Beautiful Hero: How We Survived the Khmer Rouge

With only half a canteen of water and one baby bottle, a family of eight fought for their lives in the killing fields and land mines of Cambodia. Heroes emerge in the most unlikely places, under the most dangerous conditions. They are often the most ordinary of people facing extraordinary times. Surrounded by unimaginable adverse forces, one woman would ultimately lead her entire family to survive. Beautiful Hero is an autobiographical narrative told from a daughter’s perspective. The story centers around Meiyeng, the eponymous Beautiful Hero, and her innate ability to sustain everyone in her family. Meiyeng’s acumen in solving problems under extreme circumstances is thought-provoking and awe-inspiring. She shepherded her entire family through starvation, diseases, slavery and massacres in war-torn Cambodia to forge a new life in America. Over two million people—a third of the country’s population—fell victim to a devastating genocide in Cambodia. The rise of the Khmer Rouge posed not merely a single challenge to survival, but rather a series of nightmarish obstacles that required constant circumvention, outmaneuvering, and exceptional fortitude from those few who would survive the regime intact. Beautiful Hero eerily unravels the layers of atrocity and evil unleashed upon the people, providing a clear view of this horrific and violent time of the Cambodian revolution. The story highlights the most basic impulses of man: good vs. evil, individual vs. group, democracy vs. tyranny, and life vs. death. It is the ultimate story of love, sacrifice, survival, and redemption. It reaffirms the good in humanity by showing how one family lived and survived with grace and dignity despite being pushed to the limits.

Jennifer H. Lau was born in Cambodia in 1970, the third of seven children. She was only five when the Khmer Rouge forcibly relocated her family, friends and neighbors to live and work in one giant concentration camp. She endured four long years of living in perpetual fear, under constant threat of execution, disease, and starvation. Her daily survival often depended on finding the next drop of water, the next grain of rice. Finally arriving in America at age twelve, illiterate and traumatized, Jennifer forged on - neither willing to accept these setbacks nor to let her former oppressors dictate her future. In addition to working full-time alongside her family to contribute to a fragile new beginning, she also pursued her education with great fervor, endeavoring to learn how to survive the enigmatic first-world challenges of her new country. Her keen understanding of the harsh realities of a struggling nation served her well in her studies at the University of California, Irvine, where she earned dual degrees in Chinese and Chinese Literature, and Economics. Today, as a Certified Public Accountant, Jennifer Lau owns and runs Topp and Lau accounting firm, where she is proud to contribute to society by assisting individuals, businesses, and charitable organizations. She lives in Orange County, California with her husband and their two children. Having early on been deprived of education herself, Jennifer contributes both time and money to her immediate and extended communities to combat illiteracy. She hopes her story of sorrow and survival inspires readers from all walks of life in their own struggles and successes. She provides this firsthand account of the Khmer Rouge atrocities for future generations to study in the hope to shed light into a dark time. Her greatest fear is that history will repeat itself if we don't learn from it. Revolution everywhere in the world just doesn't happen overnight.