Authors: Loung Ung
Lucky Child (2 page)
Lucky Child
begins where
First They Killed My Father
left off and follows both my life in America and Chou’s in Cambodia. In telling our stories,
Lucky Child
brings us back to the caring people who went out of their way to find us and to extend a helping hand. Whether it was a kind word spoken to me as a child or a morsel of food that sustained Chou for one more day. It has been a pleasure for me to reconnect with many of the people in this book. However, to protect their privacy, I have taken the liberty to change their names, except for those who chose for me not to. I am thankful to all of them, for all of their efforts and encouragement gave Chou and me the chance not only to survive the war but to thrive in peace.
June 10, 1980
My excitement is so strong, I feel like there are bugs crawling around in my pants, making me squirm in my seat. We are flying across the ocean to resettle in our new home in America, after having spent two months living in a houseboat in Vietnam and five months in a refugee camp in Thailand.
“We must make a good impression, Loung, so comb your hair and clean your face,” Eang orders me as the plane’s engine drones out her voice. “We don’t want to look as if we’ve just gotten off the boat.” Her face looms in front of me, her nails working furiously in their attempts to pick crusty sleepy seeds out of the corners of my eyes.
“Stop, you’re pulling out my eyelashes! I’ll clean my own face before you blind me.” I take the wet rag from Eang’s hand.
I quickly wipe my face and wet the cruds on my lids before gently removing them. Then I turn the rag over to the clean side and smooth down my hair as Eang looks on disapprovingly. Ignoring her scowl, I ball up the rag, run it over my front teeth, and scrub hard. When I’m finished, I wrap the rag around my pointing finger, put it in my mouth, and proceed to scrape food residue off my back teeth.
“All finished and clean,” I chime innocently.
“I do have a toothbrush for you in my bag.” Her annoyance is barely contained in her voice.
“There just wasn’t time … and you said you wanted me clean.”
“Humph.”
Eang has been my sister-in-law for a year and generally I don’t mind her; but I just can’t stand it when she tells me what to do. Unfortunately for me, Eang likes to tell me what to do a lot so we end up fighting all the time. Like two monkeys, we make so much noise when we fight that my brother Meng has to step in and tell us to shut up. After he intervenes, I usually stomp off somewhere by myself to sulk over how unfair it is that he takes her side. From my hiding place, I listen as she continues to argue with him about how they need to raise me with discipline and show me who has the upper hand or I’ll grow up wrong. At first, I didn’t understand what she meant by “wrong” and imagined I would grow up crooked or twisted like some old tree trunk. I pictured my arms and legs all gnarly, with giant sharp claws replacing my fingers and toes. I imagined chasing after Eang and other people I didn’t like, my claws snapping at their behinds.
But no, that would be too much fun, and besides, Eang is bent on raising me “right.” To create a “right” Loung, Eang tells Meng, they will have to kick out the tomboy and teach me the manners of a proper young lady—which means no talking back to adults, fighting, screaming, running around, eating with my mouth open, playing in skirts, talking to boys, laughing out loud, dancing for no reason, sitting Buddha-style, sleeping with my legs splayed apart, and the list goes on and on. And then there is the other list of what a proper girl is supposed to do, which includes sitting quietly, cooking, cleaning, sewing, and babysitting—all of which I have absolutely no interest in doing.
I admit I wouldn’t fight Eang so hard if she followed her own list. At twenty-four, Eang is one year older than Meng. This little fact caused quite a stir when they married a year ago in our village in Cambodia. It also doesn’t help that Eang is very loud and outspoken. Even at my age, I’d noticed that many unmarried women in the village would act like little fluttering yellow chicks, quiet, soft, furry, and cute. But once married, they’d become fierce mother hens, squawking and squeaking about with their wings spread out and their beaks pecking, especially when marking their territory or protecting their children. Eang, with her loudness and strong opinions, was unlike any unmarried woman I’d ever spied on. The other villagers gossiped that Meng should marry a young wife who could
give him many sons. At her advanced age, Eang was already thought of as a spinster and too old for Meng, a well-educated and handsome man from a respected family. But neither one cared too much for what the villagers said and allowed our aunts and uncles to arrange their marriage. Meng needed a wife to help him care for his siblings and Eang needed a husband to help her survive the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge war, Cambodia’s poverty, and increasing banditries. And even though they got married because of those needs, I do think they love each other. Like the two sides of the ying and yang symbol, together they form a nice circle. Whereas Meng is normally reserved and quiet, Eang makes him laugh and talk. And when Eang gets too emotional and crazy, Meng calms and steadies her.
