Romanian – and Cambodian -Born Writers in English Literatures [610483]

Romanian – and Cambodian -Born Writers in English Literatures
2014 -2017

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LUCIAN BLAGA UNIVERSITY OF SIBIU
FACULTY OF LETTERS AND ARTS

DOCTORAL DISSERTATION

ROMANIAN – AND CAMBODIAN -BORN WRITERS IN
ENGLISH LITERATURES: FACTORS AFFECTING
LITERARY DEVELOPMENT AND TEACHING

Doctoral Supervisor:
Prof. dr. habil. Andrei TERIAN -DAN
Ph.D. Candidate:
Sokhoun HOV

Sibiu
2017

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Contents

ARGUMENT ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………………….. 5
CHAPTER ONE
RECENT APPR OACHES TO THE STUD Y OF LITERATURE ………………………….. ……… 16
1.1 POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES IN EAST -CENTRAL EUROPE AND SOUTHEAST
ASIA 16
1.2 MIGRANT LITERATURE ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………………… 46
1.3 TESTIMONIAL LITERATURE ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………. 52
1.4 TRAUMA LITERATURE ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………. 55
1.5 TRAUMATIC -TESTIMONIAL THOUGHTS ………………………….. ……………………….. 58
1.6 BILINGUALISM ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………. 67
CHAPTER TWO
SOCIO -POLITICAL , ECONOMIC AND EDUCATIONAL FACTORS OF MIGRATION
IN ROMANIA AND CAMBODIA ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………… 76
2.1 INTRODUCTION ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……… 76
2.2 SOCIO -POLITICAL , ECONOMIC AND EDUCATIONAL FACTORS ……………….. 80
2.3 CONCLUDING ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………. 96
CHAPTER THREE
ROMANIAN -BORN WRITERS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE S ………………………….. ……… 97
3.1 INTRODUCTION ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……… 97
3.2 CASE STUDIES ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………… 97
3.2.1 Train to Trieste ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……. 97
3.2.2 The Hooligan’s Return ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………………. 140
CHAPTER FOUR
CAMBODIAN -BORN WRITERS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE S ………………………….. …. 165
4.1 INTRODUCTION ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……. 165
4.2 CASE STUDIES ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………. 165
4.2.1 Suns et in Paradise ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. . 165
4.2.2 When Elephants Fight ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………………… 187
4.2.3 The Price We Paid ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. 200
4.3 DISCUSSION: Shaping Better Future ………………………….. ………………………….. …….. 230
CHAPTER FIVE
Factors Affecting Teaching English Literature ………………………….. ………………………….. ….. 235
5.1 INTRODUCTION ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……. 235

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5.2 PROBLEMS ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………. 240
5.3 FINDINGS: Romanian Case ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………….. 242
5.3 STATISTICAL ANALYSIS ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………….. 250
5.4.1 Proposed Teaching Techniques ………………………….. ………………………….. ………… 251
5.4.2 Teaching Strategies ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………………. 251
5.5 CONCLUDING ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……….. 255
5.6 FINDINGS: Cambodian Case ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………… 255
5.7 STATISTICAL ANALYSIS ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………….. 263
5.8 PROPOSED TEACHING TECHNIQUES ………………………….. ………………………….. . 264
5.9 TEACHING METHODS ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………. 265
5.9.1 Little Girl/Boy: How does the girl or boy change? ………………………….. ………….. 265
5.9.2 Analogy Chart: ABC Analogy ………………………….. ………………………….. …………. 267
5.10 CONCLUDING ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……… 269
5.11 DISCUSSION ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………… 270
CONCLUSION ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………… 271

FIGURES
1. Conceptual framework 15
2. The countries of ASEAN 30
3. The countries of East-Central Europe 34
4. Years of colonial domination 37
5. Teachers’ views on activities for t eaching English literature, Romania 242
6. Teachers’ perceptions on instruction models , Romania 243
7. Teachers’ vi ews on Common Core Teaching and Learning Strategies
(Chicago 2012) , Romania 244
8. Students’ views on Possible Strategies Used in teaching and learning English
literature , Romania 244
9. Students’ perceptions on Teaching Approaches and Techniques used to teach
English literature , Romania 245
10. Students’ views on relationships between English literature matter and other
English subjects in percentage, based on grading points , Romania 247
11. Students’ views on relationships between English literatu re matter and other
English subjects , Romania 247
12. Students’ views on relationships between English literature and writing skills ,
Romania 249
13. Students’ views on relationships between English literature and speaking
skills , Romania 249
14. Students’ views on relationships between English literature and reading skills ,
Romania 249

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15. Inter -culture literature: Diaspora’s written works , Romania 250
16. Teachers’ views on activities for teaching English literature , Cambodia 256
17. Teachers’ perc eptions on instruction models , Cambodia 257
18. Teachers’ views on Common Core Teaching and Learning Strategies
(Chicago 2012) , Cambodia 258
19. Students’ views on Possible Strategies used in teaching and learning English
literature , Cambodia 258
20. Students’ perceptions on Teaching Approaches and Techniques used to teach
English literature , Cambodia 259
21. Students’ views on relationships between English literature matter and other
English subjects in percentage, based on grading points , Cambodia 260
22. Students’ views on relationships between English literature matter and other
English subjects , Cambodia 261
23. Students’ perception s on relationships between English subjects and writing
skills , Cambodia 262
24. Students’ perceptions on relationships between English subjects and speaking
skills , Cambodia 262
25. Students’ perceptions on relationships between English subjects and reading
skills , Cambodia 262
26. Inter -cultural literature: Diaspora’s written works , Cambodia 263

TABLES
1. The onset and the end of colonial domination in Southeastern Asia and East-
Central Europe 36
2. Relationships between Modern Polyphonic Novel and other English
disciplines at Lucian Blaga Un iversity of Sibiu, Romania 250
3. Technique 1: Discu ssion/Decision/D ebate 252
4. Core Texts/Authors 252
5. Core Texts/Partner Texts 252
6. Assessment Technique 1 253
7. Technique 2: Experience /Discovery/Results/Debate 253
8. Elephant Conservation 254
9. Assessment Technique 2 255
10. Relatio nships between English literature and other English disciplines at Svay
Rieng University and National Univer sity of Management, Cambodia 263
11. Little Girl/Boy Chart 266
12. Little Girl/Boy Chart (Example) 267
13. ABC Analogy Chart 268
14. ABC Analogy Chart (Example) 269

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ARGUMENT

Books are knowledge sources for all: learners, teachers, readers, researchers, scholars,
and professionals. Peop le of each country pay primary attention to their own books
and languages about their own country and less attention to the boo ks and other
languages about other countries. Romania an d Cambodia are non-English -speaking
countries, where students speak their native languages officially, meaning their native
languages are used as media of instruction. They are confined to localization, not to
regionaliz ation or globalization, while English is an international language. With the
advent of globali zation, the idea of conserving native language is decreasing, for
global atmos phere needs English for communication, travel, business, education, and
others . English language runs like blood through the veins of nations worldwide. The
world bilingual population outnumbers the world monolingual populat ion, as Ahmad
et al in Applying Communicative Approach in Teaching English as a Foreign
Language: a Case Study of Pakistan note, “The ‘ideal native speaker’ idea has been
on rapid decline; English language is supposed to serve the purpose of non -native
English speakers who no w outnumber native speakers” (2013: 189).
With regard to teaching English , literature is more often than not a subject in school
curriculum. Teachers of English literature have the possibility to realize national
curricula goals of aw akening their students’ desire and interest in reading books by
creating a classroom atmosphere that promotes open dialogue, develops a tolerance of
different cultures and encourages the sharing of different perspectives and
interpretations. Low competence in English results in a low interest in reading
English books, even if they are about their own countries. Modern -day students in
Romania and Cambodia are not interested in reading books in their free time, but
interested in social med ia—Facebook . Researc hers, scholars and teachers play an
important role in chang ing their habits, from hatred to love of literary books by
introduc ing some hints and techniques of analyzing and reading. In this respect,
students , especially Romanian and Cambodian with no habit of reading literary books
in English , are equipped with useful guides, elaborated in this book, to help them
learn and read literary texts m ore effectively and enjoyably . They are guided through
diverse historical phenomena and case studies of the stories of both countries through
current literary approaches , resulting in building background for analyzing and

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reading liter ary texts and impacting their habits to positive ly. They perceive the lives
of diaspora , who migrated to third countries for better lives and future as well a s
peaceful and developed countries , through wars, holocaust, genocide, and
commu nism.
Insights into the se countries are questionable for readers, who are not investigating
into the problems but waiting for the solutions to them . Researchers or scholars, in
turn, look into the problems and solutions for the benefits of readers or the public.
The students function as rea ders in both countries: Romania and Cambodia, facing
problems in analyzing and reading literary works , especially diaspora’s works. They
are not interested in reading diaspo ra’s works in English as they think it is not their
responsibility to hold, for the y are surrounded by assignments and projects at school.
The school and teachers, in this case, redesign curricula and text books to make them
learn and improve their reading, especially of literary books. The curricula and
textbooks should cover recent approaches to the studies of literatures, in cluding
postcolonial, migrant, testimonial, traumatic , and bilingual literatures. They are useful
to analyzing literary texts as each country on earth has gone through colonization,
immigration , wars, holocaust, and genocide. The students are not satisfied with the
availability of the literary texts and recent approaches in school, without any tools to
accomplish the study goals. These tools imply teaching techniques , targeted at
helping students achieve their goals. Hence , the topic: ‘Romanian – and Cambodian –
Born Writers in English Literatures : Factors Impacting Literary Development and
Teaching ’ had been ch osen and it d elineates the lives of writers or survivors as well
as people living in times when the co untries had gone through communism ,
colonization and ge nocides, and when the people were starved, tortured, persecuted,
and execut ed. The students learn what had happe ned to the people in the past, try to
avoid someth ing bad and do something good in the present, shape a better future and
achieve prosperity. English literature, u sed as a mirror of a society of a writer at that
time, contains plenty of examples of languag e in use to talk about the reality of the
society, which ar e useful to learners of English to express their ideas and experiences .
Romania, situated in East-Central Europe , was colonized by the Soviet Union and
carried out anti -Semite campaigns , resulting in ma ss migration of Jews, who sought
shelters out of the country. Romania, known as a non -migrant country, becomes a
migrant country due to Nazi Germany, the Holocaust and communism. Thousand s of

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Romanians were on their moves out of the country rat her tha n within the country as
they sought better lives in other countries, especially the United States of America.
Three amon gst others, for instance, are Romanian -born writers of English literature ,
who drew on their own experiences and knowledge of Comparative Literature,
English, West European Studies, short stories in Romania, theatre, novels, and
European c ultures to write many books, including Five Faces of Modernity (1987) by
Matei Calinescu, The Hooligan’ s Return (2003) by Norman Manea, and Train to
Trieste (2008 ) by Domnica Radulescu , being feature primari ly in the Romanian case
studies of the following chapters which analyze the lives of the writers as well as the
people in communism, the communist political system, and the lives of diaspora in
the third country and of people in their home country.
Comparatively, Cambodia, located in Southeast Asia , was colonized by the French
and went through its Dark Ages between 1975 and 1979 , which invo lved mass
migration after 1979. Hundred s of thousand s of Cambodians migrated to Thailand,
where they sought shelters in the camps along the Cambodian -Thai border and for
political asylum in third countries, especially the United States of America, where
thousand s members of the Cambodia n diaspora live today. A mongst many are three
Cambodian -born writers of English literature who fled to America and shared their
own experiences and memoirs of their family history, national politics and the
atrocities of the Khmer Rouge Regime, turning the country into ‘Killing F ields’ and
massacaring over three out of the sum total of eight million Cambodians , to write
many books, including When Elephants Fight (2000) by Vannary Imam, The Price
We Paid (2005) by Vatey Seng, a nd Sunset in Paradise (2010) by Bo Khaem
Sokhamm Uce, being featured in the Cambodian case studies as telltale examples
illustrating the terrible lives of the writers as well as the people of the Cambodian
Dark Ages and its communist political system.
These literary texts are examples of language in use , which students can use to better
understand the reality of society. In this case, the more the students read , the better
they are at studying that language. Accessibility of students to a variety of lit erary
texts in classroom and the availability of teaching techniques help students learn more
effectively and enjoyably through various activities i n class . Effective learning of a
language needs more examples of language in use to create more linguistic d ialogues
and discourses, which can be found in the literary texts . How can teachers use the

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proposed teaching techniques to promote these exampl es found in literary texts? The
research result s show that most of the students in both countries —Romania (“Lucian
Blaga ” University of Sibiu) and Cambodia (Svay Rieng University and National
University of Management) were not interested in knowing diaspora’s works and in
reading them , for they worked hard only on assignments or projects set by the ir
school s. How do the teachers help the students learn more than what is set by the
school ?
A good teacher means something different to each student undert aking studies in
school. A good teacher can use a variety of techniques to make students learn through
their activities in the classroom, where Teacher Talking Time is less than Student
Talking Time, meaning that activities given to students is valued more than the
teacher’s input in class. A good teacher must be flexible in using teaching techniques
to develop the students’ skills and strategies to understand lessons by thinking of a set
of concepts and strategies for asking questions and creating knowledge , as Crawford
et al in Teaching and Learning S trategies for the Thinking Classroom note:
Teachin g is more than a set of methods; teaching well means addressing a set
of objectives, for a particular group of students, at a certain point in the school
year, with certain resources, within a particular time frame , in a particular
school and community setting. It means f inding a balance between direct
instruction s and orchestrating the activities of individuals and groups of
students. It means developing students’ skills and strategies for learning, at th e
same time they learn t he content of the curriculum (2005: 10).
Literature is not only used in teaching English but also as a mirror of a society, which
comprises all human activities, relating to cultures, customs, religions, history,
economy, and politic s. It reveals the society of the writers and the problems in that
society, as Zhen of Characteristics and Strategies of Literature Teaching in the EFL
Context in China cites:
Literature is usually considered as the encyclopedia of a nation’s civilization
and culture; it reflects the psychological structure of the nation, spiritual
pursuits, cultural customs, religion, history, economy, political system and
other aspects of ideology from different facets. […] It usually unfolds a
panorama of the society by g iving detailed and dramatized descriptions of the

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social life of the people and disclosing the contradictions and problems in the
society (2012: 36).
Teaching is a continuous process, with one’s own analytical work, experiences of
other teachers and a search for new techniques to improve it. Teaching English as
well as English literature requires a teacher to think of teaching methodology, facing
the fo llowing challenges: (1) what to teach, (2) aims of teaching and (3) how to teach.
The following are the solutions to the challenges of succes sful teaching, as raised by
Tamura of Concepts of the Methodology of Teaching English :
– Awaken and develop the poten tiality and ability of students for studying.
– Help students develop habits through frequent repetition.
– Inspire and kindle the interest of the student in studying.
– Know -how to go from easy st ages to more difficult ones (2006: 169).
Education plays a very im portant role in developing a country. One should
understand well its history as it plays a crucial role in the future, as Tamura in
Concepts of the Methodology of Teaching English argues , “The history of education
must have a great future; however, if we i gnore the past we will not understand the
present or hold a view for the future” (2006:170). Tamura adds that the teaching of
foreign languages originated in England and Europe, with the practice of teaching
Latin and Greek . The grammars of Donatus and Prisciansus were used to teach
classical languages in the Middle Ages. In 1199 , Alexander de Villa Dei versified the
grammar of Priscianus and published 2645 verses called Doctrinale , dealing with the
most comprehensive treatments of syntax and grammar, which came to be used as the
textbooks. New tendencies in t he teaching of languages came around during the
Renaissance. Grammar was taught in schools; a new concept of teaching was
introduced during the reign of Roger Ascham (1515 -1568) (2006: 170).
According to Tamura, the teach ing of foreign languages has evolved gradually since
1568, ranging from more memorizing to less memorizing of lists of words and
grammar rules. Th e Grammar -Translation Method had been used to study modern
languages for over 300 years, implying the memorization of a list of words and strict
grammar rules arranged in sentences. This method, later in 16th century, had morphed
into the first grammar of English as a foreign language —containing familiar
dialogues for the instruction of English entitled Le Maistre d’ Escole Angloise , by

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James Bellot. Another work of this kind, entitled Grammaire Angloise , was published
in 1933 , without following the path of syn thesis. Between 1571 and 1635, Wolfgang
Radke or Ratichius found a new concept of teaching languages, the analytical
method, introducing the text first and then the grammar, meaning the example came
first and then the rule or the meaning first and form later. Still, the method did not
satisfy the needs of learners. Comenius (1592 -1671), the father of modern education,
proposed the intuitive method as he thought spiritual and emotional growth were
deeply connected with each other. This method worked together with optic al and
acoustic elements, visua l and auditory stimuli, words and im ages, introducing native
language through thought -provoking conversation. In the 19th century, Francois
Gouin, a professor of Latin who lived in France, criticized Joseph Jacotot’s method of
teaching foreign language s, dealing with bilingual translation . He, in turn, found a
new method called the Gouin Series after feeling disappointed with his inability of
learning German, despite trying hard. He stressed that teaching a foreign language
began with auditory perception, not visualization . It means that the acquisition of a
foreign languag e implies hearing (ear), not reading (eye). In the second half of the
19th century, reform of the old -school systems coincided with the consequences of
economic problems in Europe, whe n more and more people moved to the United
States of America, Australia and Canada in search of a better life . Harold E. Palmer
established a Direct Method, called ‘Oral Method,’ to teach them effectively in a
short time. His lessons were composed of oral exercises with related texts, excludi ng
mother tongue . In the 20th century, especially from the 50s to the 80 s known as the
Age of Methods, the new methods that emerged in Europe and the United States of
America were the Silent Way, Total Physical Response, Suggestopedia, the Natural
Approach, Community Language Learning, and Audio Li ngual Approach (2006: 171-
4).
The scopes of the research study are (1) to have learners and/or researchers connect
more intimately with the past by using these primary sources. In this way , the
researcher h opes to recreate for learners and/or researchers a sense of being well-
versed in situations , a sense of seeing history through the eyes of the very people who
were making decisions. This will help learners and/or researcher s develop historical
empathy, and realize that history is not an impersonal process divorced from real
people like themselves. At the same time, by analyzing primary sources, learners

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and/or researchers will actually practice the craft of the Romanian – and Cambodian –
born writers in English literatures , discovering themselves how to analyze pieces of
evidence , establish a valid interpretation and build a coherent narrative in which all
the r elevant factors play a n important part; (2) to have learners and teachers,
respectively, learn and teach more effectively by employing the new proposed
teaching techniques. This will help learners improve their critical thinking and
reading skills through various activities, in which learners perform more actively by
participating in those activitie s. At the same time, quality in the classroom in both
universities: “Lucian Blaga ” University, Romania and Svay Rieng University,
Cambodia is enhanced. This requ ires all parties involved to take part a ctively and
responsibly; and (3) to be the first researcher , who has studied these literatu res in
“Lucian Bla ga” University of Sibiu, Romania and Svay Rieng Uni versity, Cambodia
and to provide secondary sources for higher education in the future.
The study is confin ed to the literatures of East-Central Europe an and Southeast Asian
countries, especially Romania and Cambodia. It employs the Ethnographic content
analysis of Krippendoff (2004) as a means of analyzing literary work s and two se ts of
questionnaires to figure out the problems faced by both students and teachers in both
countries. To achieve the proposed goals , the researcher started out by reading five
books —two Romanian stories and three Cambo dian stories —and then analyzing their
themes . Next, he started scanning the stories to find thesis statements to support the
theme of each story as well as all related theories. All thesis statements must contain
analytic adjectives. Not all existing adjectives were selected for the analysis; the
selected related to four factors: social, economic, educational , and politic al factors.
All teachers of English and all year-three students majoring in English Language and
Literature at “Lucian Blaga ” University of Sibiu , Romania (teachers: 9 and students:
59); Svay Rieng University, Cambodia (teachers: 9 and students: 31); and National
University of Management, Cambodia (teachers: 30 and students: 64) are the
respondents . First, the researcher had distributed 9 questionnaires to the teachers , at
“Lucian Blaga ” University of Sibiu, but only six were returned; and 34 questi onnaires
to the students, but 14 were returned. Next, he had distributed 9 questionnaires to the
teachers a t Svay Rieng University, all were returned; and 31 questi onnaires to the
students, 28 were returned. Finally, he had distributed 21 questionnaires to the

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teachers at the National University of Management, 16 were returned; and 64
questi onnaires to the students, 47 were returned.
They had been teaching mu ltiple subjects: Core English 81%, Writing Skills 61%,
Speaking Skills 29%, Literature Studies 55%, Cultural Studies 39%, Translations
32%, the Comparative Grammar of Germanic Languages 16%, Discourse Analysis
16%, Modernism -Postmodernism 3 %, the English R omantic Paradigm 3%, Literary
Translation Techniques 1 3%, and the Semiotic s of Non -Verbal Commu nication 3%.
However, no one had been teaching the Hist ory of Anglo -American Criticism and the
Modern Polyp honic Novel . Additionally, they had been teaching Linguistics 3%,
Business Concept & English for Hotel 3%, Business English 3%, Foundation of
Education 3%, Grammar 6%, History of English Literature 3%, Applied Linguistics
3%, and Reading Skills 3%. They are holding a Bachelor’s degree 16%, Master’s
degree 55% and Doctoral degree 29 %. Questions were divided into six sections : (1)
personal data —4 que stions, (2) teacher factors in literature teaching, divided into
teachers’ own attitudes toward and perceptions of English literature —30 questions
and pedagogical preferences teachers have in the teaching of English literature —30
questions, (3) classroom factors —6 questions, (4) institutional factors —11 questions,
(5) professional development —12 questions, and (6) intercultura l literatures:
diaspora’s works —21 questions. The results were then tabulated for analysis.
The students at “Lucian Blaga ” University, came from different classes —English
French, English German, English Romanian, French English, German English,
Romanian English, and Chinese English. The students, at Svay Rieng University and
the National University of Management, were from students major ing in English
Literature. Their questions were divided into five sections : (1) personal data —7
questions, (2) student factors in literature learning, further divided into four parts:
students’ gene ral perceptions of and attitudes toward learning literatur e in English —
34 questions, students’ views on possible strategies used in teaching and learning
English literature —16 questions, students’ perceptions on teaching approaches and
techniques used to teach English literature —14 questions, and students’ views on
relationships between English literature learning and other English subjects —18
questions, (3) classroom factors —10 questions, (4) institutional factors —10
questions, and (5) intercultur al literatures: diaspora’s written works —19 questions.
The results were then tabulated for analysis.

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The research questions the researcher had in mind when administering the
questionnaires were the following: How do the teachers perform in class in terms of
teaching activities, instruction models, and Chicago 2012 strateg ies? How much do
they know about those elements? How much do students use the po ssible strategies
for learning English literature? How much do they like teaching approaches to teach
English literature? D o they k now any other English subjects built on English
Literature? And how much do they like reading literary texts? These research
questions form the foundation for proposing four teaching techniques to motivate
students to read literary texts more effectively and enjoyably, at “Lucian Blaga ”
Univ ersity of Sibiu, R omania and Svay Rieng University, Cambodia.
The research study aims at answering the questions: (1) what are the major factors
impacting Romanian -Cambodian -born writers of English literatures ?; (2) how much
are the students at Lucian Blag a University , Svay Rieng University, and the National
University of Management interested in diaspora’s works ?; (3) how do they study
English literature? ; (4) how do teachers of English at the three universities teach
English literature? ; (5) what are the proposed teaching models for teaching English
literature at “Lucian Blaga ” University of Sibiu, Romania, Svay Rieng University and
the National University of Management, Cambodia ?; and bring some benefit research
outcomes for students, teachers, researchers, and the Ministries of E ducation in both
countries: (1) the first thesis ever on Factors Impacting Literary Development and
Teaching elaborated in English as a means of helping learners analyze literary texts ,
improve teaching -learning situation s in higher education and be used as secondary
data and (2) attracting curriculum designers’ a ttention to consider English literature in
school and higher education for quality and teaching -learning improvement.
This paper is structured into five chapters. Chapter One is Recent Appro aches to the
Study of Literature , dealing with postcolonial studies, migrant literatures, testimonial
literatures, traumatic literatures, and bilingual theor ies. These theories were used to
hypoth esize the analysis of the stories —two Romanian stories and three Cambodian
stories and to make the analysis more interesting. Chapter T wo is Socio -Political ,
Economic and Educational Factors to Mi gration in Romania and Cambodia and it
studies impacts of co lonization and communism on society, politics, economy, and
education in Romania and Cambodia. These impacts act as a push -factor for
Romanian and Cambodian migration to third countries, especially to the United States

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of America. Chapter Three comprises the Case Studies on Romanian -Born Writers of
English literature s and it analyzes the stories against the background of Soviet
Russia’s colonization, which led to the ruin of the country, exploitation, starvation,
and proselytization . Chapter Four encompass es the Case Studies on Cambodian -Born
Writers of English literature s, describing the analysis of the stories against the
backdrop of French colonization and the Khmer Rouge regime, resulting in million s
of people dead, the ruin of the country, starvation, torture, work overload , and
persecution . And Chapter Five is Factors Impacting Teaching English Literature in
Higher Education in Romania and Cambodia . This chapter is included to improve
teaching -learn ing situation by proposing four teaching techniques —two for each
country to help students learn more effectively and enjoyably with the examples from
chapters III and IV and many more .

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Conceptual Framework
The whole thesis is conceptualized in the follow ing diagram.

– Bilingualism
– Social – Postcolonial Studies
Factors – Economic Theories – Migrant Literature
– Educational – Testimonial Literature
– Political – Traumatic Literature

Histories Stories
– Elaboration and Explanation
Process – The Stories’ Case Studies
– Questionnaires
– Analysis

Figure 1: Conceptual Framework
INPUTS
ROMANIA -CAMBODIA
OUTCOMES
FACTORS AFFECTING
LITERARY DEVELOPMENT
AND TEACHING
ROMANIA -CAMBODIA SOCIETY
Literature

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CHAPTER ONE
RECENT APPROACHES TO THE STUD Y OF LITERATURE
1.1 POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES IN EAST -CENTRAL EUROPE AND
SOUTHEAST ASIA
In nineteenth -century social science, according to Wallerstein, World -System
Analysis was a critique of dominant modes of analysis and since the 1970 s, a
knowledge movement. From the World System Analysis perspective, there are three
basic elements —space, tim e and epistemology and three usages: (1) basic unit of
social analysis; (2) useful analyses of social reality; and (3) no longer making the
existing disciplinary b oundaries (2004: 1). In 1945 , the standard world system list
consisted of anthropology, econom ics, political science, sociology, and other two
non-social science disciplines. Between 1850 and 1945, the list was thought, by
nineteenth -century scholars, to be built on three axes : past/present (past: historians;
present: economists, political scientis ts, and sociologists), the Western world/the
others (Western: historians, economists, political scientist, and sociologists; the
others: anthropologists and Orientalists), and the three presumed separate domains of
modernity (Wallerstein 2004:1 -2). By 1970 , the real -world gap between “developed”
and “underdeveloped” countries was growing wider, far from closing ( Wallerstein
2004: 3).
The World History move s from Asia—the East (the beginning) to Europe —the West
(the end) , as Ashcroft et al in Postcolonial Studies Reader state, “The history of the
world travel s from the East to the West” (1995: 15). In Culture and Imperialism , Said
argues that Postcolonial studies —through the diversity of imperial pursuits of
European powers in the sixt eenth through the twentieth century —are concerned with
the institutions where the pursuits were advocated by and generated the diversity of
colonial responses and most importantly the impres sive ideological formations,
including notions of certai n territories and people ’s demand, imploring domination as
well as forms of knowledge , affiliated with domination (1993: 9). Post-colonialism is
a consequence of colonialism, and t here is no single period of colonialism in the
world history , as Childs & Williams in An Introduction to Postcolonial Theory notes ,
“Clearly, there has not been just one period of colonialism in the history of the world”
(1997: 1). Kelertas adds that postcolonialism includes not only the pe riod of

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colonialism but also the period since liberation (2006: 3). Russia and the Sovie t Union
imposed its colonial hegemony on the Caucasus, Cent ral Asia, the Baltics, and East-
Central Europe for fifty to two hundred years. Yet the enormous twenty -seven -nation
post-Soviet sphere —both the former Soviet Republics and East Bloc states —is never
mentioned in the Western discourse of postcolonial studies (Kelertas 2006: 11).
Kelertas also argues that the term ‘postcolonial’ began to be used in the 1980s, with
massive growth by the middle 1990s, in the United States and several o ther
Anglophone countries (2006: 12).
The term ‘Post -communism ,’ according to Andreescu, was used in 1989 when
revolutions in East-Central Europe overthrew the communist regimes in seven
count ries—Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and
Romania. The process of dismantlement of the USSR was completed in 1991 when
eighteen erstwhile Soviet republics declared their rejection of communism along with
their commitment to democratic political models and free market economy (2011: 62-
63). What is even more interesting is that post-commun ist studies went along with
postcolonial studies without any points of intersection. An introduction of a
comparative thorough exploration of the studies based on the communist heritage of
all former comm unist states, their comprehensive attempts at transition , and the
global context of this process (Andreescu 2011: 72) would be helpful . Kelertas
explains the fact that the Three -World diagr am of Postcolonial Studies initially relied
on the Marxist idea of the First World as the agent of the Third World ills and
exploitation ; the collapse of the Se cond World in 1989 -1991, t hat the theorists were
somewhat at a loss as they were left without a teleological term of reference, with
their confusion resulting in s ilence; and a strategic avo idance of approaching the
studies that had suddenly changed its signified (2006: 20).
It is argued that little attention has been paid by Postcolonial Studies sch olars to
Soviet Russia and its Central -Eastern European satellites, as Soviet Russi a or the
USSR is not construed as an empire, but only refers to ‘Soviet imperialism,’ except
the US duri ng the Cold War , as Andreescu expresses in Are We All Postcolonialists
Now? , “Postcolonial Studies scholars have traditionally paid little attention to Soviet
Russia and its Central and Eastern European Satellites” (2011: 58). Colonial
domination , according to Kelertas, takes various modalities depicting importa nt facts
about colo nialism with different empires, needs, strategies, trajectories of expansion

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or contraction, and levels of territorial penetration, control and exploration. He
notices that some areas —the Middle East and China —were not colonized , but were
impacted more by “colonialism” than many countries that were colonized . Some
countries —Ghana, Nigeria or Senegal —were relatively swift and generally peaceful,
but others —Algeria, Kenya, Mozambique or Vietnam —were protracted, vicious, and
bloody (2006: 28-29).
Kelertas elaborates that Russia acknowledge s only old ‘capitalist’ empires —England,
Germany, Spain, France, Holland, and Portugal —as colonizers, without looking at
itself as colonial empire (2006: 1). The notion ‘postcolonial’ has transcended its initial
range. Wes tern academic postcolonial theory was initially a critique of Western
colonial power. The West, therefore, hardly monopolized colonial activity. The only
situation where the West has colonized itself is when England’s citizens colonized
what are now Canada , Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and Ireland, and
they then fought to free themselves from England. The contemporary literatures of
Ireland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and more hesitantly the United States have
been acknowledged into postc oloniality (Kelertas 2006: 15).
Ashcroft et al define ‘Ecological Imperialism ’ as dealing with the environments of the
colonized societies that have been physically transmuted by the acts of colonial
occupation. The term not only changed the cultural, political and social structures of
coloni zed societies, but also destroy ed colonial ecologies and traditional subsistence
patterns . Unknowingly spread to other parts of the globe with biologi cal and
ecological component , European diseases annihilated indigenous population s and
then facilitated European military and technological conque st. They, moreover,
introduced crops and livestock , supporting not only the conquering armies and the
colonized popu lation , but also the Neo -Europe (sett ler colonies), radically altering the
entire ecology of the invaded lands in ways that ultimately disadvantaged indigenous
people , and annihilated or endangered native flora and fauna on which their cultur es
relied on (1998: 76). Individuals, in the implicit assumption of cultural analyses, share
an essential cultural identity —race or nation. Race is particularly pertinent to the rise
of colonialism as the division o f human society is inextricably linked to the need of
colonialist powers to establish dominance over subject people and thus justify the
imperial enterprise. Race thinking and colonialism are imbued with the same impetus
to draw a binary distinction between the civilized and the primitive and the same

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necessity for the hierarchization of human types. European race thinking, however,
initiated a hierarchy of human variation, which has been difficult to dislodge
(Ashcroft et al 1998: 198).
Ashcroft et al define diaspora as the voluntary or forcible movement of people from
their homelands to new regions and as the central historical fact of colo nization.
Colonialism itself was a radically diasporic movement involving the temporary or
permanent distribution and settlement of mi llions of Eu ropeans all over the world.
The widespread effects of these migrations continue on a global scale. Many such
settled regions were developed historically as plantations or agricultural colonies to
grow foodstuffs for the metropolitan population , and thus a large scale demand for
labor was created in many regions , where the local population could not supply the
need (1998: 68). Ashcroft et al add that the economy in the Americas and South
Africa was based on slavery. All the slaves , shipped to the plantation colonies , were
taken from West Africa through various European coastal trading enclaves. The
widespread enslaving practiced by Arabs in East Africa identified some slaves sold
into British colonies: India and Mauritius, whilst so me enslaving of Melanesi an and
Polynesian people also occurred in parts of the So uth Pacific to serve the sugar cane
industry in places: Queensland where it was known colloquially as “black -birding ”
(1998: 69).
After the s lave trade and when slavery was outlawed by the European powers in the
first de cades of the nineteenth century, according to Ashcroft, the demand for cheap
agricultural labor in colonial plantation economies was met by the development of a
system of indentured labor. This involve d transporting large population of poor
agricultural laborers from rich demographic areas —India and China —to areas w here
they were needed to tend to plantations. The practices of slavery and indenture
resulted in world -wide colonial Diasporas —Indian popula tion formed substantial
minorities or majorities in colonies as diverse as the West Indies, Malaya, Fiji,
Mauritius and the colonies of Eastern and Southern Africa. Chinese minorities found
their way under similar circumstances to all these regions as well a s to areas across
most of South East Asia including the Dutch East Indian colonies in what is now
Indonesia and the Spanish and later American s dominated Philippines (1998: 69).

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Ashcroft et al define post -colonial as the effects of coloniz ation on cultures and
societies and delineate the term ‘post -colonial’ , originally used by historians after
Second World War, had a clearly chronologi cal meaning of post -independent period.
After the late 1970s, literary critics have used the term to discuss the various cul tural
effects of colonization (1998: 186). During the late 1970s and 1980s, the term “Post –
Colonial Literature” was used interchangeably with the terms “New Literature and
Commonwealth Literature ” (Ashcroft et al 1998: 163). Postcolonial literature ,
impacted on the imperial process from th e moment of colonization to the present day ,
shares some significant concerns: reclaiming spaces and places, asserting cultural
integrity, revis ing history and characteristics: resistant descriptions, appropriation of
the colonizers’ language, and rewarding colonial art -forms , according to Ashcroft et
al (1989: 117). The question “Can Post -communism be considered a n instance of
Post-colonialism?” poses many a difficulty to postcolonial studies scholars. However,
Andre escu answers that the framing is relevant in several ways. The relationship, on
the one hand, of post -colonialism with post-communism is one of political structures
and their implications. Post -communist countries in Europe, on the other hand, in
terms of social and political structure s and practices are like postcolonial lands
elsewhere in the world (2011: 57-58).
Kelertas certifies that the term ‘postcolonial’ came into exist ence not only because of
evident imperfections in former labels but also because of “postcolonial” varying to
many degrees, “good chunks of the contemporary political, social, cultural, and
literary situations in sub -Saharan Africa, South Asia, the Caribbe an, the Arab world,
and to lesser or different extents Latin America, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and even
the United States ” (2006: 12) and adds that the term ‘ postcolonial ’ that appeared in the
Western academy was meant to replace terms like ‘non-Western,’ ‘ Third W orld,’ and
‘emergent.’ These terms carried different meanings respectively —a shame with four
billion people under a single name “the West”, honorableness but still having flaws,
and working less effectively (2006: 14).
An external colonization or imperial control, after a great internal strife in Sub –
Saharan Africa, according to Kelertas, begins at the bord ers and extends to the
central, autochthonous governments that are substituted with puppet control or
outright rule, by which African education is revamped to privilege the colonizer’s
language and histories , and school curricula are rewritten from the imperium’s

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perspective. Indigenous religious traditions are additionally suppressed in the colonial
zone; idols are des troyed; and alternative religions and nonreligious ideologies are
promoted. More interestingly, the colonized areas of Africa become economic fiefs.
Little or no natural trade is permitted between the colonies and economies external to
the colonizer’s netw ork. Economic production is undertaken on a command basis and
is suited to the dominant power’s interests rather than to local needs. Local currencies
are only convertible to the colonial power’s money. Agriculture becomes mass
monoculture, and environment crisis follows. In the human realm, African dissident
voices are heard most clearly only in exile, though accession to exile is difficult.
Oppositional energies , therefore, are c hanneled through forms of mimicry, satire,
parody, and jokes. However, a characteristic feature of society is cultural stagnation
(2006: 16).
Kelertas raises some concerns of post -colonialism in Baltic States, criticized by some
critics, that some literary and cultural critics are still criticizing the use of post –
colonial methodologies in relation to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Notions of
criticism are still in mind because applying epithets of colonialism and post –
colonialism is still an issue to some (2006: 1). The most central facts and arguments of
colonialism , according to Ziltener & Kunzler, are political, economic and social
impacts. Political sphere is central to colonial domination, including direct and
indirect domination (2013: 297). Economic sphere is central to the mai n arguments of
outflow of wealth, expropriation mainly of land, the control over production and
trade, the exploitation of resources , and colonial infrastructure improvement (Ziltener
& Kunzler 2013: 299). Social sphere deals with the number of settlers of European
origins, colonial -induced labor migration, the degree of colonial investment in health
and education sectors, and different practices of ethnic and/or religious dis crimination
or privileges ( Ziltener & Kunzler 2013: 302).
Russia as well as the Soviet Union envisioned itself as a liberator of workers of the
world and a facilitator of emergency rescue from other real colonial empires but not
as a colonizer. The USSR and later Russia recognizes only old capitalist empires as
colonizers. The rhetorical term, ‘brotherhood of nati ons,’ among other euphemisms ,
was employed when speaking of foreign diplomacy. Some concerns were raised with
regard to the self -perception of the former USSR and reluctance ove r the application
of the terms ‘colonial and postcolonial’ to Baltic and other post -Soviet nations , as

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Kelertas states in Baltic Postcolonialism , “Russia never acknowledged its goal of
communist world domination. Instead, when speaking of foreign diplomacy it
employed rhetorical terms to speak of the ‘brotherhood of nations’ among other
euphemisms ” (2006: 1). The Balts considered themselves as lost-out Europeans while
labeling the Russians as Kelertas in Baltic Postcolonialism states, “ ‘Asiatic ’ and
therefore the ‘Other ’” (2006: 4). Postcolonialism is vital to discover ing world
identities from the pre -revolutionary historical period to postcolonialism, as Kelertas
in Baltic Postcolonialism describes the Canadians and Americans who , “By taking
[them] from the pre -revolutionary historical period, postcolonialism is fundamental to
world identities; postcolonials make up a motley crew that cannot be avoided ”
(2006: 4). Kelertas points out the another sign of the concept of postcoloniality ,
accepted with r eference to the former Soviet bloc , is in anthropologist Katherine
Verdery’s postcolonial studies , as she notes, “The Soviet empire was more self –
consciously invasive and ambitious than West European empires: its instruments
were generally more blunt, and its plans for ideological transformation emphasiz ed
different routes to that end ” (2006: 5).
Additionally , Kelertas emphasizes Karl Jirgens ’s research on how and why the Balts
interested in po stmodernism are their lost belief in grand narratives and one central
truth a long time ago. Literature, however, was still allowed to b e written in the native
tongues. The linguistic clock was ticking as most scholarship was required to be
written in Russian , and after 1978 Tashkent conference intensive Russification in the
schools was taking a toll. In Latvia and Estonia, their cultures in calculations by local
intellectuals were only a generation or two away from extinction (2006: 5). Much
confusion still exists between the colonizer and the colonized in post -Soviet
countries. The closest on the heels of the Baltics are the Ukrainians, who had grim
experiences with Russia and had undergone the Stalinist terror with its staged famine
in the early 1930s and who are well enough aware that they have been colonized . An
interview on American national television in 1989 or 1990, moreover, Pepsi Cola
executive feared that if the Soviet Union disintegrated, multinationals would have to
deal with fifteen independent republics , and that would cut into their profits. The
discourse was exploded on the reflection to the reality of the various ethnicities,
languages and experiences of the several colonial s—the Baltic States under th e Tsars,
the Soviets, and postcolonial and attempts a t neocolonial (overt as in Chechnya and

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covert as in the Baltic States) periods in Russian expansionism and hegemony
(Kelertas 2006: 7). Putting politics aside, returning to the origins of postcolonialism is
an attempt to give a name to human suffering and injustices carr ied out by the
powerful on the weak, as Spivak states, “I have long said that history should join
hands with literary criticism in search of the ethical as it inter rupts the
epistemological ” (Kelertas 2006: 8).
All countries in the world have been colonized and then become postcolonials . All
groups on this earth from the Baltics to Beijing to Benin have their claims to migrate,
flee, return to some indigenous status to somewhere else. Therefore, many cultural
situations, past and present, can be said to bear the postcolonial stamp only partly
according to current Western notions and four billion people live under a single name
‘the West,’ as Kelertas cites in Baltic Postcolonialism , “Not a single square meter of
inhabited land on this planet has not been, at one time or another, colonized and then
becomes postcolonial ; more people across Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas have
formed and reformed, conquered and been conquered, move d and di ssolved”
(2006: 13).
Postcolonial Africa is another example . Does it apply only to Africa, South Asia, and
the Caribbean, and not to the giant crescent ranging from Estonia to Kazakhstan
(twenty -seven nations), including Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the form er East
Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia –
Herzegovina, the remaining Yugoslavia, Macedona, Albania, Romania, Bulgaria,
Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkmenistan,
Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, an d Kyrgyzstan? These nations were unquestionably subject
to often brutal Russian domination, styled as Soviet from the 1920s on ward . The
post-Soviet world —like the postcolonial world —is enormously diverse with the
former Soviet sphere in mind: Koreans in Uz bekistan like Indians in Uganda,
Russians in Kazakhstan and Latvia like Du tch and English in South Africa, Russian
language in Baltic schools like French in Vietnam and Cameroon, corruption in
Armenia and Indonesia, and inter-ethnic and post -independe nt economic and cultural
strains all over. Therefore, it should be clear that the term ‘postcolonial’ and
everything goes with it, including language, economy, politics, resistance, liberation ,
and its hangover might be reasonably applied to the formerly Russo -and Soviet –

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controlled regions post -1989 and -1991, and to South Asia post -1947 or Africa post –
1958 , according to Kelertas (2006 :17).
Kelertas compares the differences between Anglo -Franco and Russo -Soviet forms , as
a means of better understanding postcolonial relations. Western colonization is built
on a three -part taxonomy —classic form, like in case of the British in Kenya and India
or the French in Senegal and Vietnam; the colonizers’ settlement and turni ng
indigenous population into ‘’Fourth World’ subjects, like in the United States,
Australia, and South Africa; and dynastic form, in which a p ower conquering
neighbor ing people s, like in the Ottoman, Hapsburg, and France. Russo -Soviet form
fits imperfectl y with the three -part taxonomy —sibling unity, like in Ukraine and
Belarus; set tler control over native people , like in Kazakhstan and Latvia; and the
‘classic’ form, in which colonial control over distant Orientalized population , like the
British in India or the French in Vietnam (2006: 21).
To better understand postcolonialism, Kelertas pinpoints the ideas of critics and
supporters that postcolonial approach, according to some critics, sho uld be restricted
to capitalist, not socialist occupations. The Balti c States, however, entail a lengthy
colonial history, and recent writing displays decidedly postmodern stylistics. Recent
scholars, including David Chioni Moore, challenge the exclusion of former Soviet
satellites from postcolonial disc ussion with two impo rtant arguments : (1) World
Marxist or socialist scholars have been reluctant to include former Soviet satellites in
postcolonial debate because of the conventional association of postcolonial theory
with capitalist models, (2) subjugated or occupied people respond with either an
exaggerated desire for their own cultural roots or with a craving to imitate the patterns
of the subjugating culture. The Soviet occupation, according to many scholars,
features conditions that one would expect in a colonial occupat ion. Other scholars,
including Karlis Racevskis, add to Chi oni Moore’s first point that postcolonial theory
has been applied sparingly to post -Soviet nations because early left -wing French
scholars felt uneasy criticizing political agendas to which th ey pl edged loyalty . Some
critics have argued Chioni Moore’s second point that the adoption of the ways of the
occupying nation shows a willingness to be subjugated. It means that the Balts were
not re ally colonized by the Soviets. That is, however, apparent in both recent and
many malevolent subjugating governments. To prove that there are two interrelated
points: (1) a deeper historical reading reveals that the colonization of the Baltics

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includes the occupation and subsequent attempted genocide not only by the Soviet
Union during the 20th century, but also roughly one thousand years of intermittent
colonization by wave after wave of aggressive foreign forces; and (2) the act of
forcibly redefining a cultural identity through systematic censorship and propaganda
results in a form of cultural genocide, which colonizes the minds of any survivors.
The Baltics can be analyzed in postcolonial terms not only as victims of the Soviet
occupation, but as victims of earlier imperialist occupations spanning over one
thousan d years at the hands of the Teutonic Knights, the Germanic invaders, Tsarist
Russian forces and so on (2006: 47).
A forced abandonment of traditional aborigi nal languages in North America was
carried out by a compulsory public educational system insisting o n using the
occupier’s language -English. This forced education in English finds parallels in the
Soviet model in the Baltics, where Russian became the official language and a means
of asserting control over business and education. Similar to North America, the
Soviet -occupied nations forced a shift to the language of the occupying power that
was acco mpanied by oppression of religion or traditional sacred values. The forced
educational system erected a language barrier that led to communication breakdown
between the older and younger generation s. If one considers some of the parallels
between North Ame rican, South African and Soviet modes of oppression, one can
conclude that at times there are some similarities in colonial modes and effects, as
Kelertas of Baltic Postcolonialism raises the speaking of Ngugi about cultural
oppression that, “The effect of the cultural bomb is to annihilate people’s belief in
their names, languages, environment, heritage of struggle, unity, capacities and
ultimately themselves. It makes them see their past as one wasteland of non –
achievement , want to distance themselves f rom the wasteland, want to identify with
that which is further removed from themselves; for instance, with other peoples’
languages rath er than their own, and identify with that whi ch is decadent and
reactionary and all those forces which would stop their ow n springs of life; it even
plants serious doubts about the moral rightness of struggle” (2006: 372-373).
After the Second World War, Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union, where the
policy of sovietization of all spheres of life was c arried out in a brutal manner. T he
creation of life and culture under conditions of occupation , and forced sovietization
has been little analyzed and poorly theorized because of two reasons , according to

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David Chioni Moore: postcolonial studies excluding the countries occ upied by the
Soviet Union and not being in a hurry to adapt postcolonial analysis by the formerly
occupied countries’ scholars, its conceptual insights or its theoretical concepts to their
work s. The first aspect of the paradox deals the occupational and c olonizing politics
of the Soviet Union, which was able to divert the attention to postcolonial studies
from most theoreticians because a few decades ago they believed the Soviet Union
was an anti -imperialist. The i deology of Soviet liberation instilled in the occupied
countries, especially the ‘liberation of Lithuania working people from the fascist
oppression of Antanas Smetona’s regime’ was proclaimed not only in ideological
writings in Lithuania but also in historical and artistic work s. Therefore, writers were
obliged to demonstrate how a character’s attainment of a higher consciousness led to
the ideals affirmed by Soviet propaganda. The second aspect of the paradox relates to
the present state of the Lithuanian elite in the humanities and the new construction of
the e lite’s identity. A viewpoint, based on a theme of collaboration between the elites
and the colonizers, might problematize the legitimacy of the established cultural
power , according to Kelertas (2006 :84-85).
There seem to be several factors complicating inherently the understanding the Soviet
experience: first, the need to change the conceptual t ools of the humanities and to
internalize Western theories as well as concepts; and second, the stimulating of the
evasion of the Sovi et experience in the continued existence of the contem porary elite
in the humanities. An active program of Russification and bilingualism was
established in operation in Lithuania. Culture was propagated through national
language . The ideology of the colonizer and the vocabulary based on it were
implanted into the Lithuanian language. They constituted their own fra mework for
comprehending the world and dislodged the religious dimension from public
language , as put forward by Kelertas ( 2006 :90).
Did colonialism exist in Southeastern Asia and East-Central Europe? Said argues
that colonialism is the inculcating of settlements on distant territory and/or a
consequence of imperialism (1993: 9). Colonial settlements take, according to
Ashcroft et al, the form of politica l ideology, burgeoning economy , and intercultural
relations (1998: 46). Slemon defines colonialism , a tremendously problematic
category, as trans -historical and unspecific, and it employs very different kinds of
cultural oppressi on and economi c control (1990: 31). According to Ziltener &

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Kunzler, colonialism is composed of two forms —domination by people over other
people and intergroup domination, subjugation, oppression and exploitation. Much of
the history is a history of colonia lism; colonizers attempt repeatedly and more or less
successfully to create a periphery out of the colonized , to control them politically and
to exploit them economi cally (2013: 291). There is no clear -cut distinction between
traditional empire -building and European colonialism. The Mughal empire; for
example, in Northern/Central India, the Ottoman in Western Asia and Northern
Africa, the Chinese in Central and Southern Asia, all used methods of domination and
exploitation were only slightly di fferen t from c olonialism (Ziltener & Kunzler
2013: 292). The most central facts and arguments of colonialism are political,
economic and social impacts ( Ziltener & Kunzler 2013: 297).
Pertinent to social and political structures and practices, according to Andreescu,
post-communist countries are like postcolonial lands elsewher e in the world
(2011: 57). The term ‘Post -communism’ was used in 1989 when revolutions in East-
Central Europe overthrew the communist regimes in seven countries —Albania,
Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Romania. The
process of dismantlement of the USSR was completed in 1991 when eighteen
erstwhile Soviet republics declared their rejection of communism along with their
commitment to democratic political model s and free mar ket economy ( Andreescu
2011: 62-63). Post -colonialism is central to colonization effects on cultures and
societies and has been, from the late 1970s, used by literary critics to discuss the
various cultural effects of colonization. Post -coloni alism, however , was not
mentioned in the studies of Wester n discourses, as Ashcroft et al of Key Concepts in
Postcolonial Studies state, “Postcolonial was not employed in these early studies of
the power of colonialist discourse to shape and form opinion and policy in t he
colonies and metropolis ” (1998: 186). Post -colonialism , according to Ashcroft et al,
has subsequently been widely used to signify the political, linguistic and cultural
experience of societies in former European colonies and to count historical, politica l,
sociological and economic analyses. It is clear that post -colonialism has been
employed in most recent accounts; primary concerned to examine the processes,
effects of, and reactions to European colonialism from the sixteenth century onwards;
and the ne o-coloni alism of the present day (1998: 187).

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History, unique and interesting to each country, has changed somewhat over time
with geopolitical and sociocultural conditions and analytical trends , according to
Kondratas et al (2015 :9), and cannot be distin guished from the present, based upon a
deeper understanding of the past , according to Houben (2014 :28). Through various
modalities, according to Kelertas, colonial domination depicts different important
facts about colonial empires, needs, strategies, traj ectories of expansion or
contraction, and levels of territorial penetration, control and exploration. Said (1993)
notably argues that some areas —the Middle East and China —were not colonized, but
were more affected by ‘colonialism’ than many countries that were. Some
countries —Ghana, Nigeria or Senegal —were relatively swift and generally peaceful,
but others —Algeria, Kenya, Mozambique or Vietnam —were protracted, vici ous, and
bloody (Kelertas 2006:28 -29). Houben identifies Southeastern Asia as the area
between India and China ( Figure 2 ), as a military strategic concept during the Second
World War for almost seventy years, and as an endeavor of the studies research and a
successor to the European tradition of studying their own -colonies , in the era of the
Cold War from the 1950s (2014: 29). Being an area at a crossroad, halfway between
India and China, according to Reid, the diversity of Southeast Asian polito -cultural
features has been imported from India, the Middle Eas t, Chin a and Europe (1988: 3).
Paying little attention to Soviet Russia and East-Central Europe an satellites ( Figure
3), postcolonial studies scholars recognize that Soviet Russia or the USSR is not
construed as an empire, but only ‘Soviet imperialism,’ except the US during the Cold
War, as Andreescu of Are We All Postcolonialists Now? writes, “Postcolonial Studies
scholars have traditionally paid little attention to Soviet Russia and its Central and
Eastern European satellites” (2011: 58). In 20th centur y Russia acknowledges only old
‘capitalist’ empires —England, Germany, Spain, France, Holland, and Portugal —as
colonizers, without looking at itself as a colonial empire , according to Kelertas
(2006 :1).
Russia and the Soviet Union imposed colonial hegemony over the Caucasus, Central
Asia, the Baltics, and East-Central Europe for between fifty and two hundred years.
Yet the Western discourse of postcolonial studies has never been included the twenty –
seven -nations of both former Soviet Republics and E ast Bloc st ates (Kelertas
2006 :11). All countries in the world have been colonized and then become
postcolonials. All groups on this earth from the Baltics to Beijing and to Benin have

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their claims to migrate, exile, return at some indigenous status to somewhere else.
Therefore, many cultural s ituations, past and present, can be said to bear the
postcolonial stamp only partly corresponding to current Western notions, and four
billion people live under a single name ‘the West,’ as Kelertas of Baltic
Postcolonialism certifies, “ No a single square meter of inhabited land on this planet
has not been colonized and then becomes postcolonial, resulted from more people
across Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas have formed and reformed, conquered and
been conquered, moved and dissolved” (2006: 13).
In Burma as in many other places, colonial institutions and publications stimulate
academic interest in the British scholarship about Burma, where colonialism goes
beyond political, administra tive, and economic domains, as SOAS of Romance and
Tragedy in Burmese Hi story writes, “ A process of colonialism is not confined to the
spheres of politic s, administration and economics” (2004: 2). Ziltener & Kunzler
define the onset of the colony as the formal declaration of the year of colony or
protectorate, but not as the po int in time when politic al sovereignty was exercised the
facto by the foreign powers. Single or intermittent military attacks are not considered
as the beginning of colonialism ( 2013: 293). Contrast able to variable ONSET, the end
of colonialism (COLEND) is coded as the point in time when the vast majority of the
autochthonous population regained full sovereignty over internal and foreign affairs,
with or without the participation of foreign settlers. It is not important whether
foreign administrators are pre sent or not, but rather whether this presence is decided
by the colonial pow er or by a sovereign government. In short, a longer colonial period
means more colonial violence, investment in infrastructure, plantations, work
immigration, and religious convers ions, according to Ziltener & Kunzler (2013 :293).
Britain’s relationship with Brunei, for instance, began in 1847. In 1888 Britain
established a protectorate over Brunei, which grew to residency rule by 1906, the
onset of official British colony in Brunei, where was granted self -government in 1959
and reached full independence in 1984 , as Hussainmiya of The Brunei Constitution of
1959 quotes, “The 1959 constitution marked a pivotal point in the nonviolent
movement toward post -colonial independence. While it granted internal self –
government in 1959, Brunei reached ful l independence only in 1984” (2000: 124).
Cambodia , according to Ross, was under French colony in 1863 after signing an
agreement of protectorate with the Fre nch by King Norodom (1990: 4) to preven t

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from completely swallowi ng of its neighbors (1990: xxvii) and got full independence
in 1953 after a partial agreement was signed by Ki ng Norodom Sihanouk (1990: 4).
In Singapore , Raffles and Farquhar , according to Abshire, established a trade port for
the Ea st India Company in 1819 (2011: xiii,xiv). LePoer explains how the British
colonize d Singapore that Farquhar the temenggong and the sultan had exploited
Singapore. In 1823 Raffles tried to persuade Hussein and the temengg ong—the island
leaders to get rid of their rights to por t duties and their share in other tax revenues. In
1824 , the Anglo -Dutch Treaty of London was signed to divide the East Indies into
two spheres of influence —north of the line by th e British and south of the line by the
Dutch. Consequently, the Dutch recognized the British claim to Singapore and
abandoned power over Malacca in exchange for the British post in Bencoolen
(1991: 16). In 1963 , independent Malaysia comprised Singapore, Malaya, and the
former British Borneo territories. Due to communal strife, pressure from neighboring
Indonesia and political wrangling between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, Singapore
was forced to separate from Malaysia and became an independent country in 1965 ,
according to LePo er (1991 :5).

Figure 2: The Countries of ASEAN
Source: Accessed on September 1, 2015 from http://www.aseansec.org/69.htm
In the Philippines, in reference with Shackford, the Spanish first arrived in 1500’s and
Miguel Lopez de Legazpi succeeded in establishing settlements in 1565, the onset of
Spanish colony in t he Philippines (1990: 81) until 1898 the beginning of United States
rule, according to Dolan (1993 :xxiv). Self -governing Commonwealth of the
Philippines was formed in 1935 under auspicious of United States, and the
Philippines became independent in 1965, with firmly established democratic

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institutions —a two party system (Dolan 1993: 4). Cima states the French arrived in
Vietnam in 1857, captured Tourane in 1858 and Gia Dinh —Saigon in 1859, lead ing
to bloody battles and gaining control of the su rrounding provinces (1989: 30).
Vietnam became fully independent after the national election in 1956, supervised by
International Control Commission —Canada, India, and Poland and endorsed by
Democratic Repu blic of Vietnam (DRV), France, Britain, China, a nd the Soviet
Union (Cima 1989: 58). Laos was incorporated into French Indochina in 1893,
resulting in Vietnamese immigration, encouraged by the French to staff the middle
levels of the civil services and mili tia, according to Savada (1995 :4). Eventually,
Laos became a member of United Nations after the formal establishment of Lao
People’s Party in 1955, as a part of In dochniese Communist Party ( Savada 1995: 33).
Faced with the Burmese invasion, according to Ackermann, the local rulers sought
protection under the British East India Company in 1823. In 1824 , The East India
Company declared war on Burma, with the help of a Burmese ethnic group, serving
as guides. In 1825 , British forces had captured the ancient city of Pagan. The First
Burmese war ended with the Treaty o f Yandabo 1826 (2008: 71). The monarchy in
1886, exiled in India and the south to Tavoy and Moulmein, was banned from
returning home until the very end of the British rule in 1948 , as Myint -U of The
Making of Modern Burma illustrates, “By January 1886, the monarchy ha d been
abolished altogether” (2004: 3). LePoer delineates the reasons on how to survive as an
independent nation and to avoid the humiliations from outsides that Mongkut, th e
king, signed the Treaty of Friendship and Commerce with Britain in 1855 , allowing
British merchants to buy and sell in Siam without intermediaries and granting British
subjects extraterritorial rights. Other treaties were signed the next year, with the
United States and France, and with other European countries in the n ext fifteen years
(1989: 20). After the coup of 1932, the constitutional monarchy, bringing about
further legal reforms, was promulgated in 1935, leading to the elimination of some
Western c oncepts of jurisprudence in Thai law. Therefore, the system of
extraterritoriality was completely excluded by 1938 (LePoer 1989: 276).
Iwaskiw discovers the country studies of Baltics and the division of Eastern Europe
into areas of influence that the count ry studies of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are
the latest studies of the fifteen newly independent states, emerged from the
disintegration of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991 (1995: xi). Unstable democracy

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and Estonia’s independence over the period of authoritarian rule during 1934 to 1940
resulted in the dividing Eastern Europe into areas of influence by Nazi Germany and
the Soviet Union, signed the Nazi -Soviet Nonaggression Pact, so called the Molotov –
Ribbentrop Pact, in 1939. Subsequently , the Soviet Union put pressure on Estonia,
Latvia, and Lithuania to sign the Pact of Defense and Mutual Assistance, allowing
Moscow to stat ion 25,000 troops in Estonia ( Iwaskiw 1995: 18). The communist
regimes were overthrown in 1989 in seven countries —Albania, Bulgar ia,
Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Romania, as Andreescu
mentions in Are We All Postcolonialists Now? , “By 1989, some CEE communist
states had a budding anti -communist civil s ociety, while other did not” (2011: 65).
Romania had suffered under the communist rule for more than forty years , according
to Bachman (1991: 63), from the occupation of the Red Army in Bucharest in 1944
(1991: 43) to the overthrowing of the communist re gime in 1989 , which, according to
Andreescu (2011 :65), resulted in the Non -Aggression Pact between the Soviet Union
and Nazi -Germany, allowing the Soviet Union to influence Balkans. Consequently,
Nazi -Germany and the Soviet Union colonized Romania, where the onset of the
colony started in 1939 , according to Bachman (1991 :40). After World War II (1939 –
1945), according to Burant, Germany was divided into two occupation zones —
German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and Federal Republic of Germany
(West Germany) —at the 1945 Yalta Conference, allowing the Soviet Union to
occupy East Germany. German Democratic Republic, then, was proclaimed by the
Socialist Unity Party of Germany in 1949, which emerged from the combination of
the Communist Party of Germany with the Social Democrats (1988: xx). Curtis inserts
Polish invasion tha t Poland never ignored fighting against Germany from the first day
of Polish invasion to the end of the war in Europe (1994: 37) started in 1939 when
three sides of Poland were encircled by Nazi -Germany after a complete Nazi
occupation in Czechoslovakia (19 94:33), resulting in 6 million people, especially
Jews, peris hed between 1939 and 1945 (1994: 34). After an intense two-month
struggle against the Germans in 1944, the Polish Home Army, with the assistance of
Red Army in Warsaw, forced the Germans into retr eat, leaving 90 percent of the city
in ruins. A provisional government, therefore, was installed in Warsaw and
recognized by the Soviet Union, resulting in open social unrests throughout the
communist pe riod (Curtis 1994: 39).

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Burant points out the sufferings of Hungarians and the invasion of Nazi Germany and
Soviet Red Army that the estimated 40,000 Hungarians were killed , and 70,000 were
wounded during the massive counterattack between the Soviet Red Army and
Hungary’s Second Army i n the Soviet Union, resulting in the withdrawal of the
remnants of the force into Hungary in 1 943. Seeing this opportunity, with fearing of
the government’s deceit and making a separate peace in the country, Nazi Germany
occupied Hungary and forced the gov ernment to increase its contribution to the war
effort (1990: 45), but Nazi occupation lasted until 1945 by the Soviet Red Army
driving all German troops out of Hungary. The Soviet Union, during the aftermath of
World War II, succeeded in forcing its politi cal, social, and economic system on
Eastern Europe, including Hungary. Hungary, since then, never recognized the Soviet
Union as the colonizer until 1956, when its government rebelled against the Soviet
Union and its Hungarian vassals, and then a milder fo rm of communist ru le was
introduced (1990: 46), with 1949 Soviet -style Constitution, renaming the country as
Hungarian People’s Republic, and imposing Stalinist political, economic, and social
systems. Hungary, however, passed the laws allowing multiparty s ystem during 1988
to 1989 (1990: xviii). Czechoslovakia, after World War II, according to Gawdiak,
declared its independent state, but it was threatened by a powerful neighbor, the
Soviet Union, attempting to place Czechoslovakia into the Soviet’s bloc. The dream
of democratic, pluralistic political system was not realized and did not exist any
longer in Czechoslovakia, where was in turn placed into the Soviet orbit and
Stalinization in 1948 (1989: 5). Czechoslovakia, then, moved completely into the
Soviet sp here of influence and transformed into a Stalinist state until ‘ glasnost and
perestroika ’ (Gawdiak 1989: xxiv).
After retreating of Axis power in Europe in 1944, a strong Russophile element
remained in Bulgaria, where subsequently Bulgarians greeted the arrival of the Red
Army, ending the Axis ally in World War II and laying the foundation of the postwar
political system . Bulgaria, between 1947 and 198 9, was ruled by the conventional
communist totalitarian dictatorships, resulting in changes in industrial ization and
urbanization of no private ownerships until 1989 , as Curtis of Bulgaria: A Country
Study writes, “Besides industrialization and urbanization, other important changes
had occurred under the conventional communist totalitarian dictatorships that ruled
Bulgaria under Georgi Dimitrov (1947 -49), Vulko Chervenkov (1949 -56), and Todor

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Zhivkov (1956 -89)” (1993: xxxii). Iwaskiw describes the invasion of o ther countries
into Albania such as Italy which , under the 1915 Treaty of London, was forced to
abandon its occupation of Albania except Sazan Island by Albania’s new go vernment
in 1920 (1994: 25). Conse quently, Italy, under Mussolini, invaded Albanian soil and
its economic life in 1925 ( Iwaskiw 1994: xix). German forces invaded Albania and
weakened Italian forces in Albania, where Albanian resistance fighters overwhelmed
five Italian divisions in 1943. German forces ultimately occupied Albania ( Iwaskiw
1994: xx), withdrawing from Albania in late 1944. Military victory in Albania brought
about Albanian communism, backed by the Yugosl avs and armed by the West
(Iwaskiw 1994: 33). One hundred thirty members of A lbanian Communist Party,
organized by Yugoslavs, took part in the leadership of Hoxha, and eleven members
were in the Central Committee in 1941 ( Iwaskiw 1994: 35).

