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
jumping
As a child, my aunt told me, she was luh-peuh. During the high water season, she would sneak away in a little boat and paddle out to the temple. Or she would jump out into the Bassac River from the veranda of my grandparents' stilted house and swim. Those were not things that little girls … Continue reading jumping
this tongue
we live in constant translation between the tongue we learned to love in and the tongue that taught us shame our thoughts form in a language that is foreign to our elders but our mother tongue is still inside us and we can coax her out not for the sake of keeping tradition alive, but … Continue reading this tongue
narinda heng 