Siv’s memoir begins in his childhood; by the time of the Khmer Rouge takeover he was an adult. Thus, his memoir provides a different perspective from those of writers such as Loung Ung, whose stories of this period reflect a child’s perspective. I enjoyed reading about Siv’s trajectory from refugee to government official in the US. Of less reading pleasure was his jingoistic conservatism and Bush boosterism. I wonder how he would feel if, reading my hypothetical memoir, he read that I agreed with President X’s values of xenophobia and not spending US dollars on refugees; perhaps he’d know then how I felt when reading his praise of the Republican version of “family values” that exclude my family. ( )

This book seemed a little bit slow at the beginning but as soon as Sichuan Siv started his escape from Cambodia, I was hooked for the rest of the book. It is so amazing that he survived the escape. It may sound odd but I think I learned some survival tips from him.
I really love the fact that what principally keep him going was remembering that his mother told him always to have hope. Without hope, he could never make it through all the physical obstacles or worse yet the many encounters with the Khmer Rouge. I knew about them before from a book that I read some time ago, 'The Killing Fields'. This book is more a tale of survival and why you need to survive instead of relating what the Khmer Rouge did. He also made me appreciate Khmer folktales, poetry and gave some information on Khmer cooking. I thought that it symbolic that everyone in Cambodia always wore black clothes and the way he knew he had finally made it to Thailand was wearing colorful clothes clothes.
I don't it is giving away the book too much to state this observation. When I first started reading this book, I noticed that Sichan Siv was an extremely resourceful person. I started a list of the occupations that he had as the book went along, it was an amazing number of different kinds of work. I would have never applied for a job that I knew I didn't have the background for or at least know what the job title was but he did! I will let you compile your own list, you will be amazed.
I recommend this for everyone interested in the history of holocausts, Cambodian history and survivor stories. ( )