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While the United States battled the Communists of North Vietnam in the 1960s and '70s, the neighbouring country of Cambodia was attacked from within by dictator Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge imprisoned, enslaved, and murdered the educated and intellectual members of the population, resulting in the harrowing "killing fields"–rice paddies where the harvest yielded nothing but millions of skulls.

Young Sichan Siv–a target since he was a university graduate–was told by his mother to run and "never give up hope!" Captured and put to work in a slave labor camp, Siv knew it was only a matter of time before he would be worked to death–or killed. With a daring escape from a logging truck and a desperate run for freedom through the jungle, including falling into a dreaded pungi pit, Siv finally came upon a colorfully dressed farmer who said, "Welcome to Thailand."

He spent months teaching English in a refugee camp in Thailand while regaining his strength, eventually Siv was allowed entry into the United States. Upon his arrival in the U.S., Siv kept striving. Eventually rising to become a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Siv returned with great trepidation to the killing fields of Cambodia in 1992 as a senior representative of the U.S. government. It was an emotionally overwhelming visit.

Customer Reviews (14)

"To Keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss"
Between 1975 and 1979, the Khmer Rouge under the authoritarian regime of Pol Pot, attempted a form of social engineering unprecedented in history.Pol Pot, a relatively obscure peasant who had unsuccessfully pursued engineering in Paris, tried to re-engineer Cambodian society on Maoist principles by eradicating the past.

He ordered the mass relocation of the population of entire cities, including the capital, Phnom Penh;destroyed social unity by conscripting workers into labor gangs; abolished currency and all forms of money; and even declared that Time, as it existed, would be stopped and resume at "Year Zero," the first year of his regime. Self-sufficiency was rewarded, and non- productive people imprisoned or executed. Education and culture were swept away, and those who were educated or skilled, especially in foreign cultures, were eliminated. It was as if Orwell's "Animal Farm" had taken over Joseph Conrad's Congo in "Heart of Darkness," all against a backdrop of Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now."

Statistics are difficult to come by because many records were destroyed, but the best estimate is that between 1.5 and 2 million Cambodians were tortured, worked, or starved to death in Pol Pot's reign of terror. As a factor of the population (about 8 million), that makes "The Killing Fields" one of the deadliest episodes of genocide in modern history. Human bones and piles of skullslittered the landscape and are still being unearthed thirty years later.
Hundreds, mostly children, are killed or maimed by land mines years after the war.
Responsibility for these atrocities has been delayed by the passage of time and by the death of many of the key players, including Pol Pot, ("Brother Number One") who died in 1998. Ieng Sary, or "Brother Number Three," faces crimes against humanity charges in an International Court. So far, there have been no convictions or legal consequences to the individuals involved.I've probably taken up too much time and space retelling the story, but as far as I'm concerned it can't be told often enough.The news media, in my judgment, didn't adequately cover the atrocities in Cambodia, just as they missed the enormity of the genocide in Rwanda.
The newly-created Cambodia was a dangerous place for anyone with an education, cultural awareness, and social status.... Like Sichan Siv.Fluent in French and English, trained in diplomacy, and employed by an international relief agency ("Care") he was a prime target for arrest.
His autobiography, "Golden Bones: An Extraordinary Journey from Hell in Cambodia to a New Life in America"... is a triumph of the human spirit.
He details in vivid but unsensational style his hastily-arranged departure from Phnom Penh a few steps ahead of the Khmer Rouge.(He had missed the last US Airlift of Cambodian employees by minutes.... Just as Vietnamese who assisted the United States in Saigon were stranded when Saigon fell. As he worked his way toward Thailand as a rice grower, truck driver and crane operator in Teak forests ,Sichanendured the relentless march of the Khmer Rouge. "Less than one year after the victorious Khmer Rouge had come swaggring into Phnomh Penh, the countrywide lay in ruins. The mass extermination of nearly 2 million Cambodians was well underway...With a population of only 8 million, this country had been flung into one of the twentieth century's grimmest nightmares."
Sichan finally did make his way to Thailand where he spent several months in a refugee camp. His eventual evacuation to the United States, a chance meeting that led to a job with the Bush White House, and appointment as US Ambassador to the United Nations rounds out this inspired, astonishing story. Sichan owes his survival to his faith in the Buddhist principles he learned from his mother.

