One of the fascinating aspects of this story is that the details are non-fictional, and yet, they have symbolic merit as if the story were crafted by an artist. For instance, the seven children are asked to be like ultimate martyrs, from the height of political power to the depths of powerlessness and strife. That is the symbolic suggestion of the number seven, because typically seven is associated with fullness and ultimate depictions of life. That is certainly what these seven were made to witness.
For Loung, the journey takes an archetypal turn when her mother's concern about her lack of femininity turns her into the woman warrior. Like Mulan, she is thrust into the role of a soldier in the height of danger and war. Her unlikely fate becomes even more unlikely when she survives the Vietnamese invasion and is reunited with her siblings. Her new battle becomes memorializing her suffering in this memoir and committing to a new life.
The strange narrative arc of the story raises humanistic questions about life. Her story is one that shows the resilience of the human spirit like any designed novel. What does it mean that real life has narrative aspects? What does that mean in light of pain, agony, struggle, warfare, terror, trauma, and starvation? Each other the siblings has their point of view on these questions, and through their reunion, we can begin to see that human experience is a pastiche where each person's point of view matters.
