“First They Killed My Father” bears upon a happy families world turning upside down when they had to evacuate from their beautiful home in Phnom Penh. The Ung family lived in an apartment building in the uppertown of Phnom Penh were the more wealthy people lived.Father, Sem Im Ung worked for the government so he earned enough money to support 7 of his children and his wife considering she doesn't work. The main character and also the author of this book tells the readers about her tough journey to survive the war.
RESPONSE:
Loung Ung is a very outgoing individual. She is very joyful and very adventurous compared to her siblings( Meng, Khouy, Keav, Kim, Chou, and Geak) who were very coshes and mature. Throughout the book Loung makes many difficult journeys during her Cambodian youth. Having to go from a large privileged family to being an orphan was very irritating for the young girl. She wasn't able to grasp the fact that her live was being torn apart because of something she had nothing to do with. Being the curious girl she is, she always asked “Why?” That question was one of the million she asked her father but that was the only one he couldn't answer.
The Ung’s moved from one place to another just to keep their family together. Because their father was a former government worker, the Khmer Rouge would have killed him if they found out because they think anyone with an education is a threat to their dictatorship. For months they were on the road. Walking in the hot sun, starving and it was very hard for them to stay together. It was the hardest on Loung because she desperately wanted to be somewhere she can call “home” somewhere like Phnom Penh. But that was difficult considering they had to move to anot...
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...In the end of the book Kim, Chou, and Loung met up. They decide to look for Meng and Khouy. Meanwhile they find their aunt and uncle. After living with them for a while they find Meng and Khouy. That really shine a light to their drake world. Later on, after settling in with the little family they had left, they decided they had enough money to send two people to America. So Meng, his wife, and Loung go to a refugee camp to get deporter to the states. After a long plane ride they arrive in Vermont. There, Loung becomes a strong motivational speaker, she writes her book and shares her story with millions.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
“First they killed my father” is a powerful and touching story. It highlights the horrifying and painful cambodian civil war. It dramatically impact the readers and also informs them about sacrifice, and that it is necessary in hard times.
War is cruel. The Vietnam War, which lasted for 21 years from 1954 to 1975, was a horrific and tragic event in human history. The Second World War was as frightening and tragic even though it lasted for only 6 years from 1939 to 1945 comparing with the longer-lasting war in Vietnam. During both wars, thousands of millions of soldiers and civilians had been killed. Especially during the Second World War, numerous innocent people were sent into concentration camps, or some places as internment camps for no specific reasons told. Some of these people came out sound after the war, but others were never heard of again. After both wars, people that were alive experienced not only the physical damages, but also the psychic trauma by seeing the deaths and injuries of family members, friends or even just strangers. In the short story “A Marker on the Side of the Boat” by Bao Ninh about the Vietnam War, and the documentary film Barbed Wire and Mandolins directed by Nicola Zavaglia with a background of the Second World War, they both explore and convey the trauma of war. However, the short story “A Marker on the Side of the Boat” is more effective in conveying the trauma of war than the film Barbed Wire and Mandolins because of its well-developed plot with well-illustrated details, and its ability to raise emotional responses from its readers.
Dien Cai Dau by Yusef Komunyakaa is a collection of poems based on Komunyakaa’s personal experiences of the Vietnam War. He describes his experiences and observations in a way that isn’t as gritty and raw as some veterans, but still shows the horrors of war and the struggle to survive. What makes Komunyakaa’s work different is the emotion he uses when talking about the war. He tells it like it is and puts the reader in the soldiers’ shoes, allowing them to camouflage themselves and skulk around the jungles of Vietnam from the very first lines of “Camouflaging the Chimera.” Komunyakaa’s title Dien Cai Dau means “crazy” in Vietnamese and is an appropriate title based on the mind set of this veteran soldier. Two common themes I have found in Komunyakaa’s
The Vietnam War caused great destruction in Laos, and so the Lee family migrated to America, after spending a short time in refugee camps in Thailand. After settling in America, Foua gives birth to Lia, who unbeknownst to them will suffer from epilepsy soon after she is born. For four years, little Lia is admitted to hospital seventeen times, after suffering both grand and petit mal seizures. Through miscommunication and a failure to understand each other’s cultural differences, both the parents of Lia, and her American doctors, are ultimately at fault for Lia’s tragic fate, when she is left in a vegetative state.
