Kin Koum dance

Kin Koum dance
Originally uploaded by tumbleweeed.

An interesting dance by the Tai Daeng (RED TAI) people at last week's festival at Feungfa. PADETC had organised an open-air festival of sorts to bring all its volunteers from 13 provinces, as well as villages and schools in Vientiane together. It was quite exciting to see everyone and the cultural performances they put up. There was also plenty of local tidbits that i sampled, ranging from sausages (made with heart & liver : which i found out only after biting into it!!!), khao loum (sweet porridge with coconut milk), khao nom pan (like singapore's ang ku kueh), and lots of other specialties from the provinces. The atmosphere was simply great. Young people were also picking new skills like trying to get the secret recipes of certain food, and learning how to make paper lanterns, rice husk brooches, and rattan baskets

One of my colleagues told me that usually the Khammouan people are hesitant to share the secret of making their famous Khao Nom Pan but at the fair, they were really forthcoming.. it was almost like a tourism fair and i think it ocurred to some officials who were invited that this could really be quite a tourist-puller.

I really enjoyed the performances by the volunteers including the Kin Koum dance which is like a ritual to offer food up to the Gods to appease them. There were the coffee harvesting folk dances from Champassak, Lao classical dance (with candles balancing on the head), and even Muay-Lao (lao boxing) made into a dance.

I could feel and see the great energy of the volunteers - as they hawked their wares and sang almost non-stop! it was rather noisy but very fun, and really was like a huge village festival where everyone knew everyone else. In fact, i did not have breakfast in the morning, and thought that i would go hungry initially. but once i arrived at the fair, every stall was inviting us to join in with their breakfast. so there was a lot of sticky rice eating with bare hands - with fish, veg, egg etc... kinda indian/ malay style sitting down on straw mats and pinching food with our fingers... needs a little getting-used to since i've been so brainwashed on hygiene (since growing older and living in more developed environments & the SARS scare a few years back). I remember the days at home when we still drank from communal bowls of soup and dug our chopsticks into the same dishes without a care... these days, it's almost a crime to eat without common serving utensils in the FIRST world.... Anyways, i just felt really accepted and comfortable at the fair. the people were really so hospitable. Kudos to PADETC!

Outlawed

"Leally? are you sure?" "You want to eat lice?" this was what my japanese friend used to say, which would crack me up without fail each time. Here in Lao PDR, it's much the same. Many people also can't roll their tongues to pronounce the letter R and so when they speak English, they tend to sound like the Japanese with short tongues. I used to think it was because, like the japanese, they simply don't have the R in their language until someone told me that it's because the letter R was outlawed by the revolutionaries when they established LAO PDR! How intriguing! the Revolutionaries outlawed the R...... why i wonder? is it because the letter R evokes images of the bourgeois? because the letter R spells RRRRich? RRRResplendence? RRRococo? which were all not in line with the socialist school of thought? Or maybe they were afraid the R would Revolt against them, leading the people (who had lost their Rs) to Rise up and Rebel. Yes, it must be that the letter R just has too many incendiary references that could cause Real disturbance in this country.

Anyways, because the R was banned from the alphabet, the new generation of Lao people don't quite know how to roll their tongues but the older ones can still do it. Apparently you were not allowed to roll your tongues in public before, but now, i think it's quite safe because the gym i go to is called SENGDARA although of course, all the tuk tuk drivers call it SENGDALA.... They also have a song called Ragone Ragone (Goodbye Goodbye) which perhaps was a befitting ode sung to the letter R when they banned it from the Lao alphabet.

Oh the R, rest in peace, maybe one day it may be Resurrected when the young leaders of LAO Please Don't Rush have completely embraced the new world of capitalism that its market doors opened to about a decade ago.

development monks

isn't that a cool title? the development monk project is one of PADETC's work and it builds on the concept of monks giving back to society through developmental work. monks have long been a source of education in the Buddhist countries and increasingly they have, in some countries, been getting involved in development work like HIV/AIDS education. Today, i met a monk, who heads the Development Monk project and he spoke of how they teach dharma to primary school kids. It was very interesting when I visited the Thong Kang primary school last week and saw a young monk conducting lessons. One of the first thing he asked them to do was to meditate for 10 minutes and the entire class simply fell silent and began to focus on their breathing. This was a class of 9 year olds, mind you. Would the spoiled first world kids do the same? I wonder.... i don't want to generalise so i leave it to you - who come from different country- to judge for yourself. At least the kids from my country would find it hard to sit still and meditate.