Figure 3 : The countries of East -Central Europe
Source : Accessed on February 9, 2017 from
http://goeasteurope.about.com/od/introtoeasteuropetravel/ss/maps -of-eastern -europe.htm#step2
In 1943, there existed a third resistance organization, an anticommunist, and anti –
German royalist group taking shape in Albania’s northern mountains. Defeated the
last Balli Kombetar forces in 1944, the communist partisans encountered the scattered
resistance from the Balli Kombetar and a nti-German royalist group ( Iwaskiw
1994: 36). A provisional government, at the same year, had been formed by the
communist, dispat ched Albanian partisans to hel p Tito’s forces in Kosovo ( Iwaskiw
1994: 37). In 1948 Albania became a client of the Soviet Union after the break with
Yugoslavia. Albania turned away from Moscow after the death of Stalin and found a

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new benefactor in China. I n the 1970s Albania turned away from China and adopted a
strict policy of autarky, ruined t he economy of the country ( Iwaskiw 1994: 38).
Curtis explains the formation of Yugoslavia and the invasion into Yugoslavia that the
kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slov enes, so-called the kingdom of Yugoslavia ,
formed a constitutional monarchy, after World War I. The King Aleksandar unified
the country by a variety of political measures, including dictatorship, but he was
assassinated in 1934. Division of Yugoslavia bega n at the same tim e as World War II
(1992: xxv), lasting until 1945 when the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was
established. Two months later, a Soviet -style constitution was adopted for a
federation of six republics —Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Monten egro, Macedonia, and
Bosnia -Herz egovina —under a strong central government (Curtis 1992: 43). After the
1990 declarations of the right to secede, six republics declared their own
independence i n 1991 as separate states ( Curtis 1992: xxx). Nazi Germany, during
World War II, occupied Yugoslavia more than three years, fighting against three
Yugoslav factions and other invaders. Tito, after declaring independence from the
Soviet allian ce in 1948, changed Yugoslavia’s Sta linist command economy to local
worker group limited control in a self -management system ( Curtis 1992: xxv).
Postcolonial studies, through the diversity of imperial pursuits of European powers
from 16th to 20th century, a re central to the institutions, where the pursuits were
advocated by and generated the variety of colonial responses and importantly the
impressive ideological formations —notions of certain territories and people’s demand
of domination and of forms of know ledge , as Said of Culture and Imperialism
extracts :
Neither imperialism nor colonialism is a simple act of accumulation and
acquisition. Both are supported and perhaps even impelled by impressive
ideological formations that include notions that certain territories and people
require and beseech domination, as well as forms of knowledge affiliated with
domination: the vocabulary of classic nineteenth -century imperial culture is
plentiful with words and concepts like ‘inferior’ or ‘subject races,’
‘subordi nate peoples,’ ‘dependenc y,’ ‘expansion,’ and ‘authority ’ (1993: 9).
Colonialism , central to the economic domain, has recently amassed a number of
empirical studies, as Ziltene r & Kunzler of The Impacts of Colonialism cite, “In

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recent years, colonialism has been included in a number of empirical studies, often
from an economic perspective” (2013: 297). It involved in a massive inflow of
migrant labor from the mid -19th century onwards. This enhanced the ethnic mosaic of
Southeast Asian societies, where previou s population movements had existed , as
Suhrke of Migration, State and Civil Soc iety in Southeast Asia adds, “Colonialism in
turn stimulated a massive inflow of migrant labor that from the mid -19th century and
onwards enriched the ethnic mosaic of Southeast Asian Societies which previous
population movements had put in place” (1992: 1). The following deline ate the eff ects
of post -colonialism in Southeast ern Asian and East-Central Europe an countries
through important variables —social, economic and political factors. These studies,
however, analyze the differences of the impacts of post -coloniali sm, but not the
preponderance of one of them.
Both ONSET and COLEND are shown in Table 1 and Figure 4 .
The Onset and the End of Colonial Domination in
Southeastern Asia and East -Central Europe
Country Main colonial
power(s) Onset of
colonial
domination
(Onset) End of
colonial
domination
(ColEnd) Years of
colonial
domination
(ColYears))
Estonia Gr/USSR 1939 1991 52
Latvia Gr/USSR 1939 1991 52
Lithuania Gr/USSR 1939 1991 52
Romania Gr/USSR 1939 1989 50
Albania It/USSR/Gr 1920 1989 69
East Germany USSR 1949 1989 40
Poland Gr/USSR 1939 1989 50
Hungary Gr/USSR 1943 1989 46
Czechoslovakia USSR 1948 1989 41
Bulgaria USSR 1947 1989 42
Croatia Gr/It/USSR 1945 1991 46
Slovenia Gr/It/USSR 1945 1991 46
Serbia Gr/It/USSR 1945 1991 46
Brunei UK 1906 1984 78
Cambodia F 1863 1953 90
Indonesia NL 1619 1962 343
Laos F 1893 1955 62
Malaysia P/NL/UK 1511 1963 452
Myanmar UK 1826 1948 122
Philippines SP/USA 1565 1946 381
Singapore UK 1824 1965 141

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Thailand F/UK/USA 1855 1938 83
Vietnam F 1859 1956 97
East Timor P 1702 1975 273
Table 1: The Onset and the End of colonial domination in Southeastern Asia and East-Central Europe
Notes: GR: Germany, USSR: Soviet Union, IT: Italy, UK: United Kingdom, F: France, NL:
Netherland, P: Portugal, SP: Spain, USA: United States of America

Figure 4 : Years of Colonial Domination
Colonialism , according to Fanon, is pleased with not only holding pe ople in its grip
but also brainwashing the natives of all form and content. Perverted logic, oppressed
people and devalued pre -colonial history take on a dialectical significance today
(1963: 170). The social impact of colonialism, according to other authors, based on
the number of settlers of European origins, colonially induced -labor migration, the
level of colonial investment in health and education sectors, and different practices of 525252506940504641424646467890343624521223811418397273
0 100 200 300 400 500EstoniaLatviaLithuaniaRomaniaAlbaniaEast…PolandHungaryCzechoslov…BulgariaCroatiaSloveniaSerbiaBruneiCambodiaIndonesiaLaosMalaysiaMyanmarPhilippinesSingaporeThailandVietnamEast TimorYears of Domination

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ethnic and/or religious discrimination or privileges , according t o Ziltener & Kunzler
(2013 :302).
Houben points out that, in relation to the colonized society and the indigenous
population , what most colonial systems wanted, for reasons of rule maintenance, was
to promote social continuity, censuses and colonial law; an d to install a new
horizontal -vertical segmentation of society. This segmentation of society was
differentiated on the basis of race by choosing to place Europeans and other selected
groups in advantageous positions over immigrants and the indigenous popul ation.
Colonial socio -culture did not abolish existing socio -cultures but positioned itself on
top and acerbated social cleavages (2014: 32). In the late 15th century, following the
voyages of Diaz and Vasco da Gama, increasing numbers of Europeans arrived in
Southeast Asia with a sword in one hand and a crucifix in the other , as Tully of A
Short History of Cambodia described , “The Spanish and Portuguese, it is often said,
came with a sword in one hand and a crucifix in the o ther” (2005: 58). Shackford adds
in reference to the changes under colonialism that the Spanish monks and other
Spaniards radically changed the social, political and religious structure of th e
indigenous people’s lives, allowing nothing s to tand in the way of their conversions
of Filipino s to the Catholic faith ( 1990: 83). Similarly, the Romanian Orthodox church
was transformed into a government -controlled organization; the state supervised
Roman Catholic schools, imprisoned Catholic clergy, merged the Uniate and
Orthodox churches, and seiz ed Uniate church property , as stated by Bachman
(1991 :51). Iwaskiw pinpoints with reference to the main religions in Estonia and
Latvia that the dominant Estonian religion is Evangelical Lutheranism, and the
second largest is Orthodox Christianity. The col onizer established its own churches,
amassing twenty -five Russian Orthodox congregations and others: forty three for
Estonian and twelve for mixed (1996: 34). The dominant Latvian religion is
Evangelical Lutheranism, and the second largest is R oman Catholicism (Iwaskiw
1996: 121). The colonizer established Orthodox Churches in Latvia for Russians,
which catered to only 9 percent of the population ( Iwaskiw 1996: 122). Burant
criticiz es the communist states that tried to abolish indigenous religions, exp laining
that the new secular authorities, under the communist rule, viewed the churches —the
Roman Catholic Churches —in Hungary as a source of opposition, and they harassed
and persecuted them. The state took over the religious schools and dissolved most

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Catholic religi ous orders in 1948 (1990: 91). After 1974 , the relations between church
and state became warm due to the removal of Mindszenty from his office in 1971.
Mindszenty had received permission to leave the country after spending many years
in the Ame rican embassy in Budapest, where he had fled to escape det ention from the
authorities (Burant 1990: 92).
According to the colonial government by Ziltener & Kunzler, the most positive
impact of colonialism is the investment in the education and health secto rs. Education
was primarily meant to recruit and to train clerks/officials for the administration but
not to improve the knowledge of the indigenous population or to open the ways to
European universities. Colonial society’s education policies were guided by the
practical needs (2013: 303). Colonial schooling , by Rodney, meant education for
subordination, exploitation, creation of mental confusion, and the development of
underdevelopment. The colonizers offered opportunities differently within or between
their colonies ( 1972: 264). Independent schools in many colonies, at the same time,
were forbidden or carefully observed in order to exclude the development of
potentially anti -colonial elite. The impact of schools was far -reaching since it had the
effect of c reating cultural allies for the colonial powers , according to Trocki
(1999 :88). There was virtually no other option for school graduates than to work
within a colonial structure (government, trade, and mission), a situatio n that created
what Wallerstein called the clerk between two worlds where to concentrate on
psychological dilemmas of missing the key factor, and the structural bind in which
this class found itself (1970: 410). Ziltener & Kunzler add colonial investment in
health facilities mainly benefi t the colonialist, especially in settler colonies. Medical
centers were founded, typically with the purpose of lowering infant mortality,
advancing disease prevention, and vaccination campaigns. The limited impact of
these measures has to do with the predo minant orientation of imperial medicine
(2013: 304).
According to Bachman, the communist regime in Romania in 1948 was determined to
reform the social structure and inculcate d the socialist values by imprisoning teachers
and intellectuals, introducing compulsory Russian language, and rewriting Romania’s
history through emphasis of Russia’s contributions and re definition of the n ation’s
identity (1991: 51). According to Kelertas , the forced abandonment of traditional
aboriginal languages in North America was carried out by a compulsory public

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educational system insisting on u sing the occupier’s language -English. This forced
education in English finds parallels in the Soviet model in the Baltics, where Russian
became the official language and a means of as serting control over business,
education, and culture. Ngugi viewed cultural oppression as a ‘bomb,’ which
annihilates people’s belief in their names, languages, environments, heritage of
struggle, unity, capacity, and ultima tely themselves (2006: 372). According to Burant,
the Hungarian communist government made changes in the communist regime, by
putting emphasis on political education and on technical and vocatio nal training of
citizens for the benefit of society. Consequently, many Soviet professors and
textbooks of Soviet authors were available in Hungarian university, and Russian –
language clubs were founded. Additionally, Marxism -Leninism, by the early 1950s,
had become the backbone of the curriculum (1990: 96).
According to the war and impacts of the wa r after World War II by Suhrke, the
longest most devastating and internationalized war was the Second Indochina War
(1960 -1970) . The conflict produced million s of internally displaced people and
sustained outflows of persons classified alternatively as ref ugees or illegal migrants.
The closed migration policies of Southeast Asian States were not seriously enforced
until the la te 1970s, resulting in the flow of immigrants from neighboring countries or
from the region. The region’s insurgencies resulted from a secular trend of growing
pressure of population on resources and divisions of class formations (as in Thailand
and the Philippines) or mainly ethnicity (as in Malaysia). Most Southeast Asian
countries had relieved some pressures due to the upsurge of economic growth of the
1970s, but it was certainly not enough to create large -scale demand for labor
(1992: 12-13). According to the twentieth century history and catastrophe by Gilbert,
wars —world wars to civil wars, violent p olitical regimes, and genocides —shape
contemporary history (2013: 2). In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, by
King, predominant moves of migrants were out of rather than into E urope. From 1820
to 1940, the estimated 38 million out of 55 -60 million went to the United States due
to geographical upheavals, the two world wars, and political factors, push ing massive
human dislodgements in Europe: 7.7 million in border -crossing and 25 million in
shifted movement (1993: 20-22). Deletant gives examples of Romanian immigrants
that the estimated 170,000 Romanian citizens emigrated legally between 1975 and

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1986; thousands of others emigrated illegally were arrested; and unknown numbers of
Romanians were shot and died while attemp ting to mi grate (1995: 258).
Elson describes the risks of work and the spread of diseases in colonial period as that
Southeast Asia was the significant reduction of mortality, not an increase of fertility.
Urbanization , the work in mines, plantations and the big infrastructure construction
sites favore d the spread of diseases and an increase in number of work -related
accidents ( 1999: 305). According to Ziltener & Kunzler, the expropriation of land s
took different forms in settler and plantation colonies : (1) the concentration on
ownership lands of colonized -horticultural societies higher than areas with higher
population densities and more co mplex agricultural technologies and (2) a strong
regional bias against less-prone importation of labor and the colonial ly induced labor
immigration (2013: 302). According to Tully , under the French , Cambodia was in
economic backwater. The peasants were discontented with the s tate apparatchiks ,
being forced to pay taxes, to labor on the roads , and to line their own pockets in the
process. The French administration had been increasing taxes for some years, but the
Khmer peasants were held responsible ( 2005: 93-97). Due to the financial losses on
the part of the Dutch and Br itish and the need of money by Shackford, the Spanish
raised taxes and forced the Filipinos to work more for lower wages. Small elite group
of Filipinos and the many Americans had started corporations or had investments in
the Philippines due to low cost F ilipino labor (1990: 89,115). According to Houben ,
the penetration of the colonial states between Malaya, Indonesia and the Philippines,
both in length and depth, social fabric had been changed in importan t ways. During
the mid 19th century, on the island of Java, cultivation system by mobilization of
peasant labor took place, in planting and harvesting cash crops. Major labor force was
previously recruited from the heavily populated island of Java, and later it was set up
outsides J ava. In Malaya Chinese, Indian s and Javanese were put to work when a
sizeable plantation and mining industry emerged, whereas Malay peasants were kept
in their villages ( 2014: 31).
Wallerstein describes the gap between the developed and the underdeveloped ,
arguing that by 1970 the real -world gap between ‘developed’ and ‘underdeveloped’
countries was growing wider and wider, being far from closing (2004: 3). There is no
clear -cut distinction between traditional empire building and European colonialism.
All use d methods of domination and exploitation were only slightly different from

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colonialism , according to Ziltener & Kunzler (2013 :292). According to Kelertas , the
Caucasus, Cent ral Asia, the Baltics, and East-Central Europe were colonized by
Russia and the Soviet Union for fift y to two hundred years (2006: 11). Acco rding to
Bachman , Germany and the Soviet Union exploited Romanian natural reso urces
(1991: 40,48). After signing a ten -year scheme in 1939, Germany exploited
Romania’s natural resources and seized o pportunity to strengthen its economic
influence in the region, where first a premium for agricultural products was paid and
soon about half of Romania’s total imports a nd exports were demanded ( Bachman
1991: 40). After signing a long -term economic agreement in 1945, Soviet Union
controlled Romania’s major sources of income —the oil and uranium industries. The
excessive post -war reparations to the Soviet Union overburde ned the Romania’s
economy ( Bachman 1991: 48), including US$ 300 million in reparation, goods
transferred at low prices, and supplying food s and other goods to Red Army during
the transit and occupation, reaching the total eq uivalent of US$ 2 billion ( Bachman
1991: 44). Consequently, Romania in 1947 faced economic chaos, resulting in foreign
aid, including United States relief, to help feed the pop ulation ( Bachman 1991: 48).
After 1989 a multiparty system by Siani -Davies (2005), Romania was under the
reform of all fields, especially market economy, but the democratization process was
slow and windin g due to communist origin of the majority of the po litical elite .
Iwaskiw recounts how p rohibitive tariffs on imports of Baltic goods were imposed by
the Russian government, and prices on Russian fuel and other essential commodities
were raised. Present -day economic development in the three countries —Estonia,
Latvia, and Lithuania —has been achieved through the strong relationship with the
West since 1994 (1996: xx), as after regaining independence in 1991 the Baltic States
have followed a course of poli tical and economic reorganization and re integration
with the West (1996: xix). According to Burant , Hungary and other Eastern European
countries alike were completely sovietized . A s oviet model of economy was adopted,
resulting in industrial drive to the economy and collecti vized agriculture ( 1990: xxvii).
Economic reforms were introduced in Hungary in 1989 in reaction to the old
communist system. The reforms encouraged the capitalist market economy and the
emergence of a multiparty syste m. Hungary, additionally, persuade d Poland to join a
pro-reform bloc within the Warsaw Pact alliance , leading in strengthened reform
efforts in East Germany, Bulgaria, and Czechoslov akia in late 1989 (Burant
1990: xxx).

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According to colonial domination by Bockstette et al, coloniali sm politically affects
first the pre -colonial elites through different forms of domination ( 2002: 352).
Bergesen & Schoenberg add political control differentiated from colony to colony
within colony from region to region ( 1969: 232). The countries with the most effective
indirect rule by Coleman, the political integration was more difficult, and the tension
between old and new elites was more evident. However, the countries with most
effective direct rule , the political integration has been easier and les s barricaded by
old elites ( 1960: 265). Therefore, the colonial state with indirectly ruled colonies by
Ziltener & Kunzler lacked the capabilities to implement policy outside of the capital
city and often had no option for pursuing policy other than coercio n (2013: 297).
For Alesina et al, the truism of the effects of colonialism deals with the artificiality of
colonial borders. There are two facets of artificial borders ( 2006: 2). The colonial
borders, furthermore, create landlocked states and then large countries, increasing the
likelihood of civil wars , according to Ziltener & Kunzler (2013 :303). Tully gives
examples of artificiality of colonial border s created by the colonizers: almost the
entire lower delta region and the Camau Peninsula were controlled by th e Vietnamese
by 1780 who populated the region with settlers and provoking border accidents to
demand indemnities in land from the Khmers, which resulted in almost half a million
Khmer Kroms still living in the Vietnamese lower delta today as a result of the
French saving them from assimila tion or extinction (2005: 69). Ziltener & Kunzler
discuss how institutions as educational facilities and the infrastructure are more
estab lished where colonization last s longer. These extractive institutions concentrate
on power and are prone to expropriation of property ( 2013: 298). Shackford adds
more examples of colonization under the American colonization from 1898 to 1946,
which brought educatio n, he alth care, new technology , and American -style
democracy to the Filipinos. At the same time U.S. military bases, large plantations,
factories and mining operations were set up in the Philippines ( 1990: 115).
According to pros elytization by Young, the instrumentalization of ethno -linguistic
and/or religious cleavages was one of the most problematic legacies of colonial
domination. The army, in British Burma, was controlled by the Karen and Shan, who
had been converted to Christianity mainly by U.S. miss ionaries ( 1994: 105). The
transition to political independence , by Houben, did not change the existing social
structure much. In Java, upon the political upheavals of the Indonesian revolution,

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official elite families (priyayi) could retai n their positions (2014: 32). Geertz describes
the restoration after revolution in Java that the American anthropologist quickly
restored social order of postwar Mojokuto city in East Java, after the Indonesian
revolution. Social complexities; however, increased dramatically on the basis of
ideologically affiliated groupings ( 1965: 119-153). Selosoemardjan adds a rapid
expansion of the bureaucracy occurred after independence in Indonesia. Carried high
social esteem and political parties, the government officials extended their influence
within the government apparatus by appointing their clients to office ( 1962: 105-132).
According to Iwaskiw , the development and the rebuilding the coun tries after
independence took place in 1991 when the Baltic states have freed their countries
from communist legacies, which led to challenges —a major demographic shift during
the Soviet era, a massive influx of immigrants, high concentration of Russians in the
capital cities, integration of political life, and high birth rate (199 6:xix). The Baltic
countries, however, have experienced greater progress in rebuilding their economies
than Russia and the othe r former Soviet republics (Iwaskiw 1996: xxi). Estonia’s new
democratic politics started slowly in the 1990s, with a new constitut ion and the
formation of stable political groupings. Naturalization and integration of Russo -phone
population into Estonian society remai ned a significant challenge, as they had been
denied automatic citizenship r ights in 1991 ( Iwaskiw 1996: 65). The commun ist
party’s monopoly o n political power in Latvia ended in 1989 by the Latvian Supreme
Soviet, which cleared the way for the rise of independence political parties and for the
country’s first free parliamentary electi ons since 1940 ( Iwaskiw 1996: 148). The
Supreme Council adopted a declaration renewing the independence of the Republic of
Latvia, culminating with an election to a restored Saeima (Latvia’s pre -1940
legislature), declaring the Soviet annexation of Latvia illegal, and restoring certain
articles of the constitution of 1922 ( Iwaskiw 1996: 148-49). The most important issue
facing the Saeima was citizenship, resulting in the passing of the citizenship bill in
1994, requiring a minimum of five years of continuous residence, a rudimentary
knowledge of t he Latvian language, history, constitution and a legal source of income
(Iwaskiw 1996:152 -153). A provisional constitution, called the provisional b asic law,
was adopted in 1990 as a means of establish ing a framework for the new Lithuanian
state’s governme nt, maintaining democratic rights and rules of democratic process,
yet basic elements of the Soviet -style government still existed (Iwaskiw 1996: 224).

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Additionally, fundamental human rights and democratic values —freedom of thought,
faith, and conscience —were stipulated in the constitution, guaranteeing the status of
legal person to religious denominations and allowing religious teaching rights
(Iwaskiw 1996: 225). Consequently, Lithuania is an independent democratic republic,
with its new constitution of a p residential dem ocracy with separation of power and a
system of checks and balances ( Iwaskiw 1996: 223).
After being in office in 1965, by Bachman, Ceausescu adopted Stalinist model,
imposed in 1948, and gave Romania the most highly centralized power structu re in
Eastern Europe. He became the first president of the republic, assumed the duties of
the head of state, and remained the leader of the armed forces ( 1991: xxi). He
perfected in two control mechanisms —policy making and administration through the
mechanism of joint party -state councils, no precise counterpart in other communist
regimes, and rotating mechanism, bolstering his power at the expense of political
institutions (Bachman 1991: xxi-xxii). Hardline commun ist regimes in 1989, from
Baltics to the Balkans, gave way to a new generation of politicians willing to satisfy
their population with democ racy and market economies ( Bachman 1991: xxix).
Consequently, according to a multiparty system after 1989 by Siani -Davies (2005),
Romania was under the reform of all fields, especially market economy, but the
democratization process was slow and winding due to communist origin of the
majority of the political elite s. Burant states similarities of communism in Hungary
that the political system of the Hungarian People’s Republic likes others in Eastern
Europe, adopted a model first founded in the Soviet Union and allowed the
communist party, Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Pa rty, to rule the state. Economically,
politically, and socially the party made decision for the government to implement
(1990: 169).
Kelertas argues that post -colonialism gave colonized countries disproportionate
weight in developing the freed countries (20 06:12). Ziltener & Kunzler confirm that
there really existed post -colonialism ranging from 1511 to 1984 in South Eastern Asia
and from 1920 to 1991 in East-Central Europe (See Table 1 ). Many issues surfaced
socially, economically and politically; and have remained unsolved ( 2013: 291).
Developing countries in Southeast Asia , except Singapore and Brunei that enjoy high
GDPs , are Cambodia, Myanmar, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Philippi nes, Timor -Leste, and
Vietnam with lower middle income s; Malaysia and Thailand with upper middle

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income s. East-Central Europe an countries are Albania, Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia
with upper middle income; and Czech Republic, Slovak, Slovenia, Ge rmany,
Hungary and Poland with high income , according to World Bank (2016) . Therefore,
Ziltener & Kunzler conclude that the transformative effects of colonialism have
generated profound changes in the economy and social structure of some countries
and have remaine d untouched in most countries of Southeast Asia and East-Central
Europe due to wars, occupation of neighboring countries, nepotism, and unsolved
corruption (2013: 306).
1.2 MIGRANT LITERATURE
To migrate is to live , as Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader state, “To be an
exile is to be alive” (1995: 12). The important characteristic of the contemporary
world is the reconstitution of economic, political and social factors. The motives for
migration result from a dramatic change in structure of societies. To understand
migration, we need to understan d a structuration theo ry, for it addresses both
individual and societal factors , as Wolfel of Migration in the New World Order
writes, “A multi -method approach to migration studies is appropriate to
understanding the motives of migrants since it not only addresses the stated co ncerns
of the migrants, but also looks at wider societal issues that influence m igration in a
tactic manner” (2005: 2). Wolfel adds Giddens’ theory of structuration is a method of
bringing both macro and micro influences of migration into a more complete
explanation of the migration decision making process. Structuration theory, an
approach to social theory, is pertinent to the intersection between knowledgeable and
capable social agents and wider social systems and structures in which they are
intertwined (2005: 1). Migration is more than just a sim ple cost -benefit analysis, and it
is influenced by wider social issues (Wolfel 2005: 2). The conceptualization of
migration and the Duality of Structure are a great contribution to a Giddensian
perspective on migr ation. All previous migration studies promote one aspect of
Giddens’ theory, none of them addresses all six elements of Structuration Theory —
Agency, Structure, the Duality of Structure, Institutions, the Dialectic of Control, and
Time/Space relation. To un derstand Structuration theory, each of these six points
must be defined and related to Giddens’ theory of migration (Wolfel 2005: 3).
Accordin g to the Structuration Theory , the individual is considered to be an agent ,
equipped with knowledgeab ility, capability, and reasonability . The agent knows what

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she is doing, and why she is doing it, for all actions are intentional or purposeful. The
intentional actions could be classified as proximate de terminants of migration,
including the life -cycle theory of migration, economic opportunities, and previous
migration history. The unintended consequences of actions are also important in
delineating migration during transitional eras. They conclude that women, by
migrating based on the needs of their husbands, do not intentionally perpetuate the
institution of patriarchy; they are unintentionally promoting it. People, in Giddensian
theory, consume a cost-benefit analysis for decision making, which is undertaken if
the be nefits are greater than the costs. The cost-benefit analysis utilizes the host
criteria, including economic concerns, for Giddens ’s discussion of the agent and for
important insights into the individua l migrant (2005: 7-10).
Structure, playing important role in social change by Wolfel, is not conceptualiz ed as
a barrier to action but as an essential involvement in product ion. The differentiation
of structure, system , and structuration is another key element of Giddensian thought.
Structure is defined as the set of rules that exist in society a nd the ability for
individuals to change the la ws of society. System is hypothesized as reprod uced
relations between actors and collectivities for regular social practices. The process of
social ch ange in a society is viewed as structuration. Giddens , ther efore, defines
structuration as conditions governing the continuity or transformat ion of structures
and the reproduction of systems (2005: 11-13).
The Duality of Structure , the foundation of the Structuration Theory and of most
fundamental contributions to social theory according to Wolfel , is related to the
basically rec ursive character of social life and expresses the mutual dependence
between structure and agency. A dialectical relationship, the relationship between
structure and agency, influen ces the change in society. Rules and resources, drawn
upon by actors in the product ion of interaction, are reconstituted through such
interaction , leading to the essential recursiveness of social life and practices.
Migration of minority groups promotes the majority ’s structuration of society by
eliminating competition in the nation building process and the change of nature of
natio nal identity by leaving the region. Emigrants desire to find a location that
satisfies their needs and values. They migrate when the resi dential characteristics of a
place do not meet their needs and values (2005: 13-16).

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All actors , having some degree of penetration of the social forms by Wolfel , have
some power in influencing the structuration of society. Power is available to all
agents, who need to understand what their power source is and how to use it. Giddens
defines resources as the media whereby transformative capacity is employed as power
in the routine c ourse of social action. Power, an important i nfluence on the
structuration of a society, is treated differently in Giddensian thought tha n in other
social theories . When individuals lose their ability to influence society, they cease to
be agents and may see movement to another society as the only op portunity for
regaining their status as agents. Many members of a minority group leave one country
and migrate to a location where they have some opportunities for participating in the
structuration of society, for example, Central Asia where a large numbe r of Russian –
speakers have left the region and returned to Russia (2005: 16-17).
According to Wolfel, institutions, the so-called social institutions , function in
structuration theory as routinized practices, carried out or recognized by the majority
of members of a co llectivity. Four types of soci al institutions —symbolic
orders/modes of discourse, political institutions, economic institutions , and
law/modes of sanction —are influenced by signification, dominat ion and legitimation.
Many institutions influence migration throughout the world. The institution that
influences migration is network and geopolitics. A set of networks between people
outside their homelands and friends or family members located in their ancestral
homelands is a cause of migration. Russia, for instance, has maintained a strong
regional presence in Central Asia through economic and military means, entered into
regional alliances with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and also provided
peace -keepers in Tajikistan, security and political stability for the country and region.
All of the geopolitical practices have appeared to have been designed to keep Central
Asia within the Russian sphere of influence. Discrimination against minorities forces
them to return to th eir ethnic homelands, to migrate from prosperous regions, and to
create non-economically motivated migration decisions. Institution that has
influenced migration is (2005: 17-19).
Time (history) and space (geography) are fundamenta l influences on the structure of
society. One of the main faults with social theory is its lack of concern with issues
related to the history and place -specific characteristics of a location, contributed to
the constitution of societies and the conduct of social life , according to Giddens

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(1984 ). The history and geography of the place by W olfel are essential to
understanding political, social, and economic changes that are occurring there
(2005: 19). Giddens (1984) adds all social activities are positioned in three key
relationships or three intersecting moments of difference —temporal, paradigmatic
and spatial . According to Structuration Theory by Wolfel , the unique nature of
regions and their methods of influence lead to dif ferent motives and patterns of
migration. Historians in the process of ‘ Verstehen ,’ engage d in time travel and area
studies , try to make sense of ‘ situated differen ce.’ This mostly involves in a spatial
sense of travel , moving from one’s own habitat towards another one , and trying to
adopt a perspective on the world , preferably centered on another place than one’s own
(2005: 19-21).
Suhrke delineates the population movement stages and the impacts of the receiving
countries , postulating that migration basically depends on receiving and sending
countries, where immigrants move inward and outward. The major population
movements in Southeast Asia happen in four stages: (1) the anc ient southward
migration settlement at the periphery of establis hed polities, (2) conquest of state
power; (3) th e new arrivals subjugating or expelling existing populations and
effectively absorbing or extinguishing the older society; and (4) a melting -pot
mechanism developed . Migration results in political consequences in the rec eiving
countries, which can be divided into three groups: (1) the impact on the control of the
state apparatus, typically associated with military conquest and large -scale settlement;
(2) the impact on the structure of civil society, exemplified by the app earance of
diaspora related to labor migration; and (3) assets and liabilities in foreign policy,
depending primarily on relations with the sending state and typically associated with
diaspora populations and refugee movements (1992: 1-2).
Suhrke certifies that until the late 1970s migration flows mainly within the region —
Southeast Asia, not mainly flows from the major sending country ( China ) due to strict
prohibitions on outmigration. The closed migration policies of the Southeast Asian
states we re not seriously carried out . Some regional population flows, as from
Mindanao in the Philippines to Sabah in West Malaysia, was accommodated for
special reasons —the naturalization policies. Several thousand refugees from French
Indochina arrived in Northe ast Thailand after World War II , were allowed to settle.
Thai policy embodied a continuity of the classical mode of free immigration to the

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periphery of the Kingdom and also reflected a political d ecision of Pridi’s liberal
government to assist the struggle against French colonialism and its victims. When he
was replaced by a strongly anti -communist and anti -Vietnamese regime, policy was
reversed in a striking illustration of the impact of foreign p olicy on refugee (1992: 12).
Suhrke points out the wa r between 19 60 and 1970 and its effects, arguing that the
longest , most devastating and internationalized war after World War II was the
Second Indochina War . The conflict produced millions of internally displaced people
and sustained outflows of persons classified alternately as refugees or illegal
migrants. Seeds of future conflicts were sown to produce renewed war in Kampuchea
in 1978 and massive waves of refugees. The migration movements in this period
illustrate with great clarity the complex and clos e relationships between po pulation
flows and fundamental polit ical issues. Migration sometimes appear s as an instrument
of foreign policy, sometim es as a cause of power struggles within and among nations,
and always as a consequence of such struggles. The Indochinese population flows are
well-known and documented. During the second Indochina war, few international
refugees appeared, but after the war the new social order produced massive outflows,
mainly to neighboring ASEAN states and Hong Kong , and a one -time flow to China
(1992: 12-13).
Suhrke raises some security concerns and gives examples of refugees’ movements in
Southeast Asia that security issues shaped ASEAN’s exclusionist stand. Part of the
problem, as seen in the receiving country, was the fact that most flows were seen as
irreversible rather than temporary insofar as the refugees fled a new social order, not
a passing upheaval or rep ression. Unless made conditional on resettlement elsewhere,
practically asylum would mean permanent pres ence. Given the very large numbers
involved, this meant a sizable addition to the local population. For instance, 60,000
arrived per month during the 1978 -79 peak period s in Malaysia alone, a country of
only 13 million people. The Muslim Malay dominated go vernment had admitted
several Muslim refugees, but no others. The Muslim included some smaller groups
from the area —about 7,0 00 Cham from Cambodia and 2,500 Burmese Muslims; the
only large community was nearly 200,000 Filipino Muslims who were given a refuge
in 1968 from their war with the Ma nila government and importantly in the context of
tense relations between Malaysia and the Philippines. Angered by a Philippine
territorial claim on the West Malaysian state of Sabah, the Malaysian government

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identified that sheltering a nd aiding Philippine rebels were good foreign policy
(1992: 13-14).
As for Thailand ’s rejectionist stand on ASEAN , according to Suhrke, Thailand
conveniently developed a more nuance position in a traditionalist mode. Lowland Lao
and hill t ribes from Lao were treated more leniently. The Laotians had domestic kin
in Thailand, and did not represent a domestic political complication. More
importantly, they were seen as unproblematic migrants in that the mother country was
too weak to use them p olitically or intervene to protect them. Laos was a small and
weak state that traditionally had occupied a deferential position in relation to the more
powerful Thai kings. For several years after 1975, Thai governments had
systematically sheltered and helped Laotian refugees put pressure on Laos. The
Vietnamese, however, were compelled to move on partly because the mother country
in this case was a traditional rival and formidable adversary of Thailand. The Khmer s
were allowed to stay, but only insofar as the international community pressured
Thailand to grant asylum, and only as long as they usefully formed an army of
‘refugee -warriors’ to push back the Vietnamese. Relations with the sending country
indicated whether the refugees would be viewed as a th reat or an instrument of
foreign policy. Refugees from smaller neighbors were useful instrument —Laos and
Cambodia; refugees from at large neighbor and rival were inherently suspicious. The
other decisive factor was the phase of the conflict in the sending country. In Laos and
Cambodia, the conflict continued and the refugees could influence the outcome. In
Vietnam the war was defin itely lost (1992: 15-16).
The Indochinese refugee movements , by Suhrke, show ed population flows caused by
primarily political or social strife and carried some of the original con flict with them.
Such flows had an inherently political impact in the receiving states. By extending
asylum, the receiving state became at least indirectly a party to the conflict. Some
actively utilize d the refugees as instruments of foreign policy. For these reasons,
refugee flows typically appear ed in international adversarial contexts. Some refu gees
had international patrons; others fled in the direction of greatest anticipated support.
However, militant activity b y refugees across the border might complicate the foreign
policy of the host state and undermine asylum. Thus, the Thai government in 1991
returned some Burmese refugees to Burma (Myanmar) in th e interest of maintaini ng
good relations with Rangoon (1992: 17).

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By contrast, international labor migration , by Suhrke, does not operate in the same
adversarial context as between sending a nd receiving states. Nor does it impose a
legal obligation on the receiving state to provide entry and various services, as
international law requires for the treatment of refugees. In principle, refugees have to
be admitted regardless of race and skills; migrants can be han dpicked. This basic
difference in the nature of mi grant and refugee flows explained why regional states
did not perceive the two as interchangeable. Countries with labor shortages would
reject refugees, but regularly import foreign labor —Singapore and Malaysia. The
migrants met the needs of the market and other criteria for entry, the refugees did not.
Other criteria than economic also pertained to labor migration in the region. And
while labor movements were not inherently political as refugee flows, clearly posed
political problems. This was evident when Southeast Asian countries in the late 1970s
became receiving states for migration labor (1992: 17).
1.3 TESTIMONIAL LITERATURE
According to history used as contents and memoirs generated testimony by Jin Ju and
O-Sik, history has continuously provided contents to literature even its beginning
cannot be comprehended . The transformation of history as literary content has been
made possible through testimonials , based on memory . The root of Eastern and
Western literature i s the narration of legends, collected from memories of ancien t
people , resulting in the growth of the great cultural developments of literature and
culture today. That is, the history of the first and second world wars and the tim e
before and after both wa rs, most often nar rated based on human memory of genocide
and massive destruction, and that inevitably leads to desires of dire ct and/or indirect
testimonials —desires for historical records and the form of literature. France’s
participatory poems, for inst ance, st arted as literature that opposed German Nazism
and Fascism before and during World War II. Therefore, poe ts—Paul Eluard and
Louis Aragon and their h istorical context of content were unanimously accepted as
poetry trends within literature (2014: 135). According to the same auth ors, testimonial
literatures were classified into three —testimonial literature transformed a memory
based on context into content (indirect experience), testimonial literature shared by
the act of perceiving a participatory memo ry based on context as content (direct
experience), and testimonial literature contemplated the values that memory may
have as cultural content (Jin Ju & O -Sik 2014: 136).

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More interestingly the domina nt forms of literary production, from the 1970s to the
early 1990s in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua , were testimonial literature and
literature of resistance , according to Kane (2013 :163). The two works of poetry by
Durand (1983) analyzed in the present essay —Requiem for the Sumpul and
Swimming in El Rio Sumpul by Rivas Gomez (2005) —were published toward s the
beginni ng of El Salvador’s civil war, calling attention to the violent realities of three
countries in Central America. Kane gives examples of testimony and trauma that the
Sumpul River —served as a border with Honduras w here six hundred campesinos
who were slaughtered as they a ttempted to flee to Honduras to escape a military
operation —represents a place where the killing occurred and symbolizes more
effectively the horror of the event. The first s tanza, for instance, engages the
conventional use of the river as a symbol of life and nourishment. The second stanza
the poem returns to and elaborates the traumatic nucleus that is initially left as a gap.
And the third stanza, however, offers a unique d eparture from conventional concepts
of testimonial discourse by personifying the Sumpul as a witness river (2013: 163-
165).
Another important aspect of the river’s constantly changing the complexion by Kane
is its portrayal as an agent of collective memory and identity. Durand’s testimonial
river gathers the memory of the men, women, and children who were killed in its
water by showing it as a collective prayer for the dead (2013: 163-166). Durand
(1983) give s example of traumatic event that In ‘Requiem,’ the complexion and
identity of the river have been severely altered by the trauma caused by the massacre.
Thus, the reflection of the psychology and identity of a human witness often changes
as a result of a traumatic experience. The need for testimonial frequently arises from
the existence of trauma. Testimony and trauma , by Kane, are related regarding to the
Sumpul massacre. Therefore, an approach to Swimming in El Rio Sumpul through
the lens of trauma studi es seeks to understand the psychological phenomenon of
trauma and its intersections with such diverse fields as hi story, language, and
literature and reveals the profound devastation of the massacre and the multiple layers
of meaning in its carefully craft ed poetic imagery (2013: 163-169).
Underwent the experiences of the times, the direct testimonials of individuals , by Jin
Ju and O -Sik, have not been actively or carefully studied in comparison to the literary
works. This may be because of the latters’ works far less in number than the formers’

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works. Literature which has been produced directly from the perspective of those who
directly experienced a c ertain historical incident s to define the literature created from
testimonials of direct observers is an independent category. The literature s of Robert
Antelme’s Léspece humaine, recounted his time in concentratio n camp in 1944 and
Marguerite Duras’ La Douleur, recorded her experience of enduring abysmal pain as
she tried to save her husband from the concentration camp are the examples of direct
experiences (2014: 136-137).
Jin Ju and O -Sik address a need to study testimonial literature from a new frame o f
view s, recognized memory as cultural content. In this respect, there are various
methods in collecting memory and producing testimonial literature as cultural
content, including literary methodology and positional methodology in contemplating
memory as cultural content. T he literary methodology is divided into prose and
poetry. The position al methodology can be varie d—the dualit y between denial and
acceptance and the duality between false memory and truthful memory . These
differences can come from the di fferent circumstances the testimonial narrator was
subjecte d to during the event. Thus, there has to be a dichotomy between Antelme
and Levi , who personally experience d suppression and Marguerite Duras war authors ,
who testify as observers of the events (2014:139).
Although ‘testimony’ is defined as a ‘firsthand authentication of a fact’ (Meriam
Webster 2nd), the act of giving testimony to a traumatic event , by Good , is much more
complicated (2014: 116). Roger I. Simon and Claudia E ppert define testimony this
way, “To convey through multiple expressive forms the historical substance and
significance of prior events and experiences. ” Testimony, thus, compromises
representations either by those who have lived through such events or tho se who ha ve
been told or shown such liv e realities, either directly or indirectly, and have been
moved to convey to others wh at has been impressed upon them , according to Good
(2014 :116). Shoshana Felman, a professor of literature who collaborates with Laub at
Yale, adds more to Simon and Eppert’s definition in this way, “As a relation to
events, testimony seems to be composed of bits and pieces of a memory that has been
overwhelmed by occ urrences that have not settled into understanding or
remembrance, acts that cannot be constructed as knowledge nor assimilated into full
cognition, events in excess of our frames of reference. […] Testimony is, in other
words, a discursive practice, as opp osed to a pure theory. To testify —to vow to tell,

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to promise and produce one’s own speech as material evidence for truth —is to
accomplish a speech act, rather than to simply formulate a statement, ” quoted by
Good (2014 :116). According to Good, however, Felman disagrees with the dictionary
definition of testimony that testimony is an “authentication of a fact” and agrees with
Laub that testimony cannot be fully constructed or understood except through the
process of testifying, and the testimony itself is ma de up of these unassimilated bits
and pieces of an individual’s memory —itself an unreliable player in this process.
Laub describes the thought in this way:
“The listener to trauma comes to be a participant and a co -owner of the
traumatic event: through his very listening, he comes to partially experience
trauma in himself. The relation of the victim to the event of the trauma,
therefore, impacts on the relatio n of the listener to it, and the latter comes to
feel the bewilderment, injury, confusion, dreams and conflicts that the trauma
victim feels. He has to address all these, if he is to carry out his function as a
listener, and if trauma is to emerge, so that its henceforth impossible witnessing
can indeed take place. Therefore, the listener by definition takes a part in the
struggle of the victim with the memories and residues of his or her traumatic
past. The listener has to feel the victim’s victories, defe ats and silence; and
know them from within so that they can assume t he form of testimony, ”
(2014: 117).
1.4 TRAUMA LITERATURE
According to the studies of trauma and its treatment by Van der Kolk et al, the
relationship between trauma and mental illness was first studied by the neurologist ,
Jean Martin Charcot, a French physician who was working with traumatized women
in the Salpetriere hospital. The major focus of Charcot’s study, during the late 19th
century, was hysteria —a disorder commonly diagnosed in wo men. Hysterical
symptoms characterized by Charcot were paralysis, amnesia, sensory loss, and
convulsions. These symptoms were thought to originate to women in their uteruses.
The common treatment for hysteria was hysterectomy. The origin of the hysterical
symptoms was not physiological but rather psychological in nature (1996: 50).
Charcot presented his theory to large audiences through live demonstrations in which
patients were hypnotized to help remember their trauma in a process that culminated
in the abr ogation of their symptoms. In Salpetriere, for instance, young women who

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suffered vi olence, rape, and sexual abuse were found safe and shelter ed (Van der
Kolk et al 1996: 1).
Van der Kolk et al add Pierre Janet, a student of Charcot, continued to investigate the
influence of patients’ traumatic experiences on personality development and
behavior s. The results showed that patients’ intense affects were reactive to their
perceptions of the traumatic events . Through hypnosis and abreaction or re -expos ure
to the traumatic memories, patients’ symptoms could be alleviated (Van der Kolk et
al 1996: 1). Freud and Breuer, according to the same authors, termed traumatic
dissociation ‘hypnoid hysteria’ in relation to a traumatic antecedent. Freud showed
that a precocious experie nce of sexual relations resulted from sexual abuse committed
by another person is the specific cause of hysteria. Freud and Breuer as well as Janet,
in the 1880s, independently c oncluded that hysteria was caused by psychological
trauma. However, Freu d eventually moved from what had been termed “seduction
theory” to conflicting theory suggesting that it was not memories of external trauma
that caused hysterical symptoms but rather the unacceptable nature of sexual and
aggressive wishes (Van der Kolk et al 1996: 2).
Van der Kolk et al address crisis intervention methods to traumatic events, developed
gradually with the establishment of the first suicide hotline in 1902 i n San Francisc o.
Psychological ‘first aid’ was then further developed in the context of military combat.
During World War I, psychiatrists observed that sold iers returned with ‘shell shock’
syndrome. Psychological first aid was first developed to help World War I soldie rs
overcome their symptoms of uncontrollable weeping and screaming, memory loss,
physical paralysis, and lack of responsiveness . The goal of psychological first aid was
to provide a short intervention that would help the soldiers recover and return to the
front as soon as possible. It was observed that by providing close to the front and
soon after deployment, traumatized soldiers were able to overcome their shell shock
symptoms and return to active combat duty. In 1923, following World War I, Abram
Kardine r started to treat traumatized U.S. war veterans . During World War II,
psychiatrists reintroduced hypnosis as a treatment for trauma, and the U.S. Army
instituted the use of group stress debriefing. After World War II, studies on the
impact of prolonged st ress and trauma on concentration camp survivors coincided
with observations of combat stress. Henry Krystal (1968, 1978, 1988) was a
psychoanalyst who studied outcomes of prolonged traumatization on concentration

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camp survivors, observing that “traumatized patients come to experience emotional
reactions merely as somatic states, without being able to interpret the meaning of
what they are feeling” (Van der Kolk et al 1996: 2-3).
According to Vietnam War by Lifton (1973) , soldiers and veterans returned with
incapacitating symptoms that often developed into chronic problems affect ing their
capacity to cope with and function in civilian life. Many of them started to abuse
drugs and alcohol, behaved violently toward their partners, or became homeless and
unemplo yable. Lifton and Shatan, who worked with Vietnam veterans, conducted
‘rap groups’ for the veterans, during whom they could share their experiences with
their comrades and receive validation and support. Based on their work, Lifton and
Shatan identified 27 common symptoms of ‘traumatic neurosis.’ Van der Kolk et al
categorize some symptoms based on the authors’ observations of veterans as well a s
their readings of Kardiner as the literature on Holocaust survivors and victims of
accidents, compared with clin ical records of Vietnam veterans. Many of these
symptoms were later included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (DSM -III); one of them was diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder
(PTSD) (1996: 4-5).
Van der Kolk, W eisaeth, et al along with Herman (1992) hypothesize psychological
trauma and PTSD were not included in the DSM until 1980. Severe symptoms were
presented and clearly needed prolonged psychological services when returning
Vietnam War veterans. Advocates for combat vetera ns and mental health
professionals collaborated in bringing these events and their aftermath to public
view s. Advocates of bettered women, rape victims, and abused children together with
veterans’ advocates, mental health professionals, and others working with victims of
domestic violence and adult survivors of childhood incest/sexual abuse, clinicians
reported similar symptoms in their traumatized clients. Many had been further
victimized due to social stigmata and a lack of understanding of their behavior al,
emotional, and cognitive symptoms. The DSM diagnosis of PTSD addressed
immediate symptoms following combat experiences, rape, domestic violence, and
child abuse; symptoms were then categorized along four clusters: intrusive re –
experiencing, avoidance, hyperarousal, and hypervigilance, with general symptoms of
anxiety and dysphoria in addition (1996: 5-6).

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The diagnosis of PTSD, including the c omprehensive symptoms of trauma by Van
der Kolk et al , did not address early antecedents in childhood, the impact of long -term
social and professional functioning, and the role of trauma in personality disorders.
They state that Herman (1992) was the first to add ress ‘Complex PTSD’ to be
included in a new diagnosis, with the multiple origins of trauma and their impac t on
all aspects of a person’s life. It is frequently noted that women with borderline
personality disorder were marginalized by mental health professionals who failed to
understand the connection between their early experience of sexual abuse and their
present personality structure (1996: 6). Along with the recognition of complex
traumatic stress disorder and its impact on all aspects of the p erson’s life, van der
Kolk recommended the inclusion of a new diagnosis, which he called developmental
trauma disord er, for children with complex developmental trauma histories. This
diagnosis is distinct from other childhood diagnoses su ch as ADHD, oppositional
defiance , and conduct disorder, for it specifically addresses the consequences of early
trauma in relation to abuse and neglect (1996: 7).
Trauma stress by van der Kolk et al has become more prevalent and complex in
contemporary American life as a result of the mass trauma of 9/11, the ongoi ng war
against terrorism, and ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, leading to an increased
incidence of PTSD in returning military personnel. In the immediate aftermath of
9/11, mental health professionals treated survivors based on the principles of crit ical
incident stress debriefing procedures . Some studies indicate that trauma expression
results in better mental health of the mean amount of time between the target event
and the participant’s disclosure is 15 months or well beyond the limits of early
intervention (1996: 7).
1.5 TRAUMATIC -TESTIMONIAL THOUGHTS
Historical ly, Gilbert marks a time in the twentieth century as war time and
catastrophe that wars —from world wars to civil wars, violent political regimes , and
genocides shaped the contemporary history. Identified themselves, individuals and
societies play very importan t role to respond socially, culturally and politically to
these events. Testimony has functioned as a prima ry response to traumatic events .
Individuals and groups giv e voice to their suffering and seek for justice to the wrongs
done to them. A culture of testimony has developed and given a special status in
Western society to the survivor of traumatic events since the Second World War . The

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contemporary fascination with the figure of the survivor, beyond testimony produced
in the legal domain, has given rise to an abundance of testimonial narratives
circulating in the public sphere . Numerous approaches to understanding testimony, as
a result, have been developed across a range of discipl ines, including mental health,
human rights, the docume ntation of history, and the creative arts (2013: 2).
Concerning with the two opposing moral questions: ‘Do I have the right to talk about
this? And do I have the right not to talk about this? ,’ Gilbert raises two kinds of
witnesses that traumatic survivors morally become witnesses, speak out what
happened, and feel obliged towards those who died. T raumatically , there is a clear
distinction between testimonial primary eyewitnesses (direct witnesses /survivor –
witnesses ) and secondary witnesses , including indirect witnesses ( outside observers )
and reader -witnesses ( the engaged receivers of the testimony ) (2013: 45-46). More
importantly, Gilbert adds that there are two principal ty pes of testimony —legal and
narrative testimony. The legal context rarely provides the survivors with the freedom
of personal expression. Testimonial na rrative, thus, emerges as a medium through
which survivors can tell their story on their own, combining knowledge of the event
and personal story (2013: 46). Testimony is narrated in the first person by a narrator
who is also the real protagonist or witness of the events . Two key elements e merge as
fundamental to the act of bearing witness: the witness’s presence at the event and the
authenticity of their testimony (Gilbert 2013: 52).
Gilbert certifies that the term ‘ Second Generation Witness’ refers to the sons and
daughters of Holocaust survivors , who become witnesses after the trauma of their
parents is transferred to them. This t erminology has been expanded to all those to
whom trauma is transferred without a generational limit (2013: 52). Secondary
witness , additionally, includes all those touch with the first generation who suffered
the phenomena —the Shoah and the Holocaust not as something enclosed in the past
but a s a contemporary issue, calling for an intensity of representation close to
eyewitness report (Gilbert 2013: 52-53). It is extended to include interviewers,
historians, and commentators —academics, as well as viewers/readers of testimony
(Gilbert 2013: 52-56). Felman, supported by Tzvetan Todorov, argues that testimony
is a response to a traumatic historical event and that catas trophe survivors are
witnesses, who have rights and the duty to speak about what happened . Witnesses of
trauma are , thus, responding to an historical imperative of memory (Gilbert 2013: 56).

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The reader of narratives bearing witness to trauma , by Gilbert, must enter into a pact
with the survivor -witness. Without this engagement on the part of the reader, there is
a danger that the reader may distance herself from the narrative, which ultimately
results in, at the very least, a refusal to really hear ing the voice of the witness, or even
a full rejection of the witness’s story. For the witness, then, the act of testimony
entails an element of risk. Bearing witness to trauma requires the subject to make
public and shareable a private and intolerable pain . For the witness of trauma, the
passage from private to public entails a painful process of accreditation, a validation
both of the content of the testimony and of the speaking subject herself. The survivor –
witness risks expose both herself and her community to the scrutiny of public opinion
(2013: 75). Moreover, escaped ordinary understanding, the audience will not believe
the witness, who is testifying to a limit event, for there is a strong probability for the
witness of a historical catastrophe. The refusal t o accept the survivor’s story, in the
case of outside observers, is due in part to the survivor who bears witness and serves
as an embarrassment to those who have been untouched by the atrocity (Gilbert
2013: 75-77). A retraumatisation of the survivor can be resulted from the act of
writing her trauma . The absence of an empathic listener and an addressable other, the
other s can hear the anguish of one’s memories and thus affirm and recognize their
realness and annihilate the story (Gilbert 2013: 77, 78).
According to Giving Voice to Trauma by Gilbert, the central question s are how
survivors speak or write about their memories . And what the influence of listener s
and readers is on what survivors tell and retell ? The paradox of the unrepresentabil ity
of trauma is central to the unshareable nature of pain and suffering. For the witne ss,
her pain is incommunicable, and for the receiver of her testimony, the pain of the
other is unknowable. Within this essentially Western trauma framework, two key
assumpt ions are made: (1) inadequate language to convey the traumatic experience
and (2) the universality of unassimilable natu re of trauma. The very existence of the
narrative yet the very attempt to reconstruct the trauma in words suggests the
possibility of communication (2013: 83). To achieve this, it is useful to engage not
only with key trauma theorists and Holocaust —Caruth, LaCapra, Laub and Langer,
but also with scholars —Elaine Scarry and Herman, who explore the relational nat ure
of recovery and whose work connects the other sites of extreme suffering s. The
seminal work, in The Body in Pain, insists that physical pain is unshareable through

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its resistance to language (Gilbert 2013: 84). Trauma theory may be insufficient when
dealing with localized traum as that do not fit into the Western model. The
psychoanalytic model , favored by trauma theorists , privileges stories , suffused with
traumatic remembering and suffering , and silences other kinds of stories that may not
unfold thr ough the Western trope of trauma . While the traumatic experience is in
itself ‘sayable,’ it may not necessarily be ‘shareable’ beyond the immediate
community of survivors. The narrative of trauma is not simply concerned with what is
tellable but also with what is hearable (Gilbert 2013: 85). In the testimonies of
Holocaust survivors, the issue is not merely the unshareability of the experience but
also the witness’s exasperated sense of a failure of communication (Gilbert 2013: 86).
According to Gilbert, t he difference between ‘narrative memory’ and ‘traumatic
memory’ is that narrative memory consists of mental constructs, which people use to
make sense out of experience. Traumatic memories are the unassimilated scraps of
overwhelming experiences, which need t o be integrated with existing mental
schemes, and be transformed into narrative language . Narrative memory comes about
in a cultural context whose frame evokes and enables the memory. It is a context in
which the past makes sense in the present, to o thers who can understand it. Narrative
memory offers some form of feedback that ratifies the memory. Traumatic memory,
however, has no social component, leaving the subject isolated without narrative
mastery over her narrative. Many scholars in recent years have been preoccupied with
the difficulty of integrating traumatic memory into narrative . Felman , for example,
describes testimony bearing witness to trauma as being composed of bits and pieces
of a memory, overwhelmed by occurrences and not settled into understanding,
remembrance and acts. This echoes LaCapra’s notion of an unrepresenta ble excess
seemingly inherent to traumatic limit events. Given the difficulty of assimilating
traumatic memory into narrative memory, many theorists have also questioned
whether there exists an adequate form of narrative to convey the traumatic
experience. Tal notes, for instance, that as a form of representation, testimony is
never adequate, that it can never bridge the gap between language and experience
(2013: 86-87). Frank underlines the centrality of this unsayable knowledge in his
analysis of illness narratives, ‘The more that is told, the more we are made conscious
of remaining on the edge of a silence. How much remain that can never be told is
unknown’ (Gilbert 2013: 88).

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As for physical pain , in the late twentieth century, Gilbert addresses some authors’
thoughts that Scarry’s The Body in Pain (1985) and trauma theory, developed by
scholars: Caruth, Felman, Laub, and LaCapra in the 1990s, have become central to
the conceiving of and respond ing to the pain of others. However, these theorists,
according to Norridge, have developed a poten tially constrictive framework for pain,
which is not allowed for cultural differences , but it is applied to narratives of pain,
produ ced outside the West risks, homogenizing all forms of suffering into the same.
Nevertheless, approaches to physical pain can help us to understand the experiences
of other types of suffering. As in LaCapra’s words of the ‘Shattering of the Self,’
Scarry de lineates the exceptional nature of pain entails a ‘shattering of language,’
leaving the individual trapped within the body and unable to move into the external
sharable world . He explains hearing about one’s pain seems not to see or feel another
pain, underlining the absolute split between one’s sense of one own reality and the
reality of others. Therefore, in essence to be in pain is to have certainty, whereas
hearing about pa in is to have doubt (2013: 89-90).
Gilbert argues that the doubt of other persons amplifies the suffering s of those already
in pain. A survivor suffering from the psychological pain of trauma is not unlike an
individual experiencing physical pain insofar a s she must face a reaction of doubt or
even denial when she tri es to communicate her pain to an audience, when her obscene
experience intrudes on the scene of her audience . Norridge, in her analysis of South
African novels, observes a conflation of the fie lds of pain —physical pain and
suffering (emotional response), becoming inextricably intertwined in literary
expressions of pain. Telling the story, under the Western model of trauma and
recovery, is essential to the survivor’s healing process, relieving bo th physical
symptoms and emotional anguish. The creation of narratives, according to Herman, is
viewed as the second of the three fundamental stages of recovery, identified as the
establishing safety, reconstructing the trauma story, and restoring the connection
between survivors and their communit y (2013: 90-91). Added to the writer -reader
relationship, a third party mediates the narration, passing from the former to the latter,
as Tal has put the emphasis on the importanc e of the act of writing for survivor s of
trauma . Survivors, in the aftermath o f atrocity, are too often unable to find an
audience for their story, as Wendy Hui Kyong describes ‘a missed encounter between
witnesses and those who might have heard’ . This ‘missed encounter’ means that the

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survivor’s experiences are not valid ated due to exacerbating the pain and isolation felt
by the survivor s. Collaboration plays a significant role in the writing process of
testimonial literature: more precisely, a third party mediating the lived experiences of
the autobiographical subject s. In essence, collaboration —both literary and
nonliterary —refers to acts of writing in which two or more individuals consciously
work together to produce a common text. The collaborative r elationship can take
many forms such as co -authors, writer/edit or, spouse or othe r companionate
relationships. In the case of collaborative testimony, the relationship between the
survivor -witness and the collaborator or co -author is paramount (Gilbert 2013: 132-
133).
Accordin g to Gilbert, collaborative testimony implied, on the one hand, the dialogic
encounter between survivor and interviewer/listener (collaborator) and , on the other,
the second textual encounter between survivor and reader perform the act s of
witnessing (2013: 135). Consequently, to talk about primary and secondary witnesses
is to talk about primary and secondary receivers of testimony. Without the first
dialogic encounter , Laub and Allar d describe a failure of empathy; the survivor
ultimately becomes a profound loneliness (Gilbert 2013: 136). Telling their story,
survivors of trauma are forced by an imperative memory, going beyond a simple
desire and coupled with a need for recognition and a validation of the story by the
listeners; as Laub and Allard have underlined, we, listeners, make the witn essing
happen , “Bearing witness to a trauma is a process that includes the listener; there
needs to be a bonding for testimonial process taking place; testimonies are not
monologues; they cannot take place in solitude. The witnesses are taking to
somebody, to somebody they have been awaiting for a long time” ( Gilbert 2013: 137).
According to the importance of the listener to the act of bearing witness in relation to
genocide in particular , Gilbert of Writing Trauma emphasizes , “For those who
survived, the task of testifying is a daunting one that should not be confined to the
witness alone, but should involve the listeners and be a reflection on the crucial role
they play within the testimonial process ” (2013: 137).
According to traumatized individuals by Gilbert, testimony in a medical context is
identified as part of their healing process, and the listener functions as therapist.
Conforming to the Western trope of trauma, Schaffer and Smith explain the
psychoanalytic conception of testimony privileges certain kinds of stories —the

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healing narratives, without taking into account of how other cultures understanding,
configuring, and responding to the traumatic events . Particularly, the Holocaust
testimony, according to Weine, has encouraged psychoanalyst and other mental
health professionals to assert their authority and to professionalize the experience of
testimony. Criticized by Weine, the psychoanalytic approach puts too much emphasis
on the authoritative position of the professional listener and is to o narrow and
reductive. He argues that testimony should take place in a dialogic space, with the
shared authority and the spoken and listened voices of the witness and the receiver to
one another openly and responsively . The Bakhtinian notion of the recipr ocity of
discourse, at the heart of the dialogic model of testimony, is a word with two -sided
act, determined equally by whose word it is and for whom it is meant. Precisely, it is
the product of the reciprocal relationship between speaker and listener, ad dresser and
addressee (2013: 138). The receiver of the testimony , drawn on Bakhtin’s notion of
dialogism, plays an active role in the construction of the narrative s rather than simply
listening, who stimulates and structures what is said (or not) and then documented (or
not) and then transmitted (or not). The receiver often supplies much of structure, even
if unwittingly. The receivers inevitably want the testimony to adhere to some kind of
structure, informed by their own sense of what a testimony ought to be (Gilbert
2013: 139). The testimony , therefore, is a collaborative construction between the
witness and the listener or receiver of the testimony. The dialogic work can help the
survivor s to make sense of the trauma experience and give structure to a fra gmented
narrative. Seen in this light, the dialogic encounter can be considered des irable for the
survivors of trauma, in terms of the production of both oral and witness narratives, as
it enables them to tell their story to someone, attribute some sort of meaning to their
experiences, and have these experiences validate (Gilbert 2013: 140).
According to the listener’s own intention by Gilbert, the witness’s story can be
shaped or altered, for the reality is never quite as straightforward. Therefore, it is,
according to Weine, essential to gauge to what extent the survivors tell their stories
dialogically in the testimony, and how the receiver has helped or hindered dialogic
exchanges . A personal past , according to Robyn Fivush, takes on me aning , as it is
shared socially with others, who listen to, hear and interpret . It has implications for
what aspects of the past will be validated. The listeners can accept or dismiss,
negotiate, cajole, or coerce particular evaluations over others. Some a spects of

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memories are given voi ces, whereas others are silenced through this jointly
constructed version of what occurred and what it means (2013: 139-140). Silence, in
the model of trauma theory, is a predominant response to trauma and is often equated
with the incommunicable nature of pain, forming the basis of the notion of the
impossibility of testimony bearing witness to trauma. For instance, the Holocaus t has
been central to the elaboration of theories of testimony’s impossibility. The
Holocaust , according to Agamben, is widely perceived as a ‘unique and unsayable’
event. Commenting on the testimonies of Holocaust survivors, Agamben observes,
“At a certai n point, it became clear that testimony contained an essential lacuna; in
other words, the survivors bore witness to something it is impossible to bear to ”.
Similarly, Caruth speaks of the ‘impossible history’ of the Holocaust that haunts the
survivor: “Th e traumatized, we might say, carry an impossible history within them, or
they become themselves the symptom of a history that they cannot entirely possess”
(Gilbert 2013: 176-177).
However, early H olocaust critics including George Steiner, according to Gilbert, have
argued that such an experience is located outside language altogether , as Steiner
writes: “ The world of Auschwitz lies outside speech as it lies outside reason. To
speak of the unspeakable is to risk the survivance of language a s creator and bearer of
humane and rational truth; words that are saturated with lies or atrocity do not easily
resume life” (2013: 177). Recently developing a more nuanced reflection of the
linguistic difficulties inherent to representing the traumatic experience, Hart man
writes: “Indeed, the shattering of traditional frames of reference also puts in question
the resemblance of words, which can become false friends when their task is
characterization of the death camp experience” (Gilbert 2013:177 ). Hartman suggests
that communication i s in fact possible, but that survivor -witness and the audience’s
interpretation of the word s are so different that they risk misunderstanding s. This is
highlighted in Levi’s the Drowned and the Saved when Levi explains that simple
words such as ‘cold,’ ‘hunger’ and ‘fatigue’ acquire a whole new level of meaning to
the concentration camp survivor compared to how they are understood in their regular
usage. Language thus proves insufficient to convey the traumatic experience to others
as th ere is no shared frame of reference or meaning between the survivor -witness and
the audience, often resulting in silence on the part of the survivor -witness (Gilbert
2013:177 ).

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Broadly speaking, silence has traditionally been considered the absence of language,
partic ularly in Western cul ture, as Gilbert maintains in Writing Trauma , “Speech is
synonymous with civilization itself” (2013: 182). In this contex ,t language is accorded
supremacy, silence is subordinate d to speech which figure s out the silence and points
to it within itself . Gilbert urges us to move away from this simplified understanding
of the relationship between silence and language and instead imagines an
interpretative framework of speech and silence in a reciprocal rather than an
oppo sitional relationship. The spoken and the unspoken reciprocate as they deliver
often complementary rhetorical significance (2013: 183). Acording to Gilbert , before
examining the particularities of language and silence within testimonies , it is
important to lay ou t the approaches to silence that have been develop ed in recent
scholarship (2013: 183). In his detailed study of how silence is embedded in our
language, society and institutions, Gilbert certifies that Robin Patric Chair
disting uishes first a literal approach viewing silence as the space between words,
second an epistemological approach or phenomenon of tacit knowledge, and finally
an ontological approa ch understood as a characteristic of life itself. To these
approach es, Chair adds the ideological ap proach that illuminates the ways in which
certain discourses silence marginalized groups of people . This last approach views
silence as ideological, not only as a powerful aspect of oppression but also as a
possible means to emancipation (2013: 186).
Accord ing to silence between marginalized groups and dominant groups, silence can
take on multiple meanin gs—oppression , resistance, defiance of authority, and
empowerment, as Gilbert of Writing Trauma quotes, “Within the discussion of
colonial and postcolonial discourse, silence has been read as a many -accented
signifier of disempowerment and resistance, of the denial of a subject position and its
appropriation” (2013: 184). Silences, according to Leslie Dwyer in Gilbert , embody
complexities , cultural and political specificities. Silence, like speech, is a cultural and
political creation, taking place in particularly contoured setting . Similarly, according
to Rosalind Shaw in her exploration of the silence followi ng Sierra Leone’s war, there
are different kinds of silences: (1) the silences of those who live under political
repression, (2) the silences of a torture survivor in the face of incommunicable pain,
(3) the silences of women in South Africa’s TRC who wish to tell their stories on
their own terms, and (4) the silences of survivors of Sierra Leone’s conflict, who urge

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others to forgive and forget . Additionally, Shaw criticizes Sierra Leone’s Truth and
Reconciliation Communism for treating the survivors’ silences only as repression and
incommunicable pain without taking into account other types of silence . Indeed, in
his work on the a nthropology of genocide, Robben explains that while silence may
indeed occur among survivors of genocide and mass violence, ‘as a deliberate
strategy or a defensive reaction against experiences too painful to admit to
consciousness,’ it is more often a form of agency, something which is co nsciously
negotiated. In this case, ‘Silence is not the inability to articulate the inexpressible or a
form of unconscious resistance to insight, as classic psychoanalysis would have it, but
a muteness that emphasizes remembrance, truth, and accountability ’. Indeed, Gl enn
warns that ‘silence is too often read as simple passivity in situations where it has
actually taken on an expressive power’ (2013: 185).
1.6 BILINGUALISM
A bilingual, according to Bloomfield (1933) in Bialystok , is a fully fluent two
langua ges speaker with more pragmatic assertion, and a bilingual, according to
Grosjean (1989) in Bialystok , is someone who can use each language to the given
needs ( 2001: 4). Everyone in the world is bilingual especially adults who know at least
a few words in other languages or understand them . They have some command of a
foreign tongue , according to Bhatia and Ritchie (2006 :7). Language competence does
not lead many to think of bilingualism. George Steiner (1992) in Bhatia and Ritchie ,
however, points out that fluency in languages —English, French, and German —
emerges spontaneously and equally in times of emergency or elevated emotion, which
is related to earliest memories (2006: 7). Competence in more than one language , by
Bhatia and Ritchie, can be achieved at both individual and social levels since a
country with multilingual people is itself multilingual in an obvious sense. A country,
however, with bilingual or multilingual official languages is its people in only single –
language competence. Bilingualism for individuals and social manifestations is
important, but its emphases are quite different in linguistic and psycholinguistic
dimensions, which figure much less prominently than other dimensions —historical,
educational, political, and so on (2006: 7). Generally, it is believed that more than half
of the world’s population is bilingual: USA and Canada, approximately 20% of the
population speaking a language at home other than English, rising in urban areas up
to about 60% in Los Angeles and 50% in Toron to, and in Europe existing of about

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56% of the population across all European Union countries. Bilinguals, therefore,
make up a significant portion of the population , according to Bialystok et al
(2012 :240).
Bhatia and Ritchie show the study results on monolinguals and bilinguals that
working with bilinguals is more difficult and in challenging enterprise. Bilingualism
has been studied less extensively than monolingualism; theoretical models in areas —
bilingual competence, language development and processing are less developed; and
specific methodological considerations have to be taken into account. One outcome of
the situation points out that research about bilinguals has often produced conflicting
results. For instance, concerning with experi mental psycholinguistics, language
processing proposed by some researchers is selecti ve, and the language processing
suggested by others is non -selective. Some s tudies have shown evidence for
language -independent lexicon s while others have supported langua ge-dependent
lexicons. Some papers propose that lexical representation is best explained by a word
association model or a concept mediation model while others put forward a revised
hierarchical model or a conceptual feature model. Some researchers have sho wn code
switches in continuous text take time to produce and perceive while others have
shown the opp osite (2006: 32). Children who acquire two languages simultaneously
go through a fusion stage while others have questioned this stage, according to some
studies of bilingual language development. The questions —hemispheric lateralization
and localization of language in bilinguals have been disputed as some bilingual
aphasics to control the production of mixed language in a monolingual environment,
according to neurolingui stics ( Bhatia and Ritchie 2006: 33).
Bilinguals , according to most researchers in their everyday lives in Bhatia and
Ritchie , can be c haracterized by a number of general features: (1) the influence of the
complementarity principle (using languages for different purposes, in different
domains of life, and with different people), (2) unequally fluent in all language skills
in their lan guag es due to the direct consequence of the first feature, (3) some
bilinguals being in the process acquiring a language whereas others attaining a certain
level of stability, (4) the changing over time as the changes of environment and the
needs for particula r language skills to the language repertoire of bilinguals, and (5)
the interaction between monolinguals themselves and bilinguals adapting their
language behavior accordingly ( 2006: 34). Numerous studies, according to Diaz

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(1983 :23-54), have shown both cog nitive advantages and disadvantages in children’s
cognitive development. Two hypotheses have been introduced by Cummins in
Arnarsdottir to the different outcomes of bilingualism to shed a light on bilingualism
and its effect on children’s cognitive develop ment, and the introduction of a few
theories concerning the reasons influencing children the way it does will be included .
The studies show that a positive relationship between bilinguali sm and cognitive
development outnumber s the opposite ones, in which social network and language
valorization play paramount roles in determining level of bilingual proficiency.
Bilingualism as a subject , however, is complex , and determining clear distinctions
and definitions have proven complicated (2012: 1). Basically students, by
Arnarsdottir, achieve greater academic outcomes with high valorization, and
conversely they achieve low academic outcomes with insufficient circumstances and
encouragement. Different cultures leading to different academic results and society
desirably functioning in some ways must be taken into consideration, whereas in
others they may not. Values, additionally, differ between cultures due to certain
language functions (2012:20) . Developmental Interdependence Hypothesis, according
to Cummins (1984), consists of L1 (mother tongue) and L2 (another language). At the
onset of exposure to the second language (L2), the competence in L2 bases on the
function of the mother tongue. The hypothesis, therefore, suggests that if L1 language
functions at th e onset of L2 exposure are sufficiently developed, the child is likely to
achieve high competence in L2 without affecting L1 in a negative manner and vice
versa (Arnarsdottir 2012: 20). Minimal Threshold of Linguistic Competence
Hypothesis, suggested by Cum mins (1984), is a threshold of linguistic competence in
L1, crossed before the beginning of L2 education to prevent negative influence on
cognitive development. The first threshold, defined by Bournot -Trites and Tellowitz
(2002), is the understanding instr uction in L2 and the participation in basic social
communication. There will be no negative effects on cognitive development if a child
reaches the threshold. If the child, however, fails to reach the first level (threshold) ,
she will not succeed in reachi ng average competence in each language. It means that
if language functions in L1 are adequately developed, competence in L2 will benefit
from L1. The cognitive functions in L1 and L2 are transferable. It means high levels
of competence in L1 enhance L2 ac quisition , and high levels of L2 competence
positively affect L1 development (Arnarsdottir 2012: 21). A study by Peal and
Lambert on bilingual children’s abilities to solve linguistic problems , by Bialystok et

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al, reported that children —French -speaking monolinguals a nd English -French
bilinguals —in Montreal performed differently on a battery of tests. The findings
showed that the bilingual children got lower scores on language tasks, but they were
superior on most t ests, especially symbol manipulation and reorganization. And these
two groups got equivalent scores in non -verbal spatial tasks (2012: 240). Bialystok et
al add the research further look ed into adult bilinguals, built on these studies with
children. The res earch reported that there were two major trends: (1) verbal skills of
bilinguals in each language weaker than monolingual speakers of each language, (2)
receptive vocabulary size of bilingual children and adults controlling a smaller
vocabulary in the lang uage of the community than monolingual counterparts.
Bilingual participants are slower in picture -naming tasks and less accurate than
monolinguals. Both comprehending and producing words are also found slower for
bilinguals, even in L1 or dominant language . Verbal fluency tasks, finally, reveal
systematic deficits for bilingual participants, particularly in semantic fluency
conditions. Bilinguals at all ages and other background factors , however, reveal better
executive control than monolinguals. Executive control —a set of cognitive skills —
bases on limited cognitive resources for functions, including inhibition, switching
attention, and working memory . Executive control functions late in developm ent and
declines early in aging supports such activities as hig h-level thought, multi -tasking,
and sustained a ttention (2012: 241). Functional neuroplasticity is used to examine
cognitive ability, in which the study of how experience modifies brain structure and
brain function. Such modifications have been found follow ing experiences as diverse
as juggling, video -game playing, careers in architecture, taxi -driving, and musical
training ( Bialystok et al 2012: 240). Waveforms , derived from analyses of
electroencephalography (EEG), have been used to demonstrate the neuronal response
to language on a millisecond by millisecond scale. The results show that an event –
related potential, called the N400, sign als the effort related to integrating the meaning
of words. It means that the more similar the words are to each other, the smaller is the
amplitude of the N400. The study by Thierry and Wu, semantic relatedness was
concerned with significantly smaller N400 amplitude in all groups as expected, but
the repeated character led to smaller N400 for the two Chinese groups. It means
participants, with irrelevant to the task, were accessing the Chinese forms when
making judgments about the semantic relation between Engli sh words ( Bialystok et al
2012: 241).