Based on the text "song of the Buffalo boy" The theme of the text is accept who you are or accept the life is given. In the beginning of the story Lou feels like no one is accepting her and feel she doesn't belong. Most importantly she doesn't like herself. "Why do you call me beautiful. when … I want to look like you and your family"Page 18.her father was Americans so she look different from other Vietnamese and people call con-lai."she hated that word, con-Lao!"pg(28). She hate being different. Later in the story Lou doesn't want to stay in the Village, she wants to run away with khai, A buffalo boy who is the only person that accept her, to America because she has to marry officer Heip, someone she doesn't Love. She want to be with khai
The memoir, The Latehomecomer, written by Kao Kalia Yang, presents the oppression and the persecution of the Hmong people in an interesting, informative style, but still not boring or overwhelmingly preachy. To understand her writing it is important to understand her history. Yang is a Hmong woman, who was born in Ban Vinai Refugee Camp in Thailand. Since then, she moved to the United States, graduated from Columbia University and wrote The Latehomecomer. Her book gives her audience a glimpse into the not as recognized topic, the history of the Hmong people, when Laotian and Vietnamese soldiers forced the Hmong people out of Laos and into the Refugee camps of Thailand. She wants her readers, which could be anyone who wants to learn more about Hmong culture, ...
Chapter one, The Observers, in the Death of Woman Wang demonstrates the accuracy of the local historian; Feng K'o-ts'an, who compiled The Local History of T'an-ch'eng in 1673. The descriptive context of the Local History helps the reader to understand and literally penetrate into people's lives. The use of records of the earthquake of 1668, the White Lotus rising of 1622 and rebels rising vividly described by Feng the extent of suffering the people of T'an-ch'eng went through. Jonathan Spence stresses on how miserable the two-quarter of the seventeen-century were to the diminishing population of the county. The earthquake claimed the lives of nine thousand people, many others died in the White lotus rising, hunger, sickness and banditry. P'u Sung-ling's stories convey that after the loss of the wheat crops there were cases of cannibalism. On top of all of this came the slaughtering of the entire family lines by the bandits. The incredible records of women like Yao and Sun in the Local History present the reader the magnitude of savagery the bandits possessed. All of these factors led to the rise of suicides. The clarity of events Spence given to the reader is overwhelming.
The Vietnam War was not a “pretty” war. Soldiers were forced to fight guerilla troops, were in combat during horrible weather, had to live in dangerous jungles, and, worst of all, lost sight of who they were. Many soldiers may have entered with a sense of pride, but returned home desensitized. The protagonist in Louise Erdrich’s “The Red Convertible,” is testament to this. In the story, the protagonist is a young man full of life prior to the war, and is a mere shell of his former self after the war. The protagonists in Tim O’Brien’s “If I Die in a Combat Zone,” and Irene Zabytko’s “Home Soil,” are also gravely affected by war. The three characters must undergo traumatic experiences. Only those who fought in the Vietnam War understand what these men, both fictional and in real life, were subjected to. After the war, the protagonists of these stories must learn to deal with a war that was not fought with to win, rather to ensure the United States remained politically correct in handling the conflict. This in turn caused much more anguish and turmoil for the soldiers. While these three stories may have fictionalized events, they connect with factual events, even more so with the ramifications of war, whether psychological, morally emotional, or cultural. “The Red Convertible,” and “Home Soil,” give readers a glimpse into the life of soldiers once home after the war, and how they never fully return, while “If I Die in a Combat Zone,” is a protest letter before joining the war. All three protagonists must live with the aftermath of the Vietnam War: the loss of their identity.
