Shaker Heights author Loung Ung: "Now I write because I really enjoy it." (Chris Stephens/The Plain Dealer)November 13, 2009
By Karen R. Long
The Plain Dealer
AUTHOR TALKLoung Ung has broken bread with Queen Noor of Jordan, lunched with Paul McCartney and opened her own restaurant, Bar Cento, in Ohio City.
Loung Ung
- When: 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 15.
- Where: Louis Stokes Wing Auditorium, Cleveland Public Library, 525 Superior Ave., Cleveland.
- Cost: Free. Call 216-623-2955.
At 39, she is a world away from the childhood starvation that distended belly and drove her to swallow rotten leaves. Born into an upper-middle-class family, Ung was 10 when she fled Cambodia with an older brother. Eventually, they learned that more than 20 relatives, including both their parents, had been murdered by the Khmer Rouge.
Those privations are contained in her 2000 memoir, "First They Killed My Father," a story that Ung tells in a child's voice. It is now widely taught and has been translated into 10 languages.
Critics have praised her as the Anne Frank of Pol Pot's killing fields.
Nevertheless, Ung said she was surprised to be asked to speak Sunday at the Cleveland Public Library. The memoirist and activist described the invitation as an unanticipated honor.
For local authors, it signals an arrival of sorts. Ung, who lives in Shaker Heights, will deliver her speech in English, her fourth language, after Khmer, Chinese and French. In advance of the Writers & Readers talk, she agreed to answer a few questions.
In your peripatetic anti-land mine work, you've become a professional lecturer. How do you find the proper distance for telling your own story?
My work has evolved from personal writing, writing that was therapeutic, a way to take away the power of those soldiers, who were monsters and gods of mythical proportion.
It changed next to activist writing, interviews with those at the rehabilitation centers [in Cambodia], writing that can actually do something. Now I write because I really enjoy it. I'm in a third phase that combines the internal and external. Honestly, I love it.
Memoir as a genre has taken a beating since the James Frey fiasco. Where do you see it now?
I think it is swinging back. I'm one who believes there are always going to be a few bad apples. And I've read many novels that are inauthentic.
Memoir is a collection of memories -- different from biography or autobiography. For me, it started as a beautiful form. People tell me all the time that my books read like novels.
One hundred and 20 million people have survived some kind of war. And the stories of all the Cambodians who survived seem like fiction to Americans. I get mail every day from readers, and they often say it took them years to open my book.
You know with something called "First They Killed my Father" that you're not in for a funny, rock 'n' roll ride.
Your second book, "Lucky Child," focuses on the parallel life of your older sister, Chou, who stayed in Cambodia. How is she now?
She's fabulous. She's 41 and a grandmother for the second time. She's really happy.
When I last saw her, I was watching her brush her hair. Most Cambodian girls do have long hair, and the bonding thing between sisters and cousins is you brush each other's hair.
She asks me, "Who brushes your hair?" and I have to say, "I do." It is so good for me to spend time around her. I've been back to Cambodia many, many times.
You've suggested, intriguingly, that your family may have picked you, the sixth of seven children, to escape with your brother because you were combative, and therefore more likely to survive but harder to marry off in Cambodia.
In every culture, being a tomboy is not highly prized. But my father praised me; he saw it as a sort of cleverness. My mother didn't like it. She'd always been two-dimensional to me -- my mother, my father's wife. [Ung last saw her mother alive when she was 8.]
But I'm writing a book now about my mother, and I'm newly in love with her. I've interviewed her best friend, my uncle and my aunt. She was really funny and spunky and a woman before her time.
24 comments:
good for her. smart lady!
Remembered the very first day, she has just arrived in US, She doesn't know how to use toilet!...very funny...!
I hate that woman.
I heard that she wrote the book to bash the brown-skinned Khmer people and accused them to be the killers of all the light-skinned Chinese and Vietnamese and Europeans, etc. However, the real killers were and actually of the light-skinned people as her. She wrote her book to create a great divide between the Khmer people. She wrote the book for the White readers (audience). She clearly pointed out that DARK=EVIL; WHITE=Victims. Watch out for her evil intention! At 39 years of age, she still has many more vipes to spew at the Khmer people for years to come. The worst part part is that she has owned some land inside Cambodia. I don't get it, if she hates Cambodia and the Khmer people so much, why the hell she wants to buy some land there? Again her greed and evil intentions have no boundary. Watch Out for her!
You don't stave a child. You don't jank her out of her home like the Khmer Rouge did. On April 17th of 1975, KR hyjacked 2 millions Cambodian out of their homes from Capital of Phnom Pehn alone. None really know where to go and what to do. 2 Millions people were tricked out of their homes, only to get starved, to get sicked, to get punished and to eventually die like animals. Loung was just a child, but she was no ordinary child. Her mother was chinese and like she had described in her book, her mother had porcelain skin. What happened to her? She was taken away leaving her lost in this world in such a young age. Her father had dark skin and Cambodian of military's high ranking. He had a face resemblance to the face of God at Angkor Thom. Loung her self was dark. What are you talking about 10:33am? Buy the book and read it for yourself. If you don't want a woman to write a book like that, just don't abuse her like the Khmer Rouge did to her when she was a child. This young woman had been thru hell and back and there is nothing can stop her from telling the truth. Dark and light skin people are everywhere in Cambodia. Get use to it. Where I came from KR brought Kola's kids and trained them as their bodyguards or as adopted brothers and sisters. Those kids were cute and had very light skin. I feel lucky getting to share their look, because I too was young and no dark skin during Pol Pot's Era. I also saw dark skin Cambodian daughter and son whose father was in military like Loung's father was and got taken away, only to be killed just like Loung's mother was. It depends on where you lived and yes, majority of the light skin people were extremely prejudice against. There was no doubt about it, because KR believed that poor people worked very very hard. They stayed under the sun longer making their skin darker. Pol Pot men and women took pity on them and turned on the light skin one the most. KR also believed those who had light skin never did anything, but a slave driver in the past. Therefore, they must be punished and be paid for their behavior. This type of behavior was equivalent to a very serious offense and crime and they must receive serious punishment. Everyone knows that nealy 2 millions were gone dead and finished by KR's men and women. If you have, yet to know the truth. Get ready.
