Part 2: Photograph
After fleeing their home in Kampot, my parents found themselves constantly on the move, trying their best to outrun violent raids that the Khmer Rouge were launching across Cambodia. They would end up spending about five years living just across the border, in the southwest of Vietnam — taking care of my two elder sisters in a state of survival that would leave my mom with a lifelong sense of paranoia.
My cousin, Lynn Hsu, spent these same years trapped on the other side of the Cambodian border, living in the totalitarian regime that Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge had built through violence and terror. It was a bleak and brutal time, during which Lynn would spend two years in a forced labor camp and face unspeakable loss.
Today, Lynn literally holds onto one thing from those years: A photograph of her family, taken before the war that tore them apart. When I called her to listen to what she’d gone through, I finally learned just how much she did to keep this photograph from falling into the hands of her captors, and to preserve that memory for future generations.
EPISODE CREDITS
Created, written, and produced by Lisa Phu
Edited by Julia Shu
Fact checking by Harsha Nahata and Tiffany Bui
Sound design by James Boo
Original score by Avery Stewart
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions and James Boo
Audio engineering by Dave Waldron and Timothy Lou Ly
Cover art and show name created by Christine Carpenter
Audience engagement by Rekha Radhakrishnan
Thanks to Nayan Chanda for sharing his work and his experiences
Thanks to the Alderworks Alaska Writers & Artists Retreat for the residency they provided for this project.
This project is supported in part by the Juneau Arts & Humanities Council and the City and Borough of Juneau
Thanks to KTOO Public Media for studio time
Huge thanks and gratitude to Lan Phu and Lynn Hsu
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“Before Me” is a Self Evident Media production.
The show’s Executive Producers are James Boo, Lisa Phu, and Ken Ikeda.
TRANSCRIPT
Content Warning
JULIA VO: Hi! This is Julia, the editor for Before Me.
I just want you to know — this episode includes descriptions of interpersonal violence, acts of genocide, death during war, and forced labor.
Cold Open
SOUND: The telephone rings as Lisa places a call
Lynn: Hi Lisa.
Lisa: Hey Lynn, how are you?
Lynn: Fine, thank you. I just got home. Oh my gosh, so busy today.
Lisa: Oh, I’m sorry.
Lynn: It’s OK.
Lisa: It’s still a good time to talk though?
Lynn: Yeah, yeah…
LISA VO: That’s my cousin Lynn Hsu. She lives in New York with her husband and father-in-law. I was calling her from Juneau. This phone call happened in October 2017.
MUX: Begins
My cousin Lynn helped raise me. I spent so many Saturdays with her -- just the two of us -- while my sisters were at Chinese school, my mom was at work, and Lynn’s brothers were off doing something else.
I’d watch Saturday morning cartoons, then watch her clean the fish tank. She would do a lot of chores around the house, like washing dishes and cleaning.
Lynn was older enough than me that I saw her as an adult, and we were never close in the way that sometimes cousins can be.
I knew so little about her life before living in the US.
But Lynn doesn’t like thinking or talking about her past.
Lynn: Oh my God, it bring back the bad stuff. Bring back the bad memories.
I could not sleep. I always dream that they take me away, kill me or something like that.
When Lynn mentioned bad dreams, I remembered being a kid around her. She could be jumpy. She was afraid of most dogs and terrified of fireworks.
My mom, on the other hand, loves fireworks.
For her, fear comes up in different ways. It’s not the surprise of something loud or unexpected… it’s the possibility of unseen danger.
Here’s a small example: I don’t think much about going on a walk alone, but this makes my mom so uneasy. When she visits me in Alaska, she’ll walk with me, but she never relaxes.
She’s afraid someone will jump out to kidnap or murder us. She tells me which side of the trail to walk on, so I don’t trip and fall over the edge. She points out fallen trees — and I know she’s imagining trees falling on Acacia and me.
We get into fights about her paranoia. And I tell her that I don’t live my life in fear.
