A Cambodian refugee's hiking story
A Cambodian refugee's hiking story
An interesting story about a Cambodian refugee who fled and survived the Khmer Rouge regime and is now a mountain ranger in New England, while still working in a factory in Lowell.
Very nicely written human story piece and inspiring life and endeavor.
https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-11-25/ ... is-therapy
Very nicely written human story piece and inspiring life and endeavor.
https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-11-25/ ... is-therapy
- khmerhit
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nice story, thanks for posting
Joined: '03; Member 39. Funny Quote: Prince Phillip to a driving Instructor in Scotland: "How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them to pass the test?"
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- Hapless Suitor
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But do you know what it is aboot?khmerhit wrote:nice story, thanks for posting
- khmerhit
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it is aboot boots on da ground!
Joined: '03; Member 39. Funny Quote: Prince Phillip to a driving Instructor in Scotland: "How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them to pass the test?"
- Lucky Lucan
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I don't see what the big deal is with these stories about people who "survived the Khmer Rouge Regime". Everyone I know here who is old enough mentions that they had to do a whole lot of hiking in the 1970s. It's only those who managed to get evacuated to the west who seem to make a big issue about it. I'm pretty skeptical about a lot of them too, they were in the majority controlled by Pol Pot/ Sihanouk or Lon Nol elements who just wanted to further their own aims. I feel sorry for all these people who were used as pawns and suffered in the Cold War, but I somehow have a lot more admiration for people who stayed here than those who left.
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
Well, everyone has a story to tell, in my view. His story was told by a friend of his who wanted people to know. Why should his story and experience be less of a story because he left Cambodia and a refugee camp as a kid?
By all means, if you know the stories of people who lived through the Khmer Rouge and remained in Cambodia, please share them, or write them. I'm sure Cambodians have plenty of stories, but to put them on paper, in English, you need a writer who is able to tell a story.
If that's of interest, I could interview my housekeeper who lived through the KR as a young woman. She told me bits and pieces of her life but her life events are a bit scattered.
By all means, if you know the stories of people who lived through the Khmer Rouge and remained in Cambodia, please share them, or write them. I'm sure Cambodians have plenty of stories, but to put them on paper, in English, you need a writer who is able to tell a story.
If that's of interest, I could interview my housekeeper who lived through the KR as a young woman. She told me bits and pieces of her life but her life events are a bit scattered.
It is of interest!Joon wrote:If that's of interest, I could interview my housekeeper who lived through the KR as a young woman. She told me bits and pieces of her life but her life events are a bit scattered.
Joon wrote:Well, everyone has a story to tell, in my view. His story was told by a friend of his who wanted people to know. Why should his story and experience be less of a story because he left Cambodia and a refugee camp as a kid?
By all means, if you know the stories of people who lived through the Khmer Rouge and remained in Cambodia, please share them, or write them. I'm sure Cambodians have plenty of stories, but to put them on paper, in English, you need a writer who is able to tell a story.
If that's of interest, I could interview my housekeeper who lived through the KR as a young woman. She told me bits and pieces of her life but her life events are a bit scattered.
Of course it's of interest. Do it.
- Lucky Lucan
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Mainly because it's been done so many times before. It's usually about the happy and perfect life the person led, how everything suddenly went bad overnight, suffering, fleeing to the border camps and then redemption in the form of flight abroad. A bit of Jesus thrown in ices the cake.Joon wrote:Why should his story and experience be less of a story because he left Cambodia and a refugee camp as a kid?
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
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- Hapless Suitor
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A journo writing stories about people who stayed would be busy! There are millions of them! Just about every Khmer you talk to over a certain age was here for the duration. I get tired of the American refugees who claim to know all about the modern Cambodia but don't live there and have only visited fleetingly.
I think a lot of the CNRP types in the US are envious of those who stayed and took part in the land boom and got rich.
My old dentist was a buffalo boy and always told me he wanted to have his story written, my Khmer teacher talked of walking to Battambang and back and of what happened around Longveik. My Khmer engineer was in ken svay and as a boy had to unload ammunition barges at night. He described the B52 raids that always came at night and the incredible explosions and fires when they hit ammunition dumps, flames a hundred metres high.
My first GF from Kompong Cham told me her sister always had nightmares of the B52 bombings. Many I gave found do not want to say anything either because of the trauma or I suspect the guilt of going over to the dark side.Old people I spoke to down in Sa Ang claimed to have no knowledge whatsoever of prisons and murders of townies like Sin Sisamoth.
How many did make it to the camps on the border? Several hundred thousand, maybe half a million. I still have photos somewhere of thousands of Khmers behind brand new barbed wire with the huge steel water tank towers marked UNHCR lying on the ground waiting to be erected.
Virtually all Khmers I meet in Australia came from Battambang because they were so close to the border, Vietnamese from the towns in the delta near the coast with access to fishing boats.
I think a lot of the CNRP types in the US are envious of those who stayed and took part in the land boom and got rich.
My old dentist was a buffalo boy and always told me he wanted to have his story written, my Khmer teacher talked of walking to Battambang and back and of what happened around Longveik. My Khmer engineer was in ken svay and as a boy had to unload ammunition barges at night. He described the B52 raids that always came at night and the incredible explosions and fires when they hit ammunition dumps, flames a hundred metres high.
My first GF from Kompong Cham told me her sister always had nightmares of the B52 bombings. Many I gave found do not want to say anything either because of the trauma or I suspect the guilt of going over to the dark side.Old people I spoke to down in Sa Ang claimed to have no knowledge whatsoever of prisons and murders of townies like Sin Sisamoth.
How many did make it to the camps on the border? Several hundred thousand, maybe half a million. I still have photos somewhere of thousands of Khmers behind brand new barbed wire with the huge steel water tank towers marked UNHCR lying on the ground waiting to be erected.
Virtually all Khmers I meet in Australia came from Battambang because they were so close to the border, Vietnamese from the towns in the delta near the coast with access to fishing boats.
OK, So 2-3 posters claim to have intimate knowledge of this period in time and consider it somewhat out of date
and cannot understand why others would want to discuss it / understand what happened.
That's OK, just don't read this post and let others that are not as well
informed as you learn something new.
and cannot understand why others would want to discuss it / understand what happened.
That's OK, just don't read this post and let others that are not as well
informed as you learn something new.
I refuse to go out with nothing more than a whimper followed by a small farting sound and a shit stain on my bed sheets..
Just thought I'd share that with you.
Just thought I'd share that with you.
- Lucky Lucan
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I guess that being a "Khmer Rouge Survivor" sounds like a big achievement to people abroad. Perhaps it seems like it's something unusual.
Meanwhile millions of Khmer Rouge Survivors are getting on with their lives here in Cambodia, I talk to them everyday. They usually have a slightly different take on things. They describe the civil war, Pol Pot years and later privations in a continuous narrative, not as isolated events or anomalies.
Meanwhile millions of Khmer Rouge Survivors are getting on with their lives here in Cambodia, I talk to them everyday. They usually have a slightly different take on things. They describe the civil war, Pol Pot years and later privations in a continuous narrative, not as isolated events or anomalies.
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
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