Loung Ung
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Loung Ung | |
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Born | Phnom Penh, Khmer Republic | 19 November 1970
Occupation |
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Language | English |
Nationality | Cambodian |
Citizenship | United States |
Alma mater | Human Rights |
Notable works | |
Notable awards | Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellowship |
Relatives | Keav†, Geak†, Chou (sisters) Khouy, Kim, Meng (brothers) |
Website | |
www |
Loung Ung (
Born in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Ung was the sixth of seven children and the third of four girls to Seng Im Ung and Ay Choung Ung. At the age of 10, she escaped from Cambodia as a survivor of what became known as "the Killing Fields" during the reign of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime. After emigrating to United States and assimilating, she wrote two books which related to her life experiences from 1975 through 2003.[1]
Biography
Memoirs
Ung's first memoir, First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers, details her experiences in Cambodia from 1975 until 1980: "From 1975 to 1979—through execution, starvation, disease, and forced labour—the Khmer Rouge systematically killed an estimated two million Cambodians, almost a fourth of the country's population. This is a story of survival: my own and my family's. Though these events constitute my own experience, my story mirrors that of millions of Cambodians. If you had been living in Cambodia during this period, this would be your story too".[2]
External videos | |
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Booknotes interview with Ung on First They Killed My Father, March 19, 2000, C-SPAN | |
Presentation by Loung Ung on First They Killed My Father, June 13, 2000, C-SPAN |
Published in the United States in 2000 by
Her second memoir, Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind, chronicles her adjustment to life in the U.S. with and without her family, and the experiences of her surviving family members in Cambodia during the ensuing warfare between Vietnamese troops and the Khmer Rouge. It covers the period of 1980 until 2003, and HarperCollins published it in 2005.
In both of her memoirs, Ung wrote in the first person and, for the most part, in the present tense, describing the events and circumstances as if they were unfolding before the reader's eyes: "I wanted [the readers] to be there".[6][7]
Early years: 1970–75
Ung's father was born in the small village of Tro Nuon in
Evacuation: 1975
Loung was playing near her home when trucks filled with Khmer Rouge troops rolled into her neighbourhood. The population of Phnom Penh, estimated at nearly two million people, was forced to evacuate. The Ungs abruptly left their home with what few belongings they could stow in their truck. When the truck ran out of fuel, they gathered the bare essentials that they could carry and began what became a seven-day trek toward Bat Deng in a throng of evacuees, harried by the bullhorns of the soldiers. Along the way they stopped at night to sleep in the fields and to search for food. Seng Im Ung, posing as the father of a peasant family, was fortunate to get by a military checkpoint in Kom Baul without being detained; many evacuees who were perceived to be a threat to the new government, because of their previous education or political position, were summarily executed there.[9] On the seventh day, as the Ungs neared Bat Deng, Loung's uncle found them and arranged to bring them by wagon to his village of Krang Truop.
Ung and her family stayed only a few months in Krang Truop because Loung's father was afraid that newly arrived evacuees from Phnom Penh would reveal his identity. He made arrangements for the family to be transported to
Again fearing that discovery of his ties to the Lon Nol government was imminent, Loung's father pleaded to have his family relocated. The Khmer Rouge ordered them taken to Ro Leap, where about sixty other families arrived on the same day.Separation, starvation, and death: 1976–78
Ro Leap was Ung's home for the next eighteen months. Cut off from all outside communication and constantly in fear of soldiers who patrolled the village, the Ungs were forced by the Khmer Rouge to work long hours with very little food. Near-starvation and physical exhaustion became a way of life. A few months after their arrival, Loung's oldest brothers, eighteen-year-old Meng and sixteen-year-old Khouy, and her oldest sister, fourteen-year-old Keav, were sent away to work in different camps. Six months later, in August 1976, Keav died of food poisoning at the teenagers’ work camp at Kong Cha Lat. In December, two soldiers came to the Ungs' hut and demanded the help of Loung's father to free a stuck wagon; he was never seen or heard from again.