MUX: Ends
But interviewing my mom and Lynn has made me realize I don’t know the first thing about fear, at least not the kind they experienced.
MUX: Theme begins
Show Open
LISA VO: I’m Lisa Phu, and you’re listening to Before Me — the five-part story that follows my mom’s journey from Cambodia to America. And the long overdue conversation that helped us connect over our family’s history.
My mom and dad and Lynn’s family lived together in Cambodia, but Lynn experienced a different side of the war when my parents fled their hometown.
It’s another story I’d never heard until now.
But first, back to my mom’s journey.
Act 1: Brother Enemy
LISA VO: In the last episode, I heard from my mom about when she and my dad escaped to the border region.
It was 1974. Others were fleeing as well.
Lan: Everybody built houses on the beach.
It sounds nice, right? But, heh, it’s not nice. People go to the bathroom everywhere, on the beach, everywhere they can find.
Lan: And, uh… I don’t even remember where we got our water for shower.
That was temporary houses. That’s where… (chuckles) where, where I remember I see ghost — (laughs) ghosts.
Lisa: Oh, ghosts?
Lan: Ghosts! Yeah.
I swear, I, at night we had to go outside to pee or poop, you know.
And one night I saw this lady, all in white, long hair and floating…
Her feet wasn't on the ground. She was flying around.
So I quickly came into the house and from that time on, Ky Song always had to take me to go to pee. I never go to pee alone anymore.
LISA VO: My mom says that even Ky Song, my dad, who didn’t believe in ghosts, saw the woman
The chaos on the beach and the threat of danger kept people moving further.
MUX: Theme ends
Lan: Gradually, gradually people just move.
When the Khmer Rouge came at night, slaughtered people, people, they just take the risk and drove to Vietnam border. Because at that point, they'd rather die in Vietnam than get slaughtered.
The Vietnamese understand that we need shelter, we need safety. So they let us into their border.
LISA VO: Later in the war, Vietnam actually forced back hundreds of refugees.
But at the time when my mom first crossed the border, many others were doing the same.
This hectic period of my parents’ lives would last close to six years.
Lan: We lived in so many houses, you wouldn’t believe. We keep buying, building, and war just…
…Some of them burn, some of them just — you just have to keep moving, keep moving, keep moving! For safety.
LISA VO: In the midst of all that running and constant adjustment, my mom was having kids.
She had been separated from her firstborn shortly after fleeing her hometown in Cambodia. Then, she had two more daughters.
Lisa: Was it stressful to have kids while you were…
Lan: Oh yeah, of course.
Lisa: …being a refugee?
Lan: Of course. We didn’t have birth control or anything.
In those days, you just take as natural. I didn’t want kids during the war. I was so young, and…
But it just happened.
LISA VO: My mom’s second daughter, Cam Van, was born in October 1975. At the time, my mom and dad lived outside of Ha Tien — in Vietnam.
But even there… my parents couldn’t escape from the Khmer Rouge.
My mom remembers when Khmer Rouge soldiers were walking, door to door… looking for money, and mugging people.
It was a moonlit night. And Ky Song could see them coming.
MUX: Begins
Lan: So Ky Song quickly told me to bring the baby and hide under the bed, don’t get out no matter what.
LISA VO: Ky Song had a plan. He thought if he could rally the neighbors, they could all gang up, and scare the soldiers away. He took a piece of wood and started banging on a cooking pot.
But no one came to his assistance. Instead, the soldiers rushed over to the noisy house and started beating up my dad. When he fell to the floor, they kept kicking him.
My mom watched from under the bed, just inches away.
Lan: I was horrified, I thought they were going to open gun and shot him.
So many times, when I need to be calm, I’m very calm.
LISA: So she came out from under the bed — holding my sister, Cam Van. And a pouch of jewelry.
Lan: I say, ‘Please don’t beat my husband. He doesn’t know; he has problem thinking.’
I told him that, ‘He’s not all together there. Please forgive him. If you want to take, take the gold and leave us alone.”
LISA VO: The soldiers took the gold and left right away. My mom says she saved my dad’s life that night.