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Bilingual children by Bialystok et al , comparing to monolinguals, outperformed on
the conflict tasks. This study has been conducted for both children and adults, using a
flanker task, a theory of mind task, and Simon task. The other studies with adults
have revealed better performance by bilinguals in naming the font color in a Stroo p
task, smaller costs in task switching , better ability to maintain task set in an attention
task, and more susceptibility to negative priming, presumably because of greater
inhibition (2012:242) . Some studies, by Bialystok, Craik, Klein and Viswanathan, o n
bilingual advantages into older age reported an experiment in middle -aged and older
adults for both monolinguals and bilinguals, who were given a version of the Simon
task. The results showed that there was no spatial conflict between the location of
stimuli and responses, and there was n o reaction -time (RT) difference between
language groups; there was a measure of attentional control between congruent
condition, directly above the appropriate response key, and incongruent condition,
above the incorrect response key. Additional ly, three other results from the se studies
are (1) the decrease in attentional control in older adults for the bilingual groups, (2) a
bilingual advantage for both congruent stimuli and incongruent stimuli, and (3)
prolonged practic e reducing both the Simon effect and the size of the bilingual
advantage ( 2012:243 ).
Many st udies, according to de Bruin et al (2014) , have shown that bilinguals gain
advantage over monolinguals in exerting control over children, young adults and
older adults, by using tasks showing smaller interference effects in bilinguals than in
monolinguals, including Simon, flanker, and task -switching paradigms ( 2014: 1).
Enhancing cognitive control of bilinguals , according to de Br uin et al, has been
discussed in books, special issues of journals, and conferences. It is also presented in
the media, with the titles: ‘Bilingual Brains Are More Healthy’ and ‘Why Bilinguals
Are Smarter.’ The idea has been consolidated and accepted as co mmon wisdom, in
which bilinguals have an advantage over monolinguals. This idea , however, has been
opposed by recent research on publication biased against bilingualism and executive
control. The confirmation bias , raised by Paap (2014), has been reported in the
literature on bilingualism and executive control that the publication has been
subjectively accepted on the part of pub lishers, for the studies provide neuroimaging
or electrophysiological evidence consistent with the idea of more efficient executiv e-
control functions in bilinguals than in monolinguals and bilingual advantages (1) for

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high-executive -control conditions but not for low -executive -control conditions, (2)
for executive -control tasks in which a bilingual advantage was expected but not for
other tasks in which no bilingual advantage was expected, (3) for high -proficiency
bilinguals but not low -proficiency bilinguals or for switching balanced bilinguals but
not for nonswitching balanced bilinguals, and (4) for unimodal but not bimodal
bilinguals ( 2014: 2). The study in some cases, according to Luk, Anderson, Bialystok,
Craik, and Grady (2009) in de Bruin et al , does not discuss the absence of a
bilingualism effect on reaction time (RT) but focuses only on the bilingual advantage
observed in functional MRI data (2014: 3).
A study, according to Diaz (1985) in Arnarsdottir , showed that the degree of
bilingualism could foresee cognitive changes in children who had low L2 proficiency,
but these changes were less likely to occur to children with higher L2 proficiency.
Supposedly, poor academic results can be traced to socio -cultural considerations, but
only up to certain parameters , for in minority groups where one language is less
valued than the other. Immigrant children who are not below avera ge socio -economic
standards, according to Hamers (2004), perform just as well as monolinguals on
cognitive and linguistic tests. Therefore, socio -cultural factors are the big influences
on bilingual children’s scholastic and lingui stic achievements, whethe r in positive or
negative ways. Two dimensions —additive and subtractive types of bilingualism —
had been introduced by H amers & Blanc (2000) to differentiate them. The additive
type of bilingualism represents the cog nitive aspects of language which is concer ned
with the amount of valorization the chil d and society attach to . The subtractive type
of bilingualism represents the particular literacy skills in the second language which
is the more valorized language in society but not the child’s first language th at she
has little or no know ledge . Some reasons of bilinguals in subtractive situation get
lower score on cognitive demanding tasks —threefold. Firstly, low valorization
attached by socie ty to the child’s L1 has difficulties in perceiving the two languages
as interchangeable and in turn incapable of using them for socially valorized
functioning. Secondly, cognitive demanding tasks are introduced exclusively in the
majority language, L2; the child may consider L2 as the only language appropriate for
cognitive functioning. Thirdly, the child is required to learn new language forms for
language functioning she has not yet developed, as opposed to learning functioning
before acquiring the form as the case in first language development ( 2012: 23-24).

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Making decisio n about proficiency in a language , by Bialystok, begins with the
formalities. Some languages, including English, need some definitional criteria to
constitute a word, but some do not. Speakers of other languages, notably Chinese,
have confusion about what words mean , for they do not exist in Chinese. They
complained when they were required to divide a Chinese sentence into wor ds, for the
instruction made no sense in Chinese. It is not only problem concerning with
language proficiency, but also bilingual mix . Bilingual individuals are those who are
able to speak two or more languages to some level of proficiency, but a language
alone is not a straightforward judgment. The formal differences that divide some
languages —Dutch and Flemish or Hindi and Urdu —are far smaller than those that
divide dialects of the same language —Chinese or Arabic. It is normal in China for
people who know an official language and a dialect , for these variants can be
significantly different from each other ( 2001: 5). Language proficien cy by Bialystok ,
therefore, is the ability to function in a situation, defined by specific cognitive and
linguistic demands, to a level of performance, indicated by either objective criteria or
normative standards. The proficiency, displayed by the childre n as they learn
language, is just as valid as the proficiency of a highly skilled native speaker engaged
in a formal debate, but the demands of each situation are different in ways, captured
systematically . There are two assessments for language proficienc y—criterion –
referenced achievements and norm -referenced protocol. The criterion -referenced
achievements provide a guideline to assess the proficiency of language learners, and
the norm -referenced protocol embeds the descriptions into a context that is sens itive
to the age, proficiency level of the learner, and the linguistic functions to be carried
out (2001: 18).
Published the results of a study comparing bilingual and monolingual children on
various measures of intelligence and achievement, Peal and Lamber t (1962) in Homel
et al found no evidence to illustrate any sort of intellectual deficiency in bilingual
children, including mental confusion or difficulties in coordinating language and
thought in children, and found even some cognitive advantages. The st udy had a
major impact on at least two aspects of childhood bilingualism: (1) marking a
renewed interest in the study of childhood bilingualism amongst psychologists and
educators and (2) making one of the major justifications for the establishment of
bilingual education programs during the late 1960s and early 1970s, especially in

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Canada and the United States. Most researches, during 1960s and 1970s, centered on
cognitive development, and a few studies focused on the social and personal aspects
of growing up with two languages ( 1987: 3). The bilingual children, on the basis of
previous research by Homel et al , were expected to be inferior to monolingual
children on most measures of verbal intelligence, but in turn they performed
significantly better than the monolingual group on most of the measures, including
verbal intelligence. They, perhaps, would be equivalent on measures of nonverbal
intelligence ( 1987: 133). Homel et al add attitudes are related to second language
learning and bilingualism in various wa ys (1987: 197). The attitudes, complicated
issues, are needed to be studied much more than an academic issue. There are socially
important decisions to be made, requiring reliable information about attitudes,
including decisions about bilingual education pr ograms or programs to integrate or
assimilate immigrants (Homel et al 1987: 198). There are three major attitude
components —the stereotype, the feeling, and the react ion tendency ( Homel et al
1987: 201). Through the immersion programs, the outcomes on cognit ive
development, language progress, and content subject achievement ar e remarkable
(Homel et al 1987: 202). Attention, in testing for the immersion effect, was given to
theoretically different components of attitudes, a stereotype component, measured
throug h semantic rating scales, versus a feeling or a reaction tendency component,
measured through direct questioning and multidimensional procedures. The actual
findings were more than what expected. They provided several new insights into the
ways attitudes f unction socially more mature and sophisticated. Therefore, becoming
bilingual and bicultural is an effective way of enriching young people’s social
perspectives ( Homel et al 1987: 217). From a theoretical and experimental point of
view, the basic arguments adduced by Palij and Homel and De Avila in Homel et al
to show the non -negative and possibly positive impact of bilingualism on various
cognitive functions are correct. There is no str ong cognitive developmental theory
that would seriously argue against bilingualism on theoretical g rounds. Piaget (1967)
and Vygotsky (1962, 1978), similarly, agree with cognitive growth in bilingualism in
different perspectives. The concept of bilingualis m, according to Piaget (1967),
derives from a diversity of structuring activities within the organism and is not simply
an appropriat ion of an existing linguistically encoded social meaning. Cultural
meditational systems, according to Vygotsky (1962, 1978) , have been considered

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important to cognitive growth and performance . He, moreover, emphasized the
existence of an external mediator more than Piaget did (1987: 172).

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CHAPTER TWO
SOCIO -POLITICAL , ECONOMIC AND EDUCATIONAL FACTORS OF
MIGRATION IN ROMANIA AND CAMBODIA
2.1 INTRODUCTION
Romania, historically, is not so different from Cambodia. Romania had undergone
Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. The Romanian Holocaust was the most brutal and
deadly to the people, who are today in controversy of the country’s history of the
existence of S hoah. Some scholars claimed that the Shaoh did not happen at all and
believed that Romania actually saved its Jews, and others claimed that the Shaoh did
happen and laid the blame solely on Germany. Elie Wiesel, a Jewish -Romanian who
was forced to emigrate from Romania with his family during the Sho ah, is the proof
towards the acceptance , as Ioanid et al (2004) of Final Report International
Commission on the Holocaust in Romania cite, “Spearheading the movement toward
the acceptance was Elie Wiesel, a Romanian of Jewish background who was forced to
emigrate from Romania with his family during the Shoah.” According to Wiesel
(2004), in the decades following Second World War , Roman ia was under the
oppressive communist regime, which was to be blamed by many extreme -right
nationalists for bringing about communism to Romania by the entire Jewish
population , which became a deeply hat red notion by the post-1989 leaders . After
1989 a mult iparty system by Siani -Davies (2005) , Romania reformed all fields,
especially market economy, but the democratization process was slow and winding
due to communist origin of the majority of the political elite s.
Cambodia , from Angkor’s end to the French protectorate, was in decline due to the
discontinuity in economic and social order between the civilization of Angkor and its
successor state. The country was plunged into a downward spiral and transformed
seamlessly from a mi ghty empir e into a vassal stat e, as Tully of A Short History of
Cambodia writes, “Cambodia did suf fer a long term decline related to its own power,
and to the growing strength of its rivals ” (2005: 56). Cambodia, from the French
protectorate to its independence , was in a bloody war of c onquest, in which the
French would control all of the Vietnamese territories from the Chinese border in the
north to the tip of the Cape of Camau in the south and along with Laos and Cambodia
upstream on the Mekong , as Tully of A Short History of Cambodia cites, “The French

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partitioned Vietnam into the protectorates of Tonkin and Annam, along with the
direct colony of Cochin -China in the south, and gradually tightened control over the
protectorates of Laos and Cambodia” (2005: 81). Cambodia, from 1953 to 19 70, was
stable for more than a decade as a result of heavy -handed control of national political,
economic, and social life. Cambodia, in the late 1960s, was in chaos due to
mismanagement, corruption, and nepotism in the government, which resulted in a
struggle of communist movement and pro-American elite s against socia l injustice and
poverty , as UNESCO of Education and Fragility in Cambodia illustrates,
“Sihanouk’s ideology reflected his desire to strengthen the authority of the monarch,
while also invoking a struggle against social injustice and underdevelopment”
(2011: 22). According to UNESCO , Cambodia, from 1970 to 1975, was in poor
governance, economi c downturn, social fr agmentation, and simultaneous civil and
regional wars (2011: 23). Cambodia, from 1975 to 1979, was in the Dark A ges.
Everything was completely destroyed, and be tween 750,000 and 3,331,678 people
were eradicated in the huge killing farm by torture, execution, exhaustion, starvation,
and disease (UNESCO 2011: 24). Cambodia, from 1979 to 1991, was under
Vietnamese occupation, in which the country was faced with the daunting task of
rebuilding from no currency, market, financial institutions, industry, and public
transport system (UNESCO 2011: 25). Cambodia, in its transition period: 1991 -1993,
was in a fragile peace, leading to the establishment of the United Nations Transitional
Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) to ensure the implementation of th e peace
agreement, signed in 1991 by the four wa rring factions . Cambodia, after the national
election 1993, was ruled by two political parties —Cambodian People’s Party (CPP)
and FUNCINPEC Party, focused primarily on the tasks of reconstruction an d
rehabilitation, especially of the education system. Much of the progress in the country
was donor -driven with most res ources off -budget ( UNESCO 2011: 26-27). Cambodia,
after the parliamentary elections in 1998, 2003, 2008, and 2013, was governed by the
Camb odian People’s Party to ensure peace and development of the country. However,
it is essential to notice that stability in the modern Cambodia n context can be
understood not as something approaching an ideal state, but rather as simply the
absen ce of instab ility ( UNESCO 2011: 27-28).
The United States, where immigration from Europe, Latin America, and A sia has
begun since the 17th century, is made up of immigrants and descendants o f

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immigrants, as Purcell of Immigration: Social Issues in American History Series
states, “All Americans are immigrants or descendants of immigrants” ( 1995: xi).
Romania, a developing country with uppe r middle income according to the
WorldBank (2016 ), has gon e through wars, communism, and the H olocaust.
Romanian people migrating before 1989 within or outside the country due to political
aspect, religious conflicts, and/or malnourishment. Comparatively, Cambodia, a
developing country with low er middle income according to the WorldBank (2016 ),
was worse off than Romania, going through civil war , genocide , communism, and
internal conflicts. Every Cambodian made a move at least once in their lives before
1998 both inside and outside the country. Both Romanians and Cambodians are still
on the move to the United States through fami ly network and wedding.
According to ILO-IPEC (2013), migration is defined as a process of moving
residen ce from one location to another . According to King , migration takes two
important sides: (1) the fundamental historical role of migration as part of h uman
experience from the remote past to the present and on into the future and (2)
migration coin of a differ ent perspective. The first side takes part in hu man nature in a
search for food , pasture and resources, the desire to travel and explore, and the d esire
to conquer and possess. Population movements carry innovation from one region to
another has been narrated as a new twist. International migration, for the past twenty
years, has globally, politically, femininely, and di versely increased . The other s ide
delineates the world today international migrants of 214 million accounts for more
than 3 per cent of global population. The trend had developed from 75 million (2.3
per cent) in 1965 to 105 million (2. 7 per cent) in 1985 ( 2012: 4-5). Migration is
subject to ‘Push’ and ‘Pull’ factors. Generally, the ‘Pu sh’ appears to deal with regime ,
conflict, drought, famine, extreme religious activity, poor economic act ivity, lack of
job opportunity , race and discriminating culture , political intolerance and pers ecution
of people, educatio nal crisis, poor social service , and socia l chaos. The ‘Pull’ involves
better econ omic opportunities, more jobs, better lives , weather conditions, peaceful
and comfortable locations, savings or remittances, and better cultural, p olitical,
climatic and general terrain , as Purcell of Immigration: Social Issues in American
History Series expresses, “ The classic explanation of immigration is called the ‘push –
pull’ theory, which says that elements must be in place at both ends for immi gration
to occur: elements in the old land must push immigrants to uproot themselves and

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leave home; other elements in the new land must look so attractive that immigrants
are pulled to a new place ” (1995: 24). Similarly, according to Campbell et al , ‘push –
pull’ factors in Romania and Cambodia deal particularly with poor social services
(medical care, education and other public services), social chaos (conflicts and
insecurity), and proselytization (religion, cultures, customs, tradition). Political -push
factors are concerned with regimes (Nazism, communism, and genocides), wars,
policies, and regulations ( 2007: 101). Purcell points out that, in the case of the United
States, social -pull factors consist of better social opportunities in medical care,
education, public services, and benef icial social welfare. Political -pull-factor deals
with developed -democratic country ( 1995: 62-71).
There are three theoretical approaches —neo-classic approach, historical -structuralist
approach, and migration system theory. Borjas points out that the neo-classical
approach is limited by three elements —individual’s financial resources, immigration
regulations of the host countries and the source countries ( 1989: 461). Originating
intellectually in the Marxist political economy by Zolberg , the historical -structural
approach emphasizes the unbalanced distribution of economic and political power in
the world economy ( 1989: 14-17). Migratory movements, according to migration
system theory put forward by Portes & Rumbaut , are generally caused by the
existence of prior links between sending and receiving countries and by colonialism,
political influence, trade, investment or cultural ties ( 1990: 224-230). For Boyd ,
migration movement also involves informal network, which links mi grants and non –
migrants in a complex web of social roles and interpersonal relationships ( 1989: 639)
and family network, which makes migration feasible through financial and cultural
capital , according to Stahl (1993 :16). Socio -political and economic -educat ional
factors of migration, the case of Romania and Cambodia, to the United States have
never comparatively been interrogated or assimilated in a systematic mann er. This
chapter, therefore, organizes systematically and compara tively the socio -political and
economic -educational factors of migration towards the United States, based on the
push -pull theory. Drawing on migration system theory, the study interrogates into
regimes, wars, famine, religious conflicts, geographical upheavals, the H olocaust
and/or in ternal conflicts of Romania and Cambodia and the relatively hospitable
socio -economic and political climate of the United States.

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2.2 SOCIO -POLITICAL , ECONOMIC AND EDUCATIONAL
FACTORS
Due to the surplus work force, low economic development, and young population in
the last 20 years by Maltoni (2007), population movements have been exponentially
increasing within and between countries. The growth of migration movements results
from individuals, the globalization, the exponential improv ement of informati on
technology and the increased opportunitie s to travel at affordable costs . Historically,
Gilbert marked the time in the twentieth century as the time when there were wars —
from world wars to civil wars, violent political regimes, and genocides, shaping
contemporary history ( 2013: 2). In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
predominant moves of migrants by King were out of rather than into E urope. From
1820 to 1940, the estimated 38 million out of 55 -60 million went to the United States
due to g eographical upheavals, the two World W ars, and political factors, pushing
massive human dislodgements, with the crossing of the borders in to Europe : 7.7
million and in shifted movement 25 million (1993: 20-22), and social migrations from
the absence of human rights, free of speech, equality, and peaceful social
transformat ion rather than revolution ( King 1993: 41). For instance, the State Council,
at the 40th anniversary of the Romanian Republic in 1987, regardless of serious
crimes, denounced an amnesty and pardon for som e convicted offenders, sentencing
them for up to five years, and reduced those, sentenced longer, to improve
Ceausescu’s poor image abro ad. The estimated 170,000 Romanian citizens who
emigrated legally between 1975 and 1986; thousands of others emigrated illegally
were arrested; and unknown numbers of Romanians were shot and died, while
attempting to migrate , as Deletant of Ceausescu and the Securitate certifies, “A
realization of the need to improve Ceaus escu’s poor image abroad had led to the
advance notice given by the State Council in October 1987 of an amnesty and pardon
for some convicted offenders which would come into effect two mo nths later on 30
December, the fortieth anniversary of the Romanian Republic” ( 1995: 258).
Practically , between 1948 and 1952, Ceausescu’s policy toward the Jews illustrated
by Deletant implied that Jews were allowed to emigrate and then leave the places fo r
young Romanian generations ( 1995: 210). A flood of exit visas was evidently granted
in 1958, with a payment of $2,000 upwards, depending on the age , education and
profession ( Deletant 1995: 209) and ceased i n 1959 with no explanation ( Deletant

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1995: 207). A fter the revolution of 1989, the Jewish population in Romania was small
with a large portion of old people. The Jews, from Netherland after Second World
War into Romania, have their political and social rights of the country’s citizens, and
additionally an ti-Semitism is officially prohibited after breaking out again in 1944.
With their rights as citizens, the Jews are permitted to immigrate to the country of
their preference —Canada and the United States , as Campbell et al of Romanian
Migration in a Runaway World shows , “After the Second World War, the Jews from
the Netherlands have enjoyed all the political and social rights of the country’s
citizens and anti -Semitism is officially banned; among their rights as citizens, the
Jews are allowed to emigrate to t he country of their preference; many young
professionals emigrated to Canada and to the United States, while among the
religious Jews who emigrated, a larger proportion opted for Israel” (2007: 201-202).
According to Campbell et al , traditionally, Romanians were non -migrants before the
Seco nd World War. Between the two World W ars, small groups of Transylvanian
peasants went to find work in America, returning homeland with money and
education in Western countries. The estimated eight million of Romanian diasp oras
among the population of 21 -22 million, after the Second World War, were in exile,
having minimum contacts with the homeland till 1989 ( 2007: 70). Without a tradition
in emigration, Romania has become a nation with a large population outside the
borders of their country of origin and gained a cultural map of the world among
diaspora’s of other people, showing the idea and Romanian spirit. This spirit will
continue to exist forever not only between the frontiers of the origin country, but also
in small or big groups of the ethnic communities, from America, Europe, South
Africa, and New Caledonia. Becoming more and more multicultural day after day
partakes in micro -cells of participation in the multicultural ocean of the planet and
complex cells with a mult iple cultural identity from their departure, during the eternal
acculturation processes of the w orld ( Campbell et al 2007: 71). Campbell et al add that
immigration takes some necessary steps —critical plan and contact wi th the new
land—and involves some main reasons: unemployment, low salary in the homeland,
political reasons (communist system), professional motives (working abroad in high
technology), personal motives (weddings), and other high opportunities (2007: 101).
According to Baldwin -Edwards, it is to the United States, Canada, and other W estern
European countries that in the early 199 0s Romanian asylum seekers fled as domestic

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insecurity was caused by the continuity of post -communist economic restructuring
and power struggles between the remaining political factions ( 2007: 5-35). Anghel
adds that many Romanians, after the subsequent loss of traditional jobs following
economic restructuring, used thei r small compensation from the state to fund their
departures abroad, either for permanent resettlement or for economic purposes
(2008: 787). According to Ban, Germany, Israel, and Turkey , the host countries,
introduced immigration programs and economic oppo rtunities , enforcing strictly the
guest workers programs, which resulted in few permanent resettlements of Romanian
workers to these countries. Attracted by economic opportunities in the services and
construction sectors, enterprising ethnic Romanians move d between their homes and
Germany, Israel, or Turkey , circular mi gration thus slowly taking place (2009: 1-31).
When domestic conditions gradually improved, Romanian migrants began trickling
into Western Europe for temporary illegal work by Baldwin -Edwards (2007 :5-35).
Oteanu shows that the networks of migration of the mid -1990s were created by the
pioneering Romanian immigrants to facilitate the movement of other migrants over
the next decade. Romanian immigration networks, therefore, were active across
Europe, making transit between home and host count ry much simpler ( 2007: 33).
In Romania , higher educated people, especially the younger ones, lacking
opportunities for jobs, forcing them to emigrate, find other solutions t o survive and
have a better living , as Campbell et al of Romanian Migration in a Runaway World
argue , “The lack of job opportunities for higher educated people in Romania has
forced them, especially the younger ones, to try to find other solutions to survive and
to have a better life” ( 2007: 101). Modern migrations, including labor migration,
evidently flow along the ‘South -North’ line resulted from the level o f development
between countries: not only in the European context b ut also on the world scale,
migration policies of the host countries, and demand s for labor resources from the
source countries emerge , as Pop of New Pat terns of Labour Migration in East-
Central Europe clarifies, “One of the most important reasons for labor migration is
disparity in the level of devel opment between countries not only in the European
context but on the world scale as well; it is completely proved by statistics and
concentration of modern migration flows along the line ‘South -North’” ( 2004: 38).
Sandu (2003) explains that, for better -paid jobs and working conditions and due to the
process of transition and the restructuring of the Romanian economy between 1990

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and 2002 , Romanians decided to leave the country, and the employed population
declined by 44%. More than 3.5 million jobs vanishe d, with the most dramatic
decreases being registered in the industry, where the number of jobs declined by half.
A considerable number of Romanian s, in this context, left to seek economic gains
abroad. Since the member of the European Union, the Romanian w orkflow to the
West -European destinations has increased in labor markets. However, Romania in
middle of 1990s suffered an alarming emigration of highly qualified specialists. The
top ranking Roma nian students were offered full or partial scholarships to universities
in USA, UK, Ireland, France, and Germany, followed by secure and well -paid
employment possibilities in these host countries. Large salaries and a far more
prestigious social status constantly encourage Romanian intelligence emigration.
As for the emigration of skilled workers, a study shows that persons receiving their
tertiary education in low -income countries end up residing in developed countries,
with high rates. The study suggested that educational policies in low -income
countries need to be attentive to skilled emigration. These ‘brain drain’ statistics,
however, ignore the facts that many students born and residing in low -(and high -)
income countries acquired their tertiary schooling outside the country and that high –
income countries are ma jor sources of tertiary training for students from low -income
countries , as Rosenzweig of Higher Education and International Migration in Asia :
Brain Circulation inserts, “There has been much attention to how the emigration of
skilled workers affects the returns to educational investments in low -income
countries; recently data have been put together that provides a global picture of the
extent to which persons rec eiving their tertiary education in low -income countries end
up residing in developed countries” ( 2006: 2). Rosenzweig adds that the total numbers
of intern ational students in the world are large. Over two million students in 2005
were enrolled in tertiary i nstitutions as foreign (non -resident) students, including
52.4% from Asian countries, just slightly below the population share of Asia in the
world (56.5%). Five countries —the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia,
Japan, and Germany —account for alm ost 80% of t he stock of foreign students, with
76.3% of total Asian enrollments. The United States is by far the major destination
for Asian students, accounting for almost a third of the total Asian students acquiring
tertiary education abroad ( 2006: 3).

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According to UNFPA , the main reasons for internal and international migration in
Southeast Asia , are poverty and the low rural economies, which drive away millions
of workers ready to take on employment anywhere. Rural -urban migration has been
dominated by poorer migrants moving from the less -developed areas to more
urbanized areas in response to increased industrialization, including Bangkok, Ho Chi
Ming C ity, Hanoi, Phnom Penh, and Vientiane. Additionally, personal reasons are
also labor -induced migration. Family duty may require elder children to leave home
for work; or marital problems may push women to find work elsewhere. Women find
work abroad to fulf ill their own desires. Migration is also an avenue for younger
rural -to-urban migrants, if only on a temporary or seasonal basis, who are looking for
socio -cultural experiences more typical of urban than rural contexts. The political
economy of rural -to-urban migration, however, is a stronger driver of migration in
most instances rather than the socio -cultural dimensions of urban living ( 2011: 5-6).
Southeast Asian countries make no exception , where urban -industrial growth in
specific areas acts as a pull fa ctor on low -wage workers in rural areas. The industrial
development i s usually centered on the main cities or, as in the case of Cambodia, in
the capital. This situation creates a centripetal attraction on the poorest areas of the
country. Slowed the economic development of the region and receiving countries , the
1997 economic crisis tried to control the m igration process, but until now the balance
between supply and demand of migrant workers has largely been left to the invisible
hand of the market. Population growth in recent years for some post -conflict
countries in the regions, including Cambodia, has risen more than at any time in the
past. Improved in the last few years, the transportation network has facilitated the
physical movement of migrants within and ou tside countries , as Maltoni (2007 ) of
Migration in Cambodia: Internal vs. External Flows delineates, “For some post –
conflict countries in the region, such as Cambodia, population growth in recent years
has risen more than at any time in the pa st; the transportation network has also
improved in the last few years, facilitating the physical movement of migrants within
and outside countries.”
Cambodia, in much a worse situation than Romania, ha s politically undergone seven
historical periods by UNESCO (2011 :21). The French colonized Cambodia from
1863 to 1953 in a way consistent with the government by promoting reciprocity,
dependency, and maintenance of the status quo. They introduced educational

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expansion without consideration to the expectatio ns of graduates and to the relevance
of their education to the country or their own lives. The colonial education could offer
social mobility through acceptance in the colonial administration. King Norodom
Sihanouk ruled the country from 1953 to 1970, afte r gaining full independence in
1953. The political status quo was tightly maintained through the heavy -handed
control of national political, economic, and social life. The country was in economic
crisis from the mid -1960s due to the widespread corruption a nd general
mismanagement, leading to the increasing of opposition forces —Communist Party of
Kampuchea (pro -China) and Lon Nol ‘s anti -communist forces (pro -American elites).
Insurgency and the growth of the Communist movem ent resulted in the uprisings of
1967 and 1968 and internal instability by the end of 1960s due to spillover from
Vietnam War, leading to the US bombing and invasion of Cambodia between 1969
and 1973 ( UNESCO 2011:22 -23).
Sihanouk was ousted by General Lon Nol and Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak
(Sihanouk’s cousin) in 1970, inaugurating a period of poor governance, economic
downturn, social fragmentation, and civil and regional wars. Lon Nol ruled Cambodia
from 1970 to 1975 and led the country to two simultaneous wars: war against rebel
communist leaders (Khmer Rouges) and Vietnam War, resulting in violent internal
repre ssions, the death of over half a million Cambodi ans, and education crisis
(UNESCO 2011: 23). The people fled into the forests to organize a resistance as
guerrillas. More than two m illion people were on the move from their villages to safe
places due to the turmoil, civil war, and American bombing by Robinson (1994: 4-9).
According to UNESCO, the Khmer Rouge s took power from 1975 to 1979, renaming
the country Democratic Kampuchea. Cam bodia was known as a Marxist agrarian
society and a huge killing field , between 750,000 and 3,331,678 Cambodians were
killed by torture and execution, exhaustion from overwork, starvation, and disease. At
the start of Pol Pot’s regime , Western medicine, religion, intellectualism, library,
school , and anything related to previous regi me were destroyed ( 2011: 23). Displaced
and destitute Cambodians , by Robinson, continued to mobilize in search of new
homes , and more than 100,000 people reached the Thai borde r to seek for political
asylum after the end of the revolution. Many refugee camps were set up along the
border with humanitarian assistance ( 1994: 4-9). After the defeat of the Khmer Rouge
regime by Maltoni , Phnom Penh was a ghost town until 1980, when the displaced

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urban population of 56.23% started to come back ( 2007: 3). According to UNESCO,
Heng Samrin ruled Cambodia from 1979 to 1991, renaming the country Khmer
People’s Revolutionary Party. The country started from scratch without curre ncy,
market, fina ncial institution , industry, public transport system, train , postal system,
telephone, electricity, clean water, sanitation, e ducation, and good infrastructure . The
new regime faced the daunting task of rebuilding the country in all fields , which
included a massive educational reform (2011: 25).
According to the 1991 Paris Peace Accord by UNESCO, United Nations Transitional
Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) supervised the interim coalition government —four
factions at war —after a decade of civil war and two years of negotiat ion in
Cambodia. Free and fair election was first organized by UNTAC in Cambodia after a
decade of war. Prince Ranarridth, the head of FUNCINPEC, won the popular vote.
Hun Sen, however, rejected the results, trying to establish autonomy, which is
prohibited by the constitution. The result, after mu ch negotiation, showed the
formation of a coalition government with Prince Ranarridth and Hun Sen as First and
Second Prime Ministers respectively. UNTAC, during the transition period, could not
help improve much quality of education, for the government re tained control over the
education sector. UNTAC forces withdrew in 1993, leaving crises in education
system, which were needed to be resolved. Some recommendations were made by the
Asian Development Bank to teachers, higher education, curriculum, and so on to
address quality and equity issues ( 2011: 26-27). Additionally, UNESCO reports
unemployment, violence, gang involvement, and drug and alcohol use may devalue
the youth (p. 47). From 1997 to present, Cambodia has been ruled by Hun Sen, who
ousted Prince R anarridth in 1997 in a bloody coup. Hun Sen won the 1998 election
and turned the country into a modern Cambodia, where Cambodians recognized the
stability in the modern Cambodian context not as something approaching an ideal
state, but rather as simply the absence of instability. Education, under previous
governments, was used as a political tool of unfulfilled promise of modernization,
resulting in discontent of students and teachers, and a lack of open dialogue due t o
single -party dominance ( 2011: 28). Due to the high proportion of younger population
than 25 years by IOM , Cambodia is likely to experience a continuing high population
growth and unlikely to go through a demographic transition in the n ear future
(2008: 12)

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Cambodia, since the beginning of the F rench protectorate, maintained an economic
backwater for almost 40 years. Cambodia , in the colonial ban quet, was a side dish,
but Vietnam was a main course. The taxes were collected from the peasants, who
were forced to labor on the roads, with often their own pockets in the process , as
Tully of A Short History of Cambodia states:
The peasants saw the king as a devaraja with supernatural powers: a being
quite disconnected from the state apparatchiks who collected the taxes, forced
them to labour on the road s and often lined their own pockets in the process; in
fact, the French administration had been increasing taxes for some years, but
because Khmer officials collected these the pea sants held them responsible
(2005: 97).
Corruption and impunity, which ultimately siphon wea lth from the poor to the rich ,
are spread in schools and witnessed by children from a young age. S ocial exclusion is
accurately mirrored in school s—those who can pay progress. Education has become a
prominent symbol of broader inequali ties between the rich and the poor, and th e
urban and the rural. Corruption and bribe -taking in school and workplace retain social
unfairness and fragility , resulting in violence , as UNESCO of Education and
Fragility in Cambodia cites, “Corruption and brib e-taking in the educational and
employment systems maintain the inequitable status quo and exacerbate fragility;
those that can pay do, and those that cannot are left with frustration and anger that, if
left to fester, can result in violence” ( 2011: 47). Th ere is considerable internal
migration from rural to urban areas and from internal rural areas to border areas in
Cambodia. Internal migration, however, is driven by the lack of employment
opportunities, increasing landlessness, and poverty in rural areas. The push factors
driving internal migration are often linked to the incentives driving international
migration. Cambodian out -immigrants outnumber international in -immigrants,
especially from Vietnam and China, as IOM of Situation Report on International
Migration in East and South -East inserts, “ As a host country, Cambodia hosts
migrant workers primarily from Vietnam and China ” (2008: 12).
The main push factors for out -migration are resulted by high unemployment rates and
low incom es, leading to mass migration of Cambodian migrant workers to Thailand,
the Republic of Korea and Malaysia and less migration to the Middle East —Saudi

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Arabia and Qatar as well as other Asian count ries—Hong Kong, China, Taiwan
Province of China and Japan , as IOM of Situation Report on International Migration
in East and South -East writes:
High unemployment rates and low incomes are the main push factors for out –
migration. The primary destinations for Cambodia migrant workers are
Thailand, the Republic of Kor ea and Malaysia. There is also anecdotal
evidence of the presence of Cambodian migrant workers in the Middle East,
primarily Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as well as other Asian countries including
Hong Kong, China, Taiwan Province of China and Japan. ( 2008: 12)
Most of women mi grants were temporarily subject to low-indoor ‘3D’ jobs —
dangerous, difficult, and dirty —or traditionally to ‘’femal e’ occupations, with low-
wages, poor work conditions and lacking em ployment benefits. For example,
Cambodian women migrants worked as hairdressers, petrol and cigarette sellers,
manicurists, shop assistants a nd fruit vendors and also dominated the domestic work
sector s, including the entertainment industry, the garment industry, fisheries and the
agriculture sector , and a small er proportion worked as prostitutes, as UNFPA of
Socio -Cultural Influences on the Reproductive Health of Migrant Women cites:
Most women migrants in the reviewed literature were employed in temporary,
low-end or ‘3D’ jobs —dangerous, difficult and dirty —or traditionally ‘female’
occupations, characterized by low wages, poor work conditions and lacking
employment benefits; In Cambodia, for example, women migrants were
described as working as hairdressers, petrol and cigarette sellers, manicurists,
shop assist ants and fruit vendors; women migrants also dominated the domestic
work sector, with a smaller proportion employed in sex work,…( 2011: 20).
Cambodian cultural matte rs: traditionalism vs. modernism and immunity to change
by UNESCO influence the development of the education sector . A struggle between
these two forces prolonged instability over the past several decades. The ideas of
Cambodian -traditional culture, in 12th century during the Angkor Empire, center on
the ‘patr on-client’ system of interpersonal relationships for every faction of
Cambodian society from ordinary people to elite s. The absence of mutual obligation
occurs in the system, for the top of the hierarchy develop a network of clients large
enough to stave o ff rivals while at the bottom the protection is ensured by powerful

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patrons. Finally, power becomes an end in itself. The ideas of Cambodian -modern
culture in modern society are held firmly at the center. The modern day government
is considered as a single patron -client system, permeating Cambodian life. Education
plays important role in this development. By any ways Cambodia has survived a
painful -modern history. The change of society has been strengthened by a number of
cultural characteristics of the tum ultuous events, including overwhelming value on
stability and a strong aversion to risk for old generation of Cambodians, who
experienced the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge s, a political threat, the government’s
patron role, decentralized decision makin g at local level to some degree , and some
reluctant acceptance to the shared power. Historically, the patron has provided
minimal services to Cambodians who have low expectations . Through difficult times
in the past and economic hardship at the present, they a re able to cope with the
limited resources and often unwi lling to migrate ( 2011: 19-20).
The most positive impact of colonialism , by Watson and Andaya (2001), is the
investment in the education and health sectors. Education, under the colonial
government, w as primarily meant to recruit and to train clerks/officials for the
administration but not to improve the knowledge of the indigenous population or to
open the ways to European universities. Colonial society’s education policies were
guided by the practica l needs . According to French colonialism and its education in
Cambodia by UNESCO, the French colonized Cambodia in a way consistent with the
government in promoting reciprocity, dependency, and maintaining the status quo.
The French, in line with the patron -client model, vowed to protect the nation from
Thailand and neighboring British colonies in exchange for Cambodian loyalty. The
French established an education system, part of the colonial heritage, whose
structures and dynamics would be perpetuated and intensified for decades to come.
The system was expanded haphazardly and inconsiderably to the expectations of
graduates, the country, and their own li ves as well as manipulation of the system for
purposes of political legitimacy. Education under the French not only reinforce d the
premium on loyalty, but also challenged the Cambodian notion of helplessness with
the promise that education could offer soci al mobility through acceptance in the
colonial administration. While education provided to peasants by the French had
negligible benefit, the colonial period left the hint of egalitarianism and modernity

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that would challenge traditional Cambodian hierarchy over the following decades
(2011: 21-22).
UNESCO reports on educational system in Sihanouk’s and Lon Nol’s time that
Educational expansion , under Sihanouk 1953 -1970, was prioritized by building
schools acro ss the country . Therefore, by 1969 at least 2 mil lion Cambodians were
enrolled in primary and secondary schools and more than 11,000 were attending
Cambo dian universities ( 2011: 22). Sihanouk’s expansion of tertiary education
beginning in the mid -1960s was superficial effort to bring Cambodian higher
education in line with the capacity of other countries in the region. These efforts,
however, also proved to be superficial as the system merely introduced Khmer
content into the French model without increasing its relevance to Cambodia’s
development needs by encouraging a shift in graduate skills and expectations, in
particular, towards the field of agriculture in recognition of the primarily agrarian
nature of the Cambodian economy. Education, under Lon Nol 1970 -1975, was in
crisis due to two wars —civil war between the regime and its opponents and the war
with Vietnam. With the country constantly under siege, these years saw a complete
breakdown of the education system with the closure of schools, the disruption of
schooling for hundreds of thousands of stude nts, and the military recruitment of
students to fight in the wars with the Communist Party of Kampuchea and the
Vietnamese ( UNESCO 2011: 23). Teachers went on strike to protest agains t the
declining of their salaries , and students demonstrated against gove rnment actions ,
deemed as unjust and corrupt including, for example, the sacking of the dean of the
law faculty. These protests culminated in events in June 1974 during which the
Minister and Deputy Minister of Education were assassinated after being taken
hostage by demonstr ating students ( UNESCO 2011: 24).
Under the Khmer Rouge s 1975 -1979 by UNESCO , the obliteration of the old system ,
including education, was carried out , and new education system as it had exis ted was
ceased . The agenda of the Khmer Rouges to pursue self -reliance saw agrarianism as a
centre for economic development. Although schooling was provided in most villages
and districts across the country, it aimed primarily to teach very basic literacy and
numeracy, and technical skills to support agri culture as well as inculcating the new
revolutionary culture and to fulfill the needs of the agrarian revolution ( 2011: 25). The
reality of the regime’s purposeful neglect of education in general and quality in

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particular by Scheffer and Chhang (2010) was demonstrated by the recruitment of
illiterate peasants as teachers and by the organization of classes during the lunch
breaks of 14 -hour workdays. Therefore, the resulting regression of education and
social capital during the Khmer Rouge’s reign inevitably cripple d Cambodia for
decades to come .
Under the Vietnamese 1979 -1991 by UNESCO , Cambodian education was
established from scratch —no educational infrastructure, no educational
administration in place, no curricula, no a dequate learning materials, and few
qualified teaching personnel. While the first functioning schools were the resul ts of
initiatives of individuals —most often without any credentials or qualifications, the
state quickly moved to set up an authorized body of officials and teachers and rebuilt
and expand ed the educational infrastructure s. Attempts were also made to remove any
French influence s from the newly established education system. While the structure
of the education system resembled that of the Vietn amese, the curriculum was a
complex blend of Vietnamese socialist and revolutionary cultural ideas and the
memories of pre -revolutionary teachers. In spite of such efforts to re -establish a
devastated education sector, enormous challenges and flaws remaine d, especially
with regard to the quality of educational provision ( 2011: 25-26).
Very few educational ch anges by UNESCO were made between 1991 and 1997. The
government retained control over the education sector, which continued to function
under already exi sting administrative structures. In this same period, however, due to
an influx of Western assistance, NGOs increased their presence in the Cambodian
education sector, expanding their work in the provision of training and technical
assistance and conductin g feasibility studies and needs assessments for future
activities. The immediate effect of these actors on the education system was minimal,
however, leaving the education system in a state of crisis characterized by poor
quality, irrelevant curricula, ina dequate training and remuneration for teachers, rare
and unevenly distributed materials, poor physical infrastructure s, high drop -out rates,
elitist pre -school and secondary school sectors, and access inhibited by low incomes
(2011: 27). Each political establishment from 1997 to present by UNESCO has
interpreted t he education sector differently. The underlying values have remained
primarily the same, serving to underpin the hegemonic structure. Historically
repetitive themes include the use of education a s a political tool, a symbol and largely

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unfulfilled promise of modernization, the discontent of students and teachers, and a
lack of open dialogue due to single -party dominance. The consistent parallels that can
be drawn between periods preced ing tumultuous transitions in Cambodia’s history
and the condition of the present day are of the primary concern ( 2011: 28).
More educated people are easier to find jobs than those are less educated. Quality of
education plays very important role in develop ing a country and being rich of the
people. Cambodian education system needs to be reformed from primary school to
higher education. It is evident that Education Strategic Plan 2010 -2013 of Ministry of
Education, Youth and Sport is to move the education sy stem forward. One out of
other concerns on the part of the teachers is poverty and very poor working
conditions, contributing to the failure of the implementing the educational reforms,
retaining poor quality of education in general. Teachers are in low mo tivation, for
they could not afford the basic necessities —foods, housing, clothes, medicines, and
rent along with the supporting children and elderly relatives. They, therefore, find
second jobs to meet their basic needs , as CITA of Teachers’ Salary and Te rms and
Conditions writes:
Salary levels often push teachers below the poverty line, evident from the fact
that newly qualified primary school teachers in Cambodia are paid as little as
US$50 per month. The combination of low salaries and their late paymen t
brings financial accountability at district and provincial level into dis repute,
with teachers feeling that there is a lack of respect for their welfare. This also
affects their position and status in society as they may be unable to make ends
meet witho ut supplementing their income by holding a second job, charging
informal fees or tutoring in order to survive (2010 -2012: 5).
The current government has attempted to demonstrate democratic values by enacting
policies to decentralize education decision -making to local communities; however, its
failure to fully implement and sustain decentralized structures reinforces its power, as
UNESCO of Education and Fragility in Cambodia explains:
Although efforts have been made to empower local -level decision -making,
mixed evidence suggests that actual power may not be well distributed. While
certain financial and administrative responsibilit ies have been decentralized,
critical elements such as curriculum development remain under tight central

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control. The patron -client system and pervasive fear amplify this
disempowerment of local communities, which results in the absence of a
culture of dec ision -making. Continued government reluctance to decentralize
power may also inhibit the development of district and local capacity and
contribute to fragility by further weakening critical institutions . (2011: 17)
According to ‘Push’ and ‘Pull’ factors by Rosenzweig, there are two problems with
the ‘brain gain’ framework: (1) for most countries of the world, the probabil ity that a
domestically tertiary -educated person can permanently emigrate to a high -income
country is very small, so that the ef fect of the ‘risk’ of emigration on the acquisition
of domestic schooling cannot be large; (2) the literature ignore s the endogeneity of
the emigration probability. In particular, it ignores the fact that the choice of the
location of tertiary education significantly affects the probability that the person can
emigrate. Potenti ally, a student receiving her education in a high-income country has
advantages f or obtaining a visa in the country’s marriage market and labor market
compared with a person who seeks a mate or a job respectively in a high -income
country while residing in a low -income country. Thus, an important rou te to
emigration is to obtain tertiary schooling abroad ( 2006: 2-3). The United S tates is the
dominant destination country for foreign student s from all over the world, especially
from five top Asian countries —Korea, Ind ia, China, Japan, and Taiwan and seve n top
ten countries in Southeast Asia —Thailand and Indonesia (Rosenzweig 2006: 14-15).
Before 196 5 a handful of Asian immigrants —Chinese and Filipinos —by Purcell
immigrated to the United States due to a token loosening of the Exclusion Act during
World War II, and immigrants from the rest of Asia were virtually prohibited. In 1960
Asian Americans accounted for only a tiny fraction of the U.S. population. Twenty
years later, Asian Americans accounted for 3.5 million, including Chinese, Japanese,
Filipino, Korean, Indian, Vietnamese, and other Southeast Asian nations. Asians
represented almost 50 percent of all legal immigrants by 1980s, whereas 30 years
earlier they had counted for only 6 percent. The 1965 immigration reform bill opened
the door to Asians in large numbers through economic skills provision and new
system of chain migration ( 1995: 104). Asian immigrants from South Korea, the
Philippines, Sou th Vietnam an d Cambodia by Lowe get involved in American
colonialism, war, and neocolonialism. The post -1965 Asian immigrants to the United

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States are from societies, where traditional cultures are disrupted by colonialism and
distorted by upheavals of neocolonial capitalism and war ( 1996: 16).
The American way of life has attracted many migrants from all over the world to the
United States. Individual immigrants enjoy relatively high level of social and political
freedom and the opportunities for their achievements. His torically, the national
leaders advertised the religious and political freedom, offered in the country, to attract
the immigrants, especially from non -European developing countries, where the
political systems were still fragile and basic individual rights and freedoms were not
yet guaranteed. Since 1950 communication revolution has taken place to publicize the
values and quality of life or standard of living to the entire world, through radio,
television, and motion pictures. The quality of life in the Uni ted States, seen from the
differences in the physical quality of life index (PQLI), now far exceeds the
developing countries. Three elements —a baby’s life expectancy at age one, infant
mortality rate, and literacy rate —are employed to reflect educational levels,
nutritional levels, availability of safe water, public health services, medical care, and
the levels of other services, used to satisfy basic human needs. The quality of life
conditions of the migra tion in source countries is drama tically below tho se of the
United States. Migration to the United States remains at current high levels due to the
spread of the information of living standard in the United States , as Morris of
Immigration: The Beleaguered Bureacracy expresses :
Most of the countries that are principal sources of illegal immigration have
quality of life conditions that are drastically below those of the United States;
Not surprisingly, as information about the standard of living in the United
States spreads throughout these developing count ries and as aspirations rise,
efforts to migrate to the United States can be expected to rise or at least remain
at their current high levels. ( 1985: 77)
The social process in the United States, moreover, is also an important factor,
attracting more immigrants to the United States. How immigrants assimilate, how
they maintain their ethnic identities, how their religion changes, and how they behave
politically are hard to first generation immigrants, but easier and easier to second or
third generation relatively. Historically, due to chaotic diversity, Americanizers tried
to educate the first generation immigrants the basics of the American way from

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hygiene to ideology. The Americanizers’ dreams of assimilation were unsuccessful
among the first generati on immigrants, for they could not be suppressed by
persuasion and propaganda. They did not give up their identities and native
languages. Second generation of immigrants, however, is exposed to new
environments at school, in which they follow American cult ures outsides and their
native cultures at home. From third generation of immigrants, cultural events have
been organized to commemorate their native cultures. Their native languages are
about to give up at their homes and communities. Religions are divers e in the United
States. Practically the immig rants bring priests for church es and monks for pagoda s
from their native countries to the United States , as Purcell of Immigration: Social
Issues in American History Series points out :
The Eastern European nati onalities who were adherents of the Orthodox
Church had a slightly different experience from groups such as the Lutherans,
Roman Catholics, or Jews, simply because there was virtually no existing
Orthodox presence when the hundreds of thousands of Greeks, Serbs, and
others arrived between 1880 and 1920. There was nothing for them to react
against. Instead, these groups typically understood their own specific national
form of the Orthodox Church to be immutable part of their ethnic and national
identity… As soon as practically feasible, the eastern Orthodox groups
imported their own priests and set up local parishes in America (1995: 68).
Politically, in democratic country, political power comes through votes. Since early in
the history of the Republic, immigr ants and immigration have been the focus of
political attention. The Irish was the first immigrants to have a major influence on
American politics. Latter in early and mid -19th century, migration groups gained less
impact on the American political system. The very large numbers of new immigrants
from Southern and Eastern Europe had no impact on American domestic politics,
except the Irish or the Germans, who gained benefits from the America for their
countrie s of origin as Purcell of Immigration: Social Iss ues in American History
Series certifies:
The first immigrants to have a major impact on American politics were the
Irish. Soon after they began to arrive in large numbers during the late 1840s,
the Irish started to work the American politi cal system to their advantage

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(p.69 ). The Germans had a few cases of notable political influence and
electoral success, such as Carl Schurz’s rise to national political prominence
and the election of John Peter Altgeld as governor of Illinois ( 1995: 70).
2.3 CONCLU SIONS
Romanians and Cambodians, in less numbers, are still on their moves to the United
States through family network and wedding. Politically and socially, they still find a
better place, where they can vote freely and have full freedom of speech, and where
they have equal rights and perform their religions freely. Migration, an ongoing
process, is complicated and often puzzling in America, where aspects of modern life
are considered. According to immigration policy and future America by Purcell,
Americans of all backgrounds continue to show their ethnicity identities of the origin,
overarching the American identity. The future American pot never quite melts
immigrants, but it is rich of national stew. Illegal immigration and refugees will
continue to be the mo st complicated issues. Economy and domestic polity remain the
main influences on migration. In retrospect, over the 400 years of immigration
history, it is evident that immigration has been the lifeblood of the American
experience, no matter wh at happens. The nation will make positive pathways for real
immigrants, who want to be integrated into t he United States ( 1995: 109).

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CHAPTER THREE
ROMANIAN -BORN WRITERS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE S
3.1 INTRODUCTION
The world history begin s in Asia —the East and ends in Europe —the West . Romania
is located in East-Central Europe , where the history of the world has ended, as
Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader write, “The history of the world travels
from East to West, for Europe is absolutely the end of history, Asia is the beginning”
(1995: 15). Romania had been through Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, which was
the most brutal and deadly to the people, who are today in controversy of the
country’s history of the existence of Shoah, which some believed to exist and some
not. Consequently, Elie Wiesel, a Jewish -Romanian, who was forced to emigrate
from Ro mania is the example, as Ioanid et al (2004 ) of Final Repor t International
Commission on the Holocaust in Romania cite, “Spearheading the movement toward
the acceptance was Elie Wiesel, a Romanian of Jewish background who was forced to
emigrate from Romania with his family during the Shoah.” The decades following
Second World War, Romania was under the oppressive communist regime, in which
the entire Jewish population was to be blamed for bringing in communism to the
whole Romania (Wiesel, 2004). Romania, after 1989 a multiparty system by Siani –
Davie (2005) , was un der the reform of all fields, but the democratization process was
slow and winding due to communist origin s of the majority of the pol itical elite s.
3.2 CASE STUDIES
3.2.1 Train to Trieste
UNFORGETTABLE -FORBIDDEN LOVE: COMMUNISM
Marxism is undoubtedly a theory of progress. It sees historical development
as an overall forward movement based on the gradual accumulation of
contradictions and sudden qualitative leaps onto new and higher levels: in
broadest outline, from animal to man, from primitive commun ism to
civilization, from the cycle of class societies based on natural economy to
capitalism, based on generalized commodity production; and eventually, from
capitalism to communism (Cohen 1991 :7).

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“I feel sad as deep as death ,” (Radulescu 2008 :29). Death waits for time, and time is
a permanent reminder of death. Historical periods are analogous to living individuals,
whose existence is ended by death. Whenever one faces serious problems, they utter
‘die’ as their last solu tions. Luck is u nstable to the time and activities , as Calinescu
from Five Faces of Modernity points out, “Time had to coexist in a state of growing
tension with a new awareness of the preciousness of practical time —the time of
action, creation, discove ry, and transformation” ( 1987: 19). Problems piled up from
day to day are unsolved; some are left behind by socialism, which deprives people of
freedom of sp eech, travel, and a better life; some are caused by her studies in the
university, where Mona is under surveil lance by secret police; and others are from her
love for Mihai, who is suspected as secret police by the villagers. These issues are
similar to what is exp lained in the poetry of Neruda, quot ed by Ashcroft et al of
Postcolonial Studies Reader :
there are so many dead,
and so many dikes the red sun breached,
and so many heads battering hulls
and so many hands that have closed over kisses
and so many thing s that I want to forget (1995: 372).
Mona , from Train to Trieste , spends two weeks at the Black Sea and two months of
summer in her aunt’s house in Brasov —the city at the foot of the Carpathians. She
feels hungry for the cool, fragrant air and spa rkling sunrises at the mountain, as she
argues that , “I need to cool off my sunburned body in the fresh mountain air ”
(Radulescu 2008 :12). Up here , she finally feels at home, not in a fairy tale, not in a
place she wants to run away from, but in a place where her body feels whole and
where her heart has a steady beat. She steps down the staircase and runs into her
childhood friend, Christin a, who has two chestnut plaits, wrapped around her head.
With no introduction , Christina asks : “Do you hear about Mariana? Mihai killed her, ”
(Radulescu 2008 :13). Mona breaks into sobbing, as she is a good friend of Mariana,
who is a girlfriend of Mihai. Christina adds, “The two of them went on a three -day
trip at the end of April. They were coming down the Rock of the Prince, trying to get
back to their tent before dark. He was walking behind her, and he accidentally kicked
a rock loose. It hit her in the head and killed her, just like that, ” (Radulescu 2008 :13).

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Mona tries to picture Mariana the way she blows rings of cigarette smoke, throws
herself carelessly into her boyfriend’s lap, and swirls her gypsy skirt . She also
pictures her boyfriend —Mihai Simionu —who has green eyes and long lashes. On the
way back to the neighborhood , she sees Mihai walking around the circle, where he
and Mariana used to kiss and sing until late at night. He smokes and walks furiously,
hurting from his loss. Her heart aches for him, and she approaches him. They go
along together in the street, where there are many men in black leather jackets with
small eyes watching at every co rner, every floor, and every building in 1977 Stalinist
style, as Manea of The Hooligan’s Return raises the poet Mugur’s that , “The
trembling got worse, and so did the panic and the cold and the gloom and the terror
around him. The messages became rarer, constrained, fearful, and ever conscious of
eavesdroppers ,” (2003: 31). The state, under socialism, i s the absolute owner of
people, goods, initiatives, justice and transport, stamp collecting and sport, cinemas,
restaurants, bookstores, the circus and the orphanages , the sheep pastures, trade,
tourism, industry, d airy farming, and cigarette and wine production , as Manea of The
Hooligan’s Return writes, “All now belonged to the state” (2003: 156). The journey of
the world history starts from Asia in 1511 (Malaysia) and ends in Europe in 1991 (18
erstwhile Soviet Republics), as Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader cite,
“The history of the world travels from Asia to Europe ” (1995: 15). Many countries in
the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Baltics, and East -Central Eu rope are colonized by
Russia and the Soviet Union , but it is never recounted in Western Postcolonial
Studies until 1980s and with massive growth in mid -1990s in the United States and
Anglophone locations, as Kelertas of Baltic Postcolonialism clarifies , “Russia and the
Sovie t Union imposed colonial hegemony over the Caucasus, Central Asia, the
Baltics, and East -Central Europe for between 50 and 200 years ” (2006: 11). Radulescu
of Train to Trieste explains Mihai’s feeling of the death of Mariana and the shave of
beautiful brown curls that he feels depressed to look at t he hole in the back of her
head and asks himself, “Why did they have to do that?” (2008: 18). Mona has a
chimera of sitting on the suitcase, under the two moons in the sky, with Mariana
appearing in the fog, coming and smiling with no teeth, and grinning frightfully at
them. S he feels heartsick for heartbroken -Mihai and reborn -Mariana . When passing
through her aunt’s house , they keep walking even a call from her mother . They stop
at a shop where they can drink under the full moon, exchange ideas , and understand
each other. They fall in love, as Mihai say s, “I’ll kill you if you die,” and Mona says

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to hersel f that, “I want to erase the memory of Mariana from his heart forever,”
(Radulescu 2008 :28).
“I want to be like the women in my family, the strong and lucky -in-love ones, ”
(Radulescu 2008 :31). Communist ideology is introduced in Romania, where people
live in fear, tragedy, and poverty. People are deprived of freedom of speech and
travel. They, literates and illiterates , are forc ed to work arduously and with meager
rationalized food s, leading to hatred and love born at the same time throughout the
country , as Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity mentions, “It is precisely in times
of exhaustion that tragedy runs through houses and streets, that great love and great
hatred are born, and that the flame of knowledge flares up into the sky” ( 1987: 181).
Lucille of Train to Trieste gets to see everything she wa nts in a magic mirror that a
fairy tale has given her —her dead relatives, the people she loves in a distance and her
future. Mona is sc ared to see her future, observes her own face in he r great –
grandmother’s mirror, and wants to see the past and to envisage the people in her
family floating through the silvery glass and stretching their longing arms towards
her. She is scared of her dream about Mariana, as she explains , “I am afraid of the
dream I had about the two of us sitting on an old suitcase at night in the middle of the
street , and Mariana g rinning a toothless smile at us ” (Radulescu 2008 :31). Her great –
grandmother s aves herself from the big flood of 1918 by floating down the river
Nistru on a big wooden door and holding to her chest a silver m irror. The war in 1918
kills th ousands of young men; the flood has swallowed up muddy villages and more
lives; and famine sets in, as she adds, “Paraschiva (great -grandmother ) counts herself
among the luckiest ,” (Radulescu 2008 :34). She wants to be Paraschiva and in the
little squeaky bed in the white stone house on the side of town that is not touched by
the great flood, as she continues , “I tell him I will always love him ; I pray to my
female relatives and beg them to protect my love with Mihai,” (Radulescu 2008 :31).
She wants to be the luckiest and the happiest girl on the earth and has true love with
Mihai, as Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader point out Black Mary’s love
and affection that:
I was on the 4th instant at St. Pancras Church made the happiest girl on earth,
in being united to the beloved being in whom I have long centred all my
affections. Mr. Pringle gave me away, and Black Mary, who had treated

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herself with a complete new suit upon the occasion , went on the coach box, to
see her dear Missie and Biographer wed… ( 1995: 351).
“I am curious; why is it that you need to perform such routine checks? ” (Radulescu
2008 :68). Due to communist ideology, mistrust and class -structured society trigger
among the people in that society, where people are under rountine checks to find out
enemies , who are treated by the right wing, as Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity
raises, “There is a kind of politics implicit in the critical position I take in these
essays, a populist, even anarchist stance based on an impatience with all distinctions
of kind created on the analogy of class -structured society” ( 1987: 132). Comparing to
British mis sionaries to India, the British missionize India t o improve their natives and
continue supervising Indian people’s activities, as Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial
Studies Reader write :
The opening of India to missionaries, along with the commitment of the
British to native improvement, might appear to suggest a victory for the
missionaries, encouraging them perhaps to anticipate official support for their
Envangelizing mission. But if th ey had such hopes, they were to be dismayed
by the continuing checks on their activities, which grew impossibly stringent
(1995: 431).
Mona falls in love with Mihai, and her father gets involved in secret a ctivities in the
same year . She has no boyfriend an d does not know Mihai before, as she clarifies,
“I’m not supposed to have a boyfriend because you never know,” (Radulescu
2008 :68). Mihai is thought to be a detective in socialism from Mona herself, her
friends and neighbors in Brasov. It is late at night, she walks a distance from her
father, feeling like a detective following her, with her heart pounding crazily out of
her chest. Radu from Train to Trieste asks her, “Do you get it now? Why Mihai was
not there for you the morning you l eft? A detective reached the end of an
investigation,” (Radulescu 2008 :381). Her father, a university professor , hides an old
Zinger typewriter at home, which is not allowed under socialism, as Manea of The
Hooligan’s Return delineates , “After state ownership of space came the most
extraordinary of all socialist innovations —state ownership of time, a decisive step
toward state ownership of human beings themselves, given that time was virtually
their sole remaining possession ” (2003: 157). Romanian policemen are notorious for

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their stupidity and illiteracy and perform their routine checks at his house, as they say,
“We’re checking to see if you own a typewriter. It’s just a routine check,” (Radulescu
2008 :68). He clenches his jaws with anger and his eyes flash. He waits a momen t and
drags on his cigarette, trying to control his fury, as he asks “Why do you need to
perform such routine checks?” (Radulescu 2008 :69). Some countries are generally
peaceful even under colonialism; some are col onized bloodily and viciously by the
colonizers; and some are not colonized but they are more vicious and bloody, as
Kelertas of Baltic Postcolonialism gives the example :
Some areas —the Middle East and China —were not colonized, but were more
affected by colonialism than many countries that were. Some countries —
Ghana, Nigeria or Senegal —were relatively swift and generally peaceful, but
others —Algeria, Kenya, Mozambique or Vietnam —were protecte d, vicious,
and blo ody (2006: 28).
“I beg late Paraschiva and Nadia to help me through my gnawing uncertainties, to
help me make sure Mihai is brave and honest and not a traitor, ” (Radulescu
2008 :82). God help s everyone who helps themselves . Discovery of truth or faith is
through behaviors or activities done by that person. Individual s and time get involved
in the discovery of the truth, starting from self -examin ation to momentous
renunciations . Discovery of truth is conceived of as decadenc e, as Calinescu of Five
Faces of Modernity writes :
Decadence is felt, with intensity unknown before, as a unique crisis; and, as
time is running short, it becomes of ultimate importance to do, without
waiting any longer, what one has to do for one’s own an d one’s fellow man’s
Salvation. In the perspective of the rapidly approaching end of the world
every single instant can be decisive. The consciousness of decadence brings
about restlessness and a need for self -examination, for agonizing
commit ments and mom entous renunciation s (1987: 154).
She i s so worried about her love for Mihai, who is suspected of being detective by the
village, where in Mihai and her relatives are living . She really needs others to say that
Mihai is honest to her and not a secret police. Words are sometimes the promises that
never become true, as Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader extract Lee Tzu
Pheng’s poetry that:

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words are only wind
childre n of the mind
give nothing if nothing
is accepted (1995: 473).
She gets back to Bucharest and is filled with sadness of having just separated from
Mihai, her mother ’s strange mood, and con spiratorial and unusual calm, as her
mother tells her that , “My father hasn’t come home for three days,” (Radulescu
2008 :75). She wonders as if her father is one amongst those who have taken away by
the Securitate , jolting her out of her love dreaminess. Her g reat-grandmother,
grandmother , aunts and great -aunts li ve for love and die instantly. They see their
houses turning to dust by American or Russian bombs , but they are still not afraid of
Nazis or Soviets, as Mona ask s herself, “Are we like them?” (Radulescu 2008 :75).
Soviet Russia does not recogn ize itself as a colonial empire but just as Soviet
Imperialism, except the US during the Cold War. This is due to the neglect of
Postcolonial Studies scholars to Soviet Russia and East -Central European countries,
which are colonized by Soviet Russia , and many Russian bombs are dropped on , as
Andreescu of Are We All Postcolonialists Now? points out, “It is argued that a little
attention has been paid by Postcolonial Studies scholars to Soviet Russia and its East –
Central European satellites, for Soviet Russia or the USSR is not construed as an
empire, but only refers to Soviet Imperialism, except the US during the Cold War”
(2011: 58). She is not sure about Mihai, whether he is a detective or a traitor, but she
still loves him. Love makes her inconsiderate and blind, as she argue s, “I would still
love him even if he were a traitor,” (Radulescu 2008 :82). Her mother is worried about
Mihai , who is her dau ghter’s lover and thinks in her husband’s mi ssing Mihai may be
involved , as she asks her daughter , “Did you tell anyone? Are you sure about him?”
(Radulescu 2008 :81). Mona gets furious and shouts , “One of who?” (Radulescu
2008 :81). Her father miraculously returns the next day, grubby, dirty and tired, with a
wild expression in his eyes, bruise on his cheek directly under his right eye, and
limping. He recounts feveri shly what happened to him that Petrescu, an interrogator,
his former student at the univers ity, turns out and starts recou nting a funny story from
the thesis on the influences of French symbolism on Romanian poets. After
discussing and making some threats, he continues , “Let him go,” (Radulescu
2008 :83). This time Mona’s father is freed from the secret police by his former

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student and cannot possibly trust or count on his protection for ever, as he is inv olving
in writing anti -government manifestos and throwing them around the university
square. He thinks of going to be a luck from his former student. Mona, however,
thinks : “Her father could be killed in his great idealism of overturning the
government,” (Radulescu 2008 :84). The people, in the colonized country like
Romania, live in fear, poverty and routine checks through the acts of colonial
occupation, which not only change the cultural, political and social elements, but also
eliminate the ecologies and tradition , as Ashcroft et al of Key Concepts in
Postcolonial Studies cite:
Ecological Imperialism is used to deal with the envi ronments of colonized
societies, where have been physically transmuted by the acts of colonial
occupation; the term not only changed the cultural, political and social
structures of colonized societies, but also destroyed colonial ecologies and
traditional subsistence patterns ( 1998: 76).
“Mihai and Mona will be happy despite everything ,” (Radulescu 2008 :99).
Happiness is possible despite arduous and starvation situations in communist
countries, where everyone is a detective. Only time restricts one’s happi ness, for
which everyone —the poor and the rich —is waiting. It is made and destroyed by
people, as Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity illustrates , “Des Esseintes’s most
refined pleasure is perhaps to find out that nature can sometimes obey the arbitrary
orders of human fantasy” ( 1987: 172). Mona is pleased with her peachy satin dress,
which is for the New Year’s Eve party , along with slow music . She , at midnight, feels
Mihai’s hand firmly on her back, and they kiss and kiss, standing in the middle of the
room. They profess their true love, as they certify , “We will always love each other,
won’t we? Yes, always,” (Radulescu 2008 :99). They romanticize jokes, all kinds of
jokes —political jokes about Ceausescu, obs cene jokes about the national folk hero
(Bula) and Bula’s grandmothe r, hanging from a beam after the earthquake. They get
along well at the New Year’s Eve and have so much hope that somehow things will
get better and that “everything will be beautiful and fragrant like the crystalline
winter air smelling of snow and sprinkled with stars,” (Radulescu 2008 :99).
Cambodian New Year, traditionally, lasts three days in April each year —from the
13rd to the 15th or the 14th to the 16th of April. It is the time of family reunion, with
some traditional activities —games, dancing, and praying in temples. On the 13rd to

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15th of April 1975, however, the Khmer Rouges attack throughout the country, with
hand grenades and bombs, and kill all Lon Nol’s soldiers and the people, as Seng of
The Pride We Paid cites, “On April 13, 1975, it was the first day of Cambodian New
Year. However, we didn’t celebrate as we had done traditionally in the past”
(2005: 10). Mihai, however, gets furious with talking about l eaving the country , away
from his friends and other people, as he ask s, “Who the hell is going to live here if
everybody’s leaving ?” (Radulescu 2008 :100). They move away from everybody and
go to Mihai’s room , where they hear the sharp whistle of a train leavin g the station
for Trieste with the long plaintive whistle. Mihai is frustrated, his wide forehead
crossed by a long deep furrow and says, “You’ll leave me one day, won’t you?”
(Radulescu 2008 :100). They hold each other’s hands and look into each other ’s eyes
like those wh o have gone through everything, as Mona firmly says , “No, I’ll never
leave you, ” (Radulescu 2008 :100). They danc e lightlier than before that New Year ’s
Eve and want everything to become true, as Mona continues, “But it wouldn’t b e
make -believe, if you believed in me,” (Radulescu 2008 :98).
“I feel fearful, sad, mad and heart -broken ” (Radulescu 2008 :116). Love makes
people blind and sometimes creates barriers to life. It makes people think negatively
and differently , for they create hatred of life in themselve s. In addition to hatred of
life, Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity magnifies :
Decadence, in its hatred of life, masquerades as admiration of a higher life,
and, because of its mastery in the art of seduction, it is able to make weakness
look like force, exhaustion like fulfillment, cowardice like courage. Decadence
is dangerous because it always disguises itselt as its opposite ( 1987: 180).
On New Year’s Day, Mona and Mihai pay a visit to Radu, Mi hai’s clos est friend,
who winks at her, slaps Mihai on the back and says Happy New Year to them . After
visiting the hill behind the house and his apartment, she is being followed by a
shadow on the way to her aunt’s house. The shadow is a scrawny dark -haired woman
with thin lips and a very long mouth. She is standing very close to her with a breath
on her face and grabs her arm with a tight grip. She looks straight into her eyes and
tells her through her teeth, with r age and yet with a tone of pity, as she says, “He’s
secret police, you stupid girl! Stay away from him” (Radulescu 2008 :104). Mona is
biting her lip and scratching her palm to make sure she is awake. She feels that she is

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in a nightmare, struggling to be awake and screaming in the frozen New Yea r’s night.
Arriving at her aunt’s house, s he rushes to her sleep in a nightmare of Mihai sliting
her throat just after having love. He takes a beautifully crafted knife, with a long
sparkling blade, dips it in snow , and says , “I have to do this my love for your own
good” (Radulescu 2008 :105). Cambodian boys and girls, culturally, are allowed to
play traditional games or dances toget her during New Year time or other religious
ceremonies but are not allowed to have sex before getting marriage. Girls must be
heartfully loyal to their future husbands , as Seng of The Price We Paid delineates, “In
Cambodian culture, a good girl s hould have pure heart. It means she sho uld not have
a boyfriend or sex before marriage” (2005: 10). Mona, on the grey morning, goes out
for a walk around the neighborhood and runs into Christina, her neighborhood friend.
At the sight of her, Christina greets her with a warm, innocent smile. They spend the
morning walking through the centre of town, talking , laughing , and shopping.
Christina, then, starts tal king about Mihai, love, sex and looks down her pastry, as she
says, “Be careful, be very careful, you can’t trust anyone” (Radulescu 2008 :109).
Again and again hearing Mihai, a secret police, makes Mo na worried and mixed with
tears, as Christina add s, “Forget it; you are in love; I am happy for you when is the
wedding?” (Radulescu 2008 :111). They are in suspicion of Mihai, a secret police, as
Mona certifie s, “I am her closest friend, of course I am among the suspect ones as
well” (Radulescu 2008 :112).
“Everything becomes twisted, broken, double between the painful confusion of not
knowing who he is and the impossible love I h ave for him ” (Radulescu 2008 :114).
Confusion is m ade up of unsolvable things . One is unable to distinguish fact from
fiction. Confusion is caused by others and one ownself, as Calinescu of Five Faces of
Modernity explains, “The sense of unsolvable uncertainty is constantly reinforced by
the narrator’s hesitations and self -conscious inconsistencies, blamed among others on
amnesia, confusion, and inability to separate ‘fact’ from ‘fiction’ ” (1987: 309). She
becomes more f uriou s with her lovemaking, closes her eyes and bites hard into his
flesh, pretending to be Mata Hari, seducing for secrets. Mata Hari, a secret pol ice,
seduces people for secrets, as Mona declare s, “I am like the men Mata Hari used to
seduce for secrets” (Radu lescu 2008 :114). She tries to recount what memory s he has
about Mihai. Every time he mentions her father, courses her father was teaching and
book s her father was working on, asking “Is he still such an anti -Communist?”

