In the Shadow of Angkor • summer 2004 (vol. 16, no. 1) • 232 pages, illustrated
Published twenty-five years after the defeat of the Khmer Rouge regime, In the Shadow of Angkor captures the resurgence of the Cambodian arts community and its efforts to restore a rich literary heritage. In many of the works, the artists defy the decimation of their brothers and sisters by the Khmer Rouge, as well as the attempt to erase Cambodia's memory of its history. The range of expression is impressive: the volume includes poetry, short story, film, rap lyrics, and essays, plus interviews with authors and a portfolio of photographs of Cambodia.
Guest editor: Sharon May researched the Khmer Rouge for the Columbia University Center for the Study of Human Rights. Her stories and photographs have appeared in Manoa, International Quarterly, Alaska Quarterly Review, Other Voices, and the books Seeking Shelter: Cambodians in Thailand and The Saving Rain. She is completing a collection of short stories.
Artist: Richard Murai was born, raised, and educated in the San Francisco Bay Area and now teaches creative photography in Northern California. His fascination with sacred sites of the world has taken him to India, Peru, Turkey, Egypt, Russia, Asia, and Western Europe. The photographs in this issue are selections from a continuing project on Angkor Wat. Murai’s website is at www.RichardMurai.com.
ORDERING INFORMATION/CONTRIBUTORS’ NOTES: please see the bottom of this page.
“In
the Shadow of
Angkor does
a commendable
service to Cambodia’s
people, reminding
the world of the
strength of character
that has enabled
Cambodians to
courageously bear
witness to intolerable
suffering—and
now, aided by
the renewal of
the arts and literature,
to begin a nationwide
healing. Genocide
is not the problem
of the people
to whom it happened;
it is everyone’s
problem. This
wonderfully inspiring
book will increase
the reader’s
awareness of the
responsibility
we all have in
ending such recurring
tragedies.”—Dith
Pran, founder
and president
of The Dith Pran
Holocaust Awareness
Project and the
compiler of Children
of Cambodia’s
Killing Fields:
Memoirs by Survivors.
“In
the Shadow of
Angkor exposes
us to the vibrant,
multifaceted written
culture that flourishes
in Cambodia today.”—David
Chandler, author
of A History
of Cambodia and
Brother Number
One: A Political
Biography of Pol
Pot.
“A beautiful tribute to the Cambodian spirit, this remarkable collection reveals the heartbreaking tragedy and the heart-healing hope that fall within the recent Cambodian experience.”—Carol Wagner, author of Soul Survivors: Stories of Women and Children in Cambodia and director of Friendship with Cambodia.
Online reviews and reprints
Review
by Chico Enterprise
Record
Review
by Asian Reporter
Review
by Cambodia Daily
Reprint
of praCh interview
at NCM online
Loung Ung: While I was writing the book, and while I was growing up after the war, I thought it was hate that kept me alive. I thought it was hate that kept me strong, that kept my body from dying. Hate and anger. And then in America, as I met Cambodians who had suffered nervous breakdowns, who had a hard time adapting and healing from the war, I came to realize that the hate might have kept my body alive—or assisted in that—but without love, my mind would have been destroyed and my spirituality and soul would not have lived.
This
is why I think
my book might
have such universal
reach: people
can’t really
connect to war,
but they can connect
to the survival
of the spirit.
They can connect
to the love of
a parent or the
longing of a child
for the parent,
and all that love
in my family,
for my country—and
the love my family
had for me—really
kept my spirit
and my soul alive.
And for that reason,
I’m the person
I am today.
Twenty
years ago, if
you had found
me on the streets
eating out of
garbage cans and
asked me where
would I be in
twenty years,
I wouldn’t
have said I’d
be a happy, healthy
person. That would
have been beyond
my wildest dreams.
—From
“Surviving
the Peace,”
an interview with
Loung Ung
“Little Brothers, where are you going?” one Khmer Rouge fighter in his early twenties asked politely. They carried very little combat gear, I noticed, and must’ve been moving from place to place rapidly. Across their chests hung military pouches with three spare AK-47 magazines and Chinese-made grenades, the kind with foot-long wooden handles. On their backs hung cloth tubes about four inches around and packed with uncooked rice. Their largest weapon was a small mortar and B-40 grenade launcher. Of course, I learned the names of such weaponry years later.
“It’s
OK. Don’t
be scared, Little
Brothers. We are
your friends,”
he said.
I
didn’t know
what to say or
think. I would
have revealed
all state secrets
to him if I had
known any.
