Summary Of Lucky Child By Loung Ung

A world once filled with Asian friends and neighbors crashes harshly as Jin is left stranded in a white dominated school. Stereotypes and teasing are quickly placed on him from his racial background. Still new to the area, Jin presumes, “The only other Asian in my class was Suzy Nakamura. When the class finally figured out that we weren’t related, rumors began to circulate that Suzy and I were arranged to be married on her thirteenth birthday. We avoided each other as much as possible” (Yang 31). Embarrassment clouds Jin as he realizes that he’s not like the other kids in his class. With distinct features and his native tongue, Jin felt like a reject surrounded by his Caucasian classmates. He was entirely alone amongst his peers, and he didn’t like that one single bit. In this way, it’s clear how both Junior and Jin felt like outcasts in these two oceans of white students and teachers.

“When Pol Pot’s communist Khmer Rouge stormed into the city April 17, 1975,my charmed life came to an end. On that day, Cambodia became a prison and all its citizens prisoners.”(Ung,1) That is the first flashback that comes to Loung’s mind when she is on the plane headed to her new home, America. She recalls the time she had spent in a vietnam houseboat and the Lam Sing refugee camp before climbing aboard the plane.Leaving her siblings behind to accompany

Thomas Buergenthal’s novel A Lucky Child is a heart aching tear jerking memoir about his life during the Holocaust. While Thomas and his family are forced throughout Europe by the Nazi army they are faced with many challenges that arise with the great difficulty of survival during this time. As they are forced out of their home in Czechoslovakia, Thomas and his family have a hard time fleeing the Nazi army because they have taken all of Poland. In no time Thomas finds himself in the Auschwitz death camp where most of the heart ache happens, this changes his life forever. Along with the hardships of being a prisoner of many concentration camps Thomas gets his knowledge of survival from his father Mundek Buergenthal. Thomas’s good sense of judgement

Clothes can mean a lot more to someone than just something to wear. To the people in this story, they symbolize memories, power, and love all at the same time. Memories of their childhood, their lives being taken over, and thoughts of their mother all come from the clothes they were. During Loung's experience, she loses her memories, loses her power to make her own choices in the most simplistic of ways, and loves what reminds her of her mother.

In the Shadow of the Banyan, by Vaddey Ratner, details the struggles of Raami, a young girl coming of age in a time of the Cambodian genocide. The descriptions from Raami's point of view are vivid. She is forced to leave her childhood behind with the regime of the Khmer Rouge. As a Cambodian child, her life transformed from living as a princess with many privileges to living life day to day on the move, witnessing such terror, is quite the turnaround for anyone especially a child. She processes her experience as best as a child her age can, based on pure emotions. She’s at an age where children make sense of things with naivety. As the story continues, the descriptions of what she sees changes.

“People are crying, people are dying, We had no idea where we were going or how long it would take.” The Khmer Rouge killed thousands of people including soldiers, and politicians who were considered not to be good people. The cities were

In April 1975, Cambodia history would be changed forever. This was the start of Cambodia genocide. Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, became the ruler of Cambodia. He did not like the idea of them influenced by other countries. Khmer Rouge persecuted all the educated citizens. They persecuted doctors, lawyers, police, and former military. They even prosecuted Buddhists, Christians and Muslims. Khmer Rouge then put all the citizens in living arrangements according to their trust. The “old citizens” were the most trust worthy. Then, the pro-west and city dwellers were called “new citizens”. The last groups were the “candidates” and “full right citizens”. Anybody that refused re-education were killed in the fields or at the prison camp Tuol Sleng Centre. Khmer Rouge killed over 1.7 million people. In January 1979, Khmer Rouge was removed from power by Vietnam communist. Ever since the genocide, Cambodia became one of the least developed countries in the world. According to United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking,” Poverty, lack of education, and employment opportunities have left many Cambodians, particularly women and children, in extremely vulnerable situations”. This would cause people to find many different ways to make money. Families would sell their daughters to brothels to pay off debts. Girls who are forced to work in brothels endure rape, abuse and torture.

