Seeds And Their People - EP. 39: Mountain Farmers from Burma in Thailand and Philadelphia

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

Since 2017, Truelove Seeds has been working closely with a large Karen farming community from the jungles of the Karen state in the mountains of Burma (Myanmar), who are now based in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Through their previous work with Novick Urban Farm, and continuing now with many locations including community gardens and farms throughout Philly, they grow their traditional foods for their community and offer seeds in our catalog. In 2022, we published a 2019 interview with Naw Doh, Htee Da Win, and Hser Ku as our 7th episode of this podcast (see link below). In late 2025, our friend Mu Nae came to harvest Chin Baung leaves, Sunn Hemp flowers, Siling Labuyo Peppers, Tomatos, Pumpkin shoots, and Green Carpetweed rosettes at our farm with her mother Naw Gay Lay, and sister Saiyar Moo. We were able to meet Mu Nae's daughter Blut Htoo (a nursing student serving as their driver and interpreter that day) and it seemed clear that it was time for another episode!  The stories in this episode, recorded on October 22, 2025, are beautiful, painful, and powerful, and span from growing up and giving birth on the run in the jungle from the Japanese and Burmese armies, to escaping to Thailand refugee camps, to resettling in Philadelphia - and the foods and medicines that got them here. We are immensely grateful to these three generations of brilliant, strong, kind women for sharing their time, stories, and delicious foods with us.    SEED STORIES:  Chin Baung / Besidoh Luffa Winter Melon Jamaican Pumpkin (this is the variety they harvested shoots from this year at our farm) Sunn Hemp flowers Tumeric root Betel leaves Siling Labuyo Peppers Hyacinth Beans Sesame Yuca / Cassava Bamboo Rice And shout out to fire, ashes, water, salt, and MSG!  LINKS: Karen Community Association of Philadelphia (KCAP) KCAP Facebook and Instagram Donate to KCAP Novick Urban Farm seeds offered at Truelove Seeds: Pea Eggplant, Rat-Tail Radish, Green Pumpkin Eggplant, Dark Pea Eggplant, Lavender Frog Egg Check out the Chin Baung/Besidoh poster featuring Naw Gay Lay, by Shira Walinsky and Eh Nay Htoo, sponsored by Philadelphia Museum of Art's Community Spotlight initiative Photos from the day of this interview! @seedkeeping on Instagram Article featuring Naw Gay Lay and KCAP: Julia Binswanger, 10.7.2025. ‘A lot of things to do’: This organization tends to some of Philly’s most overlooked refugees. Billy Penn at WHYY. Article featuring Naw Gay Lay: Hitomi Yoshida, 10.20.2016. Refugee elders support each other after a long, difficult journey. WHYY Speak Easy. Seeds and Their People, 5.5.2022. Episode 7: Karen Farmers from Burma. Article by Truelove Seeds featuring Naw Doh, Htee Da Win, Hser Ku on Karen food: Owen Taylor, 2.10.2020. Memories of Myanmar. Mother Earth Gardener.   THIS EPISODE SUPPORTED BY: YOU! Please become a Patron for $1 or more a month at Patreon.com/trueloveseeds Scribe Video Center and WPEB, West Philly Community Radio ABOUT: Seeds And Their People is a radio show where we feature seed stories told by the people who truly love them. Hosted by Owen Taylor of Truelove Seeds and Chris Bolden-Newsome of Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden. trueloveseeds.com/blogs/satpradio   FIND OWEN HERE: Truelove Seeds Facebook  |  Instagram  |  Twitter   FIND CHRIS HERE: Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden  

You know, I try to make my country happy. You're feeling different. You eat something from like your country or similar from your country. The taste, the feeling. I don't know how to describe. It's totally different. Welcome to Seeds and their people. I'm Chris Bolden-Nusam, farmer and co-director.

of Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram's Garden in sunny southwest Philadelphia. And I'm Owen Taylor, seedkeeper and farmer at True Love Seeds. We're a seed company offering ancestral seeds grown by farmers who preserve their beloved tastes of home for their diasporas and beyond through keeping seeds and their stories and community. This podcast is supported by True Love Seeds and by our listeners. Thank you so much to our Patreon members who support this podcast for as little as one dollar a month. You too could sign up at patreon.com slash true love seeds. This episode features an interview with our friends Mune, her mother, Na Gaele, her sister,

Cecilia Mu, and her daughter, Blute. They are three generations of a Karen farming family from Myanmar, aka Burma, who just barely escaped the attacks of the Japan War during World War II and the attacks of the Burmese army. They made their way to refugee camps in Thailand, the late 90s and to the United States in 2010. Faith, family, and farming got them through. In 2017, we started working with the Koren community here at Novick Urban Farm in South Philly, where they were able to grow their traditional foods and culture for 10 years. This community now continues that work and so much more on many plots of land through their new Koren Community Association of Philadelphia, or K-KAP. In 2019, for a Mother Earth News article, I interviewed

interviewed Tidawin and Serku with interpretation by our friend Nadeau. That became our seventh episode of Seeds in Their People, which came out in 2022. Nado, the interpreter, who I mentioned, left me the voice recording that you heard in the first few seconds of this episode earlier this week as we were planning our crops for 2026. I thought it really summed up a lot. This fall, we met Blut when she was the enthusiastic driver and interpreter for her family during their harvest at our farm, and we decided it was time to do another episode featuring Karen stories. So, happy New Year. Let's talk about New Year's food.

