ဒဏ်ရာဟောင်းကို ပြန်လည်ဖွင့်လှစ်ခြင်း
The first time I read "First They Killed My Father" by Loung Ung was many moons ago in a café near the backpacker hostel where I was staying in Siem Reap. Back then, I chose to read the book for no other reason than to educate myself about the Khmer Rouge regime ahead of my upcoming trip to the Killing Fields in Phnom Penh, which was just two weeks away. However, despite the heart-wrenching survival story of Loung under the brutal Khmer Rouge, I found myself reading it with the detached mindset of a distant observer, indulging in carrot cake and sipping a hot Americano in the comfort of an air-conditioned room.
Then, of course, I forgot all about the Khmer Rouge and the stories when I left the country, except for the fact that the book was adapted into a film in 2017 and released on Netflix, though I never bothered to watch it.
Years passed, and life moved on, taking its melodramatic twists and turns, then what it felt like in the blink of an eye, I woke up in the midst of a coup—not soup—in 2021. Six months after you-know-who had orchestrated the coup, Lily, Shaw, and I returned to Yangon for the second time. We made A Ma’s flat in Sanchaung our home and spent our days helping the sick and COVID victims, providing them with food, medicine, and oxygen tanks. At night, we drowned our stress in gin and tonic or mojitos, indulging in drinking binges.
One night, after our late dinner while sitting in the lounge, we discovered that A Ma’s Netflix subscription was still active. This prompted me to suggest we watch the film adaptation of "First They Killed My Father". Together, we followed the live portrayal of Loung, the youngest daughter of a family, along with her mother, father, brothers, and sisters, as they fled their home in the capital. They moved from one village to another, concealing their true identities until they eventually dispersed to survive. Loung herself later became a child soldier under Pol Pot’s regime, which lasted from 1975 to 1979 and wiped out nearly a quarter of Cambodia’s population at the time.
The film left us breathless, at least I can speak for myself. It struck me deeply and made me realise that I was no longer an outsider watching with a detached mindset, as I had been when I read the book years ago in Cambodia. Hence the fact, I felt I was living it—both in the film and in reality, struggling under the rule of you-know-who. Need I say for the first time in my life, I could deeply empathise and truly understand the difference between sympathy and empathy.
Now, I am reading the book again for the second time, reopening the wound and reliving the pain—both in the book and in real life.