The story focuses on her great-grandfather, who was in disapproval of the French occupation of Vietnam, but still excelled at his job as a Mandarin under the puppet imperial court, fearing persecution of his family if he were to resign. In this section, the author also mentions more about the how the values of confusion had influenced the Vietnamese people in attempts to justify her great grandfather’s
Huong uses a circular writing style to portray the characterization of Hang. As the novel flows from Hang’s past memories to the present, her feelings are paralleled with the different events. This allows the reader to see Hang’s feelings towards her current situation. Because the reader is exposed to Hang’s feelings, her journey to find her self-purpose is
Imagine that you are in Vietnam in 1975. Out of your house window, you hear gunshots and screams of pain and agony. You hide in fear as your parents are packing their things, planning to head a boat to a refugee camp in America, as it will keep you away from those pesky Communists. Who knew that a simple boat ride to a refugee camp would cause so much stress when realising that you will have to leave all your old memories behind? This is what Ha experiences when running away from home with her family because of Communists. Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai is a historical fiction set in South Vietnam in a small town called Saigon. Ha, a rebellious ten-year-old Vietnamese girl, her three brothers, and her mother who had recently lost her husband- must flee out of their hometown once war strikes. But this is a challenge, with little to no source of food and water, and with many eyes of the Communists staring down on them, wishing upon death. Will Ha and the rest of her family be able to flee safely to America, and if they do, will Ha be able to bound “back again” in her new home in
Loung a very rambunctious five-year-old, is not afraid to say what is on her mind. Since the birth of Loung, Pa had known she was going to be passionate and loud. Since the Ung Family is Buddhist, and auras are a Buddhist belief, Pa knew her personality by Loung’s aura or, “color that your body exudes and tells the observer what kind of person you are going to be” (Ung 14). when she was born. Loung’s aura when born was red and is a symbol of passion. Although having drive and passion is a good thing, Loung also had a tendency to get herself into trouble. When the family was engrossed in the evacuation, Loung was disobeying what Ma was telling her to do. Despite Ma telling her to get in the truck she began, “to climb into the Mazda” because she thought it was more comfortable and did not want to ride in the truck (Ung 20-21). This scene, while showing her disobedience, it also shows her innocence. Loung is only five-years-old at the beginning of the novel, and through many of her actions and choices it is evident that she is naive. Loung asks all of the wrong questions at all the wrong times. Throughout the novel, however, she begins to mature as the traumatic events keep unfolding. From Loung’s point of view she feels that, “although Chou is eleven, only three years older than [her], at times [she] feels much older” (Ung 190). If not told from Loung’s point
Marks, Stephen P. "Elusive Justice For The Victims Of The Khmer Rouge." Journal Of International Affairs 52.2 (1999): 691. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 19 Dec. 2011. .
Cambodia would become a battle ground for American troops fighting in Vietnam for four years; the war would kill up to 750,000 Cambodians through U.S. efforts to destroy suspected North Vietnamese supply lines. This devastation would take its toll on the Cambodian peoples’ morale and would later help to contribute to the conflicts that caused the Cambodian genocide. In the 1970’s the Khmer Rouge guerrilla movement would form. The leader of the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot, was educated in France and believed in Maoist Communism. These communist ideas would become important foundations for the ideas of the genocide, and which groups would be persecuted.
No one knows what will happen in his or her life whether it is a trivial family dispute or a civil war. Ishmael Beah and Mariatu Kamara are both child victims of war with extremely different life stories. Both of them are authors who have written about their first-hand experience of the truth of the war in order to voice out to the world to be aware of what is happening. Beah wrote A Long Way Gone while Kamara wrote The Bite of the Mango. However, their autobiographies give different information to their readers because of different points of view. Since the overall story of Ishmael Beah includes many psychological and physical aspects of war, his book is more influential and informative to the world than Kamara’s book.
Loung's realtionship with Pa makes her committed to her own survival. Pa and Loung had a inseparable bond and she really looked up to him.