I'm all for creative learning in children and having fun and play and some level of noise in school. i find that all very exciting, and in fact, that's what PADETC's Quality School project espouses - where children learn through activities and young volunteers assist teachers to teach in a child-friendly and centred way. The monks also contribute by adding in the aspect of moral studies which we used to have in secondary school (but i'm not sure if schools still hv them now?) and i was very impressed to see how the children learnt the concept of discipline at the age of 9. there is a time and place for all things, and learning the value of silence is something that children of the first world probably do not really appreciate.

Silence can truly be golden.

Have you noticed how many children cannot tolerate silence? I once brought a group of 14 year olds to stay in a Cambodian village where there were no electricity and the night was pitch black and everything was quiet. I think it very nearly freaked them out.

A segue: a bell at the Simpanthong (Copper Brick) temple in Vientiane - it's made out of an exploded shell that was strewn all over Lao during the Vietnam War by American fighter jets. Nice twist to a sad sad past..Here, a "tung" or flag that's used to symbolise a dead person's spirit moving upwards towards heaven or towards the highest level. Bits of sticky rice offering are placed right at the top of the flag post.


I think that religion can be used in a positive way for the moral education of young children. sorry, i am not a liberal being a Catholic myself, i truly believe in the value of religion. I just think that too many people shun religion simply cos they don't understand its purpose well enough or maybe they were forcefed with it before. Also, being religious can be rather "uncool" in some societies these days right? But when westerners turn buddhist and become yoga teachers, suddenly it is quite hip. i don't understand. I just know that religion can serve as a good way to guide a young person's growth if mentored properly. What's wrong with having moral values? Again, in this 'liberal' world we live in, sometimes i feel that the M word has become a dirty word. it's almost wrong to have values. people are so afraid to dare to say 'this is wrong' anymore. It's not the same as being judgemental, but having a strong sense of what's right and what's wrong e.g. robbing someone is wrong! and killing another person is wrong!

Anyways, i digress... yeah, i had a good time interviewing four monks while trying to sit with my legs demurely tucked to the side. Of course, i made the mistake firstly of wearing a low slung jeans (yeah very nearly butt crack!!!) that are UBER not suitable for sitting on a straw mat in a temple, secondly, of having legs of unsuitable size (read: rather thick) and there fore i had to switch sides ever so often while talking to the monks. Luckily no one sat behind me to see the sight... But i loved the little kittens that came to sit in my lap while i was scribbling away. :-)

learning a new lingo

it's always very self-challenging to pick up a new lingo, especially after you have crossed the 3-0 threshold... i can sorta understand why some aid workers i have met have given up picking up a new language since they move from country to country every 3-4 years and their brains are already half packed with at least 4 languages or more! i hope my lil brain still has space cos i find these new languages absolutely fascinating... and i hope learning them keeps Alzheimer's at bay (??)

but what i like about new languages is to pick out the similarities with the other lingos i know.. already i have found some pretty interesting ones e.g. MA - means horse in Mandarin and also in Lao except the tones are different. the words i list below are same sounding except for tones. e.g.Fu - to float; geng - smart (in Hokkien); ka - foot (in Hokkien); mai - to come (in Tetum);baw - no (in Hainanese); hao - i (in Tetum); sam - 3 (in Cantonese); khao- 9 (in Cantonese); si-4 (in Cantonese). And the more i listen to my LAO friends speak, the more i feel that it sounds like the Hainanese dialect especially the open vowel sounds like 'Baw'. Reminds me of my relatives yakking away.

The tricky thing about Lao language is also that there can be like two or three inflexions in a single word, so the word 'sister' is pronounced as 'er(2)' and 'ai(2)' and a lilt at the end. Anyways, why do i bother when i only have less than a month here? some people think this way ya. but i guess, i'm just curious and of course, speaking bad Lao breaks the ice quickly. Except, as my Lao friend warned, when you ask for less milk (nom noi) in your coffee, make sure you don't end up asking for small boobs (also nom noi but different tones!).

khao soi luang prabang

khao soi luang prabang
Originally uploaded by tumbleweeed.

