nkaujhmooblauj
sarNie Adult
i'm going to go on sunday morning.
Bad newS! Hmong Supporting Actor
- Thread starter YM_gurl
- Start date
YM_gurl
sarNie Oldmaid
today, sunday.. april 02... i went to Shee's funeral..
oh my.. :wavecry: did i cry all day? Every word.. everyone had to say..
tears ran through everyones eyes.. many people were there.. friends and
family.. even people who didn't know them..
All i can say, is so sorry for their lost.. Shee was a great educated man.. rest in peace..
oh my.. :wavecry: did i cry all day? Every word.. everyone had to say..
tears ran through everyones eyes.. many people were there.. friends and
family.. even people who didn't know them..
All i can say, is so sorry for their lost.. Shee was a great educated man.. rest in peace..
precious_me
sarNie Hatchling
i went and attend the funeral saturday night...when we got there, they didnt blow the qeej or hit the drums...its sad how we got there and didn't even get to see him for the last time except for the small clips of video that he made "hlub mus ib sim"...umm hey in that movie, did he die in part two???...haven't seen it but it looked interesting when they played parts of it at this funeral...=(
YM_gurl
sarNie Oldmaid
oh yeah.. the clips of hlub mus ib sim.. that was pretty kewl..precious_me said:
how they put clips of when he was here and how he passed away..and
then to the movie he made...the song they put with the clip was so sad..:wavecry: i couldn't help but to cry..
about the movie, I don't know if he died in part 2..
haven't seen part 2 yet.. but gonna.. ^_^
You went on saturday night..kewl. you should had went Sunday night too.. His g/f and family gave a speech.. it was so sad.. everyone cried once somebody started talking about him.. especially, kao.. his older brother.. i just wanted to burst out crying.. what his brother kao and the his other brothers said was so sad..
Gosh... :wavecry: i hope nothing like this will ever happen to anyone ever again... :wavecry:
YM_gurl
sarNie Oldmaid
Shee Yang's older brother Cher Yang, center, comforts his mother, Blia Vue, right, as the two, and Blia's husband, Chong Tou Yang, background left, look at flowers and messages at the Palm Memorial Chapel on Saturday, the first day of Shee Yang's funeral.
Eric Paul Zamora / The Fresno Bee
After the fire, neighbors who lived nearby in four-bedroom ranch houses would express surprise. They never even knew that a trailer was there, tucked back on a generous field on the outskirts of Clovis -- much less that 12 people lived in the two-bedroom tin box.
Like many of their neighbors, Chong and Doua Yang moved to Clovis, a slice of suburbia that prides itself on rodeos and high SAT scores, because they heard the schools were good. If that meant living in a trailer rented for $550 a month from a landlord who wouldn't care too much about the size of the family, so be it.
They were a Hmong refugee family staking their dreams on education, from 5-year-old Kyle in kindergarten to 22-year-old Shee, who was about to graduate from California State University, Fresno. And like many families in a Valley plagued by poverty and a shortage of affordable housing, they lived in crowded, unsafe conditions, unseen by those around them, as they chased a better life.
Their anonymity ended when a fire broke out the night of March 19 and killed Shee, 22, Chong's younger brother, and two of Chong and Doua's daughters, Ia, 15, and Pakou, 13. In less than seven minutes, the fire burned everything the family had ever owned.
Fire officials said it was amazing that Chong Yang was able to get seven of his children out alive.
The family's living situation was not unusual: In the Central Valley, 17% of families live in crowded conditions, compared with the national average of 5.8%, and 24% of Central Valley Asian-American families live in crowded households, according to numbers from the Fannie Mae Foundation compiled from the 2000 U.S. census.
Even the deaths of Pakou, Ia and Shee might have gone unnoted amid a constant drumbeat of loss and sorrow. But the community's reaction to the tragedy has been staggering and is helping build bridges out of ashes.
In the two weeks since the fire, Yang family members have found themselves at the center of a circle of support that crosses ethnic, cultural and economic lines.
