Monday, March 05, 2007
A Cambodian family's long path to reconciliation - International Herald Tribune
... The film opens in the Site-2 refugee camp, a fenced-in world of hundreds of thousands of people just inside the border of Thailand, where Yan Chheing's grandchildren are growing up without ever seeing a field or a forest, eating rationed rice and drinking water delivered by truck.
"Water I wouldn't wash my feet in makes them happy," the grandmother says as children splash in a muddy hole that passes for their swimming pool. "Imagine their excitement if they saw the water I knew everywhere when I was young — the water was clear like glass. But they don't know any better. They have seen only their small pond and they are happy with that."
Without telling her, Harper and his crew also began to film the parallel story of her grown daughter, Tha, on the other side of the border, living the traditional life that Yan Chheing longs for.
...
Tha speaks with resentment of what she sees as the easy life of the refugees. She, too, is unaware of Harper's parallel work on the other side of the border. ...
"They ran away for their own well-being and happiness," Tha says of her mother and the others. "They eat and sleep well, no worries at all. They thought only about their own welfare and left the difficulties to those staying in Cambodia. I don't want them back."
...
When finally Yan Chheing's family is headed home in the back of a pickup truck, her grandchildren, freed from their barbed wire world, are amazed at the fields and trees they are seeing for the first time.
"What's that animal?" a grandson asks, looking at the staple of Cambodian rice fields, a water buffalo. "Do they eat chicks?" ...
... The film opens in the Site-2 refugee camp, a fenced-in world of hundreds of thousands of people just inside the border of Thailand, where Yan Chheing's grandchildren are growing up without ever seeing a field or a forest, eating rationed rice and drinking water delivered by truck.
"Water I wouldn't wash my feet in makes them happy," the grandmother says as children splash in a muddy hole that passes for their swimming pool. "Imagine their excitement if they saw the water I knew everywhere when I was young — the water was clear like glass. But they don't know any better. They have seen only their small pond and they are happy with that."
Without telling her, Harper and his crew also began to film the parallel story of her grown daughter, Tha, on the other side of the border, living the traditional life that Yan Chheing longs for.
...
Tha speaks with resentment of what she sees as the easy life of the refugees. She, too, is unaware of Harper's parallel work on the other side of the border. ...
"They ran away for their own well-being and happiness," Tha says of her mother and the others. "They eat and sleep well, no worries at all. They thought only about their own welfare and left the difficulties to those staying in Cambodia. I don't want them back."
...
When finally Yan Chheing's family is headed home in the back of a pickup truck, her grandchildren, freed from their barbed wire world, are amazed at the fields and trees they are seeing for the first time.
"What's that animal?" a grandson asks, looking at the staple of Cambodian rice fields, a water buffalo. "Do they eat chicks?" ...
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