First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers
Loung Ung
Harpercollins, 2000
240 pp.

I first encountered praises about Loung and her incredibly moving book and story on a forum discussion on the Internet. I also received an email about her being interviewed on TV and later on how her book had inspired college students in Washington to hold a candle vigil in memory of victims of the Khmer Rouge. I was only able to see the last three minutes of her interview on TV but thought Loung was a great speaker, articulate and eloquent. I remember her saying something to the effect, "if nothing else, this book has been therapeutic for me," which I thought was a powerful statement. A week later, some friends forwarded email discussions concerning her book to me. These discussions were passionate, thoughtful, confrontational and made strong statements accusing Loung of lying and even being racist. Many Cambodians who had lived through the Killing Fields complained of fabrications in her story and of her memory being distorted. So before I actually read the book, I prepared myself to accept that the book was written from a creative point of a view with a lot of poetic license - poetic license being distortions and embellishments of the truth in order to make the book a good read. I was willing to accept some poetic license if it meant bringing attention and remembrance to those who died under the Khmer Rouge.

First They Killed My Father is a story of triumph and survival, which means that Loung must possess great personal characteristics and strength in order to survive the atrocity and have the passion to speak out about it. Since she is the protagonist and heroine of the story, she gives herself admirable characteristics, such as being curious, perceptive and wise. But she overuses her poetic license to the point of being a sham because she has more wisdom than is believable for a child between the age of five and eight years old. At five years old, she was already someone with whom her father shares and discusses politics. Furthermore, the description of her family members are too stereotypical: her father as the omnipotent and compassionate god; her mother the beautiful and admired woman; there is a brother who they look up to and a brother who they fear; a sister who will become a "great lady"; herself, a troublesome child; and a youngest child, who is the most precious of all the children. There are many coincidences and implausible incidents in the story, like all of them being in the same infirmary at the same time, which are made to tug at the readers' heartstrings; but whether or not they are real incidents, poetic license can be used to justify them.
        There seem to be many incidents that occur at the right moment and time making the story a page-turner and touching. But the question is how much of her story can be considered true and how much can be viewed as self-serving, created for the purpose of selling a book or for the purpose of therapy. Is it truly "an important story that will have a dramatic impact on today's readers and inform generations to come" as the cover claims? There are too many fact manipulations, contradictions and inaccuracies made to support her story for this to be so. It may be acceptable to create incidents to make her book a page-turner, but it is not acceptable to present false information about Cambodian culture while claiming to be "a daughter of Cambodia."
        The email discussions I read highlighted many of the fabrications and inconsistencies in Loung's story. For instance, at the outset of her book, Loung describes putting "red chili peppers and mint leaves" into her noodle soup ("Kouytiev") (p. 3). It is a minor mistake but it shows her lack of knowledge of Cambodian culture. As a Cambodian person reading this, I was disturbed by this tiny but false information. I don't know if it was an honest mistake or if it was included simply because mint leaves would sound exotic to readers of the book. But even if I can accept this small mistake, as I read on, I discovered more false and contradictory statements, which have the purpose of making the story interesting but falsifying what it means to be Khmer and the knowledge that goes with it. Going back to the stereotypical characters of her family, one of her brothers, "Khouy is sixteen and more interested in girls and karate than book. His motorcycle is more than a transportation vehicle; it is a girl magnet" (p. 13). Who are these girls who are attracted to a sixteen year old boy with a motorcycle? Are these Cambodian girls? Loung has made this statement to support her portrayal of her brother as a bad boy type. But she does not take into consideration the Cambodian practice of arranged marriage and the fact that girls are not allowed to chase boys. The culture absolutely prohibits dating, and I doubt that there were any decent Khmer girls chasing him. Furthermore, in reading that her older sister Keave, who is of course beautiful, was being shaped into a "great lady" by her mother (p. 13), I felt as if I was reading a book about the English aristocracy rather than a Cambodian girl who was being taught how to behave properly. As a Khmer woman, I could not relate to it. Her youngest sister is the gem of the family and her name, Geak, actually means jade in Chinese. Loung claims that "jade" is the most valued and loved of all precious stones to Asians, which happens to support her portrayal of Geak as the precious baby of the family. I cannot speak for other Asians, but I know that jade is not the most important anything to Cambodians. The most valued type of stone to Cambodians is from Pailin called "Tbong Bar." Jade is not really used at all. Either Loung's Chinese background influenced this comment, which again betrays the sub-title "a Daughter of Cambodia Remembers," or she plays up this asian stereotype for readers who lack knowledge about Cambodia. These are small but crucial misrepresentations that throw into doubt the author's credibility and any connection that I could have made to the story as a Cambodian person reading this book.
