Buffalo Girl: My Journey to Freedom

By Hoang K. Taing and Pierre Salinger

Buffalo Girl- My Journey to Freedom is a gripping drama, a celebration of the human spirit, and a beacon of hope for all. Hoang Taing affirms that for even the youngest member of a shattered family, forced to live in the bleak landscape of a war-torn country, lo

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thinkpositivehappycom LLC
• Release date: Dec 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781087936826

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Copyright © 2019 Think Positive Happy Publications.

Hong K. Taing

Buffalo Girl - My Journey to Freedom

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of any license permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

Published by:

Thinkpositivehappy.com LLC

www.Thinkpositivehappy.com

4005 Wisconsin Ave NW, Suite 5555

Washington, DC 20016

Email: [e-mail]

Phone: [phone]

Publisher Number: 191482

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018913479

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Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

Award Winning Poem: In the Healing Field

Prologue: Hope for Peace in the White House Rose Garden

CHAPTER 1   Life before the Civil War

CHAPTER 2   Life Interrupted

CHAPTER 3   Herded Down the Dusty Road

CHAPTER 4   Our New Home

CHAPTER 5   Finding a Ray of Hope

CHAPTER 6   Life as a Buffalo Girl

CHAPTER 7   Cruelty of Daily Life

CHAPTER 8   The Most Elegant Woman I Ever Knew

CHAPTER 9   Liberation and Survival

CHAPTER 10   Endless Nightmare

CHAPTER 11   In Search of Freedom

CHAPTER 12   A New Life in America

CHAPTER 13   Living in a Children’s Home

CHAPTER 14   Finding Strength

CHAPTER 15   Going Home

CHAPTER 16   Opportunity, Responsibility, and Community

Original Poem: America! You are Truly the Beautiful!

CHAPTER 17   Self-Esteem and Resiliency

CHAPTER 18   Plight of the Refugee

Poem: Prayers Can’t Be Answered Unless They Are Prayed

CHAPTER 19   Epilogue: Dark Past, Bright Future

CHAPTER 20   Giving Back

Appreciation

About the Author

Foreword

My relationship with Hoang started when I met her at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where I was one of the panel speakers.

Hoang asked the panel a question, and I was impressed with her question so I decided to visit and talk with her afterwards. I found out later that not only was she one of the youngest members to attend the World Economic Forum, but she had also come from a war-torn country. I inquired about her occupation, and she told me that she was still a student getting her graduate degree in Washington, D.C. I gave her my business card and told her to see me when she got back to Washington. Ever since, I have kept track of Hoang and have always served as a mentor for her.

Hoang is one of the most focused people I know. She writes and speaks well and will be a role model in contributing peace and understanding in the world. Hoang’s intellectual training in America and Europe, her extensive travel to many countries, and most important – her ability to analyze situations and her depth in understanding humanity, amazes me. Her message of personal responsibility, academic excellence, self-esteem, resiliency, community service, students against violence, and physical fitness continues to be a welcome one in our complex world.

Pierre Salinger (1925 - 2004)

White House Press Secretary to President Kennedy

(part of this appeared in The Georgetowner)

Ms. Hoang Taing’s book is about the power to think positively with the content of joy and happiness. This is truly a Christian principle of life.

Our Christian teaching is that our ability to frame our thoughts within the context of being positive and joyous is a result of right relationship to God through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ and through being filled with the Holy Spirit. The Fruit of the Holy Spirit produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control as articulated in Galatians 5:22-23.

The unconditional Divine Love is not only of God but for God. This also encompasses love of parents and family, love for others which is fully articulated in First Corinthians Chapter Thirteen.

The Love of God forms our self-esteem for we were created in the image and likeness of God. It forms the structural function of our courage, perseverance, and passion and never to give up hope. We must have an attitude to change all things and to reflect the unconditional love of God for all.

The love of God can change any negative situation which is the clear life testimony message of Ms. Hoang Taing’s book: Buffalo Girl: My Journey to Freedom. Philippians 4:4-7 states, Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving and let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things and the God of peace will be with you."

