after the gregorian new year and the lunar new year there is the khmer new year and with it comes my birthday and the anniversary of the reason i exist, here in this country in this psyche april 17, 1975 bombs and gunfire the fall no time to think about the new year no incense… Continue reading third new year
Tag: Khmer
for dinner
the sweetness of getting to decide every night what to eat, where, and with whom has merged with a nostalgia for coming home to a pot of rice, and plates of entrees (always at least one soup), and everyone reaching in with their own fork or spoon. i wonder whether what it is like to… Continue reading for dinner
a day that hurts
in a few weeks, it will have been thirty years since my birth and forty years since the day the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh i wonder whether my family thought about that day on the day that i was born if they are reminded each year that day comes around of what they went… Continue reading a day that hurts
landing
(continued from flight, 6, written during November 2013) Phnom Penh I stepped out of the plane, holding my grandmother's elbow tightly as we descended the stairs onto the tarmac. The warm, dusty air pressed close immediately. I wonder what they did when planes landed during the rainy season. I had searched for Lakhena during the… Continue reading landing
