I had to learn this years ago when my grandma passed. My dad was the only son and he’s dad passed when he was very young so he had no one to teach him so he never taught us.
I'm hmong at a funeral you hit a drum and an person has to hit it and another person needs a giant flute. Once your done people will wear fake money and burn it and they will have this small stick and bow everyone has to bow and Adler has to stay up until it's done kids can sleep but it has to be at funeral
I am 16 and learned about our history when I was 9. Before so, I was slowly letting go of my Hmong language and culture, quickly adapting into American culture. But when I learned about our history, not just during the secret war, but what happened to us in China. It made me open my eyes. Our ancestors fought, fled, and died to keep our culture and language alive. They fought for freedom, so that their kids could keep living and pass down our traditions. The Hmong people ran down to South East Asia because they wanted to reserve our way of life. The amount of suffering and deaths our ancestors went through lit a fire within me. Both my grandpas were soldiers, drafted when they were 11 to 13. My step Grandma had 11 siblings, but it withered down to 3 as they were hunted by the communist Laos party. Some of the most gruesome deaths being starvation, getting mauled by dogs, and getting gunned down. My mom had to sneak out from the refugee camps due to their abuse. The more stories I was told, the more I began to feel bad for so easily letting go of my culture. Now, I’ve regained some of my fluency in the language. And I heavily embrace my identity as a Hmong person. I feel saddened that my generation is slowly losing their touch with their culture. We don’t even have a country to go back to, to relearn our language and traditions. Even in Thailand and Laos, Hmong kids only know Thai and Lao. I will continue to work hard to relearn all the Hmong words I have lost through out the year, and I hope that other kids my age will too.
100% agree with you. Talking to the source is key cause once you paint that image for others they will only see your spouse or others in a certain way and they will feel necessary to throw their judgement onto you.
My mother is in hospice care now and I need to learn this poem asap 😢. This video is very helpful for us Hmong Mekas kids that have no idea of what to do or say at funerals.
Beautiful explanation, brother. My family and I just lost our father last week and are now preparing for what we anticipate to be a huge funeral ceremony for him bc he was such a big name to our Thao families and others regionally in the Midwest. As a Hmong daughter married to a non-Hmong man, hearing this comforts me and makes my heart ache at the same time as my brothers and male elders/relatives are now preparing for this speech. 😪
I don't have to, but imagine being raised up the church way, and having a funeral the Hmong way. I never really understood, IDK, I thought it was kinda odd, but not until one of my Brothers passing, I suddenly could understand, like that mental blockage was lifted. Thanks Bro. Thanks for this video.