Despite our situations and circumstances the power to think within the framework of the positive mind will produce an inner quietness and tranquility from the conviction of certainty that God is faithful and true. All things work together for the good to those that love Him and are called according to His purposes allowing us not to be controlled or victimized by our environment.

The goal of life is not just to survive but thrive!

Ms. Hoang Taing’s book has truly provided and touched on significantly to the dialogue of Love, self-esteem and resiliency on encountering the Divine.

Embrace God!

Dr. Vince McLaughlin

Bishop

Pastor of Rockland Community Church

2921 Rockland Road

Front Royal, VA 22630

[phone]

[e-mail]

Love, self-esteem and resiliency are the central themes of this moving, emotional, and inspiring book by Hoang Taing. She recounts her remarkable journey from a child in Cambodia during the killing fields to a Presidential Ceremony in the White House Rose Garden. Hoang motivates others to see their self-worth and take charge of their own lives.

She is an example of not succumbing to bitterness, hatred, self-pity and overcoming through resiliency. How would you react to having to leave your home with only 15 minutes’ notice, viewing the horrors of war, searching fields and woods for food, being sent to live in another country -- not speaking its language -- by your parents?

Hoang not only survives these challenges but succeeds by employing the themes she writes about in this book. She learns a new language, wins honors and awards, graduates from college and graduate school, and becomes a contributing member of society.

I urge you to take Hoang’s message of love, self-esteem and resiliency and apply these qualities in your life. Commit to help people around the globe to be more positive in their outlook on life. Inspired by your example, I am confident they will do something constructive for themselves and their fellow human beings.

Lillian Hunt, MD

4501 Washington Boulevard, Suite 120

Arlington, VA 22203

[phone]

[e-mail]

My Parents and Our Ancestral Home

Preface

The simple message of this book consists of three themes: love, cooperation, and hope --values my parents passed on to me and my brothers and sisters. I hope to show how I came to understand their values in sharing recollections of my childhood years with you.

This book serves three purposes. First, to facilitate my own healing. It hasn’t always been an easy process. Living with painful memories associated with the profound loss of my loving parents, and the horrible war in Cambodia I witnessed as a child, I have had a difficult time finishing this book. Although the loss is years past, the excruciating pain, both physical and emotional, is still a part of each and every day.

Second, in recounting the horrors the war inflicted upon my family, and how it forever changed our lives, I want to draw special attention to the plight of refugees -- and anyone who has experienced grief, betrayal, disappointment, trauma, and the loss of loved ones -- and how we can all lend a hand to help one another by focusing on self-esteem, resiliency, and creating a good support system. I do not claim to be an expert in history or politics, and this story is neither a comprehensive historical study nor a monograph on a specific political situation. Nevertheless, I have done my best to ensure the accuracy of names, locations, and similar details, and, if there are any errors in my account, they are wholly unintentional.

Third, many of the toughest experiences recounted in this book have taught me valuable lessons about communication, cooperation, perseverance, and most importantly, hope, healing, and the vitality of life.

Having seen and experienced war, I know that I want to live in peace. With that in mind, I greatly admire the ideal of the Nobel Peace Prize, and its organization, as well as the many people working for peace worldwide. The Nobel Peace Prize, its Board and Foundation, works everywhere consistently and consciously toward peace. I, too, want to dedicate my life to peace and harmony through action, education, meditation, and spiritual enlightenment.

Life is not fair, but it is up to us -- you, me and everyone else -- to make it as fair as possible. My wish is to see children around the world playing happily in the vast open fields and beautiful gardens, having sustainable food to eat, having clean water to drink, getting a good education, living a balanced and productive life and providing social justice and economic opportunities for all. Most importantly, I want to show that the kind of love my parents taught me is something that money of any currency cannot buy, power of any strength cannot compel, and technology in any form, with any level of sophistication, cannot create. This real invigoration of love is the beacon of hope and vitality for life that can only come from the human spirit that lives in each of us!

In the Healing Field

This is the story that I must tell,

Sit down and listen to it well.

It begins in Cambodia with a young brave girl,

And turmoil that broke and remade her world.

Her strengths were her cause, calm, and confidence.

Her Chinese philosophy was her parents’—

"Whatever you learn is yours, your mind’s,

Go forth, trust God, help others, and be kind."

