Escaping the Khmer Rouge

by Chileng Pa

  Like most women in Cambodia, his wife remained home to have her baby and, in just a few hours by the light of a kerosene lantern, I was born. Moments later, my mother gave birth to my twin sister. Each of us weighed just over four pounds and was sickly. My sister survived only two weeks, and I remained weak and prone to illness for years.

  My parents named me Chileng, which comes from a word in the Teochiu language of China for a small gecko-like lizard common in Cambodian houses. I was so named because I had a big flat head, slim body, and large luminous eyes. I also had dark fluffy hair and a snub nose.

  The most important person in my life was my grandmother, who took care of me when my mother and father went to work in the rice and vegetable fields. She nurtured me through infancy and childhood, and my family told me later that without her loving care, I wouldn’t have survived my first year. I remember the tenderness with which she soothed me in the dark night when I wakened, fretting with pain, averting my eyes from the light of the lantern. My earliest memories are of my grandmother picking me up, holding me in her arms or on her hip, or carrying me into the kitchen while she went about her household chores. When she put me down to do some task, I clung to her sarong, and cried until she again picked me up.

  Other early memories center on my grandmother’s pride over my accomplishments, as slight or childish as they were. Because I was often ill, I was slow to develop, so my grandmother delighted in my slightest improvements. She was especially happy when my first word was “ma,” which in Teochiu means “grandmother.” My family also told me of my grandmother’s surprise and delight when she put me down to crawl while she tended the kitchen and I, instead, grabbed the wall, pulled myself up, and tottered toward her. When she saw me, she immediately picked me up, kissed me, and hurried off to tell everyone in the family.

  While my father and mother worked the fields, my grandmother was in charge of the household. She was strong-willed, hard-working and, as long as she was able to keep our family together, happy in her ways and with her life. Everyone loved her and respected her advice. But no one loved her more than I, her favorite, her first grandson. She respected me, attempted to understand my feelings, and tried to protect me.

  My grandfather, Pa, husband to my beloved grandmother, cleared the ground for his children after he immigrated to Cambodia from southern China in 1920. My grandfather spoke the Teochiu dialect of China and very little Khmer, the language of Cambodia’s majority ethnic people. He quickly became bilingual, however, when he met a girl named Sophal, a native of Cambodia. She taught him Khmer and, in 1925, became his wife. This was my beloved grandmother!

  My grandparents built the house we lived in during my childhood. The dark wooden house sat directly on the ground, and had a shiny metal roof. The house was stoutly made to withstand typhoons. The house was typically Khmer, with a large square living room containing a platform made of golden brown split bamboo just a few inches off the floor. This platform served as a table during the day and a bed at night. A small bedroom attached to the main room, and my father had added a small room for a kitchen.

  Our vegetable fields surrounded the house, lying in the adjacent lowlands through which a small stream flowed. Coconut trees with their tall bare trunks and feathering branches at the top stood in front of the house and a great bushy light green tamarind tree in the rear provided plentiful fruit for our family and neighbors. To the side of the house lay the play area my grandfather constructed in anticipation of having many children. He never had the large family he’d hoped for, and my father often said he’d have the children his father hadn’t had and they could use the playground.

  Our land and house was located on the southwestern banks of the Tonle Sap, in Chamkar Chin, or Quarter 5, of Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. This is where I was born. Much of Phnom Penh was actually a collection of small villages, and our neighborhood was one of them, located within the city limits, south of the Royal Palace. Fifty or so families lived in that Chinese neighborhood and most were relatives or friends of my family, as was typical of Chinese Cambodians. These kinfolk and neighbors surrounded me from my birth, and I grew up amidst the love and attention they gave me.

  Like other small children in Cambodia in the 1950s, I went through my days dressed in a long light-colored shirt that fell just below my waist and nothing else, making it easy to keep me clean. And, like other little boys, my head was shaved, save for a small tuft in the front.

  My mother and grandmother loved one another, and my mother was happy that her mother-in-law was so eager to care for me. She held no resentment toward my obvious attachment to my grandmother. Instead, my mother welcomed the opportunity to spend as much time as she could with my father. My father was ten years older than she, and my family often told me that they had loved one another deeply. Like my grandmother, they were both intelligent, strong, and hard-working.

  My mother was especially glad to have my grandmother care for me when she was pregnant with my sister, Bunthy, who was born when I was three. The pregnancy was difficult and the birth even more so. Although my sister was a normal, healthy baby, unlike me, my mother took ill after the birth, and never recovered. She died a year after Bunthy was born, much to my grief then and since.

  With two children to care for, my grandmother was much busier than she’d been before, and she frequently asked me to help her with the household chores or to care for Bunthy while she did her duties around the house. When the baby needed to nap, my grandmother asked me to swing her cradle, a tiny hammock suspended by cord to the posts or walls of our house. My grandmother made me understand that I was now a big brother, with responsibilities to my little sister. I helped grandmother as much as I could, but I soon began developing my own interests, like playing ball with children in the neighborhood; after all, my yard had a play area made especially for children!

