University Place  Patricia McCormick Finding Humanity on the Cambodian Killing Fields  November 9, 2012 UP799  cc >> And now, before I introduce Mrs. McCormick, I'd like to tell you a little about her. Patricia McCormick began her career as a journalist. Her newspaper work earned her many awards and distinctions, but she realized that she wanted to tell longer, deeper, and more intimate stories that would require the creative options which the novel form offers, so she began writing novels. Her first novel, "Cut," portrays a teenager's struggle with self-injury. A best-seller, "Cut" received many accolades and was named a Best Book for Teenagers by the American Library Association. Even more indicative of its impact on young readers, "Cut" was described by a librarian as "One of our most stolen books." [LAUGHTER] I love that. In all her novels, Ms. McCormick examines children and young people in psychologically extreme and often physically harrowing situations. "My Brother's Keeper" tells the story of a substance abuser from the point of view of his sibling. "Purple Heart" is a suspenseful psychological story about a soldier in Iraq that explores the killing of a 10-year-old boy. And to write "Sold," the story of a young girl who is sold into sexual slavery, Ms. McCormick traveled to Kathmandu and Calcutta to research the sex trafficking of children. 

As a parent, I am in awe of this author's bravery in taking on the kinds of stories she does. As an editor and writer, I know that writing someone else's story, whether fiction or nonfiction, requires the writer to channel the experiences and feel the emotions of her subject, and I can hardly imagine how difficult and painful that aspect of the work must be for Ms. McCormick. But here's the way she sees it. If I'm going to spend three years working on a book, I want it to be about something important. I want to bring attention to issues people might not otherwise know about, and I want to change attitudes. Her newest book, "Never Fall Down," has been nominated for the National Book Award, which will be announced later this month. "Never Fall Down" tells a story of an 11-year-old boy who survived the Cambodian genocide of the Khmer Rouge. Desmond Tutu called it, "One of the most moving and powerful books I've ever read," and I defy anyone who reads it to disagree with him. It's remarkable, not only for the story of this young boy, what he endured, and how he survived, but also for the voice that Patricia McCormick gives him through her book. And without further ado, I'll turn the floor over to Ms. McCormick to tell you about her new book, "Never Fall Down." [APPLAUSE]  >> Hi. 

I'm Patty McCormick. I want to thank Alison Jones Chaim for inviting me to this festival. This is a really wonderful opportunity for me to get out and meet with readers. As you know, writing is very solitary, so this is a great treat. And that was a wonderful introduction. Thank you so much, Jennifer. My son, who is a teenager and who it's pretty much his full-time occupation to make fun of me... [LAUGHTER] Looks at that list of books and says to me, "Mom, where do you get the ideas for these books? What do you do, Google the word sad?" [LAUGHTER] But what I thought I'd like to do tonight is show you a video behind the story of this book "Never Fall Down," and then read a couple excerpts from the book and then hope we have time for questions and answers. This book, "Never Fall Down," tells the story of this 11-year-old boy named Arn Chorn-Pond who was pretty much an orphan. He was a street kid when the Khmer Rouge came to power. 

I was in college doing my level best to drink beer and meet boys and had no idea about what was going on in Cambodia. And I think that a lot of us have a bit of a black hole about that period in our history. There was so much Vietnam fatigue and so much guilt around our involvement in what happened in destabilizing Cambodia and giving rise to the Khmer Rouge that it's just not a period that we understand very well. So I put together this video which will give you some context for the period of the book. It gives you a sense, too, of what a lively and beautiful place Cambodia was, how innocent it was before the Khmer Rouge came to power and killed nearly a quarter of their own population in less than four years. So, Heather, will you start the video? They're going to lower the house lights for the video and then bring them back up.  § §  >> This is Cambodia, 1975, and music is everywhere. It's on these streets that Arn Chorn-Pond grew up, listening. >> When I was a little boy in Cambodia, I was living in a temple. I was already kind of homeless. 

We would sneak out to a movie theater and watch American war movies and kung fu. We hear music all the time. I heard rock and roll. Every morning when we get up, we heard all these songs. We heard about the war, but I didn't understand about war. Sometime we heard the word Khmer Rouge, but it didn't mean anything to us.  >> As spring came, so did the soldiers. After years of fighting, the national government fell to the Khmer Rouge, a rebel group determined to transform Cambodia into an agrarian-based Communist utopia. >> I heard the truck and tanks on the highway. We were cheering. 

They raised their guns and they screamed, "Peace is coming, peace is coming." That was the first time I felt there was something wrong. >> As the Khmer Rouge came to power, they began ordering everyone from the cities into the countryside with the promise that they could return in a few days. >> Thousands of thousands of people packed onto the highway. I've never seen anything like that before. Along the highway, I started to see some dead people. Now I'm being taken away from my family along with 700 children. We were forced to work from 5:00 in the morning to midnight. Many times there were no foods for us, and they said that you don't work hard enough.  >> Soon it became clear that the temporary camps were permanent, and the Khmer Rouge began its program of systematic killing. >> All the sudden they wanted to start a music group because they don't want people to hear the screaming of the killing, and I raise my hand for the music. 