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(Radulescu 2008 :114). These recounts arouse her confusion as to whether he is a spy .
She tries to guess from his eyes as if there is a question from Mihai. She never tells
the truth of her father to him, as she prove s, “He’s a dusty, crazy old man, lost in his
books about dea d old languages” (Radulescu 2008 :115). She is still in suspicion of
Mihai as a secret police and trying to discover the truth by asking Mihai that , “What
you think of Mata Hari ?” (Radulescu 2008 :115). He looks at her with big surprised
eyes and thinks that she is drunk or hallucinating. He wonders wh y there is such
question , as he asks her, “Who do you think you are? You think you’re so important
some Mata Hari would bother to seduce something out of you? What kind of secrets
would you have? ” (Radulescu 2008 :115). She is in thought of losing her mind in a
major way that she has become incapable of distinguishing between fantasy and
reality. She wants to beat and kill the suspicions and the fear, to keep their love in its
glowing cocoon of mists , and to s pread it with sparkling blue snow , as she says, “I
want to protect it from the mean woman shrieking in the night, to protect it from the
menacing shadow of Mata Hari in her shiny silky dress” (Radulescu 2008 :116). She
finally feels free from the torment of love, fear, suspicion and fascination when she
goes back t o the capital, where her university is located, as she continue s, “I’ll be the
free mare running wild in a white field, without any fir trees blocking my way, just
the white field ” (Radulescu 2008 :116).
“Mihai is not worthy of you. You’re so young. You’ll find someone much better and
more worthy of you ” (Radulescu 2008 :127). True love, practically, does not involve
much in being poor or rich, an d old and young. It depends on whether the couple
really love and understand each other. Others, however, criticize the couple in a way
that a man is much older than a woman or on who is poorer or richer . As for the age,
the old and the young are conceived of as the antique and the modern consec utively,
as Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity points out the idea of Baudelaire about
modernism in his book that , “Modernity ceases to be a given condition and the idea
that, for better or worse, the moderns have no choice and cannot help being moderns
is no longe r valid” ( 1987: 50). She does not wait for the exam, grueling oral written
tests; she gets on the train to her aunt’s house in Brasov the very next day. She finds
Mihai in a strange mood, distant and malicious , sitting in his worn -out chair and then
throws herself onto his bed. She feels sweaty and exhausted after three hours in the
train, in the hot compartment. She stays calm and silent until Mihai breaks the silence

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asking , “What’s all this studying like a maniac and getting yourself into this sta te?”
(Radulescu 2008 :123). She feels desperate and angry, throws out all word s in her
mind to him and gets up leaving , but he holds and kisses her and chang es into his
tender, loving mood in a flash. After making love, they fall int o another conversation
of being concerned about a long distance between them, one in Brasov and the other
in Bucharest. She is a un iversity student, attractive to other male students. He lives in
Brasov , where there are many girls, who are so a ttractive to men, as he comments ,
“Damn distance between us, what if he meets another girl, there are other women in
the world” (Radulescu 2008 :124). She gets furious and acts some bad behaviors to
him, turning over the full as htray over th e bed, carpet , and clothes . As she gets out of
his room, she tells him , “He’s a cheat, a fucking informer, a traitor, and a rat”
(Radulescu 2008 :125). She walks to her aunt’s house, sad and heartbr oken . Her aunt
tells her the European history, including Romanian history , as she says, “Between the
third and the twelfth centuries almost nothing is known about our people. We were
just a bunch of barbarians fighting with other barbarians, there’s nothing worth
mentioning about Romanians ” (Radulescu 2008 :126). She continues , “Forget him”
(Radulescu 2008 :126). She ref ers to Mihai, who is unworthy of Mona, who is so
young, a university student and can find a better one. Ten days later she is going for a
walk in the neighborhood, encounters Mihai and approaches him, but her hea rt is
about to explode into pieces. S he tries to look calm and thinks he is the first one to
give in, to hold her , and to kiss her. She is heartbroken as she stays away for some
time, as she asks him, “Why didn’t you call me? Would you have called me if we
hadn’t met today?” (Radulescu 2008 :128). During the Dark Age s in Camb odia,
dating and lovemaking are banned before marriage , which is organized by the Angkar
(organization) in groups. Boys and girls have no chance to know each other before
the marriage. On the wedding day, authorities call name s of a boy and a girl to be
husband and wife, and then the couple is committe d to Angkar with producing
children . The Angkar kills or imprisons all couples who disagree with it. No parents,
relatives, and friends are invited to the wedding, and t here is also no wedding party ,
as Seng of The Price We Paid illustrates:
This was so ridiculous to me. They got married for produci ng children —not
for love. I felt sorry for all brides because they didn’t have a chance to get to

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know the men who they would spend their entire lives with. They already lost
their freedom and then their c ourtship and now their marriage (2005: 145).
“How did I end up lucky enough loving a man who may be secret police and is
cheating on me? ” (Radulescu 2008 :135). Time makes the couple confused and
realized about behaviors and attitudes they both have. When complexity is not
tackled, they think of dec eption in their love affairs. The spirit of decadence is
considered as decept ion, as Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity writes:
To be fully aware of this complexity, one has to realize first to what an extent
the spirit of decadence is deceptive, that it tries to pursue its destructive work
under the most reassuring and healthy appearances. For Nietzsche, the strategy
of decadence is typically that of the liar who deceives by imitating truth and by
making his lies even more credible that truth itself (1987: 180).
Suspicious relationship s of Mihai with Anca and Cristina and Cristina’s death fall
into Mihai again. Anca, Cristina and Mihai study engineering at the same unive rsity
in the outskirt s of the city . The term ‘secret police or spy’ is being used by Cristina
and the neig hbours for Mihai. As he meets Cristina and Anca, his eye contact shows
intimacy. Mona not ices their eye contacts and thinks they are secretly in love, as she
fantasizes about, “Mihai sleeping one day with Cristina, one day with Anca, or maybe
both of them at the same time,” (Radulescu 2008 :133). Cambodia between 1975 and
1979 is known as a huge killing field due to the ‘Faceless Angkar’ with the Eyes of
Pineapple. A spy is not known amongst a group . Something hidden or whispered is
known by the Angkar, as Sokhamm Uce of Sunset in Paradise cites:
The Roumdoh people still lived under abject p overty and mute despair, not to
include chronic and inherent fear of this so -called “Faceless Angkar” with the
Eyes of the Pineapple that could see everything and everywhere and probe
into every thought and conscience (2010: 141).
She ha s a fight with Anca , resulting from her hurting feeling , by pulling Anca’s long
black an d lanky hair with all her might, as Anca certifies , “Now that’s a good idea.
We might want to try that sometime” (Radulescu 2008 :133). Mihai pulls them apart
and asks Mona to calm down and trust him. Her head is hurting so badly and feels in
a crack. She wants to run away, as she continue s, “I don’t understand anything and

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don’t trust anyone” (Radulescu 2008 :134). She wakes up in a swirl of rage and
mistrust and wants to take revenge, to kill him right after lovemaking, and to call him
a traitor , as she argues, “I want Mihai to scream in pain” (Radulescu 2008 :134).
Cristina is found dead in her bed at the age of twenty. Simona, Cristina’s sister, asks
to have an autopsy performed . Mihai thinks Cristina poisoned herself . Mona thinks
the death may get involv ed her Tunisian lover, a dark curly hair handsome man at the
grave (Cristina ’s suspected lover ), the two suspected security guards , or the secret
police . She wonders that if she poisons herself , what w as that she took? She
overdoses sleeping pills. All causes are hidden , as Mona ask s, “How does one wake
up dead from unknown causes at the age of twenty?” (Radulescu 2008 :136). The
evening on Cristina’s funeral day, Mihai gives Mona a call. They both go out for a
walk. He tells her he has a job as engineer in Buch arest, where he wants to work and
stay close to her. She feels release d from her suspicion of cheating and being a spy, as
she add s, “Mihai woul d never betray me. I have just been paranoid about him
cheating on me and being secret police because of the overall atmosphere of mistrust”
(Radulescu 2008 :141). Mistrust, according to noble truth of the Buddha, is caused by
desires —the desire to take rev enge, the desire to take advantage from others, the
desire to compete others, and so on. The sufferings are also caused by the desires. To
end the sufferings is to cease the desires, as Evans of Cambodia Insight points out
eightfold path to end the desires that:
The way to cease the desire is to follow eightfold path: (1) right belief (2)
right intent (3) right speech (4) right conduct (5) right endeavor or livelihood
(6) right effort (7) right mindfulness (8) right meditation ( 2010: 8).
“My happiness is soon tinged with fear and nausea ” (Radulescu 2008 :143).
Romanticism is a cause of happiness or vice ver sa. The couple roma nticize
temporarily due to their beauty, which does not stay lon ger than the age, and the
happiness becomes less and less, as Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity defines the
term ‘romanticism’ that , “Romanticism is the most recent, the most contemporary
expression of beauty and that there are many kinds of beauty as there are habitual
ways of seeking happiness” ( 1987: 46). Mona arrives first in Bucharest to start her
first year at the university, majoring in English literature. Mihai arrives later to start
his new job as an engineer in Bucharest. Sergeant Dumitriu, the secret police officer,
who buys Mona the red carnations, want s to meet her alone in the university square ,

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where he wants her to be a spy, who collects some information on colleagues at the
university, as he continues, “You would be doing us a great service and your country
and Party. Just paying attention to what some of your colleagues might say”
(Radulescu 2008 :144). Everyone in socialism is a spy, even a friend or a relative. The
people live in fear and panic due to eav esdroppers, who report to the communist
party . They are unconscious of eavesdroppers, who can be relat ives, friends, and
neighbors, as Manea of The Hooligan’s Return cites, “The trembling got worse, and
so did the panic and the cold and the gloom and the terror around him; the messages
became rarer, constrained, fearful, and ever conscious of eaves droppers” (2003: 31).
Cambodians, comparatively, live in fear, terror, panic, and despair due to the Faceless
Angkar with the Eyes of Pineapple. Millions of people are killed by the Faceless
Angkar, as Sokhamm Uce of Sunset in Paradise points out, “Faceless Angkar with
the Eyes of Pineapple could see everything and everywhere and prove into every
thought and conscience” ( 2010: 141). She hears some colleagues say ing at the
American library and remembers her conversation with Ralph the librarian, the man
in a black blazer sitting at the f araway table pretending to read, who offers her a job
as a spy, but she refuses , for she wants to teach, not to work at the American library
after graduation, as she explains, “I want to teach English” (Radulescu 2008 :145).
Returning home late after studying at the library, she is trapped by a tall man chasing
behind. He is wearing the same cologne as Dumitriu does the other day. He p ushes
her against the wall, and she gets so scared. She gets suddenly angry with everybody,
including her father and Mihai. Her father gets involved in manifestos, Radio Free
Europe, and meetings about censorship. Mihai may be a good secret police like her
father’s former studen t. There may be a few nobles among them who actually work to
undermine the bad ones, as she says, “Everybody has some stake in something that
I’m not interested in” (Radulescu 2008 :147).
“It’s getting dangerous for you here, ” (Radulescu 2008 :153). Better and safer life
should be easily found in socialist European countries . Instead, Europe is in fear,
danger, and starvation due to socialist ideology. Intellectuals are treated worse than
illiterates, as Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity explains how people live in
socialist and Maxist count ries like this:
Socialist and state idolaters of Europe with their measures for making life
better and safer might easily establish in Europe… Europe is sick but owes

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the utmost gratitude to her incurability and to the eternal changes in her
affliction: th ese constantly new conditions…have finally generated an
intellectual irritability that amounts to genius and is i n any case the mother of
genius (1987: 182).
Comparatively, what occurs in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979 is getting worse
and worse than what happens in Socialist European countries. All intellectuals are
viewed as enemies, who are prone to die . Most of them are city dwellers, as
Sokhamm Uce of Sunset in Paradise mentions, “More than 85 percent of the Khmer
intellectuals were murdered in the Aut ogenocide” ( 2010: 10). It is past eight o’clock
in the evening ; Mona’s father has not come home from work in Ploiesti Institute,
where he has been demoted from his position at the University of Bucharest, where
sixty kilometers from Bucharest is. She and he r mother are afraid of being absence of
her father. One evening her father comes home looking defeated, disheveled, and
teary. His colleague from comparative literature department has been demoted to
teach high school, as her father says, “I’m supposed to be lucky” (Radulescu
2008 :152). One evening it is cold and rainy. Her father appears at the door, soaking
wet and looking like a fugitive. He tells Mona’s mother to pack a bag of clothes for
him. Her uncle is coming to drive him to his relatives in the cou ntryside (northern
Carpathians), where his relatives hide him in a basement or in a stable with cows,
pigs, and hens laying eggs. In the same evening , Liliana, the wife of her father’s
friend (psychiatrist) , comes and gets soaked. She says three generals i n Ceausescu’s
government have been executed. All illegal activities are hidden, as she adds,
“Everybody who is suspected of any illegal activities is being hunted down”
(Radulescu 2008 :155). Similarly, Seng’s father, during the Khmer Rouge regime, i s
questioned by the Khmer Rouge authorities about his light skin, appearance, and
personality. He is suspected of being the former Lon Nol’s soldier. He, in the matter
of fact, is a former Lon Nol’s soldier, but he tries to hide it to the authorities or he
gets killed. He reveals that he is a taxi dirver, who earns not enough money to support
his family, but the authorities still get suspicious, as Seng of The Price We Paid
points out, “Your light skin, your soft hands and feet show that you didn’t work hard
as you claim” ( 2005: 28). This rainy November night in the apartment of Mona’s
parents , as her father is going off to hide in the heart of the mountain, as she starts
fantasizing abo ut ways of escaping: by sea, river, train, plane, walking, swimming,

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riding, or crawling across the border. She is puzzled and detached from the huge
irony of Mihai moving to Bucharest and just about thinking of leaving the country.
She wants to love, live , study , and be something important. She wants to run away,
and she also wants to be with Mihai. Her heart is cracking again under the weight of
such impossible choices. At the same time she is fin ding a place to hide from Mihai,
as she says, “I find refug e again thinking of Mihai. Soon he’ll be here, living in
Bucharest. But even that comforting thought seems poisoned by doubts and worry ”
(Radulescu 2008 :159). Leaving the home -country is to survive. She leaves the
homeland due to political reason s: the commu nist system and personal reason, staying
away from her boyfriend. She and her family are suppressed and starved , and they are
under surveillance by the secret police , as Campbell et al of Romanian Migration in a
Runaway World cite:
The main reasons fo r migration are unemployment, low salary in the
homeland, political reasons —especially during the communist system in
Romania, professional motives —working in companies abroad with high
technology, personal motives —marriage, and others —job opportunities fo r
higher skilled workers (2007: 101).
“This is a sad, sad winter, ” (Radulescu 2008 :164). A person is naturally born with
happiness and sadness. They both take turn in a human being’s life. They are
associated with the heart of reasons but no knowledge, as Calinescu of Five Faces of
Modernity illustrates in his book about the post -modern Western scientific mind like,
“In the field of psychology, post -Modern Western scientific mind was verifying by
observation Pascal’s intuition that the ‘Heart’ has its reasons, of which the reason has
no knowledge” ( 1987: 134). A cycle of life is birth, old, sickness, and death. It is a
part of life; no one is inevitable. Most Khmers believe in the four noble truth s of the
Buddha. One of them by Evans of Cambodia Insight says, “All sentient beings suffer;
birth, death, and other separations are inescapably part of life” ( 2010: 8). ‘Pleas e help
me God’ is often used when someone is in trouble. The Khmer Rouges, however, use
‘God’ to penetrate terror into the peo ple’s hearts, minds, and souls to trust Angkar —
the Organization consisting of Comrade Pol Pot, Comrade Noun Chea, Comrade I eng
Sary, Comrade Khiev Samphan, Comrade Son Sen, Comrade Ta Mok, Comrade Ke
Pauk, Comrade Thiounn Prasith, and other idiotic comrades —or they are execut ed by
default, as Sokhamm Uce of Sunset in Paradise cites, “The Khmer Rouge’s deified

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god had struck terror into the hearts, minds, and souls of its sacrificial and immolated
victims by default like the sun -god ‘Tezcatlipoca’ of old” (2010: 144). She also gives
one example of a frog, caught in a leafy bush with crushed back bones, saying
Erhb…!, Erh b…!, Erhb…! I t seems to connote, “Please help me -God, the devil, or
mankind, for I’m dying in excruciating pain with heart -ending despair” ( Sokhamm
Uce 2010: 144). The frog , like the people in Khmer Rouge regime , cannot take any
revenge for its fatal wound and seek for justice to its victimized species . It has no
sharp fangs, venom , or claws to save itself from predators, as Sokhamm Uce of Sunet
in Paradise adds, “I (frog) can’t take revenge for my fatal wound and proclaim justice
for my victimized species because the omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient
almighty created us creatures unequally; I have no sharp fangs, venoms, nor claws to
rend my predator’s fles h and brain” ( 2010: 145). Mihai keeps his promise, moving to
Bucharest to work. He works as a n engineer at the dreary margin of the city, in a
tractor factory. He lives in a rented room in another part of the city, close to where
Mona’s great -aunt Nadia falls dead on the floor. He is not satisfied with the room due
to cracks on the walls, the creaky staircase, bed, and door. He is not interested in
working in that ugly factory, as he continue s, “I am really trying, you know, I’m
trying very hard…for you r sake. But I don’t know how you can live in this city”
(Radulescu 2008 :165). He feels so sad in a feeling of being far away from Mona and
of resigning from his job at the tractor factory. He lights a cigarette, wraps himself in
the blue smoke, and stares at the ceiling with anguished expression. By mid -February,
he resigns from his job at the tractor factory and i s back in his beloved mountains, as
he de scribes , “I am suffocating. There are things, things I am worried about, things I
have to do. It’s better i f I am away from this city” (Radulescu 2008 :166). The capital
city is crowded with people , who walk back and forth from work. The city looks old
with old buildings, ugly road s, old cars and buses, and exhausted people, who get
bored with too much work, old things, and unfresh air, as Manea of The Hooligan’s
Return cites, “The city appears old, tired, and apathetic” ( 2003: 258). Mona, one
evening, takes two streetcars and two buses to find the tractor factory. She waits for
him at the tall metal gate of the entrance as his shift pours out. He finally sees her
through the shimmering lace of snowflakes. He is angry to see her there and
grudgingly kisses her in the swirl of snow outside the metal gat e. They go back to
Mihai’s room. He grabs Mo na’s head almost with violence and kisses her on the lips
the way he has done so many times in their most inebriating moments: slowly,

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deliberately, pres sing his lips hard against hers, as she says, “Mihai truly does love
me like crazy” (Radulescu 2008 :166).
“Things will only get worse, ” (Radulescu 2008 :173). In the c ommunist regime,
everything even people ’s souls belong to the par ty. They have no private work and
leisure. Whatever they do is under surveillance by the secret police , killing their time
and privacy, as Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity defines, “Kitsch appears as an
easy way of ‘killing time,’ as a pleasurable escape from the banality of both work and
leisure; the fun of kitsch is just the other side of terrible and incomprehensible
boredom ” (1987: 248). Ownership is forbidden during the Khmer Rouge regime. The
people are not allowed to l abor their own fruit, vegetable, or plantation . The people,
their souls, buildings, rice fields, times, and spaces are owned by the Angkar. Suicide
viewed as a crime belongs to the Angkar, as Sokhamm Uce of Sunset in Paradise
delineates, “But that wasn’t the only private ownership these chattels had t o abolish;
Angkar still needed to possess their souls as well ” (2010: 129). After circling the
block where Mihai lives before in an agony of nost algia as grey and opaque as thhat
February ’s dusk, Mona sees a shadow across the street and with hands in his po ckets.
She has the feeling that this shadow is watching her. Once in a while she sees Sergean
Dumitriu in a crowd, on a bus like before. She runs into him when she goes to her
university cou rses, as she says, “You might as well look respectable when you are
following and informing on people” (Radulescu 2008 :170). One afternoon as she is
walking home from her classes, she sees Anc a Serban meeting Mihnea, her father’s
friend (psychiatrist) , in front of the ruins of the building where they used to sell cream
puffs before. The old building is surrounded by scaffolding for reconstruction; the
pavement is always more crowded with passersby and construction workers. Anca
gives a square package in brown paper to Mihnea, who works in the hospital where
the secret police throw all those suspect ed of political crimes. Mona tries to make
herself unnoticed on the pavement across the street by t urning towards the florist in
the corner and buying a bou quet of hyacinths, as she wonders, “It is probably why
they are meeting there, to be less conspicuous” (Radulescu 2008 :170). She runs home
knowing that even the hospital is unsafe and watched. She thinks if her father is still
involved in illegal activities and with his group of dissenting friends, then her life i s
seriously danger ous. If Mihai has the slightest connection with the secret police, then
her father’s life and her own life are even more in danger. She does not w ant to see

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this happening . She is now terrified with things may happen to her family, as her
father say s, “You have no future here, Mona” (Radulescu 2008 :173). Illegal activities
are abolished during the Khmer Rouges’ rule. The people must obey the Angkar’s
order, which requires all people to be loyal to the Angkar, to do something directed
by the Angkar, t o eat in communal kitchen, to wear black, to sleep in open places , to
be eavesdroppers, to work hard, and so on. Those who do something wrong are th e
Angkar’s enemies, who are to be killed by the Angkar, as Sokhamm Uce of Sunset in
Paradise cites, “Those who are against Angkar are against our ‘Glorious Revolution’
and must be eradicated at all cost” ( 2010: 191). He starts planning for Mona to leav e,
with no other alternatives . She cannot stand seeing things turned out. Life has become
a constant rac e. She is running from the shadow and jumping at every whisper and
footstep. She w ants to crash through it all, shoot all the secret police and finally shoot
the tyrant who invents such a network of fear. She and her parents hold hands and
wait in silence for a few minutes. Her father is making a plan for her escape, as she
says, “I’ll be leaving on the train to Trieste soon, very soon, this summer” (Radulescu
2008 :174). To escape communism is to find a better place, life, and future. The
people live under surveillance, and are starved, as Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial
Studies Reader write , “To be an exile is to be alive” ( 1995: 12).
“I feel frozen with getting back to the capital the next day, ” (Radulescu 2008 :178).
Leaving for another country, under socialism, is considered illegal. Western European
countries are colonized by Russia. One of them is Romania, where the people are
deprived of freedom of speech and travel and starved. The country is located under
the sk y of Russia, as Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity points out:
In the sky of Russia a new star has appeared, a star progressing westward,
watched now by the poor and downtrodden of every land with shining, eager
eyes… The very atmosphere is electric with impending revolution, revision
and reconstruction in all the affairs of life. The past is dead. Only the present
is reality. We dream of the future, but we may not see it yet as it will truly be
(1987: 81).
The plan to Trieste has been organized. Mona is waiting for passport to apply for a
visa. She pays the last visit to Braso v, where Mihai is living . They both go to some
places, where they went before, and sing a song as they did before. The very last day

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of August, when she is packing for the trip back to the capital ; her mother calls to tell
her she gets the red shoes, a code for passport arrival. She cannot t ell Mihai the
reason of leaving Brasov two weeks earlier th an usual, as she delineates, “My parents
made me promise that I would not say a word to anyone” (Radulescu 2008 :179). Lie
is not alwa ys bad, as it saved million s of Cambodians fr om death during the Khmer
Rouge time. They try to hide their identities of the former regime ( Lon Nol ) from
being killed, as Seng of The Price We Paid gives one exam ple of her father’s status
that, “Since my father was a former military officer, my family had to disguise our
identities so that we could live peacefully like other civilians” ( 2005: xxiii). She goes
one last time, the next morning, to Mihai’s house to say goodbye, but he is not at
home. She goes insides the room and around the building to make sure he is there or
not. She sits on the bed and look s around the room, where she has spent hundreds o f
hours of delight and torment. She does no t understand why he is not here, as he told
her to stop by in the morni ng before leaving for Bucharest, as she certifie s, “I could
sit here and wait to find out what has happened to Mihai. I could miss this train and
all the other trains and forget about escaping the country ” (Radulescu 2008 :182). She
feels disappointed with not seeing Mihai one last time. She boards the train and
watches the dark forests roll ing past. On the train, she writes Mihai a letter, her
goodby letter . She wants him to know everything he meant to her and vice vers a. As
soon as she gets off the train in Bucharest, she rushes to the first postbox in the station
to drop off the letter. She stands for a few seconds in front of the box, staring at
people parting and reuniting on many platforms. At the last seco nd she changes her
mind , adding "Nobody should know of my leaving“ (Radulescu 2008 :184).
“I’m exasperated that Biljana has to get the men’s attention and keep them there
any longer, ” (Radulescu 2008 :195). Planning to Trieste is about to occur. Mona and
her mother are packing luggage in a room where no one can peek from the outside
and in whisper , she clarifie s, “Dumitriu the secret police officer from across the street
cannot see what we are doing and what we are putting in that suitcase ” (Radulescu
2008 :185). People, including peasants, workers, teachers, engineers, account ants,
salespeople etc., and all activities, including freedom of travel, initiative, innovation,
trade, etc. in socialism are under surveillance by Watchdog or secret police , as Manea
of The Hooligan’s Return cites, “Socialism had stifled freedom of initiative and
innovation, and the trade of old, under the new dispensation, had become forced,

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stultifying labor, ‘planned’ burea ucracy. Salespeople, marketing experts, planners,
accounts —all were under constant surveillance by the Party watchdogs or the regular
police ” (2003: 213). People , in the colonized country, are forced to work for the party .
No one can make their own business or decision. Progress, critique of rationality, and
modernity are rejected, as Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity writes:
Anti-modern in its dismissal of the dogma of progress, in its critique of
rationality, in its s ense that modern civilization has brought about the loss of
something precious, the dissolution of a great integrative paradigm, the
fragmentation of what once was a mighty unity (1987: 265).
Mona boards a train to Trieste from Bucharest one afternoon in Se ptember. She
thinks of Mihai, sitting with her on the top of the mountain, reminiscing the echoes in
the forests. She finds herself alone on the train crossing the mountains toward s the
distant border and int o the world, as she says, “Maybe I am carrying Mihai’s child
right now on this ride, and I will take it with me into the wide world” (Radulescu
2008 :187). The train stops at a rural station in Jimbolia, the border city with
Yugoslavia, where she gets off and looks for Biljana, her father’s former stude nt. It is
midnight she cannot see Biljana in the station, where they promise to meet. She, then,
realizes she does not turn back and keeps going and going. She, suddenly, feels a
touch on the back. Biljana appears with a ticket to Belgrade, as she asks, “D o you
have your passport?” (Radulescu 2008 :191). Mona shows the passport, and they both
walk to the train to Belgrade. They get on the train, sitting face to face. She, suddenly,
hears foreign language of customs officer and conductor. All luggage and suitcases
are under check. Luckily, her 100 USD note is not found because of a scream coming
from outside through the window , making them inattentive to what is kept in the coat .
The customs o fficers canno t find her money hidden in her coat. If the note has been
found, s he is sent back and put in jail, as she argue s, “If authorities find it, I will be
put in prison” (Radulescu 2008 :192). Cambodia, contrarily, is isolated from the world
by the Pol Pot, who t urns the country into agrarian society, where money and market
are not in operation. All people are eq ual: no rich and no poor but starved, as Tully of
A Short History of Cambodia mentions, “Pol Pot believed Cambodia’s transformation
would be so swift that there would be no need for transitional mechanism such as
money and markets” ( 2005: 180). She wants the Serbian conductor to stay away from
her as soon as possible , but Biljana asks the con ductor some questions to prolong the

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stay, as she explains, “The man answers something back in a hurry and they all go
away, dropping my coat on the bench next to me” (Radulescu 2008 :195).
“It is different once you get there….They are a democratic country, ” (Radulescu
2008 :202). Moving from Communist country to democratic country is to seek a better
life and freedom. Time is irreversible, but time links the past to the present and to the
future. The past is worse; the present is ins table; and the future is in a dream, as
Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity writes:
At the dawn of modernity the myth of progress emerged, based on a
secularized concept of linear and irreversible time. During its progressive
phase, modernity managed to preserve some of the older quality of time, and
in the first place the sense of continuity between the past, the present, and the
future. The idea of progress postulates that change has a certain pattern, that it
presupposes a certain order that favor a constant and gradual develop ment
from the inferior to the superio r (1987: 246).
Mona is in a plan to Italy, where she wants to seek for political asylum. She contacts
her friend in Belgrade to help her to Trieste, where is near the border in Italy . She is
given a lift by a car driver, who takes her to Italy, where she stays with his friend, as
Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader cite, “Displacement involves the
invention of new forms of subjectivities, of pleasure, of intensities, of relat ionship,
which also implies the continuous renewal of a critical work that looks carefully and
intensively at the very system of values to which one refers in fabricating the tools of
resistance” ( 1995: 216). Migration, without a plan and a contact with a n ew land, does
not exist. A thorough plan and a good contact have been made before the migration
begins, and it takes a long time and some steps, as Campbell et al of Romanian
Migration in a Runaway World point out, “Immigration takes some necessary steps:
critical plan and contact with the new land” ( 2007: 101). Belgrade is a city in
Yugoslavia, where Mona is going to meet Biljana. She, along the way to Belgrade ,
dream s of yearning to be with Mihai in the Carpathians, crossing Belgrade in a taxi,
with the woman who is helping them to exile forever ; of fitting herself in bed in
Bucharest apartment, hearing her mother’s typing on the forbid den typewriter about
swans and snows ; and of her father’s comi ng in and telling her about the article which
he is working on. She wakes up, knowing that she has fallen asleep in the taxi , in

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front a white building and says, “I see my face in the rear -view mirror as I step out of
the taxi, swollen ” (Radulescu 2008 :198). She stays in Biljana’s apartment, in a
bedroom with a large party of people, talking about politics and laughing. She passes
in and out of sleep because they act as if she is not there in the bed. She, then, sees
Mihai holding and whispering in her ear and tucking her hair behind the ear and
kissing it. He tells her he always loves her and asks her to meet him in an hour, at a
place she cannot remember. She, then, realizes Biljana, sitting next to her offering
some cold water. She thinks she is still on a tourist trip in Belgrade until her visa
expires and goes back to Romania, but she refuses , “Noth ing is irreversible”
(Radulescu 2008 :199).
She and Biljana, the following morning, go to Serbian authorities, who she has her
passport stamped. They go to a building with many offices that looks like the police
building in Bucharest. Biljana asks her to go to a room where there is a scrawny little
man who looks stern and angry. She signals her to gi ve the man the envelope with
one-hundred -dollar bill. He stamp s her passport in several places and hands in it back
to her. Mona still does not understand how she gets into Italy without Italian visa. She
walks for a while and asks Biljana what to do next. Biljana explains that she can leave
Yugoslavia for Italy with the exit visa. When she gets to Trieste, there are two
checkpoints, one on t he Yugoslavia side for the exit and the other for entering Italy.
She can hide in a toilet or jump off before the tra in stops; a lot of people do it, as
Biljana point s out, “You have to find a way” (Radulescu 2008 :203). Cambodians,
contrarily, are not allowed to leave the country, and foreigners are not allowed to
leave and enter into Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime . The country is
isolated from the outside world, but has a seat in the United Nations, as Khamboly et
al of A History of Democratic Kampuchea 1975 -1979 express, “The Khmer Rouge
isolated the country from the outside world; they did not allow any foreigners into the
country and no Cambodians were allowed to leave ” (2007: 17).
Mona and Biljana are on their way to railway station, where Mona boards the train to
Trieste. She arr ives at the railway station and watches cars passing by with Italian
license plates. She changes her mind not to take the train, but to take a car. Biljana
asks her to try the cars passing by. In a few seconds she hitchhikes a car, a yellow
Fiat, in which a man around fifty is on the wheel. His car is very small and already
filled wi th luggage. She embrace s Biljana and sees tears in her eyes with sadness. She

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goes in the cabin with the driver who accelerates through Belgrade towards the
highway that takes them to Trieste, as she says , “This is how I begin to learn Italian: I
add o’s t o Romanian words” (Radulescu 2008 :206). Transportation, however, is
eradicated during the Khmer Rouge regime. The people commute to work and from
work, and are forced to overwork. Leisure activities are not allowed at all, as
Khamboly et al of A History of Democratic Kampuchea 1975 -1979 write, “There was
no public or private transportation, no private property, and no non -revolutionary
entertainment; leisure activities were severely restricted” ( 2007: 2). Mario, the driver,
starts the conversation . He talks about his wife, who changes her mind at the last
minute , and offers a sandwich which is made by his wife, who is supposed to come
with him. They reach the Italian border at dawn. Mona hears Italian voices and turns
to watch Mario, taking out two passports and handing them to the border officer, as
she prove s, “In my semiconscious state I remember Mario telling me that his wife had
changed her mind at the last minute; he must still have both passports; I have to pass
as his w ife” (Radulescu 2008 :207). Sudden ly she hears and feels something new,
something she does not re member before. This must be what freedom feels like. She
has no comparison and metap hor to describe this freedom, as Mario say s, “We are in
Italy” (Radulescu 2008 :208).
“You must ask for political asylum and then go to America, ” (Radulescu 2008 :211).
Wish cannot be fulfilled by one, who is ambiguous about materialism and
opportunism . They are waiting for the chances to come and want to be civilize d in a
modern -developed country, as Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity points out:
Belief in progress can be an incentive to postponement of consumption. But
the alliance between modernity and progress turned out to be only temporary,
and in our age the myth of progress appears to have be en largely exhausted. It
has been replaced by the myth of modernity itself. The future has become
almost as unreal and empty as the past. The widespread sense of instability
and discontinuity makes instant enjoyment about the only reasonable thing t o
strive for (1987: 247).
After many hours traveling, Mona arrives at Mario’s house in Trieste, Italy. She
spends the next two weeks at Mario’s house before going to Rome to ask for political
asylum to America. She is, at the house, fed with minestrone soup by the host, which

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she has not had for about more tha n one year. She feels energetic after being so tired
and disoriented. She remembers delicious foods and fruit s that Mihai has fed her in
the forests, bring ing her in a new wave of tears. For two weeks in Trieste, in the
house of Luciana, Letizia, and Mario, she has meals and sleeps in a regular rhythm,
trying to convince her self not to think what to do next, just to think of being on a
vacation. The morning , she first enters Trieste in the yellow Fiat at dawn, with her
mind somewhere on the cusp between unspeakable fatigue and dizzying excitement.
She thinks Trieste is an improvised city, small buildings built in a rush at the frontier
with Yugoslavia to welcome refugees. It hurts her to discover that it is a beautiful
city, where she kn ows her journey cannot end here, as Mario tells her, “I had to
restart my life, live somewhere, go to school, find work, meet people, make money,
make friends, get an identity card, start fresh on the virgin shore after being tossed
about on the crest of a wave ” (Radulescu 2008 :211). A nightmare is put to an end on
7 January, 1979 by th e war between Vietnamese troops who enter Phnom Penh and
the Khmer Rouge soldiers, leaving the country in catastrophic conditions —unstable
economic, political and social conditions. Famine is spread throughout the country,
and hundred thousands of people flee the country to the camps, s et up near
Cambodia n-Thai border, as Pasch of Cambodia 1975 -2005: Journey through the
Night writes :
The Vietnamese troops who entered Phnom Penh on 7 January 1979 put an
end to a nightmare, yet Cambodia was still far removed from stable political,
economic and social conditions. The country was in a cat astrophic condition.
Famine spread, and 300,000 people fled to refugee camps along the border
between Cambodia and Thailand, or were forced ther e by the retreating
Khmer Rouge (2006: 31).
The reason for politi cal asylum in another country is to survive, to live in a better
condition, and to find a good future, for in home -country people are starved, tortured,
persecuted, imprisoned , and executed due to political, economic and social matters , as
Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader point out, “To be an exile is to be alive”
(1995: 12). Rome is a place, where Mona is going to apply for political asylu m.
Mario’ s friend (Vittorio) and his wife (Marina) in Rome are going to help her to se e
the authorities and put her in their house in a suburb of Rome until getting a n answer.
Mario and Luciana see her off at the railway station with a little bag of new clothes

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and some sandwiches. They wave at her from the train platform as the train pulls out.
She sticks her head out of the train window and wave s at them until they look like
three colored specks in the twilight envelop ing the Trieste railway statio n, as she
whispers to herself , “All I wanted when I left my country was to escape the secret
police and make sure I had at least two borders between me a nd all that madness”
(Radulescu 2008 :211).
“I start sweating, and I feel terribly tired. It all seems e ndless, tedious and
indefinite, ” (Radulescu 2008 :222). Mona, in her transitional period in Italy, gets
exhausted with taking care of Vittorio and Marina’s daughter and going shopping.
She is waiting for freedom to come to stay away from this job. Concernin g with
freedom, Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity expresses, “Only the word freedom
can still fill me with enthusiasm; I consider it suited to keep the old human fanaticism
upright for an indefinite time yet to come” ( 1987: 111). Vittorio and Marina, Mario
and Luciana’s Roman friends, are handsome couple with a six -year-old daughter,
Roxana. After a short introduction, Mona feels lost and embarrassed not to
understand a six -year-old. Sh e finds out that she is going to take care of Roxana while
her parents at work and go shopping. She tells herself she is lucky to have found all
these people, both in Trieste and Rome. They lodge, feed and help her out as if she i s
the wandering prince from a sto ry her mother once reads to her, as the story says,
“The prince ss would knock on some door, and the people would put her up and feed
her and send h er on the way again” (Radulescu 2008 :219). Mona’s thought of Roxana
becomes true as she takes care of her , taking her to school, straightening out the
house, and going shopping. One month later in Rome, Vittorio tells Mona to go to the
Italian authorities to declare her status as a political asylum to another country, for
political asylum is unaccepted in Italy, as he prove s, “They don’t want any more
immigrants in Italy ” (Radulescu 2008 :220). Besides family network and wedding,
migration to the third country requires sponsorship from that country, where
immigrants seek for political asylum. They have to wait for their sponsors, who lodge
them and find jobs for them, as P ortes & Rumbaut of Immigrant America: A Portrait
cite:
Migratory movements are generally caused by the existence of prior links
between sending and receiving countries, colonialism, political influence,

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trade, investment, cultural ties, family network, or interpersonal relationships
(1990: 224-230).
Mona and Vi ttorio, the next morning, stand in front of the Colosseum, at the parks,
piazzas, fountains , and statues. They, then, go to the police and refugee agency,
where all authorities are serious and speak in low tones. Mona is required to fill out
the form, expl aining why she flees from her country. She is worried about many
things —living in America without knowing a soul, wh at to do there, who to feed her,
as she continue s, “Who is even going to give me a piece of bread over there”
(Radulescu 2008 :222). She is much worried about her future, for she has no any
relatives in the United States, where she is supposed to live for the rest of her life. She
feels dismayed with the past when the society is in chaos, as Ashcroft et al of
Postcolonial Studies Reader write, “We are made to feel a sense of exile by our
inadequacy and our irrelevance of function in a society whose past we can’t alter, and
whose future is always beyond us” ( 1995: 12). She is being interviewed by a woman,
with glasses on a chain around her neck, in a small tidy room. The interview deals
with her personal data, relatives in America and the state. Every refugee has to have a
sponsor, who takes responsibility of the refugee until the refugee can get started and
take ca re of herself, as the interviewer tells her that , “They have to find a sponsor for
me in America,” (Radulescu 2008 :223). Mona now becomes a political refugee, on
the way to America, but the whole process can take several months. Vittorio is
waiting outside the interview room, l ooks tired and asleep. He asks her to go back
home or somewhere for the rest of the afternoon. She tells him she wants to have her
hair cut. She now becomes a new person. In the hairdresser ’s she watches the hair
falling down on the floor, imagines this ha ir Mihai buries his face and tucks it behind
her ear with a tender gesture during their moments of passion . She remembers the
dream of Mihai , slitting her throat and then turning into a wild white mare, as she
says, “Better to have your hair cut t han your throat cut” (Radulescu 2008 :225).
As she waits for the refugee organization to find her a sponsor and tell her when her
immigration papers are ready, she becomes attached to her daily routine with Roxana,
Vittorio and Marina. She sees her Romanian past in her mind, all its passions and
fears, all the people and sounds , and smells and tastes being wrapped up in cellophane
like a package, as she illustrate s, “I see my Romanian past as I saw Trieste that first
morning, wavering upside down in the shimmering m irror of the canals” (Radulescu

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2008 :225). One day she gets the news from the agency that they have found a sponsor
in Chicago, a nice older couple, and she has a week before her flight. She starts
sweating and feels frightened about her future in Chicago. She th inks of people in
Trieste and Rome; they are helpful, friendly , and open -minded. She realizes she can
never repay all these people, who help her, put her up and feed her for the simple
pleasure. She knows they do not expect her to repay them either, but they are sad
about her leaving. While holding Roxana, she hugs Marina and Vitt orio one more
time at the airport before leaving. Roxana is crying and tells her she wants to visit her
in Chicago. Mona is n ow in a line for security check, as she says, “A woman in
uniform who looks like airport police pushes me ahead and bark s at me to hurry up”
(Radulescu 2008 :231).
“I’m filled with hatred for Gladys, ” (Radulescu 2008 :241). Ron (husband) and
Gladys (wife) both in their fifties sponsor Mona to Chicago, America. Ron works in
an insurance company, and Gladys works as a volunteer in a church. She walks from
door to door to spread good news and the leaflets of Jesus Christ in humiliation to
people in Chicago . Mona discovers that they s ponsor her through their church and
realizes she work s as a charity for Gladys and Ron. At the party they talk about
insurance business, church and weather, and at McDonald’s th ey talk about
mountains of food in America. Meanwhile, she thinks of the past time in Romani a
people are starving, and food is being rationalized monthly, as she certifie s, “People
are dying of starvation in the street of Bucharest and they even kill each other for
food” (Radulescu 2008 :238). Totall y estimated 3.3 million of Cambodians have
passed away during the Dark Age s between 1975 and 1979. The estimated 1.7 million
of Cambodian intellectuals, including teachers, soldiers, engineers, and scholars are
executed by the Khmer Rouges, and the rest die of overwork, to rture, starvation, and
disease , as Khamboly et al of a History of Democratic Kampuchea 1975 -1979
describe a painful life of Um Saret (a 57 -year-old woman) during Pol Pot’s time that:
In 1976, being unable to withstand hunger, my father caught tadpoles for
food. He thought that they were small fish. One day, a Khmer Rouge cadre
killed a poisonous snake and place d it on the fence. Though he knew that it
was poisonous, he still ate that snake, which killed him. My sister and her
children died of starvation. My own family was in the same condition. We
had done a lot of farming, but never had enough rice to eat. Bein g too hungry,

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I picked wild arum as food. After eat ing all of us became very itchy
(2007: 28).
When talking about food , a quick memory crosses her mind like a fl ash—eating bread
and tomatoes together , kissing her warmly, the feel of his hands on her back , and
dancing in his arms at the New Year’s Eve party. She gets scared when Gladys and
Ron ask her to convert to their religion and accept Jesus Christ in her life, as the
teaching of Jesus Christ says , “Abortion is murder, and black people and Jewish
people are the Antichrist and corrupting the country with drugs and abortio n and
homosexuality” (Radulescu 2008 :239). She gets embarrassed at being with Gladys,
who people close their doors in her face. When she gets experienced in these matters,
she thinks of R ome, where the refugee ag ency is looking for refugee s’ sponsors . She
wonders if the organization in Rome has any idea of what kind of sponsors they are
finding for , as she continues, “I want to write to them to watch out for the nice
couples, to make sure refugees do not end up in scary religious groups instead of
being properly sponsored, just being given a bowl of soup an d a bed to sleep in”
(Radulescu 2008 :241). One day when Gladys is out in her car doing her volunteer
work, she leaves the house and walk s to the station, where the Chicago train stops.
She buys a round -trip ticket to Chicago, reaching the Loop among gigantic buildings,
where many different colors in different dresses in one place, dancing around the
globe, showing all the races living in h armony. She supposes it represents a
communist utopia, where everyone lives together in harmony and peace under the red
flag of the communist part . In Romania people dis criminate the black and gypsies, as
she explains, “Most people cursed the black students, too, because they were even
darker than the gypsies” (Radulescu 2008 :243). Being an exile is not required to stay
at one place forever. She thinks that staying with her sponsors is not in a good
opportunity to find job . She is not satisfied with the way her sponsors treat her, as
Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader write :
The pleasure and paradox of my own exile is that I belong wherever I am. My
role, it seems, has rather to do with time and chang e than with the geography
of circumstances; and yet there is always an acre of ground in the New World
which keeps growing echoes in my head. I can only hope that these echoes do
not di e before my work come to an end (1995: 17).

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She notices a sign ‘Help Wan ted,’ in front of the drugstore, after walking many hours,
with no money in hands. She goes insides and asks for help. The manager, Rhonda,
comes out and takes her to the back room for the interview. She, eventually, gets a
job as a cashier at the drug store. The following da y, while Ron and Gladys are out on
their work, she is leaving for a new place, where is near the drugstore, with some
thankful and grateful notes. She tells them she has found a job and an apartment in
Chicago. At the last minute before going out the door, she turns back and adds to the
notes that , “I am grateful for what they have done for me, for sponsoring me to come
to America,” (Radulescu 2008 :247). In relation to decadence, even truth or error,
fiction or lie, it has its own value to some extent. People black or white also have
their own values and purposes of life, as Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity thinks
that it is t he conflict in modern culture c ites:
…finds in life itself the purpose of life which it is denied from the outside.
This life by its nature is increment, enrichment, development towards
fulfillment and power, towards a force and beauty following from itself… It is
only the original fact of life which provides meaning and meas ure, positive or
negative value (1987: 185).
“I want to be and do something that would make all my travails in America
worthwhile, ” (Radulescu 2008 :253). It is the first winter since Mona has arrived in
Chicago. It is freezing, and her feet get frostbite. She has a tooth abscess, insulting in
swollen face. She writhes in pain for three days until the abscess bursts open. She,
then, has a dead tooth in her mouth. She studies all day to complete her university
degree and switches her work as a cashier at the drugstore to the evening shift. In and
out by trains and buses to the university, she experiences life in Chicago, comparing
to life in Italy; she misses the wide avenues of Rome, its special light, the pine trees,
and the espresso coffee in narrow bars, as she adds, “I don’t miss my country at all,
only Italy” (Radulescu 2008 :251). The past reminds the present and shapes for a
better future. The junky antiques and the experience result in nostalgia of the past, as
Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity mentions:
The horrendous old curiosities are on sale in the increasingly numerous
nostalgia shops —rotten boots, broken cart wheels, porcelain night -pots,
unwieldy rusty bathtubs of two or three generations ago, and innumerable

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other shabby and junky antiques, which many people enjoy as poetic relics
from the b etter world of our grandfathers (1987: 236).
She always visits the financial aid office to fill out application for scholarship. She is
a refugee from Romania, which is a socialist country, where people are being sta rved
and persecuted. She has nothing except her transcript, bag and some pictur es, as she
describe s, “No money, just my bag and this book of my grades from the universit y
and some pictures” (Radulescu 2008 :252). After showing the transcript to the dean,
she recei ves scholarship for her studies, as the dean tells her , “It is very good ; we are
glad to have you,” (Radulescu 2008 :253). After knowing this, her father does not
believe her. He is so proud that all his Romanian grades mean so much in America, as
he argue s, “Look how good Romanian education is ! What a pity these bastards have
fucked up our country like this” (Radulescu 2008 :253). Mona likes being with
Rhonda and Marta, and making fun of the customers while having lunch together in
the little supply room in the back of the store. She, however, does not like her job in
the drugstore any more. She wants to move on to do something extraordinary —
writing a play and becoming a professor after her graduation. Before going to bed at
night, it is dawn in Roma nia; she sometimes wants to call Mihai to explain to him
about her leaving without saying a word. She is in doubt and says, “What if he is cold
and distant on the phone, which would be worse than not ever hear ing his voice
again” (Radulescu 2008 :253). A few years into her American life, her dream while
watching ‘The Master and Margarita’ in a Bucharest theatre becomes true, in which
she wants to study lighting and sound system . She now pursues gradua te studies in a
theatre at a sumptuous university by Lake Michigan. She can do anything, incl uding
creating shimmering world on a stage, dialogue and movement, u niverses of feeling
and gesture in violet a nd yellow hues, fade in and out, sound of storm , dripping water,
ringing telephon e, a crying baby, and a mewing cat, as she elaborat es, “With every
new thing I learn, I am telling myself that it was all worth it; I am making it count”
(Radulescu 2008 :268). She looks exhausted and busy, for she studies and works at the
same time, want ing to make her life worthwile in America, especially to her sponsors,
as Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader illustrate the exile d man of colonial
orientation that , “For each exile has not only got to prove his worth to the others, he
has to win th e approv al of the Headquarters, meaning in the case of the West Indian
writer, England… ” (1995: 13).

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“I feel so naïve and ignorant about so many other things and embarrassed now to
be lucky in America, with its recent history of atrocities ” (Radulescu 2008 :261).
Summer takes turn the winter in Chicago, where dizzying humid heat, music
pounding in the street s, car alarming, and white yachts lining up along Lake Shore
Drive. She gives up the job at the drugstore and is taking summer classes at day time,
but at night time she teaches English to refugees f rom Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam,
as she delineate s, “I get a job in Uptown teaching English to refugees from
Cambodia , Laos, and Vietnam” (Radulescu 2008 :259). Many people all over the
world want to live i n the United States of America, but they need to know E nglish for
communication and work. Consequently, immigrants need to study English language
for work, school, and naturalization or they cannot find jobs easily or become
American citizens. More than half of the world’s population is bilingual, as Bialystok
et al of Trends in Cognitive Sciences: Bilingualism write :
Generally, it is believed that more than half of the world’s population is
bilingual —USA and Canada, approximately 20% of the po pulation speaking
a language at home other than English, rising in urban areas up to about 60%
in Los Angeles and 50% in Toronto; bilingualism in Europe existing of about
56% of the population across all European Union countries. Bilingualism,
therefore, m ake up a signif icant portion of the population (2012: 240).
She is told about stories from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. She finds out
Cambodia’s situations in Pol Pot’s time are worse than Romania and other countries,
including Laos and Vietnam. Pol Pot turns Cambodia into dark ages and kills over
one million people , and the country is completely destroyed. City dwellers are
evacuated from the city to work in the fields . Villagers are forced to move fro m one
to another village. They are famine , starved and sick . Soldiers treat their own people
as enemies and kill them without any judgment , as she testifie s, “Pol Pot’s soldiers
would cut out the hearts of people caught trying to escape through the jungle, actually
rip the hearts of live people out of the ir chests ” (Radulescu 2008 :262).
Rememberab ly, European countries, under Stalin or Hitler, are in genocidal policies,
in whic h millions of people are exterminate d, as Calinescu of Five Faces of
Modernity points out, “The European s, the monstrous consequences of modern
utopianism in the Soviet Union or of countermodern tribalism in the Third Reich in
Germany cannot and should not be ignored” ( 1987: 277). One day she visits Marta

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and Rhonda in the drugstore and goes further to Water Tower Place, wher e she has
her face made up for free by a seller. The seller starts cleaning her face with cotton
balls before many othe r things . It reminds her of Mihai’s face and movement after
making love, as she point s out, “Mihai’s languorous face, the way he always looked
at me after we made love, with strands of black hair falling over his forehead and the
glitter of a smile in his eyes” (Radulescu 2008 :265). Having sex, however, is not
allowed before getting married in Cambodia. Marriage, traditionally in Cambo dia, is
arranged between two agreed sides —groom and his parents and bride and her parents ,
and the groom and the bride know each other . Marriage in the Khmer Rouge time is
set up by the Angkar . Couples never know each other before. Group marriage is
organized, and the newly -wed couples are threatened to have sex to produce more
children for the Angkar or they get punished or killed, as Lobato of Forced
Pregnancy during the Khmer Rouge Regime cites, “Newl y-wed couples were usually
compelled to have sex and consummate their marriages under the threat of
punishment” ( 2016: P1).
She meets Tom (Tom McElroy) few years into American life at the library’s
circulation desk, as she is borrowing Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. They
get to know each other since then. At the new students’ party, she dances hours with
Tom for the firs t time ever since her arrival in America. While dancing, she imagines
the dance with Mihai on Ne w Year’s Day at Radu’s house, where snow is falling
relentlessly outside s. She realizes she has been craving this for so long. The music
beats through her body and makes her forget her worries , as she explains, “My body
is full, alive, and Tom’s arms and chest are solid and comforting as he swings me to
the different rhythms: rock and roll, salsa, re ggae ” (Radulescu 2008 :269). Within a
month, she moves into Tom’s one-bedroom apartment in the North Side of the city.
By the end of the year, she decides to get married with Tom in spring, in the mid –
eighties. She, in her free time, discovers domestic pleasures she has never
experienced before. On the way of discovery, she recalls the past in Romania, where
everything is lacking. Famine, malnutrition and st arvation prevail in the country, and
everyone is followed by shadow s of the secret police, as she continues, “In our chase
for rationed flour and sugar, in the shadow dance with the secret police,…after
queuing for two hours: two hundred grams of cheese, a can of sardine, a kilo of
peaches.” (Radulescu 2008 :271). Pertinent to famine , maln ourishment, h ardship , and

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exhaustion in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime, pregnant women and
others are treated the same. They are the walking skeletons, with pregnancy, as
Lobato of Forced Pregnancy during the Khmer Rouge Regime gives one example of
Mrs. Om that:
After the wedding, Mrs . Om, was pregnant within a year, though her
pregnancy was at a time when she had sketchy access to food. She delivered
her son in a trench that was dug alongside this bu ilding as protection from
bombs (2016: P17) .
It is in the sixth year of her residence in America. She gets to appear for her
naturalization interview to become an American citizen. On the day for the interview,
she chooses her favorite dress and dresses beautifully. While sitting before the
immigration officer, she is in retrospection of gett ing lost in the wild green Black Sea,
on the stormy summer afternoon, bursting in tears, in front of the officer. The officer
has just asked her something from the very end of the questionnaire, about whether
she would fight in a war. It dumbfounds her for a while before answering. The war
makes her think of the two brothers across the bloody field getting lost and searching
for each other, Ivan taken as a prisoner of war and lost for twenty -five years , the
stories her father tells her when he is a nurse ’s aide in the war. She is eventually
naturali zed as a conscientious objector, as the officer says, “So, you’re a
conscientious objector. That’s what you are ” (Radulescu 2008 :277).
“I blurted out that I had a great love in Romania, when I was young, ” (Radulescu
2008 :278). History is a perio dical record of the past events and also created by
memory, which is irreducible in a human’s life. Mona, born in Romania and lived
more than ten years, has a lot of memories. She has a great love from her parents,
relatives, friend s, and especially her boyfriend, as Calinescu of Five Faces of
Modernity considers history (memory) as “an irreducible enemy of life” ( 1987: 51). A
couple of years after marriage, Tom becomes more distant and irritable with her . He
starts treating her as a roommate instead of his wife. One day while he is reading
books for his forthcoming PhD orals, she goes over to kiss him , but he pushes her
away and says he has a lot of work to do. She sits in an armchair to calm down and
gives Tom some time for getting better. She, mean while, misses those first month
with Tom: laughing, listening to blues and squeaky Irish songs, chopping up

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vegetables, and talking about the glories of Russian literature and avant -garde theatre.
Situations, then, get wor se and worse. Nothing fits any more, as she continues,
“Everything is a r eason for a quarrel” (Radulescu 2008 :279). She wants to go
somewhere and to someone, but no one can help her. She occasionally dreams of
Mihai , sitting back to back in front of her aunt’s house, sleeping next to her in the
world of two, and waking up with nothing next to her. As getting up, Tom says Good
morning ‘honey’ to her making her dull. She experiences something like a sudden
fall, a dull thump in her consciousness, bringing w ith it a dull sadne ss, a dull sense of
foreignness, as she expresse s, “Everything is dull like a wed ding without dancing”
(Radulescu 2008 :280). Weddings organized by the Khmer Rouges are dramatically
different from the traditional weddings, which require b oth sides —groom’s side and
the bride’s side —to organize the wedding ceremony, which requires some activities
to be prepared, including traditional clothes, dancing, music, and party. During the
Khmer Rouge time, traditional costume s and all activit ies are forbidden . Relatives
and friends of both sides are not invited to the wedding ceremony, as Langis et al of
Like Ghost Changes Body: Forced Marriage under the Khmer Rouge Regime
delineate :
Family members were not allowed to attend the wedding and were not
consulted in marriage arrangements or matches. Traditional clothes, dancing,
singing and religious ceremony were prohibited. Couples were married in the
typical Khmer Rouge costume of black uniform and tire sandals (2014: 28).
Tom gets furious, as she remin ds him of her great love in Romania. He reacts
immediately when hearing this, as he blurts, “You should just go back to t hat love in
Romania” (Radulescu 2008 :278). Love is natural to human beings, who carry love
with their cultures. Comparison of love cannot be made from one culture to another.
In this matter, she compares her love in Romania with her love in America, ending up
with separation, as Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader interpret, “After all ,
people love and die in every culture” ( 1995: 63).
“I feel sorry for Tom as I watch him pacing around the room like a tiger in a cage ”
(Radulescu 2008 :294). It is summer when Mona’s confusion strikes worse than ever.
Escalating quarrel makes her lonely and disappointed, as her lover, Janusz, from
Belgrade, works as a construction worker , on the other side of Chicago. She often

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visits him and makes love with him. She is conceived with out realizing the father of
the bab y, Tom or Janusz. She is expecting this experience as she is on the train to
Trieste from Bucharest , listening to the crying of the baby and watching her sucking
at her mother’s breast. Tom get s angry as he realizes his w ife become pregnant with
other man. He cannot blame her, for he does not have enough time for her. She
decides not to get abortion even though it is in quarrel with Tom. It is not so hard
time either, for her parents are here with her. She remembers Marta’ s words, “A child
is a child” (Radulescu 2008 :295). However, women , who are found guilty of
abortion, during Pol Pot’s regime, are killed by the Angkar. They have constant fear
at the atmosphere of forced sex and of extremely dire living conditions, as Langis et
al of Like Ghost Changes Body: Forced Marriage during the K hmer Rouge Regime
point out one of women that :
We had nothing to eat, so I did not want children but what else could I do? If I
wanted to have an abortion, how could I do it? I was worried that Angkar
would find out, and there was no doctor, no medicine fo r birth control. I knew
we would have children if we had sex but I didn’t know what to do. I have
three children with him (2014: 80).
She cannot blame the child either, for it is a consequence of her acts. She also
remembers the words told by Vincenzo, an I talian man whose wife has died the year
before, “Even if your husband finds you naked and making love with another man, do
not ever, but ever, ever admit it. Don’t ever admit you’ve cheated on him. This is my
advice to you for your future” (Radulescu 2008 :293). She considers herself as a great
person or prince to Tom, who cannot live without her. She does not expect the
consequences of her actions, as an Englishman expects how much consequence of
using pe rsonal pronounc e ‘I,’ as Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader
interpret :
A remarkable peculiarity is that they ( the English ) always write the personal
pronounce ‘I’ with a capital letter. May we not consider this Great ‘I’ as an
unintended proof how much an Englishman thinks of his own con sequence?
(1995: 29).
Sin results from dishonesty and misbehaviors of the lovers. It is either from the boy or
the girl or both. The beauty is viewed as a sin of sloth, as Calinescu of Five Faces of

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Modernity cites, “An opening for the sloth and mere pleasure seeking, which becomes
dishonest when the pretext of an aesthetic response is maintained” ( 1987: 260). The
months go by; the rain comes ; and it turns cold. She feels warm, pleasantly covered in
fat. She stops see ing Janusz, even though he keeps calling her. Tom has forgiven her
that it is his fault, too. No woman goes to find her happiness elsewh ere if she is
satisfied at home, as he certifie s, “He’ll do his be st to make me happy” (Radulescu
2008 :299).
“Everything happens during one full rotation of the sun, from sunrise to sunset:
arrivals and departures, bloody sacrifices, murders, suicide and deaths, political
upheavals, love ” (Radulescu 2008 :315). Ioanid et al (2004 ) write communist regime
in Romania, in the decades following W orld War II, that Romania is ruled
powerfully, autocratically, and oppressively by dictators, including Nicolae
Ceausescu. A way of thinking gets involved in the past marking the present , and the
present positing a better future. The past is dark; revolution way of thinking at the
present is taken into account for a bright future, as Calinescu of Five Faces of
Modernity writes:
To speak of the immediate past —the past that naturally structures the
prese nt—as dark and at the same time posit the certain ty of a luminous
future —even if it be the revival of a previous Golden age —involves a
revolutionary way of thinking, for which we would try in vain to find
coherent p recedents before the Renaissance (1987: 21).
It is early on Christmas Day; Mo na is desperately hoping to find a store for some
stuff. As she walks a little further down the State Street; she stops and stands
unmoved in front of Woolworth’s, where she notices the news on the wall of
Woolworth’s a bout the President of Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu. He and his wife,
Elena, are dragged outside in the firing squad in 1989, as she elaborate s, “They are
being dragged outside into what looks like a macabre yard and made to stand in fron t
of a firing squad” (Radulescu 2008 :301). A fate of a dictator is usually sad in the end.
Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife are dragged outside in front of a firing squad; Sadam
Husen is sentenced to death by hanging; Gad daffy is sentenced to death by the public;
Pol Pot dies in exile and in a jungle near Cambodian -Thai border in 1998 , as
Khamboly et al of A History of Democratic Kampuchea 1975 -1979 cite, “Pol Pot

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became prime minister of Democratic Kampuchea in 1976 and resigned in 1979, but
remained an active leader of the Khme r Rouge; he lived in exile, mainly in Thailand,
until his death on April 15, 1998; his body was cremated on April 17, 1998 ” (2007: 6).
She thinks nothing remains stable or the same as she walks back home with a huge
belly, feeling the baby kick, a stubborn jolt of her life. Her heart feels as if it is about
to explode, after another replay of the execution, hearing the term ‘Brasov.’ She
imagines, as walking back home, Mihai walks carelessly, recklessly, among bullets,
and only he is the one being shot at in the street in Brasov, as she says, “I hold on to
my pregnant belly, searching for balance. I can think only of Mihai” (Radulescu
2008 :303). A few days before giving birth to her baby, she gets lost in her dream in a
district of factories in Bucharest, where Mihai works before. She sees no people in the
streets. Earthquake falls down some buildings, where maybe Mihai is under the
crushed buildings. She is terrif ied and wakes up in soak of fluid. She realizes starting
to give birth, but still stays in bed until the next morning, as she explain s, “My water
has broken” (Radulescu 2008 :304). She gives birth to a baby successfully and safely.
Her father, hoping for a girl, is surprised with a boy. Everyone loves the baby boy,
who is Andrei, given by his mother. She relieves all the pains and is pleased with the
boy, as she continues, “ I have a plump, perfect boy, greedy for life and for my milk.
A whole new destiny is bursting into the world” ( Radulescu 2008 :305).
Comparatively, a pregnant woman, under Khmer Rouge regime, feels dismayed with
a forced pregnancy, in which s he carries her big belly, gruel ing work, morning
sickness, and malnutrition, as Lobato of Forced Pregnancy during the Khmer Rouge
Regime argue s:
It was about three or four months into my pregnancy, I was ordered to collect
cow dung to use as fertilizers in the rice fields. And they would weigh the
cow dung that I collect, and if there was not enough, then I would be
criticized. And, due to morning sickness, I could not eat well. I became very
emaciated and I was criticized very often during the meetings that I was
actually pretending to be sick. And I was forced to carry dirt again . And I
couldn’t eat soup. I only ate rice with some pieces of salt,… I would be
scolded by the unit’s chief that I was psychologically sick ( 2016: P17) .
A few years after the Romanian Revolution of 1989, Miruna, Mona’s cousin, arrives
in Chicago. On the way back from the airport, Mona asks Tom to drive to the zoo,

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even though Miruna does not want, expressing through her eyes. She wants to ask
Miruna a hund red questions about Romania, particularly Mihai. Unfortunately, she
cannot ask many questions, for she and Miruna are busy talking with another
Romanian woman, who also visits the zoo. On the way back to the car, Miruna
whispers to her of Mihai ’s death . Mo na feels shocked and sad immediately, as she
confirm s, “I will never be able to see Mihai again. Not ever again , as long as I live”
(Radulescu 2008 :315). Destiny confines a life as in Mona and Mihai. They are born
in Romania, but they live in different pla ces for the rest of their lives. Mona, even she
lives in America faces many personal problems along the way, never forgets Mihai.
They both have no contact since the departure of Mona to Trieste . Being an exile to a
new world is hard, as Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader mention, “For
better or for worse, each of us was born into an ethnocentrically sealed world”
(1995: 65). The world has been colonized at different time and then becomes the
postcolonial world. More people across Eurasia, Africa and the Americas have
formed and reformed, conquered and been conquered, moved and dissolved, as
Kelertas of Baltic Postcolonialism points out, “No a single square meter of inhabit ed
land on this planet has not been, at one time or another, colonized and t hen becomes
postcolonial ” (2006: 13).
“Everything is so unfinished ” (Radulescu 2008 :318). A person is born with many
problems that she does not know. When those problems happen, she cannot avoid
even she does not want to hear or see. It seems to be a continuous sense trembling her
ear and body at the same time, as Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader cite,
“There is no auditory sensation —I don’t hallucinate; yet it is like sensing a
continuous, changing tremor with one’s ear and one’s whole body at the same time. It
seems very matter of fact, yet I do not know the name of the sense with which I
perceive it” ( 1995: 397). One after another, Mona seems to obsess uncertain mind of
Mihai’s death, which prevents her from moving forward. It seems to be an enemy of
fighting against revolutionary way of thinking, as Calinescu of Five Faces of
Mode rnity , concerning with the idea o f a bitter struggle, points out, “The idea that
there is a bitter struggle to be fought against an enemy symbolizing the forces of
stagnation, the tyranny of the past, the old forms and ways of thinking, which
tradition imposes on us like fetters to keep us from moving forward” ( 1987: 121). A
month after Miruna’s arrival and the news of Mihai’s death, Mona falls into

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nightmares and dr eary fantasies —finding her self in the Piazza dell’Unita d’Italia in
Trieste for being beheaded publicly, shaking and thinking of Andrei with out mother,
seeing Mihai one of the executioners, finding herself pregnancy positive, seeking for
divorce, and moving to a new house. At the piazza , the executioner standing with his
back to her is Mihai, smiling with clean shaven, waiting for the moment. She asks
Mihai if it is he who kills Ceausescu . He nods his head and says, “This is what we do
with enemies of the country, all traitors and enemies, we kill them all, but we have
prepared this special feast for you, because you a re special, my love” (Radulescu
2008 :317). She wakes up and goe s to check as if Andrei awake , for she is afraid of
him waking up with his mother being beheaded, as she wonder s, “What they will tell
him about me when he wakes up and asks for me” (Radulescu 2008 :316). After
getting up from nightmare , she feels a wave of nausea and recognizable dizziness.
She gets dressed in a hurry and goes to the Walgreens in the neighborhood to get a
pregnancy test, finding out the test pos itive. She thinks further to live in harmony and
happiness with Tom, as she says, “Our family will be strong and whole; our marriage
will get better” (Radulescu 2008 :318). She feels estranged from Tom, for he starts
nagging her about a new credit card bill with purchases. She tells herself to free from
this marriage, or she suffocat es and dies. She wonders Tom asking for the bill at this
time. She is annoyed with his reque sts, resulting in a feel of getting a divorce, as she
adds, “There is no need for him to move with us to Indiana” (Radulescu 2008 :321).
Divorce and no sexual intercourse are the crimes, during the Khmer Rouge time,
which require the couples to be reeducated. After reeducation they must have sex or
they get put in prison or killed. Divorce is not allow ed at all, even though they do not
love each other, as Langis et al of Like Ghost Changes Body give one example of a
forced marriage woman that :
Chhlob (soldier) always inspected my husband and me every night. If I did
not agree to have sex with my husband, I would be sent to be reeducated, thus
I never refused my husband and just let my husband do what he wanted. The
relationship between my husband and me was not so good because my
husband was not an open man and he did not understand partnership. I lived
with him because I felt pity for my children and I did not want my children to
be orphans (2014: 83).

