NO MORE FEAR : From Killing Fields to Harvest Fields by Physa Chanmany
Excerpt from: Chapter 1
Jungle Village
People never locked their doors in our village. We had no need for policemen. No fences divided our yards.
I grew up in the village of Kaubtom, in the province of Battambang, in the country of Kampuchea (also called Cambodia), near the border of Thailand.
A river ran through our village, providing life and livelihood. In the center of the village stood the Buddhist temple, surrounded by a park where we celebrated the festivals. Near the temple stood the quarters for the Buddhist monks and the boys given to them by village families to raise and train.
Radiating from that center, dirt roads and paths meandered outward, past many large, multi-roomed, single-pagoda-roofed houses built high on posts or pillars...
... I loved cool mornings in the dry season under the mango, silk-cotton, and sugar palm trees, when extended families gathered around the fire-- we children wrapped up in blankets-- the adults cooking breakfast on the fire: sweet potatoes, tata root, and sweet rice wrapped in bamboo skins. Under the stars, we huddled near the warmth of the fire, savoring the delicious food. The old grandpas told us the names of the stars. And they told us stories from their childhoods and the Khmer legends of long ago.
They said in the ancient days our people worshiped the evil snake god with seven heads that controlled the Khmer Kingdom. The god of India came and the two became one, and the Brahmin were born.
The legends said that Kampuchea was cursed by the snake god. Even the word "Kampuchea" in the Khmer language literally means, "Suffering-Healing."
As a carefree boy I had no idea what degree of suffering, as well as healing, was coming for the people of my peaceful village.
. . . The people of my village were religious. Early every morning, the yellow-robed Buddhist monks and their novices walked the paths to the houses with their bowls hanging from their necks. They stood at the village corners ringing their bells, waiting for people from each house to bring them the daily rice and other foods.
... We had to remove our shoes when we approached the monks, because they were considered holy. We were not allowed to look them in the face or touch their clothing or utensils.
Each family must give a spoonful of rice to each of the monks. It must be taken from the very top of the pot of rice and dropped carefully into the Buddhists' copper bowls. If we banged the spoon on the edge of a Buddhist's bowl, it was a sin for which we would be punished in the next life.
After giving offerings of rice and other food, each little group of neighbors waited for the Buddhists to bless them, then they dutifully chanted the Buddhist teachings in the Pali language, accumulating merit for an endless cycle of reincarnation ...
My people didn't know much about hope. But when I prayed in my heart, asking for blessings, I believed a Supreme God heard me ...
The spirits of the dead were believed to visit the living. The people believed in angels and feared evil spirits.
Near the temple grew a Hindu tree of wisdom ... the people tied yellow ribbons in the tree, prayed to it, gave food to it. And in this tree people saw demons.
At times demons would become angered and would possess people and wouldn't leave them until they were appeased. The demons required people to make sacrifices of chickens, pig heads, and incense.
After my father died, my mother wanted to know what happened to his spirit. She visited the local medium or spiritist. He was an old man, the grandfather of one of my friends ... He came from the north of Thailand ...
I was told that when this old man was young, he wanted to receive the power to communicate with the dead. So he did what the devil required . . .
I was scared of that old man. Children were ordinarily not allowed to go into his presence. But my mother took me and my little sister because we were the youngest children and our father loved us especially. She thought his spirit might ask, "Where are my son and my daughter?"
I hid behind my mother inside the dim, candle-lit room where the old man sat, and I peered round at him. My mother gave him money and he began to tremble and his eyes looked strange. I felt a wind blow and saw the candle flicker out. The old man's voice changed.
"It's really hot here," the spirit said. "Why did you call me? Who are you?"
My mother answered, thinking it was my father's spirit. Then the evil, deceiving spirit spoke through the old man, telling my mother what she must do to have her husband released from the terrible hot place. It told her to redeem him by paying for a festival with food for the entire village, and by having the Buddhist monks come to chant in our house.
When the demon left the old man, he was sweating and exhausted and asked for water. (This old man later was a refugee in America, where he became a Christian and renounced spiritism and evil practices.) ...
Excerpt from: Chapter 5
The Killing Fields
When I was 15, small and skinny, the Khmer Rouge Communists took me to a children's camp. Many children were housed together in a "room" without walls in which poles were planted in the ground and hammocks hung between them for sleeping. At first I thought it was an adventure to get away on my own, away from family. Then after two or three weeks, I realized I couldn't go back to my family and home, even if I wanted. I couldn't see my mom when I wanted. I was hungry; and I couldn't eat when I wanted. I wasn't free.
If a child cried for loneliness or fear in the night, the guards put him or her out in the dark alone to "learn courage." We were treated like military. In the morning a bell rang and we had to get up immediately, before daylight. Then a second bell told us to line up. An officer with a gun lectured us.
The soldiers indoctrinated the children, telling us over and over that Angka, the party would take care of us and lead us to wealth, just like our glorious ancestors who built the Angkor Wat using sheer willpower and the physical strength of the people. They said we had to be self-sufficient ...
The children who did not submit to the authority of the Khmer Rouge guards were shot. If they talked at night, broke other rules, or if the Communists found anything suspicious about their past, those children were shot. Some were killed in front of the other children as examples. Others were taken out quietly in the night to be shot, their bodies left to rot on the ground, and never mentioned again.