"I have never in my life seen anything like it," says Doua Thao, 29, Shee's brother-in-law. Until now, he had always thought people of all races and stations in life coming together was elusive.
"It's like when you're trying to get something in the water but you can't go straight to it because the water keeps circling you around. We all want to bring everyone together but we can't, because we don't have the water behind us," Thao says.
"But, now somehow, it's like Shee, Ia and Pakou have become part of the water's power and we can reach that connectedness. And it will go on and on and on, because this family will remember. It will stay in our hearts and minds and spirits forever."
Hmong funerals are multiday events, and everyone goes to the family's house to eat and spend time together.
The cooking started a week before the three funerals began last Tuesday. Outsiders -- school friends and neighbors and perfect strangers -- were coming to candlelit vigils at the blackened trailer, and the extended family wanted to offer them hospitality.
Every night, there was dinner for more than 100 at the home of the children's aunt, Need Moua-Yang, on Harvard Avenue near Winery Avenue.
Across the street from Moua-Yang's house, Doug and Coleen Hoskins watched elderly Hmong women washing fresh mustard greens in the driveway. They knew about the fatal fire. They wanted to help their neighbors with dinner preparations but weren't sure they belonged.
"We were going to stand out in the crowd," says Coleen Hoskins. "We're white. We're a head taller than most everyone. We don't know the culture. Can't speak the language."
They went over anyway and have been there nearly every evening since.
"When we first went in, I felt like I was intruding. I didn't know their ways. But I thought, 'Well, I know how to wash vegetables.' In my heart, I know I've changed. I'll never again look at language or culture as barriers," Coleen Hoskins says. "It's the smile and the hug that I understand."
For his part, Doug Hoskins mostly moved and carried things for the small, elderly Hmong aunts doing the cooking.
"At one point, they all started laughing," he said. "And one of them told me, 'I'm giving you directions in Hmong and you're doing everything I tell you.' "
When it started raining on the women washing vegetables in the driveway, Doug Hoskins ran home and got big, colorful golf umbrellas to shield them.
The couple watched in fascination as women made noodles from scratch and men slaughtered pigs and chickens.
"They used every part of that pig but the squeal," Doug Hoskins says. "We just didn't know this world. Didn't know the people. We feel so honored that they let us in. Now there's a bridge that will never stop."
He shakes his head in disbelief at his old self from a week ago.
"Do you know we would have never even gone to Hmong New Year before? But we'll be going now. Is this tragedy going to change the community, change the divisions? I don't know if that will happen. But I do know that it happened for me."
A few days ago, one of Doug Hoskins' friends mentioned the fire.
"He said, 'What were they doing living in that little trailer with that many kids?' and he said it with that little sneer and it was his tone, and I told him, 'They were saving their money for more important things, like a house, like a stake in their children's futures, like education. You have no idea who these people are.' And it's just lucky that words alone wiped the sneer off his face."
The Hmong were a mountain tribe in Laos recruited by the CIA to fight communists during the Vietnam War, in what became known as the secret war.
An estimated 20,000 Hmong were killed during the war, and when the Americans pulled out, 100,000 others made a perilous journey to Thailand refugee camps.
The Hmong community in Fresno numbers 28,000-plus. Some of their children and grandchildren are now pharmacists, business owners, teachers and journalists. But many of the older Hmong and recently arrived refugees still live in an insular world.
Almost any Hmong person older than 30 has known hardship, violence and tragedy, and some say they haven't always been treated kindly in their adopted country.
At Pakou's funeral last week, Wa Yang, 33, of Clovis, looked at the non-Hmong people with surprise and appreciation.
He lost his leg when he was 6 years old and an American-made bomb left behind in Laos exploded. Three other boys died. His father made him crutches out of wood. Every year after that, Yang made his own crutches.
His family finally made it to the United States when he was a teenager. Yang first got an artificial leg when he started at Fresno State. Just walking from class to class would irritate his stump, and he would have to wring out the blood from a cloth he had beneath his pants.