Loung and her brother, eleven-year-old Kim, and her two sisters, nine-year-old Chou and four-year-old Geak, remained in Ro Leap with their mother until May 1977. During this time, they avoided starvation with the help of Meng and Khouy, who brought them what little food they could get from their work camp, and Kim, who risked his life late at night by stealing corn from the crops guarded by the soldiers. In May, agitated by screams in the night and the sudden disappearance of a neighboring family, Ay Ung sent Kim, Chou, and Loung away from Ro Leap with instructions to pretend they were orphans and never to come back. Kim separated from his sisters, while Loung and Chou found a nearby children's work camp where their guise as orphans was accepted. In time, Loung and Chou gained strength with improved food rationing, and in August 1977, Loung, now seven years old, was assigned to a training camp for
For the following seventeen months, Loung Ung learned how to fight the Vietnamese soldiers. In November 1978, she left her camp under the cover of night without permission, and returned to Ro Leap to see her mother and sister. Upon arriving, she found the hut empty, although her mother's belongings were still there. The woman in the neighboring hut told her that Ay and Geak had been taken away by the soldiers. They were also never seen again.
In January 1979, the Vietnamese army gained control of Phnom Penh and continued their invasion westward. Mortar explosions in her camp forced Ung and her fellow villagers to flee for their lives. In the ensuing chaos, her brother Kim and sister Chou found her on the road, and they set out for Pursat City, stopping only to rest and find food. Several days later, they entered Pursat City, a refugee camp under the control of comparatively friendly Vietnamese troops, and eventually were given shelter by families willing to take them in. The camp was sporadically attacked by Khmer Rouge soldiers, and Loung, nearly nine years old, saw more of the horrors of warfare.
Escape from Cambodia: 1979–80
In March 1979, Meng and Khouy, both of whom had also escaped their camps when the Vietnamese Liberation Army, arrived at Pursat City. In April, the reunited Ungs set out on an eighteen-day trek to Bat Deng, where they stayed with their uncle Leang and his family. During this time Meng married Eang, a twenty-year-old Chinese girl who was separated from her family, in a ceremony arranged by Loung's uncle and aunt. In time, they learned that Eang's mother and father were safe in Vietnam, and Meng and Eang went to see them. With their aid, Meng and Eang devised a plan to get to Thailand via Vietnam, and then, they hoped, to the United States. Meng returned alone to Bat Deng. With limited resources, he could afford to take only one family member with him back to Vietnam; he chose Loung.
In October, Loung and Meng were smuggled into Vietnam via a fishing boat and stayed with Eang and her family. In December, Loung, Meng, and Eang moved to a
Life in America: 1980–2011
Education in the United States
Their sponsors brought the Ungs by car from
In 1983, Loung entered the ADL Intermediate School, and continued with
Later that year Loung's teacher praised her for a sophomore English class paper she had written about growing up in Cambodia, and he encouraged her to write the whole story. During her six years in the U.S., Loung had often dealt with bouts of sadness and loneliness. After attempting suicide, she began to write the story of her life in Cambodia, her family, and the Khmer Rouge.[11] Over many months, her journal came to number hundreds of pages, and Loung continued to maintain a journal for many years. In retrospect, Loung has stated that untangling her feelings and putting them into words throughout those years was very therapeutic.
In 1989, Loung graduated from high school, and in the fall, she entered
Professional life
In 1995, Ung traveled back to Cambodia for the first time since she had fled fifteen years earlier. During this visit, she and Meng and his family reconnected with the family they had left behind and learned of the murders of many of their relatives during the Khmer Rouge reign. Sometime after returning to the U.S., Ung left Maine and moved to Washington, D.C., and in late 1996, joined the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (VVAF), an international humanitarian organization that provides physical rehabilitation clinics, prostheses, and mobility devices free of charge in many countries and in several provinces in Cambodia. In 1997, Ung was awarded a Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellowship, where she worked at the Peace Action Education Fund researching weapons trafficking and landmine legislation. In 2005, Loung made her twenty-fifth trip to Cambodia as the VVAF's spokesperson for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. The VVAF has, since 1991, fitted more than 15,000 victims with the means to walk and enjoy a better quality of life. Bobby Muller, chairman of the foundation, has said that "what comes out [when Ung lectures] is just staggering. It rocks people. She's the best thing this organization has ever had to advance our agenda".[12] The campaign won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997.[13]
Loung, Meng and Kim returned to Bat Deng in 1998 for a large family reunion with Khouy, Chou and all their relatives, including their 88-year-old grandmother. The Ungs arranged a Buddhist ceremony to honour their parents, Sem and Ay, and their sisters, Keav and Geak, who had all died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge regime; the service was attended by many hundreds of relatives and friends. Two years later, her first memoir was published. In 2002, Loung married her college sweetheart, Mark Priemer, and bought two and a half acres of land in Cambodia just a short distance from her sister Chou's home. During commencement ceremonies at Saint Michael's College in May 2002, Loung was inducted into the inaugural class of the college's Alumnae Academic Hall of Fame: "Saint Michael's is proud beyond measure to honour its 1993 graduate, Loung Ung".[14] In 2003, she was chosen by Saint Michael's to address the graduating class. Her second memoir was published in 2005.
