THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 24, 1997 TAG: 9701240054
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SAVY BENG, HIGH SCHOOL CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: 153 lines
I REMEMBER the fireworks, such pretty fireworks blooming like precious petals on a rose. Then came the cheers, the laughter of a party-goer enjoying a little too much liquor. A new year.
Watching the bursting fireworks above me, I recall another time huge explosions hovered over my heard.
A far-off explosion blew apart the stillness of the midnight air in Battambang. All over Cambodia, thousands of people were jarred from their dreams, awakened by the rat-tat-tat of machine guns and the screaming of injured people.
I came into this world in August 1979 to this warm welcome of bombs, guns and helpless cries of pain.
This was the year the Vietnamese ousted the Khmer Rouge from Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Since 1976, the Khmer Rouge had terrorized the people of Cambodia, evacuating the cities and suppressing all opposition. In 1979, the year of my birth, the fighting escalated as Khmer Rough forces continued to fight the Vietnamese from unoccupied parts of the country.
It took a while for my mom to recover from giving birth, but as soon as she could walk again, we were on the run. As a mass of troops ravaged the countryside, millions of people tried to flee into the jungles or escape through hidden passages in the swamps. My family was among those who fled, having nowhere else to go because what we knew of our homes and cities were now reduced to piles of scorched bricks and ashes.
My mother said that before this war, a small cut on one's finger made people gasp and offer sympathy. Now, dead or dying people were everywhere. Some faced a fate worse than death. It was common to see people bleeding or writhing in agonizing pain. Like water from a recent rainstorm, blood puddled the streets and splashed like mud on clothing. Lacerated body parts lay on the ground, in bushes, upon tree limbs. Blood oozed from them. People scattered over the countryside, some grieving for lost family, some groping to cover a bloody stump or hole, some begging on their last breath for water, water. Most people were quiet, their faces frozen in cold death.
Although I was only an infant, I grew up cognizant of this daily horror. For years, the bitter tales of how we survived this war replaced the bedtime stories a toddler would normally hear from her mother.
She told me of running, months and months of frenzied running in an attempt to survive. During the days, our bodies fell into slumber, exposing the true level of fatigue, betraying everyone's claim that they weren't really that tired. A successful technique we used was to sleep among the piles of the dead, seeing as how anyone in pursuit of a fugitive would not think to search among the bodies they had placed there themselves. A sleeping person looked like a dead one.
When we weren't running, we searched for food like abandoned animals. Once in a while, we come upon a deserted shack, but our stay wouldn't last very long. The bombs would catch up with us.
They always did.
Food was a luxury. We ate all we could find: roots, leaves, berries. Thousands of Cambodians prayed for a rainstorm to quench their thirst. Lakes and rivers were plentiful, but no one wanted to drink where rotting bodies floated. Flies and mosquitoes fed luxuriously on the bodies, buzzing in a merry maelstrom. Often we placed cheesecloths over manure and collected all the moisture we could.
Month after month we ran through the jungles, our feet mangled by the thickets we ignored in our frenzy to survive. The food we could see was not ours.
Anyone caught in the fields of corn or rice was severely lashed or killed by the Rouge. With 10 people in my family, it wasn't long before we were noticed, then forced at gunpoint into crowded internment camps. We later learned that the ones who captured us were the Khmer Rouge, and their simple reason for mass execution was the lust for power.
As a kindergartner, it was hard for me to comprehend what my mother told me about our life in Cambodia, that thousands were slaughtered just because a group of people wanted the world to know how strong they were. My mom told me how I watched as my family was enslaved, made to share a daily cup of rice with 30 people. Prisoners were made to work in rice fields, dawn to dusk - hatless, shirtless, the skins on their backs raw from recent flayings.
Those who fell or fainted were shot or whipped. Those who died from being whipped were carried off and dumped into swamps among the other dead.
No visits or burials were allowed.
Respect was forgotten.
Months passed as people around me who had labored endlessly only to squeeze through crowds to find a place to sleep, died one by one. What was once a paradise with sweet-smelling air and beautiful landscapes was now a macabre pit of blood and tears.
Finally there was a chance to escape. The increased beatings meant loss of people, and loss of people meant loss of crops. The Khmer Rouge soon needed a surgeon. With numerous machine guns aimed at my dad's head, they politely asked him to care for the sick or dying. The answer was apparent.
We were given the promise that nothing would happen to us as long as my parents continued to cure the injured. Eventually, they promised to leave us alone in some deserted piece of Cambodia where my parents could raise their kids in blissful harmony.
So my parents worked through the long hours of the night, their exhausted faces greeting the rising sun each morn. For months this continued, and the only evidence that the Khmer Rouge were delivering on their promises was the fact that we were still alive. Months passed without word of release. I watched the people drag their weary bodies in and out of my father's care. The whippings became regular.
Starving, regular.
Death, also regular.
After almost a year of waiting, we finally asked our captors what the status was on our release. The answer? A death threat and a complete denial that they had even made the promise. We knew it wouldn't be long before we joined the rotting bodies among the death pits. Luckily, we escaped in time. Once again, we ran, ran for our pride, our dignity and, most importantly, our lives.
Three months elapsed before we found help. Miraculously, help came from the most unexpected source - the American Red Cross. In return for my parents' assistance in healing escapees, we were promised a free ride to America. This time, the promise was kept.
In September 1982, we arrived in America and settled into an apartment in Chesapeake. We lived in harmony. I was fortunate enough never to experience the heartache of racism or prejudice. We had clothing, an actual house, vehicles and food as abundant as daisies on a Cambodian prairie. I knew we were extremely lucky to escape what we did, and, gratefully, I give all the credit to the love of my parents and the unequaled generosity of the Americans.
I'm not ignoring the fact that America, too, has murders. And death. And starvation. I once felt I'd escaped one war to fall prey to another. After a while, I realized the occasional death in this country was meager compared to the all-out hate that blew up in Cambodia.
So I look around, seeing the expansive roadways and buildings dotting the countryside, and I appreciate them. I am thankful for the little weeds that peep through my sidewalk. I am thankful for the fact that I even have a sidewalk.
So you can complain. The country's too violent. People are too greedy. Taxes are disgustingly high. Stuff costs too damn much. But open your eyes and look around you. At least you have stuff to buy. At least you have a car that uses too much gas to complain about. At least you don't have to share your dinner with little maggots that call it home.
Instead, I feel lucky. Lucky that I even have a dinner. Grateful that America has given me a chance to become anything I want to be, do anything I want to do. I appreciate America's generosity in opening its arms to foreigners, not to trick us into becoming slaves but to offer the opportunity to progress as we wish.
Thank you, America. Thank you for having movies to call bad and highways to jam up and food to complain about. For every new year I celebrate in this country, a growing fondness develops for all that it has given me. ILLUSTRATION: AP photos
Above, children view the bones of Khmer Rouge victims in a Cambodian
museum.
Left: soldiers brought death and destruction.
Color staff photo
Savy Beng
VP MAP
Area Shown: Cambodia
KEYWORDS: CAMBODIAN REFUGEES