i eat padek

a little change movie

2012-01-23T11:22:00.000-08:00

now this is what i'm talking about... i'm liking this short film a lot. i only wish the subtitles were better. (baan nok shouldn't be translated as dummy, dummy.)

king of the crawfish

2012-01-18T00:15:00.000-08:00

so this is my second time to this restaurant - in the east side of chinatown on lane street. (725 s. lane st, seattle, 98104) and i was liking my dinner a lot more than the first time i went. i got the boudin balls and the crawfish etouffee. it is vietnamese-owned and operated, and they know what they are doing up in there. maybe it was cause i just got back from louisiana, but i was loving my dinner.

here is my one complaint - the first time i went, they served my jambalaya (which was pretty okay) in a to-go container. it was like they were telling me, take your food and leave. i couldn't really enjoy it. i felt like i should have been eating it at home in front of reruns of csi maimi. (and i hate that show and all it's kissing cousins.)

the restaurant looks real nice inside, but to the owners: seriously yall - if you see this, stop cheapening up the experience by giving me my food in a plastic to-go container. by the way, they didn't give me none this past time, but i saw the containers on other patrons' tables. weird.

here is the link to the place:
http://www.seattlecrawfishking.com/

i went with anthony, a friend of mine, and he got the fried softshell crab and the cajun fries, and i don't think he liked his as much. he said it was salty, so he had to dip his crab in some sauce (or was it sweet tea?) in order to tone it down. but that said, i don't like crab (unless it's the fake crab - because that stuff be slappin!)

well, this ain't the only asian-run louisiana-styled restaurant in the area. there is this one - cajun crawfish, and its good too, but lacks the atmosphere of the first. but i did like the crawfish; felt like i was home at a crawfish boil, (although we never had any in my home.)

http://www.thecajuncrawfish.com/

and then there's this one restaurant in renton, called casian grill, but it seems more of a kid-drink-beer hangout than a restaurant (and they didn't have no crawfish when i went there; all out!) but they do try to mix it up: two distinct menus featuring vietnamese and southern food. kinda like a kfc/tacobell, or a tacobell/pizza hut, or a pizza hut/a&w, or a wendy's/pet-smart. i get the idea, but once you sit down in there, you feel a little bit anxious that the cajun food will never be good enough because maybe the cooks are spending too much time worrying about the asian food.

but that said, here is the link anyway:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Casian-Grill-Restuarant/127520717258505

and this guy liked it:

http://photofoodblog.com/2011/10/casian-grill-renton-wa/

but in the end, if there is a war between these three restaurants, crawfish king really is king. check it out. they won't mind.

10 things i hate (& love) about louisiana

2012-01-08T21:06:00.000-08:00

so i am back in seattle again. why do i do this to myself. well, in memoriam of this past trip home for christmas, i composed a list of things that made me sad while in louisiana. and then i thought, what the heck... there is a ton of stuff that made me happy, so i should really intro each one of these bad things with something good. so here it goes, my list of ten things, happy and sad...

1. no need to tell yall, but one of the best things about louisiana is the food!!!! zapp's potato chips! gumbo! po' boys! cane's! jambalaya with beans and shrimp creole on the side! biegnet's at cafe du monde! wooo hooo! really ain't nothing like it:

2. nothing can live forever, but i don't often think about that in terms of trees. well, my home in baton rouge has lost a lot of trees over the years, and this is one of the most recent, knocked down during a storm. i liked this one a lot. raccoons used to live up inside it. sad:

3. look at this thermometer! temperature right about 74 degrees just 4 days before christmas. that is a reason to love louisiana right there:

4. along with trees dying... a lot of stores and shops and malls and what-have-you have shut down. economic downturns, shifts in the population of the city... a lot of reasons. but none is sadder to me than this one right here. the broadmoor theatre. i seen so many movies in this theatre. my mom would drop us off on a saturday and we'd spend the afternoon watching re-releases of jungle book or song of the south. and that little old lady that worked there - i miss her too, may she rest in peace... well here it is:

for more on this, see this blog:
http://abandonedbatonrouge.typepad.com/abandoned_baton_rouge/

5. we went to new orleans the friday before new years and had a great time. street performers were everywhere, and i got a kick outa hearing this very loud band in the french quarter right under the nose of the st. louis cathedral with it's no noise sign:

6. i'm sad to see the crime in new orleans still going up and up post-katrina. and not just in new orleans, but baton rouge too. and with all the convictions of police officers for unjustified shootings after the hurricane, trust aint very high, as you can see from this graffiti. there was another one that was much more succinct scrawled on the pavement by this one; it had much courser language, so i'm posting this one here:

7. of course, probably the best part of a trip home to louisiana is when you get to see family... so here are my nieces right here:

8. and of course, the worst part of a trip home is that you have to see family... so here are my nieces right here:

9. something else i loved about being in louisiana - seeing real rain and real thunderstorms - like this one brewing to the west. don't see nothing like that in seattle:

10. but the saddest part of all... leaving. here is the view of my plane out the lobby window, readying itself to take me to atlanta where i got a connecting flight back to seattle:

so until i make it back there again, i have this blog post to look at. louisiana: you're the best. and the worst, apparently.

bungle in the jungle

2011-12-30T23:50:00.000-08:00

i got this forbes magazine link, "bungle in the jungle," from a guy that used to be in one of my high school groups. what a mess. can somebody cut Laos a break? ugh. and boo to the person(s) building all the casinos in vientiane and savannakhet. yall suck.

http://www.forbes.com/global/2011/0808/companies-laos-china-economy-gambling-gangsters-bungle-jungle.html

check out this link too:

http://timfranco.com/blog/chinese-in-laos-part-two-casino-rubber/

mixed reviews: Lao princess

2011-12-26T12:36:00.000-08:00

as much as i love Laos, i really don't think i will be seeing this movie. watch the trailer for princess of Laos below and you'll see why pretty durn fast:

bad.

but what's good is reading all the crazy youtube comments under the preview. many of them are just people of differing opinions fighting back and forth, but the best ones are the comments from the filmmaker, mychal mitchell, and wow... so many things get lost in translation. i am going to post a few here, and so if you happen across my blog and see your comment... well, then you and you're comment are crazy.

i will start with this -- many of the comments noted that the girl playing the princess looks mixed Lao/african american. see some of them below:

I am not a racist person, but isn't the princess in this movie black? doesn't make sense to me. Laos is in Southeast Asia, not in Africa.

Laos in Asia not in Africa, we have no black people here.

Actually..Lao woman is Beautiful more than women in this Video^^

now just read a few of the many many responses by the filmmaker:

i just googled Laos and i found out it is in Africa.

i filmed this movie, i wrote it, i have been married to my Lao wife for 23 years......then someone who doesn't know anything about making a movie says to me (as if i'm stupid) "Laos is not in Africa" because the lead actress appears to be African American....so anyone with half a brain would think i made a movie with over 50 Laotians, have been to Wat Lao 100 times, and think i don't know where Laos is? In the words of Monday Night Football crew C'MON MAN!!!!!!!!

and

ur a 26 year old dummy go watch a show thats more befitting to your intellect like Jersey Shore

if you're trying to promote your movie, why would you go the sarcasm route? and did you really just try to say you understand Laos because you found a Lao woman who'd put up with you for 23 years? or even better: "i'm not racist, i cast 50 Lao people in a movie."

now look at this comment from a youtuber:

I'm very interested in seeing this movie but this trailor gives me a headache trying to sum up what the whole meaninng of the film is about. How is she a princess who inherited a Kingdom when there iz no more Royal Family in Laos. Was this supposed to all happen before the end of the Vietnam War Era... How come my contact Prince Solivang Sovang never mentioned anything about this history? This must be fairytale for entertainment reason, but all in all it should be an interesting watch.

here is the filmmaker's response:

Headache? The story is fiction/drama, i hope that clears your headache. Its a movie just like when you went to see Avatar the flying blue alien. The story is modern day. The untold story is the fact that the lead actress is INDEED the great granddaughter of a woman once married to Kind Sisavangvong around 1910. You can meet her family by visiting the website for the movie www.princessoflaosmovie.com. Im glad you want to see the movie. Have the prince contact me please.

here is one more from our dear filmmaker in answer to a question about when the movie would be released. this comment was coupled with a criticism that the movie was "embarrassing" due to its fictional content:

why do you want to know when an embarassing movie is coming out?....when the movie comes out just stay at home

so my point is this: now i'm not seeing this movie based on my dislike of the guy that made it. mr. mitchell - seriously, why go through all the trouble to make a movie and then bash on people for their crazy comments? at some point, you must have realized that not everyone is going to like your film; so why not just answer all inquiries gracefully? or next time, instead of making a film, you might want to just stay home.

but one more comment from a youtuber. i like this one - not because he still doesn't get it that this girl could be mixed-race of an african american father or mother, but because he has such a good explanation as to why she is dark-skinned:

Can a Cambodian/Khmer guy like myself try to explain this. Many peeps here can be shallow. History revealed that the first Lao Kingdom was built by dark skinned Khmers. So there you go.

Also..., during colonial times Laos has 2 kingdoms. Laung Prabang and the lesser known Champasak. The Champasak kingdom was a minor kingdom in the south. And you know how south Laos is, the lower you go the darker the skin. SPOILER ALERT: The girl is most likely from the NaChampasak Royal Lineage.

nice.

a christmas carol

2011-12-19T16:45:00.000-08:00

so i made it home to louisiana for the holidays! my step mom led the choir singing christmas songs at church on sunday, and she was real nervous, but i thought it turned out alright... kinda like gift giving: it's always been the thought that counts. but here is the one problem with the ward choirs - there ain't a tryout or nothing. so inevitably somebody gets in there that sounds a little less extraordinary than what you wish they did, and the rest of the choir is left teeter-tottering between the howl of a farmhouse hound and the grace of a Higher Power to pull them to safety. in this case the offending party was... well, i won't say his name, but b.h.h. (bless his heart,) he really got all into the christmas spirit, when the other 20+ people up there were wishing he'd gone a bit more scrooge and shut up. my father was one of them people. somehow my dad ended up right next to him when they got up to sing, and i could just see his face trying to remain neutral - but how do you stay neutral when you got that sound blaring in your ear? one woman in the alto section couldn't stop chuckling when he'd hit some real bad notes. well, luckily - there were enough parts when only the women were singing and enough other parts where it was all in unison, so that it weren't too bad. 'cause even the worst of singers do pretty okay during the unison parts.

but my point here - i do like me some christmas music, and they sang some good ones. i know a few of yall get all uptight when the radio goes all christmas, (and i do try to use terms like "holiday tree," and i try to remember to say "happy holidays" to people instead of "merry christmas," cause i know that the latter can be kinda isolating if you ain't somebody that celebrates christmas,) but i really do like this time of year. and especially here in louisiana; manger scenes everywhere, store employees saying merry christmas in the shopping malls (they ain't never heard of a non-christian down here), and 70 degree weather too. yeah, i can get behind a christmas like this one. (last year was in Laos, and the weather was even warmer than this, but there wasn't no christmas tree out in the village where i was staying.)

so here it is - my favorite christmas albums. and i don't care what anybody says, these are the best. (and the harry connick jr album is real bad, so don't even come up to me with that mess.)

5. the forbidden carols, michael mclean (i know the album ain't called that. but i call it that for obvious reasons to anyone that has heard the whole thing. and the story book that goes along with it is really awful. it's this whole mess about john the revelator flirting with this woman who ultimately cries "the day (she) takes the tree down," so i know that i shouldn't include the album on my list...but i can't help it. i still like it... i just do.)

4. our finest gifts, the nw boychoir and vocal point. i guess you can't buy this one no more, but they got a bunch of others; just go to their website. (i found this album in a 2nde hand shop in the university district, and then i looked em up online to see when they'd be performing. so i ended up seeing them back when their concerts were free; now they cost too much, but this is the best alternative. besides, who else can justifiably sing little drummer boy?)

3. the andy williams christmas album (he just sounds better than the rest. he sounds better than bing crosby, harry connick jr, michael bubbly, frank sinatra, adele, and any other similarly-styled singer living or dead.)

2. home for the holidays, amy grant (this might be an unlikely choice, but seriously, the album adds two songs to the bonafide christmas season staples. and also amy grant really believes in christ. some of the other singers only sing about christmas for the money.)

1. a christmas portrait, the carpenters. (i've never heard the original lp release, just the cd version. but that said, it's amazing; the album plays as one complete piece. and of course this is karen carpenter we're talkin bout here, with some unidentifiable input by her brother richard, i'm guessing. but by far the best christmas album of all time, hands down, 100% sure.)

the battle rages on...

2011-12-14T22:59:00.000-08:00

i am an outsider; i almost feel like i am watching two students fight on the first day of high school. i don't know who they are, but the joy of watching them punch each other is still the same. only i can't say this is joy that i am feeling. well, below is the clip - posted on youtube of course - and i encourage you to go to youtube's site, (well, maybe the word encourage is too strong. maybe i'll just say "you can go to the site if you'd like,") so that you can read the comments posted underneath, (even after the person that put up the video requested that no hate speech be posted.)

but let me explain: some amount of controversy exists over the present-day borders in southeast asia.

and so the war goes on and on. i've heard this for years: thailand took Laos' land and cambodia's land, and they are still trying to claim the khmer temples as their own. cambodia's land was taken over by the vietnamese. the vietnamese stole land from the cham. well, here is an animated map that shows the rise and fall of these kingdoms from 100-1550 ad. and the video is unbiased - it proclaims the map is based on historical fact. watch those early kingdoms move all over the place. it looks like something from the weather channel when a scary storm front is moving in...

but back to the comments... all that swearing? is it really necessary? be nice to each other. if i've learned anything, it's that southeast asians have much more in common (including ancestry for many of them) than what they have in differences. but for now i guess i'll just sit back and watch.

heading home to louisiana for christmas...

hell yeah

2011-12-07T21:51:00.000-08:00

woo hoo! this is the best thing ever. finally an easy to follow recipe for the best Lao dish ever: tammakhoung. and yes, she does use padek! Jai Lao padek to be exact. buy your padek on the Jai Lao website! anyways, this makes me very happy. and la is funny too; juicy papaya salad means your husband loves you hahahahahahaha!

hell yes.

hole-in-the-wall review:

2011-12-03T01:26:00.000-08:00

this is actually a complimentary review of northend seattle's semi-new Lao/thai restuarant, savatdee. i have posted on this before, so see what all i wrote here and here

but, the part of the seattle weekly article that gave me pause is where the reviewer called the place a "hole-in-the-wall." seriously? what does that phrase even mean if this restaurant is a hole-in-the-wall? erik, laura? jeannette? somebody back me up on this, please. but maybe i'm all offended because it's late at night and i should be in bed rather than reading restaurant reviews... but look at the comment posted by some reader at the bottom of the link; sounds like something i shoulda said.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/voracious/2011/11/save_a_seat_at_savatdee.php

you need me to repost it, don't you? well, here is the comment in case you are too lazy to click on the link:

hole-in-the-wall? if this place is hole-in-the-wall, then i don't know what that phrase means. i guess you are used to eating a ruth's chris or some other nasty-tasting high-end chain restaurant. weird. and if you call Viengthong, the only real Lao restaurant in seattle a hole-in-the-wall, i will accuse you of being elitist/racist/etc (because you are only calling it that because it's in south seattle.) so you can't win, so don't try. but i do agree: the food at savatdee (not welcome, more like hello) is awesome.

wow... the person making that comment is even meaner than me. but look at these pictures and decide for yourself if he/she ain't right:

black friday monk

2011-11-25T12:21:00.000-08:00

my friend, kone, sent me this picture he took while shopping at 4 am this morning. he included the caption: black friday is for everyone! yup, even the monks know when to get in on the action.

hope yall got everything yall wanted this year. black friday is my favorite holiday - the one holiday that hasn't lost its true meaning.