A Life Given to and for Others
Our Author, Sichan Siv, and I first met some forty years ago working in the cause of international refugees.While Our close friendship has continued over the decades, "Golden Bones" brought home to me so clearly the extraordinary challenges that he faced and overcame in his life.We can all be inspired by the story of his life that moved from his threatened existence to a person who gave so much to the world in so many ways.We are all the beneficiaries of his experiences and can look forward to hearing about his future accomplishments.

From Taxi Driver to Ambassador: The Cambodian-American Dream
My latest literary journey back to Cambodia was through Sichan Siv's book Golden Bones. To fully illustrate the miracle of this story, I must preface this review with an introduction of the extraordinary man that is Sichan Siv. While every Cambodian citizen was in peril during the Khmer Rouge (KR) regime, the educated social classes were the initial victims of elimination. Mr. Sichan Siv personified all that the KR sought to eradicate. Even in pre-war Cambodia, as the young Siv suffered the untimely passing of his father, he persevered to attain the highest level of education possible in his country. As a gangly youth learning French, and then a tall, spectacled college student, Siv doggedly followed his academic pursuits while also bringing in money to help his newly widowed mother provide the basics for a large family reeling from tremendous loss.

Sichan Siv's intense curiosity, dedication to self-advancement, and ambition laid the foundation for a stratospheric career that has taken him from being a teacher and taxi driver to the White House as deputy assistant to former President George H. W. Bush and ultimately to the U.N. as a U.S. ambassador. He is a pioneer in every facet of his life, redefining the concept of self-actualization and imbuing it with a super human quality. Ironically, as you will learn from reading his story, it was this very level of accomplishment that marked him for critical extermination according to the KR doctrine.

Siv begins his book with the early history of Cambodia, an especially important perspective given the recent destruction of ancient literature and other tangible aspects of Khmer culture during the KR's "purification" process. The KR's attempt to erase an entire era of living and written record is met with Siv's typically understated, elegant prose as he educates the reader on Cambodia's past.

Siv then describes his experiences during the KR regime. Once he fully understood their malicious intentions, Siv threw away his eye glasses, rewrote his past, and refrained from speaking, fearful that a slip into French would bring death. His most heart-wrenching act of sacrifice was leaving his beloved family behind in his native village in an effort to ensure their survival.

Despite eluding execution on more than one occasion with the help of his devout Buddhist faith, a razor-sharp intellect, and a guardian angel in the form of a truck driver, Siv knew his time was limited under the murderous regime. The circumstances that provided him opportunity for escape were nothing short of a series of miracles, precipitated by a benevolent and omnipotent protective force.

Siv expands his account beyond his arrival in America, revealing his struggles to acculturate and weave a new life from an unraveled tapestry. His honesty, humility, and sense of humor grace every passage of this memoir. Siv holds nothing back, baring his battered flesh and "golden bones." Through his courage we can all gain empowerment, healing, and a deeper understanding for the wisdom of a generation lost. I cried, I despised, I laughed, but mostly, I was captivated, unable to peel this book from my tired eyes well into the late hours of the evening. Get this book. Golden Bones is a must-read testimony of the resilience, endurance, and infinite heights that can be reached by the human spirit.

A wonderful example of a Khmer with an "ascendant" character
Hierachy, opression, and requisite conformity characterize the typical Cambodian experience. Yet even within this framework, individuals emerge - "ascendant personalities" - who are able to survive the harshest of deprivations, tortures, and self-betrayal. Furthermore, they not only survive but emerge self-aware, entrepreneurial and full of hope. These ascendant personalities constitute more than an isolate phenomenon, more than a breakthrough of purely individual triumph. They also represent the potential of Cambodians to develop, use, and evolve an inner strength despite a culture that has yet to truly value the qualities that keep these ascendant personalities alive and thriving - qualities such as autonomy, introspection, independent thinking, creative imagination, and entreprenurialism. And beyond the Cambodian application alone, their ability to survive and thrive illustrates the human capacity to use adversity to enhance one's capabilities, evolve one's vision, and transform a baseline warrior tradition into the same creative force repsonsible for Angkor Wat and other treasures of Cambodian's Golden Age.