The Khmer Rouge weren’t just looking for money and jewelry, though. They destroyed Vietnamese villages and massacred civilians in surprise raids.
Another time, my parents were living near Ha Tien, in a house with a shelter.
It was a square hole dug into their dirt floor… about 4 feet deep, and big enough for four people to crouch or sit.
The hole was covered with wood planks, then sand bags. My parents would jump in there when they heard gunfire or bombing, or just general mayhem.
When this happened, my mom would listen for the sounds of other people — coming out of their shelters, going back to normal — before she climbed out.But during one incident, she never heard those sounds.
Lan: We hide all day, all night and then we did not hear anything but we kept hiding because we didn’t know when to come up.
LISA VO: It was the monsoon season — so rain had seeped into the shelter.
MUX: Ends
LISA VO: My mom crouched, partially submerged in water, with Cam Van staying dry on her shoulders. They were cold from being in the water for so long. And they were hungry.
Lan: So I sent your father out.
I said, “Can you go out and see what’s going on?”
He said, “I’m going to get killed.”
I said, “Please, I have the little kid.”
Because Cam Van was on my shoulders, it’s so hard to move under the water, right?
MUX: Begins
LISA VO: My dad went outside to figure out what was going on. He saw a man running in his direction.
Lan: He said, “You’re still here? Oh my god, you still here? You got to run.”
LISA VO: The man said, ‘Take your wife and kid, and leave, don’t even look back.’
Khmer Rouge soldiers were killing people, house by house. My parents never heard anything while they were hiding because the soldiers weren’t using guns.
They were slitting people’s throats with knives.
My parents grabbed Cam Van, and took off on bicycles.
MUX: Fades out
Nayan: Hi Lisa!
Lisa: Hi Nayan. How are you?
LISA VO: While my family was in Vietnam, journalist Nayan Chanda was — as it was known then — the Indochina Correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review.
Nayan reported on the Khmer Rouge attacks in Vietnam, and later wrote a book called “Brother Enemy, The War After The War.”
Nayan: Good to see you, good to meet you.
Lisa: Good to meet you, too. Thank you so much for your time.
Nayan: Not at all …
[Interview beds under Lisa’s narration and fades out]
LISA VO: I spoke to Nayan in October 2021. I was in Juneau. Nayan was in Delhi — where he’s currently an associate professor at Ashoka University.
And in 2009, he was asked by the United Nations to testify in the Khmer Rouge tribunal — or as it’s officially called: the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.
The court was created to prosecute the senior leaders and others responsible for committing serious crimes during the Khmer Rouge Regime
Nayan: And after my testimony, many people were shocked to find that the Khmer Rouge were actually attacking Vietnam.
They had no idea that the attack was initiated by the Khmer Rouge as early as ’74.
MUX: Begins
So my testimony was to show that there was actually unpublicized war going on.
LISA VO: In 1978, Vietnamese officials invited Nayan and other reporters to Vietnam.
Nayan: We were going to visit the border area, and purpose of the Vietnamese to give us visa was basically to show the international community what the Khmer Rouge were doing.
LISA VO: Early in the morning, Nayan’s foreign ministry guide woke him up. And told him —
Nayan: “Get ready, you have to go to the airport.”
I said, “What’s happening?”
He said, “No, we cannot tell you. Just take your notebook, take your camera.”
LISA VO: At the airport, Nayan boarded a faded green Chinook helicopter, leftover from the American army. It had no windows.
They were taken to Ha Tien, which is the area where my mom was living at the time.
After landing, reporters were driven to the edge of town. They walked across parched fields, and got closer to a village of thatched huts.
Nayan: I could suddenly get the strong smell of decomposing human flesh. I had sort of, unfortunately, become used to that smell. I knew what it was, because…
Human flesh, when it rots, has a very different smell than all of the animals. I knew immediately why we had come.
LISA VO: Nayan and his group kept walking. And then he saw the massacred bodies.
He figured the bodies had been lying there, in the tropical heat, for about a day and a half.