Today
The following is an excerpt from the article "Cambodian refugee had new difficulties after move to U.S.", published by the
Ung recently moved to suburban Cleveland where her husband grew up. He knows, though, that someday he'll probably be living in Cambodia where Ung owns 2½ acres and plans to build a home. For now, she keeps plenty of reminders of the country in her fourth-floor home office — a statue of Buddha, a photograph of a palm tree and rice field that she feels captures the country's beauty. Her office overlooks a wood deck that has been painted rusty red to remind her of the soil of her native home. She's working on her first novel, set in 1148 in Cambodia. She's shy about revealing the plot. Again, she's sure it will only sell 10 copies.
Reception
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (November 2012) |
Ung's first book has been criticized by members of the Cambodian community in the U.S., a number of whom believe that it is more a work of fiction than an actual autobiography. She has also been accused of misrepresenting the Khmer race and playing on ethnic stereotypes for the purpose of self-aggrandizement and over-dramatization to increase sales and publicity.[15]
Among the complaints that some Cambodians have about Ung's works is that she was only five years old when the Khmer Rouge began its reign, and that she could not possibly have so vivid and detailed a memory of the events as they have been documented in her book.[15] Her detractors also claim that, as a child of a Chinese mother and a Khmer father highly placed in the Phnom Penh government, she paints a very unfavourable picture of Khmer villagers.[16]
There is a picture in First They Killed My Father that was supposedly taken "on a family trip to Angkor Wat" in 1973 or 1974. A civil war had been in progress in Cambodia since 1970 and the Khmer Rouge was in control of Siem Reap (the location of Angkor Wat) from 1973 onward. Critics state that it is not likely that Ung's family would be vacationing at that time in that region of Cambodia, that the picture was taken at Wat Phnom, which is in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, and that Ung's memory is therefore unreliable.[15]
In December 2000, Ung responded to the earliest of these criticisms.[17]
Notes
- ^ Reinherz, Adam. "Author and activist Loung Ung shares insider's look at Cambodian genocide". jewishchronicle.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved August 24, 2022.
- ^ Ung, Loung (2000). First They Killed My father. HarperCollins. p. ix (Author's note).
- ^ "Loung Ung". Omega. February 12, 2012. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
- ^ "Loung Ung". www.goodreads.com. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
- ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
- ^ [1] Archived May 25, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Loung Ung". HarperCollins Speakers Bureau. Retrieved May 22, 2020.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Ung, Loung (2000). First They Killed My father. HarperCollins. p. 11.
- ^ Ung, Loung (2000). First They Killed My father. HarperCollins. p. 33.
- ^ Ung, Loung (2000). First They Killed My father. HarperCollins. pp. 54, 55.
- ^ Ung, Loung (2000). First They Killed My father. HarperCollins. pp. 175–181.
- ^ [2] Archived May 14, 2005, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "All Nobel Peace Prizes". Nobelprize.org. Retrieved September 23, 2010.
- ^ "Alumni Academic Hall of Fame". 192.80.64.37. Archived from the original on July 9, 2012. Retrieved September 23, 2010.
- ^ a b c Soneath Hor, Sody Lay, and Grantham Quinn (2001). "First They Killed Her Sister: A Definitive Analysis [Archive]". Khmer Institute. Archived from the original on July 8, 2003. Retrieved September 23, 2010.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Loung Ung (2000). "First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers [Archive]". Khmer Institute. Archived from the original on April 14, 2001. Retrieved September 23, 2010.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) - ^ Loung Ung (December 13, 2000). "Response To Comments And Questions On My Book [Archive]". Khmer Institute. Archived from the original on March 6, 2001. Retrieved September 23, 2010.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
References
- First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers (ISBN 0-06-019332-8
- Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind (HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 2005) ISBN 0-06-073394-2
External links
- Loung Ung's official Website
- Transcript of Loung Ung interview Archived September 28, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
- Cambodia Tales page on Loung Ung — contains a transcript of an interview, pictures of Loung Ung, etc.
- Lucky Child — HarperCollins page, including extract, etc.
- Appearances on C-SPAN