Laoz really isn't the biggest language

2011-11-20T23:33:00.000-08:00

so earlier this week i was looking through facebook and blogs, and i found this link posted on jai Lao's fb page; it is a blog by roland drake who is going to Laos - i think to the village where Jai Lao just built their most recent school - to work on a water sanitation project. here is the link:

http://myjourneytolaos.blogspot.com/

his blog is very earnest and sincere, and very much void of the sarcasm and meanness that i got splattered all over mine... and that being said, here i go again; (on to what i really wanted to post about:)

i found this youtube video on roland's blog and it is the best thing since i first ate padek. watch the video, then read my review...

so the wonders of the Laoz language, with its 5 tones, (ain't there 6?) i think that the real difficulty here is that you most likely got an american-born kid teaching people how to speak some basic Laoz. i'm guessing he must be in the mid-west somewhere by himself (without a large Lao community around him,) and so he ain't aware that he don't know Laoz all that well. otherwise he'd never had the courage to post this. in my job i run into quite a few Laoz young people, and they're overly aware of their deficiencies in the language and would never post something like this, even though some of them speak Laoz really well.

but if you're still reading this critique, the main problem (besides the lakone thing: nobody really says lakone unless you're singing a cheesy Lao break-up song; and the inconsistent romanization of Laoz words; and the fish, aunt, and crazy comparison: fish and aunt start with a different consonant (p) than crazy (b); and the coughing up phlegm on camera thing; with all the jump cuts, that could've easily been removed, right?) is what is in the cage behind him? is that a dead hamster back there???

and i know this is mean of me... i really shouldn't say nothing at all, because look at all the comments on youtube from other Lao-american kids who also don't know Lao! so all said and done, props to this kid for putting himself out there and teaching us all something about the Laoz language. (or as they say in Louisiana where i'm from: bless his heart.) and he even has a couple of good jokes: sabaidii does sound a lot like somebody, especially if you can't speak Lao all that good.

bussing it by air in Laos

2011-11-14T21:39:00.000-08:00

the Jai Lao Foundation just completed its mission to Laos to build its fourth school in baan hat kham, and while they were in Laos, i really enjoyed checking for the facebook updates - pictures, stories, etc, posted by the mission participants.

if you don't know about Jai Lao, read my previous posts (see labels on sidebar) and go to their website (linked above) and donate!

but one of the facebook posts by the board president included this picture, taken on a flight from Laos to thailand (i think!) with the following caption: Lao airline's new airbus plane. we got to be one of their first flyers on its third day of operation. YAY!! so beautiful and my favorite green color!!!

the plane looks amazing... but seriously? airbus? why not a nice big boeing plane made right here in washington state? maybe if they put that green papya color in their airplanes then Laos might buy one from them too. here is a link to the article about the new airbus planes in Laos. i guess they're getting a second one in december.

http://www.aviationrecord.com/FC/FCnews/Lao-Airlines-receives-first-Airbus-3024.aspx

importance of ichiro

2011-11-11T12:20:00.000-08:00

i've been meaning to post this link for sometime; (well, since the summer when jacob sent it to me...) and even though baseball is over for the year, this is an excellent article about ichiro... or to take it from the writer's caption:

ten years after ichiro suzuki broke into the majors, a reflection on the 2001 mariners, jackie robinson, the four noble truths and the cultural impact of baseball's most enigmatic player.

here is the link to the article by jay caspian kang:

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6626419/importance-ichiro

how i miss those 2001 mariners...

all dogs go to heaven

2011-11-05T14:02:00.000-07:00

a real nice picture montage of pet rescues during the recent floods in thailand. thank you wl for sending me this link...

the pictures are real sad... and adding insult to injury, they're paired with one of the worst songs to come out of thai pop music in a long time. unless you believe that all songs of thai pop music genre are the wosrst. was this particular singer drunk/high/drowning when she sang this? tavern karaoke at 2 am sounds better. and for those that might be wondering, this song roughly translates as "thanks for not throwing me away or abandoning me..." (or eating me, in this case.)

dengue fever

2011-11-01T12:11:00.000-07:00

dengue fever is heading to Laos as a part of their tour of southeast asia. i saw them a couple years back when they came to seattle, and they are just as good as i thought they'd be...

but to see them in Laos, that would be really good. and if you aint heard of them, check out their second album, escape from dragon house.

if you are down that way, here are the tour dates and a link to their website:

11/12 @ FCC, Phnom Penh, CAMBODIA
11/13 @ Epic Arts Center, Kampot, CAMBODIA
11/15 @ Hotel De La Paix, Siem Reap, CAMBODIA
11/16 @ Venue tbd, Battambang, CAMBODIA
11/18 @ Diamond Island Building, Phnom Penh, CAMBODIA
11/23 @ Venue tbd, Vientiane, LAOS
11/26 @ American Club, Hanoi, VIETNAM

http://denguefevermusic.blogspot.com/2011/10/dengue-fever-confirms-se-asia-dates.html

halloween head:

2011-10-27T01:40:00.000-07:00

just in time for the 31st. thanks susan for the picture.

smart and loving it in seattle:

2011-10-16T22:47:00.000-07:00

exactly one week after returning from louisiana, i find this opinion post in the seattle times newspaper:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2016506914_guest15diaz.html

for those that didn't click on the link - it is a piece written by john diaz, (seattle police chief) and sue rahr, (the king county sheriff.) they are plugging early intervention programs as the way to deter crime. there is no mention of money for more police anywhere in their piece, and instead they list research and statistics about the social and financial benefits of early childhood programs.

after reading the previously linked article from the baton rouge paper, i am very pleased to see something like this in the seattle times. and to express my gratitude, i won't say anything bad about the seattle or king county police departments for at least 1 week.

i like how they end their article:

"we would much rather invest in educating kids than pay much more for additional prisons. congress should continue to make early childhood development a priority so today's most at-risk children don't become tomorrow's most wanted adults."

stupid and loving it in baton rouge:

2011-10-08T16:02:00.000-07:00

some of yall already figured this out, but i am home in baton rouge for a visit right now, and i'm having a pretty good time... but sunday morning i woke up to find this article on the front page of the advocate - the only newspaper here after the state times went the way of all the earth. see the link below and then read my comments.

http://theadvocate.com/home/985563-79/tracking-street-gangs.html

i'm just a bit surprised that the assistant district attorney otha nelson is making these type of comments:

"i wouldn’t say that the problem in baton rouge is extreme,” nelson said. “we have not seen a situation where the public at large is at risk. but we need to get on the front end to ensure it doesn’t get worse.”

nelson seems to imply that as long as it stays within the gang community, then the problem is not extreme. this seems like a white-washed sanitized version of what you'd expect to see in the comment section of the article from the ignorant and prejudiced folk: "as long as it's those black kids, then who cares?" or "let them gang members kill each other - then they'll be less of them!"

in seattle, the murder rate is so much lower. and even though i don't completely agree with how mayor nickel's youth violence initiative has played out (i.e., who got the money, and that it's the exact same thing as before only a different name,) at least the public officials had something more progressive in mind than what they are doing in baton rouge: putting a mother of two juvenile offenders in jail for 30 days; this mother is undoubtedly lacking the resources to parent her children, so i'm not sure this backwoods idea of justice helped any.

i love my city, but i'm disheartened to hear the public officials comment and attempt a definition of gangs - calling them "factions," or spending time and money chasing them down on facebook. they really sound disconnected and sophomoric. just look at this quotation from DA nelson:

we were seeing young men being arrested for violent crimes and then we were seeing deaths,” nelson said. “there were coincidences that made us realize we were dealing with something here.”

is just it possible that he's trying to sound stupid? i thought they'd figured out they were dealing with "something" back in 2009 when this video hit the streets:

it might be nice to hear more about their prevention efforts. so my hat's off to people like arthur reed, who are trying to do this difficult work.

by the way, for those keeping score, the advocate has a nice "murder map" so we can tour all the sights of this year's murders in baton rouge! or maybe even sit back in our easy chairs with a cold drink and a bowl of zapp's potato chips while watching our 46-inch tvs and collectively say aloud, "glad all that s*** ain't happenin' in my hood!"

http://theadvocate.com/multimedia/homicidemap

hanging in the treme

2011-10-06T15:02:00.000-07:00

dis is where i'm at! nuff said...

asian food at an italian restaurant, why not?

2011-10-02T17:03:00.000-07:00

i saw this seattle times article about the christopher kong, son of the owners of the italian restaurant perche' no, only a few weeks after i met the kid.

if you've never been to perche' no, then give it a go. it's just south of green lake, and although it's as expensive as you'd expect, i really really enjoyed the food. i can't remember the names of anything we ate except the ravioli, or i'd give you our menu.

we'd gone to celebrate jeanette's birthday, and lily (the mom) prepared a special menu for us that lasted all night. it was friggin awesome. (we started around 7:30 and left sometime after 11 pm.) i should mention that jeanette has been going to perche' no for a long time now and so the owners know her by name. lily made her a sign that said happy birthday, and she took her picture and came out to visit numerous times throughout the evening. she even gave us a tour of the rooftop and sat us down to take a picture up there as well. and this may be what they are best at - lily and david really know how to reach out to their customers. all throughout the night, customers would call to her by name, "hello, lily!" or "thank you, lily!" (her husband david is less-polished and some of his comments bordered on the crass and the uncomfortable, especially there at the end of the night. you can ask our friend laura about this. [laura? did you yelp about our trip there or not?])

before continuing, here is a link to the article about christopher:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/allyoucaneat/2016337193_southeast_asia_an_inspiration.html

so on the way out, lily had mentioned that she grew up in thailand, (so we spoke some thai to each other,) and that her son christopher had just returned from a trip to southeast asia - that morning! he got in at 6:00 in the morning and then turned around and unbelievably came into the restaurant to help cook that evening. i stopped to speak to him about his trip, and about what he'd learned, and specifically about Laos. he was kind of busy behind the counter cooking something or nother, but he conversed with me a bit anyways. they were already planning for their first (or second?) asian cuisine night, and lily had given me a flier about it. well, christopher told me about learning asian cooking in malaysia and then traveling around for a bit afterwards.
"yeah, we traveled all night to get to luang prabang, and stayed there a couple of days before going to vientiane." he told me.
"what did you think?" i asked.
"well, there wasn't anything in vientiane, so we left that next day for thailand."

for those of you have been blessed to go to Laos, insert your own commentary here. for the rest of you, i will insert mine: WTH? if christopher was "eating his way through...Laos," then a few days just ain't doing Laos justice. wow, khao poun, khao soy, tammakhoung, laap, kaeng nommai alone would take you more than a few days. as they say, why eat at all if you ain't gonna eat in Laos? (they do say that, trust me.) but i know that not everybody has the Laos bug like me. (that is figurative, i ain't talking about traveler's diarrhea.) in fact, while at the Lao restaurant in south seattle, a white friend once said to me after i passed them the tammakhoung and they caught a whiff of the padek: "get that away from me! i'm gonna throw up!"

i spent a lot of money on therapy after that one.

but don't get me wrong; christopher is definitely the real deal in how he stuck it out in his homeland... so i might just go to one of these asian cuisine nights at an italian restaurant - just so i can see what all he learned while off in malaysia in that open air kitchen. i'm not expecting much padek in my food though... so imma have to sit at home and eat that all by myself...

my next island beach vacation:

2011-09-27T22:55:00.000-07:00

cambodia! this awesome resort is the first of its kind for cambodia and it's set to open in december!

who woulda thought that i could find this kind of luxury outside of ocean shores? and at only $2000 a night! (i am guessing that the average cambodian won't be staying here... since many make only $30 a month.) but i work hard for my money, so i deserve nice things.

here is the link to their website:

http://songsaa.com/

and the article about the resort below (thanks jane for sending me this!):

http://business.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/27/extreme-luxury-in-cambodia-comes-at-a-price/?hpt=hp_c2

Laos: where you can buy anything...

2011-09-22T01:11:00.000-07:00

i was on vientiane times website and saw this article... it appears that this Lao guy tried to bribe some immigration officer in new york and got caught. see the article here:

http://www.buffalonews.com/city/communities/buffalo/article564634.ece

and then to make matters worse, he decided to say, "i thought it was like my country, where you can buy anything." i am not sure what he really means, but the newspaper sure seemed to get a kick out of it.

because i'm pretty sure that you can buy anything in america; in fact, "buying anything" is what defines our great nation. and so i think i will buy a jumbo jack (with four tomatoes!) from jack in the box tomorrow. (you can't buy that in Laos.) and i am guessing there's plenty of public officials in america who are willing to be bribed; you just gotta find the right one.

so good job joe, making Laos look bad.

just like a waving flag...

