Your not that old to remember Vinai silly. I hardly remember anything thete.
oh, i remember vibnais...i was running naked most of the time, my boogers were sideways, i fell into pas npawv and survived...alm
ost ever other night/day, you can hear the death drums beating for young children.
we lived in a hut that was on stilts and this menacing kid (a few years older and known bully of kej 1) would go underneath and poke us. if he wasn't messing with us, he was bullying some other children around the camp. i had my first fight with him, of course i didn't know how to fight but somehow in the scuffle, i was able to get on top...i also didn't know how to hit, so I held onto his ears and pounded his head (he bled and cried, I felt bad for it)...after that, I was king of kej 1, my gang was called
"mi nyuam kas tsaub" (at least that was what the old folks called us).
we would run rampant in the camps, threw rocks at security guards (
a wausau) because they were just mean to our hmong people, stole sugar from the ration trucks that brought food once a week. got shot at by troopers, while rummaging through the forced abandon huts of the laotion immigrants (i was too fast for them bullets, i can recall the bullets hitting the side of my foot). went to school and if we were late, the teachers would whoop our a$$es, i mean literally, she would make us stand against the chalk board and
take the ruler to town...and let me tell you, it ain't no love tap, you're either crying or yelping afterward. one time, she whipped my brother so hard, the ruler broke, i immediately attacked the teacher and about of 4 of us, mi nyuam kas tsaub, jumped in to give a beat down...we ditched school that day, went to ride banana trees down the hill and swim at pas npawv.
last but not least,
nooneever ever forgets their first love, that doctor's daughter...she was the admiration of the neighborhood kids, even though I was king, she was twice popular. her family was well to do, we weren't so fortunate. luck would have it that she liked me too, i did almost anything for her, picked wild flowers, shared my candies and carried her over puddles. i remember it quite clearly, it was a gloomy day with slight rain shower. this was my last day before we were to board the bus to amelikas, knowing we would part, she brought an egg to share with me as we sat in the hut for one final time, just listening to the rhythm of the falling rain. of course, there was no tears or sad good byes but well wishes.
I was merely a little kid, no more than 4-5 years old but my life experience in vibnais, in that short amount of time of 3 months was probably my best childhood memories!