One of the factors responsible for ascendant personalities is their belief that they are special; that they have been infused with a super god-force that protects them and enables them to fulfill the mission that they feel chosen for, usually a mission to their family and country. In the case of Mr. Siv it was his mother's advice to "never give up hope" and others attributing his great "luck" and success in life to having"Golden Bones". This conviction of specialness gives them a "trauma immunity" similar to the immunity of terminally ill patients who baffle their doctors by going into remission despite negative offs and grim prognoses. This was the greatest gift Mr. Siv's mother gave him that enabled him to continue on despite all odds and it is thus no surprise that Mr. Siv dedicated his book to his mother. .By studying the survival characteristics of such people, not only can we be inspired, but we can learn how to locate, even emulate those characteristics within ourselves. Ascendant personalities within the framework of a conforming, oppressive, hierarchical culture........like the one Mr. Siv escaped from......teach us about the surprising reaches of human potential, as well as the potential of a reconstructed-from within Cambodia.

For some, physical survival was sometimes the luck of the draw or a matter of timing. Survival of the psyche was not simply a matter of luck or good fortune, however. To move away from imminent death of the spirit to embrace the possibilities of ascendancy was a journey to be traveled on what Cambodian wisdom calls "the curved path". To surmount life's most difficult challenges a Cambodian proverb advises, "Do not abandon the curved path; don't travel on the straight path." The curved path is not laid out like a roadmap, however, with specific markers and directions which a person could follow. It is a path which demands instead that the traveler summon his creativity and life force to confront the barriers which characterize the life conditions, to bend according to the circumstances. Those survivors who have not succumbed to the darkness of their despair demonstrate to the fullest the qualities needed.

It is a spirit I see often. I see it in the 17 year old waitress in Phnom Penh who speaks four languages fluently and will soon be departing to study university in Japan. I see it in a student who graduated from Phnom Penh university in 1999 and now has a PHD and teaches at an American University. I see it often in Cambodia. I see it in Dr. Sophal Ear who fled with his widowed mother and four siblings, earned three masters degrees, a doctorate and speaks four or five languages.

It is the strength og the inner will, the innermost essence of self, which distinguishes ascendant personalities. A strong will is not simply an accident of nature, however, but usually has been refined throughout the life experience and strengthened in much the same way that muscles of the body become stronger with exercise. As both a conscious exercise or more unconscious reaction, ascendant personalities engage in a consistent effort to build the strength of will to survive. They carry out the simple tasks of life with energy, precision, persistence, and concentration, competing almost with themselves to perfect the task until it becomes a habit.

In contrast to the body of thought which suggests that traumatic experiences must always be indelibly etched on the human soul in a way which leaves scars for life, ascendant personalities provide ample evidence that there is the equal potential for using the experience to reflect on their life in a more positive way.

A Great Role Model
Golden Bones is straightforward, honest, informative, educational and entertaining. It is about the twist of fate, instinctual drive for survival, mystery, mother's message of hope, overcoming obstacles, outsmart the young brainwashed Khmer Rouge cadres, perseverance and triumph. The author of this book has an impressive story and character. If anyone could turn the number 13 superstition that is often perceived as bad luck into good luck, it is pretty amazing. This author did it and I admire him. In the summer of 1989, I met him at the California State University Stanislaus in Turlock. Then I knew that he must be the one who could reverse Vietnam's annexation of Cambodia because I knew that he will be close to the president of the United States, working at the White House as an assistant at the Office of Public Liaison. If it is too hard to believe that someone who escaped the horrific killing fields of Cambodia with only two dollars in the pocket, working in a fast food restaurant, a taxi cab driver in New York City, and thirteen years later, held a job at the White House as a public liaison officer for the president and as a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations,thus Golden Bones is really worth reading. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (5)

Great Book On Little Known Subject
Steven Morris's work on this book is amazing. I have such a better understanding of the conflict between Cambodia and Vietnam from the early '70s to 1989. North Vietnam, China and the USSR are culpable regarding the victory of Pol Pot in 1975, and not American bombing as so many Stalinists try to claim. N. Vietnam had their eyes on Cambodia all along, but had to buy their time during the conflict with the U.S.

