Life
in the Country:
Comment
on this post with your assigned answers. You may collaborate with your
partner to come up with your answer but everyone
must post individually. Please include the question number with
your response.
1. What are “base people”?
What is a “Khmer”? Are Loung and her family Khmer? LR, JG
2. “All remnants of past
lives to be destroyed”. What does this mean? How is it carried out? KH, LB
3. The village chief
tells the people that “Bright colours only serve to corrupt your mind.” Is this
true? Why might he be saying this? HM,
KH
4. The Khmer Rouge
attempted to change the spoken language by banning words like Mr and Mrs, Sir
and Lord, mother and father. Why did they do this? LB, LR
5. Under the Khmer Rouge
all people are equal. Or are they? How many levels of society are there in the
village? Discuss. JG
**Note: you will have to read a few pages into the next reading assignment to complete all the questions
Due Saturday Nov. 23
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete2) "All remnants of past lives to be destroyed." This means everything from their past lives- colorful clothes, jewlry, pictures, and even religion- are destroyed beyond repair and lost forever. The Khmer soldiers take it all and burn it, shoot and blow temples up, and even break spirits through hard work and dangerous consequences.
ReplyDeleteGood point on the "breaking spirits" observations. It's just like the idea we talked about in class where torture occurs by taking away everything of value, both material and sentimental.
Delete3) I do not believe it is true, but I could see what he means. Bright, fun, beautiful colors help us to be individuals. We stand out and we can express ourselves. HE does not want the people to be individuals. He does not want them to have their own opinions. He wants everyone to be one and the same, so he assigns the same drab clothing to everyone. He has everyone's hair cut the same way. He wants no sign of individuality.
ReplyDeleteExactly. Dull = no identity or individuality.
DeleteThis is not necessarily true. Colors define groups, individuals, and allow people to express themselves. He does not want vibrant color and everyone to wear different colors because he wants everyone to be the same. The different colors are worn by the people who were for the old government not the Angkar, and that is absolutely unacceptable. Everyone is supposed to wear the same uniform because everyone is the same, living in the same community. This also comes into play in the different subject of food. If you have extra food it is your duty to the Angkar to share it with everyone. They want to be one not many different people.
ReplyDeleteGood response Hannah. And I realized I only had your initials on one question, but your answer is very thorough with direct references to the book so we'll just go with the one.
ReplyDelete1) What are “base people”?
ReplyDeleteBase people are the people that were int he country areas before the takeover. They were already workers there.
2) What is a “Khmer”?
The soldiers that work for the government takeover.
3) Are Loung and her family Khmer?
No, they aren't.
4) Under the Khmer Rouge all people are equal. Or are they? How many levels of society are there in the village? Discuss.
Under the Khmer Rouge all people are not created equally. There are many levels of sociert that are in the villages.
2. " All remnants of past lives to be destroyed." By saying this it is implied that all personal affects and even feelings of how you lived before this moment are to be forgotten or burned. All colorful clothing and jewelry are to be put forth to be destroyed.
ReplyDelete4. With the Khmer Rouge wanted to equal how everyone spoke to each other. They were trying to make a pure society that wasn't affected by the foreign fancy words that gave some people a higher place in town.
ReplyDelete