        Besides giving false information about Cambodian culture to support her story, Loung also often contradicts herself. When she first sees the Khmer Rouge, she notices that "[m]ost look young and all are thin and dark-skinned, like the peasant workers at our uncle's farm, with greasy long hair flowing past their shoulders." Loung furthers claims that "long, greasy hair is unacceptable for girls in Cambodia and is a sign that one does not take care of her appearance" (p. 17). I might be convinced to believe that greasy hair is dirty, but I know for a fact that long hair is considered a sign of beauty in Cambodian culture. Growing up, I was encouraged to keep my hair long and to use coconut oil to make it shiny, in a sense "greasy," and it was not only acceptable but encouraged. Furthermore, there are also many songs by renown Cambodian singer Sinn Sisamouth about beautiful girls with long flowing hair. Later in the book, Loung describes the Khmer Rouge and their identical short, crop haircut, which was the mark of the Khmer Rouge and everyone else under their rule. Have they decided to cut their hair short because Cambodian culture dictates that long hair is not acceptable? These Khmer Rouge never took tradition or belief into consideration when they killed without mercy, why would they now suddenly follow Cambodian customs?
        When Loung comes face to face with a Khmer Rouge, she looks down and concentrates on her dirty toes because she claims that she has "been told that when you look into their eyes, you can see the devil himself" (p. 32). Who told her these things? This is before she understands what is going on, who the Khmer Rouge are, and what they will do. There are two important inconsistencies here. One, while the word devil is a good word to use to capture the reader's imagination and sympathy, there is actually no Khmer translation for it. Cambodians do not have a character like the devil who is a personification of evil. Our version of the devil is Yongvaba and he is not evil: He is the person in hell whose job is to give out punishment based on our bad karma. What he does to us has nothing to do with his evilness but our own behavior on earth, whether we have done good or bad deeds and deserve praise or punishment. Secondly, Loung's demonization of all Khmer Rouge cadre as being evil-incarnate is inconsistent with many other personal narratives about the Killing Fields experience (and even the movie itself), which acknowledges that not all individuals involved in the movement were ruthless killers.
        It is ironic that, as "a daugther of Cambodia," Loung seems to go out of her way to boast about her Chinese background. She tells us that "[a]mong her woman friends, Ma is admired for her height, slender build, and porcelain white skin. I often overhear them talking about her beautiful face when they think she cannot hear... They comment on her perfectly arched eyebrows; almond-shaped eyes; tall, straight Westrern nose; and oval face. At 5'6", ma is an Amazon among Cambodian woman. Ma says she's so tall because she's all Chinese" (p. 2-3). This description directly contradicts Amy Tan's description of Chinese in her book The Joy Luck Club, which states: "Even without makeup, I could never pass for true Chinese. I stand five-foot-six, and my head pokes above the crowd so that I am eye level only with other tourists. My mother once told me my height came from my grandfather, who was a northerner, and may have even had some Mongol blood." Who are we to believe? Loung later follows up this description of her Chinese mother by making a generalized description that "pure Khmer have curly black hair, flat noses, full lips, and dark chocolate skin." I personally don't take this comment to be racist or that she is saying Khmer people are ugly. Nevertheless, the implication based on this description that Khmer people are ugly may be inferred by the fact that she considers Chinese, being in her estimation the opposite, "beautiful." It also brings to mind a comment by a late 13th century Chinese traveler to Cambodia who described Khmers as a "coarse people, ugly and deeply sunburned." Even if not intended to be racist, these generalizations are nevertheless inappropriate because they exclude many people who consider themselves Khmer but do not fit this particular description. Additionally, after having made these physical distinctions between Khmers and Chinese, Loung claims fear of the Khmer Rouge discovering her ethnic background: "Everywhere I go I am obsessed with the thought that people are staring at me, watching me with suspicious eyes, waiting for me to mess up, and give away our family secret. Can they tell by the way I talk, or walk, or look?" (p. 101). Well, if the physical distinctions are so clear, wouldn't they be able to tell by the fact that she doesn't have coarse black skin and a flat nose?
