Sunday, August 28, 2011
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
This makes me laugh
I have a great huge post to do on our Brown Family Vacation 2011 in Seattle. It was so wonderful. I might not get to it for a few weeks, but I did want to post this quick video that either Amber or Danny captured and sent to me. It makes me laugh because it is so Warner, and so Liv.
Untitled from Amber Brown on Vimeo.
Untitled from Amber Brown on Vimeo.
Friday, August 05, 2011
Celebration of Life
A few weeks ago my Cambodian neighbor invited is to come over to his house the following weekend to enjoy what he called “a celebration of life party”. The party was, in a nutshell, a celebration in honor of the lives that his aged parents had lived. It is essentially a funeral before the person dies.
As I understand it, this party, in the Cambodian culture, can be thrown more than once in a life time, depending on how wealthy the family is, and for some families they are never able to have one, because they are too poor. My neighbor said this would probably be the only one he would be able to afford in his life time.
For some families that can afford it, the celebration is as big as a wedding reception with thousands of dollars spent on food and drinks. My neighbor’s wife said she prepared most of the food herself, and she started making it two weeks before the party.
Needless to say, we were flattered to be invited, and in spite of feeling a little out of place being the only non-Cambodian speakers at the party, as well as the only non-family members, we had ourselves a grand ole time and greatly enjoyed the company we were with.
It was amazing how generous our friends were to us. They just kept bringing us more and more food. “Here try this”, “Here try this” they kept saying. The food was delicious, but I did feel a little sick when we were done; one too many fried chicken wings I guess.
My favorite part of the party was hearing my neighbor’s brother, a man who is probably in his late fifties or early sixties named Sueon, tell me his story of escaping communist Cambodia in the late 1970s.
Sueon and his family lived in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia. According to Wikepedia, Khmer Rouge refers to the four year rule of the communist leader Pol Pot. During his dictatorship, approximately 2 million people were killed either through execution, starvation, or forced labor.
It was under these dire circumstances that Sueon and his family decided that risking death to escape the communistic rule in Cambodia was a risk worth taking. Sueon escaped the first time with his mother and sister, his father had already passed away. He packed a small bag of food and journeyed through the remote jungle, northwest toward the border of Thailand. As he traveled, he had to navigate cautiously through the landmines. Striving as best he could to choose the right set of footprints to follow, Sueon trudged along day after day for two weeks.
As he recalled the story to me, he said there were dead bodies everywhere. I asked him if he feared being attacked by wild animals or being bit by poisonous snakes or spiders while he traveled through the jungle. He laughed at me, and waved his hand in the air. He said the poisonous and scary animals were the last of his worries. Robbers and landmines were his main concern.
Somehow he made the two week journey and he and his mother arrived at the border safely. They exchanged gold jewelry and other family valuables to gain entrance into Thailand. Many people didn’t survive the long and dangerous journey through the jungles of Cambodia to cross over into the refugee camps of Thailand. Some starved, some were robbed and killed, and some were blown up by the land mines. Those who did make it, decided simply to leave their families behind, because the journey was too dangerous to make again.
Sueon was one of the bravest I think, in that he returned back two more times to get the rest of his family He made sure that no one was left behind. His second journey took one month in the jungle, because he was carting a five year old and a three year old across the jungle. On his third journey he went back for his older sister who had just delivered a new born baby.
Sueon and his family lived as refugees for three years in Thailand. This was a hard time for him. The refugee camps were terrible he said. No windows, very little food. He said it was like jail. Sueon was lucky enough to find a job working and translating with Immigration and he was able to secure visas for himself and his family to come to the US in 1983, the year I was born.
Now, Sueon and his family, which has grown quite substantially, all live in Washington. Sueon is a real-estate agent, and his brother Chris, our neighbor, who was 9 years old when Sueon brought him safely across the jungle into Thailand, is a mechanic at a BMW dealership.
Sueon said that they are so grateful to live in America where they can worship freely, where they can enjoy freedom of speech, and where he and his family can live without fear. Their children and grandchildren will never have to experience the pain, the hunger, the death, and the fear that their grandparents and parents went through.
Coincidentally, I also found out through another relative that many of Sueon’s family members have joined the LDS church.
I was truly humbled and amazed by Sueon’s story. Ironically enough I had just finished Victor Villaseñor's, Rain of Gold book, which is a tale quite similar to Sueon’s, of two Mexican families who immigrate to the US in the early 1900’s.
I asked Sueon if he had written his story down for his posterity to know what he had been through to get his family to a free land. He shook his head and said “I can’t, it’s too painful to recall, it has to stay right here” and he pointed to his head.
This is why I am writing it down. It deserves to be written down.