hmmm yummy i think i will be gaining some pounds here in Lao... sigh... there goes my new year resolution which was to get fitter before i return to Timor. It's been quite a few sumptuous days for me since my host has a wonderful cook and she whips up different stuff everyday. one day is Khao Piak (porridge), the other was Tamahom (papaya salad), and then Paa (fish) hmmm... and yesterday, i followed some Lao colleagues to a place near Padetc to have Luang Prabang noodles called Khao Soi. I felt that it was similar to burmese Shan Kao Suet (as far as i can recall) and also a bit like Chinese Zha Jiang Mian. It's a good thing that I am an absolute noodle-fan. I can have noodles for breakfast, lunch and dinner so this month here will be my noodles-pig out month. I used to yearn for noodles in the morning while in Timor but now, hohoho, i can easily get my hands on them..... yummy. and out on the streets the noodles are like 10,000 kip (slightly more than US1) while the large bowl in the picture is only 12,000 kip!!! of course, i lurrve the fact that there's always lots of veggies on the side. k, i'm off to hunt for nice kafe! tata

sunset on the mekong

here's the uber cool view from the garden of my kind host who lives along the Mekong River or Nam Kong. Right across us is Thailand and in fact, when the tide is very low, there is a sandbund (called DoneChan) that is revealed higher up the river, where kids play football on, much like a beach. As I sat sipping on my coconut juice at the MOON the NIGHT restaurant (*guffaw*) with two Lao colleagues, I wondered how easy it would be to cross over - as it's really a matter of a few strokes from the sandbund and you're over in Thailand. Anyways, i was tickled by the restauran's name: imagine mooning the night. You must think it's a real happening, sexy place where people MOON the night but nah, it's just a typical seafood restaurant next to the Nam Kong. on the left, Cute kids from the Nongboua thongtai Primary School that I visited yesterday. Wished i had better internet connection to upload all the great photos i had from there. But i am running low on laptop battery and the internet connection here crawls....but yeah, i was really impressed by the school yesterday as it had baskets of books set out on tables for the children to read during their break times, and this was the first school that allowed PADETC volunteers to conduct classes from Lao dance, to storytelling, to basic english, to aerobics! A smart move obviously as it is clear that the children were happy and keen to come to school because of these exciting new classes they have. And here's what i found really nice about the school i visited - WATER for the children to drink! it was wonderful seeing them come and get water and drink them in gulps. I mean, this would be a rarity in Timorese school wouldn't it? In my brief period in Timor, I never saw a school where water is aplenty for the kids, especially drinking water. It has been proven that clean water for drinking, and water for toilet use actually attracts children to attend school. In some schools in Bali, children bring about 5 litres of water to school each day if the school has no water. Hardly possible in Timor where many families don't have access to clean water. Here are the boys playing chess with bottle caps. They were really cute and of course the swivelling LCD screen of the A640 was able to attract them towards the camera. Cheap thrill i know....couldn't help it. Have not done this in a long while.

Sa Bai Diiiiiii

It seemed like a déjà vu - sitting in a roomful of people and not understanding a single word of what's spoken. It was only 1.5 years ago that I experienced this in Timor and now I was putting myself through the 'torture' again in Lao PDR. I sometimes wonder if I have something for pain as I seem to enjoy putting myself in these uncomfortable positions. But now, in the evening as I sit here in S's house, which overlooks the Mekong River, I realize that it is this willingness to be 'uncomfortable' that has helped me to continually grow and learn. How else would I be seeing new things and meeting new people? It is no wonder that when I was much younger (and skinnier), I could never sit still in a chair because my tailbone would ache and my mom would always say my backside is itchy and thus can never linger long enough in one spot. Yeah… that's why I'm tumbleweed. But for the record, this tumbleweed is definitely gonna tumble right back to Timor very soon.

Tumbleweed is here in Lao because she's volunteering at one of the biggest national NGO here called PADETC. I was offered the opportunity while speaking to its founder Mr Sombath Somphone, a Ramon Magsaysay award winner in 2005 for his efforts in building youth leadership. Sombath has been involved in youth work for more than 20 years and I hope that my month stay here will benefit him as much as it will me.

The Lao language is definitely much more complex than Tetum or any other language I have endeavoured to learn, which included Khmer (much simpler because it's monotonal), Burmese (I think I found it easy because I was 8 years younger than now and thus had more grey cells to capture new info), Spanish (way easier because of the Latin roots), Indonesian (growing up in Singapore helped because there is a lot of Malay mixed into everyday Singlish) and Tetum( easy because of the mix of latin and malay languages, plus it's monotonal!). Of course, this doesn't include Mandarin which I grew up learning. But I still think Lao must be more complex since it has 6 tones while Mandarin only has 4.

Anyways, my task here is to write for PADETC which was essentially what I did in Timor. I hope that I won't disappoint since time is short. Of course, I then really should not be blogging too much but instead writing those stories! Ok, wish me luck y'all and yeah, I'll try to upload as many pictures as possible since I got myself a new Canon Powershot A640 last week.

