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On a busy Saturday in August 2019, I was six hours into my shift selling popcorn and fizzy sodas to customers who wanted to see the newest addition to the Fast & Furious franchise. We had five long lines reaching all the way back to the main entrance. As hectic as it was, being busy made my shift go by faster.
The evening crew arrived to take our places, and I made my way to the locker room to change out of my uniform. I checked my phone and was surprised by missed calls and messages from family members.
If this many people were trying to reach me, I knew it wasn’t good. I opened the most recent text from my cousin: “We tried to call your work. Uncle’s not doing well. Call us when you see this.”
The first death I remember in my family was my grandpa’s passing in 2008. He died from cancer when I was seven. That was the first time I ever saw my mom and my grandma cry. It was unsettling to watch two women in my life, who typically kept their emotions neutral, break down uncontrollably.
My grandpa, Koua, was a very active and social man. After he passed, people I didn’t even recognize stopped to tell me how much they cared for my grandpa while saying how sorry they were for my loss.
As the president of the Laos community centre in Winnipeg, he was respected and liked by many. My grandpa was not only the heart of our family, but the heart of the community.
There were a lot of things I didn’t understand about death at seven years old. From what I observed through television shows, when a death happens people gather, dress in black, and sometimes bury the casket underground. But I found out Laotians do funerals differently.
Laotian women don’t wear black during funerals, we wear white. The men will wear orange robes borrowed from the monks and shave off their hair. Not everyone who attends the funeral ceremony dresses this way, just the relatives of the one who passed away. We do this to show our respect and because Laotians believe that it will push the spirit closer to the afterlife.
My Uncle Hip, the one my family was texting me about during my shift at the movie theatre, died in 2020. He suffered with schizophrenia and the paranoia and delusions that stemmed from that made it difficult to have conversations with him. My aunt took care of him throughout their marriage. His mental illness was very manageable throughout most of their 20-year marriage, but the five years before he passed were difficult.
In the summer of 2020, my uncle wasn’t in the right state of mind and was involved in an incident with the police. He resisted complying with the officers and got into a physical fight with them, sustaining life-threatening injuries.
Once he was taken to the hospital, the doctors reported that he was unlikely to survive without the help of the breathing tube. My aunt and the rest of our family decided that it would be best to let him pass. His tragic death was very traumatizing to the family and there is a lot of anger with how things happened.
After my uncle passed, the monks came and performed a small cleansing ceremony that involved our family members lightly pouring blessing water over him as a ritual before he was placed in the casket. Water holds great meaning in Laos culture and when we perform cleansing ceremonies, we often use water to physically symbolize that we’re cleansing the body of sins.
“Blessing water is created from perfume and flowers. It only becomes blessing water once a monk has blessed it,” said my mother.
Laotians believe that good actions like praying to the spirits and living honourably will lead to enlightenment, which helps with the possibility of being reborn after death. When a person misbehaves or is ill-mannered, Laotians will see this as a sign that they will not be reincarnated.
Some Laotian Buddhists believe in escaping the cycle of death and rebirth to achieve nirvana. Being reborn is a good omen, but a higher calling for a Laotian Buddhist is to achieve nirvana, known as the end of suffering.
During the wake, we invited the monks in our community to lead a chanting ceremony. In Theravada Buddhism: Continuity, Diversity, and Identity, written by Kate Crosby, she talks about these chanting ceremonies as paritta chants.
These paritta chants are common among Laos traditions because, “some social anthropological studies of Theravada have identified paritta as an apotropaic (“magically protective”)… This interpretation sees it as an accommodation of Buddhism to the needs of dealing with everyday life, a need supplied by most religions regardless of their core teachings,” explained Crosby.
We were chanting and praying to wish that my uncle passed through to the afterlife safely. With the women in my family wearing all white and the men in the traditional robes of the monks, we led our group of mourners in a line outside the funeral grounds, carrying my uncle’s coven as a final send-off to him before we went to the crematory. I learned about Laotian customs during this time.
During the ceremony, we must wash our hands with blessed water before leaving the funeral home and before entering another home, otherwise we risk bringing bad spirits into the space. People are not to take home any food from the funeral and those who are pregnant cannot attend the wake.
