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.)