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She feels confused with everything disintegrating, turning muddy and mushy. She
cries in big sobs, as Tom leaves. She al so prepares leaving for Indiana, and she is
carrying Andrei as w ell as another baby in her womb , as she asks herself, “How many
women actually start a divorce when they are pregnant with their husband’s c hild”
(Radulescu 2008 :322). The summer when she is supposed to move to Indiana, where
her new house is located before she starts teaching in the au tumn. Coincidentally,
there are record floods after floods in the Midwest, leading to the earth turning mushy
and reddish, and crops, houses and vegetable gardens are floating everywhere, as she
argue s, “It seems I have brought with me the disasters my Romanian ancestors faced
at the beginning of the country ” (Radulescu 2008 :320). She now moves in the new
house in the Midwestern town, where she gives birth to Ionica, Andrei’s brother. She
is nursing her Ionica, as natural disaster hits the Midwestern tow n like it is in 1918 in
the Bessarabian town —the White Citadel. The rain drips through the roof to get the
floor flooded. The sk y becomes clear after the flood . Then, there is a call from Tom
visiting her house. Custody, according to the court motion, is g iven to Tom to take
care of Andrei. Purposively, Tom visits her to collect Andrei to Chicago. She denies
Tom’s will and says Andrei cannot go with him now until her lawyer allows him to
do it. She tells Tom, “We need to talk to our lawyers first about visitation and that
Andrei cannot go to Chicago with him right now” (Radulescu 2008 :332). Cambodia,
under Pol Pot’s rule, is turned into agrarian country, where work groups are assigned
by the Angkar, which slits up parents from their children, who are put in children
centre, where they are insti lled with Khmer Rouges’ ideology . They do not know
their parents and relatives, as Khamboly et al of a History of Democratic Kampuchea
argue :
People in Cambodia had never been collectivized in the past. But in 1976,
everyone was required to bring their private possession s, including kitchen
utensils, to be used collectively. As part of the process, Cambodian families
were split up and people were assigne d to work groups. Husbands and wives
were separated, and children we re separated from their parents (2007: 26).
Divorce proceedings are being testified by a social worker, who comes to Mona’s
house for a dinner. The report by the social worker can help her to retain custody of
her sons. Another test is being done by a psychologist, who testifies her psyche
whether or not she fits to raise her sons. After the psychological evaluation, the judge

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has finally decided to allow Andrei and Ionica to live with her and visit their father on
weekends, holidays and for half the time in the summer. Mona turns to Tom, and he
looks so sad about the court’s decision, as she prove s, “Tom seemed sad as well and
looked like the Tom I knew in our better days” (Radulescu 2008 :343). Everything
seems without end. One after another her father’s friend, a university colleague in
Bucharest, settled in Florida , is assassinated one year after her parents visiting him in
Florida. Two years after 1989 Revolution, a Roma nian professor is shot dead in a
lavatory at a Chicago university, as she argues, “ It appears that the government
actually sent some of their secret police abroad to follow people who were
denouncing the abuses taking place in Romania ” (Radulescu 2008 :348). Her father,
Miron, is not well and so weak: his heart , lung, and kidneys; all of his are slowly
melting and stopping. He sometimes does not kno w and remember what he is doing,
as she point s out, “He looks haggard and has lapses of memory. He is not s ure
whether he is in Chicago or in Bucharest” (Radulescu 2008 :349). He becomes weaker
and weaker from day to day. He keeps telling Mona not to forget visiting Romania.
He, unfortunately, has passed away in Chicago , a foreign country, not his homeland,
as she clarifies, “My father dies in his sleep, of heart failure, on a cold, wi ndy
Chicago morning” (Radulescu 2008 :354). The situation now gets worse than she is
eight or nine, when everybody in her family seems to be dying, as she says, “It’s
worse because my father died sad and confused” (Radulescu 2008 :355). The
ceremony is being organized in Chicago, where everyone, including her friends,
hectic preparing special meal for the dead. The following morning, the coffin is being
lowered into the ground. They are in grief and shocked throwing the firs t and the last
handful of earth, as she add s, “Both my father and Mihai are dead ; the two men who
most shaped my life” (Radulescu 2008 :357).
“Who told you Mihai is dead? ” (Radulescu 2008 :369). It is asked by Radu, when
Mona is trying to find out the facts behind Mihai’s death. Asked several questions,
Mona knows Mihai is still alive. She, however, does not trust in Radu, who is bein g
interrogated to prove Mihai alive. After many hours of exchanging id eas, Radu goes
in his house and brings with him a booklet, containing phone number of Mihai. He
gives his cell phone to Mona, but no one answers the calls . Mona is trying to recall
the stories twenty years ago, especially with Maria na and Anca. After ramif ication ,
she knows Mihai is not a killer. Anca falls in love with Mihai; she tries to separate

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Mona fr om Mihai by playing trick as the secret police. The fact is that Mihai pretends
to be a secret poli ce to help Mona and her father leave the country safely . Mihai,
Biljana and Anca play double game without being caught. They and Mona’s father
work in the same group, collecting information and sending out of the country, as
Radu clarifie s, “Mihai was a good man. Something of a hero, you might say”
(Radulescu 2008 :373). Three days after the meeting and three days before going back
to America, Mona and Radu are visiting Mihai’s house, where is so far with nearly
one day drive . They all luckily meet each other as desires.
3.2.2 The Hooligan’s Return
THREATS TO ROMANIAN -AMERICAN EXILES
… Marx set s out to show that the origins of alienation too must be located in
the labour process and more specifically in the capitalist labour process, in
which the producer of wealth, the proletarian, is totally dispossessed, not only
of the means of production and the products of his labour , but of his very life –
activity (Cohen 1991 :5).
“Could this be the reason I did not deem myself capable of returning to the
motherland, even for a visit? ” (Manea 2003 :12). Norman Manea is born in 1936 in
Bukovina , Romania . In 1945 he is repatriated from the Transnistria labor camp and
rediscovers food s, clothes, school s, furniture, books, and games ; he obliterates the
horror of the past —ghetto disease. He is healed, thought and determined to share with
his fellow countrymen in all the splendors of the present —the communist motherland
serving in equal portions to each of its citizens. He leaves “Jormania ” in 1986. In Ioan
Petru Culianu’s literary work, Jormania is a fictional depiction of Romania, which is
made up of two tales: (1) the Maculist Empire of the Soviet Union collaborated with
the spices of Jormania to assassinate the local dictator and his wife, founded a banana
republic style ‘democracy’ of p ornography and execution squads and (2) a fictional
review of a fictional book of memoirs by a fictional author , described the false
revolution followed by the false transition to a false democracy, as he certifi es, “The
Romania he had loved, in whose language he had been educated, had gradually
become Jormania” (Manea 2003 :14). Deletant from Ceausescu and the Securitate
identifies Romania is a communist state from 1945 to 1989 , first under Gheorghe
Gheorghiu -Dej and then under Nicolae Ceausescu. Romani an population i s terrorized

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to accept the introduction of communist legislation into Romania. Peasants of 80,000,
who oppos e the land reform of 1949, are arrested; six Greek Catholic bish ops and 600
priests, who refuse to accept union with the Roman ian Ort hodox Church in 1948, a re
imprisoned and tortured. Hundreds of miners from the Jiu Valley after their
participation in the strike of August 1977 a re deported during Ceausescu’s time
(1995: ix). Uniformity of clothing, symbolizing the conformity d uring communist
regime, i s interpreted as authoritie s and as aliens, whom people do not share their
values. Th ey are eavesdroppers adjacent to people ( Deletant 1995: xvii). People a re
tortured, starved, sleepless, terrified, trapped, alone, at the edge of death b ut not
allowed to die ( Deletant 1995: 35). Comparatively, Cambodia, between 1975 and
1979, is a huge killing farm, where 3.3 million of people are execute d in different
ways —1.7 million of intellectuals by killing, and t he rest by starvation, hardship,
overwork, torture, and d iseases , as Khamboly et al of A History of Democratic
Kampuchea argue, “Estimates of the number of people who died during Democratic
Kampuchea vary; the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (1979 -1989), which had
conducted a national survey, claimed that 3.3 million people died” ( 2007: 69). Mona
and her father (Miron) from Train to Trieste visit Florida a few years after their
arrival in America and her father’s former university colleague, who emigrates from
Romania and settles in Florida . One year after their visitation, he is assassinated at the
dinner table in front of his wife and children. Two years after 1989 Revolution, a
Romanian university professor is shot dead in a l avatory at a Chicago university, as
her father testifi es, “It was still the secret police in agony” (Radulescu 2008 :348).
Professor Ioan Petru Culianu has been assassinated by a professional killer on May
21, 1991 , in broad daylight, in one of the buildings of the University of Chicago. A
speculation made after the myste ry of the assassination has not been solved. It deals
with the relations between the young Culianu and his mentor, the famous Romanian
historian of religion Mircea Eliade , his Romanian community in Chicago, Romania’s
exiled King, his interest in parapsycho logy, and the Iron Guard connections —the
movement of extreme -right-wing nationalists, whose members are k nown as the
Legionnaires, as Manea quotes , “It was said that Culianu was on the verge of a major
reassessment of his mentor’s political past” (Manea 2003:9). Pol Pot, the absolute
dictator, introduces communist ideology of autogenocide from children to elderly,
leading to confusion and mis understand ing each other amongst parents, children and

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relatives. Taking revenge of those instilled with the communist ideology still exists
even inside or outside the country. Pol Pot, after the fall of revolution, lives in exile
near Cambodian -Thai border, fighting against the government. Assassination still
exists inside and outside the country; for instant, Haing S. Ngor, a Cambodian
American gynecologist, obstetrician, actor, author, and refugee, is shot dead on
February 25, 1996 in Los Angeles, California, the United States. The conclusion of
the murder is drawn in two ways —robbery and political re ason. The evidence has not
been proved for the political reason, and Pol Pot has not claimed for the
responsibility. Pol Pot dies on April 15, 1998 two years after the assassination
(Wikipedia, 2017, Romania). Why has Culianu migrated? He wants to stay awa y
from communism and live happily, peacefully, prosperously, with freedom of speech
and travel . He wants to live in a pleasure of exile and longevity, as Ashcroft et al of
Postcolonial Studies Reader point out “To exile is to be alive” ( 1995: 12). With this
context, Manea is threatened by an anonymous letter from Canada, with a postcard
without message , but with a crucifixion a year after the cessation of FBI protection,
which has been asked by the university to protect him. He is popular for his w riting,
which is published in the press in Romania prior to 1989 and the post -communist, as
he elaborat es, “The Romanian Communist press had honored me prior to 1989 and
the post-communist epithets” (Manea 2003 :12). The death of Culianu is concerned
with t he suspicions of Iron Guard, especially of Alexander Ron nett, Eliade’s do ctor,
and a fervent Legionnaire. In the year before his death , Culianu condemn s “[t]he
terrorist fundamentalism of the Iron Guard, as well as vilifying the Communist secret
police, Romanian communist in general, and the nationalistic trends in Romanian
culture ” (Manea 2003 :13). Additionally, a friend of Mona’s father, a university
colleague in Bucharest, settled in Florida , is assassinated one year after her parents
visiting him . Two years after 1989 Revolution, a Romanian professor is shot dead in a
lavatory at Chicago University , as Radulescu of Train to Trieste points out, “It
appears that the government actually sent some of their secret police abroad to follow
people who were denouncing the abuses taking pla ce in Romania” ( 2008: 348). Manea
is still working at the University of Chicago, where he is a professor and a writer .
There are no an y threats and no FBI protection many years after the anonymous
letter . He normally performs his duties and travels with no hesit ation, as he argu es,
“Six years went by; I had not been threatened or assassinated ” (Manea 2003 :12).
Therefore, political ideology, especially in socialist and communist countries, has

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been used to rule the countries, wher e people are instilled with communist ideology,
serving people both positively and negatively. Those who are against the p olitical
ideology are murdered or arrested. In modernism, political ideology needs to be
revolutionized, as Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity illustrates:
Practically, as a revolutionary political doctrine, it can and does promote its
own ideology, and consciously so. This i deology is supposed to oppose
bourgeois ideology, and for tactical purposes it can use whatever weapons it
may consider fit, including humanism, but certainly a new kind of humanism,
purified of all its bourgeo is and petit bourgeois elements (1987: 128).
“It is not reasonable to feel enmity toward them or to expect gifts from them ”
(Manea 2003 :17). Enmity and expectation are created by willingness, which a person
holds. Through arduous situations and dark ages, one expects o thers to help or to save
her life. After saving the life, s he expect s others to take care of her . When caring has
been ignored , she takes revenge or stays free from them, resulting from her loss of
will or resentment . This is viewed as decadence, as Calinescu of Five Faces of
Modernity defines, “Decadence is a loss of the will to live, which prompts an attitude
of revengefulness against life and which manifests itself through resentment ”
(1987: 181). Enmity and revenge should be eliminated from now on. A good person
should do the right thing s to help the people and the country, for since World War II
and the Cold War in the fifties and sixties the country has been des troyed and divided,
and million s of people have been killed due to fascism , Nazism, communism, and
racism, as Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader write :
Since 1945…an anti -ideological attitude has developed, derived both from the
experience of racism in World War II, and from the Cold War in the fifties
and sixties. In this view, ideologies —fascism, Nazism, communism, racism —
have wreaked havoc on the world, creating dis astrous divisions and conflicts
(1995: 444).
The Chicago murder coincides with the publication of Manea ’s own article about
Eliade ’s Legion naire past, in The New Republic in 1991. He has been warned by the
FBI to be cautious in his dealing with his both past and present compatriots —
Culianu, Eliade, and Sebastian (Eliade’s Jewish friend). These names have frequently
used with his American friend s in their conversations. Ioa n Petru Culianu is a

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university professor, who has been assassinated on the twenty -first of May 1991 , in
one of the buildings of the University of Chicago. Mircea Eliade is a supporter of Iron
Guard —movement of extreme -right -wing nati onalists in Romania. Mihail Sebastian
is a novel writer , who has scandal after his novel publication, in which the preface is
written by Nae Ionescu, his tutor and friend, the ideologue of the Iron Guard ,
regarding the Jew as the irreducible enemy of the Chr istian world and as one to be
excluded, resulting in attacks from all sides —Christians, Jews, liberals, and
extremists; Sebastian, therefore, in his sparkling essay, responds, “ How I Became a
Hooligan” (Manea 2003 :17). Cambodia, similarly, is known as a killing field, causing
the estimated 3.3 million of people dead between 1975 and 1979 , according to
Khamboly et al (2007 :69). Pol Pot, after the fall of revolution, lives in exile near
Cambodian -Thai border, fighting against the government and keeping the existence
of murder available inside and outside the country; for instant, Haing S. Ngor, a
Cambodian American gynecologist, obstetrician, actor, author, and refugee, is shot
dead on February 25, 1996 in Los Angeles, California, the United States (Wikipedia,
2017, Romania) . Manea continues in a sober and precise tone to reaffirm the spiritual
autonomy of Jewish suffering, tragic nerve, the dispute between a tumultuous
sensibility and a merciless critical spirit, and between intelligence at its coolest and
passion at its most u nbridled. He positions himself a dissident, not a partisan and
trusts only the individual man, as he says, “One becomes tired of oneself” (Manea
2003 :17). He recalls what his mother tells him when he is young about childish mind
games that are part of his nature. He is not indulged in what other people do and have.
It is evident he has no enemies; he can work or travel freely without any hesitation,
making him leave the ghetto, as his mother says, “We a re we and they are they”
(Manea 2003 :17). Buddhists bel ieve in four noble truths , which teach people to do
good things, right things, and not to take revenge, along with their life cycle —birth,
old, sickness, and death, as Evans of Cambodia Insight cites two of the four noble
truths as follow:
– The cause of the suffering is desire. Desire is manifested by attachment to life,
to security, to others, to being itself, etc.
– The way to cease desire is to follow the Eightfold Path: (1) right belief (2)
right intent (3) right speech (4) right conduct (5) right endeavor or livelihood
(6) right effort (7) right m indfulness (8) right meditation (2010: 8).

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“I was sweating, without apparent reason, attacked by something deep, hidden,
tortuous ” (Manea 2003 :49). Situations in the country push Manea to the e nd exit,
where he has no reason and plan for leaving. All things seem to be h urried and to be
tackled in mo ment , as Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity expresses:
Now that nothing can keep it from being engulfed, let us give up practicing
our virtues upon it, let us even mana ge to discern, in the excesses it delights
in, something e xalting, something inviting us to moderate our o utrage and
reconsider our scorn (1987: 149).
Manea is leaving Romania in 1986, from his beloved mother and home land. In
autumn 1986 before leaving he visits his mother for the last time, with a feel of
disappointment and hesitation of seeing his mother, a disable and old woman. He
dares not to tell the truth of not coming back to his mother , as he argue s, “I failed to
convince my old parents, listening to me with depressed skepti cism, that my going
away was only a temporary separation” (Manea 2003 :51). Reasonably and willingly,
he wants to stay away f rom communism and live in a better world with happiness,
prosperit y and freedom. He wants to live in a pleasure of exile and longevity, as
Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader cite, “To exile is to be alive” ( 1995: 12).
Transparence is i napplicable in communism, for the wall has ear. The people are
eavesdroppers. Everything should not be hidden even it is done with the beloved. He
tells her mother not to worry, for his journey abroad is temporary or he and his
mother are in danger, as Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader quote, “In the
imaginary text, the subject is eclipsed by his fixation on and fetishization of the other:
the self becomes a prisoner of the projected image” ( 1995: 20). Comparing to
Cambodia 1975 to 1979, people are under surveillance by Faceless Angkar, the eyes
of pineapple . Something hidden and whispered is reported to the Angkar, as
Sokhamm Uce of Sunset in Paradise illustrates:
The Roundoh people still live under abject poverty and mute despair, not to
include chronic and inherent fear of this so -called “Faceless Angkar” with the
Eyes of the Pineapple that could see everything and everywhere and prove
into every thought and conscience (2010: 141).

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Soviet Russia or the USSR is recognized as a Soviet Imperialism, not as an Empire,
except the US in the Cold War, as Andreescu o f Are We All Postcolonialists Now
cites:
Postcolon ial Studies scholars have traditionally paid little attention to Soviet
Russia and its Central and Eastern European satellites … Schwarz and Ray’s
A Companio n to Postcolonial Studies (2005) does not consider Soviet Russia
or the USSR as an empire, and only refers to Soviet Imperialism as a Co ld
War label attached by the US (2011: 58).
Russia in 20th century recognizes only old capitalist empire —England, Germany,
France, Spain, Holland, and Portugal as colonize rs, without looking at itself as
colonial empire (Kelertas 2006 :1). Colonialism itself was a radically diasporic
movement involving the temporary or permanent distribution and settlement of
million s of Europeans all over the world (Ashcroft et al 1998 :68). Central and Eastern
European countries, including Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany,
Hungary, Poland and Romania, are colonized by Russia (Andreescu 2011 :62).
Colonial domination takes various modalities depicting importa nt facts about
colon ialism with different empires, needs, strategies, trajectories of exp ansion or
contraction, and levels of territorial penetration, control and exploration. Said (1993)
notably argues some areas —the Middle East and China —were not colonized, but
were more affected by ‘colonialism’ than many countries that were. Some
countries —Ghana, Nigeria or Senegal —were relatively swift and generally peaceful,
but others —Algeria, Kenya, Mozambique or Vietnam —were protracted , vicious, and
bloody (Kelertas 2006 :28-29). Kelertas of Baltic Postcolonialism gives one example
of colonized Sub -Saharan Africa as follow:
An external colonization or imperial control, after a great internal strife i n
Sub-Saharan Africa, begins at the borders and extends into the center,
autochthonous governments are substituted with puppet control or outright
rule, by which African education is revamped to privilege the colonizer’s
language, and histories and school curricula are rewritten from the imperium’s
perspective. Indigenous religious traditions are additionally suppressed in the
colonial zone; idols are destroyed; and alternative religions and nonreligious
ideologies are promoted. More interestingly, the colo nized areas of Africa

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become economic fiefs. Little or no natural trade is permitted between the
colonies and economies external to the colonizer’s network. Economic
production is undertaken on a command basis and is suited to the dominant
power’s interest s rather than to local needs. Local currencies are only
convertible to the colonial power’s money. Agriculture becomes mass
monoculture, and environment crisis follows. In the human realm, African
dissident voices are heard most clearly only in exile, thou gh accession to exile
is difficult. Oppositional energies are, therefore, channeled through forms
including mimicry, satire, parody, and jokes. However, a characteristic feature
of society is cultural stagnation ( 2006: 16).
After one year in a transit city, Berlin , he arrives in the New World, America , in
1988. He is celebrating his nine years of life in Paradise in 1997; it is about to depart
for Romania. After 1989 revolution, he often rejects offer s of visiting Roma nia, but
this time he is hard to ref use the offer given by the President of Bard Co llege, where
he is teaching for, as he testifie s, “Now I found it difficult to refuse the invitation to
go there with the pr esident of Bard College” (Manea 2003 :49). He first hears the
project trip in 1996; he tak es it into h is consideration of visiting motherland, but he
still feels hesitated due to the political situations i n Romania, where he experiences
arduous life in the past. A new impetus is given to him by Leon Botstein, the
Presid ent of Bard College, arou ses his mind of homesickness, as he certifie s, “The
political situation is changing, Romania is changing; if you are ever to return, you
might as well do it now; you will have a friend going with you ” (Manea 2003 :49).
Without really intending to leave, he has left the motherland late. He is not ready for a
reunion with the self he has been, or for a translation the one he has become. He is
fearful with a belated revelation after the collapse of the utopia. A cultural c onference
is organized for the first time in Paris by Romanian writers, not by the usual cultural
apparatchiks. After a little while, he continues, “I felt that morbid frisson of fear”
(Manea 2003 :49).
“There was no particular reason to be suspicious of th e way people looked at you or
to bridle at the old world ” (Manea 2003 :74). After the publication of Two Thousand
Years, Sebastian faces the scandal with the preface, written by Nae Ionescu (the
ideologue of the Iron Guard), and attacked by all sides, including Christians, Jews,
liberals, and extremist s, and makes suspicious to the way people behave, look, and

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think. In response to the previous publication of Two Thousand Years, criticized by
all religious groups, Sebastian publishes another essay —How I Became a Hooligan —
to show his victimization, in which the previous book has been publicized. ‘Hooligan’
carries different meanings to different people. Sebastian, the writer, himself be comes
the victim of Nae Ionescu, as he explains, “In a sober and preci se tone, he candidly
reaffirmed the spiritual autonomy of Jewish suffering, its tragic nerve, the dispute
between intelligence at its coolest and passion at its most unbridled” (Manea
2003 :17). It is believed that communism in Romania has been brought by t he Jews,
who sell German and Romanian soldiers to Russia, but the evidence has not been
proved for this. The Romanian Inspectorate of Police in Iasi reports to General
Antonescu at the front, as Watts of Romanian Cassandra: Ion Antonescu and the
Struggle f or Reform 1916 -1941 writes:
The German Soldiers maintain that the Jews had killed two of their number.
All maintain that they are Communists and capable of selling us to the
Russians…. Some of the German soldiers announced that if they hear any
more weapons fire in the city, they will bombard the Jewish Quarter
(1993: 349).
The major task of writers is to exclude all their imaginations and criticizin g from all
sides and victims . They have power i n writing but professionally, as Calinescu of
Five Faces of Modernity cites, “People are un wittingly victims of the despotic power
of habit, and it is one of the writer’s major tasks to try to eliminate its inhibiting and
almost paralyzing effects in matters of imagination ” (1987: 40). No one is perfec t
even God. Not only a torturer but also a victim is in horror in the past , as Ashcroft et
al of Postcolonial Studies Reader elaborate , “Who in the New World does not have a
horror of the past, whether his ancestor was torturer or victim? Who, in the depth of
conscience, is not silently screaming for pardon or for revenge? The pulse of New
World history is the racing pulse beat of fear, the tiring cycles of stupidity and
greed…” ( 1995: 371). The happy years —1934 and 1935 are for Sebastian, who can
sell his book —How I Became a Hooligan —more copies th an his previous books, as
Ariel, a cousin of the bookstore’s owner, says, “Libraria Noastra in Burdujeni had
ordered several copies of How I Became a Hooligan, more copies than it had ordered
of the notorious novel by the same author the previous year ” (Manea 2003 :70). The
Third World writers are distinguished as a “distinct literar y fraternity” (Ashcroft et al

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1995 :199), for they are committed to protest against ironies of history for a better
future. They strive professionally to enrich people with knowle dge under cynicism, as
Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader point out:
One feature of Third World writers which distinguishes them as a distinct
literary fraternity is the fundamental dialogue with history in which they are
involved….this dialogue with the past essentially consisted of a continuous
and desperate protest against the ironies of history. They adhered to the view
of history as fateful coincidence and tragic accidence, and saw their function
as artists in terms of their attitude to the past, that is, either in terms of a
committed protest against the past which would give birth to a new
humanism, or were so overwhelmed by the fact of privation or dispossession
that they withdrew to a position of cynici sm with regard to their peoples
(1995:199).
The premarital idyll of the baker’s son and the bookseller’s daughter lasts from 1933
to 1935. By 1935 the bookshop already stocks the volume of ‘How I Became a
Hooligan’ by Sebastian. The year of 1934 is a happy year for the future bride and
groom , but the author proclaims the year of Hooligans. Two Thousand Years by
Sebastian published 1934, How I Became a Hooligan by Sebastian print ed in 1935,
and the two volumes of The Hooligans by Mircea Eliade published in 1934 -35 are on
display in the L ibraria Noastra in Burdujeni, as Manea clarifies , “Sebastian’s novel
Two Thousand Years, with Nae Ionescu’s preface, published in 1934, and the booklet
How I Became a Hooligan , published in 1935 at the same time as the two -volume The
Hooligans by Mircea El iade—these publications were all on display on the shelves of
the Libraria Noastra in Burdujeni ” (Manea 2003 :71). The years of 1934, 1935, and
1936 are the happy years for not only the Braunstein family due to pre-wedding and
happy Hooligan in 1934 , wedding in 1935 , and heir expectation in 1936 but also
people in Burdujeni regardless of Sebastian, his critic Ariel, an d newspapers. The
hooligan times are up to them in what they do, feel, and see, as Manea explains,
“Everywhere there was the morbid deli ght in blas pheming, but in that small East
European market town, the bookseller’s family lived their happy lives ” (Manea
2003 :76).

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“In a few months’ time I was to reach the young age of fifty; over the years I had
acquired enough reasons to be skeptical about anniversaries and coincidences ”
(Manea 2003 :86). All periods, including antiquity , middle ages , modernity and
postmodernity , consist of more or less significant segment of the intelligentsia,
depending on political ide ology, especially in communism, as Calinescu of Five
Faces of Modernity quote s, “Postmodernism’s most powerful enemy has remained
the skeptical suspicion with which it is still regarded by a significant segment of the
intelligentsia” ( 1987: 266). In spring of 1986, Manea is wat ching a truck, being
unloaded its cargo of apples in Bucharest, where there is a shortage of almost
everything. The year 1986, a Hooligan Year just like the ones before and after
socialist years, tur ns into National Socialist Year . Th ese stories are spread
everywhere, turning his ears almost deaf, as he asks himself, “Was this the reason
why I now paid attention to these tales to which I usually turned a deaf ear?” (Manea
2003 :91). Romania before 1990 is colon ized by Russia, leading to poverty, starvation,
and persecution throughout the country and to displacement to Western Europe, as
Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader delineate, “Conditions in Europe
provided a considerable push —population explosion and resulting shortage of
cultivable land, national rivalries, persecution of minorities —and the application of
steam power to ocean and land travel certainly facilitated long distance migration”
(1995: 420).
The nuclear accident happens in 1986 in Chernobyl, where houses’ windows remain
closed for several days to prevent from radioactive pollution. The people are first
warned not to go out in the parks or open spaces , as the report goes on, “In some
areas, radioactivity levels increased slightly, but they pose no t hreat to the
population” (Manea 2003 :98). The people, additionally, are advised to be
increasingly cautious about their drinking water, vegetables, and fruit. Children and
pregnant women are being told to avoid prolonged exposure in open spaces. It is also
the year his mother tells him her stories and his birth, and he is leaving Romania. His
mother tells him that Jews are allowed to enter the country by the Romanian princes
and to do business . The anti -Semites are true about the Jews, who are decorated, as
his mother s ays, “He was decor ated by Stelian Popescu” (Manea 2003 :89). Campbell
et al from Romanian Migration in a Runaway World point out that during the 19th
century due to the pogroms in Ukraine and Poland, a lar ge wave of Jewish

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immigration ge ts to the Ottoman Empire, Poland and Lithuania, settles on the
territor ies of nowadays Romania, and engages in commerce at the crossing of the
trade roads linking those three countries. The Jews, due to their commercial skills,
beco me c ompetitors to Romanian s, who mak e the laws to restrict the Jews not to buy
land or to naturalize , except 1877 and after 1918. In 1877 the Jews who fi ght against
the Turks rec eive their naturalization rights, and in 1918 all Jews are naturalized
(2007: 199). B etween 1938 and 1944 , there are some anti -Semitic activities, led by the
Iron Guard (Garda de Fier) —the Romanian fascist party, persecuting the Jews.
Therefore, between June 29 and July 6, 1940, thousand s of Jews are executed in
Jassy. Under Gen eral Antonescu’s rule, he plays a two -sided role —one with no action
against the deportation of the Jews and another with refraining from the mass
deportation policy of the other E uropean countries. In 1946 he i s seen as the rescuer
of m ore than 300,000 Jews and other as the murderer of almost 125,000 Jews
(Campbell et al 2007: 201).
“As for my strategy of escape, my mistrust of political matters extended even into
the area of personal relationships ,” (Manea 2003 :103). After leaving for five years
to attend the univers ity in the field of engineering, Manea returns to Suceava in 1959.
The situation is now different from five years ago in a way that the mysteries of the
moment, the women, the books, and the friends serve to intensify the magnetic field
of his being. The failure of ending up the fear is w ith him always, even in a sleep, as
he testifi es, “Still, the terror of ending up in the trash bin of failure, that creeping fear,
expanding and contracting in turn, was with me always, asleep or awake” (Manea
2003 :102). Communist ideology car ries fear, tragedy, and poverty to people, who
create love and hatred at the same time and think of taking revenge. They are
deprived of freedom of speech and trave l by the secret police. Both literates and
illiterates are forced to work arduously and starved, as Calinescu of Five Faces of
Modernity cites, “It is precisely in times of exhaustion that tragedy runs through
houses and streets, that great love and great hatred are born, and that the flame of
knowledge flares up into the sky” ( 1987: 181). Manea is in suspicion of lovemaking
with Dr. and Mrs. Albert’s daughter, who is his ex -girlfriend, who sacrifices her
virginity not on the altar of love but marriage, with a son. One evening after the party
of engineers, he decides to stay at his ex -girlfriend’s house near t he mountain. Her
parents and husband are away at the seaside. He goes in the house, where her son is

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sleeping without any expectations of his being. At that night he has new exp erience in
making love with her, as he prove s, “My former lover was the same, yet also
changed; she had learned new ways of giving pleasure and she perfor med them with
tack and passion ” (Manea 2003 :105). Similarly, in terms of literary decadence, even
one hides in a place, where no one can see, and those who come to visit are
considered siblings, relatives, or friends, as Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity
writes:
The same applies to literary decadence. Here the author takes on an almost
evangelistic tone : let us then indulge in the unusualness of our ideal and form,
even though we imprison ourselves in an unvisited solitude. Those who come
to us will be truly our brothers, and why sacrifice what is most intimate,
special and personal to others (1987: 171).
He considers himself as Romeo and her as Juliet between t he two middle class
families. Romeo is on his way back to Bucharest to secure his job as an engineer.
Juliet leaves her parents and husband for her admission to the university in Bucharest.
They, th en, have ne ver met in Bucharest. In 1986 Romeo is told that Juliet is living in
England, and he is about to leave Suceava and to be ultimate exile from his family,
friends , neighbors, and especially his beloved country , which is torn by communism ,
as he explain s, “This is what the tired Romeo of yore should have shouted
triumphantly, that summer of 1986, before the final curtain, before the ultimate exile”
(Manea 2003 :111). Relationship between Romeo and J uliet in Shakespeare is ended
up with death, but the relationship between Romeo and Juliet in this context is ended
up with separation . Romeo is in his ultimate exile, and Juliet is with his husband,
whom she does not love. Juliet has to forget the built history with Romeo and begins
her new life with her husband, as Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader write :
Everything from history must be eliminated, the circles and the arrogant
square pegs. I rummage under the mattress and bring out the scrapbooks,
ripping them up… When the paper things are burned I smash the glasses and
plates and the chimney of the lamp… When nothing is left intact and the fire
is only smouldering, I leave, carrying one of the wounded blankets with me, I
will need it until the fur grows. The h ouse shuts with a click behind me
(1995: 395).

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Cambodian Romeo (Tum) and Juliet (Teav)’s relationship is ended up with death due
to Teav’s mother, who marries Juliet to the governor’s son (Moeurn Nguon). Romeo
is a novice monk, who disrobes after falling in love with Juliet, and Juliet is a
daughter in a middle family, living with her widow mother. R omeo is killed by Orth
Chhuon ’s strongmen , and Juliet commits suicide, as Ven. Som of Tum Teav quotes:
The rush to prepare for the wedding before Tum’s arrival; the engagement
ceremony; the wedding; Tum and Pech’s arrival; Tum is intoxication and
reunion with Teav; Tum’s execution by Orth Chhuon’s strongmen; Teav and
Nor’s suicides; the bu rying of the bodies (1915: 752-884, Part 10 ).
“Poverty and danger had been the staple diet, delivered to us in abundance by
glorious socialism ” (Manea 2003 :129). Manea feels hesitate d to leave Romania with
unknown future of his departure . He walks along the street with his colleague,
Joanna, a poet friend , and talks about being a writer in their native country and the
future of the writers, resulting in being disappointed with being a writer or being
about to depart. He is destitute of how to be a writer in the native country and how to
depart , as he asks himself, “Is there really no alternative?” (Manea 2003 :129). He
continues repeating to himself , “Cemeteries are full of writers who no longer write.
They stayed here in their graves and don’t write anymore. This is my latest
discovery” (Manea 2003 :129). Departure decodes multiple meanings to him: dying,
separation, suicide, ultimate voyage, a partial, temporary salvation, a fire escape, an
emergency exit, or a quick solution. What ever it means, he still goes on, as he says,
“The last years of that hysterical dictatorship had had a catastrophic impact on our
capacity to cope” (Manea 2003 :129). Whatever he will be, he strives to survive on his
breath not on the others’. He tries to help himself first , and then others will help him .
He tries to encounter all problems by using his knowl edge and power, as Ashcroft et
al of Postcolonial Studies Reader cite:
People are in the open air because they live in conditions of poverty because
they come from a historical experience where they had to rely on their very
breath rather than on paraphernalia like books and museums and machines.
They had to depend on immanence, the power within themselves, rather than
the technology outside themselves… ( 1995: 312).

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Socialist state owns persons, goods, initiatives, justice and transport, stamp colle cting
and sport, cinemas, restaurants, bookstores, the circus and the orphanages and the
sheep pastures, trade, tourism, industry, publishing, radio, television, mines, forests,
public toilets, electricity, dairy farming, cigarette and wine production. Thi s is the
central tenet of the dictatorship of the left and state ownership. It marks the basic
difference from the dictatorship of the right, which private property at least allows
one la st opportunity for independence, as he clarifi es, “The industries and banks were
nationalized, the collectivization of agriculture began; political parties, Zionist
organizations, private schools were all banned” (Manea 2003 :147). The Angkar,
during Khmer Rouge regime, possesses everything, includi ng fruit, vegetables,
plantations, houses, buildings, cottages, rice fields, times, spaces, people, souls,
suicide and so on. No one is allowed to have ownership or privacy, as Sokhamm Uce
of Sunset in Paradise delineates, “But that wasn’t the only private ownership these
chatt els had to abolish; Angkar still needed to possess their souls as well” ( 2010: 129).
Socialist state, moreover, extends its possession to not only space and time but also
human beings, leaving only the sole for them. The individuals’ time has been
occupied by the community, where continuous meetings of instilling ideology of
socialism are daily organized , resulting in the waste of time for banalit y, as Manea
argues, “We keep meeting at meetings, ran a satirical verse of the time, a banal
formulation that encap sulated a banal reality” (Manea 2003 :157). Appare ntly, the
Soviet theory of bourgeois -cultural decadence goes unchallenged between the 1930s
and the 196 0s not only in the Soviet Union but also in orthodox Marxist circles
throughout the Western world, as Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity gives one
example, “Caudwell’s concept of decadence, the decay of bourgeois civilization as
embodied in the dyi ng culture of Western modernity, is certainly not as crude as the
one inherited by Soviet criticism from Plekhanov ” (1987: 202). One month after the
start of the academic year at Medgida in the co untry’s south, on the site of cement
factory, the entire student body is found unexpectedly dispatched for voluntary work.
His father is shocked to see him in huge rubber boots, duffel coat, and Russian -style
cap. Looking at each other in quick glance swaps memories of the war and the labor
camp, where they are sent to work there. The situations in the camp are not different
from the situations in the buil ding site, where things or food s are hard to find and in
shortage, as he points out, “The workers’ sheds were improvise d and the food
dreadful” (Manea 2003 :158).

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Manea is now in his first year at the university in 1954, when the honor is given to
him to be nominated as a member of the executive committee of the Union of
Working Youth of the University . He, however, rejects the honor, leadi ng him to
trouble of being a renegade, as he says, “It was now my turn to taste the m iseries of
the renegade” (Manea 2003 :157). Compari ng to the Khmer Rouge time, the Angkar
does not take care of the people, but it cares only for what to do for the Angka r. The
Angkar’s order i s priceless , no one can reject or they will be the enemies to the
Angka r, as Seng of The Price We Paid points out, “Do what I tell you to do! No
comment! Or you’ll see the wrath of Angka?” ( 2005: 194). He is now under
surveillance of other members of the exec utive committee. Radulescu of Train to
Trieste explains that he is lucky to be observed every tim e by the secret police, living
nearby. One day he is given a big bouquet of red carnations by the secret police ,
waiting ou tside his building. Sometimes they follow him; sometimes they nod and
smile at him, as he certifie s, “My personal secret police agent lives in the building
across from ours, so I have the good fortune to be under twenty -four-hour
surveillance” ( 2008: 90).
Loyalty is important to being a mem bership of the Party during socialism. Manea is
nominated as a member of executive committee of the University , but he rejects , as
he add s, “Fidelity to the Party has conferred its advantages in his case , but infidelity
has conferred its own advantages in his” (Manea 2003 :159). Contrarily, fidelity and
loyalty are dangero us to living in the Khmer Rouge regime. Therefore, Seng of the
Price We Paid ’s status is being questioned by the authorities, including Ta Sok (a
commander of Region 4 soldier, ranking high er than Puk Tam), due to suspicion of
being a high gra de student in the former regime, but she rejects the statement by
showing her four younger sisters that “there’s no way my parents let me go to school;
I stayed home taking care of them” ( 2005: 73). Being an engineer does not mean
being away from political pressure and the idiocy of the ‘wooden tongue,’ for the
slogans, the clichés, the threats, the duplicity, the conventions, the lies big and small,
smooth and rough, colored and colorless, odorless, insipid lies are everywhere in the
streets, at home, on trains, on stadiums, in hospitals , at the tailor’s, and in tribunals, as
he argues, “ Imbecility reigned everywhere supreme, it was difficult to remain
immune ” (Manea 2003 :160).

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“The question of depart ure haunted us periodically, and for good reason , but over
time; I became the one reluctant to leave ” (Manea 2003 :184). Migration in
Cambodia between 1975 and 1979 is forbidden. Everyone guilty of this is put in
prison, torture, or death. With this regard Cambodian people flee to the camps set up
along Cambodian -Thai border to get away from catrastrophic conditions and to
survive after inhumanity of the Khmer Rouges, as Pasch of Cambodia 1975 -2005:
Journey through the Night quotes:
The Vietnamese troops who entered Phnom Penh on 7 January 1979 put an
end to a nightmare, yet Cambodia was still far removed from stable political,
economic and social conditions. The country was in a cat astrophic condition.
Famine sprea d, and 300,000 people fled to refugee camps along the border
between Cambodia and Thailand, or were forced there by the retreating
Khmer Rouge ( 2006: 31).
Similarly, emigration in Socialist Jormania is not allowed at all. Those who attempt to
migrate are to be pun ished or put in jail if found guilty. Manea is shocked to see his
father being put behind the bar in Periprava and hearing his friend’s emigration,
spread over and over again at the university, whe re Manea has just grown close a few
weeks into the first academic year . As noticed by his friend, Rellu, he is lack ing of
enthusiasm for engineering studies and spending many hours in Bucharest’s libraries
and dalliance with M rs. Albert’s beautiful daughte r, as he argues, “He was aware of
my discontents, my aspirations, my whims, and we bec ame inseparable friends”
(Manea 2003 :185). Additionally, the situations are much worse in Kremlin ideology
than real de -Stalinization. Punishment is not tolerated at all for the guilty and related
people, especially spouse, siblings, and relatives. The post -Stalin revival of humanist
Marxism within the communist movement in Western Europe is not accepted by
Moscow, as Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity explains, “The br utal suppression
in August 1968 of the Czechoslovak experiment in socialism with a human face
showed quite clearly that the Kremlin ideologists were not prepared to tolerate
anything like a real de -Stalinization” ( 1987: 204). After the King’s abdication, he has
received both good and bad news, is delighted to hear emigration to Israel of Rellu’s
mother and sister and is skeptical of any childish attempts to alter destiny, especially
in socia lism. His friend not only comes to accept the idea of departure w ith serenity,
but adduces a few serious arguments in favor. His father has disappeared in the Iasi

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‘death train’ atrocity of 1941 when Jews are hunted out of their homes and dragged
through the street s. They are packed together like sardines in the cars of a sealed
freight train that wanders the countryside aimlessly, in the summer heat, until the
starved and suffocated bodies are nothing bu t corpses. This makes no horror to him,
for his initiation has b egun in a freight car, which is sealed off and guarded by armed
soldiers. No mat ter what happens, death rather than life, as he explains, “Escape to
the capitalist paradise beyond the Iron Curtain, with its trappings of well -being and
illusions of freedom, now seemed a vulgar notion” (Manea 2003 :185). The escape is
risk taking for those who are willing to. He has no longer felt at ease among the
names and his fellow clansmen . He feels bound by the fluctu ations of their nomadic
destiny , and hopes that their vanities , impatience, frustrations, hypocrisies, and
rhetoric are not worse than other people’s. He feels happy when he recognizes that
they are safe, as he continues, “I felt relieved to know that they were safe in their
faraway ancestral homeland” (Manea 2003 :187). The escape is dangerous but better
than suicide. It seems to be the same to African story about slavery. Manea lives in a
country, where people are enslaved by the Russian s, who colonize the country. The
escape is far a long way, which crosses ocean, but he h as no choice, as Ashcroft et al
of Postcolonial Studies Reader mention, “Just as slaves jumped overboard to their
deaths in the ocean in order to escape slavery in the New World, Diouana takes her
own life to find release from her own enslaved situation” ( 1995: 65).
The reasons to leave or not to leave the communist cage are d ifferent between Manea
and Rellu. The attempt to flee the country seems to Manea both justified and vulgar.
He is not complaining about the mental handicap, which prevents him from making
his natural decision. His cynicism has reached the depths that he ha s regarded the
horrors —premature death, violent death, unfair death, brutality and atrocity —as a
mere step toward the great, ubiquitous, universal crime , and as a departure toward the
New World. Rellu has the depths of the brutal anti -Semitic murder of his father , in
which his escape relies on, as Manea illustrate s, “The same country that never offered
his family the least official apology for the atrocity, just as my own family had never
received one after Transnistria” (Manea 2003 :190).
“The threat of an international press conference , it seemed, had had an immediate
effect; was this a good sign, a bad sign? ” (Manea 2003 :206). Manea, before the
Second World War , lives with his parents, who o wn an apartment and a bookstore, in

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a middle class family. After t he war, the house of their dreams is gone, and now the
socialist state owns the houses and all the inhabitants, as he argue s, “After the war,
when the state became the sole landlord, people were no longer looking for houses to
buy but for shelters” (Manea 2003 :201). All people, except state workers, find houses
to rent, for they are not allowed to buy, as Manea expresses , “In 1947 after our return
to Suceava, we mo ved into a rented house” (Manea 2003 :202). State workers have
their rights to claim one room with eight square meters, which is assigned by the
authorities in the place they work. Manea, a stat e worker, rents a room in poor
condition s. After suffering for a year, he decides to show up at the Writers Union to
remind its vice president of their prev ious discussions. After meeting with a panel of
four comrades from different departments —culture , ethnic minorities , security ,
probably a foreign press, he is asked to suggest a solution, as he insert s, “I had
already said: one year earlier, prior to the old couple’s departure, I had suggested that
the apartment be allocated to someone legally entitled to occupy it and that my wife
and I, in return, be given a smaller, more appropriate residence ” (Manea 2003 :205).
He has been assured by the party activists that everything is to be sorted out. He is in
no hurry home and does not take the elevator, but climes the stairs to the third floor.
His neighbor’s door is wide open, with no sign of light inside. As he goes out,
bewil ders, he bumps into the superintende nt, who is just dropp ed by to let him know
that his neighbors have been taken away, bundled into a truck and driven off. Nobody
knows for sure, but he recogniz es this is the solution made to his complain. The
socialist circus has performed with admirable dispatch, with a mag ician’s deftness
and efficiency, as he prove s, “Within one single hour, a whole year’s tensions had
evaporated” (Manea 2003 :207). The colonized country like Romania is suffering
poverty, starvation, and persecution. The people need economic reform and supplies
to survive. They do not have their own houses, but rented hous es. Colonialism
doctrine pretend s to consider them, but the co untry is in serious underdevelopment, as
Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader express :
Today we know that in the first phase of the national struggle colonialism
tries to disarm national demands by putting forward economic doctrine. As
soon as the first demands are set out, colonialism pretend s to consider them,
recognizing with ostentatious humility that the territory is suffering from
serious underdevelopment which ne cessitates a great economic and social

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effort…colonialism sees that it is not wi thin its powers to put into practice a
project of economic and social reforms which will satisfy the aspirations of
the colonized people ( 1995: 153).
“I did not emerge victorious from this never -ending confrontation, I merely
survived ” (Manea 2003 :209). Manea’s family is in the claw of socialism. His mothe r
possesses excessively the anxieties, the exaggerations, and the panic ; and transmits to
all those around her . By the early 1940s, she has foreseen the catastrophe and
disaster, and with her energy she has abruptly changed her direction . As she stands on
the border of the motherland in 1945, she looks fragile, crumpled and invincible. She
instantly stands with her brothers’ suffering s and contrasts strongly with the dignity
and silences of her husband, w ho prefers solitude. Her relations to the others in the
family seem to protect her for a while from herself. She never kisses her son or tells
bedtime stories, as her son certifie s, “Her son, so intimate a part of her, received no
good -night kiss in that n arrow, con stricted refuge of ours” (Manea 2003 :211). She
never forgets to reconnect her ghetto to exchange for news, to whisper with the
neighbors , and to conversate with her son during lunch break from socialist store. Her
obsession with her son’s estrangement and with his plans for leaving their hometown
brings about devastating nervous cri ses, often triggered by something trifling.
Socialism seems not to have affected her, for from one step to one step or from one
job to another job, even it does not suit her, s he is aware of any consequences, as she
explains, “ The claw, covered in velvet and silk, would clutch at you when you were
least prepared ” (Manea 2003 :214).
Manea’s father, in socialism, is lacking opportunities in life and seems to have lived
simply in quiet dignity without any persecution s and torture from authorities. He,
instead, abandons any illusions and is dreaded not to death but to humiliation. He is
put in prison in Periprava in 1950s. A few years before his arrest, he has been
dismissed, without explanation, from his position as director of OCL Metalu,
Suceava’s metal and chemicals state trade . Later, he takes a job as an accountant at
OCL Alimentara, the local food distribution organization, as he mention s, “Socialist
commerce was a contradiction in terms, just li ke socialist philosophy” (Manea
2003 :167). His tragedy and hardship in the prison make his palms bruised and f ull of
blisters. The blond hair on the back of his hands and on his fingers is interspersed
with white hair. His nails are cut, as always, but unevenly this time, who knows how,

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in the absence of scissors, as Manea proves , “We were both silent, our eyes lowered,
after the short conversation in which he kept asking questions, like a child trying to
encourage a parent… ” (Manea 2003 :175).
Manea is twenty two in 1958 at his fourth year at the university, and his father is fifty
years old, i n the prison in Periprava. He gets struck dumb by the enormity of the
moment, disregard ing the rule s, cross es over to the other side of the table, and hugs
his father to comfort him as he is a child. He experiences much sadness and misery of
his father as well as his mother in socialism. He is suffocated in the ghetto, choked by
those possessive excesses, with incessant panic, but his hostility becomes only
another face of servility and bondage. He, in socialism, does not trust anybody else ,
except his parents and relatives. He is scared of those around him, so he is not
interested in group activi ties, as he explains, “After my juvenile fling with the
Communist madness, I had come to hate anything that had to do with ‘we’ with
collective identity, which seemed to me suspect, an op pressive simplification”
(Manea 2003 :213). His personal tra gedy has s tricken his pain more and more serious
than what he can speak out. His father is a political prisoner; his mother is elderly;
and he is about to go far away. His body seems to float with nothing inside, as
Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader delineate the Telumee’s personal
tragedy that:
Then I would lie on the ground and try to dissolve my flesh: I would fill
myself with bubbles and suddenly go light —a leg would be no longer there,
then an arm, my head and whole body faded i nto the air, and I was floating
(1995: 334).
“Those too tired or too disable to walk were left behind on the roadsides, a prey to
vultures and dogs ; those who made it to their destinations live in appallingly
unsanitary conditions, with no proper accommodations, no firewood, no food and
clothes, and are exposed to the harsh weather and the torments of their guards and
of the camp’s administrators ” (Manea 2003 :226). The plan is made to transport
Jewish population from Ciprian Porumbescu Street to Petru Rares Street and down to
Sf. Dumitru Street and the Jewish house , from Queen Marie Street down to the Reif
drugstore on Cetatii Street, from the first street after the American Hotel to the
industrial gymnasium for girls, and all of Bosancilor Street, by Ion Antonescu,

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Marshal of Rom ania, army commander and leader of the Romanian state, and by
Hitler’s ally. The Roman Empire commits many barbaric acts and establishes the
greatest politics that the world has never seen, as Antonescu declares, “I do not care
whether we shall go down in history as barbarian” (Manea 2003 :224). Today,
October 9, 1941, the operation is due to start at the military depot of the Burdujeni
railway station at 4 p.m. Each Jewish inhabitant must obey the order and carry
overcoats, day clothes, shoes, food s for sev eral days, not to exceed what can be
carried. All Jewish residents must take the keys to their houses and deposit them,
along with household inventories, in an envelope bearing the name and address of the
Jewish inhabit ant, handed to the co mmission at the railway station, as the mayor
continues his recitation, “Those who do not comply, or resist, or instigate protest and
acts of violence against the authorities , those who fail to deposit their currency, gold
coins, jewelry, and precious metals, will be shot on the spot; those who help or hide
Jews committing such acts of insubordination will also be shot dead ” (Mane a
2003 :225). The deportees walk a long distance with barefoot, starvation, disease,
death, in wind, rain, sleet, and mud. There are around 25,000 souls in this deportation .
Some are on their way t o Ukraine; others are in Moghilev; still others are in Ataki.
The report, dated January 6, 1942, from Moghile v says “60 deaths daily” (Manea
2003 :227). Jews are treated badly under Ion Antonescu’s regime. They are not
allowed to own big business and to gain a position in the government. The Anti –
Semite is implemented to t he Jews, who are Romanian Jews, as Sartre in Postcolonial
Studies Reader by Ashcroft et al pointing out, “They (the Jews) have allowed
themselves to be poisoned by the stereotype that others have of them , and they live in
fear that their acts will correspond to this stereotype…We may say that their conduct
is perpetually overdetermined from the inside ” (1995: 324-325).
Manea, the writer, as well as his family as one of the deport ees, forced to emigrate
from their ghetto s, tries to cope with the situation s to be alive. All the deportees are
facing hunger, cold, fear, and death, but they all try to survive, for survival is more
important than o ther things, as his mother keeps saying, “Nothing was more
important than survival; gradually, the situation improved” (Manea 2003 :228). Jews
are victims living under Na zism, which has its purpose to ann ihilate them without
hesitation, and offering the cha nce to convert or to lie. The Communism of universal
happiness , however, encourage s conversion, lying, complicity and is not reluctant to

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destroy even its own faith , as he continues, “The thought police, so essential to the
system, imposed a truth serving the Party; between the increasingly irreconcilable
promise and the reality, the field was open for suspicion, perversion, and fear”
(Manea 2003 :229). There are thoughts coming to his mind in a quiet room, where
readers and books are engaged in silent dialogue when suddenly a barely audible
phone range s. He picks up the receiver, and his friend asks him to go for a walk. After
a short conversation, he recognizes that the reason for the w alk becomes clear that the
room has ears—policemen’s ears or eavesdroppers ubiquitous . After three -hour-talk,
his friend explains, “It all had to do with you; they wanted to know everything about
you, what you do, the people you see, the mail you get from abroad and send; they
wanted to know if you have a mistress, or if Cella has a lover; They asked about your
financial situation, your parents’, your mother -in-law’s; they asked if you had
expressed any hostility toward the Supreme Comrade and his wife, whether you
intend to emigrate ” (Manea 2003 :229). A public employee in socialist Romania
becomes informant to the policemen and is given a pen name. Manea’s friend, a poet,
has been given a pen name ‘Alin’, which has been used in his life and literature. He is
obliged to be an eavesdropper to the polic emen, with no specific reasons and
purposes. He cannot o bject to what has been assigned, as he proves, “You won’t
believe it, but I finally gave in and signed ; there was no choice; they also gave me a
code name, Alin ” (Manea 2003 :230).
“The surveillance agencies must have been aware of everything everybody was
saying and doing ” (Manea 2003 :232). A number of the policemen ha ve been stable,
but a number of people have duties to report to the policemen are increasing. The
public employees play another role a s policemen , as Manea adds, “The number of
police informants had grown much more rapidly than gross national product, and the
recruitment campaign had speeded up” (Manea 2003: 230). They are obliged to report
what their best friends have been doing. Alin, Manea’s friend, has been obliged to
surveil what his best friends, saying and doing and to report to the p olice, as Manea
explains, “His usual double -triple life as a socialist citizen was now augme nted by a
precise, secret, unpaid mission: to report on the double -triple life of his best friend”
(Manea 2003: 230). This matter is also included in Postcolonial Studies Reader by
Ashcroft et al saying that , “The colonial subject served as an ideological a libi for
colonialism” ( 1995: 100). Manea, once walking past the old trees, witnesses of ages

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past, is escorted to the first floor, where stands a pale man with thinning gray hair,
dressed in a gray woolen vest and a white shirt with no tie. On his left sits a
handsome, dark -haired man with a black mustache, in a captain’s uniform . He has
been interrogating by the secret police about pensioner Mar cu Manea, who has been
pestered by an agent for months. He is suspicious of being a spy for Israel or a crook
making shady deals as Secretary of the Jewish community. He is a decent man living
in the community, where many people know him. He is innocent to his life and never
commits wrong things, as Manea proves, “If there is evidence, let him be prosecuted;
if not, this campaign of terror must stop; the suspect has suffered enough, both in the
past and more recently” (Manea 2003 :232).
The two interlocutors seem more interested in the alibi of the accus ed Marcu Manea,
which is explained by Manea, who is his neighbor. He has come to the end of his
grand aria and demonstrated alertness and courage to what is happening . His fear and
spirit of revolt have involv ed in creating a coherent -brave discourse, even the drama
is not over yet. He manages to keep his composure until the words ‘Thank you’ are
spoke n out by the colonel, who continues, “This is very important information on the
psychology of the ghetto; we do not often receive s uch helpful information” (Manea
2003 :234). After the alibi is performed, the suspicion to Mr. Marcu Manea is
narrowed down. As Manea is leaving, the captain assures him that , “The
misunderstandings concerning Mr. Marcu Manea would be dealt with quickly”
(Manea 2003 :234).
Man’s exploitation by man is more attractive than the exploitation of man by the
state. Suspicion infiltrates everywhere an d everything, including kitchen, bedroom ,
sleep, language, posture, school, hospital, publishing house, printing press, forest, air,
water, the earth, stadium, bank , cinem a, button and weapon factory , the army a nd the
circus, the kindergarten and old people’s home , the music industry, pharmaceutical ,
and the flock of sheep, and the doctor and the patient , as Manea certifies , “Suspicion
ruled all individual lives” (Manea 2003 :236). Jews, in Romania, have gone through
the holocaust and communism. They hide their identities for the sake of life, for anti –
Semitism has been ca rried out to annihilate them , who are not allowed to hold any
positions in the party. The Jewish identities have been fou nd after these events and
exile, as Dr. Freud, the psychoanalyst, asks, “How you become a Jew after a
holocaust, communism , and exile? ” (Manea 2003 :242). Jewish survivors from

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holocaust have conceived endless suffering s, carving in their souls as well as their
bodies. These sufferings cannot disappear from their souls and become stigma, as
Manea declar es, “Sense of communion depends on a unique profoundness of an
endless anamnesis ” (Manea 2003 :242). Gilbert from the Voice of the Witness in
Rwan dan Women’s Testimonial Literature says that groups and individuals have gone
through world wars, civil wars, violent political regimes, and genocides speak their
voices to their sufferings and seek justice for the wrongs done to them. They respond
to these sufferings by playing their roles socially, culturally and politically. There are
numerous approaches to understanding the testimonies to their traumas through
mental health, human rights, and historical documentation ( 2013: 2). Kafka, for
instance, is a genuine Jew, but not good at Hebrew. He is not a nationalist and does
not practice rel igion. He, in socialism, hides his real identity to release the self –
loathing and hatred that have struck his fate for millennia, as he explains, “Tha t was
an unmistakably Jewish profession of faith, replacing religion, ethnicity , and the
sacred tongue” (Manea 2003 :242). Jews have suffered much from holocaust and
communism. Pogrom is carried out in Romania to all Jews, who are tortured,
prosecuted, and killed due to different religion s. They are restricted to the political
position in the party as well as the government. They are in hunger and forced to
emigrate abroad with payment . They are also forced to pay taxes in turn for lives.
These evidences hav e conceived endl essly in their souls and bodies, as Manea points
out, “We Jews will never be forgiven for the Holocaust” (Manea, 2003 ) (p.243). This
is due to the crisis of religion, which is not settled p roperly, leading to torture,
persecution, and murder, as Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity points out: “The
crisis of religion gives birth to a religion of crisis” ( 1987: 62).

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CHAPTER FOUR
CAMBODIAN -BORN WRITERS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE S
4.1 INTRODUCTION
The world history begins in Asia—the East and ends in Europe —the West . Cambodia
is situated in Southeast Asia, wh ere the history of the world has begun, as Ashcroft et
al of Postcolonial Studies Reader write, “The history of the world travels from East to
West, for Europe is absolute ly the end of history, Asia is the beginning” ( 1995: 15).
Countless phenomena occurred in the world have been created by human beings,
marking the unforgettable memoirs of the world population, especially the American
massacre by the Turks, the holocaust by the Nazi, the autogenocide by the Khmer
Rouge s, the Rwanda genocide by the Tutsis, the rampant killing in So uthern Sudan,
and other numerous preventable tragedies, as Sokhamm Uce of Sunset in Paradise
points out, “We are very stupid and cruel; we are pr one to commit acts of violence,
torture, atrocities, and other mun dane sadism” ( 2010: 143). She adds King Norodom
Sihanouk is ousted from office in the coup d’état by Marshal Lon Nol in 1970. Lon
Nol rules Cambodia from 1970 to 1975 in a corrupt manner. Aft er the savage and
brutal Vietnam War against the United States of America and the allied forces of
Marshal Lon Nol —the president of the Khmer Republic Government, the President
Thiev Ky of South Vietnam and the communist Khmer Rouges in their ragtag black
pajamas and shirts liberate their so-called ‘native brethren’ from the imperialistic
capitalists —the evil Americans and their corrupt puppets —Marshal Lon Nol , in 1975
(Sokhamm Uce 2010: 2).
4.2 CASE STUDIES
4.2.1 Sunset in Paradise
CAMBODIANS’ DARK AGE S: 1975 -1979
Immediately upon liberation on 17 April 1975, there was a Special Centre
Assembly for Cabinet Ministers and all Zone and Region Secretaries. Eight
points were made at the Assembly, by Pol Pot:
1. Evacuate people from all towns.
2. Abolish all markets.
3. Abolish Lon Nol regime currency, and withhold the revolutionary

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currency that had been printed.
4. Defrock all Buddhist monks, and put them to work growing rice.
5. Execute all leaders of the Lon Nol regime beginning with the top
leaders.
6. Establish high -level cooperatives throughout the country with
communal eating.
7. Expel the entire Vietnamese minority population.
8. Dispatch troops to the borders, pa rticularly the Vietnames e border
(Tully 2005 :178).
“Life was a sad joke after that ( liberation ); the most righteous people do the most
wrong in our human affairs ” (Sokhamm Uce 2010 :2). Cambodia has been ruined
since Lon Nol’s coup in 1970 and sent down the road to disaster. People are about to
starve, and infrastructure is about to destroy . Roads and ra ilways are in bad
condition s. Money transaction, bank, market , public t ransportation, postal system,
telephone, telegraph, clean water supply , sanitation service, electricity, school,
hospital , and consumer goods are eliminated , as Tully of a Short History of
Cambodia proves:
The enormity of what Cambodia had suffered is beyond the imagination of
most of us. A staggering 30 per cent of the population had died since Lon
Nol’s coup in March 1970…its citizens pauperized and all most all the
infrastructure of civilized society des troyed… The people were in rags
(2005: 199-200).
Khmer Rouges —pro-China defeat Lon Nol —pro-America in 1975. King Norodom
Sihanouk is under house arrest after liberation, and later he is an exile in China, a
Khmer Rouge leader and a propagandist. There is, however, neither banner nor
emblem of Marx -Engel -Lenin Trotsky, of Dr. Sun -Yiat-Sen, of Mao-Tze-Tung, of
Chu-Enlai, and of Ho -Chi-Minh on display ubiquitous. Little white flags —the symbol
of peace, forfeited cowardice, and virtuous innocence —are wiggling from nervous
and agitated hands , marking the end of Vietnam war and civil war —war between
Marshal Lon Nol and Khmer Rouges . Peace , therefore, prevails throughout the fatally
injured Cambodia , as Socheat Siek , an allied soldier of the deposed Khmer
Republican Government, replies excitedly, “Good! Good !” (Sokhamm Uce 2010 :4).

