SAILers singing on the bus on their way to Khon Kaen.

Tuesday July 13^th. All the SAILers, plus 11 professors from the National University of Laos and a few friends rented a bus to go to the Third International Conference on Lao Studies in Khon Kaen, Thailand. It was the first time for many of our SAILers to attend a Lao Studies conference.  I could tell that they were looking forward to meeting many of the Lao Studies scholars and to learning something new from the 140+ presenters. On the bus the SAILers were rehearsing two songs in front of a bus packed with eager listeners—Champa Muang Lao and Yen Sabay Xao Naa. They later sang the two songs at the CLS reception at the conference.

The next three days of the Lao Studies conference were full of speeches, presentations, film festival, receptions, and numerous activities. I am proud of all of our SAILers—Phouthasack, Toby, Akarath, and Ryan. They have done a wonderful job representing themselves, their community, and the SAIL program.

My trip back to Laos, even though shorter than usual, has been very meaningful and fulfilling. I cannot wait to come back home again when I visit the 2011 SAILers next year.

SAILers practicing singing "Champa Muang Lao" with their language teachers at the Lao-American College.

On July 12th I visited our SAILers during their Lao language class. I got a chance to observe the instructor’s teaching techniques and their interactions with the students. After class I spent one on one time with each instructor by giving them the opportunity to evaluate each student and also for me to share with them the students’ feedbacks. The professors genuinely wanted what’s best for the students and that they were willing to follow recommendations for improvement. As the SAIL program progress I cannot help but feel that it will only get better with each year.

In the evening I had a one on one meeting with each SAILer. It was an opportunity for them to give feedback about the SAIL program. There were a few minor suggestions here and there, but overall the SAILers were satisfied with their overall experience and were enjoying their stay in Laos.

SAILers planting rice at a Tai Daeng village.

On July 11th it was off to a day full of activities. The SAILers, the Program Leader, a few of our friends rented a van and off we go for our excursion. The first stop was a Tai Daeng village where the students got a chance to help the villagers plant rice. I certainly enjoyed getting my feet wet and dirty and watching the other SAILers struggling to place the rice stalks in the mud. We all joked that Akarath was the slowest rice planters we have ever seen.

We finally made it to the village where the students stayed at last weekend and the SAILers got an opportunity to meet with their respective host families. However, a few of the families were out in the rice fields and the SAILers did not get a chance to see them this time around. I told them that since the village is only about two hours by bus they should all take a weekend off and come up to visit them again. Hopefully they’ll take my advice seriously.

We visited the Nam Ngum Dam afterwards. I bought some delicious “som paa” (sour fish). We drove for another hour to the “Taa Ngon” where we ordered some of the most authentic Lao food I have ever tasted. On the menu were “Singers with good voice” (fried crickets), “Disco girls” (fresh water shrimps with the fixings). The shrimps were still alive and jumping in a clear glass plate that was placed over another plate to keep them from getting away. It looked like theywere dancing in a discotheque, thus the name. The shrimps kept jumping even in your mouth, yum! All the SAILers were very adventurous and tried all the dishes we ordered.  The best part of it all was the raft. We got a chance to eat our food on a raft that went up the Nam Ngum River and slowly floated back down.

After the long raft ride, we were exhausted and had to head back to the guesthouse.

Later in the evening I met with Ginny, the owner of the Lao-American College. We talked for a very long time about our collaboration and the SAIL program. I was very pleased that we are able to make the collaboration work for the second year.

Spending time with the SAILers at the Nam Ngum Dam.

On July 10^th I went to visit the SAILers in Vientiane. It has been four weeks since I sent them off at the airport in San Francisco. Even though I have been reading their blogs and communicating with their Lao language teachers, the Lao-American College staff, and the SAIL Program Leader on a regular basis, I just had to visit the students for myself.

As soon as I landed, Mr. Xuan, our SAIL Program Leader was there to greet me at the terminal. We went to a Pho restaurant for lunch at Ban Phone Keng, which was one of the best I had for awhile. At the Somneuk Guest House, where the SAILers have been staying since their arrival, I was greeted by Ryan, Akarath and Toby. Phouthasack later joined the rest of the group for our first meeting. It was so nice to see them again.

During the meeting Phouthasack was concerned about the lack of his “Laoness.” Many Lao often mistook him for a foreigner due to his appearance and his Lao language proficiency. However, as I observed Phouthasack during the next few days, both inside and outside of the classroom, I’ve noticed that his Lao has actually improved a great deal. He is now able to read and write. His vocabulary has improved and he is able to carry a conversation in Lao with the local people. I could see how it could be frustrating for a person like Phouthasack, who wants to be Lao, and not be recognized as one by the local people.  I have been visiting Laos off and on since 1994 and even though I feel this is my home, I still have a hard time convincing some people that I AM LAO. This will take time and the SAIL program is only the beginning of the journey for the SAILers.

