top of page This website was built on Wix. Create yours today. Get Started The Tamarind Man's Jam Contact Us Welcome to The Tamarind Man’s Jam Home Page. Not only do we make yummy food, we also make yummy clothing and more! Hope you enjoy our yummy creations! Tam Tam is having a sale to celebrate the month of love.
Enjoy free shipping for the month of February. Click here to shop our online store! Lanna Kingdom Lives In Me Aug 20, 2019 7 min read Updated: Sep 16, 2019 July 14, 2019 Hello and sawadee jao as they say in my Northern Thai, Lanna, or Kham Meuang language! How is everyone doing? It has been a while since my last blog.
I wanted to update you on how things have been going. I have been enjoying learning about my heritage and was inspired to make a new collection of merchandise for Tam Tam. I call it the Lanna Kingdom Collection paying homage to my heritage. You can view this new collection here . I thought I'd share with you more about myself.
I am 3rd generation Lao Yuan also known as Kalom (Yuan) or Tai Yuan or Lanna Thai, Khon Muang, or Northern Thai people. My mother is full Yuan and my biological father is half Lao. That makes me half Yuan and a quarter Lao and a quarter unknown. I never knew my biological father, but by my Dad, the only dad I know is from Xiangkhouang, Laos where the famous Plain of Jars is located.
I was born in Laos, but raised in America and can say that I am a proud Lao American. I think it is important to say that however one may feel most comfortable calling themselves, we should all respect one another. We all came from somewhere and although we migrate and move through out history, our locations may change, our names may change, but we are the same people.
You will hear me call myself any one of these names depending on my mood, or who I'm with, or who is asking me. There is a story behind each name and I'm comfortable with identifying myself as any one of them. Each name or ethnicity is just as important as the other. I embrace them all.
It's great fun and I'm quite proud of my mixed heritage. My great grandparents migrated from Nan Kingdom of Lan Na, to Luang Namtha, Laos in 1890, prior to full Thai control. They were the first settlers of Luang Namtha. They kept their Lan Na culture, language, and continued the same way of life but now in Laos.
Both sets of grandparents were first generation Lao Yuan, meaning that they are pure Yuan, 100% Tai Yuan, still indigenous people but born in Laos. I learned that they were very skillful people. Great grandparents and grandparents were highly skilled home builders, farmers, fishermen, and weavers.
My great grandfather built homes and temples and cultivated land and grew rice paddies. He made a nice living from selling his established rice paddies. People would hire him to cultivate their land for rice paddies and other crops. To me, that is highly skillful and it's something I see a lack in myself and my American culture.
We learn more about technology nowadays and everything can be bought already made and we don't need to do anything much really. Different world different times I suppose. My great grandmother and grandmothers were farmers and weavers and market goers. They wove clothing such as their traditional sinh (traditional skirt or sarong), and bamboo baskets.
They raised animals and chickens and their own families. My grandfather Grandpa Inh, was a master weaver as well as many other things. He made beautiful bamboo baskets to keep sticky rice in called, "ep kao" or "gong kao" and bamboo baskets to cook the sticky rice in called, "hoat".
They used their skills not only for every day life, but also to make a living selling their crafts and skilled craftmenships. He was also the number one caretaker for me and my older brother. I remember him teaching me everything from going potties to bathing. He would babysit us when we were playing.
And also drove us to school. I somehow remember him the most from my earliest childhood memories. My grandmother also raised us and I remember her a lot also from my earliest childhood memories. She always fed me and carried me around on her back. I always remembered sitting on her lap and remember her putting me to sleep.
She would sing and hum to me and tell me stories. Many stories were told and most of them were so beautiful it seemed unreal. I thought they were fairytales back then, but later I found out that they were actually real stories of real people and their way of life. Real kings and queens and princesses and their army!
And not to mention all the elephants! People enjoyed their lives and everything was abundant. These were stories about people of Lan Na! My mother was very young when she had us and she was quite spoiled. She had plenty of help with raising her fatherless children. Grandparents raised her and uncle and also raised their grandchildren and later great grandchildren.
My mother who is second generation Lao Yuan was also born in Luang Namtha, Laos. As a young girl, she would help out wherever she can. She was lucky to get to go to school, unlike my grandparents who never had the chance to go to school, their school was the temple. Mother also sold food at the market.
