Trauma Talking
Ripples of fear shot through Cambodian-American communities in 2009. That’s when former Khmer Rouge torturer, Comrade Duch, testified in court that Khmer Rouge chief Pol Pot had ordered the murder of Haing Ngor - on US soil – in Long Beach, California.
For many survivors of the Khmer Rouge, the statement brought up unresolved trauma – to think that Pol Pot could still threaten them from so far away, years after they’d fled. It also revived a conspiracy theory that first surfaced Ngor was murdered in February 1996 – that the Khmer Rouge must have killed him.
A colleague and I debunked that statement in episodes 9 and 10 of this podcast, called “Finding Comrade Duch.” There is no evidence or political logic to suggest that Pol Pot had the means or the motivation to kill Haing Ngor. But the trauma that Duch’s statement triggered? That’s very real.
Welcome to episode 11 of “Who Killed Haing Ngor?” This is a real-time and crowdsourced podcast in which we examine lingering questions about the murder - and the legacy of - Dr. Haing S. Ngor. Best known for his role in “The Killing Fields,” he was also a humanitarian and a businessman.
In this episode, I’m speaking with Dorothy Chow, the producer of the “Death in Cambodia” podcast. In it, she interviews her father about his experience as a teen living under and eventually escaping the Khmer Rouge.
That’s rare. Relatively few among that generation of survivors are willing to share their memories. Many have unwittingly handed down intergenerational trauma to their children.
But Dorothy Chow is part of a new initiative to disrupt that culture of silence and to break the grip the Khmer Rouge has on Cambodian-Americans – even today.
Dorothy Chow was in middle school in the San Francisco Bay Area when her parents’ past began to catch up with her.
She was old enough then to start listening between the lines to things her parents said - especially her father.
DOROTHY CHOW: He always kind of threw comments around here and there. Like, back when I was growing up, I didn't have food. And you know, I used to eat rats at some point during the war - and all these things. So it’d come in small comments like that, where I'd be like, Oh - so there was something really terrible that happened back then.
Even the Asian history class Dorothy was in didn’t cover Cambodia. Then there was this.
DOROTHY CHOW: My parents specifically told me around that middle school age that if anybody were to ask what I was that I should just say that I was Chinese...
MPN: Why?
DOROTHY CHOW: You know, I think about that question a lot. And I honestly do believe that it's probably due to the shame that they felt and the dissociation that they were experiencing when the Khmer Rouge happened, and the lack of trust in their country and their government that had done something as terrible as that to them. So when it came to having me, they didn’t want me to associate with that country.
What Dorothy began to sense as a middle schooler was her parents’ trauma – still so powerful that they tiptoed around it, never acknowledging it directly. It was an emotionally-charged black-hole – leaving Dorothy bewildered and wary of whatever-it-was her parents went through when they were slightly older than middle school.
The first I heard about ongoing trauma suffered by survivors of the Khmer Rouge living in the United States was “hysterical blindness.” There were women who had escaped described themselves as having “cried so much they could no longer see.”
It came out because doctors discovered that a disproportionately high number of women in t Long Beach community had severe sight issues. I’ll put some links on the webpage. (One more. )
From The New York Times
In Phnom Penh, my 20-something year-old friends and I heard about it – and didn’t know what to make of it. There was a suggestion made that the blindness was an act -- an elaborate welfare scam. And that’s probably where the conversation ended. Now, I’m much more sympathetic.
Back to Dorothy.
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, she decided to interview her father about his experience.
DOROTHY CHOW: As I’ve gotten older, I've realized that he’s not getting any younger. And there's only so much time we have left to really capture these stories – especially coming from a firsthand survivor, which I feel like our Cambodian community is just lacking as a whole.
To Dorothy’s surprise, he agreed.
Title page of Dorothy Chow’s “Death In Cambodia.” Look for it here.
Dorothy’s father, Robert Chau***, was 14 in early 1975. The Khmer Rouge were rapidly gaining territory and people began to flee to Thailand. He was living in a small western city with his family, where he befriended another boy. To Robert’s surprise, he soon learned the boy was Khmer Rouge. A sleeper agent.
This is from episode 3 of the “Death in Cambodia” podcast.