        Throughout the book Loung also show a tendency to emphasize her Chinese culture when it suits her, while presenting other less desirable customs as part of Cambodian culture. Loung tells us, for example, that when her mother returns home from shopping, "the first thing she does, following Chinese culture is to take off her sandals and leave them at the door" (p. 9). The statement here shows an unnecessary emphasis on her Chinese background, as it is also Cambodian practice to leave shoes at the door. You would think a daughter of Cambodia would have mentioned this. When she discusses eating dog, however, she states, "Cambodians do not generally eat cats and dogs. There are specialty stores where they sell dog meat but at a very expensive price. It is a delicacy." (p. 25). She fails to note that these "specialty stores," then and now, primarily cater to the rich Chinese who can actually afford to pay the expensive prices to eat such "delicacies." As in many western cultures, Khmers keep dogs as pets, not livestock. Beyond these superficial distinctions though, what may be most offensive is that Loung fails to acknowledge that a vast majority of the people who died during the Khmer Rouge period were not the slender, porcelain white skinned ethnic minority, but the dark, flat-nosed Khmer themselves. Maybe she was playing on the comparisons others have made between the Khmer Rouge and the NAZIs. The comparison may be appropriate as far as the extent of suffering they created, but Cambodia's Killing Fields was not about ethnic cleansing, it was about communism. A new term was coined in the late 1970's to describe the killings that went on in Cambodia: auto-genocide - meaning it was a people killing off their own, not one group of people necessarily seeking to exterminate another.
        Other Cambodian readers have brought up good points concerning the author's privileged socio-economic background as well, very much distant from almost all other Cambodians. They see Loung's use of the book to eulogize her father as being a possible attempt to clear his name - to show that even though her family was wealthy, which at that time often indicated corruption, her father was a saintly figure and above it all. This causes her to create more inconsistencies in her story. When she asked her father about being told by the Khmer Rouge that they could return to Phnom Penh in three days, he apologizes to her saying, "I know. I'm sorry you believed them, but they lied" (p. 30). I tried to translate this statement into Khmer but it makes no sense. While the apology displays her father's compassion and is a nice sentiment, later in the story, after her mother hits Loung and apologizes to her, saying "I didn't mean to hurt you. You kids fight too much and I lost my head. Why are you always fighting with everyone?" (p. 91), Loung admits "that is as much of an apology as any child will get from an adult in Cambodia" (p. 91). What a contrast to her father apologizing to her for no other reason than to show sympathy at being lied to by someone else. He may be the great father as she claims, but there is no basis for it in the Cambodian context, especially given Loung's own contradiction later on concerning her mother's apology. Another improbability associated with her father is the family trip to Angkor Wat in 1973 or 1974 when Loung "was only three or four years old" (p. 109). This trip causes her to view her father as a god whose "huge round faces, with their almond-shaped eyes, flat nose, and full lips" resembled those on the walls of Angkor (p. 110). Other Cambodians who also lived during that period call attention to the fact that Angkor Wat was not accessible at that time since the Khmer Rouge was in full control of the sites. Loung even has the boldness to place a supposed picture of the trip to Angkor Wat in her book which actually shows the English word "Traite" written on it and the depiction of a 20th century King on the wall - images definitely not found on the 12th century Angkor Wat temple. The trip and "realization" that her father is a god is part of her glorification of him.
        That she is willing to manufacture so much means that nothing in this book is sacred. These fabrications make the story difficult for Cambodians who know the truth to accept. In a sense, she degrades their memories when she changes facts around to glorify her own family members and embellish her story. As mentioned earlier, a little embellishment may be justified by poetic license, but this was too much. A fitting sub-title for this book is "A Daughter of Chinese-Cambodian Descent Tries to Remember" or "A Daughter of Cambodia Lies and Degrades the Experience of Every Cambodian who knows the Truth and Suffered under the Khmer Rouge."

Reviewed by Navy Phim

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