importance of New Year's

The Cambodian Lunar New Year is a big celebration in Cambodian culture, taking place in the spring and full of "parades, food, and music" (33). Immediately upon arriving in Ro Leap, the Khmer Rouge soldiers burn all colorful clothing belonging to the newly arrived families, and Loung watches as they send her beautiful red New Year's dress up in flames. To her, that dress was a sign of the fun to come, with New Year's just around the corner, and that night she dreams sadly of fireworks and cookies and other delicious food. New Year's is magnified in her mind to become more than just a holiday, rather it symbolizes that lost past which she cannot reach, the way that Phnom Penh symbolizes a similar nostalgia. Later, Loung dwells even longer on the idea of New Year's as she imagines all the food she would have been eating had her family not been forced to evacuate Phnom Penh, and their lives on the brink of starvation present a very stark contrast to those dreams Loung indulges in.