“Thank you for the rag,” I smile sweetly, handing it back to Eang.
“Did you see what she did, Meng?” Eang crunches her face in disgust as she rolls up the wet rag and puts it in her bag. On my other side, Meng is quiet as he pulls a white shirt from a clear plastic bag and hands it over to his wife. The shirt gleams in Eang’s hands, crisp and new. When Meng found out we were coming to America, he took all the money we had and bought us all new white shirts. He wanted us to enter America looking fresh and unused despite our scraggy hair and thin limbs. Eang kept the shirts in a plastic bag so they would stay fresh and unwrinkled for this very special occasion.
At twenty-three, Meng wears a somber expression that makes him look many years older. The Meng I remember from before the war was gentle, with a ready smile and an easygoing manner. This new Meng seems to have left his sense of humor in Cambodia when we waved goodbye to Chou, Kim, and Khouy nine months ago. Now, only deep sighs escape his lips. At the refugee camp, there were many times when I was in our hut, lost in my world of words and picture books, when suddenly I would hear this long intake of breath, followed by a rushing exhale. I knew then that Meng was hovering somewhere nearby, and I would turn to find him looking at me with his long face and sagging shoulders.
When I ask Meng why we had to leave our family behind, he sighs and tells me I’m too young to understand. My face burns red by his put-offs. I may be too young to understand many things but I am old enough to miss Khouy’s voice threatening to kick anyone’s bottom who dares
mess with his family. No matter how far we leave them behind, I still miss Chou’s hand clasped warmly in mine, and Kim’s fingers scratching his ribs in manic imitation of a monkey, kung fu style. I am young but sometimes, when I would float alone in the ocean near the refugee camp, I’d feel old and tired. I’d sink to the bottom of the ocean, staring up at Ma, Geak, and Keav’s faces shimmering on the water’s surface. Other times, as I bobbed up and down, I’d imagine my tears being carried by the waves into the deep sea. In the middle of the ocean, my tears would transform into anger and hate, and the ocean would return them to me, crashing them against the rocky shoreline with vengeance.
At night at the refugee camp, I would gaze at the full moon and try to bring forth Pa’s face. I’d whisper his name into the wind and see him as he was before the war, when his face was still round and his eyes flashed brightly like the stars. With my arms around myself, I’d dream of Pa holding me, his body full and soft and healthy. I’d imagine his fingers caressing my hair and cheeks, his touch as gentle as the breeze. But before long, Pa’s face would wither away until he was only a skeleton of his former moon-self
If Meng also could see Pa’s face in the moon, he didn’t tell me. I don’t know how or when it started, but Meng and I somehow have found ourselves in a place where we don’t talk about the war anymore. It’s not as though we sat down one day and decided not to talk about the war—it happened so gradually we barely noticed it. At first he asked me questions I was not ready to answer, and I would ask him for answers he could not explain, until eventually the questions and talking just stopped. There are times that I still want him to tell me more about Pa and Ma and what kinds of people they were before I was born. But I do not ask because I cannot bear to watch his face light up at the memory of them, only to see it dim and darken when he remembers they are no longer with us.