These were the types of attacks my mom was fleeing from.
I didn’t feel comfortable pushing Nayan to describe what he saw — we had just met. But he detailed it in his book.
Nayan wrote about seeing the body of a dead woman.
“Her two children had been cut to pieces. A few bodies were headless; some were disemboweled and covered with blue flies.”
Nayan: This is a kind of apocalyptic scene of seeing…
People lived in those houses and they were dragged out of the house and, and beaten to death. Uh…
That question of the brutality of humans against a fellow human being…
That was kind of truly mind boggling. And I have to say, this was so many years ago, but I still have those images come back to me.
MUX: Ends
MUX: Begins
LISA VO: In the midst of this chaos, my mom’s third daughter, Cam Ly, was born.
I feel overwhelmed, when I think about everything my family was going through to survive.
But what came next shows how resourceful my mom could be. Even when caring for her babies, surrounded by violence, she managed to rescue others.
MUX: Begins
LISA VO: In 1979, Vietnamese troops overthrew the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, and people were pouring over the border into Vietnam.
That’s when my parents found out that their first daughter, Ah Lee, had been killed, along with so many other family members. But they also talked to a woman — and learned that my father’s two nieces and two nephews, who they used to live with, were still in Cambodia
They were alive. But they were orphans.
Lan: She told your father, “I saw your… your older brother’s children. They’re there. They’re very, very sad that they hardly have food to eat, they have nothing, they didn't have the money to get out,” this and that —
So right away I told Ky Song, I said, “You know what, we have to take them out.”
We have to hire people who just get out, who know their way, we hired them with gold.
We have to use a lot of money to hire them people to go in to bring them out.
And then we took them under the wing.
LISA: Those nieces and nephews — one of them was my cousin Lynn, who I called at the beginning of the episode.
After the break, Lynn tells me what happened to them after my parents left home.
And they were trapped, under a totalitarian regime.
MUX: Ends
MIDROLL: Promo for The Vietnamese Boat People
JAMES VO: Hi everybody, this is James — I’m one of the producers behind Before Me
And if you’re enjoying the show, you should check out another podcast by some friends of ours; it’s called The Vietnamese Boat People. This is a podcast and non-profit with the mission to preserve the stories of the Vietnamese diaspora.
In case you haven’t heard the full context: It’s estimated that almost two million Vietnamese risked their lives to flee oppression and hardship after the Vietnam War.
And so on the podcast, Tracey Nguyen Mang, who’s the host — she documents these stories of hope, stories of survival, stories of resilience… they’re stories that are captured in a lot of nuance across multiple generations. And Tracey and her team put a lot of care into making this show.
So you can listen by searching for Vietnamese Boat People on your favorite podcast app, or going to vietnameseboatpeople.org. Thanks!
Act 2: Photograph
LISA VO: My parents had just paid gold to smuggle my cousin Lynn and her siblings out of Cambodia, and into Vietnam.
But even though their families used to live together, they hadn’t seen each other in about five years.
Remember the rocket explosion? That convinced my parents it was time to leave Kampot?
Lan: When we heard the bomb, we all leaned down to the floor.
All of a sudden I feel wet, I got wet! And then I smell blood.
That was when Lynn’s father died. She was 15, sitting right behind my mom when it happened.
Lynn: I see my father drop dead right away. The blood all over the place.
Lynn: After my father died, oh my god, I scared everything. Even a little bit thing make me nervous. Even now, I hear the fireworks, I don’t want to see because it reminds me…
…the bomb.
LISA VO: While my parents decided to flee the city, Lynn’s mom stayed behind, alone, with six kids.
Lynn: Oh, my mom dropped a lot of pounds. After I say that, I…
…I, I feel very sad. (cries)
My mom lose a lot of weight because she worry!
Don’t know how to take care of the kids.
LISA VO: So she split the kids up. Lynn’s mom figured that would make it easier to run, if things got worse.
She sent Lynn and the three youngest siblings to live with a friend in Phnom Penh, the capital city — which was supposed to be safer.