  It was near the time of my third birthday in October 1953 that young King Sihanouk announced his victory in gaining independence for Cambodia from French colonial rule. Most Cambodians at that time thought Sihanouk ruled the country with great benevolence. He increased industry and education, and Phnom Penh especially expanded with businesses, factories, and schools. This was a time many Cambodians remember as peaceful and prosperous, especially when compared to what was coming.

  For me, as for many other children, the large number of public schools Sihanouk built in Phnom Penh expanded our educational opportunities. First, though, I attended a Chinese school. Although my grandmother was herself illiterate, she placed great value on education and knowledge. She insisted that I become bilingual in Chinese and Khmer, as many of the people in our neighborhood spoke both languages. My father, at her urging, sent me to Chinese kindergarten to help me learn to speak proper Teochiu. My father shared my grandmother’s attitude on the importance of education. Then, in 1958, when I was eight years old, they withdrew me from the Chinese school and enrolled me in the public school system.

  I went to Wat Mohamontrey Elementary School, a kilometer from my home. Although named after a temple, this was a public school, with classes beginning at seven in the morning and continuing to eleven. We students—both boys and girls—went home for lunch, and then resumed classes from two to five in the afternoon. My grandmother walked me to and from school the first month; after that, I walked with my friends, playing and talking and griping ... about my teachers, my classes, the homework.

  I didn’t like school. Each day I had to practice writing vowels, consonants, and numbers when all I wanted to do was play with my friends. I considered quitting, but I didn’t want to disappoint my grandmother and I was afraid of my father. When my grandmother learned of my feelings, she begged me to remain in school and to do well. She said that while she and my father couldn’t leave me much in financial resources, they could give me a good education. She recited an old Cambodian proverb that says knowledge is superior to all other forms of power that men can possess, that a person without knowledge is blind. Knowledge is a trea
sure thieves cannot steal, a structure fire cannot destroy. This illiterate elderly woman tried to impress on me that nothing is really beautiful but knowledge.

  I continued in school, inspired less by her words than by the money she gave me to buy snacks vendors sold in the school courtyard: sweet pastries, ripe fruit, coconut juice, and freshly cut sugar cane. Fear of my father was further encouragement to continue my schooling. My father was an angry man after my mother’s death, unable to cope with his grief over her loss, and he often found reason to vent his rage on me. Although he didn’t keep a close watch on my schoolwork, he punished me when he thought I wasn’t spending enough time practicing my reading and writing.

  In the summer of 1959, five years after the death of my mother, my father remarried. His wife’s name was Neary, and she was thirty years old, slim, nearly five feet ten inches tall, and very pretty. She had pale skin and was Chinese and Khmer, like my father. She came from a middle class family, and her values, beauty, and charm endeared her to those who met her. My grandmother wanted to like her because she was bright, but she was also aggressive and ambitious. I sensed my grandmother’s reservations about my new stepmother and took them for my own.

  After my second year of elementary school, I reluctantly entered the next year. I looked forward to Thursdays and Sundays, our free days, when I played with my friends on my grandfather’s playfield. Lacking interest in my work and constantly afraid of my father’s wrath and the rattan stick he cut from the stem of a climbing palm, I finished my third year.

  At that time, my father took a job as a quality control inspector in a factory that cleaned and processed animal hides for sale to companies that produced a variety of leather products. To earn extra money, my family began raising hogs rather than vegetables, and became very successful. We didn’t slaughter them, so that satisfied Buddhist precepts against killing animals.

  I never thought about whether we were rich or poor. We didn’t have an automobile or a television, but we did have bicycles and a motorbike for transportation, and we certainly had enough to eat and sufficient resources to make regular contributions to the local Buddhist temple. When I was older, my father bought a large Phillips battery radio which ran on fifteen D batteries, and on it we listened to news and music. My grandmother loved to listen to Cambodian operas in the evenings. I do not recall a time when anyone in my Chinese-Cambodian family or neighborhood equated happiness with material possessions. I was never measured by the relative wealth or success of my family. Instead, a person achieved status and respect by working hard. I often wish those times would return for me.

  My childhood memories are suffused with the attention I received as the firstborn child, in particular, the firstborn male child. I was a star, except in the eyes of my stepmother. She was never openly unkind to me, but she didn’t treat me as the family favorite. I often wonder how differently things would have been if my twin sister had survived. Would I have been less of a favorite with my grandmother? Would my stepmother have had more sympathy for me? I was always sure I would have been happier in the company of my twin than without.

  My favorite activity was playing with other children in the neighborhood. Although I was younger and smaller than the rest, I usually got along with everyone. My grandmother instructed me that I had to generously share my cakes and candy with my friends if I wanted to be a good child and be treated well by others. I had to learn to get along with others, she insisted, and it must have worked, for the older kids looked out for me. If I got into an argument with another child, he would let me win.

  While most of the youth in my neighborhood were friendly, a few were not. I was pleasant to others unless someone intentionally did something to anger me. Then I quickly launched into a fight, not caring about the size of my opponent, my hands and feet always ready to fight. I got a lot of practice. Gradually, I learned how to deal with the problems that can lead to fights, and thus to avoid them. I told stories and jokes to make kids laugh for, as much as I liked to fight, I preferred laughing.

