When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under The Khmer Rouge (2001) - Plot & Excerpts
Normally, I can't wait to get to bed. I can't wait to lie in bed and read. The house is quiet, the kids are asleep, the tv is off - just quality time with a book. But when reading this book, reading wasn't always pleasant. This is really not a book you read to to enjoy it or to be pulled into another world and explore it. I read this in part because my boyfriend recommended it, in part because we sponsor a child in Cambodia and in part because I didn't know much about the Khmer Rouge and wanted to learn.This is the story of Chanrithy Him and her family, her parents and seven siblings. This is her story of how it was growing up in a Cambodia, torn apart by the Khmer Rouge. What this family is put through is truly dreadful. There are passages where you just question how any human being is cable of inflicting such suffering on others - or how anyone manage to survive it all.Chanrithy tells engagingly about how she and her family is forced to leave their home and find their way out of the city, ending up in various villages in the country as they move along. Very quickly her father is executed - being a man of learning, he was not wanted by the Khmer Rouge who sought to create a society where all was equal and where anybody with any education was a threat to be eliminated. After being forced to dig his own grave, her father is killed with a hoe ...Her mother is then the sole caretaker of the family but most of the children are forced to work, sometimes being sent to work camps far away on their own and never given enough to eat. The lack of food and the very hard work naturally have an impact on their health, inflicting various diseases on them or causing rather minor diseases to become much more critical.One of the hardest things for me to read was the story of how her three-year old brother lies in hospital, dying, and how all he wants - of course - is his mother. But she is too sick to be able to walk to the hospital to see him so he ends up dying without his mother visiting him - and when he has died, his sister takes his shirt off him because the family needs that for another child... Also, the story of Chanrithy's other little brother who does survive the Khmer Rouge is heartbreaking since he is too young to really understand what's happening - but not too young to feel the suffering and the hunger - and is left too fend for himself all day when his older family member are working in the fields.An execution of a pregnant woman is also a scene that stays with me.Although we are all more or less desensitized to stories of human suffering, war crimes, and killings, the Khmer Rouge were so cruel that parts of this story really shocked me. And as if the physical suffering they inflicted on the people of Cambodia wasn't enough, they also tried to eliminate the culture by minimizing the importance of family, the polite ways of addressing others - and of course killing off anybody who in any way caught their displeasure.One thing I was really impressed with in Chanrithy's memoirs is the fact that she does tell stories about some members of the Khmer Rouge who was kind and helpful, caring and friendly. She does share how some of them helped her in various ways - some of them just by being kind and showing some humanity.This is a dreadful history of a truly tragic period of human history. I would like to conclude by saying something along the lines that if you don't know history, you are doomed to repeat it, but sometimes I fear that these various tyrannic regimes actually take notes from each other so that they constantly evolve and each new regime becomes even more horrible than the one before, capable of inflicting even more suffering.Still, knowledge is a good thing - unless of course you are living in a country ruled by Mao, the Khmer Rouge or other regimes hating education and knowledge. For us, fortunate enough to live in countries where we have the freedom to do pretty much whatever we wish for, in some ways we have a duty to honor the people suffering in other countries by at the very least reading about their plights.
At times hard to read, at times inspiring When Broken Glass Floats is a heartbreaking story, one of the best literature to have come out of the Khmer Rouge. The present tense of this unforgettable memoir combined with the vivid memories of the author created a horrifying atmosphere in all its details around me throughout the reading, making me jump at unexpected sounds like they were the bombs that sent Cambodia's people fleeing and cherishing every grain of rice on my plate wishing I could have given my bounty to those helpless Cambodian children who survived on leaves and sometimes the rare delicacy of insects when promised food rations never arrived despite the long hours they suffered in the fields. Despite being a depressing story as some people have described it, this is an important book. Many people before this may have never heard of Cambodia's plight, everything their people have suffered from, or even be able to locate Cambodia on a map. Along with other memoirs that have been ignited by this bloody era in their history, When Broken Glass Floats has highlighted our ignorance and taught us what suffering we will never experience truly is. Lessons about the will to survive, family, governing, and that while evil may reign at some points in our lives the goodness in people will always prevail have been taught at a much greater scale in this book then outside of our comfortable lives we could have imagined. Ignorance to global affairs outside of our own countries have sheltered us from the painful truths of people's suffering and yet knowing is better than remaining a child all one's life and is essential to creating better lives for future generations still steeped in trauma and poverty in Cambodia. That is why we open these pages, why we listen to this story with not just our eyes and ears but with our hearts, why as human beings we sympathize with the horrors this country has been through, and why the author spent the time to pour out her grief and hope onto these manuscripts. Through her well delivered story and plea broken glass has sunken for good in her soul as well as mine.
What do You think about When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under The Khmer Rouge (2001)?
In 2007 I had the opportunity to visit Asia, one of the countries being Cambodia. I was shocked to learn of the genocide that took place there. It wasn't something of the past; it ended 3-4 years before I was born. Our tour guide explained things with tears in his eyes. He had lived through it, suffered, and lost his family. Cambodia today is a country of dirt roads and handcarts. Their economy has not recovered and due to the Khmer Rouge killing everyone with any education their children are uneducated- their parents not understanding the necessity of it. They are poor, barefoot, and older siblings beat younger ones on the streets. The Khmer Rouge was not in power long but their horrible "legacy" still remains.I was embarrassed that I had known nothing of this taking place. We learn of the Holocaust but we aren't taught of things that have taken place since that time. Genocide is not something of the past. It continues to happen. I learned that I can't be apathetic to what takes place in the world. I resolved to learn more of what happened there and this novel helped me to do so. I hope that as a nation we will not blind to the suffering of others. I pray that we will get involved when such brutality exists and not simply when oil or political gain empowers us.
—Kari
Initially, I read this to fulfill my requirements for an elective in college. It was recommended by my professor since our class tackles the political structure and history of South East Asian Countries and i prefer to review a book that focuses on the country of Cambodia. This was an emotional read. It pertains to genocide during the Khmer Rouge. The depiction of what the author and her family went through was really horrible. And considering that this really happened, it makes you question the humanity of those who have started such atrocities. The cruelty, lack of regard for human life, scenes of hunger would make your skin crawl. Reading this made me depress all throughout except the end part where the author and her sibling was then rescued by going inside the border of Thailand. Overall, Ms. Chanrithy Him gives us the message that despite losses and suffering, there's still hope. That even being cast out in the dark, there would be light seeping through. This isn't about just describing the Khmer Rouge's horrible crimes but how survivors find solace and eventually overcome the savagery and brutality they've experience. I got a 1 for the book report I prepared for this book [unfortunately I already loss my soft copy of it].
—Hud-c
I've been on a reading kick of refugee/war/holocaust surveyors that are still inspiring. This is the third book I've read in about four days on this topic. What I never realized was how modern parts of Cambodia were before the Khmer Rouge took over. These people were just like us.When Thy talks about having to wade into a river the first time in order to fish for food, she talks about how squeamish she was. For the longest time, they kept thinking that things were going to go back to normal. It just brought it home to me, that whenever there is tip in power, life can change dramatically overnight. We always need to keep that into perspective.We also need to understand who we can trust, and who we cannot. There of course is lots of room to think in this book. Just how does it apply to my life right now? I believe this would make a good discussion book.
—Erin
