11 Feb 2001

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Dear KI,

I would like to say that I really appreciate your efforts and your agenda to benefit some who live in Kampuchea.

I would like to give some thought on Ms. Ung's book review or analysis which reflect each person's view after reading her book.

I agreed that there are some inconsistencies reflected in her writing. One may say that there is some poetic license or dramatizing in some of or most of her recollection which is demonstrated in her writing.

But here are some basic facts:
- That she had lost her family members to this darkest time of khmer history.
- That she had been through it like most of us who survived.
Note: Maybe some of her accounts are more poetic license then others... But still, for her to have lost what she had with her family and to have survived through this astrocity... To live her life instead of being victimized by the event and to have come out of it... that is an acheivement of itself. Not just that she is living... She has been making something out of her life. Good or bad is not for me to judge.

To me, she is a winner...in life.

But for her book... the inconsistencies that were from her recollection, it is between her and her soul. It is she who has to be able to live with herself, because at the end of day it is herself who has to look into the mirror to determine who she wants to be. Because in life, one will pay. Nothing is free in life. She will pay sooner or later...

It is my conclusion that khmer history will be able to stand on it own accord because I believe that whoever or whomever teaches khmer history will be able to determine the basic facts of it.

Final note. My own view only - based on her memories and recollection in her book, I don't think that her integrity and humanity are credible to khmer rouge survivors. Myself included.

But for her survival instinct and her spirit, she does earn my respect. Because at the end of the day.... she has been fighting back. She does not let that small window of time determine her life.

But all in all... sometime one will try to recollect the memories to fit ones own wishful thinking so that one may be able to live on with the survival guilt complex (this term is only fully understood by one who has been surviving when ones loved-ones had been lost during Pol Pot's atrocity).

Regards,

Sarak R. Taing

P.S: Just food for thought from one who has been living with the survival guilt complex - One is not trying to remember the bad memories of ones own loved-one. It helps when the good memories are expanded to meet ones own imagination.

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