But carnage in Cambodia uprooted her life,

Her family the Khmer Rouge chased and knifed.

They were punished for their innocence, for no cause;

In the name of its people, Cambodia was lost.

To America she came to seek new life,

Where peace, freedom, and opportunity are rife,

To learn and achieve, and use her ability,

To foster faith, hope, and love, in the land of liberty.

From killing fields to a healing field, as you can see,

This young brave girl became the young brave woman, that is me!

— Hoang Taing

Published 1993 International Society of Poets and Sound Print Media

Awarded Most Original Poem

International Society of Poets, Owings Mills, Maryland

U.S.A.

Dedicated to

MY PARENTS

Mr. Ang Chen Taing and Mrs. Su Hart Taing

Wonderful and loving -- entrepreneurs, community leaders, and philanthropists. Their love, courage, sacrifice, and wisdom have been the cornerstone of my survival.

Also for my stepmom, Koo Neng Tuy, whom we called Emm

My Family Tree

Prologue

Hope for Peace in the White House Rose Garden

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.

– Helen Keller

I will never forget the lavish decorations in the White House Rose Garden on September 13, 1993. The United States flag flew alongside the Israeli and Palestinian flags. Leaders such as Vice President Al Gore and Secretary of State Warren Christopher mingled with other dignitaries, seeking to forge a path to peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. As a member of the team helping to arrange the festivities, I was one of the hundreds in attendance. For all of us gathered there, the day created lasting memories. With President Bill Clinton’s embrace of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat on the South Lawn of the White House, Mr. Rabin and Mr. Arafat, though deeply divided on many issues, shook hands. Photographers from around the world captured this historical moment.

For me, the day stirred up haunting memories from my past. Here I was witnessing an embrace between the leaders of two embattled nations. I wondered, how amazing it was that the suffering and death I witnessed as a child in Cambodia could coexist with the event taking place in front of me at the South Lawn and then in the Rose Garden of the White House, so filled with joyful colors and dreams of peace. Could the voices of cruelty really share the same planet with the voices of harmony?

Those horrific days from years earlier suddenly swarmed my mind, crowding out everything I saw and heard. For a moment, my pretty red dress became the rags of my childhood. Harshly shouted commands from Cambodian Communist soldiers drowned out pleasant conversations. Instead of roses, I saw only the fields that marked another day of work under those harsh conditions that tormented me. I saw dried blood, the only color emerging from the brown and gray fields of suffering. There was no promise of spring flowers or the warmth of the summer sun! The dirt and death around us degraded our bodies and spirits. Malnourishment reigned supreme. Everything in wartime Cambodia was depressing, and the war was the worst H-E-L-L on earth I have ever witnessed. There is no winner in any war and no good outcome. I saw poor infant children and elderly people left on the side of the road with very little food – a sure sign of imminent death. Little children cried because they could not find their parents amid the chaos. Lost or abandoned, children and loved ones in this wartime Cambodia were as hungry and thirsty for love as they were for food and drink.

Many who were present at the White House on that bright, sun-soaked September day had seen the commercials on television pleading for money to aid distended-bellied children around the world. In my moment of terror, I again felt like one of those children. The broken bodies of the children, literally ghosts in their own skin, crowded my vision. Their piteous cries for mercy floated on the gentle breeze in the Rose Garden.

Yet the simple things -- the rainbow colors of beautiful roses, ice cold water, and the beauty of the natural world, such as gorgeous mountains and blue and green oceans -- sustained me, relieved me, and suddenly I was back at the White House in my pretty red dress again, standing among the opulence and the vibrant color of life at that historic moment. I felt a tide of relief flood over me when I snapped out of my bad dream and realized that I was no longer trapped in the abyss of Communist Cambodia. Those years had passed, and I was at the White House with President Clinton, whom I met and whom I admired as the leader of a country respected for its peaceful democratic process.

Among the few people there that day who knew about my experience in Cambodia was Betty Currie, the personal assistant to President Clinton. She knew a great deal about my life story. Betty was glad I was there, able to witness the anticipated peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians.

