My teacher is Mr. Wantong, a university professor, who can also speak English, French, and Japanese. He said that he studied educational management at Shizuoka University in Japan. He seems to be about forty-five years old. Because I still haven't learned how to say "how old are you?" in Laotian, I haven't been able to ask him yet.

He doesn't have the lower part of his left arm below his elbow. When I saw it on the first day, I was really shocked and perplexed. It's because I'd never come into contact with someone with a disability. By using his left arm and right hand, he can open a book or grab something just as if he had no disability. Moreover, surprisingly, he comes to my house by driving a car on his own. On the first day, my husband asked him just like an everyday conversation, "Mr. Wantong, what's happened to your arm?" as if it were nothing. Then he replied "It's the war." Then my husband said, "oh, really." I continuously wanted to ask him when, where, and how it happened, but that was it. So, as I told him "But you are good at driving," he said "I have no choice."

During the Vietnam War, a great volume of bombs was dropped on Laos along the border with Vietnam by the American forces. From the onset of the Vietnam War until 1973, 2,093,000 tons of bombs were dropped. It's said that this amount is equivalent to dropping one airplane's worth of ammunition every eight minutes for twenty four hours for nine years. I heard that there are still a lot of unexploded bombs lying about everywhere. To make it worse, the Laotian government has neither the ability nor technique to dispose of them. They have been handling it little by little with support from the U.S. though. There was a movie starring Mel Gibson called Air America, which took up the bombing of Laos.

There are two words for "you" in Laotian, and you choose either one depending if you are using it for your inferior or for your superior. The word "I" is to be used in three ways; general, friendly, and formal. It's the same for other personal pronouns. Also, how to count things is quite similar to Japanese. We count one dog as "i-ppiki," but two pencils as "ni-hon." To count an egg and a ball, we can say "i-kko" in both cases because both are round-shape. There are two different ways to say "please" depending on whether you are asking someone to do a favor for you, or you are asking someone just to do something but not for you. As I believe that language is something that reflects the society, learning Laotian is not bad also from that point of view. According to Mr. Wantong, Japanese people tend to acquire Laotian quicker than Europeans. It may be because their language concept of respect and modest is similar to that of Japan.

Translated by Maiko Noda