FTKMF: Post 3. A.

The diverse American and Cambodian cultures, there are many differences. One that was predominantly evident in this third week of reading was the differences in customs, in particular the birthday traditions. In the United States of America, we celebrate our birthdays every year with a big party, a birthday cake piled up with thick artery clogging frosting, and a bundle of brightly rapped gifts from the birthday person’s friends hoping that their gift exceeds that of the other party goers. In Cambodia it is very different. “In Cambodia, people don’t celebrate the day on which they were born until they’ve lives their fiftieth year. Then families and friends gather to feast on sumptuous food and honor the person’s longevity. Pa told me that in other countries, people become a year older only after having passed the exact day and month that the came into the world.” (84) Although there are many obvious cultural differences between the United States and Cambodia, one not so well known is that of our different birthday celebrations.

FTKMF: Post 3. B.

Dear Loung Ung,
I am very much enjoying your novel, First They Killed My Father. As I am reading your book, I get a sense of unimaginable cruelty and desperation. In this last section that I just read, You have been leaving at various work camps, suffering the constant decreasing food rations, and have started to increasingly fear the safety of your family from your wealthy past. As you describe the impoverished communities, the selfish new government, and the horrifyingly disease prone persons, I have begun to truly feel the pain all of captive Cambodians most have felt. “Many of the villagers are getting sicker and sicker from the disease and starvation. They lie in their huts, whole families together, unable to move. Concave faces have the appearance of what they will look like once the flesh rots way.”(84) As you described the diminishing health status of the villagers around you, I thought that your next quote was very interesting. “They lie there, as if no longer of this world, so weak they cannot swat away the flies sitting on their faces. Occasionally, parts of their body convulse involuntarily and you know they are alive. However, there is nothing we can do but let them lie there until they die… My family does not look very different from them.”(84) This quote shows how hopeless, you felt or doomed and depressed your environment was. At the end of the section I just read you dropped the bomb that your sister had just died in a teenage work camp after being separated from your family. Considering that you could not cry or show emotion, or else you would be killer, I thought that most have been very hard for you. I wonder what will happen, as more and more father are being murdered around your village.
Sincerely,
Caitie

Sources

I have decided on the topic of the Lord's Resistance Army and their child soldiers in Uganda;

Articles=
"Abduction of Innocents" from Essence Communications(accessed from SIRS)
http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=SMN0307H-0-4689&artno=0000214510&type=ART&shfilter=U&key=&title=Abduction%20of%20Innocents&res=Y&ren=Y&gov=Y&lnk=N&ic=Y

"Uganda: The Horror" from Smithsonian Magazine(accessed from SIRS)
http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=SMN0307H-0-4689&artno=0000211659&type=ART&shfilter=U&key=The%20Lord%27s%20Resistance%20Army&title=Uganda%3A%20The%20Horror&res=Y&ren=Y&gov=Y&lnk=N&ic=Y

"UGANDAN CHILDREN ABDUCTED TO PERFORM ACTS OF WAR" from USA TODAY(accessed from SIRS)
http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=SMN0307H-0-4689&artno=0000110301&type=ART&shfilter=U&key=The%20Lord%27s%20Resistance%20Army&title=Ugandan%20Children%20Abducted%20to%20Perform%20Acts%20of%20War&res=Y&ren=Y&gov=Y&lnk=N&ic=Y

"The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA)" from Global Security (Non-database)
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/lra.htm

"Uganda" from CIA factbook (Non-database)
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ug.html

""Interview With LRA Spokesman" Black Star News (Interview)
http://blackstarnews.com/?c=122&a=4457

"Intense Grief and Fear in Northern Uganda " Doctors without Borders (non-database)
www.doctorswithoutborders.org/.../top10.html

FTKMF: Post 2. B.

While Loung’s very large family barely survives on the long and deadly road away from their home city and their happy past, we learn about this new government. The Khmer Rouge is rebel government that comes to power after a long civil was in Cambodia. The new government does not like city dwellers or past government officials and soldiers. In this dreadful communist government, the very poor common people are joyously praised and the hard working rich are violently shamed with cruelty and possibly death. “Uncle Heang have lived in the countryside since before the revolution and have never lived in a city. The Khmer Rouge considers them uncorrupted model citizens for their new society.”(37) Throughout this next section the Ung family lives with their uncles, pretending to be from the country. As Loung starts to adapt to her new lifestyle in this new corrupt and violent government, she starts to deeply fear that the soldiers who had told her people that they would be returning to their city town of Phnom Penh have been lying. “My body trembles with fear and disbelief. I am never going home. I will never see Phnom Penh again, rive in our car, ride a cyclo with Ma to the markets, buy food from the carts. All that is gone. He reaches out and takes me into his arms as my eyes water and lips tremble.”(40)

FTKMF: Post 2. A.

In between Cambodia and the United States, along with land and water, there are many cultural differences. Of those cultural differences, spiritual and religious differences were increasingly prominent in this section of First They Killed My Father. Loung Yng, the now six year old main character believes in the tradition Cambodian belief in spirits for relief. As her family is confined into one of the many camps that the new Khmer Rouge government has relocated her family into, they experience unbelievable pain. As many families around them are caving into their pain and committing suicide, the Ung family lead by their father Sem Im continue to endure their pain.“In the darkness, I see spirits shaking the trees, letting me know they are waiting for me. They whisper chants and spells that the wind carries through the leaves, back to my ears. The spirits call me to come to them so they can take possession of my body.”(41) Loung is trying to find a kind f relief to her starvation and lack of control over her situation within the spirits. While the American culture, believes mostly in the three main religions of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity as relief, not the belief in “spirits”. One difference between the American and Cambodian cultures are their religious and spiritual traditions and beliefs.

FTKMYF: Explanation

I chose for my quarter four reading book First They Killed My Father, by Loung Ung. I made this decision because first of all I had heard great remarks about it. I also chose this book because it is about the Cambodian way of life throughout a nasty civil war and military dictatorship. This was important because the setting and plot is not the normal day-to-day of an American novel. I also chose this book because the cover was very interesting and in quarter three, I had read a fairly long book, while First They Killed My Father is on the shorter side. I am looking forward to reading my outside reading book, First They Killed My Father.