What I Believed to be the Key to My Survival

hello everyone

some of you may already know that i am

an

sas parent my son alexander hankins

who is currently in year 13 and nathan

hankin

graduated from south island in 2019.

the question is why am i here today

i am here at my children request

for my children today i would like to

share with you

some part of my story and especially to

share with you what my dad

said to me which i believe

it was the key to my survival

and it remained as a valuable lesson in

my life

i was born in cambodia as a child

i was very lucky to live a very

fortunate life

i was surrounded by big family life

was fun and free back then until i was

about

eight on the morning of 17th of april

1975 that was the morning that my fairy

tales life

was turned into something unimaginable

it was the day that the whole country of

cambodia

was taken over by the communist party

revolution called khmer rouge

everyone in this capital city of phnom

penh was forced to evacuate

leaving all their belongings behind and

travel

by food to the outside city

and all we were told that we would

return after three days

but that three day turn into three years

eight months and twenty day

of living in the countryside and working

on the collective farm

during those years children were

separated from their parents

many people was killed tortured

and one of them was my dad

when i was about 10 it’s time for me to

leave the family cottage

to join the labor camp

i was scared because a year earlier

when my older sister and my brother left

home

to the labor camp we never seen or heard

from them since

so the morning that someone came to take

me away

i wanted to cry but i knew that i

shouldn’t

nor should my parents because we always

had been educated that children was the

property of

anka which what the khmer rouge called

the government

so the children should only

listen and give the devotion to anka

only

so instead of giving

a physical affection my dad leaned

forward

to my ear and said just be useful

and that was it while i was

walking to the camp i kept thinking

about what my dad said

and what it meant

after walking all day through the

villages

through the field through the jungle

over a mountain

we arrived at the labor camp where i

could

stay close to my big sister for a while

there was no training period for any new

kids

there is no time to walk but to run

no time for trying but just do it

if you try your best and was not good

enough

you had better figured out fast why was

that not good enough like everybody else

there was punishment for working too

slow

for complaining for carelessness

forgetfulness life was

terrible miserable painful

more than i could cope with

and i said to myself what my dad said

did not help at all

on one rainy evening after working

and get beaten by sandbag for hours in

the right field

i was wet and cold and i

had no dry clothes to change into

and while i was trying to get warm

and um and to dry my clothes that i was

wearing

and i saw some rye cracker

that partly burns but they look so

inviting and i was so hungry

so what my dad

said to me suddenly popped in my mind

so i thought if i have to cook vendors

though

to get the flat the flame going

since that seemed to be the problem then

the cook may reward me those rye

crackers

rye cracker so i did

i had learned how to rearrange the

firewood from the girl in the village

and i did get the flame going and i did

get some of those rye crackers for

dinner

within a few months of standing in the

mud

for at least eight hours a day my feet

got

infected without any medication

it got to the point that i could not

walk to

the rice field so i had to stay with the

sick people

where my feet got treated in the warm

tamarind leaf water solution

but the price

that i had to pay for not being able to

work in the rice field it was

the bowls of rice

my feet got improved but not good enough

to get back to work in the fields yet

when some of the sick was taken away

during the night i got really worried

and the feelings that i could be next

and my parents did not even know

anything about it

it terrifies me

more than the bowls of rice so

again i thought about what my dad had

said

and look for a way to be useful

so i asked the nurse if i could if i can

help

her to distribute ball of porridge to

the very sixth patient

to my relief she’s agreed she was very

happy that i helped her

with that duties right twice a day but i

still could not get

the boat off right back yet then

i saw some elderly people finding straw

for making houses so i asked if i could

do that

between sowing meal to patient and

soaking my feet

from then on i learned how to bind straw

look after baby while the mothers was

working

in the fields i was very happy that i

could get the bolt of rice back

more and more i started to understand

what being useful mean and so much that

i want to go home

and tell my dad

not long after this my sister

was sent to a very far away camp

and i was moved as well to the children

camp

which located even further away in the

jungle

where the farmland was not cultivated

yet

in the children camp there was about 60

children

four adults and one grandpa and we call

him grandpa doom

one day when i was

working on top of the hill next to

grandpa dom and i heard

screaming and i turned around to look

and there was two water buffalo

just running fiercely towards grandpa

dome

and my direction and grandpa don’t leave

his hole to scare them away

and he shouted demand for me to run for

my life

i did not know how but i fell

face down on the ground

but i remember the feeling that

the egg buffalo feet just trembling

on my back when they had

gone grandpa don’t turn me over my

closure strip

and torns full of blood

and my right arm just dangling down when

they lift me up

thankfully grandpa dom treated my wounds

and my broken shoulder

by himself in his cottage

preparing an organic remedy using papaya

leaf papaya fruit and other ingredients

and the natural heat therapies slowly

i gradually recovered and was able to

stand

up with my arm in the sling

but i was not strong enough to go back

to work in the field yet

with these constant fears of being

useless

and being rid of i went to the kitchen

to see

what i could do with one hand

so i fan the fire pick up fruit and

vegetable

helped to prepare food and above all

i learned by observing how to cook rice

for 65 people

in a giant walk after my recovery

working in the kitchen become my

full-time job

since i have learned so much and the

cook found that i was useful to have

around

there was many incidents in those years

that i almost died

from drowning sickness of malaria

and stabilizing etc

what happened in those three years eight

months and 20 days had take away so much

from our life

that some prefer not to look back

but to me

there have been so many occasions in

life that i

remind myself of what i had been through

and appreciate what i have learned from

it

dear everyone although this war happened

so many years ago

the world that my dad had whispered in

my ear

the day that i was taking away

is still ingrained in my mind today

just be useful

be useful to yourself make effort to

learn

basic necessary skills in life

whether that be making food cleaning you

have your own room

showing by hand or usual machine

after all you will never know when you

will need it

in the future be useful to your family

be aware of your family situation

whether that be

physically mentally or financially

offer help and understanding

wherever you can only with this

you can extend your usefulness to your

community

your country and so on

today i still finding way to improve

myself

to continue to learn new way of making

different kind of food to make myself

useful

in order to support my family

i find way to be useful

to our community in hong kong

i have joined and donate whatever i can

to help those that are homeless

in hong kong as a result from the

current

pandemic i wish to say

is you don’t have to go through a war

to learn how to survive and you don’t

have to go through a dramatic life

experience

to start realizing that you are the

person

who can make and shape your own path

life itself is a barrel

you shouldn’t have to wait

until it is too late to realize that

making yourself useful regardless

of context is important

at all stages in life so

go forth and be useful

thank you

you