============================================================== 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: Douang2@aol.com *** Announcement: *** Please register for SatJaDham Fifth Annual conference at the website http://www.satjadham.org/sjd5sd/ ============================================================== Laos's history: The following passage is a truncated version of the history of Laos as portrayed by my father, Thongsamone Venethongkham. I would like to apologize up front for any inaccuracies in the translation. Such error act to highlight my education deficiencies. Like most Lao immigrants my age, I was only able to obtain a grade-school level education when my family and I left our motherland in the late seventies. It was approximately 5500 B.C when the Lao (also known as the Tai Lao or Ai Lao) came into existence. They quickly settled the region surrounded by the Unnto Mountain, Tann Mountain, Koomloom Mountain, as well as the Hungto River, Yang Chu Kieng River, and Keebee desert (currently North of China). A few years later. the Lao came under the attack of the Taag and was forced to move south. In the southern region, they rebuild their country named it Nakhone Lunhg (Uncle) and Nakhone Pa (Aunt). The Lao spent the next thirty-eight years here but was soon overrun by the Chinese forces and, again, was forced to leave their home. This was the sad time in Lao history. Around 2091 B.C, there came a prince named Koon Mureng or, as the Chinese called him, Ming. Prince Koon Mureng worked to reunite the Lao people and soon built a city called Ming City. Ming City later came to be called Aanajuck Pegnai. A few years later (approximately 2079 B.C), a unit of the Chinese Army accidentally came across Aanajuck Pegnai and asked Prince Koon Mureng for permission to pass through the city. Prince Koon Mureng, taking in to account a history of Chinese aggression, deny the request for fear that it was a military tactic and prelude to Chinese attack. When the Prince's refusal to allow safe passage of the Chinese troops through Aanajuck Pegnai hit China, and particularly the Chinese Emperor, war was decleared against Aanajuck Pegnai. Though small and outnumbered, the Lao people fought with dignity and held their ground for three years but ultimately succumbed to the Chinese invasion. After losing the war to China, the Lao people went into hiding only to resurface a few years later, more unified and with a much stronger Army that was well known in that era. To be continue... Hak Paang, Douang _