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