I knew that I had to play well for the Khmer Rouge. If I don't work hard, I would die. I thought my life couldn't get worse from what I've seen, but in 1979 when the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia, now no more music for us. The Khmer Rouge have trucks full of guns.  >> Thousands of children like Arn, some as young as eight years old, were forced to fight in the Khmer Rouge's war against Vietnam. >> I just have to figure out how to shoot, otherwise I will die. There was countless bodies, and kids are dying all the time. You just have to continue to be vicious and you may get numb to all of this, and you have to be a killer.  I ran away from the line because I could not take it seeing those kids. I took off into the jungle. 

 >> After weeks of walking, Arn eventually made it to a refugee camp just over the Thai border where he caught the attention of an American missionary named Peter Pond. >> He was a worker trying to rescue the kids, and I sort of clung to his neck. And the next morning, he came back and tried to find me and brought some food. He kept coming back to see me, and he brought me to America.  >> Arn and two other Cambodian boys finally arrived in their new home, Jefferson, New Hampshire. >> He's a crazy guy, Peter Pond. He took us to McDonald's first, and then I threw up. The next week after, it was ninth grade, it was high school. The kids had no idea where we were from, and they start calling names and slur and all these things that I never heard before. That time I was really angry all the time. 

I was suicidal, eventually ran away from home. I had an urge of telling my story, but I could not do it. My dad, he just said that you all must speak. If you speak out, the American kid would listen. That was really a turning point, in a way for me, internally. I think there's no other way for me to understand American kids or American kids to understand me. There is no other way. >> Arn spoke to a packed audience of thousands at St. John the Divine and began a lifelong journey to tell his story. He started with Children of War, and organization dedicated to helping children overcome suffering from war and other traumas. After graduating college, Arn began to work with gang members in Lowell, Massachusetts, sharing his story and helping them share theirs. 

>> I walked the street and find these Cambodian gang members. Many of them ended up in jail and I visit them in jail and never give up on them like someone didn't give up on me. I learned that lesson. >> In 1993, Arn returned to Cambodia. He found a changed country but realized that the musical traditions he had learned, the instruments he played, had been lost. He found the master musicians destitute, living on the streets. >> The war have cut, destroyed the roots of life. So what's the bulk of Cambodian living arts, we found the few masters first and then we can be able to connect this master to the young people.  § §  >> Arn Chorn-Pond is one of the most inspiring people that I've ever met. He's taken the adversity that happened to him and turned it into something really, really extraordinary and really beautiful. 

It was certainly and honor and a privilege for me to be trusted with those stories. So now the book is out, and there's a lot to talk about about how it resonates today. >> The trick is to connect, to find connection. Connection is relationship. Relationship is we share the story. >> If we tell the stories from the past, we won't make those mistakes again. >> We need contact somehow. It's healing. It's power more than anything else I could think.  >> These are excerpts from the book. 

[SCATTERED APPLAUSE] I'm just going to give you a little background, too. When I met Arn and when he first started to tell me the story, it was as if he became that 11-year-old all over again. He was so terrified in the telling of it. And also so innocent and sometimes funny and sweet, and so the book is actually told in Arn's own voice, that voice that you heard on screen, which is also kind of poetic, as you'll hear. So, keep in mind that it's his voice, not mine. Cambodia, April 1975. At night in our town, it's music everywhere. Rich house. Poor house. Doesn't matter. 

Everyone has music. Radio. Record Player. Eight-track cassette. Even the guys who pedal the rickshaw cycle, they tie a tiny radio to the handlebar and sing for their passenger. In my town, music is like air, always there. All the men, all the ladies stroll the park to catch the newest song. Cambodian love song. French love song. American rock 'n' roll. 

Like the Beatles. Like Elvis. Like Chubby Checker. Ladies in sarong walk so soft like floating on the street. Men in trouser, hair slick back, smoking Lucky Strike. The whole town is out at night. My little brother and me, we stand in front of the movie palace and sing for them. We do the twist also. "Let's Twist Again, Like We Did Last Summer." Two skinny kid, no shoe, torn pants, they like it if we sing for them; they even give us a few coin. Tonight I study the crowd, find a lady, fat one, fat like milk fruit, and slowly, slowly, very sneaky, my brother and I, we hide behind her skirt, hold on so light she doesn't know, and pretend she's our mom. 

Kid with parent can see the movie for free. Kid like us, we pretend. Inside the movie palace we watch America, black and white, with airplane, shiny car, and women in skirt so short they show the knee. War movie, lotta shooting, and a little bit kissing. For the shooting, my brother and me, we clap; for the kissing, we hide our face in our shirt. After the show, it's the best part, when we do the movie ourselves. Outside in the park, we fly the plane, shoot the gun, be the hero. Just like the real soldiers fighting right now in the jungle outside of our town. We shoot probably a hundred bullet, die a hundred time. Then we hear a whistle, and the sky far away flash white. 

