CAMBODIA

Phnom Penh Siem Reap

Sinarth: A Dedication to life

This website, our Facebook site and especially the book

are based on the real-life account of an ordinary boy’s extraordinary journey to adulthood in Cambodia after the United States left Indochina in 1975.

Through fate,

any one of us could have been placed in his position, to witness genocide, fight in battle, bear the sorrow of loss and discover all-consuming love.

The wonderful addition to this story is that Sinarth is available throughout the day at the Cambodian War Museum in Siem Reap where he is one of the senior guides and speaks fabulous English. One can have a chat about his life, the book, the war and/or take a tour with him or one of the other four guides

Writing this book

entailed countless interviews and numerous journeys

with Sinarth over three years visiting places from his past.

The result is a story of Sinarth’s life as an emotional interpretation, from childhood through to adulthood.

From this perspective, his perception of events

was often in conflict with the historical reality.

The recollections of these incidents

are tempered by time, combined with the Buddhist approach Sinarth learned later in his life. This gave him the tools to evade overwhelming trauma, by remembering negative events as positive and skewing memories.

Sinarth the book - Water Buffalos in Cambodia are used for rice farming and transportation of goods, thsi continuing throughout the Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge periods

Sinarth - Rice farming in Cambodia Continued under Pol Pots Khmer Rouge regime outside the main cities of POhnom Penh anmd Siem Reap

Nate Thayer

For those whom would like

a definitive political, historical and first hand account of Cambodia over a timeline from a highly respected investigative journalist then the very best person to read is Nate Thayer.

Nate Thayer was the Cambodian correspondent for The Far East Asian Review from 1979 to 1996, speaks fluent Khmer and knew both Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge leadership. He gave the final interview with Pol Pot and was present to witness Pol Pot on his death bed and cremation in the mountains on the Thai border north of Anlong Veng in Cambodia.

He was nominated for a Pulitzer prize by the Wall Street Journal and is extremely prolific as a writer and expert on Cambodia. His views are hard hitting, brutally honest and fearless.

Links to his Blog, writing archives and his book in progress

'Sympathy for the Devil'

chronicling his writings and time spent

with Pot Pot and the Khmer Rouge are a must read.

The amazing privilege is he welcomes discussion

on all these topics from all comers.

Nate Thayer Blog

Sympathy For The Devil

Nate Thayer Archives

Sinarth - Cambodian Children have a great affinity with the water and continued to play in it even under Pol Pot and his khmer Rouge regime that banned all such play

Sinarth the book | Two young Buddhist Monks at a temple outside of Siem Reap in Cambodia. Older monks suffered terribly under Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge through the 1975 1979 period

Sinarth - Buddhist monks suffered terribly under Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge through the 1975 to 1979 period

Cambodge …

On those long endless days

When you may feel hollow,

With that strange desolate melancholy

For no apparent reason.

A feeling of loss that lingers,

So vividly,

It could be snatched

From the surrounding air.

Time slows,

While fleeting grasps of memory,

Of déjà vu,

Hover suspended,

Flickering in and out of reach.

Imagine for a moment,

That time

Was not rigid

But pliable,

Like a stopped clock,

And beginning to tick backwards,

This entrapment released.

And, free of time’s bonds,

One could float away,

To connect,

Into that aching

For lives long lost

Whose previous memories

Were just out of reach …

To race across mountain jungle canopies,

hiding tigers, elephants and other wild beasts.

To hear gibbons call with long cool whoops.............

'Sinarth' by Karl Levy

Hopefully,

this book sheds light on Sinarth’s

life’s journey and serves as a cautionary tale,

that it could have been any one of us through happenstance placed in his situation.

His story is representative of events

experienced by many Cambodians, each story comparable,

but every Cambodian completes a different journey.

An important note

is that many separate, though very similar,

characters were involved in Sinarth’s life at different times over the forty years covered in this book. For the sake of brevity and through use of poetic licence, I have often combined several people into one character.

Many incidents of violent battles,

of love and genuine care,

I have merged into single events.

I have created metaphors for various emotional

responses to real situations, inventing scenes at times

to communicate those feelings.

These aspects are woven together

into a single tapestry to tell the story.

Sinarth - As always Rice farming in cambodia provided the majority iof food even under Pol Pts Khmer Rouge period from 1975 to 1979 until liberated by the Vietnamese.

Building a Buddha Land

The world with all its greed

and injustice and bloodshed

Appears as a Devil’s world.

But blood can be turned into milk

And greed into compassion,

And the Devil’s land

Becomes a Buddha Land.

A land of perfect peace

Where there is no greed, no anger,

No ignorance, no suffering and no darkness.

There is only Wisdom

And the rain of compassion.

—“Buddhist Teaching

These deadly munitions are the perfect soldiers, peacefully lying in wait for their victims. Painted bright orange and yellow, they masquerade as balls for children’s games. They might be a fraction of a turn from detonation, a mere touch causing an explosion, or they may need many revolutions until they inevitably explode in the children’s hands.

Sinarth by Karl Levy