{"id":1370,"date":"2018-08-19T13:40:14","date_gmt":"2018-08-19T20:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.palomar.edu\/mcastillo\/?page_id=1370"},"modified":"2025-08-23T00:53:26","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T07:53:26","slug":"the-little-girl-on-the-boat","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/pages.palomar.edu\/mcastillo\/the-little-girl-on-the-boat\/","title":{"rendered":"I – Cambodia – The little girl on the boat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For AI assistance – click on Artificial Intelligence (AI)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tell us what you think about the story.<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

(lesson – reading for understanding + coordinating conjunction – I level)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"An
This little girl on the lake is rowing to go visit her friends who live in Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The Vietnamese community of house boats in which people work hard as fishermen to earn their income.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Sang Nguy\u1ec5n (not her real name) is a 12-year-old Vietnamese girl. She is paddling through the lake to go visit one of her friends.  She has just left her boat house where the rest of her family lives located in the middle of Tonle Sap Lake, the biggest lake in Cambodia.  Wait a minute.  A boat house? In Cambodia? A Vietnamese family living in Cambodia? How can that be? A 12-year-old girl and her Vietnamese family living in the middle of a Cambodian lake?  We need to go back in time to find out why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first Vietnamese came to settle in Cambodia as early as 1600s.  Then they trickled through the early 19th century during the era of the Nguy\u1ec5n lords <\/a>and continued to flow during the periods of the French colonization of Indochina, composing Laos, Vietnam, and the People’s Republic of Kampuchea<\/a> (Cambodia).  In the 1970s Cambodia faced their worst nightmare as a nation affecting the entire population when Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge<\/a> regime committed the mass genocides of 2 million Cambodians and thousands of Vietnamese.  But even before the Khmer Rouge regime the Vietnamese people living in Cambodia had always been and continue to be the main target of xenophobic<\/a> attacks by the Cambodian authorities, political parties, and the current Cambodian government.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Khmer Rouge regime spear headed by Pol Pot
committed genocide by killing 2 million Cambodians
and thousands of Vietnamese living in Cambodia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Vietnamese are resilient people who have accepted their harsh
life living in the middle of the lake.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

According to Human Rights activists, the disdain and hatred of Cambodians towards the Vietnamese seems to be rooted in paranoia and their ethnocentric behavior.   For many years, the Vietnamese living in Cambodia have been stateless residents of the country, so <\/span>through the years of their migration to Cambodia they have faced difficulties in getting access to education, employment and housing.  For many years, Cambodian laws have denied Vietnamese to live on the land, but<\/span> on the water the law does not apply.  Thus, thousands of Vietnamese have been living in Tonle Sap Lake in communities of boats, for <\/span>the lake has given them the only safe haven from a country that has so much disdain and hatred towards them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is where Sang Nguy\u1ec5n and her family live \u2013 in the middle of Tonle Sap Lake \u2013 in the company of over 20,000 Vietnamese all living in boats converted to a house.
Fortunately, the Vietnamese people living in Tonle Sap Lake have been blessed by Buddha, the religion of Vietnamese as well as Cambodian people.  Through their good fortune, living in the lake has given the income they need to survive in a country that is so against them. Who is against them? The Cambodian people, authorities, and the government continue to discriminate them from getting jobs in the cities, yet<\/span> the Vietnamese people are able to counter this ethnocentric bias through fishing and the harvesting of fish from their fish farms in Tonle Sap Lake to provide for their families.  The Vietnamese boat people are hard working people, and<\/span> they have learned to adapt well to their water environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their hard work living in the lake has been a blessing,  <\/em>for<\/span> they live in the most fertile ecosystem on the planet.   For half the year, the Tonle Sap River flows southeast from the lake to Phnom Penh during the dry season, but <\/span>during the rainy season, the Mekong river swells and the lake engorges to as much as six times.  The swell in the lake allows eels, frogs, shrimp and many varieties of fish to come up the Mekong river and populate the lake, so<\/span> the Vietnamese fisherman are able to catch a lot of fish and other seafood to sell to the Cambodian markets along the shore. This has been their primary income for many years. Further, the expanse of the lake gives Cambodian rice farmers the ability to farm better due to the doubly silted, nutrient-rich shores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Life is peaceful at sunset<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But the abundance of fish and the rich fertile farm land on the shore come with a price that affects the Vietnamese children and their future living in Tonle Sap Lake. Remember Sang Nguy\u1ec5n in this story? She is neither Cambodian nor Thai.  