ROBERT CHAU: I knew one guy. We was playing, you know, together. But when he changed the clothes to Khmer Rouge [uniform.] I asking him, “Where [did] you get these clothes?” [He said,] “Oh I'm a Khmer Rouge soldier. Because I’m hiding inside the city. I said, “Wow.” So I was happy that - you know, at least I know one friend that, you know, maybe can help me.
Soon, the Khmer Rouge told everyone that they had to evacuate the city: the US was going to bomb. That was a lie. It was the pretext the Khmer Rouge used to force everyone into labor camps in the countryside.
It’s also when they began executing wealthy and educated Cambodians, as enemies of the revolution.
Leaving the city, Robert and his family were stopped at a checkpoint. Khmer Rouge soldiers were searching for people’s valuables. Robert ran into his friend.
ROBERT CHAU: So he knows that my family is wealthy. Of course he knows! He lives in the city! So he told all the soldiers, Oh, that guy there! He's wealthy – he’s rich, he's robbed every poor people and all. “What?” So the soldier ran and took everything from us. Well, we was lucky that they didn't kill us.
Dorothy has not seen the film, “The Killing Fields.” But her dad’s mentioned it a few times. He was proud that Cambodia had been recognized, and that the Khmer Rouge had been exposed.
Dorothy turns 30 this year - so she’s too young to remember when Haing Ngor was murdered in 1996. Of course, listeners here know that authorities describe the killing as a gang-robbery gone wrong. That’s not what Robert Chau believes.
DOROTHY CHOW: Whatever the news outlets said, and whatever stories were being told, he believed that it was somebody within the Cambodian community. There's this narrative within the Cambodian community that like, we don't support each other, and we're always dragging each other down. If you're familiar with the concept of crabs in a bucket, where if one crab tries to get up, the other crabs are going to try to keep him down, and everybody stays down. It's unfortunate, and it's something that the second generation is trying to change. But he very much believed that it was somebody within the Cambodian community who could not stand to watch one of their fellow Cambodians be so successful.
MPN: So that's a pretty toxic vibe. Where does that come from? Is that just old-school Cambodia?
DOROTHY CHOW: You know, I don't know for sure. But my theory is that it comes from the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge. During the Khmer Rouge for four years, if you trusted an uncle, who happened to be in the Khmer Rouge, you would be killed, you would be targeted. Everybody was very much on their own. During the Khmer Rouge - during those four years, there was this huge sense of you know, I have to fight for myself.
Dorothy mentions a story we’re familiar with.
DOROTHY CHOW: In the podcast, we talk about this one story where my dad's best friend, who he had no idea was part of the Khmer Rouge And the first or second day that the Khmer Rouge took over, his best friend apparently, had turned on him - and put on this black jacket and said, “This family right here has a lot of money. These are the people who should, who are the first [who] should go.” And that was really I mean, that really kind of instilled in my father that like, “Wow, you really can't trust anybody. You have no idea who who is going to turn on you and who isn't.“
It did more than that. Let’s jump back to “Death in Cambodia” episode 3.
DOROTHY: That's when you knew that that your life is going to change?
ROBERT Yes. Yes. I know that, it will be a tough situation. And in my mind, I think my parents will be tortured or killed soon - because of the one person I knew. I was feel bad. I feel horrified.
DOROTHY: Guilty.
ROBERT: Guilty. Yes. Yeah.
Think about it: a 14 year-old boy made a friend. Because of that, his entire family might be tortured and killed. It’s the warped logic of bad dream. And that’s a lot of emotional weight to carry.
DOROTHY CHOW: So, that's my theory that after four years of living that way, it just kind of gets ingrained in you. And even after the war is over, that trauma still kind of lives with them, that mentality still kind of stays with them.
I told Dorothy about Comrade Duch: about how he told the Khmer Rouge tribunal that Pol Pot had killed Haing Ngor because he made the Khmer Rouge look bad in “The Killing Fields.”
If you heard the last two episodes you know that Comrade Duch was the Khmer Rouge chief executioner. In late 1995, Duch’s wife was murdered and he blamed rivals within the Khmer Rouge. Three months later, Haing Ngor was murdered in February 1996.
To me, when Duch said Pol Pot killed Haing Ngor, it was Duch’s own trauma talking. He had conflated his personal tragedy with the loss of Haing Ngor, saying See? The same thing happened to me.
From a political perspective, Duch’s assertion makes zero sense. Pol Pot had neither the means nor the motivation to kill Haing Ngor on US soil. Details are in the last two episodes.