But that arrangement didn’t last long.
Lynn: We stayed there a couple of months, that’s it. Then I decide I miss her too much.
I just want to go see my mom, so I take my, uh, my brother and my sister. Go to visit her.
Then we never go back. We never go back to Phnom Penh.
MUX: Begins
LISA VO: Lynn’s parents used to run a store. After her father died, her mom kept selling merchandise out of their house, to make money.
But tensions were escalating. Gunshots were going off all the time.
So during the same years my parents were moving through the border region, constantly seeking shelter from raids… Lynn’s family was also ready to run, at a moment’s notice.
Lynn: That time, you know, during the war, we always pack the clothes, pack the rice, pack the dry food, the pots. Everything.
If you can pack, you pack. You know you carry, you carry.
You don’t know what day you’ll escape.
LISA VO: They moved to Lynn’s great uncle’s house because it was stronger, made out of stone.
Then, in April 1975, Khmer Rouge soldiers forced everyone to evacuate the city altogether.
Lynn: They said you have to go, they forced us to leave; they said, ‘OK, you don’t need to take anything. Only three days, that’s it, then you guys will come back.’
But the war did not stay like that, you know, they lied to us.
LISA VO: But Lynn and her family were prepared.
When they left, they had food, cooking items, blankets… They also carried stuff from their store — buttons, thread, needles, zippers. Those items could be traded for food.
MUX: Ends
Lynn: Some people when they get out, they did not bring anything. They have empty hand.
They say, ‘Three days, that’s nothing, then they will come back.’
But they lied to us.
MUX: Begins
LISA VO: Because of the chaos, the destruction, and constant movement, there’s so little left from before the war. But Lynn did manage to save one treasure.
Lynn: I still have the family portrait. Only one left.
LISA VO: It’s a small, black and white photo of her family, about two by three inches.
It’s Lynn, her five siblings, and her parents.
It was taken before all of this. Before her father was killed. And before others in the photo would die.
Lisa: How were you able to keep that portrait?
Lynn: Oh my god, Lisa, it’s a long story.
We have so many pictures. But the thing is you could not let the Khmer Rouge people to see, if you let them to see, they say you either burn it or bury away, so I bury the pictures except…
Only one picture left, that family photo. My parents, and me and my siblings.
The only one photo left.
LISA VO: During the Khmer Rouge, mementos and personal items were forbidden, but Lynn always had the photo on her, in a small pocket that was sewn into the waist of her pants. It was wrapped in layers and layers of thin plastic. So it was protected even when she went to the river to bathe.
When everything else in her world continued to fall apart, the photo never did.
The Khmer Rouge had won the civil war, and they were putting the pieces in place for a new society. And it wasn’t just Kampot that was evacuated. It was all Cambodian cities.
Lynn: Everyone, everyone that day. Phnom Penh, the capital, also had to force to leave.
That day they forced everybody have to get out to the country side. Even if you’re handicap you have to leave. If you don’t leave, they shoot you, they kill you.
LISA VO: Lynn and her family walked for days into the countryside.
Lisa: As you’re doing this journey, you’re just sleeping on the side of the road?
Lynn: Yeah, we sleep on the side of the road, cook on the side of the road. We have blankets. Not everybody did, but we had almost everything.
And then after you go to the village, they assign you to live in a hut house.
MUX: Begins
LISA VO: They ended up in a village, where people coming from the city were considered the “new people.”
Those already in the countryside, which the Khmer Rouge had control of before the war ended, were the “old people,” or the “base people.”
It was like a caste system based on where you lived at the end of the war.
The new people were given no privileges. The base people were given slightly higher status.
Lynn’s family all lived together, in a hut, for a couple of months, trading goods for food. It was during this time when her youngest sister, Yong, died. She was 11.
Lynn, one of her brothers, and Yong had all gotten sick.
Lynn: Diarrhea, just like mucus, that kind of sickness.
When you go to the bathroom… five minute, you have to go, five minute, you have to go.
