By Alli Voorhees
University Chronicle31st March, 2009 Section: News
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March 12, more than 200 people ventured to the Vern Riffe Center for the Arts in order to listen to survivor of the atrocities in Cambodian during the 1970s Loung Ung, speak. Even though she was suffering from a cold, Ung was able to share her story with the audience.
Ung was born in 1970 in a country not much bigger than Oklahoma, where there were only rain and dry seasons. She spoke of her younger, more innocent years saying "my father's lap was my chair, his arms my armrest, his hands my cup holders. Life was charmed; and I was 5."
Around that time, her world was turned upside down as her city of 2 million people was evacuated in 72 hours. The people were sent to death camps, where you had to work, no matter your age. People were executed in mass simply because they were a threat to the society: singers, dancers, educated people, etc. In three years eight months and 21 days, 1.7 to 2 million Cambodians died from hard labor, diseases and executions.
Ung recalled when she saw her father for the last time. She said she was 7 years old, and didn't want to believe it. "After three days I stopped praying for his escape and started praying for a quick and painless death," Ung said.
When she and her family were officially informed of her father's execution, her mother kicked the children out of the house and told them to find an orphanage. At the time, Ung didn't understand her mother's reasoning, but after 15 years, she realized that her mother was being strong and had hope for her children's lives.
Once the war ended in 1979, her country still was not safe, and Ung was chosen to go with her brother and his wife to Vietnam. Finally, in June of 1980 she landed in Vermont, safe from all harm. She had to adjust to the American way of living, and readjust her thinking of Americans, due to the brainwashing from the war.
Ung has now become a voice for Cambodia. She works with an organization that makes prosthetics for people who lose limbs from the land mines still planted in Cambodia. When asked what Ung would do if she lived in Cambodia, she answered "world peace is so cliché…I just want to hang out with my family."
Ung was born in 1970 in a country not much bigger than Oklahoma, where there were only rain and dry seasons. She spoke of her younger, more innocent years saying "my father's lap was my chair, his arms my armrest, his hands my cup holders. Life was charmed; and I was 5."
Around that time, her world was turned upside down as her city of 2 million people was evacuated in 72 hours. The people were sent to death camps, where you had to work, no matter your age. People were executed in mass simply because they were a threat to the society: singers, dancers, educated people, etc. In three years eight months and 21 days, 1.7 to 2 million Cambodians died from hard labor, diseases and executions.
Ung recalled when she saw her father for the last time. She said she was 7 years old, and didn't want to believe it. "After three days I stopped praying for his escape and started praying for a quick and painless death," Ung said.
When she and her family were officially informed of her father's execution, her mother kicked the children out of the house and told them to find an orphanage. At the time, Ung didn't understand her mother's reasoning, but after 15 years, she realized that her mother was being strong and had hope for her children's lives.
Once the war ended in 1979, her country still was not safe, and Ung was chosen to go with her brother and his wife to Vietnam. Finally, in June of 1980 she landed in Vermont, safe from all harm. She had to adjust to the American way of living, and readjust her thinking of Americans, due to the brainwashing from the war.
Ung has now become a voice for Cambodia. She works with an organization that makes prosthetics for people who lose limbs from the land mines still planted in Cambodia. When asked what Ung would do if she lived in Cambodia, she answered "world peace is so cliché…I just want to hang out with my family."
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