Sao Darly

WWF Birds Maximum Card Niuafo’ou with First Day Of Issue 15 September 1992 Postmark.

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Happy Mother’s day to all the mothers out there. If we don’t let you know how special you are each day, then today is the day we take the time to let you know that you are the greatest!

O.B.O.T – Mae Bung Guert Gow

Tai Oratai – ไหมแท้ที่แม่ทอ

เอกพล มนต์ตระการ – หยาดเหงื่อเพื่อแม่

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Today is Earth Day and a good time to start thinking about protecting our world in our own ways. Plant a tree is a popular activity to do on Earth Day. But you don’t have to wait for Earth Day to take an action. A simple but effective change in your life style can make a great difference. Here is a list of few things you can do for Mother Nature as a start.

1. Make a commitment to daily recycling and minimizing your trash. You can sort out your paper, plastic, glass, and aluminum and take them to your nearest recycling center.

2. Using CFL light bulbs, or compact flourescent lamp will make your home green friendly. CFL light bulb uses 75% less energy so you can save money while being kind to Mother Nature since 1 CFL light equals 10 incandescent lamp.

3. Donating your old clothes is a good way to help those less fortunate while reducing garbage.

Take care of Mother Nature and she will take care of you.

I woke up this morning and saw Dallas’ post in the chatbox at Laovoices.com about the shooting at Northern Illinois in De Kalb. According to the news report, 6 people have died in the shooting (5 students and including the gunman). I have been to NIU in the spring of 2005 for the First International Conference on Lao Studies. It’s a small and quiet town and a place that I couldn’t imagine an incident like this could take place there. The timing of the event on Valentine’s Day has given us a hint on the state of mind of the gunman. What kind of a world are we living in? You are not even safe in your own classroom. My heart goes out to the friends and families of the deceased students.

BBC News coverage of the shooting.

Part 1

Part 2

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I have to admit that when it comes to love song, I am more into sad songs. Maybe it’s because I don’t know much about love and coming from a broken family, I don’t believe in a fairly tale love story. Perhaps I like sufferings and sad songs are my tunes. If I have to pick one love song to respond to Amphone’s post I would pick Jom Jai Khon Jon. It is a Lao song that I found out it was written for my Mama. Someone loved her so much to have written this song for her and she was the one and only Jom Jai Khon Jon for that particular man. Mama was this definition of “Jom Jai Khon Jon. ” Maybe someday there will be a man that would think I am his Jom Jai.

She was his Jom Jai

Jom Jai Khon Jon by Manith

Jom Jai Khon Jon by Anousone

I was able to restored most of the postings at Laocuisine.net a few weeks ago. I still need to do some touching up like changing the photos so they are all the same size. With the starting of a new school term I told myself today that I will wait till Christmas vacation to redo all the photos at Lao Cuisine site. It is a bit time consuming to find those photos on my external hard drive and resizing them all over again.

Today I thought it would be a good time to try to repost most of the posts here. I just need to post one at a time. Maybe one post per day and eventually will be able to bring back all the posts or as much as possible.

My favorite flower is sunflower and next to that is marigold. I used to grow marigold in our garden in Vientiane. I love marigold so much I grew the flower every spring in the US. Now there is no marigold back home because no one grew it anymore. My mother likes roses so she only plant roses. When I see marigold, I think of hope. Here is to re-planting Saolao.net.

This music video made me think of my Grand-Mama’s children. She did so much for her 4 boys to give them a good education at the highest level possible in Laos. They were bunch of Dek Ban Nork from Pakse and were transformed into fine young men at Vientiane. What did my Grand-Mama get in return? They left her to die for many years. When they did send some money, it was only to keep her alive at minimum state of living. It was a spare change for them when they can remember they had a mother. At one point in time when Grand-Mama fell many years ago and thought she was going to die, she told my aunt to not let her sons know if they ever call that she passed away if that was the case.

Why is that some Laotians are so good at Huk Pheun Phoon, Sung Nor Nell Tor or in English words, Love others but hate your own flesh and blood? I feel sick to my stomach each time I think of my Grand-Mama’s sons. Yeah, they might have a big face in the Lao community but to me they are nothing more than Louk Nay Lar Koon.

Keeping my promise to Nye aka Ginger, I am posting about my mother, in addition to the post on my Grandmother. I have to confess that I have never been close to my mother for various reasons. Out of all the children in the family I wanted to be so much like her in being strong, calm, and collective. My Mama is the most courageous woman I have never seen in my life. I have only seen her cry once at the moment of my sister’s death. While she might have not treated all her children equally, mama has taught me to be self-reliant and independent.

