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Sabaydii,
Here is the continuation of a series ‘Coming home’ entitled ‘my student days at the Lycee’
Hakphaang,
Kongkeo Saycocie
It is my tendency to keep
Coming back to my days at the Lycee
It was here
My dad wanted me to follow his footsteps
To study abroad
It was no where else
My mom wanted me to go as high as I could
For the education she was deprived of
And it was this educational establishment
My brothers and sisters looked up at me
For the footsteps to follow on
Yes if I followed the herds
Like many obviously did
Pretending to be what they were not
I would have made my educational path
Much easier smoother
And more acceptable to the power-that-be
Wouldn’t say
The pretense of the avant guarde disgusted me
Though I had seen more than enough
I couldn’t help to wonder
What is the purpose of education?
Just to survive and come out on top at any cost?
What about truth and justice
Aren’t there any places for them any more?
Wasn’t the revolution supposed
To bring down the bad
And replace it with the good?
Or is this just another seize of power
For power’s sake?
Nothing more and nothing less
I remember
At the time when
The two Communists brothers-in-arms
Engaged in a slander of one another
Everyone was eerily quiet
Our teacher – a leftover from the old regime
Anxious to get us talk about the world events
To bring excitement to the dull class
Encouraged us to voice our view
Being true to myself
I got up and told the story I heard from the BBC broadcast
About the incoming war between
To be perfectly honest
The class was not quite at ease
Hearing the feud between the Communist countries
Supposedly in love with one another
More to the point
It was scary to hear this news in the classroom
From someone like me
A supposedly new person
The revolutionary youth looked at me with distrust
And there I saw the seed of my own destruction
With that went down the dream of my parents
And my future in the new
A number of my classmates
Some apolitical some avowed fascists
Being politically smart
Opted to say nothing hear nothing
Not a few was rewarded to study abroad
What a regime indeed!
Looking at the Lycee again
I wish a story of mine
Wouldn’t be repeated again
For it hurt not only
The person directly involved
But their parents who sacrificed so much for their kids
I sincerely hope to see
The country I dearly love
Being true to its root
Strong Lao root
Any Lao could be truly proud of
10.21.03