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King Norodom Sihanouk is an exile to China and a supreme flip -flop, who Khme r
Rouges trust on, as Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader quote, “To be an
exile is to be alive” ( 1995: 12). King Norodom Sihanouk, furthermore, seeks for
assistance from China while being an exile to form his support groups and to prevent
the country from Vietnamese invasion, as Ashcroft et al of Postcolon ial Studies
Reader point out, “Displacement involves the invention of new form s of subjectivity,
pleasure, intensity, and relationship, which imply the continuous renewal of a critical
work that looks carefully and intensively at the very system of values to which one
refers in fabricating the tools of resistance” ( 1995: 216). Khmer Rouges —Pol Pot,
Noun Chea, Ieng Sary, Khiev Samphan, Son Sen, Thiounn Prasith, Tak Mok, Ke
Pauk and their puppets are holy people, as Sokhamm Uce says, “These Khmer
Rouges are the holy warriors; his majesty, King Norodom Sihanouk is their righteous
leader” ( 2010 :6). Pleasure of li beration lasts only few hours for city dwellers, and
then become s panic with the firing by Khmer Rouge soldiers, who dress in black
pajamas and Ho -Chi-Minh sandals and force people to move out three days and then
come back. The Roumdohs (the Liberated) Brethrens —Socheat Siek and Chomroeun
Sek, for instance, get panic with their hearts throbbing out of harmonic rhythm. Black
ants (Khmer Rouge soldiers) move in the city, starting shooting into t he naked
heaven, not only turning all the celestia l gods and angels into their insomniac
reveries, but the city dwellers in their chao tic movement , as Sokhamm Uce points out,
“Their hair suddenly stood on end like the quills of a porcupine, and the porcupine
was being chased by both a tiger and a crocodile” (2010: 9). The city dwellers of more
than 2,000 ,000 are forced to move out of the city to countryside, where two kinds of
people are formed —17 April people (new people /city dwellers ) and basic people
(Moulethanns) —and return in three days due to the threats of American
bombardments, as Sokhamm Uce points out, “Everybody leaves the city now! At
Angkar’s order! Move out! In thr ee days…come back” ( 2010 :9). Dream of coming
back to the city in three days extends to three years, eight months and twenty days —
starting from April 17, 1975 to Jan uary 7, 1979. Evacuating city dwellers from all
towns to the countryside is made at the Assembly by Pol Pot , the top Khmer Rouge
leader , as Tully of a Short History of Cambodia quotes one of the eight policies,
“Evacuate people from all towns” ( 2005: 178). The K hmer Rouges treat city dwellers
as parasites, the lo sers of the war, and the prisoners. They, therefore, are forced to
work hard, put in prison, tortured, or killed, as Khamboly et al of A History of

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Democratic Kampuchea say, “17 April people are pa rasitic plants; they are the lo sers
and prisoners of war; to keep you is no gain, and to lose you is no loss” ( 2007: 31).
After this terrible time, more than half of the city dwellers never come back forever,
for diaboli cal and satanic Khmer Rouges turn Cam bodia’s time into ‘zero year ,’ as
Sokhamm Uce raises, “No single Khmer could escape their random and dis crimi nate
onslaughter” ( 2010 :10). The worst ever, all schools are closed th roughout the country .
Some are completely destroyed, and others are turned in to prisons. The Khmer
Rouges do not use the capitalist legacy, for they consider the school as farm, the land
as paper, and the plow as pen. The city dwellers, therefore, are forced to move out of
the city to countryside to work in the field s, as Tully of a Short History of Cambodia
writes:
We don’t need the technology of the capitalist. Under our new system, we
don’t need to send our young people to school. Our school is the farm. The
land is our paper. The plow is our pen. We will write by plowing. We don ’t
need to give exams or award certificates. Knowing how to farm and knowing
how to dig canals —those are our certificates…We don’t need doctors
anymore. They are not necessary. If someone needs to have their intestines
removed, I will do it…There is no nee d to lear n how to do it by going to
schoo l (2005: 184).
“In our egalitarian society, no one will be catered to; everyone will be equal ”
(Sokhamm Uce 2010 :13). During three years, eight months and twenty days, Khmer
Rouges turn all Cambodians into hard work, in which they are catered to ration al
foods, not enough to survive. Both skillful and unskillful people are forced to work in
the field s, with a half coconut bowl of watery porridge and with two times a day —
lunch and dinner, as Sokhamm Uce raises, “To sup plement their meager nourishment,
the Romdoh, the liberated, children had to forage for wild foodstuffs; lower creature s:
crabs, snails, rats, cockroaches, eels, lizards, snakes, worms, etc. had been half -eaten
already ” (2010 :165). Monks are disrobed and forced to work like other people , as
Sokhamm Uce mentions, “The monks will no longer get their free meals” ( 2010 :13).
No one can eat without working during the Khmer Rouge regime, as Seng of the
Price We Paid cites the A ngkar’s mantra of the monk that, “If you eat, you have to
work” ( 2005: 37). All pagodas are closed; some are destroyed; and others are turned

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into prisons or warehouses. Religious activities are not allowed at all. Ever yone found
guilty is executed , as Tully of a Short History of Cambodia points out:
The people would be denied spiritual sustenance. The Khmers are an
intensely religious people and their religion has often served as a consolation
for the hardships of life, but Pol Pot would have none of it. Monks were
defrocked and put to wo rk and their orders closed. The regime would not
tolerate any other source of authori ty that might undermine its own
(2005: 178).
All people —children, teenagers, adults, oldie s, and leaders —wear ragtag black
pajamas and Ho-Chi-Ming sandals. Children are sep arated from their parents to
collective brigades, where their si blings or relatives cannot meet, as Khamboly et al
of a History of Democratic Kampuchea add, “Cambodian families were split up and
people were assigned to work groups; husbands and wives were separated, and
children were separated from their parents” ( 2007: 26). They are allowed to meet their
parents if permission is granted by the Angkar (Organiz ation), but it lasts only few
hours or a half day. Parents are also dispatched to differ ent collective farm s. It means
husbands are separated from their wives. Relatives become different individuals
between those who are basic people (Moulethanns) and thos e who are 17 April
people (new people). General Kharn Khemra —American a lly and Luy Lyie —Khmer
Rouge soldier (Moulethann), for instance, are cousins -in-law. General Kharn Khe mra
is invited by the Angkar to welcome King Norodom Sihanouk at the airport in Phnom
Penh city. He is scared of being escorted by Luy Lyie and other Khmer Rouge
soldiers along the way to the city, for relationship between new people and basic
people has been cut off due to political ideology. He dares not refuse the Angkar’s
order, f or his wife, children, and relatives are to be tortured, as Sokhamm Uce
continues, “They’d torture his wife, children, relatives, and loved ones if he foug ht
them now” ( 2010: 118). People, in Dem ocratic Kampuchea, are not permitted to live
in their own ho uses, for Angkar owns their houses . They are not allowed to own
everything , as Luy Lyie points out, “At our beloved Angkar’s order, all private
propert ies are abolished” (Sokhamm Uce 2010 :108). Children , in children centre , are
instilled with p olitical ide ology of the Khmer Rouges to treat their parents, siblings,
relatives, friends, and others the same and to report what they do to their beloved
Angka r, as Tully of a Short History of Cambodia sums up in the Ester’s report of an

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orphan who sang of “how her mother and father died, of how her father’s throat was
cut and he died in a pool of blood” ( 2005: 201). Manea, from The Hooligan’s Return ,
points out that in communist Romania everything belong s to the state, even the
people, as he cites, “The state was all-powerful; it was the absolutely owner of
persons, goods, initiatives, justice, transport, stamp collecting and sport, cinemas,
restaurants, bookstores, the circus and the orphanages and the sheep pastures” ( Manea
2003 :156). Deletant of Ceausescu and th e Securitate explains Romania follows the
Soviet model an d Stalinist norms and practices in 1948 and adopts centralized
quanti tative planning. All industries and banking, insurance, mining, and transport
enterprises are owned by the state. Small businesses are abolished, as he says, “The
nationalization in June 1948 of industrial, banking, insurance, mining and transport
enterprises not only allowed the introduction of centralized quantitative planning but
also destroyed the economic basis of those stigmati zed as class enemies ” (1995: 8).
“Communism is the devil: manipulative, conniving, shameless, craven, purely evil,
and sinful; hell is here on the Earth ” (Sokhamm Uce 2010 :19). Superfluous
intellectuals: Pol Pot, Noun Chea, Ieng Sary, Khiev Samphan, Son Sen, Tak Mok, Ke
Pauk, and Thiounn Prasith are notorious Khmer Rouges’ leaders. Theoretically,
Khmer Rouge regime is destined and determined to remove all societal inequalities
and ailments. The city dwellers are evacuated to the countryside; starvation,
persecution, harsh labor, torture, imprisonment, diseases, and execution prevail
throughout the country, where over 3 million people out of 8 million die. Pol Pot,
Noun Chea, Ieng Sary, Khiev Samphan, Son Sen, Ta Mok, Ke Pauk, and other Khmer
Rouges’ politic al upper echelons do not starve themselves on purpose, but they starve
their people on purpose. The regime is rul ed by Pol Pot (Salot Sar), who knows
nothing about politics, economics, and society, as Sokhamm Uce explains, “Comrade
Pol Pot had no political, social, and economic abilities or good mora l character to
govern a destitut e, third -world, war -torn nation like Cambodia ” (2010 :162). The
estimated between 750,000 and 3,331,678 Cambodians are exterminated in the killing
field by torture, execution, exhaustion from overwork, starvation, and disease. The
Khmer Rouges turn the country into a Ma rxist agrarian society, where people both
skillful and unskillful workers work together in the rice paddies. They transform the
country into the ‘Year Zero’ by which Western medicine, religion , intellectualism,
library , and anything related to the previous regime are discarded or destroyed up on

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the start of the Khmer Rouge regime (UNESCO 2011 :24). Another estimated
Cambodian population is between 7.3 million and 8 million in 1975. The estim ated
1.7 million of intellectuals are supposed to die during Pol Pot’s regime, including a
quarter of a million by real or imagined enemies of the paranoid regime and the rest
by malnutrition and overwork, lack of medical care, and despair a nd heartbreak, as
Tully of a Short History of Cambodia points out western visitors defining Cambodia
that: “One is entitled to ask why Western visitors to Bali or Java rarely wonder at the
massive slaughter that befell those islands in 1965 -66, yet define Cambodia by the
killing fields” ( 2005: 171-72).
Khmer Rouge soldiers are illiterate and horrible idiots and never go to school but rice
fields, where they view as their schools , as one Khmer Rouge soldier say s, “Rice
paddy is my schooling, young brother; I can’t read a holy scripture of our Lord
Buddha’s Sankrit” (Sokhamm Uce 2010 :4). Pol Pot, additionally, turns the country
into agrarian society, where the people are forced to work . All schools are closed, but
all people can learn by practicing in the field, as Tully of a Short History of
Cambodia cites, “Our school is the farm; the land is our paper; the plow is our pen”
(2005: 184). The supreme flip -flop King Norodom Sihanouk, after the coup d’état,
runs into the forest to join the marquis to free his nation from the yoke of tyranny and
to fight against the imperialist Americans, their puppets, and lackeys. He, the Khmer
Rouges’ top head, joins th e Red China to annihilate Cambodia and defies the
Americans. The Khmer R ouges are cut -throat communists, for they kill people and
still smile, as Lt. Col onel Ind Tharmarpoull continues, “ Your Prince Sihanouk is the
Prince of Darkness; Prince Sihanouk is now the Khmer Rouges’ top head, their
recruiter, their Number One propaganda machine ” (Sokhamm Uce 2010 :31). Prince
Sihanouk, soon after the fall of Lon Nol, is a head of state but just a mere figurehead.
In 1976 he is put under house arrest, growing vegetables in the Royal Palace, and
Khieu Samphan is appointed as a head of state. Many Sihanouk’s families die du ring
this time, and Sihanouk is saved from this situation due to his friendship with Chinese
leaders and high international profile, as Tully of a Short History of Cambodia
explains:
Prince Sihanouk was the first head of state of the new regime, but the Kh mer
Rouges made clear to him that he was to be a mere figurehead…, Sihanouk
was effectively a prisoner in the royal palace …He spent much of his time

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under house arrest, reading and gr owing vegetables in his palace,… (2005: 172-
73).
The Khmer Rouge soldiers are the beasts, the devils , and the savages with no religion.
They are illiterate yokels from various backdrops of the Cambodian society and
recruited from the dregs of society, as Tully of A Short History of Cambodia talks
about the Khmer Rouge authorities that , “The country was ruled by the ignorant”
(2005: 184). They place women as their pleasure toys, which they use to arouse
sexuality or to have sexual intercourse. They rape a woman in groups to death or
sometimes kill her, as Sokhamm Uce deli neates, “Now she was freely and voluntarily
raped by a despicable beast; she was repeatedly ravaged by these c ursed debauchees”
(2010 :185). Gilbert in Writing Trauma: The Voice of the Witness in Rwan dan
Women’s Testimonial Literat ure points out victims of rape cannot voice out their
experiences, for some sufferings or pains have no words to express, as he continues,
“The stigma attached to victims of rape means that they are often unable to speak out
about their experiences” ( 2013: 28).
The Roumdoh people (the liberated) are forced to migrate from their own houses in
the city to live and work in the countryside, where they are forced to work in the field
and identified as capitalists and intellectuals, who are the Angkar’s enemies. They
live under abject poverty and mute despair, with meager foodstuff and malnutrition.
They are forced to work more than twelve hours and served tw o meager meals per
day. They are not allowed to have their own meals or food s and cannot hide eating or
making their own meals, with the Angkar’s pineapple eyes. They are being killed if
found guilty , as Sokhamm Uce testifi es, “The didactic Khmer Rouge’s Angkar had
been more and more parsimonious and frugal, yet Democratic Kampuchea of
Comrade Pol Pot still remained a Thi rd-World country” ( 2010 :141). , By 1970 the
world gap between the developed and the underdeveloped becomes wider and wider,
for Cambodia is turned into zero by the Khm er Rouges between 1975 and 1979, as
Wallerstein of World -Systems Analysis in World System History points out, “By 1970
the real -world gap between ‘developed’ and ‘underdeveloped’ countries was growing
wider and far from closing” ( 2004: 3). Business, market, ownership, and privacy are
abolished. The people r esembling the walking skeletons are forced to work overtime,
to eat in communal kitchens, and to live in collective camps. They are starved with

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daily meager rations and not allowed to supplement their hunger from any sources,
includ ing forests and rice fi elds, as Tully of a Short History of Cambodia raises:
Pol Pot believed Cambodia’s transformation would be so swift that there
would be no need for transitional mechanisms such as money and markets.
Private property was abolished overnight. Eating was socialized ,…but, it was
a crime for individuals to supplement their meager rations with wild food
from the forests…( 2005: 180).
Many Roumdoh women, whose husbands are the captives, become the prey of prison
overseers, who share the bed with those women to p lead for mercy and free their
captive husbands from g rudges and grips of the Angkar, as Sokhamm Uce prov es,
“Many Roumdoh women had come to his bed to share his sinful pleasure of the flesh
in order to ple ad for his mercy” ( 2010 :310). They , moreover, are tortured and ra ped
before their husbands being hung after they are found guilty of former soldiers and
then forced to remarry, as Kasumi of Gender -Based Violence during the Khmer
Rouge Regime describes the story of a woman, whose husband is killed that:
My husband was a French soldier. They hanged my husband. Five months
later they told me I had to marry but I refused. They took me to the forest and
raped me. After they raped me I said to them, ‘kill me’… I said, ‘six of my
children have already died so ple ase dig a hole and bury me together with my
four remaining children’ but I won’t agre e to marry… Now I am almost mad
(2008: 14).
Serving the Khmer Rouge Glorious Revolution requires both independent -mastery
mentality and arduous work. Chakrya Sokk, for instance, carries her hoe on right
shoulder to the field and returns home late at night. The idiotic and atheistic
communist Khmer Rouges put emphasis on their egalitarian solidarity, in which they
force their people to work arduously, while they do not have any experience in th e
rice field . Pol Pot, born in a farm er family to an upper middle class family, is raised in
the city of Phnom Penh. He never farms a single rice nursery nor places cow dung in
rice paddy as fertilizer . Khiev Samphan writes his doctoral degree in the economic s
and social plights and ailments, but practically he never operates a small business
himself . These shameless idiots now rule the nation , and they are the government.
Most of the Khmer Rouge upper echelons are the French-educated, including Pol Pot,

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as Sokh amm Uce add s, “Their leaders were the quasi -intellectual theorists: King
Norodom Sihanouk the Samdech Euv, Pol Pot, Ieng Sary, Noun Chea, Son Sen,
Khiev Samphan, Thiounn Prasith, etc. who had actually never set their ugly and
disgusting soles, not to menti on their entire feet, in rice paddies to farm rice. Yet, they
tripled rice growth and production to th ree times a year” ( 2010 :207). Consequently,
the peop le live in famine and hardship even though t hey work arduously from early
morning to late at night, with two meager meals per day, as Khamboly et al of A
History of Democratic Kampuchea 1975 -1979 extract, “We had done a lot of
farming, but never had enough rice to eat” ( 2007: 28). After 1975 Cambodia is turned
to agra rian country, where all people, including city dwellers, are put to wo rk in the
fields under the Khmer Rouges ’ leadership : Pol Pot, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary, and
many others, but they do not have any experience in growing rice. They are related by
blood an d marriage and planning to surplus agricultural commodity to sell over seas,
but they fail to do that. Instead , people are starved, as Tully of a Short History of
Cambodia cites:
Paradoxically, those who presided over Democratic Kampuchea were a close –
knit band of well -educated men and women, related by ties of blood and
marriage…Many of the Khmer Rouges leaders were from comfortable
backgrounds and had never done manual labour, although Pol Pot claimed to
have been a rubber worker…and other leader s claimed to have been peasants
(2005: 185-86).
The people , und er arduous work and malnourishment , are subject to be seriously sick
and need to be well hospitalized in good buildings, but in turn they are badly treated
under long t hatch houses, built with palm leaves, seen from distance, mixed with
acrid and pungent odors of corpses by the moistness of mornin g dew, as Sokhamm
Uce criticizes , “The Revolutionary Hospital looked barren, destitute, and desolate; it
was a long narrow thatched house with dilapidated roofs that were covered with dried
and fermented toddy palms leaves hastily patched t ogether with skeletal bamboo
frames. ” (2010 :234). Several hospitals still functioning are reserved for high and
subaltern officials, who work in the city. Chinese speciali sts and staff are secluded
and isolated from the c ity and required to do gardening to supply thei r kitchen. Travel
is banned , as Guillon of Medicine in Cambodia during the Pol Pot Regime 1975 -1979
write s, “In Phnom Penh, several hospitals continued to function after the city had

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been emptied of its occup ants…; these work units were secluded, providing their own
needs with kitchen gardens and very isolated from the city; their staffs were forbidden
to trave l” (2004: 6). The liberated are hard to survive due to a rduous and o verloaded
work, with two meager meals a day. The sick, with no treatment and medicine, are
also forced to work in the field. Watery rice porridge with banana stems cooked for
the pigs in capitalism is catered to the people , as Sokhamm Uce state s, “With his
phlegmatic countenance, Vichea started dolorously into his half -filled bowl and
witnessed several cooked rice that were shelled with a few unhusked morsels of rice
swimming or floating a long with sliced and shredded banana stems that had once
been reserved to treat the consumption of capitalist fat pigs in thei r wooden troughs”
(2010 :165). To supplement the hunger, the people look secretly for something
available, even they know the foods are poisonous or itchy, as Khamboly et al of a
History of Democratic Kampuchea 1975 -1979 tell a story of a woman that, “One day,
a Khmer Rouge cadre killed a poisonous snake and placed it on the fence; though he
knew that it was poisonous, he still ate th at snake, which killed him; my sister and her
children died of starvation” ( 2007: 28).
Human beings create violent acts, torture, atrocities , and tragedies and suffer from
them. Sheer famine, strenuous labor, and cold -blooded and well -calculated killings,
for instance, perish more than 6 million Jews, 26 million Russians as well as the
gypsies and all of the other unwanted element s in the concentration camps and
extermination cam ps. The Khmer Rouges do better, not the holocaust , but auto-
genocide; they kill their own races , as Sokhamm Uce speaks out, “We weren’t only
undeniably stupid, but also incorrigibly depraved and incurably insane” ( 2010 :76).
The people are unutterable and e xcruciatingly painful and sufferable upon the minds
and bodies of th e once proud and dominant Khmer race for generations to come. The
satanic Khmer Roug e regime leaves an indelible stigma of tragedy, atrocity , torture,
malnourishment, and execution. The Khmer Rouges treat co ckroaches better than
their own people. What they have done is indescribable savagery to the devout
Buddhist society, as Sokhamm Uce prove s, “I know everything about life, but I
understand nothing about living. I am the third monkey wi th the shut mouth. Our
mortal sin c an be found in the devil’s butt hole or the he aven’s fart wind” ( 2010 :175).
Some sufferings and pains have no words to explain, for what is expected not to
happen for human beings happens during the Khmer Rouge regime by the savages

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with no religion of the Khmer Rouges. Rape is committed cruelly and atrociously to
women, who are viewed as enemies or prisoners, who traumatize the devil actions
ever, as Gilbert in Writing Trauma: The Voice of the Witness in Rwandan Women’s
Testimonial Literature cites, “The stigma attached to victims of rape means that they
are often unable to speak out about their experiences ” (2013: 28).
Khmers are Buddhists, who worship in pagodas, where are desecra ted by the Khmer
Rouges, who annihilate all temples . They not only destroy all religious acts but also
disrobe and kill the monks, as Sokhamm Uce explains, “Buddhist monks had been
forced to disrobe and dig their own graves at gunpoint; Hallowed grounds ha d been
desecrated and soaked in blood” ( 2010 :164). Tully of a Short History of Cambodia
adds one of the eight policies to Sokhamm Uce that , “Defrock all Buddhist monks
and put them to work growing rice” ( 2005: 178). Khmer Rouges think there is no God,
except their beloved Angkar as the God. They do not worship the God, but their
beloved Angkar ; and they kill all those who are against the Angkar , including
children who are ordered by the Khmer Rouges to smash, demo lish, and pulverize the
pagodas, as Sot Tha (Khmer Rouge soldier) points out, “That’s incredibly stupid -your
Buddhist religion; it exists to fool and scare gullible people like you -not me; there is
no God but our b eloved Angkar now” (Sokhamm Uce 2010 :176). The Angkar has the
eyes of the Pineappl e can saintly see and understand everything and probe into
people’s minds, thoughts, and consciences. The Angkar can pluck out their souls and
does not allow them to shed tears and grieve for the beloved ones, as Sokhamm Uce
certifi es, “If y ou weep for the Khmarngs —your parents, siblings, and close relatives,
you are the Khmarngs yourselves; then you’ll be annihil ated” (2010 :250). Children
are instilled with communist ideology, which requires all children distrust their
parents, siblings and relatives but the Angkar. They need to report the former
occupations of their parents, siblings and relatives to the Angkar, as Calinescu of Five
Faces of Modernity writes:
Practically, as a revolutionary political doctrine, it can and does promote its
own ideology, and consciously so. This ideology is supposed to oppose
bourgeois ideology, and for tactical purposes it can use whate ver weapons it
may consider fit (1987: 128).

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Generally, education , under Khmer Rouge Regime, is abandoned. Some pagodas are
destroyed, and others are turned to prisons and warehouses. Monks are disrobed, and
religious acts are prohibited . Some schools are disappeared, and some are converted
to prisons, as Sokhamm Uce explains, “The former Toul Sleng Lycee was converted
to one of the most notorious prison , S-21” (2010 :13). The ol d education system is
destroyed; in turn schooling is provided only to support the technical skills to
agriculture and fulfill the needs of the agrarian revolution (UNESCO 2011 :24). The
educated if found are exterminated, and 70 percent of children after 1979 are
illiterates, as Tully of a Short History of Cambodia cites:
The children, however, had suffered greatly. Helen Ester, who went to
Cambodia on behalf of the Australian Council for Overseas Aid in 1980,
reported that 70 percent of the children in a new Phnom Penh orphanage she
visited were illiterates because education had ceased under Pol Pot. Of the
20000 teachers before Pol Pot, less than 7000 remained and they had not
practiced their profession since the in ception of Democratic Kampuchea
(2005: 201).
The present -day people, especially those who have experienced Khmer Rouge
regime , have suffered PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome). They do not want to
hear, see, or mention any longer, for this ex perience is terrible, tragic and the worst
ever in the world, as Sokhamm Uce clarifies , “To the present -day, the mute and
innocent Khmers have suffered from Pol Pot ’s doldrums, from his sepulcher with no
epitaph, called PTSD ” (2010 :170). PTSD is formally recognized by the American
Psychiatric Association in 1980, and it is defined as those sufferers, who experience
actual or threatened death or serious injury or a physical threat to the physical
integrity of the self ( Gilbert 2013 :24). Murderous Khmer Roug e leaders have been
educated by the French toward civilization; instead about 2 million people are killed.
They also hold the United Nations’ seat during that time. The United Nations ho lds
meetings annually to share challenges and find s solutions to the p roblems, which are
faced by the leaders of the country members. The United Nations, controlled and
monitored by the Five Meditated Tigers, pretend s not to see what is really happening
in Cambodia, allow s Pol Pot and his henchmen to torture, kill, starve, i mprison, and
enslave the Khmer Roumdohs (the Liberated) at will. No human justice really exists
on the earth, especi ally in Cambodia. There are five powerful countries, controlling

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and monitoring the world. Auto -genoci de prevails throughout Cambodia; millions of
people are murdered; why do the five powerful countries ignore the facts ? Sokhamm
Uce adds , “Power is law, order, and destruction” ( 2010 :289). A national survey
conducted by a researcher shows that more than three millions of people die during
the Khmer Rouge regime due to torture, imprisonment, starvation, famine, rape, and
murder, as Khamboly et al of a History of Democratic Kampuchea clarify, “Estimates
of the number of people who died during Democratic Kampuchea vary; the People’s
Republic of Kampuchea (1979 -1989), which had conducted a national survey,
claimed that 3.3 million people died” ( 2007: 69).
“If you shed my blood, you’ll bleed yours elf in the end, and God can’t help us all,
the proud and cursed Khmer race that we’re destined to become ,” (Sokhamm Uce
2010 :114). Three days before the downfall on April 17, 1975 of the Khmer
Republican Government of Marshal Lon Nol, General Kharn Khemra Sokk, the
young, tall, dark, and handsome brigadier general, a Lon Nol’s soldier, sits hopelessly
with his close confidants, the staunch ally of the United States of America, in a circle
around a simmerin g fire, in Chba Ompov, discussing what to do next . Some high
ranking people, in the Khmer Republican Government, have left the country for the
United States of America. The American aids have been cut off since 1973, lacking
main support from the United States of America, in fighting agains t the Khmer
Rouge s. They, the Lon Nol’s soldiers, the pro -Americans, disarm to the Khmer
Roug es unprofessionally and regretfully, as they recount , “If we surrender to these
ragtag communist Khmer Rouges now, who severely lack military morality, we’ll
regre t it for eternity ” (Sokhamm Uce 2010 :30). Since Lon Nol’s coup in 1970,
Cambodians have suffered unstable conditions, which cause many people die and
more during the American bombard, as Tully of a Short History of Cambodia quotes,
“A staggering 30 per cent of the population had died since Lon Nol’s coup in March
1970…its citizens pauperized and all most all the infrastructure of civilized society
destroyed…; the people were in rags” ( 2005: 199). Some of his close combatants
rebuke K ing Norodom Sihanouk for lie, deception , and not maintaining peace of his
own people. Some want to leave the country for safety, and others want to stay in the
country fighting agai nst the Khmer Rouges to the end, as he bawls out, “Enough! If
you want to l eave, leave; if you want to stay, stay; this is my country; let my blood be
shed and flowed forth here; I’ll stay and help King Norodom Sihanouk rebuild our

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sovereign independence; he’s a Khmer, I’m a Khmer; we are fr om the same blood”
(Sokhamm Uce 2010 :35). All, unfortunately , are surrounded by Khmer Rouge
soldiers, in the West, the South, and the North, except the East. They do not know
what to do now, except fighting against the Kh mer Rouge soldiers, and they leave
their liv es for the God Buddha to decide, as the General Kharn Khemra Sokk
continues, “Leave our fate to Lord Buddha to decide for us” (Sokhamm Uce
2010 :36). Not only General Kharn Khemra Sokk and his combatants but also other
former soldiers, officers, intellectuals, professional employee s, skilled workers, and
unskilled workers are shot dead . The Khmer Rouges also lure overseas Khmers back
home with their promise of a role in reconstructing the country , and in a matter of
fact, they are executed on Cambodian soil, as Tully of a Short Hist ory of Cambodia
delineates:
The arm of revenge reached right down the hierarchy of the defeated
regime…The center was full of former soldiers and officers, some of whom
waved to their fellows if they saw them on the road,…They were loaded onto
trucks, driven into the country, and shot. Afterwards, it would be the turn of
the intellectuals and professional employees,…( 2005: 183-84).
The people go to different directions , especially to their hometowns or families .
General Kharn Khemra Sokk, his nephew (Seyha) , and his family go to Southwestern
zone , in the control of notorious Ta Mok. They stay in their hometown, but they are
considered as new people. They meet their cousin -in law —Yuy Lyie (Khmer Rouge
soldier), who gives an invitation to Kharn Khemra to welcome King Norodom
Sihanouk at Phnom Penh International Airport on June 13, 1975, as Dieng Yok, a
Khmer Rouge soldier, states, “Angkar has a special invitation especially for you and
other high -ranking military officers like you, prou d comrade general ” (Sokhamm Uce
2010 :114). New people, invited by the Angkar , are at risk, for these people are
usually slaughtered along the way, regardless of blood ties. Invited by the Angkar’s
order, General Kharn Khemra Sokk becomes sad, looking at his son (Kamsot
Veasna). He understands what happens to him and adds, “Yes, Cousin Yuy Lyie; this
I know; your omnipresent Angkar has a panacea to remedy our Khmers’ irredeemable
and contagi ous disease called: Personal Envy and Vendetta” (Sokhamm Uce
2010 :114). Intellectuals, including teachers, soldiers, engineers, white -color workers,
and all other educated people, are prone to be in the black list . General Kharn Khemra

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is on the fifth line in the list, as Sokhamm Uce prove s, “The Black List was in the
clutches of Comrade Ta Mok who was the absolute and draconian ruler of the
Southwestern Zone ” (2010 :115). Additionally, the Khmer Rouges’ main target of
execution and imprisonment is the educated people, viewed as the enemies an d the
threat to Glorious Angkar, as Seng of the Price We Paid points out, “Well educated
people, teachers and professionals were the targets of the execution and imprisonment
because their knowledge would be a threa t to the new Communist Revolution”
(2005: xxii). A woman is forced to remarry after her husband, a French soldier , is
execut ed by the Khmer Rouges. She rejects and is then raped by the Khmer Rouges,
as Kasumi of Gender -Based Violence during the Khmer Rouge Regime writes, “My
husband was a French soldier; they hanged my husband; five months later they told
me I had to marry but I refused ; they took me to the forest and raped me ” (2008: 14).
General Kharn Khemra knows this is a bad omen of being away forever fr om his
relatives an d family, especially his adorable son. He is worried about his family and
relatives, who are also in the churning process. Their lives are determined by the
Glorious Angkar , as Sokhamm Uce delineate s, “During this churning process, grasses
and weeds w ere uprooted” ( 2010: 80). Exhaustion, hardship, torture, and murder are
the cause of tragedy, which runs through out the country, where hadred and love are
born, and then knowledge is ignored by the society, as Calinescu of Five Faces of
Modernity illustrates, “It is precisely in times of exhaustion that tragedy runs through
houses and st reets, that great love and hat red are born, and that the flame of
knowledge flares up into the sky” ( 1987: 181). Relationship is considered
unimportant. What important is Angkar’s order or invitation , which is a plea of
killing people, under Khmer Rouge regime . He cannot reject Angkar’s order;
otherwi se, the Khmer Rouge soldiers torture his wife, children , relatives, and beloved
ones. They are in different, psychotic, and pusillanimous —the cowards of cowards .
Forced constantly by his cousin -in law (comrade Yuy Lyie), he turns to his cousin -in
law, repeating Angkar’s order and says, “You’re right about yourself as alway s”
(Sokhamm Uce 2010 :118). The Khmer Rouge leaders are husbands and wives,
parents and children, in -laws, and friends. Those oppose the Angkar’s order are
exterminated. Hou Youn, for instance, one of Pol Pot’s friends, who study in F rance,
is murdered, for he refu ses the order of evacuating city dwellers out of the city, as
Tully of a Short History of Cambodia illustrates , “Paradoxically, those who presided

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over Democratic Kampuchea were a close -knit band of well -educated men and
women, related by ties of b lood and marriage” ( 2005: 185).
Getting rid of the old vestige of imperialism and capitalism and blood relationship,
Khmer Rouge soldiers try to display their loyalty to the Angkar and fight against the
Dabbrampy Mesa —new people, April 17 people, city dwellers, the liberated,
imperialists, or capitalists, who are the enemies of the Angkar, under close
surveillance. They are M oulethanns —the base peop le or revolutionists, who are
faithful to the Glorious Angkar, which feeds a nd take s care of them as their parents.
Yut Din (a Khmer Rouge soldier) add s, “I belong to our Glorious Revolution ; I am
one of the Angkar’s beloved revolutionary sons and daughters ” (Sokhamm Uce
2010 :132). Khmer Rouge soldiers are mostly teenagers and children, who are
illiterates. They are easily instilled Communist ideology to hate new people (17 April
people). They strictly obe y the Angkar’s order, as Tully of a Short History of
Cambodia quotes, “The country was rul ed by the ignorant” ( 2005: 184). General
Kharn Khemra is sent to a secret place, where his life is vague. His wife is sent to a
faraway place, passing three mountains in distance, to dig irrigation and dike . His
sons are taken to join the children brigade’s workforce . Kamsot Veasna, youngest
son, asks his father’s God brother —Dr. Bernard, who answers the question, “Mommy
will be here soon, love. Angkar sent her to a faraway place that passes three
mountains in distance to dig irri gations and dikes” (Sokhamm Uce 2010 :158). Dr.
Bernard, Kamsot Veasna’s God father, his father’s God brother, hides his identity as a
doctor in former regime. He is forced to work in the field as other people, and he even
work s harder than others to escape from any suspicion. Similar ly, Seng of the Price
We Paid also hides her father’s status to survive in the Khmer Rouge regime that,
“Since my father was a former military officer, my family had to disguise our
identities so that we could live peacefully like other civilians” ( 2005: xxiii). General
Kharn Khemra and his family, unfortunately, live in a distance from each other. He is
sent to Phnom Penh secretly by hi s cousin, who is a Khmer Rouge soldier. His friends
and family do not know where he is. His family is treated badly by th e Glorious
Angkar due to his status as Lon Nol’s soldier. General Kharn Khemra is later killed,
and his family are considered trait ors and then Khmarngs of Angkar, as Sokhamm
Uce state s, “Not only was Brig adier General Kharn Khemra Sokk murdered, his
entire family was considered traitors and therefore enemies of Angkar ” (2010 :164). In

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socialist Romania, the people are oppressed, autocratised, p ersecuted , and starved by
the dictator s. They are deprived of freedom of speech and travel, as Ioanid et al
(2004 ) of Final Report of International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania
argue , “In the decades following World War II, Romania is ruled powerfully,
autocratically, and oppressively by dictators, includi ng Nicolae Ceausescu.”
“It was being autocratically supervised by Comrade Ta Mok who was one of the
most ruthless, murderous, and craven humans of all time ” (Sokhamm Uce
2010 :171). Takok Village, Kampot province, Kharn Khemra’s homeland, is notorious
zone, the Southwestern Zone, known as the ‘Nearadei,’ un der Ta Mok’s control.
There is a magic pagoda, Wat Sang Kosal Pagoda, which has been the cradle of
Takok Village for centuries, and has survived from Thai invasion, the Vietnamese
territorial plunder, the French Protectorate, the brief Japanese occupation, and the
Vietnam War. It is, unfortunately, destroyed during Khmer Rouge regime, under
Glorious Revolution. The Khmer Rouge soldiers, savages with no religion, do not
believe in Karma and sin. They order their entire children’s brigade to smash,
demoli sh, and pulv erize the sacred Buddhist pagoda of Takok Village. Comrade
Chorn Chub, a K hmer Rouge soldier, says, “My comrade children: This is the last
remnant of the archaic and corrupt regimes of old; at our beloved Angkar’s behest,
we shall destroy it” (Sokhamm Uce 2010 :177). Not only pagoda but also Western
medi cine, intellectualism, library, school , and infrastructure have been el iminated
during the Khmer Rouge regime, as UNESCO of Education and Fragility in
Cambodia adds, “At the start of year zero, Western medicine, religion,
intellectualism, libraries, schools, and anything related to previous regime were
destroyed” ( 2011: 23).
Kamsot Veasna, younge st son of General Kharn Khemra, and Comrade Khmao Sar
are cousin. Kamsot Veas na, a liberated in need of food to fulfill the empty stomach, is
searching for crabs and snail s in the rice fiel d, near Comrade Khmao Sar , a Khmer
Rouge soldier, and Comrade Nuon Sieb, the son of Comrade Yuy Lyie , the second
deputy chieftain of Takok Village, having a party, served with roasted goose and sour
toddy palm juice. When Kamsot Veasna appro aches Comrade Kh mao Sar, he hits
Kamsot Veasna on the head with a tap of bamboo stick, making his skull bruised. He
kicks the Kamsot Veasna’s kettle, with crabs and snails, like a ball in the sky. He asks
Kamsot Veasna, “What are you doing in our beloved Ang kar’s rice fiel ds” (Sokhamm

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Uce 2010 :199). Similarly in Romania under commu nism, the state owns space, time,
souls of the people and others , as Manea of the Hooligan’s Return writes, “After state
ownership of space came the most extraordinary of all socialist innovations : state
ownership of time, a decisive step toward state ownership of human beings
themselves, given that time was virtually their sole remaining possession”
(2003: 157). The Angkar possesses everything, so no one is allowed to do anything
else to supple ment their hunger, except two meager meals per day . The found -guilty
are considered as enemies to the Angkar, a s Comrade Khmao Sar tells Kamsot
Veasna, “You’d better get out from our beloved Angkar’s rice fields now before we
change our minds about you, little Comrade Romdoh; otherwise, you’ll become
fertilizer on it” (Sokhamm Uce 2010 :201). Sok family members in 1977 are evicted
from their home by Comrade Deng Chok, the new Takok Village Chieftain, who now
occupies it. They sit around their dying mother, Gener al Kharn Khemra Sok’s
mother -in law, thinking of the sardonic communist Khmer Rouges , who treat the
liberated more badly than animals. They confiscate the houses from the liberated for
their own uses. Everything is impromptu with the idiot Khmer Rouges, who win their
Glorious Revolution through their professed hard l abor. The liberated are identifi ed as
slaves, who do not have any belongings, including houses, farms, rice fields, poultry,
and others, as Sokhamm Uce explains, “We made the natural Earth our beds, the sky
our roofs, and the w ind our blankets” ( 2010 :279). In socialist Romania, socialist state
owns persons, goods, initiatives, justice and transport, stamp collecting and sport,
cinemas, restaurants, bookstores, the circus and the orphanages and the sheep
pastures, trade, tourism, industry, publishing, radio, television, mines, forests, public
toilets, electricity, dairy farming, cigarette and wine production, as Manea of the
Hooligan’s Return states, “The industries and banks were nationalized, the
collectivization of agriculture began; political parties, Zionist organizations, private
schools were all banned” ( 2003: 147). Socialist state, moreover, extends its possession
with not only space but also time and human beings, leaving only the sole fo r them.
The individuals’ time has been transferred over to the community, where there are
continuous meetings instilling ideology of socialism, as Manea of the Hooligan’s
Return adds, “We keep meeting at meetings, ran a satirical verse of the time, a banal
formulation that encapsulated a banal reality” ( 2003: 157). Eating is socialized, and
supplement is not allowed at all. Food s are rationalized by th e Angkar , with two
bowls of watery rice porridge. Searching wild foods from the forests for hunger

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supplement is a crime, as Tully of a Short History of Cambodia clarifies, “It was a
crime for individuals to supplement their meager rations with wild food from the
forests as Khmers had always done in times of privation” ( 2005: 180).
Kamsot Veasna Sok and Chantrea Sok are waiting for their mother, and Chakrya Sok
is roasting snails in the fire. While adding twigs, hay, and cow dung to the burning
fire, Comrade Myut Di n, their Uncle -in law, approaches and asks them, “What is in
the fire? Are you cooking something? Angkar forbids private ownership. Food s must
be shared and eaten in the communal kitchen. That you know little Comrade ,”
(Sokhamm Uce 2010 :226). Search ing for own supplement is not allowe d at all during
the Khmer Rouge regime. Tadpoles, crabs, fish, snakes, wild forest roots, a nd others
are forbidden at home, but commun al kitchen. The found -guilty get killed, as Tully of
a Short History of Cambodia argue s, “Eating was socialized, but it was a crime for
individuals to supplement their meager rations with wild food from the forest…”
(2005: 180). Kamsot Veasna answers with professed calmness that it is just dried cow
dung, Comrade Uncle -in law, who is surprised with spitting little flames from the
burning fire and sees bones in the fire, as he asks, “What are those bones then, huh ,
Comrade Romdoh?” (Sokhamm Uce 2010 :227). Kamsot Veasna continues saying
that it is the gecko’s bones, used as medi cine for his mothe r’s rheumatism. Chakrya
Sok, suddenly, arrives from dying her clothes. Comrade Myut Din as well as
Comrade Thmart Tmul, Comrade Jor Keth, Comrade Deng Jok, and Comrad e Yuy
Lyie, comes to share good news of the Glorious Angkar with her. She is invited to
visit her husband, Khar n Khemra Sok, in Phnom Penh and thanks the Angkar for
being generous and humane , as she continues, “Now is the day, my comrade son. Go
to Comrade Auntie Chouem Sok and stay with her. Your comrade sister, Chatrea Sok
and I will go to see you r comrade father,” (Sokhamm Uce 2010 :229). She is taking
risk o f visiting her husband, who is supposed to welcome King Norodom Sihanouk at
the airport. She is now allowed to pact for her travel, with everything provided by the
Angkar . Myut Din, her brother -in law, recall s her husband’s heroic deeds in the
battlefields, where he kills a lot of Angkar’s sol diers. Angkar desperately needs his
skills and talents to help rebuild their nation, Democratic Kampuchea. The Angkar is
threatened by Khmar ngs, who hide inside their rank and file and attempt to destroy
the Angkar, as Thmart Thmul says, “There are still the Khmarngs who hide inside our
rank and file, and they form their clandestine CIA and KGB operative networks to

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attempt to overthrow our beloved An gkar in e very way possible” (Sokhamm Uce
2010 :229). She is under surveillance by the Khmer Rouges along the way to Phnom
Penh to discover her husband’s network. Similarly, Mona’s father of Train to Trieste
is under surveillance by the sec ret police during the communism, as he points out,
“My personal secret police agent lives in the building across from ours, so I have the
good fortune to be under twenty -four-hour su rveillance” (Radulescu 2008 :90).
Seyha Sok, Chakrya Sok’s nephew, has the same fate to his u ncle-in law, Kharn
Khemra Sok and his aunt. He is now being walked by the Khmer Rouge soldiers —
Comrade Soth Sareth , Comrade Hol -Helle , Comrade Barn Yorn , Comrade Tim Bung ,
and Comrade Dorn -Yorn to the Ghost Town, known as Killing Field. His virile and
chiseled body with lissome limbs and brawny chest now looks shriveled and ske letal.
Lt. Seyha Sok, while walk ing to the Ghost Town, kindly asks the soldiers to show
what he has done wrong. He makes sure with them that he does not commit any crime
and never does something forbidden by the Angkar. He is always loyal to the Angkar,
but he is considered as a Khmarng, a liberated. He is associated with CIA and KGB
spy and the double spy for Vietnam. Comr ade Hol -Helle furrows his thick eyebrows
and pulls out his homemade cigars with dried and thinly shredded tobacco leaves and
lights it with a si lver-cased lighter, made in USA, as he says, “Angkar has all of the
tangible evidence against you, Khmarng; that you have been the CIA and KGB spy;
you are the double spy for Vietnam also” (Sokhamm Uce 2010 :244). No one can
escape from death, and time limits death. The death of the people between 1975 and
1979, however, is limited by the Khmer Rouges, who willingly accuse anyone of
association of former regime, without any evidences or p roofs, to kill them. Uncertain
association of the former regime created by the Khmer Rouges is dangerous and
atrocious t o the people, who are innocence, as Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity
compares this act to the act of writers, who cannot sepa rate ‘fact’ from ‘fiction’ that,
“The sense of unsolvable uncertainty is constantly reinforced by the narrator’s
hesitations and self -conscious inconsistencies, blamed among others on amnesi a,
confusion, and inability to separate ‘fact’ from ‘fiction’” ( 1987: 309). The bamboo
stick bludgeons Lt. Seyha Sok’s calves. The sharp and excruciating pain makes him
involuntarily kneel down. Comrade Tim Bung delivers a harsher blow with his
orthodox cle nched fist on Lt. Seyha Sok’s left jawbone to shut him up. Comrade
Barn -Yorn spears him in the upper back with his hoe’s handle. Lt. Seyha Sok falls

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flat on his face, but he immediately turns around to face his attack ers. He manages to
free himself, dodges the hoe’s blade , and viciously pokes Comrade Dorn -Yorn in the
family’s jewel that instantly goes to sleep (unconscious), nightie -night. Fresh blood
immediately flows from the bullet’s puncture. He smiles p ensively at Comrade Soth
Sareth, as he argues, “You’re too young to commit evil, de ar little brother”
(Sokhamm Uce 2010 :247). Children, at the children brigade, are instilled with
communist ideology by the Khmer Rouges of how to treat their parents, siblings and
relatives. They are taught to hate t heir parents and to kill them, as Tully of a Short
History of Cambodia sums up in the Ester’s report of an orphan who sang of “how
her mother and father died, of how her father’s throat was cut and he died in a pool of
blood” ( 2005: 201).
Kamsot Veasna, the youngest son of Kharn Khemra Sok, lives in the children
brigade, with his brother, Vichea Sok, God brother s, Aya Bernard and Sroth Bernard.
His head gets lacerated wound, and his body is terribly bloated from a serious lack of
salt. He and oth er children look alike , but base people have access to salt. Kamsot
Veasna’s skin turns yellow, and his flesh seems soft and soggy like an un fermented
dead fish without sautéed salt. His c ountenance is swollen and difficult breathing. He
cannot walk, and he has been h allucinating. He even gets worse and worse, especially
at night. He always gets painful and awakes and interrupts everyone, as he asks his
brother, “Can I die, Brother Vichea Sok? I don’t want to be a burden to anyone, you
know?” ( Sokhamm Uce 2010 :322). He retells the nightmare to his brother, Vichea
Sok, a while ago that he dreams of their baby sister and mommy. He talks to them
about his dad, but they do not reply. Being heard, Vichea Sok understands it too well,
for it is a bad omen. He is familiar with their Khmer superstition when a person dies,
or will die , she becom es an apparition still living on the earth and then moving to the
heavenly realm or not, basing on her karmic sin. Before f alling asleep, Kamsot
Veasna add s, “I want to dream and dream again and never be awakened in this
horrible world. But then I’ll miss you, Brother Vichea Sok” (Sokhamm Uce
2010 :323). Human beings are born with happiness and sadness together.
Catastrophically, Khmer Rouge time is terrible ever. The people are deprived of all
basic need s and separated from one another, as Evans of Cambodia Insight cites, “All
sentient beings suffer, birth, death, and other separations are inescapably part of life”
(2010: 8).

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Chantrea Sok, Chakrya’s four -year old daughter, is abandoned along the way with her
mother, who has b een raped and taken to prison S 21, where educated people,
teachers, singers, soldiers, engineers, scholars, and other intellectuals are cod ed as
Khmarngs of Angkar and murdered without any trial or justice. The prisoners are
starved and tortured to death, even innocence children. She is taken to p rison S12 in
Angkor Chey, sitting near the wall of the prison, and looking for foods, for she is now
starved and gets hungry. She cries deeply and tries to chase her nutrition, but dandy
cockroach with his glossy black wings slip away through the crevice of the wooden
house. She sighs for her dinner, managed to extricate itself with room to spare. She
collects their wingless signed bodies, pops them into her mouth , and chews them
avidly, as Sokhamm Uce says, “During the sardonic Khmer Rouge regime , even
beasts, ghosts, evil spirits, and the devil pity the victimized Romdoh (the liberated)”
(2010: 341). She soon later c loses her eyes and falls asleep without awakening. Justice
becomes mute to her Third World despair. The children are treated badly , starved ,
and requ ired to work hard like adults . They cry for food , and no one comforts them,
as Seng of the Price We Paid writes, “The living conditions provided for the children
were the worst I had ever seen” ( 2005: 200).
4.2.2 When Elephants Fight
ONE LUCK AMONGST A FEW
“Prek Dek, my family’s native village, sits on the Mekong River, east of Chaudoc,
one of the natural corridors for the Vietnamese who migrate to Cambodia ” (Imam
2000 :3). Prek Dek, where is the existence of mixed population —Cambodians and
Vietnamese, is in Kandal province , 15 km south of Prek N eak Loeung, a township
where stand houses reflecting its prosperity in cemented columns and roofed with
corrugated iron or tiles. Prek Neak Loeung is also a trade center, where peasants
come to sell their crops. Imam is born in Prek Dek to Vietnamese ancestors who
migrate from Chaudoc in V ietnam to Prek Dek in Cambodia as she says, “Long ago,
my ancestors dismantled their hut, put their belongings on a cart pulled by a bull; they
made their claim on a vacant piece o f land in Prek Dek” (Imam 2000: 3). Vietnamese
emigrants start moving from what is today Canton region of China to Hanoi region
before 18th century. The movement keeps southwards , and by 1780 Kampuchea Krom
is completely occupied by the North Vietnam. The first half of 19th century Cambodia
has been directly administered for 30 y ears by the Vietnamese, who place the puppets

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on the throne and strive to assimilate the Khmers into Vietnamese culture. King Ang
Duang, however, restores order and a measure of sovereignty, as Tully of a Short
History of Cambodia cites, “Cambodia almost b ecame a Vietnamese province”
(2005: x). Her great -grandfather, Dara, is born around the 1880s two decades after
Cambodia loses its autonomy. He is the only child in the family, sent to the temple
school to learn how to read and write , and bond s a child to a Bud dhist philosophy of
life, as she illustrates, “At seven, Dara was sent to the temple school ; more than
teaching their pupils to read and write, the monks’ guidance bonded a child to a
Buddhist philosophy of life ” (Imam 2000 :14). Prior to F rench colonial period,
pagodas have been used to replace schools, for there are no other schools. Monks play
very important role to educate young men of how to read and write. The majority of
Cambodian people are illiterate, and they learn their cultural h eritage through word of
mouth, as Sam of Cambodia’s Higher Education Development in Historical
Perspectives: 1863 -2012 delineates, “There were no other schools; …Most
Cambodian people learned their rich cultural heritage through the country’s popular
proverbs and sayings, traditional law, and folk tales via word of mouth” ( 2012: 226).
When he turns to twenty, his parents expect him to ordain, but he refuses their
requests. Becoming literate is in the monk’s hands because ordination marks literacy
and th e transition of a male adolescent into an adult , with recognition and respect as
she explains, “A man who had been a monk at some stage re -entered society with a
prefix of honor attached to his name, similar to the title hage acquired by the Muslim
pilgrim s on their return from Mecca” (Imam 2000 :16). Agreed to the pilgrimage,
Dara is in a n ordination procession, prepared by his parents, who hold responsi ble for
the great length and considerable expense on the week long rituals. This ordination
ceremony is brief and takes place under the auspices of the head monk, who shaves
his hair and changes new candidate into toga. After three months in monkhood, he
hates the routines, requiring him to do the novi ce’s task of sweeping the floor , and
leaves the monkh ood to normal life, as she add s, “Three months came and went; Dara
badge goodbye to Keo, who was set to remain permanent ly with the temple” (Imam
2000 :18). Traditionally, Cambodian culture r equires, but not compulsory for a boy to
be ordained to gain merits for his parents. For teachers, he can offer gifts for h is
grateful ness, as Harris of Cambodian Buddhism quotes, “According to one chronicle
version, Bana Tu had been ordained at Angkor Wat…It records the gift of rice fi elds
to Samdech Preah Bodhinan, its chief monk, by Bana Tu’s mother” ( 2005: 42).

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After hi s monkhood life, he is ready to look for a woman t o be his wife. Reama, an
orphan adopted to Mephoum’s family, and her adopted sister, according to Khmer
tradition in t he past, go into shadow together at the age of eighteen. One day Dara
visits the farmers in the village and goes to the river bank, where he catches his eyes
with Reama, having a bath in the river. Coming back home, he asks his mother for
Reama’s hand s, as she prove s, “A for tnight after his chance meeting, he asked his
mother to find out about Mephoum’s family; the marriage broker was sent to his
house to tie the knot” (Imam 2000 :22). Eight months after the engagement, Dara and
Reama become husband and wif e and do business in selling mulberry leaves to the
Vietnamese silkworm breeders. Dara, for the next decades, is on business away from
home, resulting in childless to his wife. After the first miscarr iage, Reama gives a
birth to a boy in 1908, who is to be Imam’s grandfather —Heng, as Imam mentions,
“Reama suffered from severe morning sickness and was bedridden for the full term;
at the end of 1908, a boy was born; he survived to bec ome my grandfather” (Imam
2000 :29). Heng is determined to go further education in Phnom Penh, where is 65 km
from Prek Dek, even his fath er recommends him to learn the family’s business .
Hardship hits the villa ge; all incomes derive from mulberry and timber trade, corn
and rice farming are n eglected. Business goes bankrupt; no money is given to restore
the production of corn and rice. A great number of levies are imposed to increa se
revenue by the French as she continues, “In general, village life had never been easy,
particularly since 1914, when not only higher but a greater of levies were imposed to
increase revenue ” (Imam 2000 :34). Cambodian peasants from the late 1920s become
uneducated and poorer, for a little education is given to indigenous people under
French colony. The revenue colle cted is used to fund modernization —roads,
electricity in big cities, hotels, and resorts. An improved road system and
communication allow a more effective way to exploitation. Cambodia becomes a
prosperous colony in the northern province of Kampong Cham, for the French own
big rubber plantations. The peasants pay the bills w ithout receiving any advantages,
as she argu es, “Heavier taxes were imposed, and from the late 1920s the Cambodian
peasants became the heavies t taxed in the French Southe ast Asian colonies” (Imam
2000 :38). Cambodia has been colonized by t he French for 90 years, and it is viewed
as a side dish, compared to Vietnam as a main course. Cambodia’s economy is a
backwater, in which people are in poverty . Taxes are collected by the French
administration, which requires all Cambodian people to hold responsible for. The

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peasants, moreover, are forced to pay their own p ockets on road labour, as Tully of a
Short History of Cambodia writes:
The peasants saw th e king as a devaraja with supernatural powers: a being
quite disconnected from the state apparatchiks who collected the taxes, forced
them to labour on the roads and often lined their own pockets in the process.
In fact, the French administration had been increasing taxes for some years,
but because Khmer officials collected these the peasants held them
responsible (2005: 97).
Heng, ev en in the hardship, continues living at the gardener’s house in Phnom Penh,
where he studie s with other important political figures at Sisowath College . He
encounters difficulties while studying, turn ing him to drink, for he is lonely and has
no a single friend, as she explains, “I can assume that those years had not been happy
ones for my grand father ; it was during this stage that he got into the habit of
drinking ” (Imam 2000 :41).
“They have made a discerning choice for you ” (Imam 2000 :48). During twenty
years of business exchanges with one Vietnamese family, who live in Tan Chau 20
km south of Prek Dek, near village border in Vietnam, Dara has good relationship
with this family. They have been associated from the early days of his mulberry trade.
They have planned for their childre n—Heng, Dara’s son and Kim, his part ner’s
daughter to get engaged . Before the young people are aware of the elders’ plan, the
arrangements ar e set for their wedding, as she points out “My grandfather was taken
by surprise at the news o f his own marriage” ( Imam 2000 :48). Historically, the
Vietnamese have been living along with Laos and Cambodia upstream on the
Mekong before the French colony in Indochina, as Tully of a Short History of
Cambodia writes:
Once the French naval officers had established a beachhead at Saigon, they
gradually wrested control of the surrounding districts from the Vietnamese
authorities. In 1863, they set up a protectora te in neighbo ring Cambodia. By
1893, after a bloody war of conquest, they would control all of the
Vietnamese territories from the Chinese border in the north to the tip of the
Cape of Camau in the south, along with Laos and Cambodia upstream on the
Mekong (2005: 80).

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Kim is told by her grandfather to be ready for her new life in Prek Dek, where the
wedding is to be taking place. After her marriage, her father in -law, Dara, asks her
husband, Heng, to keep an eye on his estat e. He bonds the villagers with string debt s
and treats them badly, as she says, “ Dara had extended it to more than just holding
lands; he owned the souls of men by bonding them with a string of debts; the villagers
could not begin to imagine a day when they would be free; from the fields to the
timber yard, my grandfather witnessed their misery ” (Imam 2000 :50). Being a family
likes teeth and tongue. Quarrel sometimes happens between husband and wife. Heng
dismisses home a month without any explanations or reasons. Kim returns to her
home in Tan Chau, wh ere she is born , with her family. They ultimate ly return to
Phnom Penh with their children, as Imam continues, “They eventually slept, my
father huddled in her lap, when the towering shadow of my grandfather, He ng, fell
over them” (Imam 2000 :61). Arrived in Phnom Penh, Kim feels shocked due to
uncertainty of her husband, who has dismissed her for a month in Prek Dek and plans
of being abandoned in a place, where she knows no one to support her, as Imam
explains, “She unpacked and cleaned some of th e rooms, all the while plagued by
uncertainty; was she going to be abandoned in a place wher e she knew no one?”
(Imam 2000 :62). Traditionally and practically, Cambodian elder children , according
to family duty, are required to leave home for work. The main reason is political –
economic issue s rather than socio -cultural one s of urban living. Wars, natural
disasters, landlessness, and poverty are the main push factors for migration, as
UNFPA of Socio -Cultural Influences on the reproductive health of migrant wo men
demonstrates, “The political economy of rural -to-urban migration is a stronger driver
of migration in most instances rather than the socio -cultural dimensions of urban
living” ( 2011: 5-6).
Her doubts have gone away with her thoughts of her husband, who has worked for the
government. He has worked in the Ministry of Finances under the control of the
French administration as a person who imposes taxes on salt and alcohol for imports
and exports. After first arrival in Phnom Penh, his house resides in the less prestigious
site. He, then, moves to the floating village in Tole Sap River, where is the
Vietnamese community. Being working in the Ministry of Finances , he moves his
house to a prestigious and luxurious site, with electricity and running water, as Imam
clarifies, “His house was part of a new complex for senior government employees and

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it was considered relatively luxurious ” (Imam 2000 :65). Corruption and nepotism
strike the country under the French colony. The rich are the French and the Khmer
Bureaucracy, not the peasants, who pay the taxes and own pocket in road labour. The
French are visible in the city and towns, and the Khmer officers collect taxes from the
peasants, who blame them for t heir abuses, as Tully of a Short History of Cambodia
states: “ The French were largely invisible, particularly in the countryside where most
Khmers lived, and the peasants blamed the Khmer bureaucracy for the abuse they
suffered, despite the efforts of more political elements to turn the protests into an anti –
French crusade ” (2005: 97).
“His easy access was due to Heng’s old boy status and his official occupation in a
government office ” (Imam 2000 :95). Corruption and nepotism prevail the country,
even at schools. High ranking people’s children have easy access to the schools,
especially College Sisowath, where simple children have no access to it, as Tully of a
Short History of Cambodia cites, “History has shown that huge and repeated
government majorities often carry the seeds of corruption within them” ( 2005: 116).
College Sisowath, a place where students with their parents’ high statuses in the
government are allowed to enter, is a playground of racial tension and commonplace.
Students are categorized into groups, including bullying and prejudice provoking
groups , as she explains in her words, “Students separated into groups, bullying and
provoking each other with insults dre nched in preju dice” (Imam 2000 :95). College
Sisowath, additionally , is also a school for high Vietnamese students, who are living
in Cambodia, where their parents migrate from Vietnam to Cambodia durin g King
Monivong in 1936, as she adds , “In the thirties a petition was sub mitted to King
Monivong by the students at Lycee Sisowath, complaining about a high Vietnamese
intake ” (Imam 2000 :95). Imam’s father, a student of Lycee Sisowath, leaves the
school when his brother, Duck’s Feet, starts the school —Ecole Miche, which is
founded and run by the Jesuit brotherhood, where French at the top and Vietnamese
at the base. It is popular with the low -income Viet namese, as Imam argu es, “To
Duck’s Feet, his father’s long hesitation indicated he had fallen out of grace; he made
his own enquiries and a year later enrol led at Ecole Miche” (Imam 2000 :97). Tam,
her father’s sister, is sent to school at age of six because she is bright. He wants her
sister to go further education instead of staying at home. A woman, according to
Cambodian culture in the past, is not encouraged to go further education at high

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school or tertiary school. She is in need for reading and doing some calculation , as
she figure s out, “My father was instrumental at pushing for his sister to get an
education; give her a chance to learn something instead o f keeping her home” (Imam
2000 :104). She, however, becomes a servant at her grandmother’s house because her
grandmother cannot hire one. She and her brother feel disappointed about this, but no
alternation. The eldest daughter, according to Khmer culture, is expected to
understudy the mother in the house. Her brother has no immediate solution for her,
but he consoled her with a promise of going back to school one day, as she raises,
“My father felt sorry that his sister was being landed in a tough domestic situation”
(Imam 2000 :107). It is, traditionally, believed that Cambodian women are supposed
not to go further education after they can read, write, and do some calculation. They
prefer doing their own business to staying at home and doing housework. The
development of education for both genders is affected by the traditional belief, as
UNESCO of Education and Fragility in Cambodia shows, “The development of the
education sector is influenced by Cambodian cultural m atters” ( 2011: 19).
Her father leaves Lycee Sisowath in 1945, and then he enrolls for two years at the
School of Administration, where is founded to train its students for public service. He
does like other people do to prepare a job in the government. Her grandfather does
not like his son working in the office, where more corruption is made in the order of
the day. He wants him to work in the Ministry of Agriculture, where less corruption is
made. Cambodia, additionally, is an agrarian country, where farmin g bases on nature
because irrigation system is inadequate, as she points out , “My grandfather’s prime
concern was to steer his eldest son’s career away from offices where bribery was th e
order of the day” (Imam 2000 :115). Gap between the poor and the rich becomes
bigger and bigger due to corruption and impunity. The society maintains the
inequitable status quo in educational and employment sectors, bringing about fragility
and violence, as UNESCO of Education and Fragility in Cambodia adds,
“Corruption and bribe -taking in educational and employment systems maintain the
inequitable status quo and exacerbate fragility, resulting in violence” ( 2011: 47). After
the return from the United States for a study tour, her father is pro moted as a
controller of agriculture —an official rank in the government. He buys a house in
Phnom Penh to make his father surprised. His father, in turn, gets furious about this
because he thinks that he cannot take with him the house when he dies, as her

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grandfather asks his son, “Did I tell you not to purchase this house? Is it so important
to own it instead of paying rent? Will I be able to take its deed and its title with me
when I die? ” (Imam 2000 :116).
Her mother is born in Battambang province, following the other two brothers. She is
the favourite daughter, the eldest of nine children from the same mother. She is an
exceptional singer, a soloist in her church choir due to her voice of a lot of strength ,
rising confidently high and stirring deep emoti ons in the congregation, as she adds,
“To sing like that, she mu st be close t o God” (Imam 2000 :118). She is 16 in 1947 and
has gone to the convent, and her two younger brothers are at a Jesuit seminary. The
three are the first group of Nguen (Imam’s f ather, a Vietnamese migrant living in
Cambodia, atheist in practice and vaguely Confucian in thought) being groomed for
the Catholic C hurch. They are, in those early days , allowed to pay occasional visit to
home , where ramshackle houses are packed together in a pred ominant ly Vietnamese
community, as she state s, “In 1947, my mother was sixteen and had gone to the
convent” (Imam 2000 :121). Cambodian peo ple are easy going and friendly; they
believe in different religi ons—Buddhism, Muslim, Christianity, and others, but
Buddhism is the state religion, which 90 percent of Cambodian people believe in, and
another 10 percent believe in Muslim, Christianity, and others, as Evans of Cambodia
Insight: Khmer Culture and Religio n cites, “Khmer people are quite easy going, 90%
of Cambodians are ethnic Khmers and speak Khmer. The remaining 10 % include
Chinese -Khmers, Khmer Muslims, ethnic hi lltribe people, and Vietnamese”
(2010: 14).
“I was not bright; as we climbed up to the next grade where the teacher had the
reputation of being nasty and strict, I lost a lot of weight through the fear of
failure ” (Imam 2000 :163). She turns four years old when her mother thi nks she is
ready for the school. She is in fear of her studies, for her father is cruel to his children
who are truants. He hits her brother, who skips the class, with the belt without any
inquiry. In her high school (Lycee Descartes —a school for the elite) , she does not do
well for all school subjects due to her low comprehen sion and efforts , as she
delineates , “My marks were borderline , but the comments jotted at the bottom of my
early scholastic reports, even from the strict teacher, acknowledged my efforts ”
(Imam 2000 :163). She dislikes school as much as her brother does, b ut she does not
show it, for she does not want to be additional problem to her mother. However, in

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the beginning of the second semester, in year ten, they are handed back the results of
some previous test s. Their teacher, whose eyes of the p alest grey are emotionless, is
disappointed with nobody, even the brightest students, in good marks. He rubs his
hands together and make s his way towards her table. He looks at her and says,
“Except you” (Imam 2000 :164). He invites her to demonstrate her marks on the board
to the class, and she is the only one who passes the test. He knows where she is, and
she does not copy from anywhere. She accidental ly does it right, as she continues , “I
had accidentally got them right and it seemed to me that he was determined to prove
this and in so doing, rob me of my feeling of triumph I might have” ( Imam
2000 :164). Four of them —Vandy, Vaan, Touch and Imam have attended Lycee
Descartes, but three drop out. There is only one remaining due to the fall of the
economy of Cambodia fr om the early fifties into the hands of the Chinese
Community. They buy all some items in low price, and sell out to custome rs in a very
high price, as she raise s, “Chou Kong bought up all the garlic created a vacuum to
boost the demand, and released it bac k to the consumers at exorbitant prices” (Imam
2000 :236).
Chinese -Khmers own most of big business in Cambodia. They become richer and
richer, and simple people get poorer and poorer. They, during economic crisis in mid –
1960s, buy goods in low price, but t hey sell them out in very high price. The
expenditures for the family double. Chaos and the growth of the Communist
movement and the spillover of Vietnam War, in the end of 1960s, lead to internal
instability and U.S bombing , as UNESCO of Education and Fragility in Cambodia
delineates, “Insurgency and the growth of the Communist movement resulted in the
uprisings in 1967 and 1968 and internal instability by the end of 1960s due to
spillover from Vietnam War, leading to the US bombing and invasion into Ca mbodia
between 1969 and 1973” ( 2011: 21-23).
General Lon Nol, pro-America, seizes the opportunity of the Prince’s absence to oust
him on March 18, 1970. The country turns into Republic an, under the rule of General
Lon Nol, who becomes the Prime Minister. Due to mismanagement and corruption in
the new government, the early military offensives against the communists in 1970 -71
meet with negligible success. The Americans have to keep Lon Nol’s republican
government on its feet by pouring in funds and by bombing the countryside heavily.
Phnom Penh and Battambang, therefore, are rich of refugees —Phnom Penh

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population reaching to two millions and Battambang leading to a quarter of a million.
The majority of peasants run to the forests , which hold the promise of a haven when
life becomes impossible in the city. In exile in Beijing after the National Assembly
under the leadership of Lon Nol, who votes him out of office, the Prince agrees in
1970 to form an alliance with the Khmer Rouge s. Sihanouk symbolizes the absol ute
royalty, and the Khmer Rouge s symbolize the communism. They have been old
sworn enemies, but their alliance, which is baptized the ‘Coalition of Democratic
Kampuchea’ is born out of the need to use and eventually outplay each other for their
own end. T he communism gives Sihanouk the military backbone to regain the power,
and Sihanouk gives the Khmer Rouge s legitimacy . Their coalition government has a
seat at the United Nations, as Imam continues, “Their coalition government in exile
won representation a t the United Nations and the Prince’s presence helped the
communists gain the support from the peasants who were traditionally loy al to the
monarchy” (Imam 2000 :283). After the fall of Sihanouk regime, Lon Nol rules the
country, facing poor governance, economic downturn, social fragmentation, and civil
and regional wars. Many Cambodian people are on their move to the forests to form a
resistance, fighting against Lon Nol and the Vietnamese invasion, as Robinson of a
History of Cambodian Refugees in Thailand expresses, “The people fled into the
forests to organize a resistance as guerillas. More than two million people were on the
move from their villages to safe places due to the turmoil, civil war, and American
bombing ” (1994: 4-9).
Signe d many petitions demanding an end to military involvement in Southeast Asia,
the American youth poises as the conscience of their nation . Therefore, in August
1973 the US Congress votes to ban further bombing in Cambodia . Without the B -52s,
nothing can sto p the Khmer Rouge s. They ma rch out of the forests and go in the
cities, where they intend to bring down Lon Nol’s republic , as she adds , “From
August 1973 Lon Nol and his men barely clung to power; during this time the
insurgents concentrated their as saults on the city” (Imam 2000 :284). Phnom Penh, at
the beginning of 1975, has run out of food, medicine and fuel. Peace in Cambodia
quickly gives way to co nfusion. The Khmer Rouges demand an immediate evacuation
from Phnom Penh. Anyone who dares to disobe y their orders is to be shot. The
evacuees are ordered to leave their homes and are simply told to take up special
duties in the countryside. The Khmer Rouges’ master plan transforms Cambodian

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society into an agrarian society and the entire population into unpaid collective
agricultural laborers , as she raises, “During the relentless evacuation march, it was
already clear at that early stage that the new communist rule was more hellish than
the y ears under Lon Nol” (Imam 2000 :294). Cambodia, under Pol Pot ’s regime ,
becomes killing field, and its capital city becomes ghost city. Everything left from the
former regime is completely destroyed. Schools and pagodas are turned into prisons.
Millions of people are killed by the Khmer Rouges, as UNESCO of Education and
Fragility in Cambodia mentions, “At the start of Pol Pot’s year zero, Western
medicine, religion, intellectualism, libraries, schools, and anything related to previous
regime were destroyed” (2011: 23-24).
“September 1969 was the start of a crucial acad emic year for me —I was working
towards the French Baccalaureate ” (Imam 2000 :254). It is also a critical year for
Cambodia , when many political upheavals are setting the country on a road of greater
uncertainty. The conservative parliamentarians vote into the National Assembly are
more and more convinced of the redundancy of Prince Sihanouk. Cambodia, then,
becomes republic, under the leadership of the Prime Minister, General Lon Nol, who
favors the return of American aid into Cambodia. Imam prepares herself for the
national examination, as she cites , “In 1969, I was keen to sit for the Cambo dian
Baccalaureate” (Imam 2000 :249). While she is in Lycee Descartes, she does well in
her stu dies and has received a good result, which warrants an endorsement to study in
France , with the air fare paid for by the French government. Unfortunately, she fails
due to the changes under Lon Nol ’s rule. She feels disappointed and heartfelt of
missing th e great opportunities to France, as she explains, “My heart was set on
France and I had giv en it my best shot” (Imam 2000 :263). While she is sorting out
her place to study overseas, she enrolls at the Law Faculty at the University of Phnom
Penh. She makes an alphabetical list of embassies in Phnom Penh and visits them
every day. Some embassies are exhausted with talking to her. She, finally,
accidentally visits Australian embassy, where she meets th e embassy assistant, whom
she asks for scholarship availability to Australia. She can speak good English to the
assistant to show off her English. Luckily, the scholarship is available. She is given
the application form to complete. Completed the form, she hands it to the embassy,
where she knows that the scholarship is only for the government staff, not for
students. She is a student at the university. She cannot apply for this scholarship.

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Eventually, she wins the scholarship, for the numbers selected are not enough, as she
adds, “With 39 other students, I caught an Air Cambodge flight to Singapore where
we would link with a Qantas flight to arrive in Sydney a day later ” (Imam 2000 :269).
She lea ves Cambodia at the end of 1971 for Australia. Human resources play a very
important role in developing the country. She can help develop the country and find
job easily after return ho me from Australia, as CITA of Teachers’ Salary and Terms
and Conditions writes, “More educated people are easier to find jobs than th ose are
less educated; quality of education plays very important role in developing a country
and being rich of the people” ( 2012: 4)
“I presumed my mother dead; she was in fact still alive ” (Imam 2000 :300). By April
1975 she is about to achieve her goal of going back to Cambodia, where the absence
of news from her mother becomes unbearable. The link between Australia and
Cambodia becomes disconnected due to the turmoil in the country. A few weeks
before the i nvasion of Phnom Penh by the Khmer Rouge s, her Mum’s letters have
been stopped. She l earns the development in Cambodia through the media. In April
1976, a year to the day after the Khmer Rouge s take control, they proclaim their new
constitution and name th eir new Prime Minister, Pol Pot, of whom the world has no
knowledge. All people are forced to work in the rice fields. The country turns into
agrarian society, where all people are starved. The food distribution to the refugees is
sporadic and scanty. They fish and eat whatever they can forage on the uncultivated
grounds —sweet potatoes, wild bamboo shoots and reeds. They live on food ration —
watery rice porridge. They are homeless and drenched to the bone when it rains at
night. Religion is banned as she cla rifies , “The temple, no longer a place of worship,
was turned into headquarters where soldiers liv ed and stored guns” (Imam 2000 :301).
The whole society is disrupted. Cultural ties, community and family obligations,
blood bonds and security are obliterated . All members of the same families are
forcibly separated: siblings from each other, children above seven years of a ge from
their mothers, and husbands from their wives. The situations wor sen from day to day,
which mark the onset of a bloodbath in the area as well as the whole country.
Rampant disease arising from famine, lack of sanitation , and lack of treatm ent or
medicine takes its tolls, as she explains, “Execution in the hands of those now in
charge was arbitrary an d the number of ca sualt ies escalated” (Imam 2000 :304). One
luck amongst a few, who wins scholarship, decides not to come back home after

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finishing the studies. The Khmer Rouges try to lure overseas Khmers, who study
abroad, back home to help develop the co untry. The Khmer Rouges, in turn, kill them
all when they arrive on Cambodian land, as Tully of a Short History of Cambodia
clarifies, “The Khmer Rouges leader Thiounn Mumm lured overseas Khmers back
home by promising them a role in the reconstruction of t heir country, only to have
them executed when they stepped back on Cambodian soil” ( 2005: 184).
The civilians are ordered to state their origins . Her mother is rightly concerned about
her Vietnamese origin. Her father may be recognized for having been a ranked civil
servant in Lon Nol’s cabinet. Her father’s de -facto wife and her two children are kept
as far away as they can to avoid being found guilty by association. If someone is
guilty of hiding their origins, they wi ll be killed by the Khmer Rouge authorities, as
Imam’s mother points out, “By tomorrow, we will all be dead; they must have
executed y our father already” (Imam 2000 :306). In Melbourne, it is not enough for
her to merely accept that she is an orphan. She needs to find out the proofs of her
family death, so she can mourn them properly. The time she destroys her mother’s
letters, her family has arrived in Saigon, Vietnam. She also learns that her father is
still alive work ing in the rice mill in Saigon, as she add s, “After a chance encounter
with a Vietnamese official who had previously known of him in Phnom Penh and
who certified that he was an agricultural engineer, my father was promoted to
supervising the quality control of Saigon rice mills” (Imam 2000 :319). Toward the
end of 1977, a few months after she has married in Melbourne, she receives a letter
from the Red Cross, which conveys the extraordinary news about her family. She
approaches the Red Cross, requesting for he r parents’ address in Saigon. She flies to
Paris with her husband to meet her uncle —Duck ’s Feet, who studies in Paris and
obtains the address of her parents. In 1981 she and her husband travel back to Paris to
welcome her parents at Charles de Gaulle Airpo rt after 10 -year separation, as she
raises, “My family would be at Charles de Gaulle A irport to greet us” (Imam
2000 :333). Happy reunion, therefore, does exist in Paris, France, even though they
take refuge in different countries —France and Australia.

