The Rent Collector: Chapter One Summary & Analysis

In the year she comes to know the Rent Collector, Sang Ly discovers that heroes don’t only exist in fairytales, and “the most difficult battles in life are those we fight within.”

Sang Ly can hear trucks honking outside, even though her mind is still dreaming of being a child, talking to her lost grandfather, who tells her that today will be a lucky day. Sang Ly’s husband, Ki Lim, shakes her awake, and she realizes she overslept and has not prepared his lunch for the day. Sang Ly will bring his lunch in the afternoon since Ki needs to work an extra long day to make enough money to pay “the Cow.” As Ki steps out of their hut to go to work, Sang Ly holds their infant son Nisay, who is skinny, frail, and less responsive than he should be at his age. He is sick with diarrhea, as he has been for months, and no medicines have yet been able to cure him. As Sang Ly steps out into the morning light carrying her son, she tells him that Grandfather promised them a lucky day.

Sang Ly and her family live in Stung Meanchey—which ironically means “River of Victory”—the largest waste dump in Phnom Penh, Cambodia where her family, as well as many others, live in temporary shelters on rented land. Although the poverty and squalor is putrid and often dangerous, there is also a quiet beauty to it at times, which Sang Ly cherishes.

“The Cow” arrives, spoiling Sang Ly’s reverie. “The Cow” is the moniker the villagers gave the rent collector, Sopeap Sin. Sopeap is a foul, bitter, drunken woman, who comes around each month to collect rent from the villagers. Sang Ly hands Sopeap all of the money her family has, minus a bit she’s withheld to buy food for the evening. Sopeap knows that some is missing and demands it, and the two women bicker back and forth, as they always do, until Sopeap threatens to throw them out if they do not pay. She will return in the evening for the rest of the money.