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Published: August 25th 2010
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Arriving back in the US from Laos, I experienced no jet lag but I did feel a lot of cultural dislocation and discomfort. It’s a big change going from that culture to this one. You see the US differently after living outside of it.
In the US, people who live in the countryside like to live in their own space, set apart from others, with their own big yards around their big homes. In the Lao countryside, people live In small houses, surrounded by other houses, filled with family, friends and neighbors. They all help each other out, it wouldn’t be fun for them to live set off from all the others. Living together makes life easier but also more enjoyable. Americans all talk about wanting their own space, and dream of big yards, but why do we need so much privacy? Are we missing out on all the fun of being close to family and friends? Why not work together and share more?
Another thing I’ve noticed in the US is that we expect so much. What are we grateful for? We expect everything we want, when we want it, where we want it, right now. Why? Who’s
set us up to expect all that? Lao people take what they get, when they get it. And if they don’t get it, they manage. They don’t get upset. They just find another way. They are used to getting very little. We are used to getting so very much. Thus, while they are grateful to get a little, we forget to be grateful to get alot.
In America we go to a restaurant and get huge plates of food, for ourselves. For one person. Our own private plates. The Lao would find that bizarre, having private plates of food, especially the amount of food served in the US. A typical dish for one, say pad thai, would be the shared dinner of five Lao people. They’d get around the plate, with a few baskets of sticky rice, and pick up the noodles with their fingers and a bit of sticky rice. They’d order one bowl of pho, get five pairs of chopsticks, and all eat from the same bowl. (Lao eating is not exactly hygienic. That word has yet to be invented there.) It still feels weird, after a month back in the US, sitting at a table loaded
with food, and remembering the same sorts of dinner patters with Lao people, where a few small bowls of food, plus plenty of sticky rice, would feed the whole party. Why do we need so much food? Lao people eat a lot less and are strong and healthy.
Part of the issue is that we have so much food in the US. We have any food we want available, and we can afford most of it. We rarely think about food shortage. In most of Laos, they have only certain foods, what can be grown or found in the jungle, and they make due with that. A lot of leaves. Mushrooms are growing in the jungle? They eat mushrooms. What’s at the market? What’s cheap? That’s what they eat. So many green plants that we’d not give a second glance to, Lao people eat because they don’t have other food. Lao food is traditionally extremely healthy as it’s mostly roots, leaves, vegetables, fish and little bits of meat, with a lot of sticky rice.
Most Lao don’t have access to a huge store full of food they can afford to buy. Finding or growing their food is a
difficult task and so they don’t serve huge amounts of food at a sitting. Those that can, serve enough, enough for everyone to eat, plus a little extra in case any visitors stop by. Sadly, a lot of rural Lao can’t grow or find enough food, and don’t always get enough to eat. It's incredible that we have so much food in the US and in most of the world they don’t have enough food. How can this be?
People are always asking me what is the most disgusting thing I ate in Laos. Lao people do eat a wide variety of foods and animal parts that Americans don’t eat. But with good reason. Laos has always been a poor country and people have always eaten whatever is available. Laos continues to be poor now, but even Lao who are wealthier still love those ‘disgusting’ foods. They’ve been eating them for centuries, it’s a part of their cuisine. So you can’t just go to an afternoon outing and make faces at bowls of charred buffalo skin or rotten salted fish. They likely didn’t start out eating these things by choice. They probably had nothing to eat and so they
begun. It doesn’t mean you’ll like it right away. But at least show the food respect. It’s kept them alive.
Imagine a possum/rat- like creature blackened to a crunch in a fire. It’s just bones and skin. Lao eat that. Imagine silk worms. Lao eat them fried. Imagine charred buffalo skin; it stinks, it’s chewy as rubber, but they eat that. And love it. Tiny, tiny fish. They eat them whole, despite the terrible taste from the intestines. They eat the fish skin, bones and eyes. Now don’t be all high and mighty reading about these foods. We eat a lot of foods they find disgusting too. Cheese, sushi, French fries, spaghetti, milk. But we just eat our food for fun, we have so much of it. We forget about sustenance.
Lao people are also really energy conscious, as are some Americans. If they have electricity, they never leave on a light they don’t need. They’d never leave a fan on when they leave the house.
I also have to admit that I think longingly of the butt sprayer. It makes wiping after number 2’s so efficient and clean. When I first moved to Asia I’d never
even think of using the thing, it scared me, and now every time I finish my business I look around sadly to find there isn’t one.
I grew up in a really safe country area in the US. In the Lao city where I lived, you couldn't leave anything out at night without expecting it to get stolen. There is a bad theft problem in the cities, blamed mostly upon a meth drug problem among teenage boys, but also I think as a result of a wide wealth disparity between some affluent Lao and the majority of poor Lao. I was shocked the first few weeks back in the US when we'd leave our grill out, our deck chairs, our bicycles, gardening equipment. I was still expecting it all to get stolen, even though I'd grown up here.
Another big difference I noted is inside our homes. We have big houses, fully furnished, with wood floors, carpets, glass windows, painted, sealed walls, art hung on those walls. Lao people have small houses, shared with big families, with cement or dirt floors, no carpets, bars in the windows, and maybe shutters, little or peeling paint on the walls in
the city, unsealed walls with space between the planks in the countryside. Their art? Maybe a five year old calendar poster that came free from the mobile phone company. Their homes are basic. There is a fire in the corner for cooking and a tap outside if they are lucky. Homes satisfy the need for shelter. In the winter, homes are too cold, and in the summer they are too hot. They sleep on the floor, on a mat with blankets and homemade pillows. We sleep in big, thick couchony beds with expensive sheets. Lao sit on pillows on the floor, or lounge across the cement. We sit on oversized, comfortable couches set upon soft, thick rugs.
It sure makes me think about what I can do without now that I'm back in the US. Sleeping without a bed on a soft rug doesn't seem so shabby now compared to sleeping on a cement floor. Riding a bicycle instead of buying a car seems easy enough. Not having a fridge full of food and a pantry stuffed with dry food seems ok too. Forget about a big car, a huge house, the perfect job; a warm house, a dry place to sleep, food to eat, those all seem like enough.
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Da
non-member comment
We can only experience the difference if we stay in the same place
Hi Britte, I very much agree with you. Until i got to experience life in a busier country that i started to realised that what i used to have back at home, friends, family and small house, are the real happiness. We dont need anything too fancy to eat, wear, go out to, to feel the happiness. We are happy with what we have, when we have and where we have them. We take things as they come. Sometimes i feel frustrated myself when i was in laos that everything run so slow but now living in a world that everything has to be on time, i then look back and appreciate life in laos more. There is nothing fun pretending to be busy or have to be busy walking on the street that no body talks or smiles to each other..make life more stressful here. How are you by the way? Moving back to the US for good now? or still miss life back in LPB?? hehe . Im doing good here in Melbourne, though the weather right now is so cold. I miss home, friends, food, and weather back in laos. I will go back for a visit Jan next year, will prob travel up to LPB again, the town i never get bored of and glad people's lifestyle up there doesnt run with the world either or at a very slow pace. Keep updating your blog. I am a follower :) Take care, Da