Loung Ung was born in 1970. Her earliest childhood memories are of a large and pleasant flat on the third floor of a comfortable building in the centre of Phnom Penh, surrounded by the love and affection of her parents and siblings. Loung Ung was the second youngest of seven siblings, three boys and four girls, and shared the majority of her mother’s affections with her little sister, Geak. The children were able to attend the best schools, and led carefree lives full of friends, social occasions, holidays, and celebrations. Loung’s mother was of Chinese descent, and was slender and fair, while her father was Cambodian, and was a robust man with kind eyes and darker skin.
Loung and her siblings learnt French and English, and were familiar with the western culture of the capital, which was a result of the long-standing French colonial presence and continuing European influence in the area. There were still so many Westerners living in Cambodia that they were all called ‘barang’, meaning ‘French’, regardless of their nationality. Cambodia was a French colony until 1953, and gradually became a self-sufficient and wealthy country in the 1950s and 1960s, after it gained independence.
The Ung family was well-off thanks to the father’s government job. He was the sole breadwinner in the family, but he earned a good salary that allowed them to pay for a car, a maid, the children’s education, good food, and fashionable clothes.
The siblings were all close, despite the bickering that is typical among children, pre-teens, and teenagers. Of all the children, Loung was the most boisterous and eccentric; even at five years old, she was much more determined and passionate than her shy and quiet sister Chou, who was three years older than her; nevertheless, the two were inseparable.