Page 46 of Taipei Story

“Yes—well, he’s also Chinese. His family were overseas merchants from China living in Cambodia. There were a lot of overseas Chinese at that time. They went everywhere—Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, all over Southeast Asia.”

“So how did he end up back in China?”

“His parents sent him. They wanted him to contribute to his country. They sent him back for school, and they expected him to work for the government when he grew older.”

“Did a lot of Chinese people do that?”

“The overseas Chinese, yes. They were living in Cambodia, but their allegiance was to China. So when it seemed like China might become a modern republic—after the Qing dynasty was overthrown—they sent their eldest son back to help build a new nation. There were a lot of dreams at that time, you understand. He was fourteen. They sent him to join the Nationalist youth corps, and then he was supposed to study law. It’s very sad.”

I was still catching up to the thought of Gonggong at fourteen, crossing Southeast Asia so that he could help build a nation in a country he had never seen. At fourteen I was watching Riverdale and crying because my cute lab partner in AP Chemistry didn’t like me back. “What’s very sad?”

“Because that meant he had to be far from home, and then after the Communist takeover, he never saw them again.”

“Why not?”

“Because of Pol Pot,” said my mother, like I was being dense. “Do you know about the Khmer Rouge?”

I understood this reference. I had learned about the Cambodian genocide in high school. I knew the vaguest details about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge and the peasant revolutionaries who took scythes to the countryside. What I didn’t understand was what this had to do with Gonggong.

“Wait.” I was still trying to follow the plot. “So you’re saying—Gonggong’s parents—they were targeted by the Khmer Rouge? They got genocided?”

“They were educated people, right? And the Khmer Rouge hated educated people.”

“Were they landlords?”

“Lily, they were Communists.” My mother snorted. “They weren’t landlords. They weren’t targeted on political grounds—there was no logic to it. The Khmer Rouge made everyone in their town leave their homes and go on a march—”

“A march to where?”

“Nowhere. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter—they were just marching, the marching was the whole point. And then your gonggong never heard from them again.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just mean he just couldn’t get any more information.”

“So they died?”

“I suppose so.”

“What do you mean, you suppose so?”

I couldn’t understand why she was being so vague about this. I felt I was asking rather basic questions, and that she was being recalcitrant to spite me, because who on earth merely supposed that their relatives might or might not have died?

“I don’t know,” said my mother. “They must have. Because your gonggong never heard from them again.”

“Did he ever go back to Cambodia?”

“No, he couldn’t. The borders were closed then, remember. It was very hard to get out.”

“Then how could he have made sure?”

“Lily.” My mother sounded exasperated. “How would he have made sure?”

“But how can we not know?”

I wanted confirmation. I wanted facts. I needed this story to make sense: the vagaries shaded in, the death dates certain, the bodies labeled and buried.

“Come on, Lily. It wasn’t like a dinner reservation, okay? It wasn’t like everyone had a spot in line, and we had everyone’s phone numbers and dietary restrictions and credit card receipts and all that. There was no documentation. It just happened, and we’ve never seen them since, so we know they’re dead.”