War in the the mid to late 70’s was violent. Many of the targeted people were children. The children were forced into child labor camps and made into child soldiers. The controllers of the war had a specific outlook on they controlled the affected people. Their goal was to take over the country and make all of its inhabitants equal. Phnom Penh was overtook by the khmer rouge in 1975, forcing all of the people who lived in the city to evacuate. Loung Ung’s family was forced out of their second class home during the evacuation. Desensitization played a huge role in the loss of innocence that took place during this biography. In the biography “First They Killed My Father” written by Loung Ung, Loungs loss of innocence is destroyed due to the harsh rule of the Khmer Rouge.

In the beginning of First They Killed my Father, Loung Ung uses a tone of nostalgia to emphasize that the lighthearted, well-off family will never be the same after the Khmer Rouge regime forces them out of their home. Words such as “sing” and “buzz” indicate the fondness with which Loung remembers Phnom Penh and her own innocence within a world where her greatest concern is her mother’s fussing over her appearance (Ung 1). The reader knows that she will soon lose her naïvity when tyrannical government, making the beautiful description of Cambodia’s capital sickeningly bittersweet. Additionally, in the first chapter, the reader meets Loung’s father, who is her idol and most trusted adult. After reading that Loung “believes everything” her father

From 1975 to 1979 Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge regime, had a goal to create a society that was completely self-sufficient. In four years the Khmer Rouge killed, tortured and starved to death somewhere between 1.7 and 2 million innocent Cambodian civilians, ultimately destroying any trace of humanity within Cambodia. Forty years later the people of Cambodia are still suffering and the country is still trying to put the pieces back together, both physically and emotionally.

Still today Cambodia is a forever changing society that faces many challenges. Cambodia is mostly poor but there is a distinguished majority that is somewhat wealthy. Many different religions, cultures, and ethnic groups have established colonization in Cambodia but they all have one thing in common…poverty. The Khmer Rouge created an everlasting effect on Cambodia that will most likely be a problem for many more years to come. (Hidayat, 2010)

The Khmer Rouge forced the people in the cities to leave their homes, they did this because there was a large gap between the classes in these areas. “The truly impoverished live in makeshift tents in areas where I have never been allowed to wander” (8). The classes were so separated that as a child Ung was not allowed to talk or associate with the impoverished people that lived in her home town. There was a visible difference between the poor and the rich, “the more

Cambodia has been significantly affected by the ongoing communism and the rule of the Khmer Rouge during the 20th century. Referred to as The Khmer Rouge regime, Cambodian genocide, Year Zero and the Cambodian Holocaust, the rule of the Communist Party of Kampuchea from 1975-1979 has had a devastating impact on Cambodia and the country’s condition in the 21st century. Led by Pol Pot, the beliefs and objectives of the Khmer Rouge has resulted in Cambodia’s loss of culture and identity, the deaths of approximately 4 million people resulting in generation loss and a brain drain and has affected how Cambodia is in today’s society.

Cambodia is a South East Asian country formerly known as Kampuchea, it shares borders with Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. In Cambodia during 1975-1979 a political regime known as the Khmer Rouge took control of the country. During this time it is estimated that around 2 million people perished, over a quarter of the population, from torture and execution or from starvation and untreated illness (Fawthrop & Jarvis, 2005). Although the regime ended with defeat by the Vietnamese over 30 years ago, the effects from this reign of terror continues to have an impact on Cambodia. The countries social coexistence, peace building process and the aftermath of the annihilation of so many of its people has affected the current population make up in

On the 17 April 1975, Khmer Rouge started to take over the entire country and defeated the rules of Lon Nol Army. The seizure of Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia, marked the beginning of the genocide in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge people were so cruel to everyone in the country, and Cambodian people did not expect it to happen to them in harshly way. After three years eight months and 20 days, the nightmare had finished, and the Khmer Rouge had overthrown, but they left deep scars for Cambodian people with unforgettable memories. Even though the genocide has ended, unfortunately there nearly 2 millions Cambodian victims out of a population of just 8 million were killed since they were starved, struck down by diseases, overworked and executed by Khmer Rouge. Furthermore, this genocide also caused an indigent education system, lack of proper nutrition, families fell apart, extreme poverty for living, refugees and an unstable government. It is my belief that any wars or genocides are a direct result of the human suffering. That is the main reason that I appreciate of reading the Borany’s storybook.