I thought it was strange when I had to wear white for both my grandpa’s and uncle’s funerals. I didn’t know anyone else at school who did this. No one in my family explained the lore behind Laotian traditional ceremonies to me. I tried to ask my mother for more details, but even she didn’t know how to explain things. She expressed that it was common among Laotian families, especially Laotian immigrants, to lose the knowledge of the meanings behind our customs with each generation.
My mom tried to expose me to Laos culture growing up. She signed me up to learn Laos dances from our community centre and she also signed me up for Laos school on the weekend. The dance classes weren’t frequent and were only scheduled a month or two before our performance dates. I really enjoyed them. Those performances were typically for our Laos New Year celebrations or for Folklorama.
I loved the outfits we got to wear for the performances. In Laos, we call the traditional skirts woman wear “sinh” (se-en) that we pair with a pa being (pa-be-ang), a scarf or sash that goes over the left shoulder and across the chest. My favourite outfit I wore was a green silk sinh with gold embroidered detailing. It didn’t look like anything in my typical wardrobe.
Teaching the next generation of Laos Canadians to read and write in Laos is important, so I think the concept of Laos school is great in theory, but my experience wasn’t positive. The class I attended was inconsistent and unorganized. Our teacher was a volunteer within our community who had no formal background in teaching.
A typical lesson would involve a group of unenthusiastic children, from the ages of 10 to 15, repeating the Laos alphabet back to our teacher and then scribbling it in our notebooks over and over again until the lesson was over. If Laos school was more structured maybe I would’ve felt more compelled to learn the Laos language. But my frustrations with being forced to attend these classes every Saturday developed into feelings of resentment for my culture.
When I was in elementary school, no one in my classes even knew where Laos was, let alone anything about its culture. I went to predominantly white schools, and I just wanted to fit in. I rarely spoke about my culture. I remember asking my mom to pack typical western food like Lunchables or plain ham and cheese sandwiches instead of packing Laos food staples like sticky rice and pork lemongrass sausages for my lunches.
She agreed, but I think back on this moment and wonder why I couldn’t be proud to have a different type of lunch than everybody else. Culture connects us with where we come from. Looking back, I regret how I behaved. I wonder how my family must have felt with my disregard toward Laos culture.
Located in Southeast Asia, Laos is covered in mountains and forested hills. It is not well-developed, but its warm climate and countryside are beautiful, making it a common destination for tourists.
The word “Laos” can be used as a noun or adjective. Often when referencing “Laos” the “s” is silent, so when you’re speaking with a Laos person or Laotian (lay-ow-shn), don’t be surprised if you don’t hear the pronunciation of the “s” sound.
Buddhism is integral to Laos culture. Laotian Buddhism is distinguishable because it follows Theravada Buddhism which is the belief that meditation and concentration are ways to attain enlightenment. This form of Buddhism is also prevalent in communities in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Union of Burma and the Kampuchea Krom regions of Vietnam.
Laotian Buddhists believe in the cycle of death and rebirth. We believe that spirits live with us on Earth and are connected to elements like earth, air, fire, and water. Laotians believe in good and bad spirits. Some believe that to be reincarnated, the spirit of someone must not die by an accident or through the act of violence otherwise the soul is deemed as a bad spirit.
Paritta chanting ceremonies are not only performed for funerals — they can happen weekly or for special events. I regularly attended these paritta chants with my family growing up, but I didn’t enjoy it.
Monks would lead the chants while I thought to myself “why am I here?” I remember sneaking glances out of the corner of my eye towards my mother to make sure I was lifting my head at the right moment before bowing again.
All around me were familiar faces — cousins, family friends, and acquaintances — but the words they were chanting were foreign to me. We were seated in front of a monk who led the chant. Once my legs begin to feel numb, I know we’ve reached the halfway point in the ceremony.
Before my uncle’s death, my aunt said she didn’t like attending these ceremonies more than she had to. Like me, she explained, she wasn’t into the Laotian religion growing up. Following my uncle’s death, my family was worried about how she would cope with the loss of her husband. There were moments where I wondered how she could manage resuming her regular life.
It seemed like she blamed herself for my uncle’s death and it looked like she would never overcome her grief. But, in the months after my uncle’s passing, she started interacting with the people from our temple. She found a purpose attending the weekly temple gatherings. This shift in her also started to leave an impact on me and how I viewed Laos culture.
After losing my uncle, my aunt wanted to believe in something. She looked to Christianity, but it didn’t help her feel better about herself. She wanted to find the answers for all the questions she formed about my uncle’s passing. Then, my aunt found comfort with learning Laos tradition within our temple. Learning about how Buddhists view life and death comforted her and slowly she began to immerse herself in the community.