2011-09-12T07:57:00.000-07:00

so i was finishing up a meeting with a client the other day, and he gave me a Lao flag; he had a few of them. (they were from a relative's funeral, he'd explained.) well, i happily accepted the flag - it's pretty small, and i used to have a big one hanging in my office, but i finally gave it away to this Lao kid that wanted it a lot more than i did.

but as i was looking it over, i noticed something strange:

a closer look in case you didn't see it the first time:

yeah... there is a cross on top of the parasol. and the real Lao flag... well, it aint got no cross. see below, (held proudly by some Lao-american rapper i aint never heard of:)

but not that it matters, right? this isn't even the flag of Laos anymore; it's defunct, having been traded in (by the communist regime) for the less ornate, much easier for the school kids to draw, version:

but what's funny is that the Lao flag (the former) contains a bit of buddhist symbolism - the three-headed elephant (while representing the three kingdoms of Laos to many of the Lao people) is a buddhist/hindu symbol for greatness. and the parasol is also of buddhist origin.

see http://laopost.net/2011/01/26/the-lao-flags/

here is a link to a summary of the present Lao flag's meaning, and it seems to jive with what i have heard before. (and interestingly, it is one of the few communist countries whose flag aint got a star on it:)

http://alao.wordpress.com/2008/05/02/meaning-of-the-lao-flag/

well, i guess if the flag is a mix of hindu, buddhism, Lao history and legnd, then why not throw in a little christianity too by sticking a cross on top of it all? in the end, i believe that everyone has the privilege to worship according to the dictates of their own conscience, and that we should allow everyone that same privilege, (i.e., let them worship how, where, or what they may.) so do what you will with the former flag of Laos. in fact, maybe christians should do something with the american flag too... (and maybe they already have..) maybe something like this?

the magic string on a bag of rice

2011-08-26T00:19:00.000-07:00

i aint even joking when i say there is a magic string on a bag of rice. lotsa yall know this already, but all bags of rice are stitched shut with this string thing - there's like three strings altogether - and if you find the magic string (the others are false leads like dead ends in a maze) and if you pull that one string, the whole bag will just open up and then you can get your rice out the bag. i was camping a bit ago and nobody could figure it out... one guy insisted that he'd seen is moms do it before, but when it got down to it, we had to use a knife to cut the strings. people were getting hungry for their rice so we couldn't wait there forever while he tried to find the magic string! and here is a picture of him trying to do just that:

well, i figured everything is on youtube, so i thought that when i get back i gotta get on the youtube and see if somebody got something to tell me how to do this... and here's what i found -- bag is from thailand, but not the teacher!

well, it takes him so long on that second string (and i had no idea what he was even doing cause i couldn't see nothing) that i kept yelling at him through my computer screen: "open it with a knife already!!!" that video wasn't much helpful, so i looked some more and found this one. thai rice with a thai teacher, (woo hoo! i can understand!) and only 1 minute open time...

he even does a "beup!" sound effect when he makes the
scissor cut. i like this one a lot. but seriously, can anybody post something in english?

i feel like this is a long time coming. i need to be able to do this. problem is, i just opened my rice (jasmine and sticky), so it may be a while before i get through all 25 lbs so i can practice. (unless somebody out there just bought a bag and needs it opened...)

one more reason for china to be anxious about taiwan

2011-08-18T09:06:00.000-07:00

lebron james participaed in a basketball game while on some nike tour of asia. here is what happened:

i think america's basketball prowess just got downgraded by the s&p to an AA+ rating...
here is an article about the incident:

http://www.businessinsider.com/video-asian-baller-schools-lebron-james-with-a-nifty-steal-and-dunk-2011-8

thanks emerson; i stole this link from your fb page...

i am Lao

2011-08-05T09:30:00.000-07:00

here is a pretty awesome song called "khoy pen Lao" (i am Lao,) and it mostly talks about Lao food, rice liquor, and bugs that Lao people eat. and it has my favorite line: i eat sticky rice, chew it with the chunky padek.

well, one of my clients informed me that this is the ring tone he set for me, so every time i call, he answers singing this song... well, obviously i am honored by the designation. but i'm kinda confused as well. i thought i made it clear that i wanted to be mien.

(i almost got this song memorized... one verse left to go.)

the tree of life

2011-07-27T22:40:00.000-07:00

ben said, "you gotta see it in the theatre - if you watch it on dvd, you'll get distracted."
i say, "see it in the theatre more than one time." i'm going again on next tuesday to see the best movie of the year; in fact, why don't they just hold the academy awards tonight? and then they could give all the awards to this one right here:

but i should give you a word of caution: this movie aint for everyone; it aint like nothing you ever seen before. i hear that some people have gotten up and left the theatre, thinking that the movie is more like some preview that never ended. read moira's review and you'll see what i mean.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/mbase/cgi-bin/DisplayPage.pl?source=tms&source_id=MV002613930000

so meet me at the egyptian on capitol hill at 8:00 pm if you're fixing to come watch it on tuesday. show starts at 8:15. see yall there.

correction

2011-07-21T11:39:00.000-07:00

yes chandra... 78 minutes. i got my info from a faulty source. regardless, joseph gordon-levitt got 500 days, and all we get is a little over an hour? can't wait for autumn...

66 minutes of summer

2011-07-20T17:29:00.000-07:00

so seattle is making me mad. i wait all year for july, and then it gets here and all we get is 66 minutes of temperatures above 80 degrees, and only 19 hours of temps above 75 degrees. it just aint right... ima file a law suit. and everywhere else is getting 100 degree temps! wow. thanks alena for making me aware of how miserable this summer is turning out to be.

does any of yall wanna go to Laos for the summer?

russell is asian

2011-07-13T21:38:00.000-07:00

dear you-know-who-you-are:
this really aint important, but seriously... how could you watch the whole movie and not know that russell is asian. i realize that his race is not a part of the plot, but seriously... i mean, i know that he is a cartoon and that all cartoons look alike, but seriously? and they even show his mom at the end, and she ain't got a baseball cap like russell to cover up her asian-ness...and plus, you said it was one of your favorite movies? seriously...

but i need to reiterate: i know it aint all that important (other than it's pixar's first asian casting in a leading role; see wikipedia for that one,) but it is kinda important for jordan nagai, a japanese american, and the child voice actor for russell... and what's more, you wouldn't even believe me when i told you, so you had to text message your friend that works at pixar??? (but i gotta admit - that is pretty cool that you know someone who works at pixar. i only know folks who are out of work mostly.)

well, anyway... here is a picture of a kid who clearly knew that russell was and ever will be asian:

cambodia's curse

2011-07-08T18:49:00.000-07:00

below is the link to a book review of a new book on cambodia. while most of the book is on the modern state of cambodia, the author has a section on cambodians in america and how ptsd can be passed on generationally.

i haven't read it,(nor have i read several other books that i bought about cambodia.) but i saw it on the shelf down at powells two fridays ago, and i thought, "wow, another book on cambodia?" not that you can have too many books on cambodia, but really... you kinda can, especially if you haven't read the 10 or so that you already have.

but if i do eventually purchase and read this book, i will say more, right here on this blog...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/books/review/book-review-cambodias-curse-by-joel-brinkley.html?_r=1&nl=books&emc=booksupdateema3

ode to my sister

2011-06-26T08:20:00.000-07:00

my sister just completed a week-long visit to seattle. she returned to louisiana, the state of my birth with quite amount of fanfare that i will not get into here. but she loved seattle - the view of mountains and hills in pretty much every direction you might look - and the smells, particularly downtown where the salt water mixes with the carnival aroma of things cooking at pike place market (or maybe even mcdonald's on the corner of 3rd and pine.) she and so many of my siblings have tried to shake themselves of their louisiana heritage, while i guess i might be the only one that wants to embrace it. maybe it's because of all that time we spent in california when my dad was in the air force. (i hardly was in california at all; my dad retired before i even started kindergarten and brought me back louisisana.) and now i've been gone from home for more years than i like to think about, but i spend too much time in my job talking about culture and heritage to not see its importance for me- so i find myself wanting to reclaim mine.

i know i've posted on this (and mincemeat pie) before, but the feeling of disconnect from my roots seems to intensify over time. i think my louisiana heritage is much muted by the fact that i've lost my accent - sold it for a mess of pottage as it were, by coming up to seattle and so readily embracing the scene here; thus i am looked at incredulously when i tell people i'm from baton rouge. also, we didn't eat crawfish growing up. my mother is not cajun nor was she poor, and thus, crawfish wasn't something her family would eat. and i didn't grow up hanging in the treme, (watching people sashay past my steps.) so what do i have left? well, i still have my sisters and my dad that live there, and i can still go home. and my sister, to her eternal dismay, still has a southern accent that gets the jealousy stirred up inside me. and she hates her accent! (so much so that when she says, "i hate my accent," she says hate with two syllables.) but no matter, seattle loved her - everywhere she went there was a conversation, and seattle quickly realized that they could look up at the sky or into each other's eyes and say things... yes, to quote my sister, "seattle finds me quaint and adorable!" there are some other quotations from my sister, but i won't get into those here either.

but the point of this post: while my sister was here in seattle, i felt my tongue loosen. (how else can i describe this?) my brain somehow sent signals to my mouth, my tongue, the air coming up out of my lungs! and my brain told my voice to loosen it up a bit, to revisit the past, to speak how i shoulda been speaking all these years, how i used to speak before. (oh yeah, i know some of yall didn't know this, but believe you me, i did have an accent! i've seen videos of me as a kid, and i look at me and feel all confused, like it aint really me at all, just some other kid wearing a shirt or sweater that looks like something i used to wear back when i was growing up.) well, this past week, i felt my southern accent return. when talking to my sister, i'd speak the words like they're supposed to be spoken, and the sound of my tone and voice, it was how it shoulda been! and like a father killing the fatted calf for the returning prodigal, i felt inclined to throw myself a party. so i ate a lot of doughnuts and pretended they were beignets. it really was a week-long mardis gras.

but its sunday morning, and it's gone now, my accent. my sister left and took with her my ability to speak it... if i try, it sounds like i'm imitating. when did it go? where did it go? i'm not upset that its gone, more happy to have had it hang around if even for a little while. felt like more than just my sister had come to visit, but my past and my former self. so this is for you wana lee! (and for your accent!!) thanks you for reminding me of it, for bringing it out of me, and for giving me the most important reason of all to return home.

by the way, check out the opening credits of treme. this has gotta be one of the best tv show openers of all time - from the music to the images of katrina mold and vintage scenes of new orleans:

here is the full song by john boutte:

congrats

2011-06-25T10:50:00.000-07:00

congrats to daravanh for her winning essay and the opportunity to accompany Jai Lao foundation to Laos to build a school in banh hat kham! and thanks to everyone that voted!

and if you're in cali today, don't forget to stop by the Jai Lao foundation's annual fund raising dinner! but actually, on second thought... i think you have to reserve your ticket, so it might be too late...

well, here's the link anywayz...

http://www.jailao.org/Home_Page.html

Jai Lao's essay contest: banh hat kham

2011-06-17T09:49:00.000-07:00

i've posted all the essays for the Jai Lao build-a-school-in-Laos contest! if you haven't had a chance, read them below - or go to the Jai Lao facebook page, like Jai Lao and read them there. then you can vote on which one you like best.

i will be voting for essay #1, and so i encourage everyone to get on facebook and vote for banh hat kham! this is a very close race, so vote now.

here is my reasoning - while every village in Laos needs a school, banh hat kham has the ground work already laid. the land has been identified and cleared, teachers are ready to teach, and an organization is already in the community and can assist with the ongoing negotiations to ensure the success of the school.

i appreciate all the hardwork that JLF has put into their missions in Laos. and i am excited to see another school built!

the contest ends next friday, so vote now:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jai-Lao-Foundation/86902157936?sk=notes

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jai-Lao-Foundation/86902157936?sk=notes#!/note.php?note_id=10150197409086644

banh meuang kham

2011-06-16T08:59:00.000-07:00

essay #4:

BUILDING A FUTURE FOR BANH MUANG KHAM

I remember sitting at the dining table one hot afternoon, complaining about the amount of homework third graders had to do when I should be outside playing. Telling myself how stupid school was, would I really use all these subjects as an adults and why am I wasting this beautiful day inside instead of outside with my friends. Not only did I grow up in a small town of Opelika, Alabama; I was that 1 out of 5 Asians in my school that spent more time observing the other students than interacting with them. I thought whoever wanted to go to school was an idiot!

My aunt, Monekham, who just came from Laos, would often sit down with us when we did our homework. Interested in the subjects American school s offer, she would ask us how Laotian schools were compared to American schools. She then reminisced about how difficult it was to go to school back in Laos. The children there wanted to go to school but couldn't. I just didn't comprehend what she meant by that. Why would anyone want to go to school when they had an option not to? And she couldn't comprehend why I didn't want to go to school.

As she tried to explain it to me, I could feel the seriousness in her voice, the way her eyes got glassy about a very corrupt country and hard life back in Laos. Even as an 8 yr old, seeing someone's eyes moistens up signified the universal language for sadness. She described her early morning 20 minute walk on a dark dirt road from her village, Baan Muang Kham (Xieng Khouang), to the next village where a school was available. Her village had a small school but it was only from grades 1-3 and the children would be lucky if they had a teacher. After elementary school, she had to go to another city to continue her education. She always reminds us how fortunate we are to have many schools, buses, textbooks, and teachers to accommodate us. She was very proud to grow up without a parent but still get the chance to get an education.

Unlike her, there are thousands of other children who wants to read and write, sit in a classroom and gain book knowledge. They weren't able to do so because there were no schools nearby since Laos is not developed enough due to lack of educational. So many children help out their family by finding jobs at a young age to help feed their parent and other younger kids in the family. It is a game of survival of the fittest. Life was their school and teachings. They would never be able to experience sitting in a classroom and reading a textbook like our kids are in the United States.

When I saw Jai Lao's posting for this contest, I thought of my aunt immediately and knew how much entering her village in this contest would mean to her. After explaining the contest to my aunt, she repeately asked, "Wow, so they are really going to build an actual school, school? With teachers?" The excitement in her voice was priceless.

With the lack of knowledge I have on Baan Muang Kham, I started doing my research and also had my aunt contact some of her family and friends in this village. Please forgive me if some of my facts are off, but getting resources on such a small village is so limited, we can only go by the information that were given from a relative who currently resides there. Baan Muang Kham is a small village of about 30 families. The village consists of an old elementary school, that often lacks teachers. If a school is built there, not only Baan Muang Kham but the surrounding small villages will benefit from walking lesser miles for education. Children will have consistency in education because the governor will provide teachers for them. As you can see, all the Googling I did about this tiny village wouldn't be enough resource for me to speak so thoroughly about. This is how unexplored part of Laos are, to know more about this part I would have to speak to people who once lived in this village. Right now Laos is islolated from the rest of the world, not only through educational advancement, but also because the people there don't have the tools to communicate to the rest of the world about where they come from. That's why it's so important to build schools and bring awareness to everyone outside of Laos. It starts with a small gesture and from there on, it grows and maybe one day we can build a school in every village just like American has schools for every X amount per capital.

Here I am, over two decades later and finally realizing what my aunt said to me made sense. My friend MeMe and I had a conversation about how we always wanted to have a foundation of our own to help Laotian and Thai people back at home-we didn't know how or what, but we knew we wanted to do something. But did it matter as long as we are dedicated, and inspire others to do the same? Whether it is raising money to send supplies back home, building a school, or even educating today's youth about keeping our traditions alive, we know that it starts with "you". We both told each other with faith and supporters behind us it could happen.

So when we came across Jai Lao's contest we knew we had to do our best. This opportunity will give both of us a wonderful experience to serve on one of Jai Lao great missions. Being raised in America for almost 30 years and living the American way doesn't mean we have to lose all sense and tradition of our Laotian way. We surely don't have the appearance of traditional Asians, but that's what would set us a part from the stereotype. If we could educate other younger 2nd, 3rd generation Laotians in America about our mission and/or traditions, then we can keep our culture alive and not let it wash away.

banh houay xai

2011-06-15T08:57:00.000-07:00

essay #3:

Embracing My Roots

I wake up to blaring alarm clocks, Facebook, and live by what my over packed electronic calendar on my iphone tells me to do. Half way around the globe, there are people who wake up to the sound of roosters and live by what the sun and stars provide them. While I start my day complaining about having to get up for work, commuting, and running myself ragged with my kid’s extracurricular activities, these people start their day fetching water from a well, sow their fields, and walk miles to the market to sell their crops to support their families.

It’s no wonder my parents looked to Ah-may-leekah (America) in search of freedom for their future but mostly for mine. The price to pay? I have no memories. I have kept zero to little tradition. Worst yet, I have no photographs except the one shown of my childhood in Laos. But I am educated. There was never a doubt that I would be. My parents believed an education held promises for a better life.

