============================================================== To reach ALL SJD members, please send to sjd@satjadham.net ... Do NOT include any other addresses when sending to the list... Include as LITTLE of the original messages as possible........ Message sent by: LanXang Siengkhene *** Announcement: *** Please send your member fee to Victor if you haven't done so. ============================================================== Talking about schools, I couldn’t help mentioning about my school - Ecole Charity. Yes, it was a Catholic school like the one I attended in Savannakhet. I had to admit that the academic standard of this school was tougher than the one at Savan. Most students could speak French with ease. Also, the French textbook they used to teach was harder than any of the textbooks I read. Still, to my big relief, I miraculously passed that class. In Laos, they called 4th grade Hong Song Noi and the 5th grade Hong Song Yai. For the 6th, it was called Hong Thi Neung. In Hong Song Yai, I had a close friend whose name was Dat (meaning hit a little bit or almost hit). He was different from any of the friends I had. He was not a Lao but a Vietnamese with a big skull especially the big skull shaping like a coconut (Houa Nguon). It was said that this kind of people were smart, and he was especially in math. He outdid me and the class in math called Calcul Mental (the kind of arithmetic that you calculated in your mind without committing yourself to paper). What the teacher did was given two numbers to the class either by addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. As soon as the teacher gave the numbers, he raised his hand almost instantaneously. When I occasionally outdid him, he gave the answer even without raising the hand. Apart from that competition, we were like twins. He spent most of his time after school and during the weekend at my house. Great that he liked Lao food (Mok Noh Mai, Keng Noh Mai, etc…). If not, he would go hungry most of the time. At my backyard, we played Mak Bea. The game was like this: we drew a square and placed Mak Bea at each corner. Most of the time, we placed tens of Mak Bea on the line (side). The goal was to hit Mak Bea off the line or off the corner with your Mak Bea without plunging your Mak Bea in the square (the ones that you hit, you kept it). If you could do that, you would continue until your Mak Bea strayed into the square. Then it was your friend’s turn. To say the least, it was a fun game. There was another game of Mak Bea that we played. The goal was to hit a small hole. By the way, I couldn’t remember how the game was played besides that. Lastly, the game of Mak Bea was played using both hands. From the right hand, you used it to hold Mak Bea while, from the left hand, you used the middle finger to aim at another Mak Bea (the thumb was also used to anchor against the ground). (to be continued) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com _ ***************************************************************** Visit SatJaDham Homepage at: http://www.satjadham.org (or .net) *****************************************************************