Golden Bones: an Extraordinary Journey from Hell in Cambodia to
a New Life in America.
By Sichan Siv
(Harper, 336 pages, $25.95)
“You are a Man of Golden Bones.”
— Cambodian villager speaking to U.S. Ambassador Siv, referring
to the Khmer myth of one having very good luck.
First, a disclaimer. I met Sichan Siv many years ago while
reporting for the Reader’s Digest. I wrote about him, his
extraordinary journey out of Cambodia, and his extraordinary
journey as a new American. The subtitle of this book is dead-on.
Now, as a friend and close reader, on to Sichan’s always poignant
and, incredibly, sometimes humorous memoir— written in his own
natural, eloquent hand, sans ghostwriter or workshops. Sichan Siv
escaped the communist Khmer Rouge killing fields in 1976 and made
his way across the frontier jungle to a Thai refugee camp. He had
fallen into a booby trap, almost impaling himself on killer punji
sticks, had followed the path of the westerly sun and moon. Land
mines, deadly snakes, communist outposts and camps: he made it, was
jailed, released, became a Buddhist monk, with shaved head and
eyebrows and saffron robe. Later he taught English to refugees,
served those most in need, and withdrew inside himself.
If you’ve seen the movie The Killing Fields, you might
understand. Sichan was there; his family was killed, he starved,
became deathly ill at times, saw horrors not seen or fully
comprehended by modern minds since the Holocaust, when the world
said, “Never again!” Well, it was “again!” Hitler was reincarnated
as Khmer Rouge dictator Pol Pot—more than two million executed, and
half that number forever missing. “Angka wants to see you,” was how
death sentences were announced. “Angka” was the faceless, invisible
machine that drove the maddened homicidal illiterate teenagers with
their red karmas and rubber-tire sandals.
“’Enemies”—the literate, those who wore glasses, or simply had
started their march with nice clothes—were killed. They died
kneeling, bending their necks down so pointed hoes could be driven
into their brainstem. It was better to cooperate, otherwise your
death would be long and painful. Madness, despair, suicides, death
by sheer exhaustion and starvation. Sichan was there. He
escaped.
One fall day many years ago while dining in a nice French
restaurant in Washington, D.C., I gently refused to let Sichan
nudge me away from those times. He had been in the camps for a
year. According to VA studies, the human mind can take, maximum,
240 days of combat before it simply shuts down. But usually, much
sooner. Sichan had been in the war as a Cambodian CARE worker
prior to the Khmer Rouge entering Phnom Penh, the capital city.
Then came another war. I knew he was avoiding certain triggers of
nightmarish memories—I understood. But, I had to know.
For example, his brother: They were in the same camp, but,
because his brother had been a military officer, they had never
spoken. Speaking would implicate Sichan, his mother, and then the
rest. And yet, Sichan had described to me their having said
goodbye. During a return in 1980 he learned that, indeed, shortly
after his escape an announcement had been made to his brother that
“Angka wants to see you,” and he and Sichan’s entire family had
been led off to the jungle and were never seen again. They had said
goodbye.
So, in that nice French restaurant, Jean-Pierre’s on K Street,
I’d asked him how he had done this if in fact they dared not talk.
“With our eyes,” Sichan had said. “We learned to talk with our
eyes.” And so, as an experiment I’d insisted upon, we talked for a
while ourselves—using only our eyes. I felt myself catching my
breath, slipping near tears. I saw horror. I realized I had to
avoid “triggers” to these terrible memories of his; there were no
words. What his eyes said was too powerful for a simple journalist
to attempt repeating.
The story I wrote about Sichan for the “old” Reader’s Digest
rated first in surveys, was published in editions throughout the
world, and in all these years has always been found in some
anthology or another. Currently, I notice it is in one titled
Cultures in Diversity.
My reason for telling you this is that I think Sichan today has
backed sensibly away from all those horrifying “triggers.” Yes, he
returned to Cambodia with Martha, his beautiful all-American
Texas-born wife of 25 years, and yes, he confronted his demons, as
he told me recently. But I think he did so only as one might
sleepwalk, holding his breath while skirting the snake pit of
paralyzing memory.
I understand.
His book, when dealing with corpses, camps, or saying goodbye to
his brother and entire family, is more documented than finely
written. It is almost clinical in its explanation of what
happened—of what it was like inside this modern, very true
Holocaust. In short, Sichan seems to hurry through the hell— and we
all must understand.
Although he details the killing fields, it is less about them
than it is about hope, which was his mother’s—Mae’s —legacy. He
revels in both, in his childhood, his school learning, his
Cambodian family, and his doomed mother. And he revels in American
and Cambodian history. By the time you’ve reached the death camps,
you should know why and how you got there. By the time you’ve
gotten to America, where he went from picking apples for two
dollars a bushel to U.S. ambassador to a UN body—representing us
throughout the world—you will know why he repeats his mother’s
enduring words, and her last ones to him, to “never give up
hope!”
And you will genuinely like this tall, lean, handsome man with
the shy smile, who became a Republican back when it meant
“anti-communist,” and who now lives in San Antonio, helps out on
friends’ ranches, and wears a big Texas hat. Lord knows, he’s
earned it.
A great American story, told by a great American.
Sheldon Kelly, a former Reader’s Digest staff
writer, lives in Chesapeake, Virginia.
