Look Away

After thinking and thinking about it, I decided not to buy a car.  I am going to drive the family’s old car until it ran down.   The great thing about this car is the stereo in it.   Got the car, left mom and dad’s I decided to stop by Lee’s store to buy a few CD to listen to.   After last visit to friends in Tennessee, I realized how bad my singing was.  So I will need to get back to singing again.  I look and look for a CD that has songs I can sing along to while driving.  I decided on love songs by Manit.  I bought Manit and Sombath CD’s.  Once back in my car I turned on the radio and there it was a song that shot me back to 1988.  Ok, 1988 is the story of “Look Away.”

No, I was not heart broken.  I just like the song because it’s passionate song by any person who want to tell his girlfriend to look away if they ever run into each other.  But here I am, I am going to tide this song to my history.  So it was 1988.  I joined the rest of the Lao world, in this case, Laotians in Georgia.

When all hell broke loose in Southeast Asia, Laos was in its path.  In Laos we have a lot of people and a lot of those people are a lot different cultural wise.  By the late 20th century land locked Laos was a home of so many people from so many root.  There were so many people who speak so many languages and they all have their own cultural.  Although the country was worldly recognized as a kingdom, as a country of many people of ethnicities living together as Laotians, many of those Laotians do not think otherwise.  They never agreed that they should be under any one rule or ruler.   Opportunity came  when  all hell broke loose  in  SE Asia as I  indicated.  Since when hell’s gate was closed.  So what happen after all hell broke loose in Laos.  Laos enjoyed their short live independent in which they declared from France.   So when all hell broke loose, everyone who was not part of the new regime fled the country.  All that fled first were the leaders.  After them everyone else.  It was then that the Lao(s) or the Laotians were clustered in one space called “soun” or zero.  Zero or soun is the new starting point for the Laotians of many faces, cultures, religions, and beliefs.  So all these people clashed.  They not only clashed there, they clashed again in the third country.  Each one of them, who were proud anyway, show their cultural and hold it dear.  They even promote it further.  Look around you, the people from Laos.

No, I am still on Look Away.   So what happen after this all American boy return home from the military service, met one of those Laos’ people, my girlfriend, sao Poo.  The Laotians called themselves this Thai and that Thai because the word thai simply means people of.   So sao Poo was a person from the northern province of Laos.  The story goes that her dad was part of the new Lao kingdom, joining the royal Lao kingdom meant you are Laotians.  But in reality they had their own thai name, thai Puan I believe.   How we met was through her brother’s soccer team, boy he got a strong northern accent.  Sao Poo did not have any boyfriend because everyone was scared of her brother.  I just want to date so I dated her.  We dated for a year.   At the end of our break up Look Away came on.  People who knew us thought Look Away was the song for the occasion.  Hardly I thought.   Meeting sao Poo and her family was when I see different culture, a different one I am use to.  After sao Poo, I went on to study the culture of many people from Laos.   I was fascinated by what I discovered.  People of cultures and colors too in Laos are very different from one another.  I am a Lao lume (lower land Lao), I always thought that everyone in Laos were one until the pile up in the second and then the third country anyway.

“Look away babe look away…”  What a great song!