All,

     This here is what I'll be posting to SOC.  

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Satjadham presents:

     pa sa Lao (or Mother Tongue)


     First of all, I just want to say that I couldn't agree more
with ai Kongkeo's first sentence: "No language is sweeter than the 
one of our first words."  

     During our learning years, we do not have to look very far
for support and quidance.  Mom was always there when we needed
her.  When we were good or whether we were very bad, she still
loved us.  It's the unconditional love that was always there.

     She always has a high expectations from us for she wants her 
son or daughter to grow up to be doctors, lawyers, or engineers, etc.
To see her offspring succeed is the greatest achievement that
a mother relishes, for life.  

     I still remember how proud she was when I greeted her (and
the rest of my family) after my walk across the stage.  Her eyes
were so bright, almost in tears.  Perhaps she was so overjoyed
that she could not hold back the tears.  What a proud moment for
her because she knows at that moment she had succeeded.

     Yes, our mother's expectations of us to succeed in life.
Guess what though?  The greatest challenge that our mother has is
not whether we would do well in school, or will we get a good job?
No, her biggest challenge is to get her own son or daughter to 
communicate with her, in her native tongue.

     Think about it.  Lao is the first lesson she taught us.
The kids really do great for the first few years.  However, when
school starts and friends are made, English/French became the primary
medium of communication.  All the effort that a mother has made
in teaching her kids to speak her own language has gone to waste.
Every answer that mom gets from her kids now are in English or
French.

     Could you imagine how our mother must feel to know that all
her effort is for not?

     She tries very hard to teach her kids the root to her culture, 
but she fails miserably in this category.

     If the children could not even communicate in Lao, how could
they learn or even have the interest in learning anything else about
Laos?  

     Are the new Lao doomed by this Western civilization?  Will
there be no one to pass our roots further than this generation?
We could only hope that our Lao heritage has been embedded in
the minds of the younger generation before the Americans do.
Let's hope and pray that our roots in this third country of ours
don't end here.

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Sacki

P.S. Your questions and/or comments are welcomed!
     Please direct them to SJD at laolit@zac.lao.net