The palm tree shiver, and the ground shake. And all of a sudden the war is real. I grab my little brother hand and run and run till we get to a little pond near our house. We jump in, water up to our nose, and hide there. Where nothing bad can find us. So as you know, from the book, bad things do find him. And I'm going to jump ahead into the middle of the book where he's in the killing fields, and he's given a task one night.  "You," says one Khmer Rouge to me, "you come with me." It's nighttime. The other kids working in the fields, big torches burning so they can see. The harvest coming soon so everyone has to work extra. 

He take me on one path, then another, then the path to the mango grove. Dusty path. So many feet walk down here on the way to die. All these days I don't think of my aunt or my brother and sister. Too dangerous to miss them and maybe cry, or go crazy, or just give up. But now I speak to them in my head. I say goodbye. I say I will see them again some day because I know what this moment means. Already I see the dirt pile. Tall grass. 

Very green. Bones sticking out. Leg, arm, skull, also pieces of cloth. Also I see a ditch and a line of people, maybe 15, maybe 20, all hands tied behind, kneeling. And high ranking Khmer Rouge standing behind them. Then this guy, he take the ax. Small ax, like for chopping. And he hit one kneeling guy on the back of the head. The guy fall down. Just like a pile of rag hitting the ground very fast. 

Then the Khmer Rouge, he go down the line. Hit each one. Terrible sound. Like cracking a coconut. Only it's a human head. "You," he says to me, "you put them in the ditch." I don't want to do this, but I do it. My body does what this guy says. I push the people. Very heavy. Lot of blood. 

I push them into the grave. One guy, he's not even dead. They say push him in anyway. Then the guy with the ax, he look at me. Deep in the eye to see what I feel. I make my eye blank. You show you care, you die. You show fear, you die. You show nothing, maybe you live.  So, I'm just going to go, then, to the end of the book. 

To a scene that you saw in the movie where Arn is speaking at St. John the Divine. He had come to the United States as you saw. He had all those memories of what he had seen, what he had done. He lost his whole family. They put him in a ninth grade classroom in New Hampshire, an all-white classroom. He'd never been in school. He would try to find the men's room and he would hold onto the shirttail of one of the football players, and the kid would brush him off. There was a fire in the community and all the kids in the high school, a bunch of them rather, surrounded him and started flicking matches at him as if they were accusing him of setting the fire. He was so full of rage and guilt and sadness that he was nearly suicidal, as he said. And it wasn't until he was able to start speaking out that he felt some measure of relief. 

And the way he described that feeling, all that mix of horrible feelings, he described it as having a tiger clawing at his heart. So this is New York City, 1984. I swallow a big breath and start. My name is Arn, I say, I'm from Cambodia. Big speech I'm giving. My own speech. Long time I work on learning English. ABC every morning at home. Every day with Pat, special teacher at school. But mostly I learn it on TV. 

Duke of Hazard, A-Team. I learn it so much I even graduate New Hampshire high school, and now I get invite to speak at a big church in New York City. St. John the Divine it called. Flowing with people. Ten thousand people with lot of VIP. Like guy named Desmond Tutu. And singer name of James Taylor. And guy from the New York Time. All waiting now for me to speak. I start very slow, very careful. 

I tell a little bit about my life before the Khmer Rouge. About doing the Twist with my brother. About catching frogs. Then I tell about how all the people have to leave the city. About the bodies at the side of the road. About being forced to leave my family, probably all now dead. And then the story pour out of me. About kid dying from no food. The ax hitting the skull. The people calling to me from the grave. 

And then something happen. The paper I hold, big splash of water on it. The word now dripping off the page. And my voice now, my careful, American voice, it crack and break and die in my throat. Never have I cry. Not one time all these year. From 11-year-old kid till now, not one tear. So many year I think I kill off all the tear inside me. But after this long dry season, now, finally, the rain. Nice man who introduced me, he come to my side, ask me if I want to stop. 

I say no. I want to finish my speech. And now all the word come. They come not careful. They come with sob. My body shaking like a fever. With tear dripping off my nose, off my chin. My shirt, my collar, now all soak through. Until, finally, I finish. A very great quiet now. 

Hush in this audience. Silence after like we play music the first time for the Khmer Rouge. Waiting to see if we live, we die. Then one applause. One more. Then many. Many hand. All together clapping. So much applause like thunder. Like the church, it roar from its bones. 

And, oh, the sound. It lift me up. Up high like on top of a mountain. And I look out now and see all these people. American people, men and women, boy and girl. Even the guy from the New York Time. All these people crying too. And, finally, the tiger in my heart, he lay down a moment and rest.  Thank you. [APPLAUSE]