My sister only sick for a week, that’s it.
Then she died.
LISA VO: Then, Lynn was sent to a labor camp. She had to leave her mom and her four remaining siblings.
Her oldest brother and sister were eventually sent to work in a camp as well, but Lynn never saw them.
The Khmer Rouge forced everyone to work on an irrigation system that was supposed to increase rice production.
People built reservoirs and dams to hold water after the rainy season ended, so a second crop of rice could be grown during the dry season.
This was how the country would advance and become self reliant. At least, that was the plan. But the dams and canals were poorly designed and ineffective.
MUX: Ends
LISA VO: During this time, if people weren’t dying from starvation and illness in the work camps, they were getting killed for all sorts of reasons. Like wearing glasses, showing any sign of being educated… speaking a foreign language… having a connection to the previous government… associating with a relative — anything that might signal disloyalty.
LISA VO: Lynn guesses she spent a couple of years in the labor camp, but she’s not really sure. Time was hard to measure. And she missed her mom so much.
Lynn: One day, you just feel like a year to me. You don’t know the date, you don’t know the year, you don’t know the month. You don’t know anything.
You wake up early in the morning, like 3-4 o’ clock you have to wake up to work until 10 o’ clock. You only have a few hours to sleep.
MUX: Begins
LISA VO: She’d carry sand up hills, for building the dams and reservoirs.
Lynn: We don’t have shoes to wear. We only have bare feet.
LISA VO: In the dark, she’d step on sharp rocks.
Lynn: And then some kind of ants. Oh my god, one of the ants, they bite you, you have blood come out.
LISA VO: If it wasn’t ants, it was leeches in the rice fields.
And for doing all this work, Lynn says they were poorly fed. Mostly just rice and salt. Hardly any meat.
Lisa: What made you survive? What made you keep going?
Lynn: What made me survive? Because I think of my brother!
If I die, who take care of my two brothers and my sister?!
And then I, I, I have a grandmother, too. That time, she was 80 years old.
LISA VO: But Lynn almost didn’t survive.
Lynn: Lisa, I was so skinny. 70 pounds, I think that’s it. I could not walk no more.
I was so exhausted. Too tired. Not enough to sleep, not enough food.
All I do, I want to sleep.
One day I carried the sand up there and collapse on the top, roll, tumbling down to the bottom. I could not walk no more. My feet were hurting so, so much.
LISA VO: Lynn says she was taken someplace to rest. And they tried to give her medicine.
Lynn: When I go to the bathroom I take the medicine to throw away.
I don’t know what kind of medicine they let me take. Who knows, maybe they poison me…
She was there for about two weeks, before she was sent home.
She says she was considered too skinny to work in the labor camp.
MUX: Ends
Lynn: Oh my God, that time, I was so, so happy. So I can see my mom again.
LISA VO: But when she got back to the village, her mom wasn’t there.
Lynn: My sister said, “Lynn, they took your mom away.”
LISA VO: Soldiers removed Lynn’s mom and uncle from their hut, after her mom tried to save some leftovers.
Lynn: Oh my God, I couldn’t… I feel so sad. I don’t know what to do.
LISA VO: The soldiers said they were taking her mom and uncle to a meeting — that they would come back in three days.
When that didn’t happen, Lynn’s sister went to look for them.
Lynn: A lot of people say that your mom never come back, they already killed your mother and your uncle.
Lisa: So that’s how you guys found out, ‘cause your sister went to go look for her, and they said, “She’s gone”?
Lynn: Yes, yes. You know from the beginning, 1975, that day, they lied to you, say, “OK, you get out for three days, you come back.”
Exactly the same thing. They lied to you.
MUX: Begin
LISA VO: So that’s what Lynn came home to after years at the labor camp, missing her mom.
Life in the village was similar to life in the labor camp, except she was with her siblings.
She still had to work to get food. And the food was just a watery bowl of congee.
Lynn says she and her siblings were starving.
So they planted some food in a little garden by their hut and grew a sweet potato.