We left Laos when I was 4 and we never lookedback. I never had any interest in embracing my culture because all I wanted to be was an American. I didn’t want to be made fun of at school for looking different, for speaking different, and “darn it! why did e-meh (mom) pack me a ball of sticky rice for my lunch while everyone else had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?” I wanted nothing to do with being Laotian until recently.

My secret desire to learn about my motherland was sparked in December 2009. I met an older Caucasian man at a holiday party. Drunk conversations can often be hilarious but never educational... he knew more about Laos than I did. He traveled thru Laos in the late 70s and fell in love with the country. He told me about Luang Prabrang, Huay Xai, Muang Sing and a bunch of other small villages. Although I wasn’t drunk, I couldn’t tell him which province I was from.

When I tell people I’m from Laos, they usually don’t have a clue where the country is so why bother with details of province and village. He told me stories of how each village was very rich in tradition, hospitality, and especially compassion for a stranger.

After the party, I declared that visiting Laos was going on my bucket list. The next day I called my parents and asked them where we lived in Laos. My mother is from Ban Huay Xai and my father is from Muang Sing. I’m not certain whether it’s a coincidence that my family is from the places that Caucasian man was telling me about.

Later in January 2010, my son’s preschool class asked me to share some traditions for their multicultural day event. One event led to another and that year I learned a bit more about Laos. One sleepless night, I was surfing the internet and stumbled upon Jai Lao Foundation (JLF). I don’t even remember googling anything on Laos but somehow one link led to another link that led me to JLF.

Perhaps it was a coincidence that all these strings of events has led me to this opportunity to be a part of JLF’s mission to build another school for the Laotian children. Each event and each link I visited got me closer to connecting with my parents and initiating a long over due and rare conversation about our culture.

Every child, no matter the culture, has heard the story of how their parents walked miles and miles to school in snow, rain, and sleet. My mom is definitely no exception. She literally walked a long distance from her village to go to school. She didn’t attend preschool or elementary school as there was none available. She was a teenager when she first attended school and she says, “I would stop by the noodle house and eat kow soy midway to school because it was that far.” As the only daughter amongst three older brothers, she had many responsibilities handed to her so she was very fortunate to receive an education even though it was very minimal. There was no time for formal education when there are other important things to worry about such as the basic survival of the family.

My intention of nominating a school for the villages of Huay Xai is to not only bring a school closer to their village or to give them an opportunity for more education, but to be the example of why it’s important to know where you are from and most importantly to not be ashamed of your culture. Building a school in the villages would be an easy thing to accomplish with the proper resources, but teaching people to look inside of them and empower them to stay grounded in their roots is a much more rewarding service.

As a yoga teacher, I am rewarded and inspired by the many students who begin to spark transformations through the practice of yoga to find their authentic self. As I commit to my practice, I realize that sometimes I struggle to find my authentic self because I’m not grounded in my roots. I’ve grown up in a place where external influences heavily taint my true self. I’ve masked myself with layers of social domestication because I wanted to fit in. These past few years, yoga has slowly helped me peel away the layers so I may get a glimpse of who my true self is. Sometimes I find things that I don’t like about me, but the process of finding that part of me helps me to grow and become what’s already inside of me and not what I should become.

Without a doubt, the villagers will be overwhelmed with gratitude for their new school. To these under-served children, a pencil, a teacher, and a classroom can bring the promise of a future with choice. This is what my parents created for me. However, as I live and grow, I can see clearly that an education alone does not promise a ticket to a better life. I’m discovering that we all have choices no matter what our socioeconomic status is. It’s a simple choice of choosing to be guided by our life’s experience and using those experiences as a platform to create future choices or be stuck in the story of “poor me... if only I had more of I could live a happier life.” My wish for these students is to bring their real life experiences into their new classrooms and use it to create possibilities.

Each village deserves to be the recipient of a very generous gift from JLF. However, I chose my mom’s village in Ban Huay Xai. If chosen, I would choose without hesitation to have my mom accompany me on my journey to Laos. It would be a dream come true for her because she tells me the house she grew up in is still standing. She has never visited the Motherland since immigrating here. Many stories would unfold from our visit and I imagine many tears would be shed.

What intrigues and scares me most at the same time is the connection I would be rebuilding with my mom. There is much mystery and opportunities to be discovered by not only my mom and I, but for those Laotian faces that are smeared rich with experience and humanity. There is no question that these little faces would educate me beyond what any classroom could provide for them. They are already rich in many ways... a classroom would just be the sacred space for them to explore their highest potential.

banh pherk

2011-06-14T18:51:00.000-07:00

here is essay #2 from the Jai Lao foundation's contest. see my previous posts below for details. please like Jai Lao on facebook and then vote for an essay!

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Jai-Lao-Foundation/86902157936?sk=notes

First of all, I would like to Thank you all for giving everyone an opportunity to submit this essay.

I would like to share my childhood memory with you of a small remote village by the name of Ban Pherk. This village is about 40 minutes drive out skirt from Vientiane. As a kid, I remembered walking on the red dirt road for 5 or 10 minutes to the village school as a first grader. The school bench was made out of logs that has been cut in halves and not stained. Students shared desk with other classmates in a classroom with no electricity or bathroom. Every morning before starting class, we all stood in front of the school and sang the Lao Anthem song. The school exist of 1st to 4th grade only. After that, students has to go to another village name Elai which is about 20 minutes driving distance. Most of the people in this village do not own cars, so the education stops at the 4th grade level. Ban Pherk is not a village that I was born in, but it was the last village that I can remember as a kid living in Laos. I consider this village my childhood hometown village. As I remember there is only 1 school there. The village has no playground anywhere not even at the school. I believe in higher education for every children in the world, and I would like this village to have that opportunity as well. If there is an opportunity in the future, I would like to explore this village with the Jai Lao Boards to build a Secondary school. With an educated children in the village, they will be able to provide and contribute to their community as well as to Laos and the World outside of Laos. This would be an opportunity of a lifetime for me and this village to have a Secondary School build within walking distance for the children to attend. I would be able to visit my parents homeland and reconnect with people in the village in helping Jai Lao Foundation build a school, if Ban Pherk is chosen.

Since both of my parents has passed now, I do not know too much about where my parents raised us as a kid in Laos. Most of my relatives are back in Laos. Our dad passed away 1 month after we arrived in the US and my mother was in her early 30's with 5 young children. My mother passed at the age of 50 losing her final life battle to cancer. After my father passed, my mother had to learn to drive and work to support her children. We didn't do much family events together because mom always had to work to support us. I didn't understand why she had 2 or maybe even 3 jobs back then. Now I understand all the sacrifices that she had made to provide for her children. The one promise that my dad requested from my mom before he passed was to make sure his children all attend college for higher education. My mother worked and show us her strength and ambition for us children to further our education not only for ourselves but to make our hard working mother proud and have pride in her children. At each graduation ceremony, my mom would cry nonstop and I used to be so embarrassed. But now I understand her feelings of joy and accomplishment of the promise she made to her late husband. I like to learn more about Ban Pherk and have more compassion for the people of the village. This will show me where my parents came from as well as where I came from and where I would be if my mother did not make the decision to escape Laos to meet up with my dad who escaped the War and was already in Thailand waiting for his family.

It's very difficult for me to take my mind back to the past because there was a lot of sad memories. I look forward everyday for a brighter and better day. As immigrants, we all have the same kind of story but every story is different and unique for that family. I remember going back and forth hiding in 2 of our Aunt's house in Vientiane before escaping to Thailand. My mother sewed gold jewelry inside the Sinh that I was wearing. We rode in a boat to cross the Mekong River with my mom, 1 brother and 2 sisters and a cousin who was about 15 years old who was very beautiful with long wavy hair. I remember the only light lighting the way in the Mekong River was the cigarette light from the man who was rowing the boat. I stared at the glowing embers of the fire, observing the smoke fly away and gradually fade to nothingness. I heard several gunshots along the way and even saw a dead body floating in the river. My mother covered my mouth before I can even scream in terror. We walked up from the boat to the Thailand soil that dark morning. We saw 2 Thai Officials carrying guns. Before they took us to the Nongkai Camp in Thailand, there was a bribery between the 2 Thai Officials and my 15 years old cousin. I remembered they took her somewhere and brought her back later with her white shirts missing buttons. I don't know much about time back then, but the wait to see her face was so still and silent. The only noise I heard was my mom cries in anger the whole time until my beautiful cousin came back with the 2 Thai officials. I kept thinking in my mind the whole time, what is happening to my beautiful cousin and where did they take her, and when will I see her again??? She came back looking so upset with anger and fear. She non stop cried nonstop in tears until she sat in silent. As I got older, I made an educated guess what happened to my cousin. I think the 2 Thai Officials violated her soul to pay for our ways to the Nongkai Camp in Thailand. I never asked my mom about it, but I'm pretty sure that was what happened. Maybe my mom though we were too young to even know what was happening and hope that we did not remember this past. It's something that we never discussed or talk about ever again. With this is my mind as a child, it made me a stronger person and to believe in the ability of attaining a higher education and maybe one day go back in the past to the village my parents once lived and see how I can help this village. Taking the effort to write this essay is my first step in trying to help my fellow classmates and Lao citizens back home who did not take the opportunity to escape Laos and experience the life in America. If my parents can bring us to the America so their children can have a higher education and fight the many obstacles along the way, there is no reason why anyone of the village kids should not attend school or have the opportunity to do so if the secondary school is built in this town. I would even like to tell the village people our family struggle and experiences to the US, just to motivate parents to allow their children to attend school. Our family is one of the very few that left the town.

In 2009, I made my first journey back to Laos and visited Ban Pherk for a brief 30 minutes. My last memory about Ban Pherk, it was one of those rare morning that the sun manages to peek out from the thick, ominous clouds that have disappeared for many days, revealing the vivid bright sky and the warmth of the bright sunlight seeping through my face as we walk out of this village. At that very moment, I felt and saw a brighter light somewhere else in the future or place as if we were following the rainbow to search for the pot of gold. Many years has passed by in the blink of an eye and I came back to Ban Pherk and everything still looked the same with very little changes in the village. I did not have the opportunity to explore the village, but it looked very small. I remember as a kid the house we lived in had more land. I was told the land was sold out. My parents used to farm rice field and that was sold out too by relatives. When I went back to the house we used to live in, i had very few recollection of the house. To my surprise, my brother remembers every land and lot that belonged to my late grandmother. The fondest memory I had was having lunch with my parents on a hut in the rice field while my brother was fishing. While visiting the Village's Wat, I was looked for my grandmother's Tombstone which was no where to be found. I discovered that the day of her funeral, it rained so hard and her ashes were never collected. Grandmother's Tombstone was never built. I felt so hurt by this discovery, my eyes was draining tears as if I was trying to fill up the water in the Mekong River. When I returned to the US, I told my siblings about the story and we built a Tombstone to honor my grandmother at the Wat. The most precious thing that my aunt in Laos gave me that belonged to her only brother were spoons that she found at the house we left behind. She gave me 2 of the spoons which I feel very honored to have since this is the only belongings that I have from my late father. In meeting and learning about Jai Lao Foundation, it gave me the courage to travel back in time to my past which I remember in Ban Pherk. In that travel, I learned more of where my life started, the struggles my parents took, the life of my parents, and who I am and who I could have been if I was still living in Ban Pherk now.

Seeing the innocent people at the Wat who are now all strangers to me, but could have once been my parents friends, made me want to explore more about the town to learn more where I came from and where my parents came from. After going back to Laos, I realize the painful memories I fear was now in the past. We all make choices and our parents made choices for our future. It was not an easy struggle and there were sacrifices along the way to the land of freedom and opportunity. Parents in Laos have this opportunity to support their children to attend school and children have the decision for their future. If they understand our immigrant struggles, then maybe education will be a priority for our Lao people too. An educated person will have an educated choice in life and a brighter future no matter where they reside. By building schools and giving educations to the hundreds and later thousands of children in Laos, Jai Lao Foundation is giving the best gift anyone can give to a child. I would like to nominate Ban Pherk to have this opportunity for a secondary education for the children of this village. This is the best life time opportunity that I can do help the people of this village is to share knowledge. Education is not up to the mark at Ban Pherk due to lack of institutions. The lack of proper infrastructure or school are the main drawback which directly effects the growth of the development in this village. Agriculture is the main occupation of the villagers. The cultural and social life of the villagers are simple and comfortable. They seem to be contented with what they have because it's what they know. If a Secondary School is build at Ban Pherk, Most if not all kids in the village, and maybe other villages will be entering the school to acquire the knowledge they need and further help with the development of their village in the future to come.

Thank your for reading my life memory which started in BAN PHERK, a small remote village in Laos. Please considerate your VOTE for BAN PHERK for Jai Lao Foundation to build a Secondary School to give the children of this village an opportunity to higher education than just a 4th grader.

ban hat kham

2011-06-12T11:30:00.001-07:00

over the next several days, i will post about the Jai Lao contest to build their fourth school in Laos. (see my previous post.) Jai Lao is doing awesome work in bringing education to young people in Laos, and they are sponsoring a contest to bring another school to Laos - and allowing supporters of Jai Lao to decide which village will have a school built. Four essays have been written asking for support.

if you "like" Jai Lao organization on facebook, you will then be able to help decide which of these villages will have their school built.

here is the first of four essays that are posted on the Jai Lao page:

Situated two and a half hours north of Luang Prabang then an hour and 45 minutes by boat further north up the river Nam Ou, Ban Hat Kham is built in mountain terrain and nestled in groves of trees. The village has no paved roads, no electricity, and no latrines. It is home to 53 Khmu families and has a population of 307 residents. Their homes, made of bamboo with mostly thatch or tin roofs, are perched on stilts and clustered close together.

The residents of Ban Hat Kham are extremely poor. Their estimated per capita annual income is a mere tenth of the meager $986 national average (U.S Department of States, November 30, 2010, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs). Their geographic location limits their economic mobility. They rely heavily on subsistence farming, gathering, hunting, trapping, and fishing for their survival. The villagers mainly barter for goods among themselves, although they occasionally earn cash by selling farm goods, basketries, and livestock to outsiders who pass through.

Ban Hat Kham needs a new school that will provide education to preschoolers through third graders. The village has a school teacher and 49 students but no school building. In 2010, monsoons destroyed the village school, a simple bamboo structure. The villagers salvaged a chalkboard, some desks, and a few wooden benches and tables. No textbooks exist in the village.

The residents want to build a two-room school but lack the funds. As a temporary measure, the local government allows the teacher to hold school in the village’s community center where village council meetings are held. The community center, an open structure with no windows or shutters, is not a suitable location. During the wet and windy season, which can last up to five months, classes are usually cancelled. This substantial gap in the school year disrupts the students’ educational progress.

Steve Rutledge, founder of Adopt a Village in Laos (AAVIL), a Canada-based nonprofit organization, obtained approval from the local government to build a two-room primary school and provide water purification systems and hygienic latrines. AAVIL had a donor lined up to fund the school. Unfortunately, the donor withdrew the offer when the Lao government announced a proposal to build a dam near the village. The dam proposal is in its early stages. If the project is eventually approved, which may take an estimated seven to ten years, Ban Hat Kham would be submerged in water, and the residents would be forced to relocate.