When I first saw these killings, I shook all over, my heart raced, I felt sick to my stomach. But after a while, I became numb to the killings.
"Well, sometime it will be me," I thought. "If I don't die now, it will be later."
(Later I was taken to a youth labor camp. We worked from early morning to late night building a dam with our bare hands.) ...Every morning the Khmer Rouge preached to us.
"There is no God," they said with empty, cold looks on their faces. "You are god. There are no angels, no spirits."
Outwardly I submitted; but inwardly, I knew they were wrong. I had seen the work of demons in my childhood village. And I saw them now, only in a different form. Demons learn very quickly to adapt to any system. In the killing fields I saw demons at work in the starvation, in the hate, and in the killings ...
Excerpt from: Chapter 7
The Man In White
At three o'clock in the morning, we were awakened. Fear came over me. Was it my turn to be taken out in the night and killed? Would I just disappear? Would no one ever hear of me again?
(I was nineteen years old, a refugee in Thailand.) 350 of us were awakened before daylight to be transported through the streets of Bangkok before morning traffic started. The U.N. had sent a navy cargo ship from the Philippines to get us.
... We sailed out of the Thai Gulf, past Vietnam, and into the open sea. Out on the smooth water we saw dolphins, flying fish, and a school of tuna.
A soldier dropped something overboard. He was lowered over the side into the water. Three soldiers on the deck aimed their M16's toward him.
Oh, they're going to shoot him. His mom won't know what happened to him, I thought.
But as we watched, he reached into the water to retrieve what had been lost, then he was pulled back up to safety and everyone on board clapped and cheered. The guns were lowered, and we learned that the guns were aimed for his protection, in case sharks came near.
A storm hit. The refugees got sick. We were given pills for the sea-sickness, which made us sleepy. We lay prostrate in the center of the ship, in long rows, with heads toward the outsides and feet toward the center, where a long isle separated the rows of people, sick and afraid of the stormy sea. We thought we were going to die. Frantically, the refugees prayed to Buddha, to their ancestors, to any god they could think of.
I remembered what John, Janet, and Zella had told me.
"Whatever happens to you, ask the Lord Jesus; He will help you."
O Lord Jesus, I began to pray. If you really are God, if you really have power, help me now.
Then I slept; and I had a dream. In my dream, from where I lay I could see the calm sea and way out toward the east, where the sun was rising, I could see a form of a man walking on the water, coming from the east, all dressed in white, in what looked like Middle Eastern robes. His face was blurred.
I lay on one side, about half way down the long row of refugees inside the cargo ship. The man in white reached the boat and he stepped right up onto it, then walked inside, straight down the center isle, past the sleeping people. He didn't look at anyone else, but walked straight toward me, and stopped at my feet. He reached down his hand and pulled me up to a sitting position. He called me by name.
"Don't be afraid, Physa," the man in white said. "I will be with you" ...
Excerpt from: Chapter 9
New Life in America
Later, in Long Beach I attended a wedding feast in a Lao-Cambodian home, where my Christian friend was marrying a girl who said she was a Christian. The evening before the wedding, the bride's family had prepared the feast and invited twenty Christian friends.
The guys visited downstairs while the girls prepared for the wedding upstairs.
The bride's grandma still believed in spiritism. Out in the backyard, she killed a chicken. She wanted to bring happiness to her granddaughter, so there in the backyard she called to the spirits of her ancestors and offered the sacrifice of the chicken to them. She asked the spirits to come and bless the marriage.
None of us knew what the grandmother was doing. But suddenly we heard a scream from upstairs. We ran upstairs and found the bride trying to jump out the second story window. The groom and four men couldn't hold her. She cursed and tore her clothes.
The family quickly called for a sorcerer, whom they paid to get the spirit out of her. He tied a cotton string, considered to have magical powers, around her wrists and neck. With incantations he tried to force the spirit to go out through her hands or her mouth. He accomplished nothing. They called another sorcerer. He could not remove the spirit either.
Then the Christians asked the parents of the girl, "Will you let us pray to the Lord Jesus? Will you believe?" The family were afraid of being shamed on the eve of their daughter's wedding, so they finally agreed to let us pray.
We removed the statue of Buddha and other false objects and idols from the house. We began to read out loud from the Bible about the miracle of the Lord Jesus at the wedding feast in Cana. The girl was still bound and writhing on the sofa. We kept reading scripture louder and louder.
The girl began to cry in a strange voice, "Oh, don't make me go back. Hell is too hot."
We told the spirit, "You have to leave. This body does not belong to you. Leave her, in the name of the Lord Jesus."
"I don't want to hear that name," the spirit pleaded.
"We command you to leave, in the name of the Lord Jesus."
The girl began to have seizures. Then she stopped and lay still as if dead. Someone called an ambulance and covered her with a blanket. She was okay.
On the wedding day, the grandmother gave her heart to the Lord and was baptised. The bride became a commited Christian . . .
The Above Text Excerpted from NO MORE FEAR: From Killing Fields to Harvest Fields, by Physa Chanmany as told to Catherine Lawton. ©1999 Cladach Publishing. All rights reserved.
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