Sabaydii,
Satjadham is turning 4 today: April 11th 1999. Happy Birthday to SJD!
As a person who is with SJD from the beginning, I have seen its ups and downs.
I realize that it is hard to make it up all the time.  Still, if we can make
this forum a learning experience. I mean creating a new kind of literature that
Quon Lao can relate to.  So far, our works are okay.  In the future, I would
like to see more of a short story type.  I think by this way the message will
have a better chance to reach our audience’s heart.  I, myself, kind of hesitate
to create characters and plots for the short story since I have lived in the
U.S. Then I realize that life very much imitates art and art is nothing but life
in its reflection.
Let me tell you a story:
Over 17 years ago, I wrote a lot namely short stories.  I am surprised now about
how I could come up with so many things to write at such a young age.  Yes, at
that time, what I had was only an itch to write but no life experience to back
my story up.  17 years later, I might have some life experience but no
imagination left.  As a result, my works tend to be dry.  In my opinion, you
need both to produce a good piece literature worthy of the name.  Still, if you
have an itch to write, it will be much more better than a dry piece full of
facts but no life. As most of you are still in the young age, it should be
natural to have an itch to write, why not do it? With time, there must be one
that will stand out.
Then there is one aspect of life that I just realize:
Satja or truth is neither this or that but how you get the message across. If
you are stuck with the means of conveying message, you are mistaken the form for
the essence.  Bear in mind that Muang Lao was formerly known as the land of
poetry.  If Lao people didn’t have a way with words, nobody is going to give us
that flattering name.  I don’t think that the poetry in us is dying out with our
generation.  Just take a plunge, my brothers and sisters!
Lastly, why literature?
It is said that history only records the macro events, barely touching the lives
of ordinary people. For philosophy, it is about the mind, the abstract so there
is only literature left that goes beneath and beyond the surface of things and
events.  To me, literature talks about the daily struggles, the grand hope and
innermost wishes of people.  In our case, it records the path our ancestors has
treaded, their suffering, their wisdom and their wishes to see us continue the
path of the proud Lao worthy of the name “the one that bows to no one” and “that
it had been on the earth before the word “Thai” even existed”.
As literature outlives us, there is no other vehicle that transmits our
struggles and wishes more than a good piece of it.   Just think if there is no
Sang Sin Xai, no Mahosot, no Phoun Wiang, no San Lub Bo Soun, and etc… , we will
know nothing of the past and learn nothing of our ancestors’ struggles and
wishes. If it is like this, it is like a tree being uprooted.  Without a past,
how could one go on? Which way to go? What tradition to follow?
Do you know the first thing the non Lao knows us is through our literature? At
the same token, the best way to destroy us is to rid us of our literature.  That
is precisely the thing the Siamese did and is doing to us.  Maha Sila Vilavong
said “Lao and Thai culture are very similar so it is very dangerous if the Thai
can have an upper hand the way they do now.  Left as it is (one way flow from
the Thai side to the Lao), sooner or later, we will become uprooted.
Taken Maha Sila Vilavong as a challenge, it is our turn to pass what our
ancestors transmit to us to those who are to come so that Lao will always be
Lao.

Hakphaang,
Kongkeo Saycocie