Lucky Child

Earlier this year while in Cambodia I read Loung Ung's first memoir, First They Killed My Father, which has been made into a Netflix film by Angeline Jolie and I realized that Ung has written two subsequent memoirs about her life. The second volume is called Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with Sister She Left Behind (2005). I also learned that she attended Saint Michael's College in Burlington, Vermont where she was raised once she moved to America. I had the opportunity to visit there to evaluate an exchange program with the university I work at in Japan, and learned that all freshman are required to read a copy of the book as conversation starter with fellow freshmen. In this volume Ung alternates telling her story in America in which she is trying to fit in and that of her sister, Chuo, who has an arrange marriage at a fairly early age. Post Khmer Rougue Cambodia is still no picnic and Loung struggles to fit in in America as well. But she eventually gets a scholarship to Saint Michael's and the family reunites after 15 years and Ung has many opportunities to return to Cambodia to reunite with her sister and other family members. She has become an activist and marries a college sweetheart. I feel as though some of the details feel contrived like inserting expressions like "gag me with a spoon" which I suspect are there to show how she is assimilating into American culture. This book naturally is not as compelling as her first memoir, but still interesting to learn how the two sisters lives have progressed after their survival of such a nightmare existence. I look forward to hearing more about Loung's life in her final memoir, Lulu in the Sky: A Daughter of Cambodia Finds Love, Healing and Double Happiness, about her college experience, adulthood, and her struggle to reconcile with her past.