baton rouge is thuggin' it...

my hometown is the setting for the home-made-looking "thuggin' it and lovin' it in baton rouge" dvd that's hit the streets and is causing some controversy. controversy for the police that the people in the video are shooting off guns "that even the police don't use," and controversy for the residents that baton rouge is presented in a bad light. the media group (and i use that term loosely) that made the video claims that the people in the video are just actors... but more on that to come. watch this clip on the br news website:

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/50844642.html

happy fourth of july, people

happy independence day. this is a good day for all americans. fireworks, bbqs, and sleeping-in. hooray.

now take this little quiz. do you know as much about our great country as a naturalized citizen?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25461301/?GT1=43001

thai ginger: serving more than just red curry for 15 years

one of the comments on this article said, "i'll have an order of pad yhai and a bride to go, please."

seattle's thai ginger restaurant's owner has been arranging sham marriages between its employees and thai citizens wanting to get green cards. i don't know if i've ever eaten at thai ginger, but now i gots to. if their food is as creative as this scheme, its gotta be good. here is the link to the article, and once again, the comment section is always colorful:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009373478_webthaiginger23m.html

jacob - you may just need to be a contributer to my blog... it would cut out the middle man.

ny times article: Lao and thai food

here is the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/dining/17larb.html?_r=2&ref=dining

and thanks to jacob for sending this to me, and for his astute observation that, "unfortunately they say nothing about padek."

a round of applause for the white people

i was invited by the farrar family for dinner on sunday for a curry festival. everyone brought a curry dish of some sort (and mine is the one in the bottom-most picture with the basil swimming around on top.) i was pretty durn amazed at what everyone came up with. there was some good food!




as we were contemplating the success of different dishes, and i proposed "a round of applause for the white people," someone pointed out that unlike some countries that really stick to their own dishes and diets, americans -without a cuisine they can call their own- have gotten pretty good at borrowing (or if you want to get cynical: stealing) recipes from the rest of the world. to this someone else added, "yeah, its not like you see people in other countries making tuna casserole." but as mom farrar put it: "who would want to eat tuna casserole? even i don't want to eat tuna casserole."

Lao vs. Laotian

i just finished reading this discussion on lonely planet's website (see link). which is it, Lao or Laotian?

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/message.jspa?messageID=15723942

i always felt that the word "Laotian" referred to any person, thing, food, etc, from Laos - and that it was meant to refer to these things in the broader sense. additionally, the term seems useful in that it differentiates from a specific reference to the ethnic Lao people/language.

for example, most hmong people in the usa would fall under the category of Laotian (in the sense that they may be refugees from Laos) but would not fall under the category of Lao (in that Lao is a specific reference to a specific people, language that makes up the majority population in the country of Laos.)

also, certain foods maybe consider Laotian dishes, but may not be an actual dish of the lowland Lao people.

any comments on this? when i tell people i speak another language, i almost always say "i speak Lao." and i use the word Laotian for clarification purposes only. the word Laotian does seem to be a western invention - i've never heard it used in Laos. although the Lao government does have certain words in place to assist in developing a greater "Laotian" identity... (the terms Lao loum, Lao theung, and Lao soung, would be examples but i will save that for another post.)

death penalty

this uk woman was jailed in Laos back in August for drug smuggling... and somehow she is now 5 months pregnant. (and she could possibly face execution, although with international pressure, that is seeming much less likely now.) as the title of the linked article says, this really calls Laos's criminal justice system into question. apparently, Laos officials are opening an investigation into how exactly she got pregnant (something the rest of us learned in 6th grade health class, or from our parents if we were lucky,) and are continuing to insist that she wasn't raped or impregnated by a guard, but that she was already pregnant back when she was jailed, or some immaculate conception kinda thing...

this is kinda old news now, so many of you have probably already heard about this. several articles were posted about it; the most recent saying that the uk will bring her home to serve out her sentence there. here are some links:

this is the older link - from cnn:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/05/04/laos.british.woman.drugs.trial/index.html

the more recent link that i referenced above:
http://www.worldlatestnews.com/world-news/pregnant-british-inmate-puts-laos-justice-system-on-trial

eat one

what went wrong with the definition of Lao?

this is from the webster's dictionary.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lao

Lao pronunciation: \ˈlau\
function: noun inflected form(s): plural Lao or Laos \ˈlauz\
date: 1808 1 : a member of a buddhist people living in Laos and adjacent parts of northeastern thailand 2 : the thai language of the Lao people — Lao adjective

Lao is not a "thai language of the Lao people"

Lao is the "official language of the country of Laos"

oh well.

