The book Lucky Child by Loung Ung tells The story about Loung who was fortunate to escape the terrifying invasion of the Khmer Rouge and find a safe haven in America. The pressure of dealing with assimilation and trying to fit helps support Loung in finally embracing who she really is.
Loung is a ten-year-old girl living in the town of Phnom Penh in Cambodia. Loung was once a normal village girl. She had friends and went to school. All that changed when the Khmer Rouge came into power in 1975.“When Pol Pot’s communist Khmer Rouge stormed into the city April 17, 1975, my charmed life came to an end. On that day, Cambodia became a prison and all its citizens prisoners.”(1). Loungs life takes a sudden turn, Her once luxurious life has turned
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When Loung starts her first day of school, she is excited because she had spent most of her summer watching T.V and learning new words every day. She hopes that it would be enough to help her make some new friends. She imagines herself with friends that have blonde and brown hair. “I just know that if I'm friends with them, I’ll be normal and happy too!” (Ung 59) Loung doesn't want Asian friends, she believes that if all her friends were Asian she will be seen as someone who is an outcast and is not open to being friends with any other race. Loung sees Caucasian as the dominant race in America and if she can make friends with them, she can blend in with the common people of America.Heading to school with the typical pink dress and barbie backpack that she has seen the other neighborhood girls wearing, Loung enters her classroom with an optimistic mindset, but that all comes to a complete halt when she sees the frowns and glares of her classmates. When her teacher begins to tell the class to open up their notebooks and journal what they did for the summer Loung is very confused because these words were not said on the T.V. In order not to avoid looking like a fool she copies the little girl next to her. Loung copied the girl next to her because this moment was the pivotal moment she could show her teachers and classmates that she was just as American as them. Once the teacher realized that Loung …show more content…
Loung is tired of hearing how women are supposed to be sweet, kind and delicate. She wants to be independent and wild like the girls she sees on T.V. One day when Loung was playing with some friends she had accidentally hit Li and cut her lip. After she went home she sat in her closet so angry and ashamed. Meung sits outside the closet doors and consoles her. Telling him it was an accident Muang proceeds to tell Loung “You are not a boy, You don't need to play so aggressive” (58). Loung acts a different way at home than she does at school. Being a proper girl is a very important aspect of the Cambodian culture. Being proper and having the best etiquette is a way to show how high your status is. “Women demonstrate their high status through proper behavior. This includes both proper comportment and correct actions. Women are to walk slowly and softly, be so quiet in their movements that one cannot hear the sound of their silk skirt rustling”.(Ledgerwood 112). Loung starts to wear more revealing clothes as she grows older. She puts on makeup and flirts with boys as she sees the other girls in her class doing. When her brother starts to notice he gets angry at Loung, Accusing her of throwing herself away to impress the kids at school. This causes all of Loungs Cambodian friends
Thomas Buergenthal’s novel A Lucky Child is a heart aching tear jerking memoir about his life during the Holocaust. While Thomas and his family are forced throughout Europe by the Nazi army they are faced with many challenges that arise with the great difficulty of survival during this time. As they are forced out of their home in Czechoslovakia, Thomas and his family have a hard time fleeing the Nazi army because they have taken all of Poland. In no time Thomas finds himself in the Auschwitz death camp where most of the heart ache happens, this changes his life forever. Along with the hardships of being a prisoner of many concentration camps Thomas gets his knowledge of survival from his father Mundek Buergenthal. Thomas’s good sense of judgement
Jin Wang was born in America but is also Chinese. He faces some difficulties with racism and stereotypes as he grows up. He just moved to a new school from San Francisco. The teacher introduces him to the class and says,” Class, I'd like us all to give a warm Mayflower Elementary welcome to your new friend and Classmate Jin Wang...He and his family recently moved to our neighborhood all the way from China!”(30). Jin has this look on his face of annoyance. Like, did she actually say this. She is too ignorant to ask so she just assumed that since he is Chinese, that he must be from China. He was born in America. This just shows how ignorant people are about other cultures. It makes it even harder to fit in if people don't even care where you're from and just make assumptions. Jin now experiences this first hand. He tries so hard to fit in and be normal. He goes as far as changing his hair to match the guys hair that Amelia likes. When he isn't noticed as much he wants to become someone else, someone who will fit in. He wakes up in the morning a new person, as he has transformed into someone he is not, he thinks to himself,”A new face deserved a new name. I decided to call myself...Danny”(198). He changed his race he didn't like his heritage and cultures so much
In the Shadow of the Banyan, by Vaddey Ratner, details the struggles of Raami, a young girl coming of age in a time of the Cambodian genocide. The descriptions from Raami's point of view are vivid. She is forced to leave her childhood behind with the regime of the Khmer Rouge. As a Cambodian child, her life transformed from living as a princess with many privileges to living life day to day on the move, witnessing such terror, is quite the turnaround for anyone especially a child. She processes her experience as best as a child her age can, based on pure emotions. She’s at an age where children make sense of things with naivety. As the story continues, the descriptions of what she sees changes.
War in the the mid to late 70’s was violent. Many of the targeted people were children. The children were forced into child labor camps and made into child soldiers. The controllers of the war had a specific outlook on they controlled the affected people. Their goal was to take over the country and make all of its inhabitants equal. Phnom Penh was overtook by the khmer rouge in 1975, forcing all of the people who lived in the city to evacuate. Loung Ung’s family was forced out of their second class home during the evacuation. Desensitization played a huge role in the loss of innocence that took place during this biography. In the biography “First They Killed My Father” written by Loung Ung, Loungs loss of innocence is destroyed due to the harsh rule of the Khmer Rouge.
