Laos Quotes

“No matter the border, the Mekong has been an indiscriminate giver and taker of life in Southeast Asia for thousands of years. It’s a paradox like civilization’s other great rivers—be it the Nile, Indus, Euphrates, Ganges or China’s Sorrow the Huang He—for without its waters life is a daily struggle for survival; yet with its waters life is a daily bet that natural disasters and diseases will visit someone else’s village, because it’s not if, but when it’s going to happen that’s the relevant question.”
― Tucker Elliot, The Rainy Season

“Laos is the most heavily bombed country in the history of the world. From 1964 to 1973, the United States dropped more than two million tons of ordnance on Laos to disrupt the Ho Chi Minh Trail and try to stanch a Communist insurgency—more than was dropped on all of Germany and Japan during World War II. There were 580,000 bombing missions, which averages out to one every eight minutes for nine years. Sometimes, U.S. planes returning to Thailand from missions over Vietnam indiscriminately dropped their remaining bombs on Laos. More than 270 million cluster munitions—“bombies”—were used, and 80 million of them failed to detonate. In the four decades since the end of the war, only 1 percent have been cleared. More than fifty thousand people have been killed or injured in UXO accidents; over the last decade, nearly half of those casualties have been children.”
― Ben Rhodes, The World As It Is: Inside the Obama White House

“Watching Siri and Dtui 'run' to the administration block would have saddened even the most benevolent of athletic coaches”
― Colin Cotterill, The Coroner's Lunch

“A si predstavljaš? sem v prvi zarji še ves zjagan razpredal Romani. Steklenica viskija za pol dolarja in zjutraj nič ne boli glava! Pol dolarja in vsaj za dolar sem ga spil ...
Nekje sredi poti proti jugu pa sem planil čez njo, avtobusno okno se je odprlo le zgrda in komajda sem zvozil, da nisem bruhal po ubožici, vsej nedolžni in zgarani od polnočnih reportaž. Plačal sem vse za nazaj in čez mejo prilezel kot stara kuzla z ohceti; še dobro, da so me tako zdelenaga sploh spustili v nov državo...”
― Zvone Šeruga

“C'est un retour sans joie. Le monde que nous avons laissé derrière nous n'existe plus. L'Indochine française s'est effacée. Le Royaume du Laos a basculé. Une république communiste s'est emparée des terres et des esprits. Nous avons rompu avec ce système-là. Notre pays imaginaire te hante, je le sais. Par mon ignorance, je suis préservée de son emprise. Moi, je n'ai que des hypothèses. Mes fictions claudicantes sont bien inoffensives. Elles ne génèrent aucun regret, aucun sentiment coupable. C'est mon amnésie que tu nommes ingratitude et que tu tentes de mater par ton "toujours une Vietnamienne".
~ p 29”
― Loo Hui Phang, L'Imprudence