2025 SPE Annual Conference: Adaptation
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print this pageSongs of Rice and Rivers
Anh-Thuy Nguyen
Friday, September 25 - 9:00AM to 9:50AM
Oklahoma City Museum of Art - Classroom B
August 1989, I started elementary school, my grandmother (from my mother’s side) left her hometown and moved in with my family. Being the youngest child in a family of four, I was terribly spoiled, for an example: I found pleasure in having my older siblings chasing me around to feed me and eating my left- over rice.
A couple of days after grandma’s arrival, she sat me down and told me a story: “Once upon a time, there was a youngest child in a family of four who refused to sit down eating her food and finish her bowl of rice. When she died, she was brought underground and punished by its God. The underground God ordered this child to go through the twelve-gate hell and eat worms in preparation for her incarnation.”
“Why? Why having her eating worms, grandma?” I interrupted.
Grandma gently responded, “The underground God explained that during her time on earth, she was mean to others, wasted her food and always left rice in her bowl. Each grain of rice she refused to eat equaled to a worm she must consume after she died.”
speaker
Anh-Thuy Nguyen
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