Clothes can mean a lot more to someone than just something to wear. To the people in this story, they symbolize memories, power, and love all at the same time. Memories of their childhood, their lives being taken over, and thoughts of their mother all come from the clothes they were. During Loung's experience, she loses her memories, loses her power to make her own choices in the most simplistic of ways, and loves what reminds her of her mother.
The book Lucky Child by Loung Ung tells the story about Loung who was fortunate to escape the terrifying invasion of the Khmer Rouge and escape to america.The pressure of dealing with assimilation and trying to fit in leaves Loung lost in the journey of trying to find out who she really is.
From 1975 to 1979 Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge regime, had a goal to create a society that was completely self-sufficient. In four years the Khmer Rouge killed, tortured and starved to death somewhere between 1.7 and 2 million innocent Cambodian civilians, ultimately destroying any trace of humanity within Cambodia. Forty years later the people of Cambodia are still suffering and the country is still trying to put the pieces back together, both physically and emotionally.
In the beginning of First They Killed my Father, Loung Ung uses a tone of nostalgia to emphasize that the lighthearted, well-off family will never be the same after the Khmer Rouge regime forces them out of their home. Words such as “sing” and “buzz” indicate the fondness with which Loung remembers Phnom Penh and her own innocence within a world where her greatest concern is her mother’s fussing over her appearance (Ung 1). The reader knows that she will soon lose her naïvity when tyrannical government, making the beautiful description of Cambodia’s capital sickeningly bittersweet. Additionally, in the first chapter, the reader meets Loung’s father, who is her idol and most trusted adult. After reading that Loung “believes everything” her father
Still today Cambodia is a forever changing society that faces many challenges. Cambodia is mostly poor but there is a distinguished majority that is somewhat wealthy. Many different religions, cultures, and ethnic groups have established colonization in Cambodia but they all have one thing in common…poverty. The Khmer Rouge created an everlasting effect on Cambodia that will most likely be a problem for many more years to come. (Hidayat, 2010)
The Khmer Rouge forced the people in the cities to leave their homes, they did this because there was a large gap between the classes in these areas. “The truly impoverished live in makeshift tents in areas where I have never been allowed to wander” (8). The classes were so separated that as a child Ung was not allowed to talk or associate with the impoverished people that lived in her home town. There was a visible difference between the poor and the rich, “the more
In April 1975, Cambodia history would be changed forever. This was the start of Cambodia genocide. Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, became the ruler of Cambodia. He did not like the idea of them influenced by other countries. Khmer Rouge persecuted all the educated citizens. They persecuted doctors, lawyers, police, and former military. They even prosecuted Buddhists, Christians and Muslims. Khmer Rouge then put all the citizens in living arrangements according to their trust. The “old citizens” were the most trust worthy. Then, the pro-west and city dwellers were called “new citizens”. The last groups were the “candidates” and “full right citizens”. Anybody that refused re-education were killed in the fields or at the prison camp Tuol Sleng Centre. Khmer Rouge killed over 1.7 million people. In January 1979, Khmer Rouge was removed from power by Vietnam communist. Ever since the genocide, Cambodia became one of the least developed countries in the world. According to United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking,” Poverty, lack of education, and employment opportunities have left many Cambodians, particularly women and children, in extremely vulnerable situations”. This would cause people to find many different ways to make money. Families would sell their daughters to brothels to pay off debts. Girls who are forced to work in brothels endure rape, abuse and torture.
“People are crying, people are dying, We had no idea where we were going or how long it would take.” The Khmer Rouge killed thousands of people including soldiers, and politicians who were considered not to be good people. The cities were
Cambodia is a South East Asian country formerly known as Kampuchea, it shares borders with Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. In Cambodia during 1975-1979 a political regime known as the Khmer Rouge took control of the country. During this time it is estimated that around 2 million people perished, over a quarter of the population, from torture and execution or from starvation and untreated illness (Fawthrop & Jarvis, 2005). Although the regime ended with defeat by the Vietnamese over 30 years ago, the effects from this reign of terror continues to have an impact on Cambodia. The countries social coexistence, peace building process and the aftermath of the annihilation of so many of its people has affected the current population make up in
Cambodia has been significantly affected by the ongoing communism and the rule of the Khmer Rouge during the 20th century. Referred to as The Khmer Rouge regime, Cambodian genocide, Year Zero and the Cambodian Holocaust, the rule of the Communist Party of Kampuchea from 1975-1979 has had a devastating impact on Cambodia and the country’s condition in the 21st century. Led by Pol Pot, the beliefs and objectives of the Khmer Rouge has resulted in Cambodia’s loss of culture and identity, the deaths of approximately 4 million people resulting in generation loss and a brain drain and has affected how Cambodia is in today’s society.
On the 17 April 1975, Khmer Rouge started to take over the entire country and defeated the rules of Lon Nol Army. The seizure of Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia, marked the beginning of the genocide in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge people were so cruel to everyone in the country, and Cambodian people did not expect it to happen to them in harshly way. After three years eight months and 20 days, the nightmare had finished, and the Khmer Rouge had overthrown, but they left deep scars for Cambodian people with unforgettable memories. Even though the genocide has ended, unfortunately there nearly 2 millions Cambodian victims out of a population of just 8 million were killed since they were starved, struck down by diseases, overworked and executed by Khmer Rouge. Furthermore, this genocide also caused an indigent education system, lack of proper nutrition, families fell apart, extreme poverty for living, refugees and an unstable government. It is my belief that any wars or genocides are a direct result of the human suffering. That is the main reason that I appreciate of reading the Borany’s storybook.