CHAPTER 1

Life before the Civil War

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

— Proverbs 22:6

I have wonderful childhood memories of my early years with my family in Cambodia. We lived in Kampong Cham Province as well as in Phnom Penh, the capital city.

Before the war started, Phnom Penh was known as the Paris of Southeast Asia because of the French colonization of Cambodia. The French had a tremendous influence on Cambodian architecture and engendered a cosmopolitan mixture, harmonizing East and West, combining European and Asian culture. Cambodia continues to be known for its beauty and serenity and has been a favorite destination for tourists of all ages.

We residents of Phnom Penh and Kampong Cham, at least my family and everyone we knew in the city, led calm and contented lives before the war.

My parents owned two fabric stores, one in Kampong Cham and the other in Phnom Penh, at which they sold fancy garments from around the world. Our successful businesses enabled us to have a modern and comfortable home. From a child’s perspective, life in the Taing family was carefree.

I was still too young to go to school. My older siblings often said: If you kids can extend your right hand over your head and touch your left ear, you would be ready for school. Whether or not this was meant as a joke, we tried hard but still could not reach our left ears. I stayed home with my little brother Kheam, the youngest of the family, and we often played together around the house, especially with all the vibrant color of fabulous fabric that surrounded us. We played games like hide-and-go-seek or hero and villain, where I often cast myself as the hero and my little brother as the villain. Kheam put up with being the bad guy most of the time, and we had great fun running around our family shops among the large spools of colorful fabric in every nook and cranny in our stores.

To a child’s eyes, my parents’ shop in Kampong Cham was huge! Mom and Dad’s store was filled with large bolts and spools of beautiful fabric. Some of the fabrics were very soft and elegant: silk and cotton in various colors and patterns like polka dots, checkered, paisley, plaid, toile, abstract, geometric, and floral. Other fabrics were tough like leather, thick like cardboard paper, or slippery and rubbery like plastic. Many were purchased by street vendors and villagers, for either indoor or outdoor use, to protect their huts and stands from the elements like the torrential rain and the intense heat of the Southeast Asian sun.

Kheam and I would sometimes take attractive fabrics and cloths and wear them over our arms, or around our heads like turbans as if we were from the Middle East or Africa. For a child like me, the fabrics were the best way to create a make-believe world of fantasies, and yes, our shop certainly had an abundance of materials from which to choose. Sometimes I would pretend to be a fairy princess entering a grand palace, other times a doctor healing the sick, or an angel with a magic wand I could use to make everything real and beautiful!

My best memories from childhood center on love and playing. Besides playing with the fabric inside the house, Kheam and I loved to go to a nearby park to watch my brother Cheng fly kites under the clear blue sky. We also loved to play in the rain, especially splashing rainwater at one another and with other neighborhood children. Rainfall in Cambodia is warm, plentiful, and powerful. We, the children in Cambodia, would get so excited when it rained that we would jump for joy. We would run around singing while soaking up as much rainwater as possible. When the rain started to calm down, we didn’t want our fun to end there. Instead, we stood under the gutters letting the powerful rainwater flow out and pour over our heads and shoulders. We loved the tropical rain and never wanted it to stop. For sure, we, the children of Southeast Asia, especially us kids from Cambodia, love the tropical rain!

When the rain stopped, Kheam and I would be soaking wet. Our older siblings would bring us several towels and help us change into dry clothes. We would be so hungry that our parents would ask their helper to get us some delicious, ready-to-eat snacks from the market across the street from our house. We would fill our hungry stomachs with yummy stir-fried noodle dishes with seafood, Phnom Penh noodle soup, char kway teow (stir-fried rice cake strips, and tasty Asian snacks such as Chinese pound cake, soft egg custard bun or taro bun, hot and soft white tofu with sweet ginger syrup, steamed purple taro roots, and fresh sweet steamed corn, so…steamy and fresh! This was my life before the arrival of the civil war and the vicious Communist regime, known as the Red Khmer or Khmer Rouge.

My parents had a host of loyal customers who frequented their shops, including wealthy merchants as well as ordinary folks, but they did not cater to any particular group of people.

Mom and Dad enjoyed selling fabrics to everyone. Certainly, my siblings and I never considered my parents upper-class people, because they interacted with all sectors of society with ease.

I suppose they