19 Facts About Loung Ung

Loung Ung is a Cambodian-American human-rights activist, lecturer and national spokesperson for the Campaign for a Landmine-Free World from 1997 to 2003.

Loung Ung has served in the same capacity for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which is affiliated with the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation.

In both of her memoirs, Loung Ung wrote in the first person and, for the most part, in the present tense, describing the events and circumstances as if they were unfolding before the reader's eyes: "I wanted [the readers] to be there".

Loung Ung's father was born in the small village of Tro Nuon in Kampong Cham province in 1931.

Loung Ung's mother was from Chaozhou, China and moved with her family to Cambodia when she was little.

Seng Im Loung Ung, posing as the father of a peasant family, was fortunate to get by a military checkpoint in Kom Baul without being detained; many evacuees who were perceived to be a threat to the new government, because of their previous education or political position, were summarily executed there.

Loung Ung made arrangements for the family to be transported to Battambang, the village of Loung's grandmother, but his plan was thwarted by the Khmer Rouge soldiers.

In 1983, Loung entered the ADL Intermediate School, and continued with English language learning and teaching sessions.

In 1985, Eang gave birth to her second daughter, Victoria, and Loung entered Essex Junction High School as a freshman.

Over many months, her journal came to number hundreds of pages, and Loung continued to maintain a journal for many years.

In 1989, Loung graduated from high school, and in the fall, she entered Saint Michael's College with the financial assistance of a full four-year scholarship provided by the Turrell Scholarship Fund.

In early 1992, Loung studied at Cannes International College as part of Saint Michael's curriculum.

In 1995, Loung Ung traveled back to Cambodia for the first time since she had fled fifteen years earlier.

Sometime after returning to the US, Loung Ung left Maine and moved to Washington, DC, and in late 1996, joined the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, an international humanitarian organization that provides physical rehabilitation clinics, prostheses, and mobility devices free of charge in many countries and in several provinces in Cambodia.

In 2005, Loung made her twenty-fifth trip to Cambodia as the VVAF's spokesperson for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.

In 2002, Loung married her college sweetheart, Mark Priemer, and bought two and a half acres of land in Cambodia just a short distance from her sister Chou's home.

Loung Ung recently moved to suburban Cleveland where her husband grew up.

Loung Ung has been accused of misrepresenting the Khmer people and playing on ethnic stereotypes for the purpose of self-aggrandizement and over-dramatization to increase sales and publicity.

In December 2000, Loung Ung responded to the earliest of these criticisms.