(thanks to chaleurn for sending this to me. i have heard of Lao and thai described in academic settings as part of the tai linguistic family, but i've never heard Lao described as a "thai language of the Lao people.") comments?

uncovering the past...

not my tagline, but from the article. see the preview below and then read the article, linked here: seattle times article link - click here!.

in seattle this next friday:

see my previous post for details...

so are you chinese or japanese?

the funny thing about this clip, is that i've been quoting it for years although i'd never actually seen it until today. (i should start by saying this clip is from king of the hill, and it shows the arrival of the new neighbors, the souphanousinphone family.) i'd heard about the episode and the Lao family that lived next door to the hills, and i've always thought that this particular scene was an accurate representation of the invisibility of some southeast asian groups in the usa. so i sometimes will reference it (without ever having seen it) when discussing cultural issues with the group i facilitate at the local high school in order to illustrate the stereotypes and cultural expectations of southeast asians. but its hilarious... especially the line, "man them chinese, you never can understand a word they say... mumble mumble mumble." (and thanks to lone for passing this along.)



here is the original link to the online discussion...

http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?forumID=98894&p=3&topicID=27191714

happy new year

khao chii pate

now look at how everybody's trying to get on with some of this vietnamese sandwich. see the new york times article linked below. ima bout to head off to tony's to get me one. but i've taken to the bbq pork with the fried egg. its so good especially when they leave the egg a little runny. and for the extra egg, its still only 2.50! that's dealz! yep... gonna take my lunch now! (i left my soup at home by accident, so soup will be lunch tomorrow, khao chii pate will be lunch today!)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/dining/08banh.html?_r=2

thanks to jacob for this here link.

rotten tomatoes guy

so i was watching some rotten tomatoes at a friend's place over the weekend (i aint got cable). and i saw that the guy host, brett erlich, was wearing a shirt with...



where did he get that shirt anyway? any guesses as to what it says? i mean, i think it's "thank you" and with a "dueh" after it? like the restaurant in viengchan? i also "contacted" rotten tomatoes to ask about it, (see link below), and i would suggest yall all do the same so that they'll actually answer one of us. below is their website, and you can watch the show online! and here is their email address. but regardless, it shows that Laos is rising up into america's collective consciousness, and that soon we'll have a Lao-american president that will declare a holiday to celebrate the eating of padek.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/help_desk/contact.php

next week event!

we've been working on this for a while, so hopefully it comes off okay!

beer

i went to a reception for a non-profit organization a few weeks back, and i was surprised that beerLao had already hit the shelves of local asian supermarkets. but here is the proof. i took these here pictures with the camera on my phone, so they aint the highest quality... but anyway.





(in case you don't remember, a while back i posted a link to an npr story about beerLao and its hopes of becoming an internationally popular brand. and maybe it will.)

king county police: serving and protecting our community

i have been meaning to put this on my blog for a while. this is an ongoing problem with the police force. in my work, i hear stories about this kind of behavior regularly: tazing a kid when he is already in cuffs, allowing a police dog to bite a kid when he's already on the ground with his hands displayed... it goes on and on. the issue seems to be that we don't have enough cameras out there watching the police's every move, cause that seems to be the only time anyone does something about it - (maybe cameras on every corner would help deter the police officers and the law-breakers from their respective errant behaviors.)

here is the article from the seattle pi.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/401779_schene28.html

a village in california just lost its idiot (the mayor)

from cnn:



thanks wl for this link.

beerLao

of course, i've never tasted beerLao, but when in Laos, i've questioned european/australian tourists about their opinion of the homegrown beer, and they've all given it the thumbs up. well, Laos is hoping to expand the beer's reach so you can purchase it at a corner store near you.

here is a link from the article from national public radio

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99874538

the curious thing about beerLao, is that the Lao government is its producer. (this seems foreign to the american in me, but of course, i am on a life-long quest to remedy that malady... and i guess living in seattle is helping, because in washington, all liquor is sold in state-run stores.) but somebody named carlsberg just got a 50% stake in the company, and so it goes.... a round of capitalism for everyone (and on the house.)

thailand: refugee scandal

you'd think after past abuses, thailand would know a little more about assisting refugees. neighboring countries such as cambodia, Laos and vietnam have produced many refugees over the years due to internal conflicts, and this isn't the first time thailand's conduct (robbery, rape, murder) toward these refugees has been questioned. take a look at this video and some of the articles linked here.



http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/01/22/thailand.refugees/index.html