Ryan’s Lao, our only none Lao American SAILer, has also improved tremendously. I was shocked to hear Ryan speak Lao so clear and precise in such a short period of time. Ryan and Phouthasack were in the same class and according to their language teacher, Achaan Bounmy, they have been focusing most of their time on reading and writing and it showed. Ryan was volunteering at the National Library and learning the Tham Script every morning. He was planning to take Khene lessons. I jokingly told him that he should play for us at the next Lao Studies conference in 2013.

Akarath and Toby were in the intermediate class with Achaan Hommala. Akarath already spoke some Lao before the SAIL program, but wanted to improve his reading, writing, and vocabulary. He also wanted to be able to give a presentation in Lao on his current research. Achaan Hommala was working closely with him to ensure that he would be able to accomplish his goal by the end of the SAIL program. He was volunteering at a children center where he taught English to a group of disadvantaged elementary students. I am proud of him for doing something meaningful for the Lao community and for the Lao children. In his spear time he played basketball with the other SAILers and the Lao-American College students.

Toby is the only female student of the group. She is passionate about helping Lao girls and women in education. In her SAIL application Toby wrote about wanting to set up a scholarship program for Lao girls to attend school. She was getting closer to her dream by volunteering at the Donkoi Children Center and at the same time finding ways to make this possible. Her Lao has also improved a great deal. She admitted that the Lao script is hard to master. Nevertheless she has been trying very hard and judging from her classroom reading the other day, I thought she read Lao perfectly. I kept reminding them not to be so hard of themselves. They have certainly made me proud.

In the evening of July 10^th, all the SAILers, the Program Leader, and the three SAIL professors met for dinner at a local restaurant, Tam Nak Lao. It was wonderful to see all the people who are involved in the SAIL program to sit together in one table enjoying Lao food.

2010 SAIlers in front of the San Francisco city hall.

2010 SAILers in San Francisco

This year’s SAILers, Phouthasack, Toby, Akarath, and Ryan are all leaving for Laos either this evening or tomorrow evening. It’s been exciting, stressful, and above all rewarding to work with the four SAILers in the past months.

The plane tickets were too high, almost $1700 for each student and it took what seemed forever to search for them. One of the SAILers lost his passport and had to apply for a new one on the departure date at the San Francisco Passport Agency.

Despite it all, I am proud of these young and energetic students who will embark on their journey back to the land of their forefathers. Listening to Phouthasack, Toby, and Akarath talked about how they grew up lonely and isolated because there were very few Lao families around or because they were different, reminded me of my own upbringings. Ryan’s desire to learn more about the country that he is so passionate about also reveals the important work that we do—to provide an opportunity for young scholars to engage in Lao Studies.

Since this is the second year, we have improved on a few things to make SAIL better and more enjoyable for everyone. First, we have included a home stay component to the second month of the program. Second, we have hired a very knowledgeable in-country program leader, Mr. Xuan. Third, the classes have also improved. We are gearing the lessons to the need of the students: only two students per teacher.

We hope to get more students next year, but understand that the $5,000 fee is a little high for some. The good news is that we will keep the fee at the same level even if we have to subsidize the cost. As long as there is a demand for SAIL we will find a way somehow; a big donation would help greatly though

In about four weeks I will be visiting the SAILers before taking them all to the 3rd International Conference on Lao Studies at Khon Kaen University, Thailand. I look forward to seeing them again and to learn all the wonderful things they have done half way through SAIL. I feel so fortunate that the Center for Lao Studies started this program and truly feel like a proud parent to have Phouthasack, Toby, Akarath, and Ryan as 2010 SAILers.

Yaengsaeng Xayavong, 26, left, of Oakland, and Amy Bowers, 20, of Milwaukee, participate in an orientation at the Center for Lao Studies on Thursday, June 11, 2009, in San Francisco, Calif. Xayavong and other Lao-Americans are traveling to Laos for the first time on June 12 to learn more about the experiences their parents faced as refugees. (Jane Tyska/Staff)

Yaengsaeng Xayavong, 26, third to the left of the screen in back row, of Oakland, and others participate in an orientation at the Center for Lao Studies on Thursday, June 11, 2009, in San Francisco, Calif. Xayavong and other Lao-Americans are traveling to Laos for the first time on June 12 to learn more about the experiences their parents faced as refugees. (Jane Tyska/Staff)

Please follow the link for a complete story:

http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_12613237

Children of refugees make first trip to Laos

By Matt O’Brien
Contra Costa Times
Posted: 06/17/2009 05:25:42 PM PDT
Updated: 06/17/2009 05:59:42 PM PDT

SAN PABLO — Yaengsaeng Xayavong is trying to reacquaint herself with a homeland she cannot remember.