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4.2.3 The Price We Paid
EXPERIENCING THE WORST EVER REGIME IN CAMBODIA
The Buddhist ideal is a society in which each individual respects the other’s
personality, an intricate network of warm and happy human relationships:
mutual respect and affection between parent and child, teacher and student,
husband and wife, master and servant, friend and friend, each helping each
other upwards in the scale of being (Tully 2005 :65). There were two
interrelated immediate reasons for the expulsions. The first was t he relative
weakness of the Khmer Rouges ’ forces, which had been only just strong
enough to defeat Lon Nol’s army. The second was the fear that the cities
would act as reserv oirs of counterrevolution ( Tully 2005: 177).
“The discrimination against the bourge oisie was unimaginable, ” (Seng 2005 :xxii) .
After the big change of April 17, 1975, Cambodian city dwellers are forced to
evacuate from their houses to the coun tryside, where they are oppressed to work in
the fields. All Cambodian city dwellers hide their identities to protect themselves
from danger or murder due to Khmer Rouge s’ policy, which destroys its enemies —
soldiers, teachers, engineers, and other educated people of the previous regimes.
Some can hide their identities, but some do not because of their appearances and
complexions, as Seng mentions, “Well educated people, teachers and professionals
were the targets of the execution and imprisonment because their knowledge would
be a threat t o the new Co mmunist Revolution” (Seng 2005 :xxii) . The big change of
April 17, 1975 manifests the growing tension throughout Cambodia, leading to
famine, starvation, torture, imprisonment, and death. Creating agrarian society and
growing tension simultaneou sly exist in Cambodia, where the killing field is well –
known all over the world, as Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity expres ses, “Time
had to coexist in a state of growing tension with a new awareness of the preciousness
of practical time: the time of action, creation, discovery, and transformation”
(1987: 19). Evacuation not only exists in Cambodia but also in other countries aroun d
the world before World War I and after World War II, but what difference in
Cambodia is evacuating all city dwellers to countryside , working in the fields, and
mobilizing of hatred ethnics or religious ‘other’. Deportation of Jews from Spain
starts in 1492 and 1614, and 14 million Germans , after 1945, are driven home, as
Tully of a Short History of Cambodia writes:

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The Romans scattered the Jews from Palestine in the Diaspora of 70 AD.
Ferdinand and Isabella deported the Sephardic Jews from Spain in 1492 and
the last of the Muslim Moriscos followed them in 1614. Stalin expelled the
Crimean Tartars, the Volga Germans a nd the Chechens to Siberia during
World War II, and after 1945 some 14 million Germans were driven
westwards from their homes in Central and Eastern Europe (2005: 176).
Seng’s family, the writer’s family, hide their identities to prevent from execution or
imprisonment. Those who can read and write both Khmer and language pretend to be
illiterates , and those who work as fo rmer military officers pretend to be taxi drivers,
as she illustrates , “Since my father was a former military officer, my family had to
disguise our identities so that we could live peacefully like other civilians. My dad
reported his previous occupatio n as a taxi driver” (Seng 2005 :xxiii) . She is broken
heart from the loss of everything, including possession , freedom, friends, relatives,
and beloved ones. She is one of survivors living in shock and no relief from the
trauma of the Khmer Rouge regime. She prefers death to the Khmer Rouge regime,
traumatizing the rest of her life, as she adds , “Well, I would ra ther die if such th ing
happened to me” (Seng 2005 :xxiv) . Officials, teachers, mechanics, engineers,
doctors, nurses, and other professionals are called to cooperate to rebuilding the
country. Those who try to hide their identities are seriously condemned by the Khmer
Rouge s. This is a pretext made by the Khmer Rouge s to identify one’s status . After
identifying as intellectuals , they are taken to the huge killing farm without any trials,
as she explains, “This enforcement led some of those people reveal themselves, and
then they were taken into the city; no families allowed; no one knew or heard fr om
them ever since” (Seng 2005 :19). With thi s regard , those who hide their identities are
alive , and those who tell the truth of the association with the former regime as well as
their families get killed. Thus, the people disguise their identities to survive, as
Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity delineates:
To be fully aware of this complexity, one has to realize first to what an extent
the spirit of decadence is deceptive, that it tries to pursue its destructive work
under the most reassuring and healthy appearance. For Nietzsche, the strategy
of decadence i s typically that of the liar who deceives by imitating truth and
by making his even more credible that truth itself (1987: 180).

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At about 6:00 am on April 17 , 1975 the whole city is quiet due to bombardment a nd
fire. The Khmer Rouges speak in loudspeaker to require all city dwellers to evacuate
from the city and prepare food s for three days. Seng and her family, after the return of
her father in depression, are hiding in the house in fear and confusion of where to go.
Her father, a military officer in Lon No l’s regime, does not go to his work place as
before. He advises his family members to prepare food s and other supplies at least for
two weeks because he thin ks that the war is getting worse and worse , as Seng raises,
“Pa told us to prepare food supplies for at least two weeks and took as many
valuables and useful things as we could” (Seng 2005 :15). Some Khmer Rouge
soldiers yell at the people while firing into the sky to move out of the city just for a
few hours due to American bombardment , as Tully of a Short History of Cambodia
write s:
Outside in the streets all was chaos, with Khmers Rouges soldiers yelling at
the people to get out of the city, occasionally punctuating their words with
bursts of AK47 fire into the sky. Some said that the evacuation would be only
for a few hours because the Americans were going t o bomb the city
(2005: 175).
Thousands of pe ople are moving out of the city in different directions, but some are
blocked by Kh mer Rouge soldiers, who prevent the people from moving in the city.
Seng’s family departs in the afternoon o n the day when the Khmer Rouge soldiers
force them to move out , heading east of the city. After walking 3 miles away from the
city, the sun is gradually going d own, and some people t ry to find places to relax
because they are exhausted and forced to move quickly away from the outskirts of the
city—the bombed zone. Her family, as the dark comes, arrives Kean Svay District,
where is located along Mekong River. Her father finds a place near the river to take
rest due to their exhaustion and hunger, as she state s, “We couldn’t go on anymore
since we had lost all our strength and were hungry; Pa decided to find a place near the
river to rest” (Seng 2005 :17). All streets out of the city ar e full of people, who are
wandering out of the city, resulting in children, elderly, and corpses on both sides of
the streets, crying and asking for help , as Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies
Reader cite, “We are made to feel a sense of exile by our inadequacy and our
irrelevance of function in a society whose past we can’t alter, and whose future is
always beyond us” ( 1995: 12). Many Khmer Rouge soldiers, on April 17, 1975, are

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standing along the streets o ut of the city, watching and screening Lon Nol’s soldiers.
If any, they are treated badly and killed, as Tully of a Short History of Cambodia
argues , “The heavily armed guerrillas, filing through the streets in black peasant garb
or rudimentary khakis, wer e serious and disciplined in contrast to the lackadaisical
and demoralized Lon Nol soldiers” ( 2005: 173). When she wakes up the next
morning, she hears a revolutionary song from a radio nearby, describing how hard
they struggle during th e war in the jungle. After discussion with the family, her father
decides not to go away from the family no matter what happens. A week later, by
seeing no food , people are allowed to get food s from factories, located on the other
side of the river, where they swim across for foods to survive. All people, on the
fourth week, are forced to move to their hometowns or provinces with no exception
during three days because of American bom bs dropping on the city, as she certifie s,
“At this time, we the people realized that we defini tely would never go back homes i n
Phnom Penh again” (Seng 2005 :20). The Khmer Rouges never keep their promises,
for most of them are illiterates and young. They s trictly obey the Angkar’s order and
force the city dwellers to mov e out for three days, but three days turn to more than
three years of evil, as Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader extract Lee Tzu
Pheng’s poetry that:
words are only wind
children of the mind
give nothing if nothing
is accepted (1995: 473).
A few days after evacuation, Phnom Penh becomes a city with no people living,
except dead tolls, as Tully of a Short History of Cambodia mentions, “The evacuation
was relentless, and when Haing Nhor returned a few days later with a guerrilla escort
to pick up some medicines, Phnom Penh was already a ghost city” ( 2005: 176). Her
father decides to go to Kampot province, where he is born. Her family beg ins the trip
toward Kampot province by taking along the Bassac River, where fish, vegetables,
and corn are thought to be found more. The situation is changed quickly by half of the
downtown on fire and crowd of people moving out of the city in different di rections,
assigned by the Khmer Rouge s. All people are not allowed to retreat, but move out.

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Due to the cro wd of people moving out at the same t ime, some children or relatives
get lost and ask for help, and others die along the road s due to the lack of food and
war, staged by the Khmer Rouge soldiers and Lon Nol’s soldiers. The flames go up
higher and higher, and the people are panic rushing out of the city in a narrow space
between the buildings. After a c ouple days on travelling, her family get rid of some
loads due to exhaustion and lack of food to generate ene rgy, as she explains, “For
couple days later, everything was getting heavier and heavier, so we began to drop
some useless things one by one, including record players, records, television, and
other electric equipment” ( Seng 2005 :23). The more time they travel, the more
hardship they face i n the crowd of people . They get rid of some possessions along the
way to release the burden they face, for they do not know yet where exactly they go
to. They i gnore to see children crying and the dead due to exhaustion, starvation, and
hunger, as Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader cite:
there are so many dead,
and so many dikes the red sun breached,
and so many heads battering hull,
and so many hands that have closed over kisses,
and so ma ny things that I want to forget (1995: 372).
“When money was worthless, they couldn’t get any food; they we re so disappointed
and hopeless ” (Seng 2005 :23). A couple days after revolution, money is abandoned
from market . Travellers or villagers exchange jewelry for foo ds or goods. Those who
bring bags of m oney with them cannot find food s to survive, eventually they commit
suicide by driving i nto a river in families, as she prove s, “They committed suicide
with their whole families by driving cars into the river and drowning” (Seng
2005 :23). Those who buy j ewelry can survive and have much food to store for later
uses. Her father gives up one suitcase of money and says that now mone y is useless,
except jewelry and valuable things, as she quote s, “I told you to buy jewelry, but you
didn’t want to spend your money; now you have nothing left, Vanny laughed at my
face” (Seng 2005 :24). No one knows Pol Pot turns Cambodia into agrarian society ,
where there is no currency, market , transportation, bank , education system, and other
administrative institutions. Most people during the regime bring money with them,
for they think money is used in business transaction. Not so many people bring along

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with them gold, jewelry, diamond s, and other valuable things, so they can use these
valuable items to exchange for stuffs and food s during the Khmer Rouge regime.
They have reasons to k eep the precious items for self -decoration, but they do not have
reasons to know they are used to exchange for foods during the evil conditions, as
Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity elaborates: “In the field of psychology, post –
Modern Western scientific mind was verifying by observation Pascal’s intuition that
the ‘Heart’ has its reasons, of which the reason has no knowledge ” (1987: 134).
Deportation of population , from rural areas to urban areas, from unsafe places to safe
places, and from one country to another, exists in history for many generations, but
mass evacuation of the population during the Khmer Rouge regime is viewed as a
brutal act ever since , as Tully of a Short History of Cambodia argue s, “The mass
expulsion was an atrocious act, but the deportation of popula tions has a long history
across many civilizations” ( 2005: 176). Crossing from one vill age to another with
difficulty and hardship due to kids , elderly people, and loads of stuffs, her family
reaches a remote village, Phnoum Veal in Takeo province two weeks later. They are
told to stay there temporarily to improve the irrigation system during the rainy seaso n
by building ditches and dikes and placed to stay with a base f amily to look over them,
as she mentions, “There, the Angka r of that village stopped us a nd together with five
other families and informed us not to continue our trip ” (Seng 2005 :26). People, not
like animals, require basic needs for living. The people, during the Pol Pot’s regime,
are deprived of these needs. They do not have their ownership and privacy, and live
in hardship, starvation, execution , separation, and decadence, as Calinescu of Five
Faces of Modernity defines, “Decadence is a loss of the will to live, which prompts
an attitude of revengefulness against life and which manifests its elf through
resentment ” (1987: 181). Found a temporary home for each evacuee’s family, the
authorities demand all heads of families report their former occupations to the
Angka r—Revolutionary Organization. Her father is one of them, reporting to the
authorities, tellin g them that he is a taxi driver and that his children are not high-
educated. They help their mother at home , as she continues, “My father told them that
he was a taxi driver who earned only enough for the f amily, and all his children just
stayed ho me helping parents” (Seng 2005 :27). Comparatively, Romanians, in the
decades following World War II, live in famine, hardship, per secution, fear, and
surveillance and are deprived of ownership and freedom of speech, travel,

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communication, and proper living, as Ioanid et al (2004) of Final Report of
International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania argue , “In the decades
following World War II, Romania is ruled powerf ully, autocratically, and
oppressively by dictators, including Nicolae Ceausescu.” The Khmer Rouges,
willingly, eradicate bourgeois and capitalism in the former regime. The city dwellers
are the prime concern for the connection, so they are forced to report their former
occupations to the Angkar —so-called ‘Faceless Angkar’. They get killed if they are
found guilty of the association, as Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernit y argues:
Practically, as a revolutionary political doctrine, it can and does promote its
own ideology, and consciously so. This ideology is supposed to oppose
bourgeois ideology, and for tactical purposes it can use whatever weapons it
may consider fit, i ncluding humanism, but certainly a new kind of humanism,
purified of all its bourgeo is and petit bourgeois elements (1987: 128).
Her father is a former military officer in Lon Nol’s regime, having his own car, which
not many people have. He tries to tell a lie to the authorities to hide his identity
because he thinks that if he tells the truth, sooner or later he will get killed , even the
authorities try to question him again and again. The authorities still get suspicious due
to his appearance, light ski n, and soft hands, as they say, “Your light skin, your soft
hands and feet show that you didn’t work hard as you claim” (Seng 2005 :28). They
still do not believe in him telling that he is a taxi driver, who earns only enough for
his family. They walk back and forth, requiring him to tell the truth, but he does not.
Threat is made to him again and again by the authorities, but his answer is still th e
same that he is a taxi driver, as he proves the authorities that “Every word I report to
Angka r is true” ( Seng 2005 :28). Found guilty of doing wrong or hiding identity, he is
the wrath of Angkar . He, however, tries to hide his status, as a former Lon Nol’s
soldier, from Angkar, even he knows that he gets killed of this, as Sokhamm Uce of
Sunset in Paradise quotes, “Those who are against Angkar are against our ‘Glorious
Revolution’ and must be eradicated at all cost” ( 2010: 191). Religion of Angkar and
modern Cambodia is the same —Buddhism, which is the religion of the state. To find
out the truth and to lesson suffer ings, the religion is based on. In Pol Pot’s regime, the
religion is used to threaten people to tell the truth and kill them , as Tully of a Short
History of Cambodia raises, “The people would be denied spiritual sustenance; the
Khmers are an intensely religious people and their religion has often served as a

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consolation for the hardship of life, but Pol Pot would have none of it ” (2005: 178).
One of the eight policy guidelines made by Pol Pot at the Assembly is “Defrock all
Buddhist monks, and put them t o work growing rice” (Tully 2005 :178). It is evident
that the Khmer Rouges are the savage without religion. Pagodas are served as prisons,
where the educated are collected and treated cruelly like animals burnt alive, as
Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity adds, “The crisis of religion gives birth to a
religion of crisis” ( 1987: 62). One problem has been solv ed; another problem has
happened to her father whose old friend in 3rd grade is the youngest brother of the
village chief. He is afraid of this man telling the truth about him to the authorities.
Eventually, he does not know her father’s former job even he knows Mony —her
father’s son, as she delineates , “I believed luck was on our side because that boy just
knew Mony at school, and he didn’t know what Pa ha d done in the past” (Seng
2005 :28). Suspicion by the authorities does not exist because three days later her
family members are assigned on duties. Vanny and Chhora go to school; her mother
stays at home taking care of Grandma, Sotheavy, and Tevy. She, her father, Sothan,
Sokun, and Mony are assigned to work on digging ditches along the rice paddies from
7:00 am to 5:00 pm, as she points out, “Three days later, the village chief came to our
house and assigned us duties” (Seng 2005 :29). ‘To survi ve is to lie’ is the people’s
motto, but ‘to keep is no gain and to kill is no loss’ is the Angkar’s motto. The refore,
people are the victims, traumatized by the regime, and treated as slaves or enemies to
the Angkar, which decides their fates without judgments , as Sokhamm Uce of Sunset
in Paradise writes, “I (frog) can’t take revenge for my fatal wound and proclaim
justice for my victimized species because the omnipotent, om nipresent, and
omniscient almighty created us creatures unequally; I have no sharp fangs, venoms,
nor claws to rend my predator’s flesh and brain” ( 2010: 145). To avoid any suspicion
by the authorities, her family members try to work harder than others do. They,
during the break time, take a nap, but her family members never take a nap or relax to
show that her family comes from the working class. She follows her father finding
something edible in the rice fields, including field crabs, tree and eg gs, and wi ld
vegetables, as she explains, “Unlike other workers who usually took a nap after
lunch; Pa never relaxed ; he always walked around looking for something edible ”
(Seng 2005 :29). Some actions draw susp icion from the authorities must be given up.
Instead, other actions draw attention of being t rusted by the authorities must be kept.
The people , during the Khmer Rouge regime , should change their habits of being

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passive and wealthy to active and modest, as Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity
writes , “Now that nothing can keep it from being engulfed, let us give up practicing
our virtues upon it” ( 1987: 149). Each day her father has to look at least three or four
crabs for her sister s and grandma , for they normally have meat in the past. The
Angka r, however, provides them only rice and salt to eat. Finding field crabs, frogs,
and wild vegetables for one’s possessi on is not allowed at all, for those thing s belong
to the Angka r. If someone is found guilty, they get killed. Rice, meat, and vegetables
given are inadequate for a whole family, as she elaborates , “We get about a pound of
chicken for the whole family once a week; vegetables were provided twice a week;
each person received two condensed -milk cans of rice crops a day” (Seng 2005 :30).
Supplement is really needed to survive under the Pol Pot’s regime. The people , due to
hunger , eat everything available —tadpoles, lizards, poisonous snakes, even facing
dead , worms, wild fruits, and so on, as Khamboly et al of a History of Democratic
Kampuchea 1975 -1979 gives one example of a woman that, “In 1976 being unable to
withstand hunger, my father caught tadpoles for food. He thought that they were
small fish . One day, a Khmer Rouge cadre killed a poisonous snake a nd placed it on
the fence; though he kn ew that it was poisonous, he still ate that snake, which killed
him” (2007: 28). Rational food s, in Pol Pot’s re gime, are offered differently in
different places. The people, in most places, are starved and forced to overwork,
resulting in most people dead, as Tully of A Short History of Cambodia inserts,
“Chronic malnutrition coupled with overwork and medical neglect carried off
hundreds of thousands to the grave; in some places, the people resembled the walking
skeletons, the so -called Musselum of Hitler’s concentration camps, or Zeks of
Stalin’s Gulag” (2005: 180). Overheard from the authorities about searching for
identities, her brother’s friend tells her brother —Mony to destroy any incriminating
objects —photos and any documents before the searching. Her father , that night, digs
a hole secretly far away from the house to bury the photos and valuable things , as she
continues pointing out that, “In the next morning, three village authorities did come to
search our belongings” (Seng 2005 :34). She, every night, cries silently for many
reasons, including her own bed with soft mattress in the past instead of bamboo floor,
large luxury room instead of a tiny cramp hut, going to school inste ad of working in
the rice field , and taking care from parents and relatives instead of taking self -care in
a separated place . She physically and mentally hurts because of the Khmer Rouge’s
policy and h ardship , as she add s, “To add to the trauma, the pain on my shoulders

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was killing me, and both my hands hurt since I carried soil every day ” (Seng
2005 :31). She is always disappointed with past memory , for she live s with her family
peacefully, happily, and luxuriously. She now cries silently in the evil situation s ever
since , as Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity write s, “The history (memory) is an
irreducible enemy of life” ( 1987: 51). Sothan, Mony, and Seng —the author, in mid-
December 1975, pack what is needed, including clothes, utensils, blankets, women
mats, and mosquito nets for their departure to a new place. Arrivi ng at the destination,
they are gr ouped differently, meaning Sothan and Mony in man group and Seng in
woma n group. The first time ever she stays away fro m her parents, relatives , and
friends. All groups are ordered to build shelters along highway. At night heavy dew
drops like a rain makin g her little hut soaked , and she has diarrhea and goes out in the
rice field four or five times that night . She feels weak and exhausted. Two district
authorities, a week later, come to their group and require them to report their
biographies. She, Sothan, and Mony before the lunchtime, remind each other of what
their f ather tells them. They are in a poor family and no education. They are illiterate,
and their father is a taxi driver, as she points out, “ Remember that P a (father) was a
taxi driver, and you’ve never been in school; you are illiterate; don’t tell them the
truth ” (Seng 2005 :51). Working in the fields starts exactly at 6 am and finishes at 5
pm. Women are required to dig three cubic feet a day, and men are required to finish
10-cubic fee t a day. Unfinished work starts from 6 to 9 pm on that day. No one can go
home without finishing the assigned work s. They work like robotic mac hines, 13
hours or more per day, as she argues, “Working hours was very precise” (Seng
2005 :64). There is a meeting every three days, instilling communist ideology and
critici zing each other for better work, as she clarifies , “Every three days, there was a
political meeting for the entire entity to mold our minds and instill t he ideolo gy of
communism” (Seng 2005 :65). Europe is sick to her people, who live in famine,
starvation , fear, per secution, and surveillance under socialism and Mar xism. Literates
are treated worse than illiterates, who hold high positions in the Party. Co nsequently ,
Europe owes her irrecover ability and affliction to her people, as Calinescu of Five
Faces of Modernity explains, “Europe is sick but owes the utmost gratitude to her
incurability and to the eternal changes in her affliction —these constantly new
condition s…have finally generated an intellectual irritability that amounts to genius
and is in any case the mother of genius ” (1987: 182).

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Phou m Kpalm , located in Takeo province, is smaller and poorer than Phoum Veal.
There are about 30 wooden houses and small palm leave huts, located along both
sides of a du sty road. The village is quiet like Phoum Veal, for only mothers, small
children, seniors, and seriously ill -persons stay in the village , as she states , “Other
capable men, women and teenagers were away from hom e to work on a canal located
in the central of the country where the headquarter of Angka r was” (Seng 2005 :36).
The people are forced to displace from one to another by the Angkar’s order. Their
works are assigned by the Angkar, which subjectively force to work in the fields,
except for small children, elderly, and seriously ill people, as Ashcroft et al of
Postcolonial Studies Reader clarify, “Displacement involves the invention of new
form of subjectivities, of pleasure, of intensities, of relationship, w hich also implies
the continuous renewal of a critical work that looks carefully and intensively at the
very system of values to which one refers in fabricating the tools of resistance”
(1995: 216). Her family is placed to stay with a base family like before. Th is wooden
house with tile roof is better than previous one in Phoum Veal. The next day after
arriving Phoun Kpalm, her f amily members are assigned on duties. Sothan and Mony
are sent to work on a canal with oth er young men and women and supposed to come
back home when the work is done a month later. Her father is assigned to work at a
vegetable garden, with another old man in the village. Her mother s tays home taking
care of Tevy, Sotheavy, and Gra ndma. Vanny and Chhora go to school from 9 am to
11 am every day. She and Sokun work on a project to enlarge a pond, which is used
for fish farming at a Buddhist temple about a half -mile away. Therefore, no one is
free from work, as the Khmer Rouge authori ties say, “If y ou eat, you have to work”
(Seng 2005 :37). A horrible story, one night, has been told by the lady owner is that
Vietnamese people, who are living in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge time, are
identified and executed with a whole family, includ ing children and babies. They are
considered as enemies to the Angka r, for the Khmer Rouge soldiers fight against Lon
Nol’s soldiers and Vietnamese soldiers, encroach ed into Cambodia during the war.
There have been some Vietnamese families staying in the village a month ago, and
one of them has stayed with her. Three days later, Angka r has taken them away at
night and tells them that they will be sent back to Vietnam. Th ese Vietnamese have
been very happy, for they have thought they will have gone home. They, however, are
executed even their babies, as she demonstrates , “The Khmer Rouge ha ted
Vietnamese very much” (Seng 2005 :37). This is also stipulated in a Special Centr e

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Assembly for Cabinet Ministers and all Zone and Region Secretaries , as Tully of a
Short History of Cambodia raises one of the ei ght points that, “The Khmer Rouges
expel the entire Vietnamese minority population” ( 2005: 178). The people,
additionally, are put in work groups —wives separated from husbands, children from
parents and siblings from siblings by the Angkar’s order. Monks defrocked are put in
work gr oups like others, as Khamboly et al of a History of Democratic Kampuchea
quote, “Cambodian fami lies were split up and people were assigned to work groups;
husbands and wives were separated, and children were separated from their parents”
(2007: 26). Unskillful doctors, so -called revolutionary doctors, have the right to treat
the sick, and the sick ne ed to get special authorization from them to be absent from
work or they are not allowed to eat at health centre, as Guillin of Medicine in
Cambodia during the Pol Pot Regime 1975 -1979 mentions, “People who didn’t work
got less food, sometimes none at all, because sick people were not productive”
(2004: 8).
Historically, she does not feel surprised when the lady owner tells that Cambodians
hate Vietnamese. There have been many encounters between t hese two countries —
Cambodia and Vietnam. The Khmer Rouge s and North Vietnamese troops have
fought side by side at the beginning of the war in early 1970s due to territory conflict,
in which the Khmer Rouge s fight the Viet namese to regain Cambodian land, as she
writes in her book , “I learnt much later that the Khmer Rouge fought the Vietnamese
to regain Cambodian land, which at that time w as Vietnamese territory” (Seng
2005 :38). The Vietnamese, during the Khmer Rouge, are executed if they are found,
but the village is crowded with the influx of new people, who are evacuated from
other provinces and the city, resulting in reducing food ration s from regularly cooked
rice to rice porridge. Everyone, in the village, looks skinnier than before. Laborers
have been treated badly, for they have worked 12 hours a day with only food rations,
as Tully of a Short History of Cambodia compares this treatment with Nazi Ge rmany
and Stalinist Russia that, “The Vietnamese also blurred the political nature of the Pol
Pot regime and spoke of an Asian Auschwitz when in f act the closest parallel with
Democratic Kampuchea is not Nazi Germany but Stalinist Russia or Maoist China”
(2005: 182). Medical treatment has been very poor and cruel. Coining is customarily
used to cure uncomfortable feelings —nausea, dizziness, vomiting, and fever. To coin,
one puts balm or oil on an ill person’s back and then with the use of a coin lines are

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scratched on one ’s back and chest until that line becomes dark red. This is repeated
until the whole back, chest and arms are covered with lines, as she explains, “This
regime embraced old fashion way of doing things, including medical treatment; home
remedy and homemade m edicine w ere used to cure illness” (Seng 2005 :38). The
Khmer Rouge medicine, so -called revolutionary Khmer medicine , moreover, is self –
produced medicine and isolated from the outside world and former regime. It is made
of traditional drugs, biomedical subs tances, and the belief of revolutionary
consciousness, as Guillon of Medicine in Cambodia during the Pol Pot Regime 1975 –
1979 argues, “Khmer Rouge medicine was a heterogeneous and inefficacious mixture
drawn from the traditional pharmacopeia, from biomedic al protocols, and from a
belief in the intrinsic ability of revolutionary consciousness to prevent of disease ”
(2004: 5).
Food is served differently depending on working groups and non -working groups —ill
people and children. Hard working groups are given mo re food proportions than ill
people and children. Two soupspoons of rice with watery rice soup are for each adult,
and one soupspoon is for each child. Everyone is not allowed to bring their share
home because each share is provided for at communal kitchen. Ownership is
prohibited during the Khmer Rouge regime , and own property and raising things a ll
belong to the Angka r. Those who use their own property and all raising things
without permission from Angka r are the enemies, as she adds , “Everyone was afraid
of being the enemy; no one openly wanted to challenge the Angka r’s rule” (Seng
2005 :39). Ever yone is deprived of public or private transportation, private property,
non-revolutionary entert ainment s, and leisure activities, as Khamboly et al of a
History of Democratic Kampuchea 1975 -1979 write, “There was no public or private
transportation, no private property, and no non -revolutionary entertainment; leisure
activities were severely restricted” ( 2007: 2). Besides the st ate ownership of
possession s, buildings, houses, space, time, the state in S ocialist Romania owns
human beings and their soles, as Manea of the Hooligan’s Return cites, “After state
ownership of space came the most extraordinary of all socialist innovations —state
ownership of time, a decisive step toward state ownership of human b eings
themselves, given that time was virtually their sole remaining possession”
(2003: 157). With the abolition of all kinds of o wnership during the Khmer Rouge
regime, Sokhamm Uce of Sunset in Paradise adds, “But that wasn’t the only private

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ownership these chattels had to abolish; Angkar still needed to possess their souls as
well” ( 2010: 129). All people are not allowed to supplement their meager meals —two
times a day by digging edible tree roots, searching for crabs or fish in the rice fields,
growing and cooking their own fruits or vegetables, and stealing. They are to be
killed if they are found guilty, as Tully of a Short History of Cambodia delineates,
“As a result towards the end of the regime there was often almost nothing on the
communal tables to eat, but it was a crime for individuals to supplement their meager
rations with wild food s from the forests as Khmers had always done in times of
privation ” (2005: 180).
Her family, including Sothan, Sokun, Mony, Seng, and he r father, try to be together
and spirit ual by bring ing foods home whenever they have a chance; even they know it
is against the Angka r’s rule. It is done at dark because the others could not see. They
share what they have from the communal kitchen. Her father exchanges his new
sarong with the wife o f a village authority for a duck and cooks it in a teapot, as she
raises , “After it was all done, he called us one by one to downstairs and ate it by
covering a blanket over food and ourselves so that the sm ell couldn’t get through”
(Seng 2005 :40). This act is against the Angkar, but hunger makes them blind and deaf
with the surroundings. They think they die after having delicious food s rather than
having nothing, as Sokhamm Uce of Sunset in Paradise writes, “Those who are
against Angkar are against our ‘Glorious Revolution’ and must be eradicated at all
cost” ( 2010: 191). She, before going to bed, looks into the sky seeing the moon still
brighteni ng with its soft silvery light and the stars twinkling as usual. She is so
worried about her futu re of turning 14 and feels isolated in the countryside far away
from the outside world. She feels disappointed with a living pl ace, where there is no
light, music, television, comfortable bedding, delicious food s, school s, friend s, book s,
time to play, and visitor s, as she asks herself, “Why couldn’t everything stay as the
way it had been?” (Seng 2005 :41). Cambodia, unfortunately, is turned into Dark Age s
and isolated country between 1975 and 1979. Millions of peple die due to famine,
starvation, torture, imprisonment, rape, and murder. All Western and former
medicines are destroyed. Foreign policy is cut off, as Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial
Studies Reader cite, “For better or worse, each of us was born into an ethnocentrically
sealed world” ( 1995: 65). Days and nights go slowly without changes. Everything
goes on in the same routine s. People, from dawn to dark, are working in the rice

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fields, with exhaustio n and hunger. To survive and to fulfill their hunger, they look
for lizards, scorpions, worms, pois onous snakes, even facing death, and so on, as
Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity writes, “Decadence is felt, with an intensity
unknown before, as a unique crisis; and, as time running short, it becomes of ultimate
importance to do, without waiting any longer, what one has to do for one’s own and
one’s fellow man’s salvation” ( 1987: 154). Old p eople, including her grandma, get ill
and die. Adults are classified in working groups, working in the rice fields from very
early morning till late in the evening. Food is given proportionally by which adults
with two soupspoons of rice in watery rice sou p for each, and one soupspoon of rice
for each child. Traditional treatment is carried out for sick people , who are treated
with traditional remedies, including herbs, roots of trees, and rabbit dung . Skillful
doctors and nurses hide their identities to pr event from being murdered. Unskillful
people, so -called re volutionary nurses, serve in health cent ers, where there is no
medical equipment and medicines, as Guillon of Medicine in Cambodia during the
Pol Pot Regime 1975 -1979 states :
Stocks of medicines had gotten mildewed without anyone noticing, and
attempts to work with pharmacists and doctors of earlier regimes could not
survive purges and struggles between high officials. As for the so -called
revolutionary treatments made from medicinal plants, they wer e a very
rudimentary form of the traditional item, because there were no real specialists
to concoct them. This reached such a point that people gave the nickname of
‘rabbit dung’ to homemade pills dispensed by rural infirmari es for every
imaginable ailmen t (2004: 7).
Additionally, communist ideology is lectured every three days. Communication is cut
off from one village to another like fish living in a small pond. There is no radio
station, except loudspeaker s broadcasting about the prosperity of production in
agricultural field, relationship with China, hatred and blaming America for messing
up their great country, and songs describing the endurance and the victory of the
revolutio nary movement, as she elabora tes, “Having enough water in fields, the rice
plants grew beautifully as if green fabric had covered the paddies” (Seng 2005 :42).
Slogans are also chanted during the instillation of communist ideology towards the
revolutionary victory, concerning with the operation of Democratic Kampuchea, as
Khamboly et al of a History of Democratic Kampuchea quote :

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“Secrecy is the key to victory. High secrecy, long survival ” (2007: 2); slogan
concerning with new people (17 April peopl e), viewed as parasites, the lo sers
of the war, and the prisoners, says: “17 April people are pa rasitic plants. They
are the lo sers of the war and prisoners of war” and “ To keep you is no gain; to
lose you is no loss ” (2007: 31); slogan relating to mass wedding, derived from
communist China, sa ys: “The super great leap toward revolution” ( 2007: 35);
slogan relevant to education says: “Angkar makes the shadows under the trees
into schools and meeting places” and “You should learn while working. The
more you work, the more you learn” ( 2007: 36); slogan pertinent to Angkar’s
order —no bargain and negotiation says: “Do whatever Angkar orders you to
do! You must completely fulfill the orders made by Angkar. Comrade, do not
bargain!” ( 2007: 45); and slogan concerning with the main activity for
searching hi dden traitors says: “You must know how to trace one another.
Report everything to Angkar” ( 2007: 45).
“If the living conditions were better, it was our luck; but if it turned to be worse, we
wouldn’t feel too disappointed ” (Seng 2005 :45). All evacuees from all villages in
Takeo provin ce, in December 1975, are collec ted to Battambang prov ince near
Cambodian -Thai border, in one spot near a train station. Three days later, there is a
smile on everyone's face, for they depart on a freight trai n to Battambang province,
expecting a better life. They are told to be sent t here for harvesting rice, for
Battambang is known as the number one province in producing rice in Cambodia.
Seng’s father, along the way, keeps trading for food s, for he does not know the new
place is better or worse. He owns sarongs, scarfs, and watches, hidden from the
Khmer Rouge authorities and others. Villagers from one village to another are
interested in diff erent things. He exchanges sarongs and scarfs for food s with
villag ers or base people . Trading, during the Khmer R ouge regime, is banned. He
trades his belongings secretly with the villagers or sometimes with the wives of the
authorities, who are interested in those things, as he explains to his daughter —Srey
that, “It’s okay, Srey; it’s just a watch; at least, it’s worth a kilogram of yams; it’s
better than it b e taken away for free” (Seng 2005 :45). Secrecy is the most important
thing to survive under th e Eyes of Pineapple of the Angka r. All kinds of business,
farming, cooking, and breeding are forbidden. Found guilty, they get killed, as
Khamboly et al of a History of Democratic Kampuchea extract, “Secrecy is the key to

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victory; high secrecy, long survival” ( 2007: 2). Two days after arrivi ng at Svay
Sisophon Distr ict, Battambang province, her family and other evacuees are trucked to
a place, where i s far away from the old village. Arriving at Phnom Srok , rich of
vegetables, fish, rice, and domestic animals, is a n ew hope for all evacuees, f or they
see many people catching lots of fish in irrigating ditches along the route s. Golden
rice fields spread as far as the eye s can see, as she add s, “These were good signs and
could only mean that we would have plenty of food; we all smiled with hope” (Seng
2005 :47). However , their expectations are different, for they are st ill served in
communal kitchen, with two spoonful rice of watery porridge for each one. They still
get starved and exhausted, as Khamboly et al of a History of Democratic Kampuchea
cite a painful life of a woman that, “We had done a lot of farming but never had
enough rice to eat” ( 2007: 28). All evacuees, in the new village, are arranged in teams,
group s, and units. Three families join a team; three teams join a group; and three
groups join a unit. Each team, group, and unit is led by a leader and a n assistant
leader . Those leaders take orders and are controlled by a village chief from the old
village, a member of the communist party. All evacuees are allow ed to find bamboos
for house structure s, thatch for roofing, and wall materials. They can go freely at this
time in the forest s, about three kilometers away from the village . They experience the
forest s the first time, and they enjoy learning about nature from their father. All new
people at this time can go freely to find all supplies needed for their settlements.
Some try to escape to Thailand, where is about ten miles away from the village. No
one knows where they go, but these people never come back. People are on the ir
move in terrible situations to survive, as Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader
add, “To be an exile is to be alive” (1995: 12). There are missing persons being
reported every day, but her father dares not escape to Thailand due to his family, as
she emphasizes , “A person who knew the way contacted persons who wanted to
escape and led them to Thailand at night” (Seng 2005 :48). Many people in Pol Pot’s
regime escape to neighboring countries, especially to Thailand, where many refug ee
camps are set up along the border, under the control of Coalition Government of
Democratic Kampuchea, as Tully of a Short History of Cambodia write s, “The total
number of people CGDK control in the refugee camps, according to the United
Nations, was slightly more than 260 000 in 1987. There is evidence tha t many people
under Khmer Rouge control in particular would have left if they could ” (2005: 206).
Cambodia, after 1979, is in catastrophic conditions with unstable political, economic

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and social conditions. The people move in and out of the city without clear
destination s, facing famine, as Pasch of Cambodia 1975 -2005: Journey through the
Night quotes, “The country was in a catastrophic condition; famine spread, and
300,000 people fled to refugee camps along the border between Cambodia and
Thailand ” (2006: 31). Learning this situation, her mother decides to let her husband
and two sons —Sothan an d Mony take a chance to escape, for she is afraid of being
found by the Khmer Rouge authorities about her husband’s position in the former
regime. He is, however, in doubt at the fir st time whether to go or not and eventually
decides not to go because he thinks h is wife cannot face any hardship, especially
when travellin g and carrying heavy luggage, as he prove s, “I rather die here with my
wife and my kids” (Seng 2005 :46). He gets heartfelt with his great love to his wife
and child ren, even he gets into the hell of the Angkar, which turns Cambodia into
Dark Age s, when millions of people die because of famine, starvation, torture,
persecution, imprisonment, rape, and murder. He dislikes the Angkar and its
treatment of its people, as Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity cites, “It is precisely
in times of exhaustion that tragedy runs through houses and streets that great love and
great hatred are born, and the flame of knowledge flares up into the sky” ( 1987: 181).
He, the most beloved fath er for his wife and chi ldren, has never complained whether
he does not have enough sleep nor does too much work, and tries to cheer hi s younger
sisters and her up if they cry because of hardship endurance . He, in wintertime, goes
out to find something edible before the sunrise w hile everyone is in bed covered with
warm blanket. He sometimes takes risk at night to steal jackfruits, bananas, or
potatoes from the old village. Those fruits, then, are hidden in a hole under the bed to
avoid seeing from other people and the authorities. Whenever he comes back in the
early morning, he begins cooking rice porridge and fish for his family because of
inadequate food proportions. Sinc e thousands of new people have moved in the
village, food proportions have been decreased from day to day. They, therefore, steal
edible things or exchange what available in thei r hands for extra food s, as she
mentions, “Since thousands of new people moved in the village, rice was decreasing
rapidly from a stockroom; the amount of unhusked rice which was harvested nearby
fields each day was enough only for the day” (Seng 2005 :50). Two meals with two
spoonful rice of watery soup are not enough for the people who work from 6 am to
sometimes 11 pm. They need more than what they are served, finding ex tra food s in
the rice fields and forests, as Sokhamm Uce of Sunset in Paradise writes , “To

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supplement their meager nourishment, the Romdoh, the liberated, children had to
forage for wild foodstuffs; lower creatures: crabs, snails, rats, cockroaches, eels,
lizards, snakes, worms, etc . had been half -eaten already” (2010: 165).
“I was so happy when I saw my family ” (Seng 2005 :54). The Angka r’s order is
absolutely strong and strict. No one is above the ord er. Her family is ordered to
relocate to another place. Relocating is harmless for sim ple people, but it is harmful
for high ranking people in the former regime if they are found guilty of hiding their
biographies. Her family members are sent from different places, where they stay and
work. They are worried about being separated because most people ha ve ne ver met
each other again after being sent to different places. Arriving at the new place, they
feel happy, as they see each other, includ ing their parents. They have dinner on the
floor and smile to each other as the Khmer Rouge soldiers offer them delicious foods .
While having m eal, suspicion arises as to being killed after being offered the
delicious food s. Her father is told about this before and whispers to the children and
his wife that, “ The Khmer Rouge will kill all of us in this building tonight ” (Seng
2005 :54). They have nothing to worry about as they live in the open air and poverty,
relying on their own breath and intrinsic power, not on paraphernalia and extrinsic
power, as Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader cite, “People are in the open
air because they live in conditions of poverty because they come from a historical
experience where they had to rely on their very breath rather than on paraphernalia
like books and museums and machines; they had to depend on immanence, the power
within themselves, rather than the technology outside themselves… ” (1995: 312).
They are horrified a nd motionless after hearing that. The d elicious meal becomes
bitter and bitter with no word to say. This feeling lingers all night. They are, at 2 am,
transpo rted to another place, about half an hour’s drive from that place . They are
forced to get off the truck and guided with gun -points into the banana trees. They hear
along the way people crying, especially children, who are sepa rated from their parents
and shot to death. They feel frigh tened of being killed in the banana trees before
approaching the two abandoned houses, where they are divided into two groups for
the two houses, where they lie down after traveling throu gh the night, as she adds ,
“Yes! We were still alive! We thanked God in low voices for helping us” (Seng
2005 :56). They are three days later asked to pack their stuff sand gather in one temple
away from the house at noontime. After gathering at the temple for five days, they are

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told to move to the permanent place surrounded by three hills, trees, and bushes. It is
far away from the other villages. That night all evacuees are ordered to attend a
meeting, which is organized by the villa ge chief in Phnom Srok, considered a Re-
education Camp, where all high ranks in L on Nol ’s government are under
investigation and needed to be reformed to become successful re volutionary people.
Everyone here is considered a prisoner, who is not allowed to go anywhere unti l
permission is granted, as she continues, “While staying here, w e were not allowed to
go to anywhere unless the authori ty commanded us to do so” (Seng 2005 :63).
Everyone at the camp is forced to reveal his or her statu s in the former regime. Her
family mem bers keep hiding their statuse s in the former regime out of fear of being
murdered by the authorities, who are investigating all t he evacuees, as Khamboly et al
of a History of Democratic Kampuchea 1975 -1979 quote one of the Khmer Rouge
slogans that , “High secrecy, long survival” ( 2007: 2). While spea king up at the
meeting, her father still disguises his family’s status : a taxi driver, illiterate children,
and a housewife . No one is going to school. They live in poverty by daily wage. They
are not involved i n politics, as she clarifies , “Each head of the family tried to
convince the authority that we were innocent victims; we had been wrongfully
accused because of the corruption of the village authorities who hadn’t gotten wh at
they’d wanted from us” (Seng 2005 :63). The Khmer Rouges willingly center on the
top leaders of the former regime and then ge t them killed. The killing extend s to their
families and relatives, as Sokhamm Uce of Sunset in Paradise reproduces one of the
Khmer Rouges’ mantras that, “Grasses and weeds were uprooted” ( 2010: 80).
“Mae (mother) and Mony were so upset of this greedy man, but they could only grit
their teeth and grip their hands ” (Seng 2005 :69). Possession is confiscated by the
Khmer Rouges as Angka r owns everything, even lives of people. She is overheard of
seizing all belongings by t he authorities, begin ning in February 1976. Puk Tam (the
man in charge of the hill) or ders all the evacuees to put their belongings in the center
of the hill and tell s them to keep only three pairs of clothes for each person. The rest
are collected and sent t o the Angka r’s headquarters. Her family members get so angry
with Puk Tam, but they hide their angry expression s from him to av oid any danger to
their lives. H e wears her father’s watch on the wrist and Mony ’s scarf on the neck. It
means that the authoriti es are allowed to be materialistic with valuable things,
confiscated from th e new people, as she delineates , “The next afternoon, Puk Tam

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stood in front of our shed with a proud smile; he wore Pa’s new silk sarong, which
had been collected earlier; he even had Pa’s watch on his wrist and Mony’s scarf on
his neck ” (Seng 2005 :68). As opposed to socialist Romania, the state owns
everything , even t he time, space and human beings, as Manea of the Hooligan’s
Return explains , “After state ownership of space came t he most extraordinary of all
socialist innovations —state ownership of time, a decisive step toward state ownership
of human beings themselves, given that time was virtually their sole remaining
possession” ( 2003: 157). The suffering caused by the separation from beloved ones
has begun in March 1976 . Men, women, and children are separated differently. Men
are sen t to join the Mongkulborei unit , and women and children are sent to a new
place, located about half mil e away from the old hill. Her father, Sothan, and Mony
are sent to Mungkulborei unit. They suffer hards hips in the new place, work ing in the
rice fields an d digging holes. The sick are sent to a new place, clear ing up the bushes,
trees, thick grass and build ing a shelter for women and children, as she argues , “One
Unit of thirty Mongkulborei young men, who were ill, were also sent to the new place
to clear up bushes, trees, thick grass and build a shelter for women and children ”
(Seng 2005 :71). Human beings are born to experience suffe ring, separation, reunion
and death, each marking a part of their lives . The rich and the poor face the same life
cycle —birth, old , sickness, and death, as Evans of Cambodia Insight notes , “All
sentient beings ’ suffer, birth, death, and other separations are inescapably part of life”
(2010: 8). Death is caused by many reasons —accidents, natural disasters, criminals,
wars, or suicide s. The Khmer Rouges, however, have their culture of hatred of new
people (17 April people) and love o f basic people (villagers). New people are viewed
as enemies of the Angkar, consequently being tortured, starved, and/or killed, as
Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader explain , “After all, people love and die
in every culture” ( 1995: 63). There are four hundred soldiers and cadres in fatigue or
black uniforms, checkered red or blue scarves on their necks and Mao’s caps on their
heads, attending the meeting on the big day after st aying in the new place . Her status
is being questioned by the authorities, including Ta Sok (a commander of Region 4
soldier, ranking higher than Puk Tam ). He is suspicious of her status and tries to find
out by looking at her. He thinks she might be a sen ior student as, he believes, her
appearance bears witness to her identity. She rejects his statement by showing him
four younger sisters , insisting that “there’s no way my parents let me go to school; I
stayed home taking care of them” (Seng 2005 :73). After being repeatedly questioned,

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she has been promoted as an eye of the Angka r, working as a spy for Ta Sok. She
watches amongst the soldiers and people in the area. Due to her app earance and
personality, the Khmer Rouge authorities , especially Ta Sok, identifies her as woman
coming from a high ranking family, where her father served the arm y of the previous
regime but she still rejects the allegation , as the Khmer Rouge’s mantra says, “High
secrecy, long survival” (Khamboly et al 2007 :2). Her speeches during the meeting
can save her family from being murdered, as Ta Sok asks, “ Don’t you know that your
speaking every night can save your family? ” (Seng 2005 :74). He continues ensuring
that, “I guarantee your family’s safety even your father an d brothers if you tell the
truth ” (Seng 2005 :74). She stands up and gives a speech from her heart, saying that “I
am telling you the truth” (Seng 2005 :74). Her father is a taxi driver, a nd she has never
been in school as she is taking care of her sisters. Ta Sok looks her in the face and
continues, “I suspected your father as a former officer since I saw him the first time,
but don’t you worry; I don’t report it to higher authorities” (Seng 2005 :74). Being an
eye of the Angka r (a spy), she must report movement of everyone to Ta Sok every
three days behind his hut, which is about two hundred yards away from her shelter.
There is no exception : even her friend s, relative s, brother s, sister s, or parent s, as Tully
of a Short History of Cambodia notes , “There would be no time for love, no
reconciliation after a fratricidal war that had pitted brother against brother and sister
against sister” ( 2005: 179).
“Be careful of whatever you say or do, as you may be the next one killed, ” (Seng
2005 :33). During the Khmer Rouge regime , people even relatives are distrustful due
to doctrine and ideology. They dare not criticize the Angkar because Angka r has ears
on the wall and eyes of pineapples . If criticism is heard or seen by the Angka r, that
one will get murdered, as she tells, “We told each other to be careful because Angka r
has pineapple eyes which meant they had many eyes wat ching every move we made”
(Seng 2005 :33). People in socialist Romania, similarly, are under surveillance as a
means finding out wh o are against the Communist Party. The secret police are
deployed ubiquitous ly; and the people live in fear, starvation, poverty, and
speechlessness, as Manea of The Hooligan’s Return writes, “The trembling got
worse, and so did the panic and the cold and the gloom and the terror around him; the
messages became rarer, constrained, fearful, and ever conscious of eavesdroppers”
(2003: 31).

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Normally, April 13 1976 is the firs t day of the Cambodian New Year, but it is
abolished in the new regime. No one celebrate s anything , except the victory of the
new regime. The Khmer Rouge s celebrate their first victory anniversary on April 17,
1976 by allowing some teenagers from other villages in the region to attend the event.
She and her group are allowed to attend, but they have to walk a mile and a half from
their shelters. Participants at the event feel surprised as they are served with plenty of
rice and a sip of Coke since they have been evacuated. They are also surprised with
many buildings at the victory anniversary, as they have never seen these buildings for
a long time. These buildings, unluckily, are used as prisons, the secon d largest after
Battambang city, as she emphas izes, “Krakoh district jail was the second highest level
of Region 3 and 4; the top political prison was located in Battambang City” (Seng
2005 :85). Not only Battambang City has a lot of prisons but also there are plenty of
prisons throughout the country, as Tully of a Short History of Cambodia quotes
David Chandler’s statement : “The country would become one huge prison farm”
(2005: 179). In July 1976 many people from Kok Krom village have moved into
Chock River , where soldiers station . The increase of people into the village causes the
authorities to build a new villa ge, namely Phoum Chalk, located about two miles
away from Chock River. This village is for elderly, women with children, and
complete d with a medical center. The station is, approximately two miles away , built
for teenage girls and single women. A nother camp for teenage boys and men is
located a half mile from the station. After all people have been placed to their proper
camps according to their s tatuses, it is the time fo r her and her teammates to say
farewell to the soldier s. Ta Sok, accidently, appears at the evening meeting. Her
teammates and other peo ple are attending the meeting, and they are told that they are
considered as prisoners, who are under training of attitudes to become members of the
Angka r, as Ta Sok raises during the meeting that , “You all successfully complete the
re-education of proper attitude for being revolutionary people; you’re well trained by
our top soldiers of Angka r; now, you’re free to join the other people” (Seng
2005 :103). After instilling a proper attitude into them , all work groups are assigned to
learn more through worki ng in the rice fields considered as schools , land as paper ,
and plow as pen, as Khamboly et al of a History of Democratic Kampuchea cite,
“You should learn while working; The more you work, the more you learn”
(2007: 36).

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“A strong, tall, handsome man shrunk to about my size ” (Seng 2005 :121).
Separation from beloved ones prevails throughout the country during the Kh mer
Rouge regime. All family members are separated from one another —men labor teams
and women labor teams. Men plow the rice fields and deliver sheaves of rice
seedlings. She and her work team transplant rice in the field , while Sothan and his
work team plow the field and deliver the sheaves of rice seedlings. After meetin g
Sothan in the rice field, she feels disappointed with her father’s illness. He is being
hospitalized in a medical center along the way back home. Understanding her father’s
situation , she hides half of her lunch an d dinner and wraps in her scarf, as Khamboly
et al of a History of Democratic Kampuchea describe , “In Democratic Kampuchea,
almost no one ever had enough to eat; in most cases they had only rice porridge
mixed with corn, slices of banana trees, or papaya tree trunks; most people received
less than half a milk can of rice a day” ( 2007: 27). Time is very strict in the Khmer
Rouge regime as every one must come back on time. If someone is guilty of being
late, she will be in trouble. Seng runs as fast as she can to the hospital, where her
father is , to meet him and comes back on time. Arriving at the medical center, she
cannot recognize her father, who in the former regime was handsome, tall, and strong,
waving her. She, later, recognizes her father, who is shrunk to her size . She does not
know what to say and begins to cry because she cannot b elieve her eyes: her father
looks much different from the past —bony and old , as her father say s, “Don’t cry, my
dear; I’m fine” (Seng 2005 :121). Cambodia in Democratic Kampuchea is isolated
from the world. Western medicine and former medical specialists are eliminated . A
revolutionary Khmer medicine is made of rab bit dung, herbal roots, and rev olutionary
consciousness, as Guillon of Medicine in Cambodia during the Pol Pot Regime 1975 –
1979 argues, “The special characteristics of Khmer Rouge medicine result from
several ideological positions of the Khmer Rouge that I have mentioned: distrust of
the outside world and the almost complete isolation from the world that the regime
tried to create for itself, the idea of self -sufficiency, and the banishment of med ical
specialists from earlier regimes who were thought to be politically suspect” ( 2004: 5).
Family tie s are nearly cut off by the communist ideology. Family members stay and
work in different places. Her father gets ill in the hospital due to starvation an d
overwork. His family members, including his wife, are not allo wed to visit him, for
they think that only nurses can take care of patients. She can visit her father only
when she is on the way back home after work. Her father dies one week after her visit

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to the hospital. No on e of his family can see him . This news is spread three days after
his death. Everyone in the family is so sad and says nothing, for they are regret ful
about the death, as she continues, “We won’t see our Pa anymore; he’s go ne and will
never return” (Seng 2005 :127). No one can avoid death and is in terrible condition ,
which prevent s the family from visiting the patients . Cambodian people in
Democratic Kampuchea have suffer ed much ever since , as Evans of Cambodia
Insight delineates, “All sentient beings suffer, birth, death , and separations are
inescapably part of life ” (2010: 8). No schooling is available during Pol Pot ’s regime.
The National Library in Phnom Penh is converted into a pigsty. Hospitals are turned
into priso ns, and co ttages are used as health center s. Competent doctors are replaced
with incompetent nurses, who treat people by using tree roots and rabbit dung , as
Tully of a Short History of Cambodia cites, “The country was ruled by the ignorant”
(2005: 184). Cambodians, traditionally, cry when someone in the family dies, but
crying is banne d during Khmer Rouge regime, for it is viewed as a crime , as Puk Tam
says, “Stop crying! Revolutionary people don’t cry for anything or anyone; you have
to change all of your old attitudes; otherwise, you’re en emies of Angka r” (Seng
2005 :127).
On October 31, 1976 , Memorial Day celebrates honor soldiers and cadres who
sacrifice d their lives for communist revolution. All labor workers ha ve a day off, and
all mobile teams ar e allowed to come home to see their families in the village. The
villagers have prepared Cambodian rice noodles, two pigs, and one cow. These were
prepared three days i n advance for the feast. During a short visit to their families in
the village, they can have rice noodles as many times as they want in the communal
kitchen. Eve ryone is so happy with the dishes after having starved for such a long
time. Meanwhile , they have to think of their time going back to the camp, which is far
from home, taking time to go back on foot, as she expresses , “Sothan and Mony could
come home in short time and they had to go back to their camp” (Seng 2005 :135).
There is no private and public transportation , which requires all people to commute to
work, starting early i n the morning and coming back very l ate at night, as Khamboly
et al of a History of Democratic Kampuchea 1975 -1979 add, “There was no public or
private transportation, no private property, and no non -revolutionary entertainment”
(2007: 2). During food festival, according to Cambodian culture, children offer plenty
of food to t heir parents to show their gratefulness of giving birth and raising them.

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They also offer special food s and traditional sweet rice cakes to monks at pagodas.
The monks, in retur n, perform a sermon to devote to the spirits of dead relatives .
They believe that all spirits of dead people are released on that day from the hell to
look for their families and relatives in seven temples. If they do not receive any food s,
they will blame their families for having bad luck. The Khmer Rouge s, in contrast,
celebrate this ceremony to honor their soldiers and cadres, who die for r evolution. All
workers are permitt ed to go home for a short visit and havin g rice noodles as much as
possible, for they have been starved for a long time . There are no monks and temples
serving this purpose, as she state s, “Ironically, family had no m eaning in the new
regime” (Seng 2005 :135). Customarily, monks are not allowed to work or do
business , but they are allowed to receive donation from charity or ordinary people,
who want to devote alms to their ancestors or dead people through religion . They play
very important role in teaching people to do good things and right things and to avo id
bad things and wrong things, through religious services. However, in the Khmer
Rouge regime, they are forced to work in the field like other people , for no one can
eat without working, as she extracts the words of the Khmer Rouge s that, “If y ou eat,
you have to work” (Se ng 2005 :37). Additionally, all pagodas religious activities are
closed . The people , including disrobed monks , are starved and forced to work in t he
rice field , as Tully of A Short History of Cambodia points out one of the eight policies
that, “The Khmer Rouges defrock all Buddhist monks, and put them to work growing
rice” ( 2005: 178).
By November most rice paddies have already been planted with rice seedlings. The
routine is still the same every day —work ing, eating, meeting, sleep ing, acting deaf
and blin d, and living as fish in a pond. All basic needs of human beings are denied , as
she explains, “We all lived like fish in a small fish bowl or like being in a prison
without the cells” (Seng 2005 :166). Networking and communication between people
and countries are completely cut off. Anyone found guilty is an enemy , as Tully of a
Short History of Cambodia explains , “The entire country would be sealed off from
the contaminating influences of the outside world” ( 2005: 179). Leaving the country ,
moreover, is banned, and entering into the country is prohibited except for
Cambodian intell igentsia. Cambodia becomes insulated from the world, as Khamboly
et al of a History of Democratic Kampuchea 1975 -1979 cite, “The Khmer Rouges
isolated the country from the outside world ” (2007: 17). One night , all workers are

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banned to go outside and restricted from work ing in the field . All work s have been
cancelled due to bad situation s, happen ing in the forest area, near the camp. The
environment is so quiet that anyone could hear raindrops falling . No one kno ws what
happened la st night , not even the Khmer Rouge authorities, except two fishermen
who witness ed the execution of Thai soldiers trained during Lon Nol’s regime . Thai
soldiers as well as Vietn amese soldiers have the sa me luck during the Khmer Rouge
regime. They try to fight the Khmer Rouge soldiers to escape from murder.
Unfortunately, they are killed during the fighting by rifles, as she recounts , “Two
hundred men were mu rdered in just one night” (Seng 2005 :168).
Food rations are much improved during harvest time, but working h ours increase
from 12 hours to 1 4 hours per day, meaning from 3 am to 5 pm and from 6 pm to
midnig ht. After harvest se ason, they have a short break, work ing on repairing dikes
and dams during the day but not at night. In February 1978, Angka r has a new
assignment for advanced workers, who always work hard and are loyal to the Angka r.
She and her friend —Nak—have been se lected for the new assignment implying th e
plantation of sugarcane in Au Ondong District, Pailin County. They are so happy
because the place is known to abound in fruits. After the arriving at the assigned
place, they work with other teammates the next morning. They are pleased to have
sugarcane while working, and are served plenty of food and rice, accompanied with
dishes, filled with meat and vegetables —young papayas, young bananas, young
jackfruits, and other greens, as she add s, “This place was so beautiful and peaceful,
and we pampered oursel ves with delicious food ” (Seng 2005 :174).
“Love was not an option either ” (Seng 2005 :180). Marriage, according to
Cambodian laws, is allowed above 18 years of age . In the past marriage, according to
Cambodian culture, is allowed when a man or a woman becomes mature and
puberty —ranging from 16 and over. It lasts three days, accompanying with a grand
affair, full of color and festivity . Family, friends, and the community are invi ted to the
celebration, held with both parents’ permission —groom’s and bride ’s side, and the
couple love each other, as Evan s of Cambodia Insight: Khmer Culture and Religion
delineate s, “A single young Khmer man commonly asks his parents’ permission and
for them to ask for the hand of his loves to marry him” ( 2010: 15). During the Khmer
Rouge regime, marriage is allowed from 17 and over of age. All men are ordered to
choose their brides, but these choice s are made as soon as possible according to the

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Angka r’s plan. Weddings and dates are organized by the Angka r, and the couples are
married in groups and on the same day. Courtship, during the Khmer Rouge time,
rarely exists because of the A ngka r’s rule, lack of food and time, and working all day
and night, as she emphasizes , “Working longer hours every day and having little food
to eat, they had no interes t or energy in courtship” (Seng 2005 :180). Marriage,
additionally, is made by force amo ngst the groups of men and women, who are
assigned by the Angkar. They hav e no rights to choose their own s, who m they love .
Thousands of Cambodians experience forced marriage under Pol Pot’s regime, as
Langis et al of Like Ghost Changes Body write :
Nearly 40 years after the fall of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime (1975 –
1979) the forced marriages and enforced conjugal relations experienced by
thousands of Cambodians continue to be little understood as a central part of
the general atrocity. These marriages eliminated choice, were without consent,
and took place within a context of severe coercion. They deprived victims of
the basic right to self -determination in a central life decision, and in many
cases they resulted in sexual and physical abuse, psychologi cal trauma,
economic deprivation, religious exclu sion, and social discrimination
(2014: 10).
Therefore, on Memorial Day 1978 , the Khmer Rouge s organize this event for a group
of men and women, ranging from 17 and over of age, and marriage is not allowed
from the age of 25 and above for both me n and women during the Khmer Rouge s
regime . Family affection is only made by the Angka r’s permission or on a day off.
Seng, after the arrival from planting sugarcane in Pailin County, is promoted as a
team leader, wo rking with ot her teammates in the rice field . She always works harder
than other workers or teammates, resulting in knowing Comrade Lyn (the camp
leader) and asking her permission for home visit, granted for one night. When
arriving home, she gets pleased to see h er family, including her mother, brothers , and
sisters at dinner time. The time is very short for them to get together, for they have to
go back to work the next morning. They arrive home late and ge t up early leading to
workplace in the dark, as she points out, “While I was passing the village toward a
dam, it was so quiet because everyone was still asleep; as I stepped onto the dam and
looked straight ahead, I began to have chills for fear” (Seng 2005 :190). Team workers
are organized accordin gly, men teams, women teams, and children teams. Each team

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is required to help each oth er to finish assigned work . Each team tries to work harder
to escape from suspicion of former regime. No one dares reject Angkar’s order or
they get killed, as Seng of The Price We Paid cites, “Do what I tell you to do! No
comment! Or you’ll see the wrath of Angka r?” (2005: 194). Children, at children
centres , are in worst conditions ever. They are separated from their parents and
relatives and stay in the center s. They a re served two meals —lunch and dinner a day.
The group leaders place the soup bowls in the middle of each group. Some children
bring their spoons, and some do not. They d o not use spoons even they have but their
five fingers . They are starved and required t o work hard like adults. They cry because
they feel hungry, as she continues, “The living conditions provided for the children
were the worst I h ad ever seen” (Seng 2005 :200). Worse than that, children are forc ed
to work without education. They are illiterates and treated badly, as Tully of a Short
History of Cambodia quotes a statement of Helen Ester, the Australian Council for
Overseas Aid to Cambodia in 1980, that: “I feel almost more shock at the past neglect
of Kampuchean ch ildren than at the outright atrocities; the children suffered forced
separation from nurturing and the love of their parents and relatives and the criminal
neglect of their learning development” ( 2005: 201).
The sounds of gunfire, by the end of 1978, are he ard from a distance continuously
day and night. The rules of the centers and camps are not as strict as before; evacuees
can go home at night . A small plane, in the early 1979, scatters hundreds of tracts of
propaganda, naming a new leader —Heng Samrin. The Khmer Rouge s soldiers, in
March 1979, o rder all people to evacuate the village before dark, as the Vietnamese
troops have invaded and occupied the territory about 10 miles away. Taking
advantage of this situation, some people go catch chickens, ducks, pigs, and cows for
their own possession. Her family does the same, as she relates , “Sothan had caught a
small chick, and Mony was carrying a small piece of cow skin” (Seng 2005 :211).
While evacuating, some people try to escape from the Khmer Rouge s’ contr ol by
going to the opposite direction to wards Battambang city, occupied by the Vietnamese
troops. It is overheard that the Khmer Rouge s’ soldiers try to gather as many
evacuees as possible to the remote mountains they control . Her family and other
people t ry to escape from the Khmer Rouge s’ control led areas , as she mentions her
plan that, “In order to stay behind the crowd and soldiers, we walked slowly and took
many breaks; when it was dark, we got off the main route and tried to hide wh ere we

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could not be seen” (Seng 2005 :212). After the Khmer Rouge regim e, some people go
to their home town s, and some go to Thai border to trade. They buy Thai products to
sell in Cambodia, especially in Battambang city. It is dangerous and hard work asthey
walk through the forest s and mine areas to reach the Thai border. Sothan and Mony
do it, but Vanny stays behind, helping her mother sell frie d bananas at the market, as
she add s, “While Mae and Vanny were in the market selling fried bananas, Chhora
and I walked from v illage to village or any vacant lots searching for wild vegetables ”
(Seng 2005 :221). Her family, in July 1979, decides to flee to the Cambodia n-Thai
border to be with Uncle Sok . They do not trust the new government, backed by the
Vietnamese, and they do not go back home in Phnom Penh city without their f ather.
They have to get out of th is country , and this is a good opportunity. Traveling by foot
and carrying hea vy loads , it takes her family two days to reach Srok Sv ay Sisophon,
Battambang provinc e. Her f amily arrive s at the refugee camp —Nong Samet or new
camp at about 2 o’clock in the morning, and then her family continue s to Nong
Makmoon or the Old Camp, where her Uncle Sok is in . When they see Uncl e Sok,
they miss their father as he looks similar. Witho ut her father, he functions as her
father as he is raised by her parents during the former regime. He promises to take
care of her family instead of her father, as she ex presses , “Uncle Sok had been raised
by my parents and very close to my family . To him, Pa was his idol. This was his
payback time to provide my family the best care ” (Seng 2005 :228).
A nightmare is put to an end to Cambodia by Vietnamese troops, who enter into
Phnom Penh on 7 January 1979. Cambodia faces unstable political, economic and
social conditions, and famine hits Cambodia throughout the country, as Pasch of
Cambodia 1975 -2005: Journey through the Night quotes, “The country was in a
catastrophic condition; famine spread, and 300,000 people fled to refugee camps
along the border betwe en Cambodia and Thailand” ( 2006: 31). Every Cambodian has
a stigma of the Pol Pot’s regime. After revolution on January 7, 1979 , they go in
differen t directions —some to their home towns and some to Cambodian -Thai border,
where there are many refugee camps , for they do not have food to eat, as UNESCO of
Education and Fragility in Cambodia expresses : “The country started from scratch
without currency, markets, financial institutions, industry, public transport system,
trains, postal system, telephone, electric ity, clean water, sanitation, education, and
with damaged roads ” (2011: 25-26). All her family members ha ve jobs at the camp

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except her , for she can speak some English and wants to work with her brother —
Sothan as a tra nslator. She is rejected by Uncle Sok due to a rumor of women, raped
by Thai soldiers and treated like slaves. Uncle Sok does not want this happens to her,
for he promises to treat them well, as he add s, “Your Pa will blame me if something
wrong happened to you . You stay home and study more E nglish. I will find the way
to send you and your family to the United States ” (Seng 2005 :229). The American
way of life has attracted many migrants from all over the world to the United Sates.
The quality of life comparing to the developing coun tries is mu ch higher, as Morris of
Immigration: The Beleaguered Bureaucracy sates: “The quality of life conditions of
the migration in source countries is drastically below those of the United States ”
(1985: 73-77). Keo I Dang Camp, located in Thailand, near Cambodian -Thai border,
supervised by Thai authorities , is known as the safest camp among other camps. After
moving in Keo I Dang Camp, she is married a nd lives with her twin boys. Fifteen
days after her labor, she has received great news of migration to th e United States.
This news is for her whol e family, including her husband, for her father serves in the
army in the former regime. Therefore, her family has good opportunity to be
sponsored to the United States. All refugees are required to stay in a camp in the
Philippines for three months to learn English and American culture before leaving for
the United States , as she illustrates , “We arrived at the refugee camp in Morong,
Bataan, in the Philippines, in May 1981” ( Seng 2005 :242).
4.3 DISCUSSION: Shaping Better Future
All countries on earth have more or less experienced horror in the past even if they
are the colonizers or the colonized. After colonization, some countries qualify as
developed; some become developing countries; while the others are in pove rty due to
conflicts and wars. The gap bet ween the rich and the poor worlds is far closing, as
Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader write : “Who in the New World does not
have a horror of the past, whether his ancestor was torturer or victim? Who, in the
depth of conscience, is not silently screaming for pardon or for revenge? The pulse of
New World history is the racing pulse beat of fear, the tiring cycles of stupidity and
greed…” ( 1995: 371). Every country on earth has been colonized and then beca me the
postcolonial, the developed, the developing, or the poor, as Kelertas of Baltic
Postcolonialism cites: “No t a single square meter of inhabited land on this planet has
not been, at one time or another, colonized and then becomes postcolon ial”

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(2006: 13). Some countries had not been colonized, but they were more impacted by
colonialism than other countries that were , as Kelertas of Baltic Postcolonialism gives
the following example :
Some areas —the Middle East and China —were not colonized, but were more
affected by colonialism than many countries that were. Some countries —
Ghana, Nigeria or Senegal —were relatively swift and generally peaceful, but
others —Algeria, Kenya, Mozambique or Vietnam —were protected, vicious
and bloody (2006: 28).
According to Ashcro ft et al, world history began in Asia and ended in Europe
(1995: 15). Kelertas describes colonial domination of Russia and the Soviet Union
over their colonized countries , arguing that they imposed colonial hegemony over the
Caucasus, Central Asia, the Balt ics, and East -Central Europe for between 5 0 and 200
years ( 2006: 11). The process of dismantlement of the USSR , according to Andreescu,
was completed in 1991 when eighteen erstwhile Soviet republics declared their
rejection of communism along with their commitment to democratic political models
and free market economy ( 2011: 62). Russia is now moving forward with impending
revolution, revision and reconstruction in all the a ffairs of life and watching by the
poor and downtrodden of every land with shining, e ager eyes, as Calinescu of Five
Faces of Modernity quotes, “The past is dead; only the present is reality; we dream of
the future , but we may not see it yet as it will tru ly be ” (1987: 81). Andreescu points
out that the communist regime , in Romania like other six countries: Albania,
Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, and Poland , was overthrown in
1989, with their commitment to democratic political models and fr ee market economy
(2011: 62).
Historically, in the twentieth century, undeniably catastrophe marked a time when
there were wars —from world wars to civil wars, violent political regimes, and
genocides, shaping contemporary history. Identified themselves, ind ividuals and
societies play very important role to respond socially, culturally and politically to
these events. According to Gilbert, testimony has functioned as a primary response to
traumatic events. Individuals and groups give voice to their suffering s and seek for
justice for the wrong done to them. A culture of testimony has developed and given a
special status in Western society to the survivor of traumatic events since the Second

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World War. The contemporary fascination with the figure of the survivo r, beyond
testimony produced in the legal domain, has given rise to an abundance of testimonial
narratives circulating in the public sphere. Numerous approaches to understanding
testimony, as a result, have been developed across a range of disciplines, inc luding
mental health, human rights, the documentation of history, and the creative arts
(2013: 2). Additionally, the history of the past teaches the present generati ons, who
shape a better future of their owns, as Calinescu of Five Faces of Modernity cites,
“To speak of the immediate past —the past that naturally structures the present —as
dark and at the same time posit the certainty of a luminous future —even if it be the
revival of a previous Golden age —involves a revolutionary way of thinking, for
which we would try in vain to find coherent precedents before the Renaissance ”
(1987: 21).
Ngarm identifies different forms of genocide at the hands of perpetrators all over the
world in the 20th century which eradicated massive human lives ( 2006: 38). Rwandan
genocide , for instant, was imposed by the majority ethnic group —the Hutus,
overthrowing the ruling Tutsi king in 1959. Over the next several years, thousands of
Tutsis were killed, and some 150,000 were in exile in neighboring countries ( Ngarm
2006: 39). Macrae adds more examples of genocide in Rwanda in 1960s, 1970s,
1980s, and 1990s to Ngarm (2006) that killing of the Tutsi became a habit and
common. The situations got worse and worse after the death of President
Habyarimana resulted in 800,000 to 1 million people and up to 2 million people were
killed in 1994. The Hutu, predominantly, fled to neighboring countries —Democratic
of Congo, Burundi and Tanzania. Consequently, millions of Rwandans have been
traumatized by violence; many have suffered severe injur ies, lost their homes, and
seen family members and friends raped and killed (1996: 281).
Bosnian genocide , according to Ngarm, was generated by th e hands of neighbors,
who intend ed to remove the Muslims from the land by whate ver mea ns feasibly . The
history of the conflict is little more than a continuation of endemic communal strife in
the area, resulting in hatred and atrocities amon gst the Serbs, Croat s, and Muslims
(2006: 40). Pertinent to Nazi Germany, the Ho locaust, the Shaoh, Ioanid et al
describes the situations concerning the Jews that Romania had gone through Nazi
Germany and the holocaust , which was the most brutal and deadly to the people, who
are today in controversy of the country’s history of the existence of Sho ah, which

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some believed to exist and some not. Consequently, Elie Wiesel, a Jewish -Romanian,
who was forced to emigrate from Romania, with his family during the Shoah, is the
spearheading movement t owards acceptance ( 2004: 1). Jews have suffered much from
holocaust and communism. Pogrom is carried out in Romania to all Jews, who are
tortured, prosecuted, and killed due to different religion. They are restricted to the
political position in the party as well as the government. They are in hunger and
forced to emigrate abroad with paying money. They are also forced to pay taxes in
turn for lives. These evidences have conceived endl essly in their souls and bodies, as
Manea of the Hooligan’s Return writes “We Jews will never be forgiven for the
Holocaust” ( 2003: 243).
Cambodian genocide was imposed by the Khmer Rouges during 1975 to 1979, with
the dead of the estimated 3.3 million people , according to Khamboly (2007 :69).
Additionally, Seng states that the main targets of execution and i mprisonment were
the well educated people, includi ng teachers, pro fessionals and soldiers, who were
considered as a threat to the new C ommunist Revolution ( 2005: xxii). The Khmer
Rouges turn ed Cambodia into a grarian society, where there were plenty of prisons
throughout the countrie s, as Tully of a Short History of Cambodia quotes the
statement of David Chandler that: “The country would become one huge prison farm”
(2005: 179). Tully delineates how the people live under the Khmer Rouge’s rule that
they were starved with daily meager r ations and not allowed to supplement their
hunger from any sources, including forests, rice fields, and their privacy . They
resemble d the walking skeletons that were forced to work overt ime, to eat in
communal kitchen , and to live in collective cam p. There was no currency, market,
ownership, education, and infrastructure ( 2005: 180). Sokhamm Uce certifies that the
present -day people, especially those who have experienced Khmer Rouges Regime,
have suffered PTSD. They do not want to hear, see, or mention any l onger, for this
experience is terrible, tragic and the worst ever in the world ( 2010: 170).
How to prevent genocide and shape a better future? Ngarm shares his examples of
local and international tribunals which have been carried out. Eight people have been
convicted for their role in the Rwandan genocide, one for the war in Bosnia. Ten
years after the death of President Habyarimana in a plane, hit by a rocket in Kigali,
much of the physical fabric of the state and the economy has been rebuilt better than
before. However, there remain many things to be solved for Rwanda. It is the most

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serious indictment against Mr. Milosevic, who has already been charged with other
alleged war crimes in Kosovo and Croatia. The trial has been a serious test for the
International Criminal for the Former Yugoslavia ( 2006: 41). Presada and Ba dea state
that Romania , after revolution 1989, has undergone radical and deep transformation
process of all fields, including political, economic, administrative, social, and
educational system. The educational system, playing an important role in developi ng
the country, has gone through various reforms overtimes to meet the needs of the
society and to enhance quality of teaching and learning at both general and higher
education ( 2015: 32).
An international tribunal to trial the top Khmer Rouge leaders , acc ording to Ngarm,
has been agreed in Cambodia to seek justice for all Cambodians and the country as a
whole . The civil war was completely ended in 1998, with the win -win policy of the
government (2006: 41). From now onward, peace is the key factor for develo ping the
country . The ruling party has governed the country for more than 30 years since 1979.
It seems to be hard to transfer power from ruling government to new government if
the new government takes the culture of reveng e, as Khmer proverb says, “When the
water is high, the fish eat the ants; when the water goes down, the ants eat the fish,”
with the English equivalent: “What goes around, comes around.” Two ways to be
taken for transferring power peacefully from the ruling party to new government are
(1) eradicating the culture of reveng e and (2) constitutional law protection.
Eradicating the culture of reveng e had been carried out by President Nelson Mandela
in South Africa. After stepping down from office, the corrupt leaders can live
peacefully with their families, as Ashcroft et al of Postcolonial Studies Reader writes:
Everything from history must be eliminated, the circles and the arrogant
square pegs. I rummage under the mattress and bring out the scrapbooks,
ripping them up… When the paper things are burned I smash the glasses and
plates and the chimney of the lamp… When nothing is left intact and the fire
is only smouldering, I leave, carrying one of the wounded blankets with me, I
will need it until the fur grows. The hou se shuts with a cl ick behind me
(1995: 395).

