Sunday, July 29, 2007

thai mekong

a couple of weekends back, La Reagan, a good friend of mine came to town (well, actually to graham wa) for the opening of her friend's thai restaurant. (see picture below). so i went down to the foot of mt. rainier to eat food. and that's all i did. eat. La ordered all but four items off the menu, and we had to put six tables together to fit all the dishes in front of us. (la said we had to get a lot of dishes cause that is how asians do it. white people just order one dish per person and call it good. and i kinda got embarrassed, cause it's true.) the food was so good. my favorite: the angel wings. i aint never ate at a thai restaurant this good before.



that's my car parked out front.
if you are going to mt. rainier, you'll have to pass the restaurant anyway, so you might as well stop and eat. so pass puyallup (on the 161) and you gotta go thru about 326 traffic lights; and when you get to graham its right there on the north side of the 161. http://maps.google.com/maps?tab=wl


in the kitchen. behind the scenes. from now on when yall go to a restaurant, yall gotta be nice. i didn't realize how much is happening back there in the back. so quit the yelling and complaining and the small tips. if you want your food that fast, then go to jack in the box or stay at home and see how fast you can make pad thai and curry chicken.


this is la and vicki (the owner) making some food that tastes better than your mom's cooking. (tammakhoung). in fact, la's tammakhoung tastes so good the khok broke. so she is improvising with a metal bowl.


the whole group.


Friday, July 13, 2007

hey cindy, another reason to stay in seattle:

this has nothing to do with padek, but here is another reason for cindy (and everyone else that is moving away) to stay in seattle.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

camera


this is it. the new camera that will allow me to make the padek movie. it replaces my annual trip to Laos, since it costs about the same. it came in last week (which is good except u.p.s. just left it sitting on my doorstep for the whole world to steal.) abes of maine did ok, but they didn't send me one of the extras they promised, so i still need to call and complain.

- i will also use the camera with work. some of the youth are going to do an oral history project, interviewing their parents about the refugee experience. many of the 2nd generation don't know their parents' story... well, they may know a few basic details: "they came here because of a war." but they don't know specifics, so this should assist in that regard. keep checking back for updates on how the 100% non-professional movies are coming along.

Monday, July 09, 2007

one more on vang pao

the best i've seen yet - especially the last line. (i just pulled all these off vientianetimes.com). so if you haven't read all my other posts on vang pao, then read this one:

http://www.ocweekly.com/features/features/the-generals-last-stand/27394/

iu-mien

the Mien, their culture and heritage, is often veiled in the shadows of the hmong, (just click on the two links above to see the difference in size of the wikipedia articles of the two groups),

so i am glad to see that the sacramento bee has this article about them:
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/261095.html