The 26-year-old was born in Laos but has no memories of life there. Her family made a nighttime escape across a river to Thailand when she was 5.
On Saturday, the laboratory technician from San Pablo returned to Laos for the first time since her refugee family fled.

“Words really can’t describe how I feel,” she said before she left. “There’s always been a part of me that’s missing.”

Xayavong is one of a handful of Lao-Americans spending the next eight weeks getting to know Laos through an inaugural study abroad program sponsored by the San Francisco-based Center for Lao Studies.

The pilot program is the first of its kind in the U.S., said Vinya Sysamouth, the volunteer-run center’s executive director.

“A lot of Lao-Americans have very little knowledge about their own background, where they’re from, their own language,” Sysamouth said. “They’re curious about their background and the experiences their parents went through.”

The participants, who range in age from 16 to 37, met each other Thursday at an orientation in San Francisco and arrived in Laos over the weekend. They will spend most of the summer in the capital city of Vientiane, studying at a local college and performing community service. Some will seek out family members they have never met.

“I’m trying to connect with a side of me I don’t really know much about,” said Brandin Versteegh, 21, from Marshalltown, Iowa.

Versteegh’s father was a teenager when he fled Laos and resettled with family members in the central Iowa town. There, he met and married Versteegh’s mother, a white Marshalltown native who listened to country music. Versteegh said his cultural upbringing was focused heavily on his mother’s side. Going to Laos, and learning more about his father’s background, has been a lifelong dream.

Laos from the 1950s through the 1970s became an extended theater of the war in neighboring Vietnam. The Central Intelligence Agency secretly backed the Laotian royal army as it battled communist fighters. When the U.S.-supported forces lost, many of those who survived were forced to flee.

Los Angeles teacher Vatsana Bilavarn, 37, said societal pressure to assimilate caused her to neglect learning about her family history while growing up in Danbury, Conn.

“I pushed my heritage aside for a long time because I didn’t feel like I had the connection,” she said. Although her parents expressed great love and longing for their homeland, they were reluctant to delve into their painful refugee experiences. Today, Bilavarn said “there’s a great urgency and need to acknowledge the Lao Diaspora” and she wants to use the trip to find ways to preserve endangered Lao culture and folklore in the United States.

“I don’t know if I’m going to be surprised,” Bilavarn said of the trip. “I don’t know if I’m going to be disappointed. I don’t know if I’m going to be enlightened.”

Sysamouth, who also fled Laos as a child, said the study program was partly inspired by his own difficulties finding a way to learn more about Laos when he was a college student in 1994. With no programs available, he enrolled in an exchange program in Thailand and made a personal detour to Laos.

Sysamouth estimates there are 35,000 Laos immigrants and their descendants in the Bay Area, including members of the Mien, Lue and Hmong ethnic groups. He tapped into the Lao community locally and nationwide for the summer program, but said the size of the travel group remains small because participants must pay about $5,000.

Xayavong, who grew up in a Lue family in the Richmond area, found out about the program from a flier she picked up at the Champa Thai and Vietnamese restaurant in El Sobrante.
She has been practicing her Lue for weeks, making sure she is ready to speak with a grandmother she says is waiting to meet her.

“I wouldn’t say I’m fluent,” Xayavong said. “My accent could be better. But I definitely can sit down and hold a conversation. I might have to pause a bit to make sure I’m using the right words.”

Reach Matt O’Brien at 925-977-8463 or mattobrien@bayareanewsgroup.com.

As I send off the SAILers and their program leader at the San Francisco airport, I feel like a parent sending off their children to a far distance land. I cannot help but feel happy and at the same time concerned for their well being.

How strange it is that even though I have not met many of the SAILers prior to the orientation, I felt like I have known them for a very long time. They remind me so much of myself when I was younger, full of energy and curiosity, and ready to take on the world.

The students are very excited about this opportunity as I was when I went on my study abroad program in Thailand in 1994. Back then there were no study abroad program in Laos—there has not been one since then, until the start of the SAIL program this year. Thailand was the next best thing to Laos so I signed up.

The one year spent in Chiangmai, Thailand has changed who I am as a person. I know this will be a life-changing experience for the SAILers as well. They have heard numerous personal stories from their parents and grandparents. Now, they will actually experience the “mysterious” land of their forefathers first hand for the very first time. How exciting and wonderful!

Amy, the program’s only non-Lao American SAILer, is also given a rare opportunity as an anthropology student to see the dynamics among Lao American SAILers throughout their eight-week journey, and at the same time be able to create her own memories.

As I say good bye to the SAILers for the last time before they take off into the foggy San Francsico sky, I only feel content that the Center for Lao Studies is able to provide this wonderful opportunity for them. Good bye and good luck SAILers. Have a fun and safe trip back in the Motherland!  –Vinya