While the proposal creates a degree of uncertainty, the developers have promised to relocate the village and replace everything the villagers lose, including any buildings such as a school. The education of these children cannot be placed on hold while the decision is made. Most children in Laos do not make it past the 5th grade. A delay of a single year costs the children a large percentage of their potential education. They can’t afford to wait. They need a school now.

AAVIL does not currently have funding to build a school for Ban Hat Kham. A partnership with the Jai Lao Foundation is all it would take to make the dream of obtaining a new school a reality. Mr. Rutledge indicated that AAVIL is excited to collaborate with Jai Lao and has pledged to donate a water filter system to every family in Ban Hat Kham and to the school. In addition, the organization will provide school supplies and two toilets to the school when it is built.

According to Mr. Rutledge, the residents of Ban Hat Kham are eager to help build a new school. They have committed to supply wood and collect gravel and sand from the river. The villagers have shown initiative in cleaning the old school site and clearing debris to prepare for the new building.

Thanks to the preliminary work completed by AAVIL, Ban Hat Kham provides an opportunity for Jai Lao and its supporters to improve lives quickly. With so many deserving villages, deciding which one to assist will be difficult; however, I believe Ban Hat Kham is the ideal location for Jai Lao’s new school project.

this essay was written by a good friend of mine, daravanh! if you wish to vote for ban hat kham, "like" Jai Lao, then "like" essay #1.

building a school

2011-06-10T09:02:00.000-07:00

i've posted about the Jai Lao foundation before. they are a wonderful organization that has been working to build schools in rural parts of Laos. (and one of their fund raisers is selling Jai Lao padek!) they are currently beginning construction on another school right now.

if you are on facebook, look for them and "like" them, and you can see their info and photos of the work they've done.

they were awarded money from chase bank to build more schools, and so they are holding a contest - four people have submitted essays describing the needs of a village in Laos, and based on fb votes, a school will be built in one of those villages.

here are the rules:

Jai Lao Village School Search Rules

The Village Essay School Search will run from Friday, June 10 through Friday, June 24. Here are the four villages asking for your vote to have Jai Lao build a school in their village: BANH HAT KHAM~ESSAY 1, BAN PHERK ESSAY 2, BANH HUAY XAI~ESSAY 3, BANH MUANG KHAM~ESSAY 4. While all four villages are worthy of having a school built, only one can win this contest through your votes. Please take the time to read all four essays to determine which one you’d like to vote for. You must “LIKE” the Jai Lao Foundation first in order to have your vote counted.

ONLY ONE VOTE PER FB USER PLEASE. If Jai Lao sees you have voted more then once, then your vote will be disqualified. The contest is two weeks long and every vote counts. Please feel free to rally your FB friends to help your village. Jai Lao will tally up the votes Friday, June 24 and announce the winning essay at our 2nd Anniversary One Night in Laos Charity dinner June 25.

The village chosen with the most FB votes will have a great opportunity to travel to Laos, along with a friend, funded by Jai Lao in November 2011 to build their dream school in their home village. This indeed is a rare and wonderful opportunity for Jai Lao Board of Director Volunteers travels to Laos at our own expense. Please note: Travel is from San Francisco airport only. Jai Lao wishes all four great essays the best of luck on this contest.

so get on fb, like Jai Lao, and vote!

and bhet would like for you to vote for her village...hers is baan hat kham, essay #1!

funded

2011-06-06T17:38:00.000-07:00

this kickstarter thing is the best idea ever. congrats jenny on getting the funding you were looking for, and with four days left to spare!!!

and in other news, weiner admits guilt...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_congressman_twitter_photo

and the thai king is insulted...
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/u-citizen-charged-thai-royal-insult-111055626.html

thailand bans buddha tattoos...

(this is the thai rapper nicky pimp... and you gotta love his other tattoo as well - it lets you know that he is his "dad's child." wow.)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/02/thailand-ban-tourists-buddha-tattoo

and Laos is trying to replant its forests...
http://www.vientianetimes.org.la/FreeContent/free_No.htm

love hacking part 2.

2011-05-18T15:53:00.001-07:00

so according to the widget (see below) jenni is 73% there. and i've decided i aint making any new blog posts until she reaches her funding goal for her film "love hacking." (most of yall are probably breathing a sigh of relief) but seriously, give a little bit if you can! i'm trying to watch this movie and i got a dvd riding on this!

click on link for kickstarter website is below:

love hacking

2011-05-13T23:56:00.000-07:00

i'm already loving this and i aint even seen beyond the preview yet. wow. this is a film by jenni nelson, (my friend i traveled with in india). help get jenni on her way to film completion by donating to the project on kickstarter.com! see link below to watch the trailer and donate:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1469950511/love-hacking-a-robot-inventor-dating-documentary

fantastick

2011-05-09T10:27:00.000-07:00

this is some eastside child's art project posted up at her eastside school. i post it here for its artistic accomplishment and general hilarity. its good to know that children are learning to appreciate their own talents and accomplishments.

btw, i pulled this from a friend's blog; she kindly cut off the child's name for the child's protection. (and said friend, let me know if you want credit, and i'll publish a link to your blog: here. and it was an eastside child right?)

only on fox news...

2011-05-02T17:27:00.000-07:00

cambodian aid

2011-05-02T11:00:00.000-07:00

i guess aid to cambodia doesn't always go where its supposed to. this comes from a story from the washington post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/aid-to-cambodia-rarely-reaches-the-people-its-meant-to-help/2011/04/15/AF2JN8vD_story.html

thanks jacob for this link.

wearing your heart on your sleeve

2011-04-22T18:25:00.000-07:00

i know yall are all jealous. everybody wants a shirt like this. i'm about the get one and wear it whenever i am going to eat padek. but mine will be a dark blue... i'll post a picture when i get it. and i'm not taking orders. i'm trying to be original.

well, honestly, i can't say i'm being too original since it was kone's idea, and he's the one having them special-made. that's him in the picture; face sold separately.

culinary traditions, activists, and dog collars

2011-04-18T14:09:00.000-07:00

start by reading this article here:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.58e43efdbb6421d6ae4c5241e9b944e4.4a1&show_article=1

so i've talked about this before... and so i won't write too much here for fear of alienating a few people. but i do think there is a big difference between eating an animal that has been raised for consumption and eating an animal that was someone's pet. so i will need to rethink what i eat when i get to Laos next time. (reading this article makes me question my culinary decisions while abroad.)

i am not making any lenten-style promises here, but i'm really wondering if maybe i should just say no... thanks (like, yeah, thanks a lot) to jacob for making me aware of this article.

bus stop "vandalism"

2011-04-13T12:03:00.000-07:00

this is the bus stop at mlk jr. way south and massachusetts. probably a more appropriate way to vandalize. i think it must have been sanctioned by someone somewhere.

vandalism

2011-04-09T17:04:00.000-07:00

i don't usually support people defacing public property with their graffiti scribbles or posters or by relieving themselves. but these posters have been appearing all over seattle for years. and they make me happy. it's always a fun surprise to find one that has randomly popped up on an electrical box, road sign, or a concrete wall in chinatown.

seattle's lao know how to represent.

cluster bombs

2011-03-30T16:36:00.000-07:00

cnn's report on cluster munitions still littering the countryside of Laos.

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-517374

banh mi battle

2011-03-24T15:21:00.000-07:00

ok, so i know yall have heard a lot from me on this lately, but here's one more. also, i've been doing an informal survey on the best banh mi in seattle. i will be presenting the results here in not too long. but for now, look at this website's attempt to solve this age-old dilemma: where is the best vietnamese sandwich?

http://battleofthebanhmi.com/

thanks jacob for this link.

marching on olympia

2011-03-15T11:26:00.000-07:00

this is a nice little video from the national examiner of an event we attended a few weeks back. it was cold and rainy, but that didn't detract from the fervor of the participants (well, maybe a little). i'm just glad i'm not in the video - they interviewed me, but i was intentionally boring (and white) in my comments so i got cut in the final edit. so so glad.

just click on the screen and it'll start playing:

vietnamese sandwich wars

2011-03-10T10:58:00.000-08:00

seriously... this is really getting out of control. this seattle times writer published a piece in february naming seattle deli and yeh yehs in lynnwood as the best vietnamese sandwich in the pacific northwest. then she asked for readers' opionions, to which she got some tips from seattle readers. she published her follow-up article in last friday's paper.

the second article really should be entitled: i apologize. i was wrong. i was stupid. i am white. yeh yehs and whatever else she thought was so amazing up in edmonds is not the best place to get viet sandwiches - but tonys and tammys in SEATTLE. (which, if anyone had asked me, i woulda told them "tonys and tammys in seattle." in fact, those two shops should get married already... their child would clearly be the best sandwich ever.

see the significant shift in her second article. the piece is brimming over with a conciliatory and repentant tone.

also, if you do go over there to tonys or tammys - get your grilled pork sandwich with egg. its the best thing ever. and if you go, let me know... i'll join you on my lunch break.

links to the two articles:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/allyoucaneat/2014188693_best_banh_mi_you_be_the_judge.html?prmid=obinsource

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/allyoucaneat/2014392640_banh_mi_unwrapped_vietnamese_s.html

throw me something mister

2011-03-07T14:21:00.000-08:00

will someone throw this poor woman some beads so she can get up out the rain already???

happy mardi gras yall. and may we all be more inclined towards generosity and self-sacrifice this lenten season.

mailing the race card

2011-03-03T10:08:00.000-08:00

sometimes racism can send you to jail for a year (and 1 day.) republican, tan nguyen, in his 2006 campaign against democrat incumbent loretta sanchez, arranged for spanish language flyers to be mailed to the homes of registered voters with latino surnames threatening that immigrants could go to jail for voting in the usa, and that they might end up in prison. then he lied to investigators about it. well, clearly his claims are not true: it depends on one's immigration status... and i don't want to make any assumptions here, but mr. nguyen is possibly an immigrant himself? so maybe he shoulda mailed the flyer to his own home, and he might have saved himself a year (and 1 day) in jail.

here is the link:

http://newstaco.com/2011/02/15/former-california-candidate-to-jail-for-harassing-latinos/
thanks wl for this - good lookin out.

its a mad mad mad mad world

2011-02-26T16:01:00.000-08:00

when i left the philippines, i had one more stopover in hawaii before i headed back to seattle. so while i was there, i got with some friends and made Lao food. they'd gotten a ride into town, and i'd given them a list of stuff to buy. and i didn't have a cookbook or nothing with me, so i stuck to stuff that was easy that i could make from memory. so we'd decided to make laap, red curry, and some vegetables. emerson had some sticky rice at his friend, heather neilson's house, and she graciously invited us to come eat there - besides, her landlord had lived in thailand before, had owned a thai restaurant, and thus had several ingredients on hand (such as fish sauce, msg, etc.) so we wouldn't have to buy everything.

so i was kinda in my groove - i had my ingredients all laid out, was starting to cook the curry paste a bit - and then the landlord comes home, and then things got kinda weird...

first off, she was white. i guess i'd just assumed that she'd be chinese or something. i figured she wasn't thai, or they would've said that, right? but when you say, "the landlord used to live in thailand, and she owned a thai restaurant," why would anybody guess she was white? (not that being white is a problem - i mean, i like white people; three of my best friends are white. seriously.) and second, i didn't know she actually lived at the house. (she was old, and it was her house...) and so i already felt uncomfortable that i am cooking food in this woman's kitchen - cause she kinda gave me crazy eye when she walked in the door tugging large bags of groceries with her too-old-to-be-living-with-mom adult son following behind.

"what are you making?" she asked me.
"oh, just some Lao food." I felt rather awkward when she came over to get a closer look.
"looks like curry to me - and that's not Lao food, that's thai food." she responded and then turned away to put stuff in the refrigerator. and she had a hefty helping of smugness in her voice.
i didn't know how to respond, but i felt myself getting the slightest bit defensive and irritated. her son came into the kitchen as well, toting bags of his own, a constant stream of words coming out of his mouth... (apparently he's one of those people whose brain and mouth have only the slightest barrier of gauze separating them.) i mumbled something about "sticky rice" and "padek," but i really couldn't think of something coherent to say - mostly because she kinda caught me... i mean, what i was cooking really wasn't Lao food...and i wish i had a big bottle of padek to pour into the pan. (i don't think it's wrong to say that if you add padek to any dish, it immediately becomes Lao food. at least it seems to work with my rice chex.)

well i didn't have to think long on some retort because the landlord lady picked up where she left off: "Lao people really didn't know how to cook anyway until the thai came in and taught 'em."

my anger really flared up at this one - and i looked around at emerson and his friends for some sort of validation that this lady was crazy. my face must have contorted because they all started to smile, or maybe it was because my fist was tightening around the knife i was using to cut the vegetables. but i really couldn't say anything. i mean, if i'd spoken at this point, i mighta said something real ugly. and my friends kept staring at me with varying degrees of silent laughter on their faces, waiting to see if i had some response to volley back at her, but i just had to back away from the counter and put down the knife.

"ok!" (i think i said... who really knows... i just remember what she said next...)

she started on some nonsense about Lao people and then ended with this declaration: "yeah, the Lao language is really just a dialect of thai, y'know."
and all i could answer was, "actually, it's not." i was so angry at this point. i mean, this was ridiculous. what so is wrong in the world that two white people are in a kitchen somewhere on the north shore of ohau acting out the centuries-long battles and resentments between Lao and thai people? and was she really that unaware of this history that she felt it was okay to make her comment?

i couldn't even think after this. (and maybe i am revealing too much of my personality here,) but i was so mad, the food had no chance of tasting good. i couldn't remember when and what and how much to put in the pan to make the curry. and the laap... i couldn't get it to taste right either. if only i'd had padek. i swear i woulda poured it all over that laap, held it up to that crazy lady's face and proclaimed it Lao food.

i couldn't collect my thoughts for real; she wouldn't even leave the kitchen!

and then, to make things weirder and to put me even more off kilter, my brother's nephew, alan, randomly strolls into the kitchen with a cookie sheet with little balls of cookie dough on them.
"alan, what are you doing here?" I asked him.
"i live here." he responds, and then the old crazy lady snuggles up to the side of him and declares, "this is my son!"

now i was really confused. did she mean that alan had married her daughter??? (he recently married and i had yet to meet his wife.) but thankfully i found out that wasn't the case - it just so happened that alan lived in her house too, alongside heather, the crazy old lady, her son, and an assortment of other people who were clearly paying too much for rent for a living situation that just aint worth it.

i did finally find my own way to insult her... i asked her about bangkok (where she used to live) and told her that she must've loved living in such a beautiful city. and then went on to praise bangkok for all its splendor and wonder.

i did eventually settle down and pretend that the food tasted okay...but danno's salsa tasted way better.

well, the old lady ended it evening with one final insult. after dinner was over, i was sitting at the table, and she comes in wearing her nightgown and pushes my chair so she can get to the fridge.
"oh, sorry!" i say, "i'm in your way!"
"that's okay. you've only been in my way for the past four hours." she replied, smiled at me, and then walked out the room.

well, thanks emerson, bethany, connie, francisco, danno, felix, and of course heather, for putting up with my volatility that evening...

and i won't name the crazy woman... in order to protect her tenants.