But Duch’s assertion made headlines around the world and sent fear rippling through Cambodian refugee communities. Once again, to me, it was a case of “trauma talking” – Khmer Rouge survivors genuinely felt threatened by the mere thought that Pol Pot could reach them.
That fear is understandable, Dorothy says, especially because Haing Ngor was an actor.
DOROTHY CHOW: During the Khmer Rouge people who were artists and educated people were the first to go. They were the ones that were being targeted during that time. Somebody like a successful artist would be, would be a target, you know, during the Khmer Rouge, so it doesn't really surprise me then that, you know, people within the Long Beach Community went to that conclusion.
Robert Chau is very successful businessman - Dorothy calls him as a “serial entrepreneur.” The second season of the “Death in Cambodia” podcast describes his journey toward success in the bakery and the donut business.
DOROTHY CHOW: I remember specific quotes from the podcast where he said, You know, I know what it's like to not be able to have a dream; to feel like you are limited with your resources - limited with food, let's start with the actual raw resources. But more than that, you know, living in Cambodia, he he's always you know, he grew up in he knows what it's like to not to not be able to dream. So when he came to America - the land of opportunity - he could not help but chase the dreams that he had. And he used the fuel that he had experienced in the pain that he had experienced from his childhood to continually go. Looking back on it now, that in itself was also a trauma response. He has been in survival mode his entire life.
Her podcast made Dorothy realize something else. That emotionally-charged black hole she grew up with, that left her bewildered and wary of her parents’ past? Other first-generation Cambodian-Americans grew up with it, too.
DOROTHY CHOW: All these refugees who came in here never had an opportunity to really process whatever happened. And even to this day, as I run the podcast, I get a lot of DMs and messages from other, you know, second generation Cambodians who say that their grandparents still have nightmares about the Khmer Rouge. I mean, there's very, very much deep trauma that is unprocessed within the community.
Dorothy decided to do something. She launched “Khmer Courageous Conversations.” Working with a licensed clinical psychologist, these are online meetings for people like her: first-generation Americans, who are also second-generation survivors of the Khmer Rouge. It’s a space to discuss the issues only other Cambodians would understand. Links are on the webpage.
DOROTHY CHOW: You know, a lot of the second generation, people who were born here, still had parents who had unprocessed PTSD. And people with unprocessed PTSD turn to a lot of different vices that help them with their hurt, whether it be drug abuse, or alcohol or domestic violence. And that is very common within the second generation people who were born here, to have witnessed that within our childhood. And so , for me, being part of that community and seeing that hurt within our community, I wanted to figure out a way to kickstart the healing process for us.
These second-generation survivors are much more open to discussing their community’s shared past than their parents, Dorothy says. When she launched the “Death in Cambodia” podcast, she invited her mom to participate, alongside her dad. Her mom declined. She just doesn’t talk about her experiences.
DOROTHY CHOW: Even when I was getting successful with the podcast because it was featured on CBS and International South China Morning Post - as I was putting myself out there, I do remember my mom mentioning her worry that if I got too successful, that I'd become a target.
MPN: That's that same crabs in a bucket concern.
CHOW: And that's that same crabs in a bucket concern, but I think also - I also believe that's very much related to what had happened with Haing Ngor that you know, that they they had processed that he was successful, so he was taken down. If you get too successful, you might also be taken down. And so that was something that I thought was strange. But also I accepted that that was a way that they were processing what was going on.
So here we are – it’s nearly 50 years since the fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge. The trauma they inflicted on Cambodia still reverberates around the world and was even handed down to the next generation.
But with her father Robert Chau and through Khmer Courageous Conversations, Dorothy’s been trying to shine a light into that black hole, to weaken the gravitational pull of her community’s past trauma on their present lives. In so doing, she hopes, Cambodian survivors and their children will finally escape the grip of the Khmer Rouge.
Thank you for listening.
Remember, this is a crowd-sourced podcast – an experiment in journalism. If you knew Haing Ngor personally and would like to contribute – even just an interesting anecdote - please get in touch. If you know any details about his murder you think are relevant, please get in touch.
The best way to reach me is to email whokilledhaingngor@gmail.com
Haing is HA-I-NG and NGOR is N-G-or
Thanks again.
*** Because of an error on her birth certificate, Dorothy spells her last name “Chow,” for consistency. Her name was meant to be Chau, like her father.