Hey kolega sira, diak ka lae? Hau hein katak hau sei fila ba Timor lalais tamba hau hanoin barak imi. Hau senti lian Tetum fasil liu lian Lao, no hau sempre hakarak koalia Tetum maibe laiha kolega sira bele komprende! Okay, se ita lee hela blog ida ne'e, favor hakerek oituan iha 'comments' ya? Okay, maromak hela ho imi! Ate fulan Marsu (Hau esperansa!)

bling on the blood

BLING BLING

Good fortune can spell great disaster as many nations around the world blessed richly in natural resources have shown. (See country named TIMOR-LESTE for a good case study of natural resource exploitation, political manipulation, corruption and human rights abuse.)

I finally caught my first big screen movie in a year and it happened to be Blood Diamond. The story ain't new but I guess sometimes it does take a powerful mainstream film like this one to spread the message more widely. I mean, the average Joe or Jane probably would not be bothered about where the diamonds came from with the occasional news piece, but movies like this one can really widen the consciousness. Seems like there have been a gradual increase in such films with a 'conscience'like documentaries except much more interesting and they don't bring on the Z monster and bring you to dreamland within 5 minutes.... Speaking of diamonds, there was a newsflash in August last year about the possibility of finding diamonds in the Timor Sea.....in the Tiwi Islands.... thankfully not anywhere near Timor-Leste if not, the little half-island might suffer another round of marauding from its 'friends'.

I once met a guy who gave me a ring (white gold, with a trendy wave on the top) studded with 8 little diamonds, after we had dated for two weeks. yeah, he was kinda creepy cos what kind of guy gives a diamond ring so soon? anyways, his Miata and the diamond ring did nothing to save the ill-fated 'relationship' (if i may even use the word) and i hope he realises that diamonds may be a girl's best friend but they sure can't buy her heart. I never returned the ring - it's gathering dust in a cupboard somewhere at home.

I read with interest that Jennifer Connelly the actress in the film wore 'conflict-free' diamonds from Bulgari to the press conference for the film. wow! shameless advertising!!! She could have simply said "conflict free diamonds" but she slipped in the B word. Anyways, the film is a big big product placement success and surely heavily financed by the diamond industry eager to clean up its tainted reputation. A PR exercise that will be rather successful after the widespread distribution of the film - and of course, they will make sure it is dubbed in major languages where diamonds are sought after.... like Japan for instance... where women are buying diamonds for themselves because many are single, wealthy and rather lonely. Oh and with 'conflict-free' diamonds, i am sure, the prices are higher than ever cos to ensure their conflict free status, there is actually a paper trail and tamper proof rough diamond boxes and all, adding more costs surely and a perfect excuse to hype up the prices. But this IS an ostentatious good so the pricier the better! You know how the young people find affordable diamonds completely offensive!

Anyways, i wonder which genius first popularised the act of putting a stone on the woman's finger and making that stone so uber expensive. It does shine real nicely though, and a big huge one can be a good self-defense weapon in disguise. (has to be well-cut!)

Accoprding to this website, we can "blame it on Archduke Maximilian of Austria. He started the diamond ring trend in 1477 when he presented one to his beloved, Mary of Burgundy."

I guess what struck me most about the film was the scenes where the gunmen were spraying their bullets all over and wiping out lives ruthlessly. It was only then that i realised that the May 25th incident in Timor has really left a deep mark in me. Although i don't have nightmares of what happened or fear looking at blood, but the minute the guns went off in the film, i really felt something inexplicable going on inside my body - everything welled up inside me and for a few scenes, i could not help the tears from flowing. It was strange cos i knew the film was fake and i have always stomached violence in celluloid pretty well - like in Black Hawk Down. But that day in the theatre, i felt something inside me i could not explain. It woke up a deep fear in me, which i thought had been wiped away. I still can't help thinking of the few police officers that we did basic first aid on are now. I heard that one of them (whose thighs were shattered completely cos of the point blank shots) is recovering well and actually got married (to a timorese) while in Darwin. He's still there i presume and it may be a while before he can walk without aid.

A most touching scene was when the father Solomon Vandy spoke to his son who had been brainwashed into being a child soldier, and seeing the little boy finally decide to open his heart again to his father. It made me wish that every parent in Timor would go up to their sons and do the same and bring them away from violence too. Africa has its child soldiers.... how far is Timor from having a similar generation of children wielding machetes and culling without fear? Already the resistance against Indonesia has marred the childhood of an entire generation, a cycle not easy to break. It will take much political will and also great humanity and love to move out of this viciousness.

Timor timor... never far from my mind. Today, A returns to Timor. Hope he stays safe there.