She is actually a Vietnamese girl who has been living in the middle of Tonle Sap Lake since birth like her brothers and her parents.  In fact, the 20,000 Vietnamese who live here were born in Cambodia but maintain and are proud of their Vietnamese ethnicity.  Being born in the lake Sang Nguy\u1ec5n has mastered the art of rowing and<\/span> is unafraid to use her boat to go anywhere she pleases in Tonle Sap Lake.  Her grandparents were forced to live here during the Pol Pot regime in the 1970\u2019s.   She has had to learn to live the same lifestyle her grandparents have lived for many years living in a boat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a little girl what is Sang Nguy\u1ec5n\u2019s lifestyle living in the middle of the lake?  Like all young kids she has to help her parents fish in the lake.  Her job is to sell the fish at the Cambodian markets on the shore.  How about school?  Does  she have a place to go to school?  Not really. Many of the Vietnamese children have little to no opportunity to go to school in the mainland because the Cambodian government won\u2019t allow them. They have been denied this right living due to the prodigious authorities in Cambodia.  Fortunately, there is one houseboat converted to a school where some of the kids can learn.  This school boat has been maintained from donations from foreigners who have visited here and have seen their appalling conditions.  This author has also contributed to their cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This Vietnamese community of boats is lucky
to have a school maintained by donations
foreign visitors like this author who have seen
their desperate situation.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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I am smiling but in my heart I am sad after
seeing with my own eyes the hardship
the Vietnamese people face every day
of their life living in the middle of
Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Living in the middle of the lake Sang Nguy\u1ec5n, has no park or playground to play.  Instead, the lake becomes her playground.  She can can row her boat around the lake, or<\/span> she can playing with her friends with some type of water activity.  Sang, like the children, do not have bikes or scooters to play with.  The children  do not have parks to play in, nor<\/span> do they have theaters to go and watch movies.  They are surrounded by water, and that is their environment.  They do not have any convenience stores like \u201c7 Eleven or Circle K\u201d to buy gum or candy, nor<\/span> do they have malls where they can go shopping with their parents to buy clothes. To go shopping they have to go by boat to the shore and shop at the Cambodian stores and markets.  Two or three times a day they must do this to get fresh vegetables, haul away trash, mail a letter or go to the bank.  It is such an inconvenience, but<\/span> they have become used to it for hundreds of years.   Sang Nguy\u1ec5n\u2019s life is dependent on her parents, her relatives, and her friends who all live in the water community of Tonle Sap Lake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This picture paints a thousand words of how hard
this girl\u2019s life must be living in the middle of the lake
of Cambodia. Her life is full of challenges and hardships.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sang Nguy\u1ec5n and all the children who live Tonle Sap Lake have no choice in life.  The lake is their life.  That is what you see in this little 12-year old girl as she rows her boat aimlessly.  There are no tourists who come here.  On my request we were brought here by a local guide because I had heard about it through stories and through my readings.  Life takes on many shapes when you travel.  When I saw this little girl rowing by herself without anyone around her, I asked myself, \u201cWhy is that so?\u201d  No doubt, this little girl has endured a difficult life and will continue to live her life as such for the rest of her life.  I don’t see her happy in this picture.  She has a daunting and difficult life where she has no opportunity for school, no place to play like ordinary children, very little contact with the outside world, no TV or telephone, and has only the children around her houseboat to play with.  If you look at her picture closely, you will understand the story of her life.  This is her lifestyle.  When you see a little girl like this one, you will be thankful for what your own kids have here in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A.  Answer the following questions based on the reading.<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Rubric for self – grading<\/strong> after taking quiz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0 -2 mistake. – A Student has little or no problems understanding the concept, grammar & vocabulary<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3 – mistakes – B Student has little or no problems understanding the concept, grammar & vocabulary<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4-5 mistakes. C. Student shows problems in understanding the concept, grammar & vocabulary<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6-7 mistakes. – D. Student has significant problems understanding the concept, grammar & vocabulary<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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