biggest elvis & some final thoughts

2011-02-15T13:03:00.000-08:00

manila really did light up big and bright for new years. it was like nothing i have ever experienced. if i was in a war zone, would it have been any different?

well, now for some final thoughts on the philippines and i will lay this trip to rest. well, first i will say that i am glad that i waited till the end of my stay in the philippines to begin reading “biggest elvis,” one of the books i brought on the trip. the book is told from the perspective of numerous different (and mostly cynical) characters, and each of them have something to say about the philipphines.

for example, one embittered american says this about the traffic: “this wasn’t a traffic jam, that would be like calling a lump of coal a dead plant. this was hell and we were all going to die here in the poisoned air because everything was burning coffee grounds and the visibility went as far as the side of the road, where i saw a line of stores, places with pots of food on tables, stacks of retread tires, wicker furniture, signs advertising bed spacer to rent and go-go dancer wanted and goats for sale. and there were people along the road, kids and dogs just watching us not moving, like they were fishermen on a riverbank, casting a line out into the traffic, pulling in an aerial or a rusted muffler…”

and then this: “i saw high-rise buildings with cranes on top only you couldn’t tell if the buildings were going up or coming down. on the beach side, on low swampy land that stuck out into the bay, there was a bunch of shacks that were worse than anything i'd ever seen, acres of shacks, laundry, mud, and babies.”

unlike the guy in the book, i actually really like a bustling city where the rigidity of sterile american customs do not apply. and maybe it's somewhat ethnocentric on my part to stare at the other and just say “wow,” but it’s maybe it's a step in the right direction, especially when you are sharing space with others that see the country like albert lane (the character i quoted above.) so thus was my trip altered somewhat. but as much as i enjoy drowning in the differences of another country, i can also sit back and appreciate the clashes of culture that i feel within myself and that i observe in the people around me.

for example: i needed a pair of socks – so i went to sm market (this big department store chain found all over manila). i figured i’d find my socks in the underwear department, at least it made sense to me. so i approached the section and about 2-3 sales reps approached me, “hello, sir? do you wear boxers or briefs?”
“uh… where are the socks?”
“oh… socks! they are over in the middle of the store.” i left the section (but not before another woman asked me the boxers/briefs question while holding a package of underwear up for me to look at.)
well, I found the sock section – and it really was just that: a section with just socks. i approached cautiously, noticing the abnormally large crowd of sales people in the section. i was swarmed. i had 3-4 sales reps in front of me and equally as many to the back and sides. they were all holding up different types of socks: dress socks, crew socks, sports socks, and what-have-you.
“hello sir! these socks here are very beautiful.”
“may i help you, sir?”
“what are you looking for, sir?”
i actually started laughing… “uh… socks?” i tried to move into the sock display racks so i could find what i was looking for (ankle socks to wear with my slip-on crocs, even though that may be a bad fashion decision to some of yall) and the crowd moved with me, still asking their questions, and holding up socks to my face with some intensity, finally blocking my path so i couldn’t move.
finally I had to plead: “can i just get some socks, please?”
one of the sales reps took the lead: “oh, okay! shhh everyone! be quiet and let him look!” the crowd fell silent and moved back to form a path into the inner-sanctum of the sock section. i walked in, immediately found what i was looking for while the reps looked on in silence. when i moved to leave, the clamoring started up again: “sir! sir! what about this one?”
i know i shouldn’t feel the need to say this, but i really am not exaggerating. after my escape, i stood about 30 feet removed so i could count the number of sales reps: 19. i was so completely disbelieving of my own count that i counted again: 22. i don’t know which count is most accurate. was somebody hiding behind a sock display the first time i counted or did i just happen to count the same person twice?
but this is illustrative of every store: there always seems to be more people working than what the business needs. (but considering the unemployment rate is high, it can’t be a bad thing, right?)

so spending time in the philippines with other americans, i tried to allow myself to absorb the culture of the foreigner in a place that doesn’t quite agree with them. and the opinions people have are amazing… maybe something like this, (to quote albert lane from the biggest elvis again):
“the country was a dump, let’s face it... what ever happened here since world war ii that mattered? …when was the last time anybody said, hey, let’s all go to a filipino restaurant? what's your favorite filipino movie?”

and so this is part of the experience as well… I can look at traffic in new dehli, or chickens on a bus in Laos, or a guinea pig on my plate in peru and just say “wow.” well, observing the observations of americans in a strange land aint no different. i can just sit back, say wow, and see the world through their eyes for a bit…

but in the end, i need to give my own description of manila: it is a truly amazing city. crowded, polluted, gray – yes, it is all that. but when i sit in a taxi weaving in and out of traffic – i still get that feeling of awe. the cityscape is really something to look at; this may sound weird, but it’s the billboards! they are so huge – skyscraper size, i swear – and they line both sides of the streets, so that when driving through the traffic they tower over the car, growing and changing shapes as they pass by, like some crazy illustration in a dr. sues book. and especially at night: they’re lit so brightly that i really could believe in all the capitalist dreams they promised me: if I drink that soda, or if I buy that watch or that pair of pants, i will be happy, smiling, and attractive, and I will too get that skeezy-looking blonde girl to stand next to me for a photo shoot.

hostage stand off

2011-02-11T14:48:00.000-08:00

and so it continues; more threats of violence against my hat:

rest in peace

2011-02-09T13:35:00.000-08:00

i've been meaning to make note of this for sometime: r.i.p. vang pao; his funeral was held this week in fresno, california. regardless of your feelings about the war and the cia's illegal incursion into Laos, the man was truly "bigger than life," to quote gayle morrison, a hmong historian.

vang pao (vaj pov); December 25, 1929 – January 6, 2011

see the article on cnn.com:
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-02-05/us/general.hmong_1_vang-pao-royal-lao-hmong-people?_s=PM:US

see wiki to learn more about him:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vang_Pao
thanks wl.

held hostage

2011-02-07T17:33:00.000-08:00

this hat was a gift to me. and i am a forgetful person. i left it at a friend's house. now it is being held hostage. what else can i think when the hostage taker sends me a picture of it on a platter. i wonder if he will salt it before he eats it (or dip it in jeo padek.)

i have some final thoughts on the philippines that i'll post in the next few days, then i'll put my trip to rest.

manila and corregidor

2011-01-28T12:41:00.000-08:00

the most prominent national hero of the philippines is jose rizal. because of his push for social reforms and calls for revolution, rizal was captured and executed by the spanish colonial government on dec 30th, 1896 (which is now a national holiday.) his execution sparked the revolution that led to the ouster of the spanish. his story is fascinating and well-worth a closer look. here are some pictures of fort santiago where he was kept and some of the memorials built to him.

the following are two picture of the american cemetery in manila. see their website: http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/ml.php. of the american soldiers that died while fighting in the philippines, the remains of 60% of them were returned to their families. the other families requested that their remains be buried in the philippines, and some were never identified. my uncle art's remains were returned to the us, and he is buried in iowa.

and these are pictures from the island of corregidor, right off the bataan peninsula. (see my previous post.) this is where general douglas macarthur staged the war against the japanese before fleeing to australia. the barracks were heavily damaged by japanese bombing, and in one picture you can see the tip of bataan peninsula. i've included a map.

death march

2011-01-19T18:00:00.000-08:00

i’m almost finished reading one of the books i brought with me, tears in the darkness, the story of the bataan death march and its aftermath, by michael norman and elizabeth norman. the book is amazing. the authors follow the story of ben steele while detailing the historical and cultural factors of world war ii in philippines.

the story is personal for me because my dad’s two older brothers, art and ralph (my uncle who I was named for) served here during that time. here is a bit of the history that i've been reading about:

on april 9th 1942, general ned king surrendered all of the american and filipino troops on the bataan peninsula, on the island of luzon, to the japanese. bataan had been the staging ground for the fight between the american-filipino force and the japanese during the war, after the japanese bombed the philippines within hours after bombing pearl harbor.

the americans abandoned manila to the japanese, and they hunkered down in the jungles and mountains of bataan. initially, the us-led troops fought off the japanese soldiers for about a month, even completely wiping out some of their regiments due to the japanese belief that surrender was not an option, but with no possibility of having their supplies or troops replenished, the americans and filipinos quickly began to show the effects of privation. they were put on half-rations from the beginning, and with the sweltering heat, cold nights, malarial mosquitoes, and no potable water, the troops were not able to withstand the second attack by the japanese at the end of march 1942.

the peninsula is infamous for the death march where tens of thousands of american and filipino troops were forced to walk 66 miles from mariveles on the southern tip of the peninsula to the town of san fernando. during the march they were deprived of food and water, and thousands of troops were beaten, tortured, or killed by the japanese.

read the wikipedia article for the death march for a good summary.

after arriving at san fernando, the troops were loaded into tiny box cars, and they were sent 30 miles by railway to camp o’donnell. countless more died from suffocation during the 4-hour journey in the 110 degree heat of the box cars.
my uncle art, the older of my dad’s two brothers, walked the length of the death march, and he was brought to camp o’donnell where he became one of thousands who died there daily from dysentery, malaria, and starvation. my uncle ralph escaped into the jungle until he was finally captured by the japanese. he was brought to a prison camp where he escaped again, hiding in the jungles with the help of the filipinos until he was finally rescued by the americans.

we drove along the route of the march, and went to the monument created to honor the filipino and american soldiers that fought in the war. on the wall of the memorial they'd engraved the names of those who died there, and I found my uncle’s name, (but not till after i did some searching - i couldn’t find it at first. it was to the side of the memorial; he had been added later along with another 100 or so names.)
I was moved by the care they took to create the memorial and the beauty of the countryside surrounding it. although the fall of bataan was almost 70 years ago, it didn't feel that long ago when i was standing there.

kone helped me make a pencil engraving of my uncle’s name from the wall.

voices from the plain of jars

2011-01-14T16:56:00.001-08:00

i have more pictures to post, but i wanted to do this first. well, i didn't bring creating Laos with me to read on the trip like i had posted. i switched books at the last minute and brought voices from the plain of jars, life under an air war. this book is out of print, but apparently it is being reprinted. basically, the book contains narratives and drawings from the survivors of the secret and illegal bombing campaign that the usa carried out in Laos in the last half of the 1960s.

the war was illegal in the sense that the usa had previously agreed that it would not participate in military action in Laos, but then went ahead and did so anyway - training hmong and mien soldiers and then using them to locate villages that were supposedly sympathetic to the pathet lao. the american military would then drop bombs with the purpose of obliterating the villages and many civilians were killed. hence these narrative accounts.

read this blog review of it from tikkun daily blog -

http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2010/11/02/a-cry-for-humanity-from-laos/

the blog includes an updated introduction by the editor. the original intro was one the interesting things about the book as the editor, fred branfman, provides a summary of the events of the secret bombing campaign, and and sets up the narratives of the survivors that follow. admittedly this is a controversial subject for many people. some defend the american's actions in Laos as necessary in the fight against communism or whatever - just read the comments a the bottom of tikkun's blog post. but it is hard to imagine the justification in dropping so many bombs on such a small piece of land.
the interesting thing about the narratives and branfman's introduction, is that nothing is said about the cluster bombs and the subsequent damage that these munitions would cause for years to come - everything is written in the moment - about what damage was done in 1969. but thousands of these bomblets did not explode and are still killing people today - many of them having been born after the war ended. branfman takes note of the cluster munitions in the updated edition:

And I discovered a new dimension of “nonhumanity.” U.S. leaders had spent over $10 billion on bombing Laos but had contributed virtually nothing to clean up the unexploded cluster bomblets they had left there – even as they were spending tens of millions to look for the bones of U.S. pilots killed while bombing Laos. (The U.S. spent just $5 million on UXO cleanup in Laos for all of fiscal year 2010 – equivalent to what it spent on just eight hours of bombing during the Indochina war.)

see this article about the issue and the recent convention on cluster munitions; the article also reports on the death of a 10 year-old girl in Laos who picked up a bomblet while the convention was being held.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/louis-belanger/remembering-laos---the-wo_b_782870.html

regardless of one's opinion of the bombing, branfman makes a valid point. check out the work of legacies of war, an organization that uses the narratives and drawings from branfman's project to get the message out there that more needs to be done. (in fact, check out the story of how the drawings were rediscovered in 2003 which led to the creation of legacies of war.)

http://legaciesofwar.org/

i didn't make it up to the plain of jars on this trip as i had originally planned. but at least that gives me a reason to return to Laos in the future. still haven't made it up there, still need to go.

luang prabang 2

2011-01-06T04:24:00.000-08:00

here are the other pictures i wanted to post but couldn't get the internet to work. well it is finally working again - after a week of it being down...

justin and jerry made some new friends in luang prabang...

my favorite thing ever (well, this and coke zero and mcdonalds french fries and padek)

luang prabang

2011-01-03T01:56:00.000-08:00

i had like 5 more pictures from luang prabang that i wanted to post, but the internet is being weird... so this is all i'm doing. (one of them was of a temple, another was of a night market, and then there was one with the monk teaching justin how to wai pha... so just imagine it in your head and it will be enough.

the writing is on the wall

2010-12-31T09:26:00.000-08:00

we went to the patouxai (victory gate) monument in viengchan, the capitol city of Laos.

as i climbed my way to the top, i noticed all the writing on the walls - people making wishes or praying for things - i couldn't help myself but go around and read what everyone had asked for - and i spent so long doing it, i had to run down the stairs to catch up with everyone. well, i took pictures... and i hope the wishers don't mind...

this one is asking to study well and pass all his or her tests and advance...

almost the same thing: "may i study well and advance in all my classes."

this one is succinct: "may i be more beautiful"

this one wants to be more beautiful, but also adds that he/she wishes for lighter skin...

then there's the wishes about finding true love or not having anything get in the way of that true love...

and then my favorite: "may i find a girlfriend in the next three hours, amen!" and then following that is his phone number. if you are calling from the usa, you'll need to dial 0085602 and then his number.

up to luang prabang

2010-12-30T13:45:00.000-08:00

i've been kind of scattered in my posting - but this was our basic itinerary in Laos: we arrived and spent about 2 days in viengchan before going to vangvieng. see my previous posts. (but really you can avoid all the trouble makers by setting out on the river early while the falangs are still dealing with their hangovers.)

maly, do you remember bounmy? i ran into him in vangvieng and he took us out kayaking for the morning! jacob, i can't remember if we met up with him when you and i went...
then we left for luang prabang. here are photos from the road:

kone's brother knew of a natural hot spring on the way up north. so we stopped for a while and got in the water before heading back to the road...

i think this one of the most beautiful drives in all of Laos - although the swerving roads and the altitude change going through the mountains makes it kinda tough. hia, the youngest member of our pilgrimage, threw up twice: once for the way up, and once for the way back down. here he is below sending a clear signal that puking in the van doesn't mean he's a wimp.

after three nights in luang, we headed back to viengchan - and then i left for the south of Laos to visit the family i know from the usa - before returning to viengchan.

gonna take you down to the market

2010-12-29T05:30:00.000-08:00

we went to a market on the outside of viengchan - going to markets are one of my favorite things by the way - everything about it.

well, really this is my favorite thing about the market. i have eaten mangosteens so many times in the past week, i shoulda had my fill, but i don't think it's possible. if i was gonna get the option for a last meal before i died, mangosteen would be on the menu. and this might delay my executioners until they could get a trip to Laos to pick it up for me.