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CHAPTER FIVE
Factors Affecting Teaching English Literature
5.1 INTRODUCTION
English language is a key vehicle for information and communication in the age of
globalization. Naisbitt and Aburdene, in their fores eeing of how the world’s societies
and culture s aligning with megatrends of the year 2000 and the prospects of English,
mention :
The most important factor accelerating the development of a single global
lifestyle is the proliferation of the English language. Language is a great agent
of homogenization; it is the frequency on which the culture is transmitted…
Today there are about 1 billion English speakers in the world. By the year
2000 that figure is likely to exceed 1.5 billion. The world’s most taught
language, English is not replacing other languages; it is supplementing
them…( 1990: 140).
Crystal and Gr addol (19 97), in view of English language, point out, “Today English
language is most often used across national boundaries and is the de facto global
language.” They, however, adds to Naisbitt and Aburndene (1990) that , “English is
not replacing other languages.” Concerning with English language, Hasman states,
“Instead, it may supplement or co -exist with languages by allowing strangers to
communicate across linguistic boundaries” ( 2000: 5). Additionally, Hasman , in the
point of view protecting the current position of the English language, presents three
possible future linguistic scenarios for rapidly developing Asia:
1. English will remain the preferred language of international
communication within Asia, since the investment in English may be
regarded as too great to throw away, or the social elites who have
benefited from English in the past may be reluctant to let their privileged
position become threatened. Or it may simply be the most important
common shared language.
2. Mandarin becomes regionally more important, be ginning as a lingua
franca within Greater China (for communication between the region of
Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and Taiwan) and building on increased

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business communication between the overseas Chinese in South -East
Asia.
3. …no single language will eme rge as a dominant lingua franca in Asia and
a greater number of regional languages will be learned as foreign
languages. If intraregional trade is greatest between adjacent countries,
then there is likely to be an increased demand for neighboring languages
(2001: 30).
As far as Romania and Cambodia are concerned, the first scenario seems to be the
case, although the probability of the second or third sequence occurring could
increase in the future. No other languages could be replaced English as an
international language or in global atmosphere, for the trend of bilingualism is
increasing in the world population due to communication, travel, business, education,
and other needs.
Literature is built in two domains: cultures and communicative practices, presented in
literary texts. Comprehension of the literary texts requires literary competence s,
which are in relation to communicative and cultural competence s. Students, with their
high communicative c ompetence, actively participate in literary and non -literary
texts. They also need cultural competence, dealing with literary knowledge, skills,
values, and attitudes, to understand literary texts. There are at least four domains of
the knowledge and skill s: (1) specific literary knowledge and capacity to apply in the
texts, (2) textual knowledge and skills needed to understand and interpret the texts,
(3) contextual knowledge and skills needed to analyze and interpret the texts, and (4)
the skill of writin g literary texts , as Pieper et al of Text, Literature and Bildung cite,
“The literary competence is built in relation with the communicative competence and
with the cultural competence; the knowledge and skills can cover in various
proportions at least four domains” ( 2007: 13). Literature, therefore, has been
considered important in most language in Europe as one of subject classrooms, with
variations in content and teaching approaches, built in the curriculum. Chronology is
neglected in primary school, b ut literary history is introduced in secondary school in
Romania, in relation to Bildungstandards. Bildung, within the English curriculum,
focuses on moral and social development and promoting citizenship. It is not easily
assessed, for it requires Languag e as Subject (LS) to participate in society, cultural
life, and knowledge and abilities to structure and shape one’s own life , as Pieper et al

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of Text, Literature and Bildung add, “Literature plays an important role in most
Language as Subject (LS) classro om in Europe although we see variations in content
and teaching approaches as well as in how literature is justified in the curriculum;
some countries emphasize the national canon, others read European or world
literature; some countries read contemporary as well as traditional literature, others
mostly traditional . […..] The function of literature in LS is often connected to the
notion of Bildung, in other words: literature is thought of as a means to understand
and be able to participate in culture accord ing to underlying values in culture ”
(2007: 7).
In the beginning much attention, under the influence of the Formalists and
Structuralists, was paid to the use of literature in teaching a language. Teaching
English literature and teaching English language, i n the case of language teaching and
learning, were considered synonymous , as Abdullah et al of A New Teaching Model
to Teach Literature for the TESL Pre -Training Service Program in Universiti
Teknologi Malaysia write, “In view of the relationship between literature and
language learning, it is evident that there has been significant transformation in the
association of these two distinct areas; under the influence of the Formalists and
Structuralists, much atten tion was given to the use of literature in teaching a
language; in fact in case of the teaching of the English language, English literature
was viewed as synonymous with the teaching of the English language” ( 2007: 2).
They add that the advocators eliminate d literature from language teaching and
learning and they, in the Functional Approach , argue that the study of literature in
language learning takes a long time from meeting the needs of learners a nd real life
situations . Established in 1970s, the Communic ative Approach to language teaching
gained popularity in teaching and learning a language. It focuses mainly on problem
solving and tasks carrying in real life situations —making enquiries, offering excuses,
and meeting new friends. Its popularity did not t ake long, for foreign language
learners did not use target language in an environment or any setting. For example, in
Japan people use their native language, not the target ed language to address it
(Abdullah et al 2007: 3). Additionally, the literary critic s also contributed to the
reawakening of interest in the use of literature in language teaching and learning by
primarily focusing on the reader and the interaction between the reader and the text.
Through the Reader Response Criticism, literature exists o nly when it is read and

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literary texts possess no fixed and final meaning or value. In other words, the function
of literature in language learning and teaching has evolved from being the model for
excellent language usage to an avenue for aesthetic readin g, where readers could
interact with the literary texts, read by bringing in their own experiences to create
their own int erpretations of the texts ( Abdullah et al 2007: 4).
After revolution 1989, according to Presada & Badea, Romania has undergone radical
and deep transformation process of all fields, including political, economic,
administrative, social, and educational system. The educational system, playing an
important role in developing the country, has gone through various reforms overtimes
to meet th e needs of the society and to enhance quality of teaching and learning at
both general and higher education ( 2015: 32). Compar ing to Cambodian education by
Leng, history of Cambodi an education is divided into five periods —pre-colonial
(before 1863), French colonization (1863 -1953), post -independen t (1953 -1979),
Vietnam occupation (1979 -1989), and modern Cambodian education (1989 -the
present) periods. The education system in the 13th century, pre -colonial period, was
monastic in style. Buddhist monks played a n important role in transferring knowledge
to children (mainly boys) in pagodas. The illiterate were in large num bers in this
period . Under French colonization, secular education was introduced, in which the
French began to formalize, reform, and guide the pagoda schools with a European
education style by bringing in new subjects —arithmetic, history, and geography. The
children of French, Cambodian elite s, and other foreign officials working in
Cambodia had exclusive access t o this education . The secular ed ucation, however, did
not function properly, for it was viewed as less important to ordinary people, and the
French purpose was more to engender indigenous loyalty than to promote the
development of Cambod ia or its people . The French government used higher
education as a place to select the best students from basic education for advanced
education to work in administrative sector. Additionally, the French exploited natural
resources and the people throug h higher education ( 2010: 16-25).
Cambodian education after indepen dence by Leng, post indepe ndent was subdivided
into three: Sihanouk’s regime (1953 -1970), Lon Nol’s regime (19 70-1975), and
Khmer Rouge’s regime (1975 -1979). The education system, under Sihanouk’s period,
was undergone substantive curricular r eforms —from subjects related to France to
Cambodian -related content, for the King saw formal education as a key vehicle to the

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modernization and development . Numbers of primary and secondary schools, after
the reform, increased dramatically throughout the country, and the Khmer Royal
University was completely established in 1960. This growth did not last lo ng due to
corruption, nepotism, unemployment increase , and close alliance with communist
Vietnam . The regime began to be challenged by an emerging middle class. Faults
found in educationa l policy and pra ctices were no modern schools in the countryside
and modern urban schools in the city and some provincial towns. Rural children were
hard to further their studies, especially at higher education. Many unive rsities,
additionally, were founded with extensive use of foreign staff and provoking conflict
ideologies in the educational system, for competent local lecturers were too few to
handle the teachin g responsibility . After the overthrow of Sihanouk by the pr o-
American regime of Lon Nol in 1970, higher education aligned with Western
concepts —republicanism, capitalism, and democracy —in opposition to Sihanouk’s
monarchy and socialism. The education programs, between 1970 and 1975, were
destroyed by the emergence of the political ideologies and civil war throughout the
country. The foreign staff left the country, and local lecturers and staff were not
enough to run the universities . All existing social, economic, political and cultural
infrastructures in the country, u nder the Khmer Rouge s, were intentionally destroyed.
Schools and educational materials were destroyed, and the educated were killed.
Some schools and pagodas were turned into prisons. Past concepts of Sihanouk and
Lon Nol were replaced by new con cepts of soci alism without model ( 2010: 19-23).
After the fall of the Khmer Rouge s in 1979 by Leng , Cambodia was occupied by
Vietnamese soldiers, who helped fight against the Khmer Rouge s. The country
survived on the assistance from Vietnam and Eastern -bloc countries —mainly the
Soviet Union. These countries provided teaching and learning materials at all levels,
including higher education. Vietnamese and Russian were introduced in schools as
second languages. The assistance was cut off when Vietnam’s troops withdrew from
Cambodia in 1989 . Cambodia entered a difficult period again until 1991 (Paris Peace
Accord). The process of revitalization, development and reform of higher education
since 1990s has experienced many challen ges—lack of financial resources and
capab le human capital in all fields —and the legacies of many -year-raged civil wars.
French, the Soviet and the Vietnamese educational system s still had influ ence on
higher education . Th e early 1990s , with the great support from both local and

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international communities, the Cambodian government began to emphasize the need
for higher education reforms —academic programs, faculty, staff development, and
financial and managerial structures. R epeated so often in the history of Cambodian
education, influenced by international ideology, the Khmer language was proposed as
the medium of instruction by the National Seminar on Higher Education in 1995 for
higher education. English and French have bee n used for access t o documents . Still,
the internation al influence preva ils in Cambodian higher education . French is being
used as medium of instruction at the Institute of Technology of Cambodia due to
French financial an d technical support ( 2010: 24-7).
5.2 PROBLEMS
Dominant language for international and transnational communication in higher
education at European universities is English. It has been the language for the
academic community —both international conferences and academic journals.
Additionally , it is the language for the university’s recruitment of international
students and temporary exchange programs , as Janssens et al of Multilingual Higher
Education in European Regions point out, “English is often conceived as the
dominant language of international and transnational communication in higher
education; it has been increasingly the case in the academic community when it
comes to research: both as the language of international conferences and international
academic journals” (2013: 6). The m edium of instruction is Romanian, according to
the Romanian educational law —article 135, at higher educational state institutions,
where national minorities’ programs already exists , as Janssens et al of Multilingual
Higher Education in European Regions add, “The Romanian Educational Law also
allows for the establishment of ‘mother tongue tracks’ in higher education al state
institutions where minorities’ programs already exist (Article 135) ” (2013: 17). The
students, therefore, at university level are still facing problems in English reading,
especially in literary texts due to low competence in English and no interest in
reading . Ruis Zafon ill ustrates in ‘Shadow of the wind’ book, leaving a permanent
memory in your mind. If one’s reading skills are not well developed, and if the
meaning of a book is not clear to the adolescent reader, then words are the struggle
for reading. Not every reader, according to literary development , is able to appreciate
the same level of books, but readers can develop themselves to become more
competent readers of literary texts ( 2001: 6).

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Cambodian language, known as “Khmer”, has been used as an official language, and
it gains heavy status at nati onal level, as Clayton expresses in his words:
To a large degree, Khmer’s utility in economic and political domains emerges
organically without decision, even as most Cambodians acquire Khmer
without choosing it. To a certain extent, however, utility deriv es from
language choices, notably the decision promulgated with the 1993
constitution to privilege Khmer as the official national language ( 2006: 212).
In education, from primary to university, the medium of instruction is Khmer. Khmer
technical words have not been dev eloped for the use at university; instead, English or
French has been rep laced, as Clayton states, “While the national language serves as
the medium of education in many universities, its utility at this level is limited,
particularly in terms of its technical precision” ( 2006: 213). English language plays
very important role in higher education attracting students to pursue the ir studies, as
Leng adds, “It is obvious that English proficiency is a significant goal in their pursuit
of higher educa tion. English will gain more popularity among students, at least in the
foreseeable fu ture. This suggest s both public and private universities need to focus
their academic programs on English to attract students ” (2010: 72).
English language has been introduced in the curriculum from grade 7 to grade 12, in
which students study four lessons per week, and each lesson lasts 50 minutes
(MoEYS, 2004). Learning English language at school alone is not enough to become
qualified for employment or un iversity, where English is required. Concerning with
English proficiency, a former trainee at National Institute of Educatio n says , “My
English proficiency is not improved, program management was not really effective,
and some trainers are not qualified en ough .” One administrator was interviewed about
qualif ications of the institution says , “We still need more researchers to evaluate so as
to help us in finding out weaknesses, strengths and challenges, so that we could walk
in the right way to meet our goal s” (Khleang 2014 :2). Not only students, but also
teaching staff face challenges in Engl ish, as MoEYS (2008) points out, “The
qualifications of the tea ching staff in Cambodia reported are not highly qualified.”
Therefore, both teaching staff and students in higher education in Cambodia still face
challenges in reading literary texts due to low proficiency in English and no interest
or habit in reading.

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5.3 FINDINGS : Romanian Case
All the teachers of English were asked concerning with activities to teac h English
literature: 44.83 % do not use the following main activities : Composing poem,
Listening exercises, Drawing, Collage, Movies/films viewing, Songs, Role play,
Pantomime, Choral speaking, Oral presentation, an d Multimedia production ; 32.18%
have no ideas; and 22.99 % use the activities —Reading Skills, Identifying literary
elements, Group discussion, Personal Response, Criticism, Culture awareness,
Stylistic Analysis, Discourse Analysis, Vocabulary Building, Gram mar Exercise,
Drama presentation, and Puppetry. It is evident that the majority of the teachers are
not interested in the activities. They are confi ned to their own activities, which are
conducive to teacher -centered approach, in which students sit and kee p mum (Figure
5).

Figure 5 : Teachers’ views on activities for teaching English literature , Romania
In addition to views on activities for teaching English literature, the teachers were
questioned on the instruction mode ls used when teaching: 40.74 % do not u se the
given instruction models, including the focus on instructor, the focus on both students
and instructor, the focus on language forms and structure, language use in typical
situations, individual work, pair work, group work, instructor monitoring and
correcting every student utterance, students’ answers depending mainly on instructor,
choice of topics for the students, evaluating learning by both students and instructor,
and being noisy and busy classroom ; 38.89% have no ideas; and 20.37% use the
instruction models: the focus on both students and instructor, the focus on language
forms and structure, language use in typical situations, instructor models (interaction
6.9
16.09
32.18 14.3730.46PERCENTAGE
Very much
Somewhat
Undecided
Not really
Not at all

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between students and instructor and one another), pair or group work, monitoring an d
correcting every student’s utterance, without constant instructor’s monitoring and
feedback given when questioning, answering students’ questions about language,
topics chosen by the instructor, choice of topics by the students, and evaluating
students’ learning by the instructor. It shows that the minority of the teachers are
more interested in using student -centered approach rather than teacher -centered
approach, and vice versa. They think that only class activities make students learn by
themselves; an d they function as facilitators, helpers, or monitors ( Figur e 6).

Figure 6 : Teachers’ perceptions on instruction models , Romania
Concerning with Common Core Teaching and Learning Strategies (Chicago 2012),
the tea chers were questioned: 68.05% do not know and use the Common Core
Teaching and Lea rning Strategies (Chicago 2012), including Answer/Cite
Evidence/ACE graphic Organizer, Theme Chart, Conflict Dissection, Effect on
Meaning and Tone Graphic Organizer, Point of View Chart, Fictional vs. Historical
Table, Text Complexity Chart , Quantitative Measures for Text Complexity,
Qualitative Measures for Text Complexity, Evidence Graphic Organizer , Little
Women , Somebody Wanted but So, Analogy Table , allusion table, Lines from the
Text Graphic Organizer , Element Change Graphic Organizer , Anticipation Guide , the
Grapes of Wrath Anticipation Guide , Self-to-Text Table , Venn Diagram , Character
Archetypes Worksheet , Inference /Evidence /Analysis , Conflict Chart , the Great
Gatsby, Gan’s Feedback Model , Elements of Setting , the Story Arc , Character Table ,
Word Tracker , Henry’s Ironic Voice, and Hemlet Graphic Organizer; 30.09% have no
ideas; and 1.85 % know and use the Common Core Teaching and Learning Strategies:
Qualitative Measure for Text Complexity , Reader and Task Considerations , Character
4.63
15.74
38.8916.6724.07PERCENTAGE
Very much
Somewhat
Undecided
Not really
Not at all

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Table , and Hemlet Graphic Organizer (Figure 7 ). It me ans that the teachers prefer
using their own techniques to new techniques . They want to free themselves from
much work, resulting in less time and money for their families. T hey more think of
their families than professional development .

Figure 7 : Teachers’ Views on Common Core Teaching and Learning Strategies (Chicago 2012) ,
Romania

Figure 8 : Students’ Views on Possible Strategies Used in Teaching and Learning English Literature,
Romania
When all th e students were asked, 80.21 % like taking initiative to reading literary
texts, using computer technology, using a bilingual diction ary, giving them
opportunities to choose favorite literary texts, using some brainstorming in explaining
literary content, being encouraged to use some brainstorming to understan ding
literary texts , being allowed to use some brainstorming in the activities or exercises ,
and the learning English literature through games, discussions with fr iends, w atching
movies or plays and relating it to their lives. However, 8 .79% do no t like the
aforementioned and 10.99 % have no ideas. These evidences show that most of the
students like being independent in their studies, in which teachers are facilitators and
0 1.85
30.09
14.8153.24PERCENTAGE
Very much
Somewhat
Undecided
Not really
Not at all
45.05
35.1610.997.141.65PERCENTAGE
Very much
Somewhat
Undecided
Not really
Not at all

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helpers. They think that the more activities they have, the more they learn, and the
better they become ( Figure 8 ).

Figure 9 : Students’ Perceptions on Teaching Approaches and Techniques Used to Teach English
Literature, Romania
Concerning with students’ p erceptions on teaching approaches and techniques used to
teach English literature, 6.25 % do not like, 12 .05% have no ideas and 81 .69% of the
students like being explained the content of the English literature lesson in details,
using a lot of own prepared materials to teach English literature, being followed the
text closely during the lessons, being given regular feedbacks to their performance in
the English literature lessons, considering their cultural background in designing their
English literature les sons, being allowed to learn English literature at their own pace,
being motivated to learn English literature, using the different teaching techniques,
being given opportunities to relate the literary content to real life situations or
happenings, learnin g English literature by doing things in class, being asked for their
views of the lessons in class, relating their prior -knowledge to teach English literature
lessons, and being paid attention to the discipline, feedback, activity management,
and time mana gement. These results show that most students like studying English
literature in a way that the teachers should assist them in explaining the content in
depth, using enough teaching materials, giving feedback to their performance, using
diverse teaching t echniques to assist understanding, asking for their own views on the
lessons, and participating in all class activities, for the students in one class have
different levels of English proficiency. Therefore, the teaching strategies, the lessons
and teachin g materials must be well o rganized before the class takes place ( Figure 9 ).
47.32
34.3712.055.360.89PERCENTAGE
Very much
Somewhat
Undecided
Not really
Not at all

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Regarding the students’ views on relationships bet ween the Modern Polyphonic
Novel and other English discipline s, 35.72 % of the students have good results, 50%
fairly good, 7.14% fair, and 7.14 % poor on the Modern Polyphonic Novel; 64 .28%
good results, 28 .57% fairly good, and 7.14 % fair on the Translation; 42 .86% good
results, 35.71 % fairly good, 14 .29% fair, and 7.14 % poor on the Modernism –
Postmodernism; 50% good results, 21 .43% fairly good, 21 .43% fair, and 7.14 % poor
on the Eng lish Romantic Paradigm; 85.72 % good results and 14 .29% fairly good on
Discourse Analysis; 64 .28% good results, 14 .29% fairly good, 14 .29% fair, and
7.14% poor on the Literary Translation Techniques; 71.43 % good results, 14 .29%
fairly good, 7 .14% fair, and 7 .14% poor on the Semiotics of Non -verbal; and the
other two, good results lower than the Modern Polyphonic Novel, are the History of
Anglo -American Criticism —28.57% good, 28 .57% fairly good, 35.71% fair, a nd
7.14% poor and the Comparative Grammar of Germanic Language —21.43% good,
57.14% fairly good, 7.14 % fair, and 14 .29% poor (Figure 10 ). According to Boolean
Operators1 by Krippendoff (2004), Modern Polyphonic Novel has relationship with
the other subject matters. It means other subjects build on it. These evidences show
that those who have good results in literature also have good r esults for other English
disciplines . Under Formalists and Structuralists, therefore, English literature was used
in teaching a language ( Abdullah et al 2007 :2). Additionally, P earson’ Correlation
Coefficient shows that Modern Polyphonic Novel correlates strongly English
Romantic Paradigm, Mod ernism -Postmodernism, Literary Translation Techniques,
History of Anglo -American Criticism, and Comparative Gramma r of Germanic
Language. The Translation, however, correlates weakly the Modern Polyphonic
Novel, and the relationship between Modern Polyphoni c Novel and Semiotics of
Non-Verbal Communication is very small ( Table 2 ). It means that Modern
Polyphonic Novel helps build proficiency in studying other English subjects.
Therefore, English literature, according to Abdullah et al (2007), is the foundatio n for
learning -teaching language.

1 Boolean operators are AND, OR, and NOT. Example: A and B, A and B and C, A and B and C and D

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Figure 10 : Students’ Views on Relationships between English Literature Matter and Other English
Subjects in percentage, based on grading points , Romania

Figure 11 : Students’ Views on Relationships between English Literature Matter and Other English
Subjects, Romania
In addition to views on relationships between English literature matter and other
English subj ects based on grading points, 42.86 % of the students can relate English
literature to o ther subject matters, whereas 35.71% cannot relate. The others 21.43 %
have no ideas whether they can relate or not ( Figure 11). It means more students than
not agree that English literature is being used as a foundation for learning other
English disciplines, for English literature provides students with everyday used
words, jargons, and social reality. When all the students were asked about the
020406080100120
7.14014.297.14 7.14 7.1407.14 7.1435.71
7.147.147.1414.2921.43
014.297.1428.57
28.5757.14
50 35.71 21.43
14.2914.2914.297.14
28.5721.43
14.29 28.5728.57
42.8635.71
14.2921.4335.710
21.4314.2921.43
42.8628.57
57.14
Very Good
Good
Fairly Good
Fair
Poor
14.29
28.57
21.4335.710PERCENTAGE
Very much
Somewhat
Undecided
Not really
Not at all

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subjects —English Literature, Speaking Skills, Core English, Cultural/Global Studies,
the History of Anglo -American Criticism, the Translation, the Comparative Grammar
of Germanic Language, the Modern Polyphonic Novel, Modernism -Postmodernism,
the English Romantic Paradigm, Discourse Analysis, Literary Translation Technique,
and the Semiotics of Non -Verbal Communication help in writi ng: 44.51% help but
22.52% do not, and 32.97 % have no ideas ( Figure 12 ); English Literature, Speaking
Skills, Core English, Cultural/Global Studies, the History of Anglo -American
Criticism, the Translation, the Comparative Grammar of Germanic Language, the
Modern Polyphonic Novel, Modernism -Postmodernism, the English Romantic
Paradigm, Discourse Analysis, Literary Translation Technique, and the Semiotics of
Non-Verbal Communication help in speaking: 45.6% help but 26.93 % do not, and
27.47 % have no ideas ( Figure 13 ); and English Literature, Speaking Skills, Core
English, Cultural/Global Studies, the History of Anglo -American Criticism, the
Translation, the Comparative Grammar of Germanic Language, the Modern
Polyphonic Novel, Modernism -Postmodernism, the Engl ish Romantic Paradigm,
Discourse Analysis, Literary Translation Technique, and the Semiotics of Non -Verbal
Communication help in reading: 46.16% help but 32.96% do not, and 20.88 % have
no ideas ( Figure 14 ). It is evident that th e abovementioned subjects do help in
studying writing, speaki ng, and reading skills . How much they can help depends on
how much the students use them in their studies and real -life situations. The more
they use, the more they gain.
Concerning with inter -culture literature (diaspora’s written works), the students said
that they read diaspora’s books —Five Faces of Modernity by Matei Callinescu,
History of the Literary Cultures of East -Central Europe by Cornis -Pope Marcel,
Imperfection and Defeat: The Role of Aesthetic Imagination in Hum an Society by
Virgil Nemoianu, The Hooligan’s Return by Norman Manea, read Train to Trieste by
Domnica Radulescu, Property Rights by Leakthina Chau, Golden Bones by Sichan
Siv, Sunset in Paradise by Bo Khaem Sokhamm Uce, When Elephants Fight: A
Memoir by V annary Imam, and The Price We Paid: A Life Experience in the Khmer
Rouge Regime by Vatey Seng —somewhat 5%, undecided 5%, not really 7.14%, and
not at all 82.86% ( Figure 15 ). The results show that most of the students are not
interested in reading the books , which are not their subject matters. They are
conducive to reading their subject matters for homework or assignments. Their habits

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are to work very hard a few days before the exams or before due date. Therefore, the
students should be motivated to furthe r reading as many books as possible during
their university’s studies.

Figure 12 : Students’ Views on Relationships between English Literature and Writing Skills , Romania

Figure 13 : Students’ Views on Relationships between English Literature and Speaking Skills ,
Romania

Figure 14 : Students’ Views on Relationships between English Literature and Reading Skills , Romania
22.53
21.98
32.9712.0910.43PERCENTAGE
Very much
Somewhat
Undecided
Not really
Not at all
24.17
21.43
27.4713.1913.74PERCENTAGE
Very much
Somewhat
Undecided
Not really
Not at all
23.63
22.53
20.8820.3312.63PERCENTAGE
Very much
Somewhat
Undecided
Not really
Not at all

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Figure 15 : Inter -culture Literature: Diaspora’s Written Works , Romania
5.3 STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
Pearson’s Correlation Coefficients (r) on the last examination results of Modern
Polyphonic Novel with other En glish disciplines show as follow:
Last exam results Modern Polyphonic Novel History of Anglo -Americ.
Modern Polyphonic Novel 1
History of Anglo -Americ. 0.616631068 1
Modern Polyphonic Novel Translation
Modern Polyphonic Novel 1
Translation 0.292066688 1
Modern Polyphonic Novel Comparative -Gramma r
Modern Polyphonic Novel 1
Comparative -Gramma 0.543241963 1
Modern Polyphonic Novel Modernism -Post-
Modern Polyphonic Novel 1
Modernism -Post- 0.737986037 1
Modern Polyphonic Novel English Romantic Para.
Modern Polyphonic Novel 1
English Romantic Para. 0.900803981 1
Modern Polyphonic Novel Discourse Analysis
Modern Polyphonic Novel 1
Discourse Analysis 0.512802891 1
Modern Polyphonic Novel Lit. Translation Techniq.
Modern Polyphonic Novel 1
0
55
7.14
82.86PERCENTAGE
Very much
Somewhat
Undecided
Not really
Not at all

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Lit. Translation Techniq. 0.72139074 1
Modern Polyphonic Novel Semiotics of Non -Verbal –
Modern Polyphonic Novel 1
Semiotics of Non -Verbal – -0.068311302 1
Table 2: Relationships between Modern Polyphonic Novel and other English disciplines at Lucian
Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania
5.4.1 Proposed Teaching Techniques
According to the teaching of literature by DeKay, literature was introduced primarily
in high school and college -level English classrooms in the early 1980s. ‘Literature,’
in the United States, was generally viewed as an identifiable corpus of works,
authored by European and American writers. Most resea rchers have considered
literary works as being identifiable due to genre, linguistic factors, or the nature of the
transaction betwe en reader and text ( 1996: 3). The explicit assessment of good
literature does not exist in the current research, but the actual classroom practices give
implicit guidance concerning the notion of goodness, and linguistic elements
contribute to th e quality of literature . The teaching techniques can be classified into
four major groups: (1) Peer Group Discussion, (2) Cognitive Modeling by Tea cher,
(3) Adopting an Aesthetic Approach to Literature, and (4) Reading
Aloud /Dramatization/Audiobooks ( DeKay 1996: 15-19).
5.4.2 Teaching Strategies
According to the history of education by Tamura, teaching took part in a continuous
analysis of one’s own work, the experiences of other teachers, and the search for new
methods to enhance teaching. The history of education could not be ignored for the
great future, with the understanding of the present and holding a view for the future
(2006: 170). A teaching technique by Crawford et al cannot be applied effecti vely to
every school setting, at any time and to every group of students (2005: 10).The
following methods, therefore, should be proposed for Lucian Blaga Univer sity of
Sibiu, Romania.

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A1. Technique 1: Discussion/Decision/Debate (3Ds)
Strategy/Lesson Suggestion
Aim: Improving Reading Skills Assessment for Learning Suggestions
Discussion: (1st Session)
Using a list of core texts and partner texts,
small -group discussion is made to find
out the matches between the core texts
and the partner texts and then each group
reports to the class. A teacher should prepare a list of core
texts and partner texts before the 1st
session taking place. S/he should explain
the p hrases ‘core texts’ and ‘partner
texts’ to the class.
Decision: (2nd Session)
After the m atches have been found, both
students and the teacher decide which
partner texts should be used with the core
texts. The teacher should make notes of key
information for making decision. Next,
s/he should designate which part of the
texts to be first read with a thesis
statement .
Debate: (On -Going Session)
The debate can be conducted with the
whole class or in two groups: Affirmative
group and Negative group. The stud ents
give reasons or evidences to agree or
disagree with the thesis statement(s). The teacher should write the thesis
statement(s) on the board. All key
reasons or evidences given by the
students should be written on the board
as well. The reasons or evidences can be
taken from both inside and outside the
texts. The teacher should co llect all
reports for grading e. Finally, next part(s)
with thesis statement(s) is/are given for
next session(s).
Notes : On-Going session, a continuous session, is adopted until the end of each book.
A written or an oral summary is required for each book before going to a new story.
Table 3: Technique 1 (Discussion/Decision/Debate)
A2. Text Study
Core texts the students must study in details. Below is an example of describ ed list of
core texts.
Core Texts Authors
Oliver Twist (1st semester) Charles Dickens
Romeo Juliet (2nd semester) William Shakespeare
Table 4 : Core Texts/Authors
Partner texts the students study in brief to assist the understanding of the core texts.
They must be selected with the same or different authors of the core texts within a
time frame. Below is the example of Core Texts and Partner Texts with a time frame .
Core Texts Partner Texts
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens Fagin the Jew by Will Eisner (2003) (2000s )
Romeo Juliet by William Shakespeare Tum Teav by Ven. Botumthera Som
(Translated by George Chigas 1915) (1910s )
Note : Partner texts can be chosen more than one for each core text, depending on time
available in each semester.
Table 5 : Core Texts/Partner Texts

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A3. Managing Coursework
To achieve this, the teacher must do the following: (1) planning stage (hours/week,
weeks/semester) to cover four texts or more, (2) discussing the plan with students to
avoid any irregularities/mistakes, (3) giving advice/guidance to partner texts
(avoiding detailed annotation), (4) giving detailed annotation to core texts, (5)
collecting all stage and final reports of core texts and/ or partner texts for grading, and
(6) giving more time to core texts than to partner texts.
A4. Assessment
Core Text Partner Text Total
60% 40% 100%
Table 6: Assessment (Technique 1)
B1. Technique 2: Experience/Discovery/Results/Debate (E -D-R-D)
Strategy/Lesson Suggestion
Aim: Improving Reading Skills Assessment for Learning Suggestions
Experience
The students go quickly through the
title/subtitle and contents/main points of
the book/chapter and then tell the class
what they generally know about the
book/chapter. The teacher draws E -D-R-D chart on the
board for writing key notes from the
students. To help the students, the
teacher should give some clues.
Discovery
The students discover to get what more
about the text by making question(s). The teacher must prepare a list of
questions. The studen ts work
individually or in groups to think of
questions of what they want to get more
about the text.
Results
The students must discuss and share the
answers of the made questions with the
class. The teacher calls out some students to
get the answers and writes them on the
board in the right column. Alternatively,
the students can write the answers on the
board themselves.
Debate
The students must give reasons , examples
or evidences to agree or disagree with a
thesis statement of the text. The teacher gives the thesis statement to
the students. If the time is unavailable fo r
the debate, it will be done next session.
The debate could be done with the whole
class or in two groups: Pro -group and
Con-group.
Adapted from Crawford et al (2005)
Table 7 : Techn ique 2 (Experience/Discovery/Results/Debate)

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B2. Procedures and Example
1. The teacher draws the E-D-R-D chart on the board.
2. Both teacher and students fill in the ‘ Experience ’ column with the guide: Do
you have any experience s to share with the title/contents /topic ?
3. The students make questions to complete the ‘ Discovery ’ column with the
guide: What do you want to get more about the title/contents/topic?
4. The students answer all the questions to fill up the ‘ Results ’ column with t he
guide: What are the answers of your made questions?
5. The students give reasons or examples to support or not to support the
statement to fill in the ‘ Debate ’ column with the guide: What reasons or
examples do you use to support or not to support the thesis statement?
ELEPHANT CONSERVATION
Experience Discovery Results Debate
Elephants are
endangered.
People shoot them
for ivory and
sometimes
destroy their
habitats.

Shooting
Elephants is not
allow ed, for they
serve tourists and
transportation.
Some of them live
near f arms and
might harm
farmers’ crops.
They are
classified into
African and Asian
elephants. The
African elephant
is the largest
animal walking
the earth.
Elephants live up
to around 70
years. Local
elephants are Do elephants destroy
crops?
How do people do to
prevent elephants
from killing?

How do people get
benefits from the
elephants?

Who should decide
whether to protect
elephants?

How do people
conserve them? Yes!

They must obey
the laws and
report illegal
activities to the
authorities?
Villagers can
make business by
serving the
tourists.

All people,
including
authorities

Everyone shall
obey the laws.
Educating people
is important to
conserve forest
elephants.
Offenders shall be
sentenced
seriously. People
no longer cut
down the forest. Statement :
Elephants useful
to human beings
What do you think?
Support or not to
support.

Support :
Elephants make
much money for
owners /villagers in
a tourist place.
They transport
heavy cargos in
difficult places.
They are also used
in the military.

Not support :
Elephants destroy
crops, houses, and
other things when
they get angry.
They are not used
in agriculture.
Elephant
conservation takes
much money for
both local and

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bigger than forest
elephants, but
forest eleph ants
are darker than
local elephants.
forest elephants.
Table 8: Elephant Conservation
B3. Assessment
Each Debate Report Class Participation Total
60% 40% 100%
Table 9: Assessment (Technique 2)
5.5 CONCLUDING
Teaching by Crawford et al carries its effectiveness with a set of techniques at a
specific school setting, at a specific time within a time frame of a scho ol year
(2005: 10). According to Ruis Zafon, if one’s reading skills are not well developed
and the meaning of a book is not cl ear to the adolescent reader, then words are the
struggle for reading ( 2001: 6). The result shows that most of the students are more
interested in student -centered approach than in teacher -centered approach. They are
satisfied with studying English literatu re in a manner that the lecturers play many
roles —helpers, facilitators, material organizers, feedback givers, teaching technique
developers, and participants —to assist them learn effectively and enjoyably. They,
however, are generally not interested in re ading English literature; especially those
literary texts are not used as disciplines. They are confined to university routines, in
which they do properly the assigned works, not o thers to extend further reading for
self-development. According to the resea rch results, if they have received good
results in English literature, they also have obtained good results in other subject
matters. They should be motivated to further readin g during their university lives, for
literature is a mirror of the society, whic h requires the students to get more examples
of language in use to express the reality. These examples are taken from literature,
making students learn faster and more effectively. Therefore, the two proposed
techniques should be introduced at the universi ty and others in Romania, aiming at
improving reading skills and quality of higher education.
5.6 FINDINGS : Cambodian Case
All the teachers of English were asked concerning with activities to tea ch English
literature: 3 6.69% do not use the activi ties—mainly on composing poem, stress and

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intonation pattern, rhythm and rhyme , drawing, Collage, Songs, internet based
activities, drama presentation, pantomime, choral speaking, and puppetry; 31.72%
have no ideas; and 31.59 % use the activities —mainly on Reading Skills, identifying
literary elements, group discussion, personal response, criticism, culture awareness,
stylistic analysis, vocabulary building, grammar exercise, role play, and oral
presentation. It is evident that teachers not interested in the activities are more than
those who are interested . They are confined to their own activities, pertinent to
teacher talking time more than student talking time. It means Teacher Centered
Approach has been mostly applied (Figure 16 ).

Figure 16 : Teachers’ Views on Activities for Teaching English Literature , Cambodia
In addition to views on activities for teaching English literature, the teachers were
questioned on the instruction mode ls used when teaching: 22.67 % do not use the
given instruction models , including mainly on focus on instructor talking and student
listening, students working alone, instructor monitoring and correcting every student
utterance , instructor providing feedback when questions arising, students using
instructor as an information reso urce to answer other’s questions, instructor choosing
own topics, students given some c hoice of topics, students as wel l as teachers
evaluating their own learning, and classroom being quiet ; 34.22% have no ideas; and
43.11 % use the instruction models —the focus on both studen ts and instructor,
language form s and structure, language in typical situations, pair or group work,
monitoring and correcting every student’s utterance, feedback given when
questioning, topics chosen by the instructor, some choice of topics by the students,
evaluating stud ents’ learning, and using classroom as being often noisy and busy. The
results show that more teachers use the instruction models, and they are more student –
centered, for most instruction models they used are making st udents learn through
7.18
24.41
31.7220.2816.41PERCENTAGE
Very much
Somewhat
Undecided
Not really
Not at all

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257
their classroom activities. Most of them like using pair and/or group work. Therefore,
student -centered approach has been adopted more than teacher -centered approach
(Figure 17 ).

Figure 17 : Teachers’ Per ceptions on Instruction Models , Cambodia
Concerning with Common Core Teaching and Learning Strategies (Chicago 201 2),
the results show that 48.56 % do not know and use the Common Core Teaching and
Learni ng Strategies (Chicago 2012), including theme chart, fictional vs. historical
table, text complexity chart, evidence graphic organizer, little women, somebody
wanted but so, analogy table, allusion table, lines from the text graphic organizer,
element change graphic organizer, anticipation guide, the grapes o f wrath anticipation
guide, se lf-to-text table, Venn diagram, character archetypes worksheet,
inference/evidence/analysis, conflict chart, the great Gatsby, Gan’s feedback model,
elements of setting, the story arc, character table, word tracker, Henry’s Ironic Voice,
and Hemlet Graphic Organizer ; 40.33% have no ideas; and 11.11 % know and use the
Common Core Teaching and Learning Strategies: Answer/Cite Evidence/Ace
Graphic Organizer, Point of View Chart, Fictional vs. Historical table, Qualitative
Measure for Text Complexity , Reader and Task Considerations , Little Women,
Character Archetypes Worksheet, Inference/Evidence/Analysis, Elements of Setting,
Word Tracker, and Henry’s Ironic Voice. It means that most teachers , easygoing
teachers, stereotype their teaching strategies. They do no t want to make themselves
busy with new techniques and update teaching -learning situations ( Figure 18 ).
7.56
35.55
34.2216.676PERCENTAGE
Very much
Somewhat
Undecided
Not really
Not at all

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Figure 18 : Teachers’ Views on Common Core Teaching and Learning Strategies (Chicago 2012) ,
Cambodia
When all th e students were asked, 60.41 % like taking initiative to read the literary
texts, using computer technology, using a bilingual diction ary, giving them
opportunities to choose favorite literary texts, using some brainstorming in explaining
literary content, being encoura ged to use some brains torming , being allowed to use
some brainstorming in the activities or exercises, learning E nglish literature through
games and discussions, watching movies or plays, relating literature to their lives , and
learning by using revision books at home . How ever, 20.31 % do no t like the
aforementioned and 19.28 % have no ideas. These evidences show that most of the
students like being independent in their studies both at university and home , in which
teache rs are facilitators and helpers, but they like some brainsto rming before the
lessons or classroom activities start (Figure 19 ).

Figure 19 : Students’ Views on Possible Strategies Used in Teaching and Learning English Literature ,
Cambodia
0.11
11
40.33
17.5631PERCENTAGE
Very much
Somewhat
Undecided
Not really
Not at all
20.61
39.819.2813.856.46PERCENTAGE
Very much
Somewhat
Undecided
Not really
Not at all

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Concerning with students’ perceptions on teaching approaches and techniques u sed to
teach English literature, 15.83% do not like, 25.42% have no ideas and 58.75 % of the
students like being explained the content of the English literature lesson in details,
using a lot of own prepared materials to teach English literature, being followed the
text closely during the lessons, being given regular feedbacks to their pe rformance in
the English literature lessons, considering their cultural background in designing their
English literature lessons, being allowed to learn English literature at their own pace,
being motivated to learn English literature, being motivated to l earn, using the
different teaching techniques, being given opportunities to relate the literary content
to real life situations or happenings, learning English literature by doing things in
class, being asked for their views of the lessons in class, relati ng their prior –
knowledge to teach English literature lessons, and being paid attention to the
discipline, feedback, activity management, and time management. These results show
that most students like studying English literature in a way that the teachers should
assist them in explaining the content in depth, using enough teaching materials,
giving feedback to their performance, using diverse teaching techniques to assist
understanding, asking for their own views on the lessons, and participating in all cla ss
activities, for the students in one class have different levels of English proficiency.
Therefore, the teaching strategies, the lessons and teaching materials must be well
organized before the class takes place ( Figure 20).

Figure 20 : Students’ Perce ptions on Teaching Approaches and Techniques Used to Teach English
Literature , Cambodia
Regarding the students’ views on relationships between English literature subject
matter and other English subjects, 6 4% of th e students have good results, 24% fairly
20
38.7525.4211.084.75PERCENTAGE
Very much
Somewhat
Undecided
Not really
Not at all

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260
good, and 12% fair on English Literature; 49.33 % go od results, 28% fairly good, 20 %
fair, and 2.67% poor on Core English; 60% have good results, 28% fairly good, and
12% fair on Cultural/Global Studies ; 48% good results, 33.33% fairly good, 17.33 %
fair, a nd 1.33 % poor on Speaking Skills ; and 38.67 % have good results, 38.67 %
fairly good , 21.33% fair, and 1.33% poor on Writing Skills (Figure 21 ). According to
Boolean Operators2 by Krippendoff (2004), English Literature has relationship with
the other subject matters. It means other subjects build on it. These evidences show
that those who have good r esults in literature also have good results for other English
subject matters. Under Formalists and Structuralists, therefore, English literature was
used in teac hing a language ( Abdullah et al 2007 :2). Additionally, P earson’
Correlation Coefficient shows that the relationship between English Literature and
other English subjects —Core English, Cultural Studies, Speaking Skills, and Writing
Skills —is strong (Table 10). It me ans that English Literature helps students study
other English subjects effectively, for English Literature illustrates the students’
needs of real -life situations in society, where they put them in practice . Therefore,
English literature, accord ing to Abdullah et al, is the foundation for learning -teaching
language (2007: 2).

Figure 21 : Students’ Views on Relationships between English Literature Matter and Other English
Subjects in percentage, based on grading points , Cambodia
More views on relationships between English literature ma tter and other English
subjects based on grading points, 36 % of the students can relate English literature to
other subject matters, whereas 28 % cannot relate. The others 36 % have no ideas
whether they can relate or not (Figure 2 2). It is evident that more students than not

2 Boolean operators are AND, OR, and NOT. Example: A and B, A and B and C, A and B and C and D
020406080100
0 2.67 0 1.33 1.33122012 17.33 21.3324282833.3338.6761.334453.3344362.67 5.33 6.67 4 2.67
Very Good
Good
Fairly Good
Fair
Poor

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agree that Eng lish literature is a foundation for learning other English dis ciplines, for
it provides the students with target language in real life situations . More importantly,
when all the students were asked about the subjects —English Literature, Speaking
Skills, Core English, Cultural/Global Studies, the History of Anglo -American
Criticism, the Translation, the Comparative Grammar of Germanic Language, the
Modern Polyphonic Novel, Modernis m-Postmodernism, the English Romantic
Paradigm, Discourse Analysis, Literary Translation Technique, and the Semiotics of
Non-Verbal Communication help in writing: 25.13% help but 37.95% do not, and
36.92% have no ideas (Figure 2 3); English Literature, Spea king Skills, Core English,
Cultural/Global Studies, the History of Anglo -American Criticism, the Translation,
the Comparative Grammar of Germanic Language, the Modern Polyphonic Novel,
Modernism -Postmodernism, the English Romantic Paradigm, Discourse Analy sis,
Literary Translation Technique, and the Semiotics of Non -Verbal Communication
help in speaking: 26.36% help but 35.59% do not, and 38.05% have no ideas ( Figure
24); and English Literature, Speaking Skills, Core English, Cultural/Global Studies,
the Hi story of Anglo -American Criticism, the Translation, the Comparative Grammar
of Germanic Language, the Modern Polyphonic Novel, Modernism -Postmodernism,
the English Romantic Paradigm, Discourse Analysis, Literary Translation Technique,
and the Semiotics of Non-Verbal Communication help in reading: 29.44% help but
34.25% do not, and 36.31% have no ideas ( Figure 2 5). It pro ves that the subjects do
not help much in studying writing, speaking, and reading English language. These
disciplines, therefore, should be developed based on the needs of the students and the
society.

Figure 2 2: Students’ Views on Relationships between English Literature Matter and Other English
Subjects , Cambodia
1.33
34.67
3625.332.67PERCENTAGE
Very much
Somewhat
Undecided
Not really
Not at all

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Figure 2 3: Students’ Perceptions on Relationships between English Subjects and Writing Skills ,
Cambodia

Figure 2 4: Students’ Perceptions on Relationships between English Subjects and Speaking Skills ,
Cambodia

Figure 2 5: Students’ Perceptions on Relationships between English Subjects and Reading Skills ,
Cambodia
2.87
22.26
36.9231.496.46PERCENTAGE
Very much
Somewhat
Undecided
Not really
Not at all
4
22.36
38.0529.745.85PERCENTAGE
Very much
Somewhat
Undecided
Not really
Not at all
3.49
25.95
36.3127.596.66PERCENTAGE
Very much
Somewhat
Undecided
Not really
Not at all

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When the students were asked about diaspora’s written works, they said that they read
diaspora’s books —Five Faces of Modernity by Matei Callinescu, History of the
Literary Cultures of East -Central Europe by Cornis -Pope Marcel, Imperfection and
Defeat: The Role of Aesthetic Imagination in Human Society by Virgil Nemoianu,
The Hooligan’ s Return by Norman Manea, read Train to Trieste by Domnica
Radulescu, Property Rights by Leakthina Chau, Golden Bones by Sichan Siv, Sunset
in Paradise by Bo Khaem Sokhamm Uce, When Elephants Fight: A Memoir by
Vannary Imam, and The Price We Paid: A Life E xperience in the Khmer Rouge
Regime by Vatey Seng —very much 1.33%, somewhat 11.47%, undecided 29.2 %, not
really 26%, and not at all 32 % (Figure 26 ). It is evident that most of the students are
not willing to read the books which are not their subject matte rs. They are willing to
read only the books assigned for their studies. The students , therefore, should be
encouraged to read and change their habits to further re ading as many books as
possible.

Figure 26 : Inter -Cultural Literature: Diaspora’s Written W orks, Cambodia
5.7 STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient s (r) on the last examination results of English
Literature with other En glish disciplines show as follow:
Last exam results English Literature Core English
English Literature 1
Core English 0.542346976 1
English Literature Cultural Studies
1.33
11.47
29.2
2632PERCENTAGE
Very much
Somewhat
Undecided
Not really
Not at all

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English Literature 1
Cultural Studies 0.542430447 1
English Literature Speaking Skills
English Literature 1
Speaking Skills 0.465989086 1
English Literature Writing Skills
English Literature 1
Writing Skills 0.4299 504 1
Table 10: Relationships between English Literature and other English disciplines at Svay Rieng
University and National University of Management, Cambodia
5.8 PROPOSED TEACHING TECHNIQUES
Literature by Abdullah et al is considered as a more dynamic resource in second or
foreign language teaching and learning, and it is named a few in mathematics and
geography . It has also been widely used as a motivating material, a resource for
language acquisition, an access to other cultural background, a medium to increase
learners’ language awareness, and a reputation gain to a wider educational
functions —triggering critical abilities and increasing emotional awareness —in
educating the person as a whole. It is evident that the relationship between literature
and language learning is significant in transforming knowledge between these two
distinctive areas. The two terms —English literature and the teaching of the English
language —under the Formalists and S tructuralists were synonymous, for the special
status was given to literature in learning the English language. The trend, however,
has been changed under the Functional Approach and the Communicative Approach.
The advocators of the Functional Approach wer e willing to eliminate literature from
language teaching and learning due to a long way from meeting the needs of the
learners in real life s ituations ( 2007: 1-2).
After the establishment of the Communicative Approach to teaching a language in
1970s, by Ab dullah et al, literature was not used any more to teach a language. This
approach does not hold its popularity for longer time, for some countries —Japan and
Malaysia —fail to use the target language in an environment or setting. They, in tu rn,
use their nat ive languages . Nevertheless, the support of using literature, written by
renowned classical writers —William Shakespeare and Emily Bronte, in language
teaching is increasing positively in many programs around the world ( 2007: 3,5).

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5.9 TEACHING METHODS
Teaching , according to Crawford et al, likes a move in sports. Failure to transform
knowledge effectively to learners likes a loose in sports in front of audience. Learning
a new teaching method as well as a new move in sports needs to be trained and
pract iced in front of someone who knows how to do it. The teachers or the players get
suggest ions for improving performance . A teaching method cannot carry its
effectiveness to everywhere and at any time, for teach ing carries more than a set of
methods. It mean s a teaching method is effective to a particular group of students, at a
certain point in the school year, with certain resources, within a particular time frame,
in a particular school and community setting ( 2005: 9-10). The following teaching
techniques , therefore, should be proposed for Svay Rieng University and National
University of Management, Cambodia.
5.9.1 Little Girl/Boy: How does the girl or boy change ?
RATIONALE : This technique helps all of the students to work hard, to improve
reading skills, an d to think critically of the changed behaviors or attitudes of the
characters from the beginning to the end of a chapter or a story. These activities give
students reasonable -critical answers, which they can learn from.
GROUP SIZE : Unlimited
RESOURCES : Charts wil l be used as students’ handouts or with LCD.
TIME REQUIRED : 30 minutes
ACTIVITY :
Step 1 : The teacher prepares the chart (as handouts/ with LCD) at home or before the
class . Photocopy and other questions concerned should be already made.
Step 2 : The teacher explains how to use t he chart and other prepared activities to
students, who are then assigned to work individually, in pair, in group, or with the
whole class.
Step 3 : The teacher acts as a monitor, facilitator, o r helper and moves around in class.
Step 4 : The teacher calls out some students t o report the chart to the class and shares
the answers with them.

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Step 5 : After calling some of the students, the teacher can share his report with the
class to find out the possible answers for them.
REFLECTION : It is important for the teacher to learn weaknesses and strengths of
the technique. Thro ugh the observation in class, the teacher can assign the activities
more effectively and enjoyably next time whether in a single individual, in pair, in
group, or with the whole class.
ASSESSMENT : The teacher observes and notes the active students , participating in
the activities for grading or rewarding.
LITTLE GIRL/BOY CHART
How does the girl or the boy change ?
Early Personality/Behavior Later Personality/Behavior Causes for Change

What are the character ’s change s relate d to the story ? Give textual evidences.

Why are the changes needed? Give textual and extraneous evidences

Do you agree with the change(s)? Why? Why not?

Adapted from Illinois State Board of Education, 2012
Table 11 : Little Girl/Boy Chart

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EXAMPLE :
LITTLE GIRL/BOY CHART
How does the girl or the boy change?
Early Personality/Behavior Later Personality/Behavior Causes for Change
Teav (in Tum Teav) is well –
bred and obedient to her
mother. She is ill -bred and
incompliant to her mother. Love and friends
What are the character’s changes related to the story? Give textual evidences.
One day her mother invite s the monk (Tum) to the family ceremony. He g ives
beautiful sermo n to the ceremony, and he is handsome. Teav also takes part in the
ceremony. They both see each other and fall in love.
Why are the changes needed? Give textual and extraneous evidences
Because Teav falls in love with the monk. She wants to elope with the monk . Her
mother wants her to marry a noble man, who she does not love.
Do you agree with the change(s)? Why? Why not?
I do agree with the changes because she should marry a man whom sh e loves. Money
cannot buy every thing, especially happiness.
Table 12 : Little Girl/Boy Chart (Example)
5.9.2 Analogy Chart : ABC Analogy
RATIONALE : This technique helps all of the students to analogize extracted phrases
or sentences with their own thoughts and words . It helps them build critical -thinking
capacity as well as descriptive analogy. Having th ese activities can make them work
hard on both critical thinking and writing, which they can develop themselve s from.
GROUP SIZE : Unlimited
RESOURCES : The chart will be used as students’ handouts or with LCD.
TIME REQUIRED : 30 minutes
ACTIVITY :
Step 1 : The teacher prepares the chart (as handouts/ with LCD) at home or before the
class. Photocopy and other questions concer ned should be already prepared.

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Step 2 : The teacher explains how to use the chart and other prepared activities to
students, who are then assigned to work individually, in pair, in group, or with the
whole class.
Step 3 : The teacher acts as a monitor, facilitator, or helper and moves around in class.
Step 4 : The teacher calls out some students t o report the chart to the class and shares
the an swers with them.
Step 5 : After calling some of the students, the teacher can share hi s report with the
class to find out the possible answers for them.
REFLECTION : It is time for the teacher t o learn the effectiveness of the technique.
The teacher , through the observation in class, can assign the activities mo re
effectively and enjoyably next time whether in a single person , in pair, in group, or
with the whole class.
ASSESSMENT : The teacher observes and notes the active student s, participating in
the activities for grading or rewarding.
ABC ANALOGY CHART
Analogy (Phrases from the story) Building of Analogy

Consolidation :

Adapted from Illinois State Board of Education, 2012
Table 13 : ABC Analogy Chart

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EXAMPLE :
ABC ANALOGY CHART
Analogy (Phrases from the story) Building of Analogy
City of the Big Shoulders This analogy characterizes the people in
the city strictly obey the law and share
responsibility to what is happening in the
city. They are to be blamed if the city is
unsafe. They all try to solve problems, for
the problems are shared by everyone in
the city.

Playe r with Railroads and the Nation’s
Frieght Handler This ana logy characterizes trains as a
main transportation in the country, a
developing country. The poor live along
the Railroads and cannot affor d houses in
the city.

Cambodia ’s Sideshow of Vietnam War This analogy characterizes the war staged
by Vietnam with another country, but
Cambodia suffers from it . Vietnam also
takes advantage s from Cambodia to win
the war.

Consolidation (Teacher) :
The teacher asks some students:
What they learned :
Student A : City of the Big Shoulders characterizes………..
Student B : Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Frieght Handler characterizes…..
Student C : Cambodia’s Sideshow of Vietnam War characterizes…….
.
.
What they have experienced :
The White House Scandal ? (The White House Sc andal characterizes a cancer
spreading to every internal organ of the body, who elects the president )
Brazilian footballers’ death, the world cries? (This analogy characterizes the death
of many Brazilian footballers in a plane crash, resulting in the world condolence to
them , their families and their country)

Table 14 : ABC Analogy Chart (Example)
5.10 CONCLUDING
Teaching well , by Crawford et al , means achieving all objectives of the lessons. It is
done successfully at specific school settings, group of the students, and t ime frame
(2010: 10). These methods are designed particularly for Svay Rieng University and
National University of Management, C ambodia and also for Lucian Blaga University
of Sibiu, Romania and other countries around the world if they are found useful and

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effective. These techniques focus mainly on analysis of characters’ traits and
descriptive analogy of extracted phrases or sent ences. They help the stude nts improve
critical reading skills, thinking skills and writing skills. They also help the teachers
transform passive classrooms into active or thinking classrooms. Having these
activities helps the students activate their brains to learn through class activities. The
studies show that they are satisfied with student -centered approach rather than
teacher -centered app roach and that liter ature subject helps them learn more
effectively the other subject matters . The universities, the refore, should encourage the
students to read more and more the literary texts , for English Literature is the
foundation for learning English language , according to Abdullah et al (2005 :2).
5.11 DISCUSSION
The results of the studies in both countries —Romania (Lucian Blaga Un iversity of
Sibiu) and Cambodia ( Svay Rieng University and National University of
Management ) show that averaging 40.76% of the teachers center on their own
activities for teaching English literature, and these activities are pertinent to teacher –
centered approach. Averaging 27.29% of the teachers, however, apply student –
centered approach, which activate s students learn through their activities (Figures 5,
16). Moreover, averaging 31.74% of the teachers , who apply student -centered
instruction models, and 31.70% of the teachers, who apply teacher -centered
instruction models, are nearly equal, but the tendency of the teachers in Romania uses
teacher -centered instruction models doubles the teachers in Cambodia and vice versa
(Figures 6, 17 ). The studies also show that averaging 70.31% of the students are
interested in student -centered approach, and 14.55% of the students are satisfied with
teacher -centered approach ( Figures 8, 19 ). Averaging 39.43% of the students can
relate th eir English literature to other English disciplines, but 31.85% of the students
cannot relate ( Figures 11, 22). It means that averaging 39.43% use English literature
in learning English language as well as other English subjects. Furthermore, the
studies s how that English literature has relationship with other English disciplines in
the academic programs ( Table s 2 & 10 ).
The earlier studies in urban secondary schools (eight classroom observations) in
Sandakan, Sabah, Malaysia, show that the six approaches —Information -Based
Activities, Personal -Response Activities, Language -Based Activities, Paraphrastic
Activities, Moral -Philosophical Activities, and Stylistic Activities —for teaching

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literature were practical at med ium to high mode. The most favo red approac hes
amongst the six were paraphrastic and information -based approaches. The least
favored approaches were the personal -response, the language -based, and the stylistic
approaches. The teachers centered on teacher -centered approach, for the student
talking t ime was less than the teacher talking time. The other studies, by Suriya
Kumar (2004) and Siti Norliana (2003), show that the teachers controlled much time
in dealing with students’ comprehension and explanation of the literary texts.
Anyway, the student -centered, activity -based, and process -oriented approaches,
named by Carter (1996), were not appeared in the literature lessons , according to
Hwang & Embi (2007 :17). The studies, by Zamrudah, reveal that the teachers failed
to use the activities to reach out the development of students’ language proficiency
and their personal response. Particularly, the language -based and personal -response
activities were low in number (2001: 18). Therefore, it can be concluded that most
teachers of the studies applied teacher -centered approach. To change their habits or
routines, the four proposed teaching techniques should be introduced at their schools
or universities to fulfill the students’ needs as well as improving the ir studies, which
require more and more examples of l anguage in use to express the reality of the
society , which can be found more in literature, viewed as a mirror of the society.
These techniques also improve their English proficiency, comprehension and reading
skills through various activities .
CONCLUSION
Social media —Facebook —is today popular among people in the world, especially
teenagers and adults, which results in no habit or routine of reading books in their
spare time . This is mainly due to the fact that students are mainly preoccupied with
their course works, disciplines, assignments, and project s at school or university as a
whole. Students majoring in English at Lucian Blaga University, Romania and in
Svay Rieng University and National University of Mana gement, Cambodia display a
particul ar low interest in reading books, especially literary works, with research
showing that most students in the above -mentioned universities do not r ead literary
works except the compulsory ones (Figures 15, 26 ). Abdullah et al (2005: 2) see
literature as fundamental to learning a language as it illustrates plenty of examples of
language in use to express reality of a society of writers. Upon acknowledging its

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importance , the researcher seeks, through this thesis, to shift the students’ attitude
from ha tred to love of literary works and to attract them to read more .
The c ase studies of five stories —two Romanians and three Cambodians —can attract
students to read, as they deal with not only examples of language in u se but also
recent approaches to literatur e studies, including postcolon ial studies, migrant
literature, testimonial literature, and traumatic literature , making the case studies
unique and more interesting . The stories elaborate the lives of the writers or the
people who experienced the H olocaust , genocide, starvation, persecution, torture,
imprisonment, sexual abuse, separation, and war. The writers, eventually, became
survivors of the brutal regimes in the thi rd country, as Ashcroft et al point out in
Postcolonial Studies Reader , “To exile is to live” (1995: 12). ‘Push -Pull’ factors in
migrant literature explain why people migrat e and where in their search for a better
life. Memory generation in testimonial li terature composes stories of writers,
survivors and people, who experienced these phenome na, depicted with a view to
teaching contemporary and fu ture generations what to accept and what to avoid for
good at the present and better in the future. Stigma in traumatic literature for most
survivors lingers in their feelings and thoughts as they som etimes cannot find words
or voices to represent their hurt bodies and feelings.
Socio -political, economic and educational factors of colonizat ion and/or communism
add more in formation to the recent approaches of literature studies for analysis basis
in the case studies. According to Ashcroft et al, the most important fact of colonial
domination is to take advantage of economy, to introduce political ideology, and to
proselytize religion in the indigenous population ( 1998: 46). Alesina et al argue that
truism of the effects of colonialism deals wi th the artificiality of colonial borders.
There are two facets of artificial borders ( 2006: 2). For Ziltener & Kunzler , the
colonia l borders create landlocked states and then large countries, increasing the
likelihood of civil wars at the borders (2013: 303). It is for this reason that, according
to Bachman , Romania paid reparation in total equivalent of US$ 2 billion to Soviet
Union after the war, (1991 :44). The Soviet Union created more orthodox churches in
Romania, introduced Russian in school, and highlighted its history in the curriculum.
The Romanian people were starved and deprived of freedom of travel, speech, proper
living, and busine ss. Soviet Union did t he same in Cambodia during its domination,
except introducing Orthodox churches. Cambodian people, during theFrench

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colonization, were forced to pay taxes to its administration and to line up their own
pocket for road process. The French exploited the Camb odian economy by recruiting
Cambodian workers to work on plantations at low wag es and natural resources to
advance their country. They introduced French in school and administration.
Therefore, students must learn the past to understand the present and shape a better
future.
These case studies alone are not enou gh to make students learn, since modern -day
technology —Facebook —attracts most students , consuming most of their spare time
and lowering their interest in reading. To help them learn more literary texts, the
researcher p uts forward four techniques of teach ing English literature , containing
plenty of exam ples of l anguage in use, required by students who need to talk about
reality of society. Technique 1 (Discussion/Decision/Debate) encourages teachers to
add more partner texts to core texts to help students learn more effectively and
enjoyably and change their habi ts or rou tines from hatred to love of books. Technique
2 (Experience/Discovery/Results/Debate) help s teachers teach students more
interest ingly and enjoyably , who need to use their experiences to discover more in the
story for the debate, which makes them fluent in English speaking. Technique 3
(Little Girl/Boy: How does the girl or boy change?) helps students improve reading
skills and critical thinking capacity , which are vital to literary analysis. Technique 4
(ABC Analo gy) helps students make descriptive analogies between extracted phrases
or sentences o from literary works and improv e critical thinking and vocabulary.

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