In late November, my friend and colleague, Thomas, asked me if I was interested in writing a story about former Khmer Rouge cadres turning to Christianity since the fall of the regime in 1979. He had been to Pailin a couple months before to photograph and follow some former KR soldiers, but felt that the story might be better served with a reporter.

Because I am generally pretty apathetic towards religion – in Singapore, I think we use the phrase "free thinker" – I wasn't sure if I was able to approach the story, and the former cadres, with an open mind, so my first instinct was to say no. But the idea of challenging my pre-conceived notions of religion and devoutness, of what it means to have faith and what it means to seek salvation, was intriguing to me. I also came to see my initial reluctance as just another sign that I should always push myself to have an open mind.

In the end, the trip we took with Kuch Naren (AKA reporter extraordinaire and human sunshine) was – to use a religion-inflected word – enlightening. After two interviews, I stopped seeing the cadres under the label of "Former Khmer Rouge Cadre Turned Christian"; it stopped being about religion and more about what comes after a horrible national tragedy.

As Westerners, we often think of traumatic events under a scope of reckoning, forgiveness and emotional reconciliation. But how do Cambodians see it? How do those who suffered horribly wave their experiences away and go on with their daily lives without breaking down? How do those who took part and supported the regime see themselves when they are constantly being vilified in the international and national media – yet also have the incongruous reality of the current prime minister be a former ranking Khmer Rouge cadre as well?

I don't think either of the stories we published in the LA Times (the day after Christmas) or the South China Morning Post will have all the answers – hell, psychologists themselves are having a hell of a time with assessing mental illness in the country because of the different cultural context. But I hope I was able to show some of the inner conflict (and straight-up denial) that exists for the former cadres. Almost 40 years on, national reconciliation – the aim of the Documentation Center of Cambodia – is still not within grasp, and who knows if it ever will be.

My Q&A with journalist and author Rob Carmichael was published in the July/August issue of Fah Thai. We spoke about the book he just published, When Clouds Fell From The Sky, and I also managed to interview Neary Ouk, the woman whose family is at the center of the book.

Unfortunately, Fah Thai wasn't able to publish the my interview with Neary, an experience I found to be incredibly affecting. Mostly, we talked about what it was like for her to read the book and what her relationship with Rob was like given that he was delving into a very personal and painful part of her family history.

So I've decided to leave Neary's words here; think of it as an important addition to my conversation with Rob. I had envisioned the Fah Thai piece to feature her thoughts right next to Rob's Q&A, which is why this is just a recount of what she said.

“There are a lot of things [my mother and I are] discovering while reading it, like how my family members have disappeared, because it’s not only my dad, actually. We are learning the fate of everyone, like my grandfather.”

“Rob’s been interviewing people – something I can’t do from where I am, and I wish I could have. Or some things I wouldn’t have found the strength to do, like interviewing Prak Khan. But I wish I could have done that myself. And Rob has been watching the world a lot, with some sense of psychology to the people involved in general.”

“Rob went back to S-21 with me, and he never imposed anything on me. I decided to introduce him to the carving I made to my dad, and we managed to speak at a time when I wasn’t so talkative; I guess that must have been a challenge for him. But we probably learned things from one another. He taught me how to probably let go and be less focused on one thing and see things more globally.”

“I wish my dad could have been there physically but that’s not the case. It’s certainly painful. But the trial is much more than that; it’s showing to the rest of the world that one has to be patient and it’s a matter of time that when people do harm, it always comes back to them.”

You can get Carmichael's book in Monument bookstores in Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar; and in AsiaBooks in Thailand. It's also sold in Kindle form on Amazon.