After about a month, before the house was finished, the Khmer Rouge soldiers said that there were too many people in the area so they need to move on again. They asked if anyone wanted to go back to Phnom Penh. Many people, of course, said yes and ran to the boats. Bang, however, saw that those boats were not going back to Phnom Penh because on the boats’ sides there were writings of places that Bang himself had never heard of before. Other people including Bang and his family went on a bus.

There were a total of three buses, where everyone was rushed. The soldiers let people bring anything they could. All luggages were put on the top of the buses. Bang was afraid that some people would steal things so he, some Khmer Rouge soldiers, and some other people sat on the top of the bus. The buses went to a temple in the countryside that was about ten miles away from Phnom Penh. Everyone was told to get off and rest. They were told they were going back to Phnom Penh soon, but when the buses were moving again, it turned out that they were going to a "state" named "Cha Guo." When the buses were only five or six miles away from that state, the soldiers told everyone that there are already too many people in that state. They said everyone should go to the towns around, but Bang’s family looked and saw only farmland. Bang’s family and many other families did not really know how to farm; everyone was scared. Everybody ended up in a deserted school about half a mile away from where the buses stopped. Again, the soldiers told everyone that they could rest and eat there and that there would be people coming to get them next morning to go to some town.

The next morning, unarmed soldiers and an owner led Bang’s family and a few other families into another temple in a town. They rested for a while then moved onto to the next town. The journey to the temple took a whole day of walking in the hot sun. When Bang’s family arrived to the final town, they were crammed into one small house with two other families. Later, one family told the town’s leader about how small the house was for three families. The leader came and saw for himself and moved one family to some other house. Bang’s family and another family stayed there. This is where Bang learned fluent Cambodian. Even though he lived in Phnom Penh for a very long time, he had only known a little Cambodian since there were different languages used in Phnom Penh, such as Chinese and Vietnamese. <<Back / Continued >>

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