Sueon’s story truly touched me. It increased my testimony of a loving Heavenly Father who has a plan for all of his children. I know, and Sueon confessed that he knew as well, that God was watching out for his family. I felt the love of God so strongly after listening to this story. I know that we are all children of God, that he loves us, that he wants us all to succeed, and that he wants to give us all the freedom to choose whether or not we want to come unto Christ.
Here are some photos of my neighbors beautiful nieces and nephews, who came over to play in our backyard during the party.
As I understand it, this party, in the Cambodian culture, can be thrown more than once in a life time, depending on how wealthy the family is, and for some families they are never able to have one, because they are too poor. My neighbor said this would probably be the only one he would be able to afford in his life time.
For some families that can afford it, the celebration is as big as a wedding reception with thousands of dollars spent on food and drinks. My neighbor’s wife said she prepared most of the food herself, and she started making it two weeks before the party.
Needless to say, we were flattered to be invited, and in spite of feeling a little out of place being the only non-Cambodian speakers at the party, as well as the only non-family members, we had ourselves a grand ole time and greatly enjoyed the company we were with.
It was amazing how generous our friends were to us. They just kept bringing us more and more food. “Here try this”, “Here try this” they kept saying. The food was delicious, but I did feel a little sick when we were done; one too many fried chicken wings I guess.
My favorite part of the party was hearing my neighbor’s brother, a man who is probably in his late fifties or early sixties named Sueon, tell me his story of escaping communist Cambodia in the late 1970s.
Sueon and his family lived in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia. According to Wikepedia, Khmer Rouge refers to the four year rule of the communist leader Pol Pot. During his dictatorship, approximately 2 million people were killed either through execution, starvation, or forced labor.
It was under these dire circumstances that Sueon and his family decided that risking death to escape the communistic rule in Cambodia was a risk worth taking. Sueon escaped the first time with his mother and sister, his father had already passed away. He packed a small bag of food and journeyed through the remote jungle, northwest toward the border of Thailand. As he traveled, he had to navigate cautiously through the landmines. Striving as best he could to choose the right set of footprints to follow, Sueon trudged along day after day for two weeks.
As he recalled the story to me, he said there were dead bodies everywhere. I asked him if he feared being attacked by wild animals or being bit by poisonous snakes or spiders while he traveled through the jungle. He laughed at me, and waved his hand in the air. He said the poisonous and scary animals were the last of his worries. Robbers and landmines were his main concern.
Somehow he made the two week journey and he and his mother arrived at the border safely. They exchanged gold jewelry and other family valuables to gain entrance into Thailand. Many people didn’t survive the long and dangerous journey through the jungles of Cambodia to cross over into the refugee camps of Thailand. Some starved, some were robbed and killed, and some were blown up by the land mines. Those who did make it, decided simply to leave their families behind, because the journey was too dangerous to make again.
Sueon was one of the bravest I think, in that he returned back two more times to get the rest of his family He made sure that no one was left behind. His second journey took one month in the jungle, because he was carting a five year old and a three year old across the jungle. On his third journey he went back for his older sister who had just delivered a new born baby.
Sueon and his family lived as refugees for three years in Thailand. This was a hard time for him. The refugee camps were terrible he said. No windows, very little food. He said it was like jail. Sueon was lucky enough to find a job working and translating with Immigration and he was able to secure visas for himself and his family to come to the US in 1983, the year I was born.
Now, Sueon and his family, which has grown quite substantially, all live in Washington. Sueon is a real-estate agent, and his brother Chris, our neighbor, who was 9 years old when Sueon brought him safely across the jungle into Thailand, is a mechanic at a BMW dealership.
Sueon said that they are so grateful to live in America where they can worship freely, where they can enjoy freedom of speech, and where he and his family can live without fear. Their children and grandchildren will never have to experience the pain, the hunger, the death, and the fear that their grandparents and parents went through.
Coincidentally, I also found out through another relative that many of Sueon’s family members have joined the LDS church.
I was truly humbled and amazed by Sueon’s story. Ironically enough I had just finished Victor Villaseñor's, Rain of Gold book, which is a tale quite similar to Sueon’s, of two Mexican families who immigrate to the US in the early 1900’s.
I asked Sueon if he had written his story down for his posterity to know what he had been through to get his family to a free land. He shook his head and said “I can’t, it’s too painful to recall, it has to stay right here” and he pointed to his head.
This is why I am writing it down. It deserves to be written down.
Sueon’s story truly touched me. It increased my testimony of a loving Heavenly Father who has a plan for all of his children. I know, and Sueon confessed that he knew as well, that God was watching out for his family. I felt the love of God so strongly after listening to this story. I know that we are all children of God, that he loves us, that he wants us all to succeed, and that he wants to give us all the freedom to choose whether or not we want to come unto Christ.
Here are some photos of my neighbors beautiful nieces and nephews, who came over to play in our backyard during the party.
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