Pa

         While I was reading Pa, the excerpt from Loung Ung's memoir, all I could think of was how well it depicted life in Cambodia during the government unrest. Prior to this reading I had little knowledge of the political history and conflict in Cambodia, or any of Southeast Asia for that matter, but after reading Takaki as well as the literature, I really gained a deeper understanding of what life would have been like living there at the time. The Takaki reading provided the facts but I feel as though the literature, especially Pa, provided me with a deeper and more personal understanding of the suffering that the people endured. Being told from the perspective of a little girl, the story really enables us as readers to gain greater insight into the lives of the everyday people as well as the tremendous effects that the events had on their lives. I could really see the suffering that they endured as the child described their daily lives after the loss of her father. It also surprised me that the reader presents the events in such a way that suggests that they were actually quite common. The only life she really remembers is one that includes suffering and hardship and that really opened my eyes to see how blessed we are to live in a country where we have freedom and where, for many of us, suffering includes not being able to watch a favorite television show. This memoir really just helped me to relate the information that was in our reading to my everyday life and made it more real and understandable to me as an individual living in twenty-first century America.