  My friends and I spent hours on my grandfather’s playground. Sometimes, in the late afternoons, we chased butterflies and dragonflies in the orchard near my house. My favorite activity was hunting birds with a slingshot and when I hit a bird, I took it home, cleaned, cooked, and ate it. But I had to do this secretly, because my father and grandmother were very much against my using a slingshot for any reason, particularly for shooting birds.

  One day, I made the mistake of stalking a bird too close to home, and my grandmother spotted me in the act. She called me inside and berated me, saying, “Grandson! Why do you do a stupid thing like this? Don’t you know that all creatures want to live in freedom and peace, just like you? When you kill a bird, how do you think its family feels? If they did that to your family, how would you feel?”

  My grandmother wasn’t looking for answers from me to her rhetorical questions. She believed devoutly in Buddhism, and already knew the answers. She told me the Buddha considered killing an animal an evil act for which a person would be sent to hell. She told me about karma, about how doing bad things to defenseless creatures would result in bad things being done to me. “Please, grandson, don’t do this again,” she’d instruct me, adding an important incentive. “If your father catches you, he’ll beat you!” The last statement made a greater impression on me than the religious discussion, but nothing she told me convinced me that I should stop hunting birds. It was just too much fun.

  I continued to pursue this passion for bird hunting until one unlucky day when my father finally caught me in the act. I was behind a tree, concentrating on my prey. I pulled the slingshot back ready to take a shot, when suddenly my father’s huge hand grabbed the bands of the slingshot and snatched it from my grasp. With his other hand, he grabbed the back of my shirt and dragged me to the house. “I told you that you’re forbidden to play with this slingshot and hunt birds, but you didn’t listen,” he yelled at me. “Now you must be punished! Kneel here, and don’t move!” He strode away, returned shortly with a bamboo stick, and began hitting me with it.

  I begged him to stop. “Papa, please stop beating me! I won’t do it again! I promise I won’t do it again!” When he stopped, he made me kneel in the hot sun until I was covered with sweat. My grandmother soon took pity on me, and persuaded my father to relent. “Don’t let me catch you playing with a slingshot or shooting birds again, Chileng,” he threatened me.

  My troubles were soon forgotten, and I was off again playing with my buddies. I played hard all the time. Sometimes, when my grandmother called me in to eat, I’d ignore her or yell, “I’ll be right there, Grandma!” Then I’d disappear. Often, she came looking for me, then chased me into the house. Other times, the family would begin the meal without me; later, I would rush in, go straight to the kitchen, and eat without sitting down before dashing out again to continue playing.

  As I grew older, I went through a growth spurt that apparently took all of my energy because all I wanted to do was eat and sleep. My family frequently finished eating and clearing the table before I had finished. I ate so slowly and spent so much time “sucking rice” that my head began to nod and I’d fall asleep at the table. My grandmother told my family to let me alone until I woke up myself and finished my food.

  Without my grandmother’s protection, my life would have been harder, because my stepmother did not warm to me. With time, her influence in the household grew, for in the space of five years, she bore my father three sons: Meng, Mhang, and Leang. Since I was the eldest, I was often given the responsibility of watching over them.

  One day, one of my little brothers fell from his bed and cut his lip. When he cried out in pain, my stepmother came running, shouting at me for not keeping a closer watch on him. I thought she was going to hit me, but my grandmother came to my rescue, saying it couldn’t have been my fault, that it was just an accident. When my father returned from work that evening, however, my stepmother took him aside and told him what had happened.r />
  My father angrily approached me, saying, “Ah, Chileng! Why did you let this happen to your brother?”

  “No, Papa!” I said. “It wasn’t my fault! I was busy doing my schoolwork. They were playing and laughing together and the next thing I knew, one of them was crying. I rushed in immediately to pick him up and wipe the blood from his face.” My eyes filled with tears while I talked, and I held the back of my hand over my face in fear that my father would strike me.

  “Don’t try to make excuses!” he shouted. “I’ve told you before that you must watch your brothers constantly because they are so small.”

  He grabbed a rattan stick already at hand and began to beat me, cursing at me. I cried out, yelling for help, but no one dared interfere with my father. He paused to shout, “Don’t let this happen again!” He continued hitting me until his anger subsided. “Chileng, this is not to be your only punishment for neglecting your brothers,” he said. “You must go to the front gate, and crawl back to the house to me; otherwise, you will miss your dinner tonight.”

  That was not the only time I would receive punishments and beatings from Papa, nor was this unusual treatment in a traditional Chinese Cambodian household fifty years ago. I knew my father loved me, but I dreaded making him angry.

  When I began the fourth grade in 1961, my interest in school was less than ever. Despite my reluctance to anger my father, I became lax in my studies, and was often in trouble. Sometimes I arrived late at school because I was playing marbles. At other times, I didn’t return to class after recess. I sometimes avoided going to school altogether. I seldom did my homework, and the teacher frequently caught me sleeping at my desk. He punished me by forcing me to kneel for some minutes in the courtyard at the base of the flagpole.