Loung, you're beautiful! God bless!
don't rubber stamp too much Sa Mak Mit @ 1:02 PM.
we know what she wrote. if you don't know politic, don't jump into conclusion and totally blame the KR.
Mi Lop!!!!
I love her! she's my dream girl!
9:59AM,
Go to school, get educated, and be a winner. Stop hatred of other because of their achievements. You should be proud of your fellow Khmer who's doing well for herself.
I don't believe in politic. I believe in true story. Loung mother, father and her sisters were gone during pol pot era. They didn't just dissappear. They were taken away, mistreated and abused so badly that they couldn't endure anymore. They died horribly like animals. It's about time she cries out and tell. People everywhere deserve to know the truth and nothing, but the truth.
Who can hate her? She is child victim and wrote her story. People like her and Dith Pran are the reason anybody in USA knows about KR crime. Happiness to her beauty self.
Plus, I don't see Hun Sen writing a book about his KR years....
She is a fake trying to make money off selling books. How many times I am going to tell you this? Don't believe everything you read. Try to think first then come up with a conclusion for yourselves.
She's my dream girl too! i used to have wetdream about her...
Thousand of viet secret agents in Pol Pot regime are responsible for the killing field in Cambodia.
Yes you are right 11:43AM,those thugs are every where in cpp government.
Hundreds and thousands of small vehicles and trucks were spoted leaving Cambodia to Thailand thru western part of the country's highway sometime between 1975 and 1976. Those cars and trucks were formerly property of Cambodian people. Khmer Rouge took possession of them after chasing those people out of their homes and cities. They were sold to Thais in a hurry and left nothing for the use of Cambodian people's well being. There was no public transportation anywhere either in the country. None were able to travel,except the Khmer Rouge's officers which they had saved some for themself. Everyone else was trapped in each village under very tight control of KR's cadets. This was one way of cutting communication and cutting throat of Cambodian people during this darkest regime.
When will people realize the true fact about this woman. She is simply a woman who hates the Khmer people. When will you know the real motive of this woman? She abhores the Khmer people. The truth of the matter is that the real killers of the innocent people in Cambodia were the light-skinned people as her. My gosh, Western reporters wrote about Pol Pot as having the "smooth light skin". Go look at the Duch's skin, and Khieu's skin, and Noun Chea's skin, and Sary's skin and so on and so forth. They are light skinned people as LUONG herself. Yet, Luong wrote the book to create a deepest division between the Khmer people. She has a basic motive and it is: "DARK=EVIL KILLERS, LIGHT=Innocent Victims." NOT TRUE!
How can Mrs Ung hate Khmer people is she is Khmer? Her feature does not pass her to be a caucasion or Chinese or Korean anything. She looks a typical Khmer women I met.
May be she said in a frustration she had faced with her racist Khmer people in the past.
She is a human being who happened to be borned and lived in cambodia, and also survived the khmer rouge genocide. why is some people hating on her? Her book may not be perfecct but at least she wrote about her childhood under the KR. Through her book, future khmer generations will be able to learn about the KR regime. Stop hating on this woman, and if your jealous of her success get over it!
They are jealous to what she had done.
It's khmer behavior. Khmers never helped Khmers in the 3rd world, in contrary to Viet immigrants, they helped each other.
8;00am.
Who are they that jealous with Madam Ung?
I can tell that Madam Ung is trying to heal her bad experiences she went through in her life by keep writing.
A few of her people or so called Khmer racists are not representing million Khmers. Besides Madam Ung didn't meet those million Khmers either to make a conclusion.
Furtheremore, most Khmer nationalists are 99% Sino-Khmers just like Madam Ung herself. I don't know who are pure Khmers or who are not pure Khmers in Madam Ung's dictionary. If she can find who is pure Khmers or pure Chinese send us the type of the DNA of pure KHmers to learn about it. I read Miss Theary Seng's bio, she too is a Sino_Khmer inspite of her very dark skin. How come Theary Seng does not have anymosity toward her own people like Madam Ung? Get over it, we are humans and that's how we are.
I am too a Sino_Khmer, but believe me I don't have to fuck up with others complained about me.
There is no pure Khmer or oure Thai or pure fucking Youn.
Thaksin is Thai, Hun Sen is Khmer, because they were born in different countries, though these two are of chinese decent.
Madam Ung has an inferioty complex and worried too much about who talks about who almost like Holliwood gossipt to me. Get a life and enjoy as she can before she dies like the rest of us who are going to get old and die.
Peace
She doesn't hate Khmer. She hates those who created and practiced communist- fascist regime. If you happens to be dark and have a heart of a demon which separated and killed 4 of her immediate relatives, you deserve it.
Halaluyah!
Khmer Rouge's uniform were black. So there were black men in power everywhere in Cambodia during the year of 1975 and 1979. Remember Loung was five years old then. So there they were. They created bad perception in a child memory forever. Perhaps a terrifying perception forever. That is too bad. The next time you wear black, you act and do devil thing, be careful.
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