First They Killed My Father: Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

Khouy and Meng enter a temple to fetch water from its well, but a soldier is guarding it and demands they leave. Others enter the temple anyway, and they hear gunshots. On the third day of walking Loung observes that there haven’t been any American planes in the sky. She is excited because she thinks they can return home as the soldiers said, but that evening Pa tells her that the soldiers lied. Loung sobs from hunger and exhaustion; though they are rationing food, Pa lets her have a ball of sticky rice and takes the pot she is carrying from her. Loung sees that many of the people walking are barefoot, and realizes many are worse off than she is.

On the fourth day, they reach the Khmer Rouge’s military checkpoint in Kom Baul. Soldiers question families before they can pass and insist none lie to the “Angkar,” which Pa says means “the organization” and is the new government. Cambodia was a monarchy until a military coup in 1970 by the Lon Nol democratic government, which had been at war with the Khmer Rouge ever since.

There is a separate checkpoint line for anyone who worked for the deposed government. Pa says they must pretend to be peasants, and that only he should speak. Loung watches the soldiers empty a man’s bag, and, upon discovering a Lon Nol army uniform, push him away with the butt of a rifle. After many hours the Ungs reach the soldiers. Pa says he works and in a shipping port and Ma says she sells clothes at the market. A soldier digs through all their bags and then clears them to go.

That night Loung dreams she is at a Lunar New Year’s celebration filled with fireworks. When she wakes up, she overhears Ma say that the soldiers opened fire on all the people who worked for the previous government, killing every single one. Keav takes Loung to go to the bathroom in the woods and they stumble across a dead body, which horrifies her.

The family walks for a sixth day, spurred forward by the soldiers. Many people become ill from heatstroke and dehydration but are forced to keep moving. That night Meng, Khouy, and Kim forage for food and return with some brown sugar, much to Loung’s delight. After dinner Ma leads the girls to the river to bathe and wash their clothes. The next day they see a lone cyclist on the road, and realize it is Ma’s brother Uncle Leang. He gives Ma a package of food and tells Pa that ever since evacuees arrived in his village he has been searching for the family. Later Ma’s oldest brother Uncle Heang arrives with a wagon. Both uncles have always lived in the countryside and as such are considered “uncorrupted model citizens” by the Khmer Rouge. Pa says they will live with them in the village of Krang Truop.