“Food,
food,” I
said, crying.
They
lowered their
weapons and spoke
in Vietnamese.
—From
“Journey
into Light”
by Ranachith Ronnie
Yimsut
When I was putting the album together, I didn’t know what to name it. I was thinking about the Dalai Lama. I was thinking about drama, trauma, and I made up the word “Dalama.” I looked it up in the dictionary, but there was no such word. I thought, I’m going to make up my own word and turn that into the story of my life.
—From
“Art of faCt,”
an interview by
Sharon May with
praCh
Before any guests are allowed to eat, my mother prepares a tray of food, her best dishes—sticky rice, glass noodles fried with banana buds, steamed pork buns—and my father lights a handful of incense sticks. Setting these on an altar, we pray to the spirits of our dead relatives and invite them to the feast.
These spirits are the ghosts of my uncle, Sao Kim Yan, a math professor; my grandfather, Khan Reang, a rice farmer; my aunt, Koh Kenor, a housewife who was married to a businessman; and so many others who died during the war in our homeland. They are the restless ones who cross oceans and continents to find my family, now safe and comfortable in America. They are the ones who did not make it while they were living.
—From
“The Dinner
Guests”
by Putsata Reang
[Narrator:] In totalitarian regimes, the horror of the terror is that it rules over men and women and deprives them of their true fate. In Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, the Khmer Rouge were the incarnation of a policy that denied all reference to the humanity of those they subjugated. In Pol Pot’s Democratic Kampuchea, you could look neither to the right nor to the left but only straight ahead—and even then, if you wanted to survive, you were permitted to notice nothing. Against the madness of the Khmer Rouge regime, Bophana became a heroine in the Cambodian tragedy. Her constant resistance and her striking beauty were equally unacceptable to the butchers of the Cambodian people. Bophana lived in a country where love was an outrage to the revolutionary party.
* * *
[From Bophana's letters:] How many tears will a woman have to shed when they separate her from her beloved husband after spending only two nights together…
I lie in wait for your return. I wait for news from you…dreadfully…It has been eighty days now and there is still no news. I know and well understand that you and our two families are worried about my problems. But what can we do? It’s our karma. Our lifelines show that our lives are to be separated! I also know that in this liberated land, it’s the same everywhere. But for me living here in Baray, it’s like living among wolves who don’t understand human speech, who despise man, who deny human values, wolves who conspire behind our backs…I know only too well…that one day I will be a victim of our enemies here. Do you know, darling, that the villagers of Baray are all afraid of me?…My close friends no longer dare speak to me. I no longer have any hope. I cannot fight against destiny in order to meet you because life has an ending, and when you reach the end, you must know how to let go of life. I’m holding you tight and kissing you from far away…
—from
“Bophana:
A Cambodian
Tragedy”
by Rithy Panh
“Do you think it’s safe?” I asked Ming. “Are you scared?”
She paused and then said with a nervous smile, “Yes, a little scared.” I could see that in the backseat Mum was smiling uneasily.
Ming pointed out the window. “There it is. That’s the place.” Looking to the left, I saw a large blue-and-gold Cambodian pagoda. Though framed by lush green trees, it was dilapidated and filled with broken stone. Two trees towered over the main hall of worship, which was surrounded by naga-serpent balustrades. Several of the naga heads were missing.
All
over Cambodia,
religious buildings
like this one
were turned into
interrogation
and execution
centers. This
was one of the
ways the Khmer
Rouge showed their
hatred of religion,
which they viewed
as both a parasite
and an opiate
of the masses.
If the Khmer Rouge
didn’t convert
a pagoda into
a prison, they
might raze the
building, destroy
religious objects,
or use the building
as a storehouse.
Ming
asked, “Do
you want to go
in?”
“Yes,”
I replied quickly,
both out of curiosity
and my desire
to buy time to
figure out a safe
way to meet Khan.
We turned onto
a gravel road
that took us into
the temple’s
dirt courtyard,
which had been
overtaken by weeds
and a few scraggly
plants. Two monks
sat in a shady
alcove to escape
the heat. Three
children, probably
orphans, were
playing in the
dirt about a hundred
yards away from
us. Except for
them, the pagoda
was deserted.