Superbly researched and carefully argued
This book is undoubtedly one of the few "must have" books on Vietnam and Cambodia. The author has produced a very carefully argued and superbly researched analysis of the Vietnamese relationship with Cambodiaand the Vietnamese relationships with the Soviet Union and China. It showshow our conventional thinking in terms of states only pursuing theirnational security or economic interests doesn't explain why the Vietnameseand the Khmers Rouges each provoked their larger neighbors (The KhmersRouges provoked Vietnam and Vietnam provoked China). The idea that the weakcan provoke the stronger goes against our "common sense"understanding of how states behave, but it obviously did happen in thesecases. Morris also has a very good writing style (I even found the moreabstract conceptual discussion in the introduction and conclusion quiteeasy to follow) and the narrative flows quite nicely. He has alsointroduced the concept of "hyperMaoism" to explain the outlook ofthe Khmers Rouges, which is something that I find quite insightful. Hisresearch in Soviet archives also brought forth some fascinatingrevelations, regarding how little the Vietnamese leadership knew andunderstood about the motives of the Khmers Rouges leaders. And the Sovietdocuments also bring completely new information on how Vietnam's relationswith China broke down during the 1970s.I had read every book published onthe Vietnamese communists and the Khmers Rouges, but this book has taughtme a lot that I didn't know. The tone of the work is quite dispassionate,and its approach completely objective, as Morris tries to get inside thethinking of all of the parties to the conflict. Highly recommended.

Many assumed 'facts' went uncheck
After so many years of digging through the Soviet archives, Mr. Morris forgot to double and triple check his supposedly 'facts' and got carried away with believing everything he read from the basements in Moscow.

The problem with Morris analysis is that it left out the Beijing angle. The Vietnam-Cambodian war was driven more from China than from Vietnam andthe Soviet.The CCP has a lot of influence and control over this war whichwas barely accounted for in this book.

There's also another problemwith an analysis based solely on ideological ground i.e. communist regimewages war because they can, because they are evil, warlike andundemocratic.Besides being not very useful in pedagogical terms, this ofcourse left out the more important historical analysis that Vietnam andCambodia has a long history of many small wars.And the Vietnam-Cambodianwar could be viewed as an attempt to continue Vietnam's territorialexpansion that began from the 17th century.

Mr. Morris assessments in thebook should be read in light of his other 'hysterical' pronouncement ofhaving found a document in Soviet archives showing that Hanoi had deceivedon POWs.The timing of his finding was also perfectly coincide with animpending congressional vote on improving US-Vietnam relationship.

T.N.

Many assumed 'facts' went uncheck
After so many years of digging through the Soviet archives, Mr. Morris forgot to double and triple check his supposedly 'facts' and got carried away with believing everything he read from the basements in Moscow.

The problem with Morris analysis is that it left out the Beijing angle. The Vietnam-Cambodian war was driven more from China than from Vietnam andthe Soviet.The CCP has a lot of influence and control over this war whichwas barely accounted for in this book.

There's also another problemwith an analysis based solely on ideological ground i.e. communist regimewages war because they can, because they are evil, warlike andundemocratic.Besides being not very useful in pedagogical terms, this ofcourse left out the more important historical analysis that Vietnam andCambodia has a long history of many small wars.And the Vietnam-Cambodianwar could be viewed as an attempt to continue Vietnam's territorialexpansion that began from the 17th century.

Mr. Morris assessments in thebook should be read in light of his other 'hysterical' pronouncement ofhaving found a document in Soviet archives showing that Hanoi had deceivedon POWs.

T.N.

Well-documented history followed by a bold assessment.
A scholarly analysis of the history behind the 1978-89 Vietnamese invasion and occupation of Cambodia, followed by the author's brutally frank assessment of the consequences.As the author states, a final assessmentis premature, but recent events do indeed cause the reader to wonder howlong the Vietnamese will continue to be pleased with the tactics of its"clients".Readers will also want to review "Falling Out ofTouch" by Goscha and Engelbert for another look at historicalrelations between the Vietnamese and Cambodian communists. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a specialized case study of the Carter administration's response to the tragic developments in Cambodia. It examines the complex interplay of factors that shaped American policy, including the inability to impose economic and diplomatic sanctions on the regime in Phnom Penh, a distaste felt by the American people at immersion into another Indo-China "quagmire", and the administration's desire to move forward in its quest for normalization of relations with the People's Republic of China, which was the chief patron of the Khmer Rouge. ... Read more