Milk & Rice. Lait Guigoz.

Milk & Rice

(1975, "Milk / Lait Guigoz", original tin boxes from personal family memorabilia) 

(1976 - 2012, "Milk, Excerpt" from "Diary of an Exile" and Original manuscript)

« MILK »
Excerpt from ‘Diary of an Exile’
(Escaping the Khmer Rouge regime)
1975-1976 Original Manuscript Written by
Quang & Tu-Nghi LUONG
2012 Adaptation by Kai-Duc LUONG

Cast of Characters (In this excerpt)
Narrator .................................................................................................... Quang LUONG, the father
Xiu Yi........................................................................................................... Tu-Nghi LUONG, the mother
Man .............................................................................................................. Seav Hong LA, the aunt
Kaitung ....................................................................................................... Khai-Dong LUONG, 1st child
Kaiming ...................................................................................................... Khai-Minh LUONG, 2nd child
Kaitak .......................................................................................................... Kai-Duc LUONG, 3rd child
Father-in-law ........................................................................................... Van LA, the grand-father
Mother-in-law ......................................................................................... Kim LA, the grand-mother
Uncle Liu .................................................................................................... a Friend

On April 27, 1975, it was almost noon when soldiers fired their guns and ordered us to “Move! Move! Move!”.

We packed and pushed our broken motorcycle with Uncle Liu's family, en route to Highway #1, which was swarming with refugees. We gathered all members of our families for fear of being separated. 

Flames of war stood on both sides of the road as torn down houses and burnt trees clogged our horizon.
In the evening, we arrived at Bái yīng City, 12 kilometers away from Phnom-Penh, some 10 days after we fled the capital city, machine guns pointed at us.

Uncle Liu's family used a piece of tin plate to build a shanty shelter, while we found a shed down an elevated house to settle down. I arranged our belongings and a couple leather mats for the kids. Man and Xiu Yi were cooking porridge for the hungry family. For every single elevated house that was broken and leaking, there was a crowded family of refugees, of Chinese, Cambodian or Vietnamese origins. All refugees were in the same boat, and got along well with each other.

The children fell asleep after dinner. My father-in-law, uncle Liu and I couldn't fall asleep, as we were all worried about where to go and what would be next.
The next morning, after we got up, my father-in-law and I went our separate ways to buy goods for the day: he bought some firewood while I bought some food, as we were running out of firewood, rice, oil and salt.

Uncle Liu had enough labor force within his family, and sufficient goods stashed away. So his sons and daughters went out to do business as they could earn a lot of money by selling some of their goods, which consisted of daily necessities.
Refugees started their own business, in this desolate place, with the stuff they carried, alongside every road, and so a busy and crowded self-made market formed spontaneously. People went there to sell what they didn't need and bought what they needed.

I bought some bean oil and vegetables while my father-in-law bought a lot of fuel. When we met again, we both were elated.

We were running out of powdered milk for Kaitak and found no place to buy more of it. We had to use porridge mixed with a little bit of sugar to feed him, but this could not last long for Kaitak was only 55-days old.

Had we been home, we would have fed Kaitung and Kaiming with powered milk. But they stopped drinking powdered milk a long time ago, and so did Kaitak. It was really sad for them to flee at their age and run with their parents with no place to live, nor hide. But we didn't have a choice. My mother-in-law and aunt Liu who had lots of experience with raising countless children told my wife Xiu Yi to breast-feed the kid, hoping that the milk would come out in a few days time. Even though she had no milk of her own to nurse, Xiu Yi followed their advice and nursed little Kaitak.
Miraculously, Xiu Yi recovered some milk to nurse little Kaitak.

(2013, "55", 55 lbs of rice, Installation)