He says he's never forgotten the day a woman at school said to him, "Why are all the Hmong lazy and lying to get welfare and disability?"
"You know what I did?" asks Yang. "I dropped my pants. I took off my artificial leg with my stump dripping blood and I said to her, 'My people are lying when they say they are hurt?'
"But today is different. Today, people are showing that they care about a Hmong family's pain."
Paula Yang, a cousin who has organized efforts to help the family, says that until two weeks ago she would have said the Hmong were "100% divided from everyone else."
"There's so much discrimination. They looked at us just as refugees on public assistance. But now I owe so much to the community. I've seen another side. They have shown me they are kind."
In the past two weeks, Yang has talked to a ranching woman in Madera who grew up in a household of 16 and said she remembered what it was like to be poor. The woman donated two cows to be slaughtered for the funeral. She's also met a wealthy man in Clovis who took Chong Yang and his father to a tailor and bought them fine suits for the funeral. She's gotten a letter and a thousand-dollar check from a Reedley family she'll never meet.
And she has made friends with Marge Bilsten and her family.
Paula Yang says she'd never before met someone as elegant as Bilsten. Bilsten lives in north Fresno and counts among her friends some of the wealthiest people in Fresno. But she says her parents grew up poor and they taught her to always lend a hand.
"I am so blessed they gave me the mind to help and money gives me the ability," Bilsten says. "I know lots of rich people who never do anything, and they are missing out."
Bilsten took most of the surviving Yang children for haircuts -- they'd never been to a beauty shop before. Then she took them shopping for clothes -- they'd never been to a store to pick out anything new before. Aaron, the 10-year-old Yang son, was very quiet. Bilsten sent a Yang cousin to pick out big toy trucks for Aaron and his 5-year-old brother Kyle, who is still in the hospital with burns.
Then Bilsten turned her substantial organizing skills toward the donations coming into the funeral chapel.
"It's a real awakening to see how many people in need will still donate clothes and money. This one young African-American man came in. He had a backpack -- he looked like a student. He gave me $5 and I could tell that money for him was like $500 to some of the people I know. Hmong families brought in their clothes. Then a bunch of my friends decided to help. It's been overwhelming."
The Yang family calls Bilsten "the American auntie."
She says she's embarrassed by their gratitude.
"These people are so kind and so loving. They treat me like I'm really something. But I didn't do anything special. I'm really thankful that I met them. I told Paula, 'We bridged a gap with you all, and we're blessed for it.' "
Paula Yang, who grew up in refugee camps, invited Bilsten and everyone else who was helping back to the house for dinner with her extended family. That, along with the vigils, was unusual, because Hmong often keep to themselves.
"In the Hmong community, it's, 'Don't get involved so much with the outside because you've already been hurt,' " Paula Yang says.
"But there I was at dinner and the non-Hmong were saying they were so honored to be included and to be allowed to help -- some were even crying -- and my relatives were saying to me in Hmong, 'I can't believe these non-Hmong would accept us!' They had never had a white friend that would be there for them and now there were these strangers that became friends.
"It took a huge tragedy to see how we all struggle for our children. But for us at this time, it makes a huge difference to think we are loved."
In the little trailer before the fire, there was a chart on the back wall with all the children's names and a schedule of chores and homework for them to follow.
It was up for a couple of weeks before Chong Yang noticed the chart and said to his children, "You have been doing all this? Who put this up?"
The answers were yes, and Shee.
"I tell them over and over to do their homework, and they don't listen, but anything Shee says, they do," Chong told his brother-in-law Thao. "He is the best influence for my children."
Thao says Shee was always the one to bring people together, to motivate.
"His friends -- he was always with a Korean guy, a black guy, a white guy. He was always helping someone with homework. He was the kindest person in our family. I look at all the money and donations and I think that maybe from the ashes came some of Shee's goodness."
At Clark Intermediate School, where Pakou attended eighth grade, Principal Scott Steele says he's never seen a student body come together the way they did to support the Yang family, from raising money to attending the funeral.
