Thailand is a Buddhist country, and I see the beautiful temple and why people love it so much especially tourist. It is truly beautiful, I had always thought that Buddha is a religion, but after the monk chat, I know that it is not. There was no creation of Buddha which was very amazing.

I really like how calm the monks are especially during the monk chat, I got to see how calm Pra K K is, when I learned about how the monks typical day and how they were able to reach enlightenment. By practicing meditation it will help  us balance our mind and body and let us find our inner peace. When the Pra K K  explain that he did not think about the future, and he let go of his past, he only focus on the present, I was amazed because I know that I always think about the future and he was right that I am stressing myself out.

I would like to do more meditation because I want to release some stress and I want to be able to balance my body and my mind. I really like the way how the monks live a very simple and normal life. Although there are rules they have to follow, to have peace within is all that matter.

I feel so rushed all the time as a college student, and I rarely have time to myself to reflect on things. After the monk chat, I feel that I have to find time to myself for me to meditate. I want to find the balance between my body and mind and focus on the present, let go of the past and, don’t think about the future. I think about the future all the time and it not what I should do and I stress myself even more.

I need to let go of the past because no matter what it is in the past and I will not be able to change it. and the future is the unknown, we never know what will happen and it is not predictable. often we ask people about their future and what they want to do, and many people already have it planned out, but sometimes everything will not go as plan. I feel that if we focus on the present, we will focus on the time we have and live each day and make the most out of it. 

Hello, My name is Mai Chia Lee and I am a senior at the University of Minnesota Twin-Cities and I am an Elementary Education Major. As a Hmong woman living in the United State, I see myself as a Hmong American. I merge two culture together and meet both in the middle so that I will not lose my native culture but at the same time able to emerge myself in a different culture.

Often time many people don’t know what Hmong is and where they come from. Many times people mistook me as another ethnicity for example Chinese. But when I told them I am Hmong they looked confused. I have to explain in short of who Hmong people are and where they came from, to learn someone it takes time so I only give them a brief introduction of who Hmong is.

I moved from Thailand to the United States in 2004, and it was when I have to learn who I am and who I want to be as I grow older clash between two culture. But as I grow older I see the beauty in my own culture, how the shaman would guide the spirit home when someone is unwell. How the language I did not pay much attention to can be so beautiful like a poem. I listen to my parent’s story of their life and I found myself captivate more and more to my own culture that I didn’t pay much attention to when I was younger.

In this Journey, I want to experience more culture and look deeper to find more about myself. I am looking forward to learning more about other cultures and ready to merge as one with every culture. But most of all I want to find myself and learn more about myself.