JINLING'S STORY.

Chiva's Shack is a small restaurant/bar/guest house about two blocks from where I am staying at the moment. I ate there last night and that was the place I met Mrs. Song. I had fish amok, which is similar to paella I suppose, with a delicious coconut and peanut flavour.


It became apparent after a while that the lady serving me was in fact the owner and she introduced herself as Jinling. She is 38 years old and in true Cambodian style has very long jet black hair, pearly white teeth and is rather attractive to say the least. After my meal I telephoned home and spoke to Mum and Dad and on finishing my call Jinling came and sat down with me and was asking how long I had been here etc.


She asked me about my family and then I asked her if her parents lived in Phnom Penh.
She told me this. She was one of six children; her mother was Chinese and her father was Cambodian. In 1975 when Pol Pot came to power she and thousands of others were forced to leave Phnom Penh. She was 5yrs old and one of her sisters was heavily pregnant. Her brother was a doctor and was beaten to death by the Khmer Rouge which she witnessed. Her pregnant sister was also beaten with sticks and bars and died of her injuries. Her father suffered a heart attack as a result of seeing two of his children killed. She and her three other sisters and mother were taken to a camp where over four hundred women and children lived in absolute squalour, many dying from malaria and cholera. She told me her mother cut her hair to make her look as ugly as possible and made her wear filthy clothes so as not to attract any sexual advances from the Khmer Rouge guards who systematically raped and abused so many youngsters. She told me she learnt how to lie to the guards as a way of saving her own life. The guards were about sixteen years old and knew that if they disobeyed any orders they would be killed.


Two of her other sisters died of cholera and her mother of malnutrition. One sister survived and Jinling managed to escape and made it to a safe area where she more or less hid until the Vietnamese ousted Pol Pot.


In many ways I wish I had not asked about her family but as with so many Cambodians she told me the story without showing too much emotion until the end when she shed a tear or two; me as well. She runs a successful business now and once again the resilience of the people here is quite amazing. I gave her a hug and she said, " This was a bad place to be in the late 70's. " It certainly was.