When Broken Glass Floats


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Asia » Cambodia
March 4th 2011
Published: March 5th 2011
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Is an autobiography of Chanrithy Him, a young Khymer girl from a good family who was forced to labour during the Pol Pot era. What I found interesting was that the violence and oppression was not indiscriminate but very systematic and cold. She escaped to Thailand when the Vietnamese liberated Cambodia. Then she went to America.

Everybody here has a story. But you don't want to ask and they don't want to tell too much. It can be very confronting for both us and for them. But it can come out in small ways. Neary, the chief trainer at DWA one day showed us a passionfriut vine and said she couldn't eat them anymore because that was all she ate under Pol Pot. Another woman when asked about her family mentioned her husband and 3 children were killed by Pol Pot.

The book title come from when they were struggling to endure the KR Chanrithy asked her big sister “Why doesn’t good triumph over evil? She comforted her with the Khymer proverb that good (a local squash) may at first seem to sink and evil (broken glass) seem to float but not for long. Broken glass will sink, the squash will float and good will prevail.

I bought the book from a peddlar with no hands who had a large range of books about Cambodia that tourists would like. He was set up by a NGO with this to be self supporting.


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