She dug it up and cooked it.
Lynn: The Khmer Rouge people walked by. Go to my house. The husband and wife said, “Open up, open.”
Then he said, “You know this one you’re not allowed to cook. Do you understand?”
I say, “We all very hungry. Have no food. We pulled potato from our garden.”
He said, “It doesn’t matter, it’s the public, you should not cook anything.”
He put the gun to my head. Oh my God. I told him, “Please, please, don’t kill me.”
Then he said, “You know what, if you do it one more time, we’ll take you away.”
That time, my God, my brothers, Minh and Quang, we all kneel down to bow, bow, bow to him.
Ugh! I never forget.
LISA VO: Lynn says when the Khmer Rouge killed people… they didn’t close their eyes
That’s the image she remembers, about how cruel and evil they were.
Lynn: They can kill people who don’t work. They even killed my aunt’s brother, he’s handicapped.
LISA VO: Lynn says the village they lived in was especially harsh on the men.
Lynn: The new people’s men all get killed. You only see the small young boys. 10 years old, 11 years old. The rest, all gone.
LISA VO: Without any adults looking after them, Lynn and her siblings were taken in by a kind woman.
They escaped the village together, and went on the run for about a month.
Then, in January 1979, Vietnamese soldiers overthrew the Pol Pot regime.
Lynn says the soldiers rescued them and guided them out of the countryside, closer to where they grew up, in Kampot. She found out that her uncle and aunt — my dad and mom — were in Vietnam.
MUX: Ends
Lynn: So I quickly send a word to someone and then your father and your mother hire somebody to take us to the Vietnam.
LISA VO: She was still carrying her family photo, wrapped up in plastic and in a pocket sewn at her waist.
This was about five years after a Khmer Rouge rocket killed her dad.
I asked if she ever took the photo out, to look at it.
Lynn: I cannot. I scared. Because you don’t know if people around you.
The Khmer Rouge on your sight all the time, You could not do anything secretly.
They find out you have the photo, they kill you, too.
Lisa: So, you never looked at the photo, but you knew that it was with you?
Lynn: Yep. Yeah, yeah.
Lisa: Why was it so important for you to keep it?
Lynn: If that photo lose, I don't have that memory no more.
My mother, my father, my brother, and my sister.
Lisa: When did you finally look at it?
Lynn: When? When I get out of the countryside.
The Vietnamese side freed us.
Then, oh my god, we see the photo, we so happy. Say, thank God, we have one photo left.
Now that they were across the border, Lynn and her siblings joined my mom’s family.
After being separated by war and somehow, reunited, despite so much loss…
This is how the family I grew up with came to be together.
~
On the next episode of Before Me, my mom looks back at the long-gone Cambodia of her youth. And she tells a story I never expected to hear – about her first teenage crush.
Lan: After I tell him something, he still didn’t want to leave. Sometimes he just pretend he asked me questions until the sun set.
I said, ‘Time to go home, I’m hungry.’ I didn’t know at first. But then other students, all my friends said, ‘Oh my god, don’t you know? He’s crazy about you.’ (laughs).
He’s so sweet.
Credits
LISA VO: This episode was written and produced by me.
Our editor is Julia Shu. Fact check by Harsha Nahata and Tiffany Bui.
Production management and sound design by James Boo. And additional support from Cathy Erway.
Original theme music by Avery Stewart. Audio engineering by Dave Waldron and Timothy Lou Ly.
Thanks to Nayan Chanda for speaking with me about the historical context of what my family experienced — and for sharing his own story on the show.
And of course — special thanks to my mom, and to my cousin Lynn, for sharing their stories with me.
If you want to record an oral history interview with someone you love — even if you’ve never tried before — check out selfevidentshow.com/history, where you’ll find a free toolkit to help you take the next step.
Before Me is a Self Evident Media production. Our executive producers are James Boo, Ken Ikeda, and me.
The show also received support from the Alderworks Alaska Writers and Artists Retreat and the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council.
I’m Lisa Phu. See you next time.