Where do I begin to describe a woman who has been the most influential in my life and yet I know so little about? I can only share what I know about her based on what I remember and from what the adults in the family are able to tell me. Like many other Laotian parents, there are so many secrets and so many stories that we may never know because the adults are not willing to talk about their past. I can only wonder why they can’t share the burdens and pains with me. I want to know all, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

What a better way to start at the beginning, talking about my Mama with pictures that I found to go along with the stories. Here is what I know about my Mama.

1. She was born in Ban Keun, the home town of her mother and her grandmother, great-grandparents, as the list goes on as far back as the birth of the town itself.

2. She was the first born in the family. Being a girl and the oldest meant a great deal of responsibilities and extra burden that she must bear later on in life as a teenager.

3. She was raised mostly by her grandparents. Her grandfather was a very strict man. If chores were not done properly, that meant being beaten by canoe paddle.

4. Her parents and great-grandparents placed a great value on education. When her family relocated to Vientiane my Mama was later sent to stay with her uncle (my Grandmother’s older brother) to attend school with his daughters.

5. Her favorite subjects were Math and Science. She loves Science the most and especially studying about the human physiology. She played house with her cousins and pretended to be a doctor. She would make dolls out of banana trees and sticks needles made out of bamboo into them, pretending to give injections to her patients.

My Mama (on the right) with her younger brothers and sister in Vientiane. The photo was taken between 1962-1963.

6. During the flood of Vientiane in 1966, my Grandmother relocated the family to Vang Vieng. My mother continued her education there. When she found out about the OB Nursing Program in 1967, Mama begged her mother to change her age so she can take the entrance exam for the OB Nursing School in Vientiane. It was a very prestigious educational program at that time and to graduate from this top notch nursing school in Laos meant a bright future for the selected few.

7. My Grandmother went to the chief of the town and requested for an age change for my mother. Mama became four years older legally and was able to take the entrance exam.

8. Tragic struck her and almost wiped her dream of becoming a doctor. While playing with friends along the Nam Song River in Vang Vieng, one of them fell into the water and pulled Mama’s right arm as she was trying to save her friend. Mama was lucky enough to have passed the physical examination for the entrance requirement of OB Nursing School.

9. As fate would have it. She also scored well for the written examination. She was chosen as one of the 32 students across the country and became the youngest member of the class of 1969, the last class for the OB Nursing Program.

Below are pictures of my Mama between 1967-1969. She looks like a typical student with many friends. She was beautiful and proper and was well sought after by many men. There was a joke about how when Mama walked to school and come to a stop at an intersection. There would be 4 guys from different directions waiting to escort her to class.

Mama (standing) with her older cousin in Vientiane.

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I’ve been thinking about my Grandmother the last few weeks. I didn’t get a chance to visit her grave during my visit to Laos earlier this year. I wanted to post about my Grandmother and even made a couple of posts but deleted them. I was not sure if I should share to the world on the topic of my beloved Grandmother. She was my whole world and everything I did was so I can maker her proud of me. I never had the courage to ask my mother about who my Grandmother was and about her life’s journey. What I know about her was based on my observation and pieces of the puzzle that I found myself.

Writing about my Grandmother or even looking at her pictures only bring me tears. It is so difficult to gather enough courage and strength to make a complete sentence, let alone a whole paragraph. When Nye recently posted about her mother I told myself that I should try to do the same, to share what I know about my Grandmother and later my mother. Within days of her posting Nye has tagged me in one of those “10 random facts about my mother” and I told her that I will post about my Grandmother as well as my mother once I am finished with the trip to Laos postings.

I am fortunate enough to have pictures of my Grandmother from as far back as the 1960′s. What I lack is information behind those pictures. I called my aunt earlier tonight to ask about a couple of pictures that I found a few years ago of my Grandparents. They were sent to my mother by my uncle and I made it my mission to scan all the family’s photos for myself and for my future children.

I will start with 10 facts about my Grandmother and someday would write more about her when I can gather my thoughts more clearly.

1. My Grandmother is the second child in the family. She has an older brother and a younger sister.

2. She was born and raised in Ban Keun. It was her mother’s hometown. Her father was from the other side of the Mekong. He was involved in the student protest movement and his family sent him to Ban Keun to protect his life.

3. My Grandmother was not able to read and write as a young girl. Her older brother was allowed to receive education by attending school at the local temple. However, she has to take care of her younger sister and tended to domestic chores.

4. She married in her late teen years like most girls at her age. She was married to a soldier in the Royal Army.

5. After the birth of my mother in Ban Keun, my Grandparents relocated to Vientiane and settled in Nong Duang market area. My Great-Grandparents had a shop there.

6. By 1965, my Grandmother has given birth to 4 children: my mother, my first uncle, my second uncle, and my aunt.

This is a picture of my Grandmother in the summer of 1965 and also of my Grandfather.

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