all the different types of sticky rice that you can find in Laos. in the usa, you can't get sticky rice from Laos, just what is imported from thailand.

so there are not only crickets, but crickets and crickets, and more types of crickets. (each type of crickets have their own name, and each has a different flavor. i know, because i tried one of each until i settled on my two favorites that i purchased to take with me. i couldn't find cool ranch doritos in Laos, so this really is the next best thing,)

some real nice tib khao. i bought a couple since the ones the sell in the usa (imported from thailand again) are real ugly and cheaply made.

christmas in Laos

2010-12-27T19:01:00.000-08:00

just a quick post since i haven't been online for sometime now. i was out in the countryside, and i just got back a bit ago... i actually spent christmas out there in the baan nok - which is kind of funny considering how many places i could have celebrated christmas (like the philippines, or any of the big cities in Laos and thailand would've at least had decorations up around the town.) it just so happened that my schedule landed me in the southern most part of Laos where most people haven't even really heard of christmas. but before anyone feels sorry for me, i had a really nice time down there. i went to visit a family that used to live in the usa, but chose to leave urban seattle for rural Laos. they have electricity now, but that one little bulb wasn't enough to keep my from going to bed with the nightfall and waking up with the sun. well, i did stay up long enough to eat koi pa with khao niaow and cheo pong. i'm sure i've said this before, but there really is something so mesmerizing about rural Laos - all the sounds of the bugs and chickens and pigs and cows. and the neighbors stopping by to join you for some khao piak pet and ping pa...i didn't take many pictures, because i was focused on getting video. but i have some pictures i'll be posting soon.

merry christmas and happy new year.

scenes from Laos

2010-12-21T00:25:00.000-08:00

Laos

2010-12-19T06:04:00.000-08:00

i got to Laos yesterday, and we met up with kone's older brother (half brother - from one of his dad's mia noys) and he has been showing us around. lotta fun i gotta say, and i am reminded why i keep coming to Laos time and time again. and i don't think i am biased here; even foreigners that have travelled southeast asia always say how they like Lao the best. we did all the requisite stops: that louang, patou xai, dog restaurant, and the morning market.

today we came up to vang vieng and we'll play around here a bit before heading up to luang prabang tomorrow.

and just so i'm clear: i didn't take the above picture. i tried to upload some here but this internet cafe's usb thing aint workin right.

china town

2010-12-15T16:58:00.000-08:00

i went to china town, got fresh noodles at a spot recommended by my guidebook, and checked out the sights.

then i found manny pacquiao hanging out among the newest shipment of flat screen tvs. when he's not boxing or being congressman, he advertises for 3D televisions i hear.

i have no idea what this advertisement might mean... i can't even begin to guess. but i think i might call the number just so i can find out.

i had planned on taking the monumental (the raised train you see here) to see the chinese cemetery, but nobody could clearly tell me which line to take. i kept getting different answers from everyone i asked. so i finally gave up and went across the street to a mall where i stumbled upon a karaoke lounge. there was the guy in there singing whitney houston's greatest love of all... and it was awesome. he sang the verses in this whispy falsetto, but when he hit the chorus, he belt out the song like he thought i was randy jackson coming to audition him for idol. (i get that sometimes.)

rumor has it that jack bauer started working here at this little mini-mart after losing his job with ctu.

makati

2010-12-14T15:36:00.000-08:00

this is where kone and keo are staying - taken from the terrace on the 7th floor; their unit is up there somewhere on the 42nd.

kone throwing the football with justin and jerry

from the balcony

the mall is right across the street and its got everything you'd ever want to eat (almost.) jerry on the left and i chose to eat some japanese food (pepper lunch). its this hot plate that cooks the food when they bring it out to you. and justin prefers his dinner to be macdos. i can sympathize with both positions.

this mall sure knows how to set up a christmas tree

philippines, my philippines

2010-12-13T14:45:00.000-08:00

i landed safely in manila after an 11 hour plane ride (that included a stop-over in guam.) kone picked me up from the airport and brought me back to the high-rise condo that they're renting in the makati district of manila. keo is off translating for the hmong refugees coming from the camps in thailand; they are being processed here before being resettled in the usa. she will be back on thursday. justin and jerry have school today and tomorrow before they finish up for christmas break, and kone has to work a bit today and tomorrow, so i will be alone with my guide book.

here is a very dark view from the room where i am staying (justin's room):

on the plane in, i sat next to virginia, a filipina woman from new jersey, coming home to visit her relatives. she'll be in country roughly the same amount of time as me. she's lived in the usa for 45 years, and so now it's her "home, sweet home," she told me. the phrase propmted her to begin softly singing,

from the mountains, to the praries, to the ocean, white with foam
god bless america, my home sweet home!

i listened to her as i looked out the window to watch the lights of the city rise as we got closer to the ground. and then, as if to balance out her two identities, she began singing again as the plane got ready to land:

philippines, my philippines, to thee i give my heart and hand...

a blue hawaii

2010-12-10T14:12:00.000-08:00

I'm about to be very honest: although I would rather lie and say that I am having the best time of my life, i gotta admit that its a sad sad situation over here in hawaii. the rain keeps coming down and the beaches are about as fun as a fist in your face. luckily the rain is only forecast through sunday... oh, wait. that's the day that I'm leaving! yeah, i would like say that everything is sunny and awesome and that I'm enjoying my time on the beach. but its kinda like cheating at the scrabble on my phone: what's the point of a blog if i aint gonna tell the truth. besides, i think i am gauranteed some sunny days when I get to the philippines and Laos.

and i am still entertaining myself. i went to see my niece perform at the polynesian cultural center last night (she was in the lead role and had several nice tahitian solo dances,) and the rain was coming down on the stage, which added a nice intense element during the fijian fight scene. and at least the seats where we were sitting were covered. (here she is below - in the white dress)

afterwards, ko'olina (my niece) brought me backstage - which was pretty cool. so then i sat on the bench by the dressing rooms, playing scrabble on my phone, waiting for her to finish changing. i heard her wishing some people merry christmas, and then talking about something or nother as she was exiting the dressing room - and i had just made 25 points on my scrabble game! so i jumped up to walk with her so she could punch out, and i let her know: "i just made 25 points on scrabble!!!" she answered me with a limp, "that's nice." so i just walked with her to punch out, and told her to hurry, all the while looking at what points i could make next.

well, finally, i looked up to see what was taking so long, and then i had this sinking feeling: my niece had completely vanished! she had disappeared into the huddle of people around the time card machine... in reality, it really only took a second though before i saw her again, or at least, i saw who i thought had been her before: this girl, about the same height as my niece, same hair (kinda), voica kinda similar, but not the same person - she was not ko'olina. my face dropped about 20,000 leagues under waimea bay, and i quickly retreated back to the bench to wait for ko'olina and my self-image to return.

wow... i didn't even look at her when she exited the dressing room... i was so excited about my points on the scrabble game. (i am still undefeated on this thing. i don't even think i'm that good; everyone else is just really really bad.)

well, now for the moral: you're better off playing scrabble on your phone while driving on the freeway than you are while waiting for your niece to exit the dressing room.

book lust to go

2010-12-05T14:13:00.000-08:00

when i go somewhere, i like to bring along some books or novels about that country or that takes place in that country. so this is my list of books that i am thinking about for the upcoming trip to the philippines and Laos:

biggest elvis, by p.f kluge
this is a loaner novel from a colleague of mine (a teacher at the local high school, and the co-sponser of the khmer mien Lao club that i help out with). i really know nothing about it, but it is set in the philipphines and i am looking forward to checking it out. he said it's pretty good.

tears in the darkness, the story of the bataan death march and its afteramath, by michael norman and elizabeth m. norman.
i have two uncles, including my uncle ralph who i was named for, who experienced the fall of bataan during world war two. and my uncle art died in the philippines in a japanese prison camp after undertaking the death march. this book is to better understand that history.

creating Laos, the space in between, by soren ivarsson
this actually maybe a little bit too academic for a vacation, but i'm taking it along anyway...

thirty-three teeth, by colin cotterill
i'd really given up on this series, but out of good will for the world's librarian, nancy pearl, who suggests the series in her book for travelers: book lust to go, i decided to give it another go. i've read the coroner's lunch (which is way better than the other cotterill book i've read,) anarchy and old dogs. they're detective novels with dr siri phaiboun as the unlikely hero. but don't get me wrong, they are fun - but i'm just not that into mysteries.

well, this is my list for now - i leave wednesday!

i didn't eat padek

2010-11-19T15:20:00.000-08:00

so i finally made it over there: savatdee - the Lao/thai restaurant up in the ravenna neighborhood. (see my previous post, http://eatpadek.blogspot.com/2010/07/savatdee.html) and i was definitely pleased with the options on their Lao menu! i went with my friends erik and laura; see the picture below:

we ordered three dishes. the nem, the koi koung, and the tom khem. (they romanized the Lao words differently - and that's really my only complaint with the place - i feel like people should follow the french romanizations as closely as possible; it's consistent and looks nicer than the thai free-for-all transliterations.) in fact, their menu spelled padek so ugly, (badaik), i couldn't bring myself to order the tam makhoung. i can't believe that padek would taste as good when spelled that way. so sawatdee, when you ever update your menu, let me know if you want my help on this.

using their menu's spellings, we ordered goi goung, toam kaim moo, nhem mou (see the problem here? the moo and mou are the same thing -pork- but spelled two different ways.)

but i did enjoy the food. the nem was very good (eaten with fresh herbs, wrapped in lettuce.) however, the tom khem didn't seem as sweet as what i've had in the past. and i have only had goi when the shrimp is raw, and this was cooked, but i enjoyed the unabashed flavor of the dish: salty sour and spicy. we killed all three dishes, as you can see.

they have khao poun on their menu as well, so i'll be back there really soon to give it a go, and i'll tell you about it. check out their website linked above - i like how the links change to thai script when you go to click on them.

so go try em out. it's nice to have another option for Lao food in the seattle area (the other two restaurants are viengthong and thai palms, both down in the south end.) and people on yelp are loving the place. and one of the reviewers posted a picture of savatdee right off my blog! hahaha.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/savatdee-seattle#query:sawatdee

an inception vacation

2010-11-11T16:47:00.000-08:00

so my december trip is kinda planned, kinda not. but i did get my philippines guide book, (and learned how to spell the name of the country and its people: filipinos), so i think that's the most important thing.

so i am first going to hawaii for 3 days. then to the philippines for a few days before going to thailand. (in the philipphines i will meet up with kone and keo and their kids) - and we'll spend a day or two in thailand before taking a train to Laos. we'll stay there for a week or so before heading back to thailand - then back to the philippines for some touring around there. then i am back to hawaii for a couple days, then back to seattle. (hence the name: inception vacation - because i have to revisit every layer of my vacation (with Laos as the innermost layer) before returning home. sorry if i insulted anyone's intelligence or made my joke "not funny" by explaining this.)

i will keep my blog updated while on my trip.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippines

far east

2010-11-05T13:49:00.000-07:00

far east movement scores 3 points: one for diversity (the members of the group are of korean, chinese, and filipino ancestry), one point for the catchy beat, and one point for the clubs that will surely see their alcohol sales go through the roof over this song:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_East_Movement

p.s. don't drink and drive. or maybe just don't drink.

southland tales

2010-10-29T20:43:00.000-07:00

so yall already know this, but i just found out. (thanks jason and erika). one of the final contestants from project runway season 8 is Lao! represent!! anyway, he didn't win, which means that there ain't 2 project runway winners from Laos. a previous winner from season two, chloe dao, is from Laos, although she is ethnically viet. andy south woulda really begun a Lao dynasty of winners for ths show! (a big number 2!!!)

well, like i said, he lost. and he also lost the rest of his name. apparently, he used to be andy southiphong, but he or somebody else trimmed off the last two syllables of his name and tossed it to the floor like discarded scraps of cloth from one of his project runway creations.

but i guess he stayed true to Lao culture and all things Lao by ordering cloth from Laos for his final creation and dedicating it all to his mother. i've never watched the show, but it seems pretty interesting. they make clothes out of nothing, (or something in this case) and here is how andy's final line turned out, and at the bottom of the page you'll find a recap of the final episode -

http://nymag.com/daily/fashion/2010/10/project_runway_recap_michael_c.html?imw=Y&f=most-viewed-24h10

all "hispanics" look alike, unless they look asian.

2010-10-21T14:22:00.000-07:00

it is pretty amazing that anyone would vote for sharron angle over harry reid (searchlight in the house! or the senate in this case.) she continues to open her mouth and reveal her stupidity, (much like palin of snl-fame.) here is her latest: she told a group of latino students that she doubted that they were all "hispanic" because, "some of you look a little more asian to me!" which was met with gasps from the kids. wow.

and in trying to describe the melting pot that is america, she went on to make this incomprehensible statement: "i've been called the 'first asian legislator' in our nevada state assembly." melting pot or smoking pot? not sure which fits her better... wow #2.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/10/21/apop102110.DTL#ixzz1325Gya4V
and she's got some negative ads up on the tv that claim that harry reid voted to provide viagra to convicted sex offenders? wow #3.

and this alongside juan williams anti-muslim remarks on fox news. i was really sad to see him fall from grace (dropping from the sky like middle-eastern missile.) i guess the take-away lesson for juan is that fox news brings the crazy out of all of us. see you later juan. npr fired you, which means i will never hear your voice again, because i sure as heck ain't watching you on no fox news.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130712737&sc=emaf

Jai Lao foundation

2010-10-18T14:52:00.000-07:00

i attended a great fundraising event on saturday in graham washington. jai lao foundation works to build schools for elementary-age children in Laos. they've had some great success already, with more to come! great job yall!!!

jai Lao supporters and officers outside of thai mekong restaurant in graham.

jai Lao made padek to sell and it all sold out... i didn't get none. which aint right.

to find out more about jai Lao and their mission, visit:

http://www.jailao.org/

or on facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jai-Lao-Foundation/86902157936?ref=ts

i am Laos, i am not Lao.

