My parents sent my husband a cool DVD for his birthday: “7 Days in Laos.” We all sat down to watch it while he gave us additional tidbits of information.
Recipes, of course. You can’t watch nature shows, or even go to the zoo with my husband without hearing about the best ways to cook every living creature. We also often get to hear the stories about the super powers of former rulers of Laos. I don’t know why we never get presidents with super powers. Last night we heard about the king who stopped three million destructive elephants with a baseball bat. I feel fairly sure that Mr. Obama couldn’t do that. Or even Jackie Chan.
But he also told us about why houses in his country can’t be built like the houses here. It’s the spirits in the big trees. You can’t cut down a big tree and make a house out of it because the spirit of the tree would cause bad luck for everyone in the village. He told us this, and a related story about fish, in great detail.
“Do you believe that?” I asked him.
Like many people from traditional cultures, my husband often tells stories with the inclusion of how this story is told and believed by many people, though he didn’t see it himself. I was curious, though.
He assured me that the big trees in his country had spirits, but that American trees don’t. This is why we can build houses from wood. Also, presumably, why we can’t catch fish without elaborate equipment.
I sometimes wonder what effect this has on our kids. I know it leaves me with that dreamlike feeling of having entered another reality. It’s also why I tend to find American supposed animists and pagans unconvincing. When you’ve chatted about architecture with someone who really believes that trees have spirits, those Mother Nature and We Are Stardust approaches seem disingenuous.
That’s howsome!
What chanthaboune said…
Ditto. What they said.
I grew up with stories like that all the time! Now that I’m living away from home, I hear stories when I go home to visit. It’s really just funny to me. I am always told to be careful about being out so late because the spirits don’t like that, or don’t go playing in the lake because the spirits that guard the lakes do not appreciate the invasions, or to be careful when walking in a wooded area because I can disrupt the spirits…and it goes on and on. So, my parents are believers too…
Oh, I forgot to mention…they are also from Laos 🙂
@Neej –
So it’s funny, but do you also kind of feel like maybe…you shouldn’t go playing in the lake… LOL My grown up daughter told me when she got married and moved away that she missed her daddy’s lectures, even though she laughed at him.
🙂 I am not from Laos, I am not even from America but I would be inclined to be careful around places that have those sort of stories told about them – just in case they are true. Thirty years ago, when my family moved into the place which was once our holiday crib, I started to believe that there were guardian spirits around the place. All sorts of birds and animals – some domesticated and some not – used to turn up on the property as if it were some kind of sanctuary. Our own dogs and cats had to get used to strange animals appearing on the property at all odd times. Also even though we are directly in the way of regular gale-force southerly winds our roof stayed on, our walls held and our windows remained unexploded. I was not happy when it was decided to chop down the trees that were, at least in my eyes, some of those guardians. Fortunately a lot of baby trees have taken their places so maybe the original guardian spirits have just moved on to make room for younger ones.
@sighkey –
That sounds like a nice set of spirits.