When Meng and I do talk, we speak about our present and future. Of my past, Meng says only that he thinks I am ten years old but he is not sure. He shares that when he was a boy, Pa and Ma were so poor that they sent him to live with our aunts and uncles in the village. He says that each time he visited home, there was another little brother or sister to greet him until, in the end, there were seven of us. He tells me that what papers or records we had of our births the Khmer Rouge destroyed when they
entered the city on April 17, 1975. Without the papers, Ma and Pa were our only memories of our entrance into the world, but now they’re gone, too. In Thailand, when Meng was required to pick a new birthday for me in order to fill out the refugee papers, he chose April 17—the day the Khmer Rouge took over the country. With a few strokes of his pen, he made sure I will never forget Cambodia.
In the time that I’ve lived with Meng and Eang, it is clear to me that Meng’s thoughts are always focused on Cambodia and our family there. We have no way to send or receive words, so we do not know if Khouy, Kim, and Chou are still with us. In the Ung clan, Pa was the firstborn son in his family, and since Meng was Pa’s firstborn son, he now holds the title role not only as the head of our family, but as the eldest brother to all the Ungs of our generation. Meng wears this title with pride and constantly worries about the well-being of the younger Ungs and how he can be a good role model. Before leaving Cambodia, Meng painted a bright picture of our future to our aunts and uncles to justify our leaving for America. Once en route and on the boat, however, Meng’s eyes brimmed with tears and his face fell.
On the plane, I climb on my seat and turn around to wave at my friend Li Cho, seated a few rows behind me. Only a year younger than me, Li is part of the seven-person Cho family also on their way to make a home in Vermont. Because Meng and Eang mostly kept to themselves at the Lam Sing Refugee Camp, they did not know the Chos before today. However, Li and I met the first night I arrived there. Behind the walled prison fence of the refugee camp and in the midst of the porous thatched-roof huts, Li and I explored our temporary homes together and became friends. We shared our secrets by the ocean while spying on grown-up women and making fun of their large breasts. Li told me she was born in Cambodia to a Chinese father and a Vietnamese mother. Her mother and her father passed away when Li was young and now she lives with her adult brothers, sisters, and nephews. Fully clothed and with our sweaty hands clasped tightly together, Li and I would run into the ocean and talk about how much we wished we could buy a bottle of Coke and a bowl of noodles. I would tell her about how my father would hold my fried crickets for me at the movies, and she would tell me how her father used to read to her.
As the plane rocks and sways, Li looks green from motion sickness. Li’s small body slumps over in her seat as her sister Tee pats her fine black hair. Even in sickness, Li is pretty with her large eyes and a small chin. Watching her, I remember a time when I thought I was pretty, too. It seems unreal that only five years ago in Phnom Penh, Ma and her friends would coo and pinch my cheeks when I entered the room wearing a new dress or a bow in my hair. They would comment on my full lips, large almond eyes, and wavy hair. To this, I’d smile and extend my hands until they emptied their purses of candies and money, before Ma shooed me away.
I turn back to look at Li. “Poor Li,” I think. She has been sick and throwing up the entire plane trip. Awake, she is a sweet and mild-mannered girl, exactly the kind of girl Eang wishes I would be. With that thought, I sit down in my seat and open another bag of peanuts. Though Li cannot keep her food down, my stomach has no such trouble and like a good friend, I happily volunteer to eat her food.
As our plane begins its descent, the soft fluffy clouds part and open the world below to me. I lean over Meng to peer out the window and catch my first glimpse of my new home. Scanning the land, I am disappointed to see only mountains, trees, and water. I guess we are still too high up to see the tall, shiny buildings. My hands grip the armrest tightly, and I daydream about the America I hope I’m going to. In their attempts to prepare us for life in the United States, the refugee workers would show us Hollywood movies, where each plot took place in a large, noisy city with tall, shiny buildings and big, long cars racing down crowded streets. On the big screen, Americans are loud-talking, fast-moving people with red, blond, brown, or black hair, weaving in and out of traffic wearing heels or roller skates. In my seat, I imagine myself walking among these people and living an exciting new life far from Cambodia. These images set my heart racing with anticipation until Eang’s voice brings me out of my reverie. Eang brushes her hand over the front of my shirt and complains about the falling crumbs. Meng hurriedly primps his hair with a small black plastic comb just as the captain announces we are landing.