2010-10-09T21:05:00.000-07:00

this is the funniest thing i've seen in a long time:

but... (and i shouldn't have an opinion on this, but i do,) ...the only problem is the country is not really called "Laos" either; it is Lao. the country is Lao, the language is Lao, the people are Lao. (unless they're hmong, mien, khmu, thai dam, thai deng, akha, leu, kalom, prao, prai, lahu, then they're not Lao.)

the country name, "Laos," is a french construct where the "s" would be silent, unless followed by a vowel, rendering the pronunciation as "Lao." (i made a post on this some months back.) so if somebody says, "i am Lao from the country of Laos..." well, aint that wrong too? so they might as well get it all lined up: "i am Laos, from Laos, speak Laos, eat Laos food, (padek!) and i like the old Laos flag, not the new one." (and by the way, i am the united states of america.)

so despite the perfectly sound rationale of the above video production, i propose that if you wanna say you're Laos, then say that then; claim that "s," be all you that you can be, be a country.

thai dye

2010-10-06T19:01:00.000-07:00

i sometimes get asked where to find good thai food. (and the answer: thailand.) i'm kinda joking - seattle does have a couple of good places to get thai. but a lot people going for thai food just end up ordering pad thai; so if that's the case, it doesn't really matter where you go. in fact, just make it at home: get some noodles, mix it with cat sup and maybe a little bit of egg, peanuts and bean sprouts, and save $10.
but that's not what this post is about. it's just that i've been wondering if the popularity of thai restaurants and thai food may have opened up this small space for "thailand" in american popular culture. thailand has been a vacation destination for some time, and its also known for its kickboxing, islands, elephants, and temples. but in the past 10-15 years, more people seem to be aware of thailand (and are even able differentiate it from taiwan. my mother got these two confused on occasion.)

recipe books, chang beer, survivor: thailand, and remakes of thai movies (bangkok dangerous, shutter, the eye) all seem to follow this trend. but here i list two thai references in american pop culture that really need a thai horror-movie-style exorcism to rid us of them.

first:
nicki minaj, a rapper/singer of indian and african descent, is all up over the place, (and she aint even released an album yet!)... she's in the young money song (featuring lloyd,) "bedrock" and in trey songz's new club number, "bottoms up." and now she has this new song, "your love," with an asian theme. see below:

nicki does a rap on this song, and she raps herself into a corner saying something like, "i was a geisha, he was a samurai," so she has to follow it up with a rhyming line something like, "i understood him when he spoke thai." (did she mean japanese???)

well, as long as it rhymes, i guess it don't matter, right? (her lyrics are of very low quality, so if you don't wanna watch the whole video, just ffwd to about 2:15 in, and you'll find the aforementioned segment.) but in the end, nicki really does owe an apology to thai people everywhere.

second: sanuk shoes (sorry, not shoes, sandals...) i don't wanna hate on the shoes, even though they're overpriced and fit small. but the name? sanuk is a thai word meaning "fun, happiness!" well, how do you pronounce it? the sanuk website has a help up in the right hand corner! you click on it, and they have someone saying "sanuk" for you! well, the voice seemingly belongs to some sun-soaked surfer of suspicious character. and he clearly is not thai. the pronunciation is all wrong. he says the second syllable like "nuck" (rhymes with "duck.") the word should really be sa-nook, the second syllable sounding like "nuke." c'mon shoe people! if you're gonna name your shoes a thai word, and then go through the trouble of having a pronunciation guide on your website, could you at least make it correct?

http://www.sanuk.com/

a picture of someone having fun in their sanuks (with their feet up in typical thai custom-style)
ok enough hating for one day.

"one of my best friends was jewish"

2010-10-01T17:36:00.001-07:00

did he really say that? (rick sanchez tried to defend his anti-semitic rant on jon stewart and the "jewish liberal media" by using the classic phrase.)

and then my other favorite line: in defending his assertion that jon stewart is a bigot, he says, "well, that's what happens when you watch yourself on his show everyday, and all they ever do is call you stupid." (in case it doesn't make sense to you either, it seems like rick thinks that because he's latino, if someone says he's stupid, then that person must be bigoted.)

see rick run, see rick open his mouth and insert foot, see rick lose his job at cnn. well, one of my best friend's is is jewish too (jon stewart) and i am blown away by this hot mess of an interview that rick sanchez did on pete dominick's radio show.

dr. laura, move over, here comes the new crazy: rick sanchez. listen to him self-destruct below:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/10/01/cnn.sanchez/index.html?hpt=T2

start spreading the news

2010-09-29T12:44:00.000-07:00

everytime the united nations gets together for their annual general assembly, the american media is just sitting around waiting to hear what crazy new thing that ahmadinejad or hugo chavez might say. but what about president choummaly from Laos? well, he was there in new york city too and apparently attended some very important meetings; although his attendance was without the fan fair of the iranian president; in case you weren't aware, fan fair means crazy in this context. but choummaly has returned to Laos, and all is well. see link below.

http://laovoices.com/2010/09/29/president-choummaly-sayasone-back-from-new-york/

the boat landing cookbook

2010-09-14T17:48:00.000-07:00

a new northern Lao cookbook has been published and is available for purchase! thank you kees for letting me know about this! (he let me know that there are 3 recipes for padek inside!) maybe my life-long - well, not really life-long, but long enough - dream of making my own bucket of padek will finally come true. and i'm just waiting to see if it's got a good recipe for khao soi, the northern Lao's answer to the plain, not-nearly-as-good, vietnamese pho. as soon as i get my next paycheck, i'm going to order a copy!

but here is the cover art and link (below) so you can buy a copy and keep real Lao food in your kitchen and not a distant memory in the past.

and maybe i will abandon my plan to make all of the recipes in penn's cookbook, and i will start anew with this one. well, i really haven't made anything new out of hongthong penn's cookbook in a while anyway. sorry ben, i know you said you hate it when people say they're gonna do something with their blog, but then quit after a couple posts. that is me; let's hope you don't do the same.

this is a great website with lots of info and it's meant to be interactive - so take a look:
http://www.foodfromnorthernlaos.com/

war of the world trade center

2010-09-08T20:40:00.000-07:00

i may be a little late in commenting on this, but why is a christian church in florida planning on burning copies of the quran in acknowledgement of the 9/11 anniversary? admittedly, the pastor looks like he stumbled out of a pig farm in a william faulkner novel, but seriously? i guess we can feel somewhat comforted that most of the nation is against this. (the white house, angelina jolie, and utah condemn the event.) even general patreaus is asking the guy to stand down, saying something like, "uh...people will die over this."

well, maybe this event will force americans to take a step back and reconsider their position on islam and muslims in america. i think most people would not wish to be associated with the hillbilly pastor (from deliverance?) and may rethink their position on the new york city mosque that is planned for construction by the site of the world trade center. i am still puzzled that 61% of americans feel that the mosque shouldn't be allowed, and 70% think it's an insult to 9/11 victims. (since we are negatively categorizing religions, i am offended by quaker oatmeal, and when i was five my favorite movie was the gremlins... i don't know how this applies, but i don't know how the mosque controversy fits together either, so there you go.)

well, this is another one of those situations that causes me to pause and consider our superior-to-the-rest-of-the-world american values...
below is an article from the seattle times, about a guy that seems to take his ideals a little bit further than an american flag t-shirt and a sarah palin 2012 bumper sticker. he is a pastor of an evangelical christian church here locally that has been reaching out to area muslims to build stronger interfaith coalitions. michael ly is "self-described chinese cambodian american evangelical christian." read his story below:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2012827459_michaelly07m.html

rooster song

2010-09-01T20:44:00.000-07:00

i swear i thought that rooster sauce came from thailand or vietnam or something. instead it was developed in the 1980s right here in the u.s.a. by mr. tran, a chinese viet refugee. there are even imitations that have popped up... shark sauce, for one... i can't imagine a world before rooster sauce (sriracha) and i can't imagine a world without it. (and i really can't imagine a plate of broken rice and grilled chicken or some fried egg or a bowl of pho without it.) so read this article from the new york times and then head to your favorite pho shop where you're bound to find some rooster sauce sitting on the table next to the chopstick holder.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C05E1D9143FF933A15756C0A96F9C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

eat, pray, throwup a little in your mouth

2010-08-18T23:00:00.000-07:00

i haven't read this book or seen the movie, and yeah... i won't ever. if you don't know the premise, it's about this woman that gets divorced and then takes her settlement to go off and find herself. so she goes to countries that begin with "I" (to find her inner "I" is what i'm told, and i just stabbed out my left eyeball.) she should've gone off to countries that started with "me" - like mexico? well, she starts with italy (eat), then india (pray), then indonesia (help all those poor people... my right eyeball is now gone.)
but admittedly, i'm a hater at heart. so i didn't like this book when i first heard the title. and why would julia roberts agree to be in this thing?

she is really too cool for this movie. and i know yall are out there questioning me for saying that julia is 'too cool' but have you ever seen her in the orangutan documentary? i never liked julia till i saw her in this. here is the best clip from it, and she is awesome:

and she also did the amazing doc on the wild horses of mongolia. if you've never seen it, here is a clip. i think the seattle public library has it in their collection, so put it on hold.

after seeing this documentary i immediately added mongolia to my list of countries i wanted to visit. but i just know i'd get off the plane and run around asking everyone, "where's julia? where's julia?"

well, let me get back to where i started. i woke up this morning to hear this fascinating report npr. (basically, that 'eat pray love' relies on orientalism and stereotypes to create its magical story,) and i thought, "finally, someone has legitimized my need hate 'eat pray love!' woo hoo!" and here is the link so y'all can hate "eat pray love" too, (and maybe even vomit a bit in your throat.)

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129254808

black dahlias: rotting bulbs in the hmong flower fields

2010-08-16T11:37:00.000-07:00

this is from the front page of today's seattle times about the difficult summer for the hmong flower farmers due to an overly wet may and june. see the link below.

i was down at pike place market a few weekends back when my folks were in town visiting from louisiana, and i bought a small bouquet of flowers for my stepmom - well, actually, i didn't have any cash, so i got the money off my brother who was visiting from germany. i can't really tell one flower from another, but they looked pretty nice. anyway, the hmong have been selling flowers at pike place market ever since i got to seattle, so i try to get some every so often when i got people in town. anyway, if you get the chance, pick up some flowers when you take your next trip down there.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2012632277_hmong16.html

hidden

2010-08-10T18:13:00.001-07:00

at a shrine in her Fresno apartment, yeng mua grieves for her son, kick boxer yia mua. he died from liver cancer that doctors say was caused by hepatitis b.

this is a very important story about the high rates of hepatitis b in the hmong population in fresno california. according to the article, liver cancer is the leading cause of death in Laotian men, especially because most do not know that they have hepatitis b. below is a link to the story in the fresno bee, and then a link to the story on npr.

http://www.fresnobee.com/2010/06/27/1986989/hepatitis-b-a-silent-epidemic.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129061711 thank you laura for this link to this npr story - yall can listen to the report - or read the transcript.

an education

2010-08-06T18:37:00.000-07:00

i got this email from a coworker. isn't this really is how it should be - access to education, regardless of financial status? seeing stuff like this, (and the new health care reform) makes me a little more happy here in america... just don't jaywalk.

Harvard University announced over the weekend that from now on undergraduate students from low-income families will pay no tuition. In making the announcement, Harvard's president Lawrence H. Summers said, "When only ten percent of the students in elite higher education come from families in the lower half of the income distribution, we are not doing enough. We are not doing enough in bringing elite higher education to the lower half of the income distribution."

To find out more about Harvard offering free tuition for families making less than $60,000 a year, visit Harvard's financial aid website at: http://www.fao.fas.harvard.edu/ or call the school's financial aid office at (617) 495-1581 (617) 495-1581 .

copy and paste: the battle of the kao chii pate

2010-08-02T12:36:00.000-07:00

this american life is awesome. this episode (412: million dollar idea) features a bit on vietnamese sandwiches - well, more than just vietnamese sandwiches: but of the theft of a recipe, a menu, even the font of the menu! this is as bad as the theft of rosalind franklin's dna.

well, "stop talking about the past", and listen to this broadcast - even if you just listen to the first 8 minutes. thanks ben for making me aware of this. see link below:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/412/million-dollar-idea

i saw the sign

2010-07-30T18:28:00.001-07:00

i saw this sign along the side of road, and i'm not posting it here because of the bad grammar... well, it's not even bad grammar really, it's just bad stylistically? i probably would have just said "no dumping" and left it at that. well basically, i want to make it clear that i'm not making fun of the person that put this up. (i.e., ha ha! look at how this person can't write english!) my reason for posting this is much more than that: when i saw this - i took it as a philosophical signpost along the road of my life, an omen or a word of caution - something like my horoscope that i'd read in the sunday morning paper. this sign has changed me. i am a different person, and i am no longer dumping everything.

a tree grows in seattle

2010-07-20T11:26:00.000-07:00

i got this kaffir lime tree as a birthday gift from erika, and it's providing fresh bai khi hout for the curry and laap i try to make. and immediately after breaking off some leaves for the laap pictured below, it sprouted a brand new stem full of leaves! (well, not immediately, but within the next few weeks after.)

but the point is this - you too can grow your very own lime leaf tree real easily. i transplanted it once, but i think i might need to again because i didn't realize it would grow this well so soon!

on the road

2010-07-10T16:55:00.000-07:00

a few of my favorite photos from my recent trip... most of them don't need a caption, but i am putting captions anyway...

push based on the movie "precious" by oprah

called.

only a little kid can pull off white socks and black shoes.

every breath you take... i'll be watching you.

two reasons why

holding up the tree

savatdee

2010-07-06T11:07:00.000-07:00

i'd heard from a couple of people that a new thai/Lao restaurant would be opening in town - up in the ravenna neighborhood. so one sunday, a few weeks back, i drove over to have a look at it. (and here is a look at it; see picture below:)

well, as i was out there taking this picture with my camera phone, this white woman walks up to me and asks what i am doing. so i explain that i have a blog, and that i like to post stuff or whatever, and so she tells me, "i met the owner yesterday! they had a nice little open house for people in the neighborhood, served free food and everything! you should meet them!" so next thing you know, i am being forcibly dragged into the restaurant to meet the owners - (which is not my style, i swear. i really don't like to show up to anything without an embossed invite, and even then i'd probably rather stay home.)

but in the end, i am glad the she pushed me to go inside. because the neighbor introduced me to noy, the very friendly owner, and i had a great time talking with her. we sat down and she showed me the plans for the menu (they'll start out with a few Lao dishes, and hopefully expand.) and talked about her family and other restaurants she's been involved with. but this will bring the total number of Lao (or at least Lao-leaning) restaurants in the seattle area to three: savatdee, vieng thong, and thai palms. but noy may do hers a bit different -she mentioned the possibility of serving khao poun - which is my favorite food of my life forever and ever, and something i've never seen a seattle restaurant serve before. so i am there. i am not sure if they're open yet... but if not, it can't be long now. the restaurant is located on the corner of roosevelt and ne 58th st.

camera camera

2010-06-25T17:38:00.000-07:00

here is a trailer for a new documentary that just premiered at the la film festival about travel in Laos; see the synopsis below.

CAMERA, CAMERA - Trailer from malcolm murray

westerners young and old arrive in Laos, and so do their cameras. they document a fragile and deceptively brutal world, revealing themselves in the process. CAMERA, CAMERA quietly calls upon viewers to ponder the multifaceted and often ambiguous impacts of travel and photography on citizens of two worlds.(directed by malcolm murray. written by michael meyer. produced by josh haner.)

i don't think i will editorialize this time. here are links to some reviews about the movie:

http://www.indiewire.com/article/laff_10_malcolm_murray_turns_over_the_camera_camera/
this article is especially poignant. and watch the clip posted alongside this nytimes essay:
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/essay-18/
http://www.filmradar.com/reviews/item/la_film_fest_review_camera_camera/

"just stop walsh!"

2010-06-16T15:17:00.000-07:00

uh... i jaywalked at this same exact intersection just last week. no lie. i didn't want to. i wanted to take the bridge, but my colleague (who will remain nameless) peer pressured me into it. well, i am lucky because this clearly could've happened to me.

another quote: "hey, did you get the part on camera when he hurt-" "-where he socked her? i saw that *%#%!"