’s money. I can’t use money!”
“Use it, it is of no use to us anymore,” she replies, pushing the crisp sheets into my hand. I don’t understand this. I know that we must be in really big trouble. I know this is no time to argue, so I grab the money and head off to the woods.
After I finish, Chou and I decide to explore the area. As we walk, we hear leaves rustling in the bushes nearby. Our bodies tense, we clasp each other’s hands, holding our breath, but then a small feline silhouette saunters lazily out of the bushes, looking for food. The owners must have forgotten it in their hurry to leave.
“Chou, I wonder what happened to our cats.”
“Don’t worry about them.”
We had five cats in Phnom Penh. Even though we say they were our cats, we had no real claim to them. We didn’t even have names for them. They came to our house when they were hungry and left when they were bored.
“Well, somebody is probably having them for dinner by now,” Kim teases us when we ask him. We all laugh and scold him for saying such a thing. Cambodians do not genera
lly eat cats and dogs. There are specialty stores where they sell dog meat but at a very expensive price. It is a delicacy. The elders say that eating dog meat increases body heat, thus increasing energy, but you shouldn’t eat too much of it or your body will burn up and combust.
That night, Ma tucks me in on the back of the truck. While Chou, Geak and I sleep with her on the truck, the older kids sleep on the ground with Pa. It is a warm and breezy night, the kind that requires no blankets. I love sleeping outside with the stars. My imagination is captured by the bright shining light, but I don’t understand the vastness of the sky. Every time I try to wrap my mind around the concept of the universe, my mind spins as if caught in a whirlpool of information I will never be able to understand.
“Chou, the sky is so big!”
“Shhh. I am trying to sleep.”
“Look at the stars. They are so beautiful and they are winking at us. I wish I was up there with them and the angels.”
“That’s nice, now go to sleep.”
“You know the stars are candles in the sky. Every evening, the angels come out and light them for us, so if we lose our way, we can still see.”
Pa has told me in the past that I am blessed with a gifted imagination and he likes the stories I tell.
When I awaken in the morning, my siblings are already up. They were awakened by gunshots fired into the distant sky by the Khmer Rouge, but I was so tired I slept through it. My siblings all have gray pouches under their eyes; their hair is knotted and sticking out in many directions. Slowly, I sit up and stretch out my sore shoulders and back. Sleeping in the truck is not as much fun as I thought it would be. Before long, a group of Khmer Rouge soldiers come by and yell at us to keep moving.
After a small breakfast of rice and salted eggs, we get back in our truck and take off again. We drive for many hours and everywhere we go we see people walking in all directions. The sun is high and hot on our backs. It burns through my black hair as little beads of water collect around my hairline and on the curve of my upper lip. After a while, we all get on each other’s nerves and start to fight.