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1872426,00.html?cnn=yes


thanks to wl for this link

whopper virgin: snl spoof

tasteless: the whopper

i am surprised at the tacky burger king marketing campaign that goes to remote villages in thailand to find "whopper virgins." well, one more example of amerikan capitalism using others to their economic advantage. (ha ha. look at those primitive uncivilized hmong people that aint never ate no whopper before!) i could go on and on about this, but watch for yourself, and then choose to boycott burger king, home of the (tasteless) whopper.


you can also call burger king to express your opinion of their marketing strategy:
305-378-3535
305-378-7200

snow in seattle

aint worked for the past couple of days, cause the office has been closed. so i am trying not to drive. and this is why:



two buses trying to get to the station slid down an ice-covered thomas street on capitol hill and crashed through the barrier separating them from I-5.

anh joseph cao

been meanin to share this with everyone. louisiana has elected bobby jindal (first indian american governor) and now anh cao, the first vietnamese american congressman. he is from new orleans; check out the link below.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/08/us/politics/08cao.html?_r=3&scp=2&sq=cao&st=cse

absurd

i should change my blog title to - "absurdities," and this should be my first post. yesterday, went to a caribbean restaurant in columbia city, and this is what they decided to advise the general public regarding the use of their urinal:


my second absurdity would be something about stepping in a soft, mushy pile of dog poop on the way to my car this morning. its seattle i tell you... the rain had the pile all squishy and soaked through. and to top it all off, i didn't realize what i'd stepped in until i got in my car and smeared it all over the carpet. i sat there wondering what that smell was, "did somebody leave a vietnamese sandwhich under my seat?" and then i looked down and saw it... light brown too. and then in my subsequent frenzy (i stopped the car twice to wipe it off in the grass on the side of the street) i spilt my diet cherry pepsi all over myself.

i tried to clean it outa my car and off the bottom of my shoe... but it never really works. i can still smell it. in fact, if i breathe in deeply enough, i can smell the poop right here where i sit, even though my shoe looks clean enough for a white glove test. its gonna be the fish sauce story all over again. a real poop emergency.

the betrayal

gran torino

so it was only a matter of time till i wrote this post. clint eastwood (who, unlike charton heston, may he r.i.p, has only become cooler with age) is coming out with this movie called gran torino. see link to imdb below.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1205489/

and the movie is about a bitter old korean war vet (clint eastwood himself... why couldn't charlton heston keep doing cool roles in movies instead of that wacko nra mess?) forms an unlikely friendship with a hmong gangster who tried to steal his gran torino. (btw, i think its cool that they named a car after a clint eastwood movie.)


but the coolest thing of all: unlike memoirs of a geisha which used an almost 100% chinese cast to portray japanese characters, eastwood has populated his film about hmong kids with none else but hmong kids. what an idea.

so out with the natalie woods (the whitie puerto rican in west side story) and david carradine (white dude in yellow face in kung fu) and in with a clint eastwood movie that finally does it right. and of course i aint seen the movie yet, so i can't say if its any good, but it's clint eastwood - so of course it's good.

due out sometime in december. also... stay tuned to my blog for future posts on the Lao American documentary, "the betrayal."

read more here:
http://www.asianweek.com/2008/10/03/eastwoods-next-film-features-hmong-american-cast-exclusive-interviews-from-the-set-of-gran-torino/

late notice...

celebrating

while waiting for the election returns, i was on the phone with katie, and i asked her, "after obama wins the election, do you think people are gonna take to the streets?" i was imagining the next day, people marching and dancing downtown, and katie agreed that they would. but it happened much sooner than that - see below:



thousands of people took to the streets to celebrate. i've never seen such a diverse crowd having that much fun together - kinda like when the mariners won those 116 games back in 2001, only this time people celebrated something way more important. a drum circle formed and the crowd chanted, "obama!" and "yes we can!" and a full-on 10-piece (more or less) brass band showed up, filing into the crowd from some side street with their horns blazing.
we marched from pike place market (probably 2000 of us) down to pioneer square - then back again. then, unsure of what to do next, we marched back to pioneer square and did the the whole thing all over again. i received numerous handshakes, high fives, fist bumps, smiles and even some hugs - all part of the celebratory feeling.

this kinda thing only happens once in american history, and its a good feeling to be on the right side of history.

finally the tables are starting to turn...

talkin' bout a revolution...