Her specialty was a dish called, "kao lang feun" translated means "rice evening stir" which is a popular snack food made of rice flour, limestone paste and water cooked until thick and sticky and then poured into a mold to let cool. Once cooled, it is cut into small squares and served with a sour broth made with generally tomatoes , or tamarind, or hibiscus flower, or anything sour or pickled juice.
It is eaten cold and dressed with a spicy fermented soy bean paste called, "tua naow". This is a very popular food of the Tai Lue people. My family was heavily influenced by the neighboring Tai Lue people of Laos. Tai Lue and Tai Yuan are the most alike of the Tai's most notably for their written language of Tai Thom that is learned in the temple.
This written language is different from Thai and Lao. It is uniquely their own. Grandpa's family left Luang Namtha between 1966-1967 during the war to Houyxai and then to Thonpeung where my older brother was born, in Bokeo Province. I was born in Luang Prabang, Laos where my biological father is from.
Shortly after I was born my mother and I had to leave Luang Prabang to meet mother's family in Thonpeung so that we can leave together to seek refuge in Thailand. My family left Laos to Thailand by boat crossing the Mekong River and entered the refugee camp in Chiang Khong, Chiang Rai Province.
Life in the camp was not a pleasant one and was rarely talked about. But when it is talked about, we would just listen. We were there for a couple of years and then finally we were sponsored to live in America, where we have been living since. My biological father was taken from us in Laos, and sadly we had to move without him.
We didn't know what happened to him and we thought that he was no longer alive. We had to move on without him like many other fellow refugees in similar situations. My mother eventually remarried and had my younger brother in Boulder, Colorado. I recently learned that my great great grandparents were from Chiang Saen (the Golden Triangle), Thailand which is known to be the oldest city of Thailand and the first Capitol City of Lan Na.
It is located in the Golden Triangle where Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos meet. The Tai Yuan people are a bridge between eastern Tai Shan of Burma (Myanmar) and Tai Lue of Xishoungbanna, China in a sense that they are very similar people in their way of life and religious beliefs and their Southwestern Tai dialect.
The Tai Yuan were the original founders of the Lanna Kindgom that thrived for over 700 years. The Tai Yuan people are considered to be Tai or Dai (a term in Chinese that means "umbrella") people who are ethnic Chinese people from Southwestern China, Yunnan. Their history can be traced back to the Yuan Dynasty of Chinese history.
They are the indigenous people of Northern Thailand. However the story goes, my ancestors kept migrating from China due to fear of the Mongols during the Yuan Dynasty. They kept migrating due to war. From China to Lan Na to Laos and lastly to America, this is the timeline of my family history.
I find it so fascinating that my mother is 100% indigenous people of the Tai Yuan. Ancient Chinese blood. Isn't that interesting? I hope to learn more about the Tai Yuan and hope to share more as time goes on. I have been thoroughly enjoying learning about my heritage going as far back in time to my great great great grandparents and beyond.
Thank goodness for family connections to stories and all of our resources of today that make learning about our heritage easier. They even have DNA ancestry testing which I find very fascinating. Just a few years ago there were not nearly as much information around as there are today.
Feeling blessed to be in a high technology first world. Social media and the internet is becoming more and more informative and more easily accessible. I get so excited about the fast future of technology and how the human race can become more connected with one another. So much to learn and enjoy during our time!
Moreover, I hope that you have enjoyed learning more about me and my heritage. I'm happy to have shared it with you. I have many more things to share with you about myself and what inspires me to do what I love to do and I hope to share more with you in the very near future. If you know me, I hope that you can understand me better and can start to see where my inspirations come from.
I will put some information below about my heritage that I think you may enjoy. Photos below are from Chiang Mai Tours. As always, you can contact me for more information or anytime you feel like saying hi! I love hearing from all of you! I hope this has been as much fun for you as it has been for me.
Peace out for now. Take care. And as always, much Peace, Love, and Tamarind! Please stay tuned for more! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Thai_people https://thailandtravelbag.com/the-history-of-the-lanna-kingdom/ http://www.infomekong.com/peoples/tai-yuan/ https://amillionricefields.wordpress.com/who-are-the-tai-yuan/ https://omf.org/asia/mekong-minorities/people-groups/tai-yuan-people/ https://www.inditales.com/tai-yuan-community-of-thailand/