Sabaydii,

 

Here is the continuation of a series ‘Coming home’ entitled ‘The national library’

 

Hakphaang,

 

 

Passing by SamSenthai road

Around NamPhu area[1]

Seeing the lackluster sign saying

The national library

I went in

 

 

The main room

Where the racks of newspapers

And shelves of magazines displayed

Were but the size of a typical classroom

 

With some readers

Hanging around

Suddenly

I felt crowded

 

Roughly

It took me less than a quarter of an hour

To browse through

All the reading stuffs

 

Sad to say

The quality of the writing wasn’t that good

A far cry from the old days

Where the good writing jumped at you

At the very first sight

 

 

 

As Ai Outhin

The outstanding writer left from the old regime

Confided in me while in Tokyo

Lao literature was a step backward

Put it in another way

You just couldn’t order a good piece of writing

The way you order food

And still expect it to be a quality literature

 

Seeing what he meant

For I was once ordered to write

The most I could do

Was an unimaginative piece

Stale with ‘facts’

I myself couldn’t even digest

 

Almost two decades later

When things began to change

Even inside Laos

The writing though with some leeway

Still wasn’t that much better

For some dark clouds still loom

No much less than before

 

With my mind set on

Checking out some old books

Lao literature was known of

I went to another room

Much smaller

And much less frequented

 

To my dismay

Only a few books written in Lao

Greeted my hungry eyes

The rest in other languages

Sparse as the room itself

 

Couldn’t help to wonder

What happened to all the printed books

Wasn’t the library supposed to collect them all?

Or was there a divided line somewhere?

 

As someone says

Books add wings to our imagination

Without them you not only take away

The soul of the citizens but of a nation as well

 

With a dejected feeling

I left the library

Finding nothing

Worth reading

 

If this is the state of Laos

For years to come

I couldn’t help but

Feeling sorry for my own people

Drowning in darkness

Not knowing even the best

Of what our ancestors had bestowed on them

 

Oh Muang Lao

Where are you going to wake up?

Or won’t this be

For another 25 years?

 

9.19.03