By DeNeen L. Brown
The Washington Post
April 26, 2008
'The soldiers walked around the neighborhood, knocking on all the doors, telling people to leave. Those who refused were shot dead right on their doorsteps,' Loung Ung wrote in her book 'First They Killed My Father.'
Ung escaped Cambodia as a child when Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge stormed into Phnom Penh in April 1975. She fled with her family.
"Yesterday," she wrote, "I was playing hopscotch with my friends. Today we are running from soldiers with guns. . . . Pa whispers that from now on we are to give the soldiers anything they want or they will shoot us. We walk from the break of day until the dark of evening. When night comes, we rest by the roadside near a temple. We unpack the dried fish and rice and eat in silence. Gone is the air of mystery and excitement; now I am simply afraid."
Ung now lives in Cleveland, where she owns a Belgian beer bar and an Italian restaurant. So far from war, you say. But she says no. "When I hear politicians talk about war ending or not ending, my first thought is, it is really too bad so few of them have personally experienced war," Ung says. "We are ruled by a group of many armchair soldiers. War doesn't end."
The idea for a second book she wrote was prompted by Bush's 2003 "mission accomplished" announcement. At that moment she thought, " 'Oh my gosh, there are people who believe this and think this is true.' But I know 25 years after my war, it doesn't end just because the guns have fallen silent, doesn't end just because peace treaties have been signed. It doesn't end in my life. It is too bad so many people talk about it without having firsthand experience of it."
Her war goes on, living as if it were a close relative who remembers what you remember, someone who was there when the most horrible thing in your life happened, and knows all the details.
"The thing I still feel on my skin and in my heart is the experience of hiding in a bomb shelter," Ung says. "The fear that invades your body, that sets your mind ablaze even when the bomb doesn't hit. Fear. When I was hiding in a bomb shelter, everything is quiet except for the whizzing of cannons and rockets overhead. We are all counting under our breath, hiding from the bombs that were thrown by invisible people. They don't know you. You don't know them. You are counting and counting and waiting.
"When it doesn't hit, there is a moment of disappointment. You know it won't stop. . . . When you are in war, there is no relief."
The Washington Post
April 26, 2008
'The soldiers walked around the neighborhood, knocking on all the doors, telling people to leave. Those who refused were shot dead right on their doorsteps,' Loung Ung wrote in her book 'First They Killed My Father.'
Ung escaped Cambodia as a child when Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge stormed into Phnom Penh in April 1975. She fled with her family.
"Yesterday," she wrote, "I was playing hopscotch with my friends. Today we are running from soldiers with guns. . . . Pa whispers that from now on we are to give the soldiers anything they want or they will shoot us. We walk from the break of day until the dark of evening. When night comes, we rest by the roadside near a temple. We unpack the dried fish and rice and eat in silence. Gone is the air of mystery and excitement; now I am simply afraid."
Ung now lives in Cleveland, where she owns a Belgian beer bar and an Italian restaurant. So far from war, you say. But she says no. "When I hear politicians talk about war ending or not ending, my first thought is, it is really too bad so few of them have personally experienced war," Ung says. "We are ruled by a group of many armchair soldiers. War doesn't end."
The idea for a second book she wrote was prompted by Bush's 2003 "mission accomplished" announcement. At that moment she thought, " 'Oh my gosh, there are people who believe this and think this is true.' But I know 25 years after my war, it doesn't end just because the guns have fallen silent, doesn't end just because peace treaties have been signed. It doesn't end in my life. It is too bad so many people talk about it without having firsthand experience of it."
Her war goes on, living as if it were a close relative who remembers what you remember, someone who was there when the most horrible thing in your life happened, and knows all the details.
"The thing I still feel on my skin and in my heart is the experience of hiding in a bomb shelter," Ung says. "The fear that invades your body, that sets your mind ablaze even when the bomb doesn't hit. Fear. When I was hiding in a bomb shelter, everything is quiet except for the whizzing of cannons and rockets overhead. We are all counting under our breath, hiding from the bombs that were thrown by invisible people. They don't know you. You don't know them. You are counting and counting and waiting.
"When it doesn't hit, there is a moment of disappointment. You know it won't stop. . . . When you are in war, there is no relief."
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