Today my aunt continues to surround herself with a supportive community from the temple that has taught her how to be at peace with herself. This change in my aunt taught me a valuable lesson: it’s never too late to learn about your culture. I am more committed to embracing what Buddhism has to offer, maybe at a slower pace, but my understanding and attitude has shifted exponentially since I’ve taken the initiative to deepen my connection to Laotian culture.
During the Vietnam War, from 1955 to 1975, a civil war broke out between the Communist Pathet Lao and the Royal Lao Government. With the Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese emerging victorious, Laotians had no choice but to flee to Thailand as refugees — the Chommanys were some of those refugees. My grandpa and grandma had six children: my mom, and her five brothers. They knew they had to leave when my grandpa and several other men were taken away by members of the Pathet Lao group for being a part of the opposing army.
My grandpa was able to escape and leave a message for my grandma to notify her that he was heading to Thailand. He had to cross the Mekong River by floating on a tire tube — a journey that was extremely dangerous because of the currents at night and the risk of being caught.
“If the army saw him, they would’ve shot him down,” said my mother.
Within two days, the rest of my family fled and reconnected in Thailand’s refugee camp. I asked my mom if she felt scared during this time and surprisingly she said she wasn’t, but she did remember being hungry a lot of the time.
And here I was complaining about not wanting the Laotian food my mom would pack me for lunch.
My mom and her family stayed in the Thai refugee camp for the next two years before they immigrated to Canada. My mom was only 10 years old when she arrived. They moved to Manitoba but they lived in Boissevain for two years, then a year in Brandon, before finally arriving in Winnipeg. Winnipeg is where my mother and uncles finished growing up and began making families of their own.
“I wanted my kids to have a better life than I did. I wanted them to have the best of everything, but you know things don’t always go to plan,” said my mother.
My mom married my father at the age of 28 with Laotian wedding traditions.
In Laos, a common sign of respect before entering the bride’s house is for the groom to have his feet washed and cleansed by blessed water. An ancient tradition for a wedding ceremony is to have a chanting ritual for the bride and groom with a monk officiating the ceremony. The family and friends of the groom and bride observe the ceremony and watch as the couple complete the rituals. The first ritual involves sharing a single egg. This egg symbolizes purity and a new life and the couple splits it evenly to feed each other.
The second ritual is the unity string which symbolizes the couple’s bond. The monk ties this white string around the wrists of the groom and bride to bless this unity and wish success for their marriage. The last ritual for the couple is to apologize and ask for forgiveness for their sins before the ceremony is complete.
I learned of the problems my parents had once I got older. The biggest issue was my father’s substance abuse and gambling addiction. I don’t remember much about my father after my parents divorced, I couldn’t have been older than 8 years old. At the beginning, he made an effort to see my brother and I, but then he relocated to Toronto.
As we got older, we saw less of him. During this time, my mother did not seek support from our temple. She surprised me recently by telling me that she was embarrassed to allow herself any support from our community because she feared judgement.
This was a time where we stopped attending our usual temple and shifted to going to a Christian church. My mom thought that she might be able to find comfort in a new religion’s philosophy. I remember attending Sunday school in this new church and my mom enrolling me in a learning program about Christian faith at school. When I asked my mom why she made this decision, she said that she wanted us to believe in something.
We eventually stopped attending this church and went back to the temple because things had begun to change. The temple we were connected with, split into two temples. My mom explained that the temple culture was changing, and people began to feel a deeper connection at the second temple. The rest of my family switched temples too.
Laotians celebrate the Laos New Year or Pi Mai Laos (be-mai) in Laos from April 14 to April 16. This is a time where we let go of the past and embrace the future, almost like a rebirth. After learning more about my culture, I will be participating this spring with a new perspective.
You can find Laotians celebrating Pi Mai with parades and water festivals. Water is about renewal, so these festivals are an excellent way to get the community together and have fun splashing each other with water. The way my family celebrates in Canada is by blessing our elders with blessing water and pouring water over our Buddha shrine to show our respect.
I am looking forward to this time because this past year has opened my eyes to the importance of celebrating culture. I am open to learning more about my religion, so that the cultural knowledge doesn’t end at my generation. My role now isn’t just to take things as they are, but to be curious and grow.