Around the World in 80 Books discussion

Start discussion here for When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge by Chanrithy Him.

I visited Tuol Sleng, the genocide museum in Phnom Penh earlier this year. It's why I picked this botm. But honestly, I am in no hurry to finish this. I started yesterday, & I'm now at chapter 4.

It took me a little while to get into the novel. The translation felt a little choppy. And after reading to the end, I actually flipped back to the beginning and re-read the preface for a better sense of closure and understanding of her position.

Like the other child-of-war memoirs I've recently read, there are the common themes: choosing to be with family over being separated; being forced to constantly move from one "home" to the next; forming strong bonds with other children when they eventually are separated from family; loss of loved ones; finding people (on both sides) willing to risk their lives to secretly help; and the recognition that events like this are preventable only if people who can do something to stop it stand up and act.

I was amazed at this particular story because the author endured this type of existence for six years, eight if you count the first two years when her family had to escape to other family members' home for protection. It's hard to read this sometimes and understand that this actually happened to millions of Cambodians in the recent past. The scenes where the mother is helpless to feed or protect her children were particularly torturous for me. I did enjoy reading about the cultural differences (such as the way they refer to each other verbally, show respect with their eyes and posture, and withhold physical displays of affection).

I think its important to read these type of books to understand what is happening outside the safety of our own laws and government, and to put a face on an otherwise distant and out-of-sight problem that is still happening in the world today.

I finished When Broken Glass Floats but needed some time to organize my thoughts and to do a bit more research.

My review is here -
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Even now, I can think of more to add to my review.

Questions that I'd like to discuss - why or how do you believe that Chanrithy Him survived? She didn't mention whether she suffered from depression or from PTSD as her research subjects did, but do you believe that she had? If she didn't, why not?

The Khmer Rouge committed some truly heinous acts during their 1970s reign in Cambodia. Chanrithy Him was spared from some of the most atrocious events. Even so, given that her purpose for writing this memoir was to give voice to other victims so that mental health help could be provided to children exposed to war, I wondered how she managed to survive with her mental health intact. She did cite that half of the refugee children either had PTSD or depression or both. I think her memoir would have been strengthened if she had discussed this. I certainly wouldn’t have been surprised if she had developed a mild case of PTSD after reliving her memories.

Given her purpose, her book did not provide much background historical information. The reader is very much left in the dark experiencing events as the author lived through them. I found that this memoir was a springboard to doing some further research into the broader context. In these respects, this memoir is one of the less harsh introductions to the Cambodian genocide.

Woman Reading wrote: "why or how do you believe that Chanrithy Him survived? She didn't mention whether she suffered from depression or from PTSD as her research subjects did, but do you believe that she had? If she didn't, why not"

I remember the book starts with Chanrithy struggling with a nightmare about the war -- trying to find her brother Map and then bombs going off outside her room. Somewhere else in the novel, I recall she talked a bit about how long it took her to stop being overtaken by fear every time she saw someone dressed in all black (like the Khmer Rouge). So, I do believe she has at least a mild case of PTSD, but I also believe that she found some healing in being able to repeatedly talk through her experience with others.

A friend of mine who had been in the military and gone to war, once told me that their are two responses to being exposed to danger and trauma. 1) To turn inward and wonder, "Why did this thing happen to me?" 2) To turn outward and wonder, "How can I help others in this situation?" I believe a person who can focus on helping others through a difficult time will always be more well-adjusted (even if damaged) than someone who focuses only on their own hurts. There is a saying that "the kindest souls have suffered the darkest past" or something like that. They know what it is to struggle, so they are quickest to lend a hand or a kind word to others.

Also, Chanrithy could have died of things that were out of her control -- starvation, illness, random killings, bombing -- but she did all she could to survive (crossing a river for food, crawling under a fence to get medicinal plants, running away from a labor camp). She took huge risks that, if she were of another mind, she would not have done and as a result, she survived long enough to get out. Throughout the novel, she also repeats a promise to herself that, if she survives, she would learn medicine to help others. So, it's probably a combination of taking big risks and having a goal to help others that helped her survive physically and mentally.

Kristin wrote: "Woman Reading wrote: "why or how do you believe that Chanrithy Him survived? She didn't mention whether she suffered from depression or from PTSD as her research subjects did, but do you believe th..."

That's an interesting observation mentioned by your friend. I wonder how effective it really is in preventing PTSD. I recall the nightmare and how she responded to black uniforms but they were ambiguous, not definitive, clues to me. A PTSD diagnosis would likely be reflected by a prolonged and severe streak of nightmares and adverse responses to a trigger. One nightmare strikes me as a natural response to overall anxiety and her response to black uniforms reminds me of how the hunted would react to the presence of a larger predator.

She was definitely a survivor, though, who shucked off some of the Cambodian cultural norms taught to females in order to survive.