- LOST CHILD ~ SAYON'S JOURNEY shows how one Khmer Rouge child soldier confronts his childhood experiences during Cambodia's darkest hour, what he witnessed, and struggled with as he came of age. Sayon Soeun was abducted at the age of six, exploited by the Khmer Rouge, his family life and education stolen. His recovery and redemption from unimaginable evil entails his transition from an orphanage in a refugee camp to adoption by a loving American family. After more than 35 years, he recently made contact with brothers and a sister he assumed were dead. The documentary follows his journey back to Cambodia to heal himself by finding the family that let him slip away and forgiving himself for his complicity as a Khmer Rouge child soldier.—Anonymous
- Sayon Soeun was abducted at age six, exploited by Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, his family life and education stolen. Breaking a 25-year silence, he takes us inside the Children's Army as a witness to genocide. Footage from a lost archive reveals a war-torn country closed to Western media during the 1970s. Of his adoption years later by an American family, Soeun says: "I met these strange white folks waiting for me. Everything was new, the people, the language, buildings, cars, trees." We follow his remarkable recovery and redemption from painful childhood trauma. When Sayon gets into trouble with a teen gang, he serves time in jail before police hire him as a community liaison. He runs sports camps to help immigrant children enjoy the youth that was stolen from him. In Cambodia to search for family, Soeun visits 4 people who come forward insisting he is their brother "Yon." One admits to having been a general in the Khmer Rouge. Soeun barely remembers these strangers and begins to see the bloody KR from an American perspective. Plagued by doubt, he asks them to take DNA tests. The results, received after his return home, provide a dramatic ending. LOST CHILD celebrates the power of the human spirit to overcome oppression and make peace with an inconceivably difficult past. Sayon Soeun has broken the cycle of violence and inhumanity that defined his early life by forgiving himself for his complicity as a Khmer Rouge soldier and forgiving the family that let him slip away.
- In LOST CHILD, Sayon Soeun tells his story in his own words.
Sayon's photo fills the screen. It is 1983; he is a refugee, about age 13, his eyes fixed with the thousand-yard stare, holding his large transit number. He seems very much alone. The adult Sayon speaks:
"The Khmer Rouge regime trained me to become a soldier, a fighter, a hater, and to survive, that's who I became."
The Khmer Rouge soldiers appear in old news footage as distant shadowy figures. Moving closer, it becomes apparent that most of these soldiers have barely reached adolescence.
Sayon's adult hand holds a torn and faded family portrait. The picture changes to reveal Sayon gazing thoughtfully at the Cambodian countryside rushing by outside a train window. LOST CHILD ~ SAYON'S JOURNEY is underway.
Cut to Lowell, Massachusetts, where about a third of the population of 90,000 is Cambodian American. Sayon recalls his arrival in the States at age 15, his sense of disorientation at meeting "these strange white folks." His adoptive mother describes a small, skinny boy in an oversized wool coat and flip-flops.
It is ironic that a child soldier could be bullied in an American high school, but that is what happened to Sayon when he arrived at Middletown High School speaking not a word of English. "They called me gook, they called me chink, they said 'you monkey, go back to your country.' "
Sayon displayed a remarkable ability to acclimate himself to his new culture. He excelled in athletics, joined a band and found friends. An older Sayon is now working with low-income youth in Lowell, leading sports practice, mentoring, and participating in cultural activities through his charity, Light of Cambodian Children. He explains:
"Do I really love to do all these things all the time? No. Is it helpful? Yes. I think it helps me to forget. To forget the bad things."
Sayon's wife, Sophy, describes how they bonded over shared refugee experiences, rarely discussed. As with many survivors of genocide and extreme trauma, it becomes a way of coping, to repress deep emotional wounds.
At the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, Sayon and his sister-in-law, Sopheap Theam, lead a group of students through their exhibit of Cambodian refugee photos and testimonials entitled "More Than a Number." Each refugee holds a large number on a card that officials used to identify them. One boy spots Sayon's photo and begins reading the narrative under it. Sayon picks up the story as the camera flies over the jungle and rice fields transporting us to Southeast Asia.
Despite his parents' efforts, Sayon fell into the hands of the Khmer Rouge at a tender age--tricked into getting on a truck full of children. He thought he would be home by dawn, but that was the last time he saw his family. He describes arriving at the Khmer Rouge Children's Camp and the process of indoctrination, weapons training and his promotion to armed guard at age nine. He became a witness to executions, beatings, and even children executing their own parents.
"I was so young. I thought this was just normal," he tells us. "I didn't even realize that there was a world beyond Cambodia."
Over archival footage of the 1979 Vietnamese invasion, Sayon describes his eventual flight to a refugee camp on the Thai Cambodian border and immigration to the United States.
Now about 42 years old, Sayon hires a friend in Cambodia to search for his long-lost family. Three men and a woman surface who may be his siblings. They are sure he is their brother "Yon" and send him a photo of their father, a man whom Sayon barely remembers. Speculating that his brothers were likely recruited by the Khmer Rouge as well, he plans a trip and prepares to meet them.
In Cambodia, Sayon visits his old village as well as emotionally challenging Khmer Rouge sites such as Tuol Sleng, a grim prison, and the mass grave at Krang Tachan. His family tell him conflicting stories of the past, prompting him to ask them to be DNA-tested to prove their relationship. The results of those tests provide a dramatic ending to the film.
The closing lines are given to Ken Lavallee, retired Chief of Police of Lowell, describing the way Sayon has won the community's respect:
"I think he has a message of peace, a message of tolerance. I think he's attempting very, very sincerely to make a life for these young people that is better than he had."
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