Angkor Wat and Loung Ung

"I remember clutching tightly to Pa's finger as we walked along wide
crumbling corridors. The temple walls are decorated with magnificent detailed
carvings of people, cows, wagons, daily life, and battle scenes from long
ago. Guarding the ancient steps are giant granite lions, tigers, eight headed
snakes, and elephants. Next to them, sandstone gods with eight hands who sit
cross legged on lotus flowers watch over the temple ponds. On the walls
beneath the jungle vines, thousands of beautiful apsara goddesses with big
round breasts wearing only short wraparound skirts smile at visitors. I
reached up and cupped one of the breasts, feeling the cold, rough stone in my
palm, and I quickly removed my hand to cover my mouth in a fit of giggles."
Loung Ung, _First They Killed My Father, a Daughter of Cambodia Remembers_.

Above, Loung Ung tells of her visit to Angkor Wat with her father. A friend
of mine, now deceased, visited Angkor Wat prior to the Khmer Rouge. My
friend's stories of visiting the stone temples of Cambodia have for many
years inspired my interest. I have believed that the reality of the South
East Asian experience would not be clearly realized in our culture until we
found accepted in our literature the words of the "boat people." Loung Ung,
whose book gives us in detail the anguish of life, and death, under the Khmer
Rouge, I believe to be incredible in this respect.

I first heard Loung Ung interviewed on NPR. I was struck by the clarity and
controlled emotion of her message. I bought the book that day and finished
reading it within the week. If you have problems with descriptions of
contemporary genocide using blunt instruments and enforced starvation then
this is not easy reading. I find it an interesting contrast between Loung's
experiences, and yet her retaining the subtle sensitivity of appreciation for
a heritage site. This is the testimony of an individual that has gone through
a lot of really bad experiences and yet finds herself clear in life.

][<en Follett