Barack Obama will be our new president.

today, i voted

look who else the obamas are pal'n around with!

first it was terrorists, socialists, and community organizers... and now he's really pushing the limits. its over... now that i've seen this, there's no way i can vote for obama.

kutv.com

also,
can yall visit my brother's "radical-right" website and let him know who yall are voting for tomorrow? check the right side of his page...
http://stopnobama.blogspot.com/

in response

my brother started a blog. i don't know how we're related, but i'm told we are... here is the link and it's title tells you all you need to know:

http://stopnobama.blogspot.com/
so this post is in response to his posts, although i swear my blog won't turn too political... just a little bit- so here we go (and a small disclaimer, i got this in an email, but i don't agree with all of it - like the "mired in scandal" comment aint really a fair depiction of palin's time as governor):


If you think there is little or no racism going on in this election, here's a little mind game for you to play:

Imagine two candidates for president of the US—one is black and the other white…

What if the white candidate was a former president of the Harvard Law Review and the black candidate finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if the white was still married to the first woman he said 'I do' to and the black was the candidate who cheated on his first wife and then left her for a beer heiress?

What if the black’s second wife not only became addicted to pain killers, but acquired them illegally through her charitable organization, and what if the white’s wife graduated from Harvard?

What if the black was a member of the Keating 5 and the white was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

What if the black’s running mate had a pregnant unmarried teenaged daughter?

And what if the black and his running mate represented the party that was in power for the last eight years which presided over historic debt, 2 wars, stumbling health care, a weakened dollar, all-time high prison population, mortgage crises, bank foreclosures, etc. ?

If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.

Background:


Obama:
Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

12 years as a professor of constitutional law

7 years as an Illinois state senator

4 years as a US senator


Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

36 years as a US senator


McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

23 years as a Naval officer

22 years as a US senator
Palin:


Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism

6 years as a mayor of a town of 6300

2 years as Alaska state governor, mired in scandal.

louisiana

i guess that's one way to settle a divorce

i wish i coulda seen some video of the bitter husband draggin his half of the house away. wow. here is the accompanying article:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27113959/
thanks jane for sending me this (and for the accompanying tagline).

back home

i am home in louisiana (wondering why i ever left). i missed all the hurricanes, but fallen trees - all cut up in pieces - still litter the roadsides, waiting to be picked up by the fallen-tree truck.
this picture is of my family. obviously an old picture. do you know which one is me?

you could vote for this one, or you could vote for...

football

i went to the cougars-huskies game last weekend, and the tension was a little much for me. here is a big "w" to encourage people to vote for george mccain for his 3rd term. here is jacob. he presently lives in one of those critical swing states (florida) but he was rooting for the cougs on this occasion. no love for the "w."

i have gone to both of the schools, so i was really struggling to figure out who i should root for. and i couldn't just root for whoever was winning at the time, cause it was such a close game!
so i just rooted for the old standby (see my cap):

the silent "s"

the announcers at the 2008 beijing olympics shook the world when they announced, as the 4 Lao athletes (2 swimmers, 2 runners) entered the bird's nest arena, that Laos is actually pronounced Lao, and that the "s" (a french additon) is silent. my phone has been ringing non-stop since that day... "is it true? is the country really called Lao and not Laos?" and yes... it is true; it is really called meuang Lao, not meuang Laos.

and on a different note: the olympics have been my new best friend. we hang out every night until 1 am. and did yall see misty may and kerri walsh beat up china in volleyball last night? and in the pouring rain too. amazing.

and i actually saw one of the Lao runners in his qualifying round - Souksavanh Tonphithak. he came in last place in the prelims... so i really only saw him just when the starting shot was fired, then the camera left him to follow the jamaican runners zooming to the finish line. but nevertheless, it was exciting to see him there...

here is a link to a blog with another report about the beijing olympic athletes.

http://laocook.com/2008/08/11/sokdee-der-muang-lao/

the endless summer gangs

the pi published these 2 articles about the rise of youth violence and gangs around the area.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/374766_gangkids13.html
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/374899_gangkids14.html

cambodia and thailand don't get along

did yall know that president bush was in thailand this morning? and the only news outa his visit there is what he said right before leaving for the opening ceremony of the beijing olympics - something about how china should improve their human rights record. (by the way, zhang ziyi made a couple comments about that herself: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/29/zhang-ziyi-puzzled-by-oly_n_115531.html)

well, in other news from thailand that bush didn't hear about, the preah vihear temple is causing problems again. the temple was awarded to cambodia by and international court in 1962 after disputes between thailand and cambodia about who really should have it within their borders. (it is a khmer temple, but was within present-day thai borders, until the international court ruled in favor of cambodain sovereignty.) well, the temple was set to be awarded a world heritage site... but that just dug up the past. and now for the past month or so, there's been these thai and khmer soildiers posted up by the temple waiting to shoot each other. (actually i hear on npr that they're really just sitting back, playing 6-cards, drinking rice liquor, waiting for the uppercrust to figure this whole mess out.) read below for details.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/070808_News/07Aug2008_news004.php

some history:
http://www.bangkokpost.com/220708_News/22Jul2008_news21.php