—From
“The Perpetrator,
the Witness,
and the Victim”
by Alex Hinton
“There was a short period in my life when I did things that I now wish I hadn’t done,” Kunty finally said. “It was during the time when my husband left me, before he came back sick.” Kunty spoke slowly, watching the ground with her hands folded. “I thought I would never see him again. I had no way to support my children. After several months, I secretly remarried. I told my parents-in-law the man was my cousin and he moved into the house, in his own room. They didn’t say anything, because he helped support us all. But after a while, he started staying away on weekends, and then he left, like my first husband. I thought he was cheating on me. Actually, he was already married to someone else.” Kunty turned her face away from Sister Cecelia so that she would not see that she was crying. “I have kept this secret even from my parents.”
Kunty
was silent for
a long time. She
folded and unfolded
her hands in her
lap. Sister Cecelia
remained quiet
next to her. “I
didn’t think
my first husband
would ever come
back. But eventually
he did come back
and he was very
sick.”
Kunty
couldn’t
say what she had
wanted to ask
next. She wanted
to ask the nun
if she could have
caught this disease
from her second
husband rather
than from her
first—if
it was her adultery
that had caused
her illness. All
this time, she
had wondered if
it had been her
fault.
“I’ve
made a mistake,”
Kunty finally
said. “I
thought I wanted
to talk, but it
doesn’t matter
now. You see,
I have already
lost everything
that is important
to me.”
—from
“Caged Bird
Will Fly”
by Pollie Bith
Sharon May: What can be done to help Cambodian writers?
Pal
Vannariraks: First,
create an NGO
whose purpose
is to help writers
and work with
them individually.
Second, I’d
like to see the
government pay
more attention
to writers.
For
women writers,
it is even more
difficult. We
have even less
time to write
because we have
to be housewives,
take care of our
children and husband.
This is one reason
why I got divorced.
My husband wanted
to stop me from
writing. He burned
my books.
Sharon May: How did that happen?
Pal Vannariraks:
At that time,
I wrote too much.
Sometimes I didn’t
have enough time
for my family.
My sister helped
look after the
children and the
cooking. But my
husband was angry;
maybe he thought
I didn’t
take care of the
household. He
collected all
my stories and
rental books and
burned them in
front of the house.
I didn’t
dare snatch the
books out of the
fire. I was afraid
he’d become
violent. At the
time, I had small
children. I could
hold back my tears
when I was hit,
cursed, or blamed
by my husband,
but on the day
he burned the
books, I cried
a lot....
One
week after the
burning of the
books, I won the
Seventh of January
competition for
1989.
—From
“Words Out
of the Fire,”
an
interview with
three Cambodian
writers
I touch the baby’s cheek and he giggles; he looks like Saly, who is in his thirties but looks younger. The baby has a bandage on his navel, and I remember Saly telling me that he was at the hospital recently. Saly’s wife has a dazzling smile. In the glow of a kerosene lamp, we sit down on the floor. There is a mosquito coil nearby and some noodles Saly’s wife has prepared. Saly quickly shows me an English tape he has been using to learn the language. The baby enjoys playing with the cassette tape, then Saly takes it away. I thank his wife for letting me have Saly as my driver every day. Saly translates, and she laughs and thanks me. I keep my eyes fixed on her beautiful, glowing face.
—From
“Ten Gems
on a Thread”
by Catherine Filloux
Sharon May: Do you think poetry or writing can help in healing?
U Sam Oeur: In one way, when you sing a happy song, people never feel happy, but when you sing a sad song—like separation from a loved one—people smile, people say this sad song is so beautiful. Poetry is the same way. When we write about loss and wailing, we can heal people’s hearts—the people who cannot write, cannot express their pain. When they listen to my poems, they shed tears. So many ladies, several times…after they see my opera, The Krasang Tree, they say, “Thank you, sir; thank you very much.” The performance helps them to remember, to cry, to expel, to release the pain they experienced during the Khmer Rouge time. Then they can heal. They don’t worry anymore about expressing because I have expressed on their behalf.
* * *
Sharon May: Did you have any idea when you were young that you would become a poet?
U
Sam Oeur: I loved
to sing on the
back of the water
buffalo when I
was young: call-and-response
songs; a song
about myself;
a love song.
When
we were herding
the water buffalo,
there was nothing
to do, so we’d
sing. Just pretend
we were geniuses
on water buffalo.
We felt like giants,
but when people
looked at us,
we were small
birds on the water
buffalo’s
back. People hear
only the songs,
but can’t
see us. Small
as a bird, loud
as a giant.
—From
“Ambassador
of the Silent
World,” an
interview with
U Sam Oeur
—From
“To Rule
the Universe”
by Maha Ghosananda