Southeast Asia and Laos for me, prior to my teaching in Oroville, California, was a region I knew little about. While I was teaching in Oroville for the Thermalito Union School District in the 1990’s about a third of my students were Hmong and Mien. As I taught them and got to know their parents and families I became interested in learning more about their cultures. This led to my enrolling in the Southeast Asia Summer Studies Institute in the summer of 1998 at the University of Oregon where I studied Hmong full-time for nine weeks. I did not come away from SEASSI as a fluent speaker in Hmong, but my urge to learn more about the cultures of my Laotian refugee students was stronger and that fall I made the big leap and went on a tour to Laos for three weeks.

I fell in love with the country and people of Laos and returned that following summer with one of the Hmong aides at our school and his wife. One of the highlights of this trip was our visit to Wat Tham Krabok in Thailand (where the current influx of Hmong refugees are coming from) where we stayed three days with my aide’s uncle’s family. That next fall (1999) I worked out an arrangement with the Butte County Office of Education where I was given three weeks leave to travel to Laos with Chou to put together a virtual tour web site. The following summer I went again, this time on my own to focus on learning Lao.
With each of these visits to Laos I felt I was only skimming the surface and after returning to school in August 2000 I asked for a year’s leave of absence, which the school board refused to give me. I consequently quit my job, sold my house and moved to Laos in October 2000.

I really had no idea about what I would do, but within several weeks I had arranged to get a six month business visa and rented a house on the outskirts of Vientiane, the capitol, for $150 a month. I had made the acquaintance of a tuk tuk driver who spoke excellent English and he became my Lao teacher and all-around friend. When I wasn’t studying Lao I was able to travel though out the country, documenting everything through digital photography and video.
In the summer of 2001 I applied to be a K-12 Research Scholar at the Center for Southeast Asia Studies at UC Berkeley and was one of three educators chosen. I came back to the states in June 2001 for a period of three months where I worked on evaluating websites about Southeast Asia appropriate for K-12 educators. It was here that I met Dr. Eric Crystal, the retired vice-chair of the Center for Southeast Asia Studies who is my co-SEAIF team member.

I returned to Laos in September, but came back in December (2001) when I was asked to coordinate a Southeast Asia Institute for the International Studies Project at California State University at Sacramento (ISPAS). I also became co-coordinator of the Southeast Asia Refugee Faire sponsored by the Refugee Educators’ Network and ISPAS, which was held March 6, 2002. An outgrowth of the Institute was the request by the ISPAS director for me to put together a study tour to Laos. I thought this was a great idea and ended up having seven people sign up for the tour. After the SEA Faire ended I returned to Laos, but came back in early June to accompany my study tour group to Laos. The tour was very successful and I began planning for a summer 2003 tour. But while in Laos I had fallen in love, gotten married and now needed to return to the states to get a job so my wife could come to the states and work on becoming a permanent resident. I took a job as a librarian at Grant High School in Sacramento, and it wasn’t until next April that my wife was able to get a temporary visa and come back with me. But, we then returned to Laos that June with my second study tour group of five educators for another successful study tour.                                                                                                                  
Ever since my first trip to Laos and putting together my first website, I’ve continually added photo galleries and additional web sites. I’ve put together a website of my first study tour and second study tour. I’ve also become involved in raising money for book box libraries for Lao schools through the National Library of Laos Reading Promotion Program.                                                                        
Last year Dr. Crystal and I co-authored an article on "The Role of Rice in Southeast Asia" which was published in the academic journal Education About Asia. It was during this collaboration that we decided to form SEAIF with the goal of offering quality K-12 staff development about relevant Southeast Asia issues.