"She was a beautiful child, and everyone seemed to recognize that. The response crossed every ethnic line, every line of any kind."
The seventh- and eighth-grade students still mostly socialize in their own groups.
"And that won't change, but those groups came together and we all learned a lot about the Hmong community," Steele said. "It's not worth losing a kid over. We all wish this wouldn't have happened. But it reminded us there's a lot of kids in situations like the Yangs."
Paula Yang, Chong's cousin, planned three funerals that branched from tradition. She told the aunties to make their very best dishes, full of flavor, instead of soup and rice. She put colored flowers on the table, against tradition, because of the brightness of the children. There were roosters to guide their spirits home to their ancestors -- and classmates singing their favorite American pop songs. A woman planning a funeral, or any major event, is uncommon in Hmong culture.
But Paula Yang's father told the other men: "We have always advocated for our sons. But our daughters have charisma, too. Our daughters can lead."
"This is a new bridge within ourselves," Paula Yang says. "And then all the new bridges between us and non-Hmong.
"I think that these three children were so innocent, so promising and open, that the tragedy of losing them brought everyone together," she said. "They left us. But behind them, they gave us bridges we can cross."
rest in peace shee..la...pakou.... :wavecry:
nkaujhmooblauj
sarNie Adult
i was at the funeral this past weekend too. it was very sad for me. i cried at everything that was said.
rest in peace.
rest in peace.
precious_me
sarNie Hatchling
YM_gurl said:oh yeah.. the clips of hlub mus ib sim.. that was pretty kewl..
how they put clips of when he was here and how he passed away..and
then to the movie he made...the song they put with the clip was so sad..:wavecry: i couldn't help but to cry..
about the movie, I don't know if he died in part 2..
haven't seen part 2 yet.. but gonna.. ^_^
You went on saturday night..kewl. you should had went Sunday night too.. His g/f and family gave a speech.. it was so sad.. everyone cried once somebody started talking about him.. especially, kao.. his older brother.. i just wanted to burst out crying.. what his brother kao and the his other brothers said was so sad..
Gosh... :wavecry: i hope nothing like this will ever happen to anyone ever again... :wavecry:
[post="100901"][/post]
awww...i shoud've went on sunday...i saw the girlfriend at the candel light thingy...she's one of my other guy friends sister...gosh i really feel bad for her...and shee yangs brother too...the whole family....it sad how when we went to the candel light that they had for the three of them, shee yang's mom said that she had a dream of shee telling her that he was thirsty...aww makes me wanna cry...anyways, did any one went to the burial for shee on monday?????...i didnt cause i have class and plus it was pouring too..... :wavecry:
nkaujhmooblauj
sarNie Adult
well... i live in sac and i have school. so i came home on sunday nite.
i would have liked to be there tho. =S
i would have liked to be there tho. =S
gurl
sarNie Hatchling
i been to shee funeral on april the 1 saturday night... it was sad ... everyword they talk about shee was sad ...... i cry even more when i see shee mother crying and the song they put on the first hmong song they put ...the one saying about i'm srry mother sang by a hmong guy ... Shee yang, Ai Yang, Pakou Yang is also related to my mother... like all people say good people die young..... R.I.P my freind
For some reasons unknown, i feel like that is true. I once know this woman who was the weakest person I have ever seen. She could hurt you with her evil look and the words that were coming out of her mouth could slice you ever so deeply. She enjoyed hurting others and loves it when others are miserable at her actions. But she still alive and well...( though I dont wish death on her) I am comparing her to other good hearted people who died so young....like these loving youngsters...who still have so much to live for...It is sad...life is not fair!gurl said:
SweetAngel21
sarNie Juvenile
so sad when they die......I heard alot of time....I feel so sry to all the people die.....this year alot of people die....
tik_aom_luver
sarNie Adult
aww.. he's so hot.... this is so sad... All i can say is for all of them to rest in peace....