MY FOREVER BEST FRIENDS AND MY HEROES 

BESIDE OF MY PARENTS, I ONLY HAD  FOUR  PEOPLE WHO REALLY LOVED ME UNCONDITIONALLY AND THIS HAS SAVED MY LIFE.

I love her because:

-she babysat me and cooked for the whole family. She lived with us since her mother, my mother’s youngest sister, had died in childbirth.

-Cousin Phach is very calm, quiet, laugh more than talking.  She demonstrates her forgiveness, compassion, charity and her belief in Karma. I didn't know I had these giving skills inside me until I was grown up, especially when I had my own kids.

-I still remember the first pink blouse with a ruffle in the front that she sewed for me when I was little. Everything she gave me was made exactly the way I wanted it.

- Phach told me that why we burned three incense sticks next to the body because it represented the three Buddhist concepts of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha .



What I like about my cousin most is she never talks about people, complained about life, and gets jealous of anyone.



I have the compassion for her because she barely knew how to write in Cambodian. As she grew up, she was very upset with Papa because he did not allow her to go to school like his stepbrothers and sisters. As a result of not being educated, she was naïve, afraid and passive. 



She survived the genocide and currently lives in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

 Baung Sien, at about 5’6” was tall for a Cambodian a woman. She had light European skin, with lots of freckles on her arms and back. Her hair had a reddish tinge, which was also very unusual for Cambodians. She had intelligent, honest, and patient eyes. Her lips were pink and wrinkled, with triangular points on her upper lip. In the Cambodian tradition, we believed that these points meant the person would be a very articulate speaker and, when she spoke, everyone would listen intently and with respect.

Everyone who met Baung Sien admired her for her intelligence.

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She spoke Vietnamese, French and Chinese fluently and never seemed to stop talking in one language or another. She wasn’t traditionally beautiful, but she seemed prettier the more you got to know her. She blossomed with every word.  



Baung Sien taught me to prepare fresh fish, cook, and do the grocery shopping. I improved my Vietnamese language skills by listening to her speak and asking her questions.

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I admired her soft-spoken, and her effective communication skills as well as her proficiency in business, both skills that I needed to learn.



She survived the genocide and currently lives California with her daugher's family. 

All my young life, I rarely heard him say more than two words. When staying around Pou, it was very hard to know if he was happy, unhappy, angry, or deaf? Talking to him was like talking to the wall unless I forced him to say Yay or Nay. But, He became more talkative around girls in the bar.

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I remember I told him to buy me a dozen of head bands when he traveled to France. He didn't say a word. But when he returned home I got what I wanted it without missing a beat. 



When I told him I would escape the country, Pou became panic striken despite being speechless. I could tell just by looking at him walking back and forth.  Until I said good bye, then he stopped me. He said,"I don't know what to say, but keep me informed wherever you are at." He was in tears then. 

 

What I like about my Pou most is he never talked bad about anybody and never complained.



I didn't have a chance to see him again after I resettled in the US. In 1996, he died from heart attack.

















She is not highly educated but she is very smart and brave and was flexible in order to survive. She has a good heart and is a giving person, and a hard worker. She is a good cook that spoiled me, because I wanted to eat not to cook.

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I remember in a very hot day in Phnom Penh, I was called to come out from the Re-education school. I was told I had a visitor. The visitor was my Aunt. She had been waiting for me under the sun without seeming to care about the sweat running down from her head to her toes. She broke my heart when she smiled at me and gave me a package of palm cake.   I whined about wanting this a couple days before . I asked her,"how do you get here and how do you know me that I am here?" She said, "my mouth is the direction, I paid to the bicycle man to bring me here." I couldn't believe there was still someone that loved me that much and would sacrifice her sweat and money to buy me my favorite cake . 



She was always there for me when I needed her help. She treated with care and love especially when I was almost died one time from a sickness.

The day I said good bye to her and my uncle, she took me to see a fortune teller to ensure that nothing would happen to me during the dangerous escape. She agreed to let me go when the fortune teller said: "the tiger opens the gate."



She currentlly lived in Phnom Pehn, Cambodia. She had one son with my Pou. 



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