When I went in to pick up my suit before the wedding I started talking with my tailor. After speaking on birthday parties, children and food I asked her where she is from and she said Cambodia. Then she told me her story.
She moved here in '79 with her mother and baby sister. But moving to America doesn't quite describe it. She actually fled here. From what I gathered from her, in the late seventies there was a communist uprising in Cambodia and life became very difficult. They worked hard and were given little to eat. She remembers being given two table spoons of rice (with her accent sounded more like rye) which was then added to water to make 'rice stew'. If you were to go to the market to buy a fish you were not allowed to eat it. Instead you had to give it to the cooks who would then cut it up and distribute it to everyone. So very few people bought food because you would only get to eat a very little bit of it. The communists also had killing lists. Anyone who was involved with education was killed because they didn't want people being taught anything bad about the government. And anyone who wore glasses was killed because the government felt that people who wear glasses are smart and therefore were a threat.
One night when she was sixteen her mother woke her up and said they were leaving. She asked where but her mother wouldn't tell her. She just said to get up and come with her. Being a typical sixteen year old she whined and complained about being woken in the middle of the night and being told it was time to leave but not knowing any other details. Like leaving could mean they were just leaving the house because it was flooded and they were going to another house for a night or two. She didn't realize they were fleeing the country until a little later. Only she, her Mom and baby sister went. Her other brothers, older sister and Father were left behind because they didn't want to come. They were older and her Mom had asked them if they wanted to come but they said no. She wasn't asked because her Mom was worried she would go around and tell her friends and that would make trouble. She had no time to say goodbye to any of her family.
From their house they walked to Thailand over the course of three days and two nights. They walked by night and hid during the day. If the baby started making noise the mother would try to cover her mouth or let it breast feed until she would quiet down. During their trip they met people who were running an underground railroad of sorts to get people out of the country. They told her that she could only walk where the grass was flat. If she walked anywhere else she could get blown up because of all the landmines that were planted. A good deal of the walk was in rice paddies with water up to her knees. They lived off 'rice stew'. Finally they made it to Thailand and from there here.
In the past thirty years she has gotten to see her sister once and it was at a funeral for a family member. Talking on the phone was difficult at first because the cost was like a dollar every 30 seconds. But now she can use phone cards and get something like a 15 minutes for a dollar so they talk much more frequently. And she is excited because she is going to go visit later this June for three days. But she is stressed about figuring out how to get there because she doesn't want to fly through Thailand. Back then Thailand was a safe haven, but now it's war torn and dangerous to travel through, and unfortunately most flights to Cambodia go through there.
After all this she told me she hoped she hadn't bored me with her story. I said she was nuts and that her story was better than most movies I've seen. She then said that if I'd like to watch a movie about it that 'Killing Fields' gives a pretty good representation of what it was like. She also told me that later she found her mother was on the list of people the communists were looking to kill. I did not find out if her mother and father ever reunited. As for her sister I asked why doesn't her sister move her if they miss each other so much. She said her sister is very poor with seven children. She and her husband have a rice farm but if it rains too much or too little the rice doesn't grow right and so they are poor. But she has a son who works very hard (imagine how hard he must work for one of his own people to say he works hard, it's similar to how lazy an American must be if we call him lazy), and they would like him to come here for a good education at one of the universities. But she doesn't know how to begin that process. But apparently her sister and him are trying to work with high school counselors to figure things out. Hopefully he'll get to get out from the rice farm and get his education.
Finally I asked her if she is Christian. She had praise and worship music playing in the background. She said she was raised Buddhist like everyone else in Cambodia. During her flight she prayed 'very very hard', and by the time she made it here she felt someone up above had to have helped her get through it all safe and sound. So she chose to be Christian. I liked the way she said it. She didn't name off a denomination she just said it repeatedly with great pride and a big smile in her broken English voice, "I'm Christian. I'm Christian." I told her good choice.
She moved here in '79 with her mother and baby sister. But moving to America doesn't quite describe it. She actually fled here. From what I gathered from her, in the late seventies there was a communist uprising in Cambodia and life became very difficult. They worked hard and were given little to eat. She remembers being given two table spoons of rice (with her accent sounded more like rye) which was then added to water to make 'rice stew'. If you were to go to the market to buy a fish you were not allowed to eat it. Instead you had to give it to the cooks who would then cut it up and distribute it to everyone. So very few people bought food because you would only get to eat a very little bit of it. The communists also had killing lists. Anyone who was involved with education was killed because they didn't want people being taught anything bad about the government. And anyone who wore glasses was killed because the government felt that people who wear glasses are smart and therefore were a threat.
One night when she was sixteen her mother woke her up and said they were leaving. She asked where but her mother wouldn't tell her. She just said to get up and come with her. Being a typical sixteen year old she whined and complained about being woken in the middle of the night and being told it was time to leave but not knowing any other details. Like leaving could mean they were just leaving the house because it was flooded and they were going to another house for a night or two. She didn't realize they were fleeing the country until a little later. Only she, her Mom and baby sister went. Her other brothers, older sister and Father were left behind because they didn't want to come. They were older and her Mom had asked them if they wanted to come but they said no. She wasn't asked because her Mom was worried she would go around and tell her friends and that would make trouble. She had no time to say goodbye to any of her family.
From their house they walked to Thailand over the course of three days and two nights. They walked by night and hid during the day. If the baby started making noise the mother would try to cover her mouth or let it breast feed until she would quiet down. During their trip they met people who were running an underground railroad of sorts to get people out of the country. They told her that she could only walk where the grass was flat. If she walked anywhere else she could get blown up because of all the landmines that were planted. A good deal of the walk was in rice paddies with water up to her knees. They lived off 'rice stew'. Finally they made it to Thailand and from there here.
In the past thirty years she has gotten to see her sister once and it was at a funeral for a family member. Talking on the phone was difficult at first because the cost was like a dollar every 30 seconds. But now she can use phone cards and get something like a 15 minutes for a dollar so they talk much more frequently. And she is excited because she is going to go visit later this June for three days. But she is stressed about figuring out how to get there because she doesn't want to fly through Thailand. Back then Thailand was a safe haven, but now it's war torn and dangerous to travel through, and unfortunately most flights to Cambodia go through there.
After all this she told me she hoped she hadn't bored me with her story. I said she was nuts and that her story was better than most movies I've seen. She then said that if I'd like to watch a movie about it that 'Killing Fields' gives a pretty good representation of what it was like. She also told me that later she found her mother was on the list of people the communists were looking to kill. I did not find out if her mother and father ever reunited. As for her sister I asked why doesn't her sister move her if they miss each other so much. She said her sister is very poor with seven children. She and her husband have a rice farm but if it rains too much or too little the rice doesn't grow right and so they are poor. But she has a son who works very hard (imagine how hard he must work for one of his own people to say he works hard, it's similar to how lazy an American must be if we call him lazy), and they would like him to come here for a good education at one of the universities. But she doesn't know how to begin that process. But apparently her sister and him are trying to work with high school counselors to figure things out. Hopefully he'll get to get out from the rice farm and get his education.
Finally I asked her if she is Christian. She had praise and worship music playing in the background. She said she was raised Buddhist like everyone else in Cambodia. During her flight she prayed 'very very hard', and by the time she made it here she felt someone up above had to have helped her get through it all safe and sound. So she chose to be Christian. I liked the way she said it. She didn't name off a denomination she just said it repeatedly with great pride and a big smile in her broken English voice, "I'm Christian. I'm Christian." I told her good choice.
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