The good side of my father

I don't remember much of his good side, though I'm sure there
were plenty of examples. But I will at least mention two of them
to show that he was not all mean. I'm referring to his spanking.

1. I was sick unto death once. He did all he could to make sure
I would recover and not succumb to the wishes of the disease.
We have one family member who died from drinking kerosene.
He was just a young baby at the time.

2. As the war progressed, people were being displaced from their
homes and villages. He allowed a family to stay with us that
had two daughters, and I fell in love with one. You bet I kissed
her and that was the last kiss too.
I remember distinctly that there wasn’t enough rice to go around
and how were we going to feed them all? But somehow we
managed to scrape by. I will write more about the war later on.

I will add the third one also. Being that we are Buddhists, my father
would often have a feast for the monks to come to our place--
maybe once a year. We fed them in hope of a favor in
return that we would receive a blessing from them when they
blessed us by their prayers and chanting and sprinkling of holy
water, or blessed water. This is a Buddhist thing to do, hoping
to earn good merits for the next life. Maybe I'm wrong on this
assumption, but that is my interpretation of it.

The rod of my father's wrath

Even though I got along with my brothers, somehow I felt
like my mother didn't love me. I guess you can say it was
sibling jealousy. I tried to win more of her love. She was not
unkind to me in any way at all. I will share more about this
and the dream I had about this matter when I got to Thailand.

But I still liked my mother better than my father,
because she didn’t give a harsh spanking like my father.
My father knew how to give a whipping. Every time I got a
whipping, there seemed to be no mercy left from his heart.
Mother was helpless to intervene. Maybe she thought I deserved it.

I think this might have been the stigma that caused me not to want
to live at home. I don't think my father hated me at all. Just
when he spanked any of us, he did it with all his might and that
frightened the life out of us. I learned how to be swift footed.
Hey, when a lion roars, who wouldn't be afraid?

During my growing up years

During my growing up years, which was about 12
years in Cambodia, I had a lot of fun with my
brothers and friends. I miss them very much now.
We didn't have modern toys to play with. We invented
our own games and used our own imaginations to
entertain ourselves. Of course, we got into mischief
too.

Swimming comes naturally for most Asian boys. Swim
or get drowned because of the monsoon rain. Most, if not
all houses are built on stilts because of this reason.
We play games in water. A favorite one is Keep Away.
Since the water is muddy, it is hard to be seen from
surface when trying to get away, unless one kicks up
mud on the bottom and bubbles rise to the top, that
is a dead give away. But speed does count by revealing
your flight path.

Too many times we allowed ourselves to play to the
point of exhaustion, and I nearly drowned a few times.
One time I misjudged and tried to surface under heavy
vegetation and couldn't break through to get air for my
lungs. I think my lungs got expanded from that scary
incident. I had to back-track and guess my way out with
what was left of air capacity, hopefully before being drowned.
Thankfully, I my guess was correct.

My birth place and family

I was born in Cambodia to a family of 7 siblings. I am the third male
child and I have four other siblings below me, the last one being a
sister. We were a peasant people living off the land. I had some
education and learned how to read and write before I had to leave my
country. Since it was not my priority to be educated, I dodged school
by hiding and playing in the rice paddy. I think I might have gotten
the whipping for such behavior.

My family lived right next door to a monastery complex. Matter of
fact, we were the East gate keepers, if you will. Since Cambodia is
predominately Buddhists, every festivity that took place at the
complex seldom missed my entry and enjoyment.