Yeah. Oh, so our New Year's food? Yeah, our New Year's. Well, we're going to talk about theirs and ours. Let's start with ours. Yeah. Well, we ate, you know, our family's traditional Black Southern New Year's Fair. Of course, you know, in our home for New Year's Day. We prepared the traditional meal of black eyepie's that we stewed and cooked with our onions and our garlic and our tomatoes and all of our seasonings. And we ate that with greens. The only greens I had on hand at this time because the farm is so far away were a handful of collard greens from the church garden and then a head of cabbage. And so we ate cabbage and collard greens. But we also went to some friend's house.

and we had the beautiful opportunity to share in the New Year's tradition of the Haitian people. So expanding that sort of black diasporic welcoming in the New Year. Their New Year's celebration has some sort of similar themes to Black New Year's celebration. We, of course, every year go to Mass on New Year's Eve. That's also the Feast of the Mother of God, Mary, the Mother of God, in our Catholic tradition. But then we go to what's called Watchnight Service in the Black American tradition. and watch night is where we get together to remember the emancipation proclamation. I guess the opening of the end of slavery for southern states.

And it said that on that night in 1865 that African Americans were gathered in their churches, and other gathering places, praising God and waiting and watching all night for the writer to come with the news, you know, because they'd heard the rumors that slavery was about to end. and then everyone erupts in joyful, high emotional praise when the news comes. And so we celebrate the end of slavery and our emancipation on January 1st as well. And those foods, which are traditional African foods, you know, black apis, greens. And then cornbread, there's that tie of remembering your ancestry. That happened as well with our friends going back to our church family friends that we celebrated with from the

Haitian community and they eat soup jammu, which is a soup made from pumpkin. It's a traditional all over Haiti and all Haitians throughout the diaspora also make sure to cook their soup jamu and the pumpkin, of course, also becomes symbolic and just like an African-American tradition, all of the different foods, of course, become prophetic. They speak about some reality that we're trying to remember, which is, I think, a beautiful way to preserve culture and to keep the power of our ancestors and their lives. You know, present. for us. The soup Jammu was once sort of relegated only to the wealthy

French during slavery times. Some legends say that. African Haitians made it so that everybody on the island eats that soup to show that we are all now the rulers of our own destiny. So I think that's very powerful, just as the black eyepiece which represents sort of the eye of God

and prosperity. The bread, the cornbread which represents sustenance and the greens which represent financial abundance also have a meaning to African-American in North America. Yeah, and the soup jammu came from the pumpkins we grew at our farm this year. We grew Jamaican pumpkins.

So Caribbean pumpkins have a lot of similarities across the different islands. And I was really excited that several Haitian friends of ours recognized the Jamaican pumpkin as the proper pumpkin to make soup jammu. And so we were able to distribute them to many Haitians and other Caribbean people at the pumpkin harvest time. when we took the seeds out, of course, we let them sit for a month or two to keep the seeds ripening and the pumpkins ripening before opening them. But it was still probably about a month or two before the New Year's that we cracked into them. So people kind of have been keeping them in their

fridges and freezers so they could make the New Year's Day soup Jammu. And it was just such a pleasure to get to try. It was so delicious, the way they combine all those flavors. And they made us a vegetarian one. Yes, yeah. With mushrooms instead of meat. with mushrooms, yes. I guess usually it has pasta in it. This one didn't have pasta, but I had so many delicious things that pumpkin was kind of blended, but it still had so much texture to all the other ingredients and flavors, and it was awesome. And, you know, another Haitian friend told us that often they put turkey necks in there to represent the necks of the enslavers that were broken during the revolution. And of course, we should mention that this was

the first and only successful uprising and revolutions of enslaved Africans in the Americas. In the world, I think. In the world. So this soup carries a lot of meaning, and this Independence Day carries a lot of meaning for people all over the world, not just Haiti. But anyway, I wanted to also mention this because in this episode, we talk about the traditional foods, many of the traditional foods of our Karen friends, including what we've been calling Chinbong, which I only recently learned is the Burmese name for Bessie Doe, or Bessie, the sour

leaf Roselle that is grown for its, yeah, sour leaves to make like a sour soup or a stir or like a saute fried leaf, often with shrimp paste or fish paste or chili peppers, bamboo shoots. And it's a dish that is very important to the Karen New Year. The Karen New Year was on December 19th, 2025, but Nadeau was telling me that here in the diaspora, people kind of celebrate it when they can find, you know, space to rent, to bring the whole community together. So theirs is coming up on January 10th here in Philadelphia, and I hope I'm in town for it, because it's always really delicious food, of course, my favorite food in Philly, and dance and music and fellowship.

So I wanted to mention that, tie in the New Year's celebrations together here. So what do you want people to look out for in this episode? Probably the most impressive part of this whole episode for me was what this interview meant for young Blute. You know, as a first generation immigrant, the bridge between her parents and auntie's generation and the generation of young Korean Americans. But, you know, it makes one tearful to hear that some of these stories that she's getting from her aunts and her mom and, you know, and relatives, this is the first time that she's hearing them, which is kind of amazing, right?

You know, they've gone through so much. And yet, you know, the details in Bluzezzis herself were not really passed down to her. And I think about that, you know, in every generation, what it means for us to preserve our stories and how much is lost because kids don't ask? or because, you know, our elders don't want to talk about it. But I think that, you know, it felt like it was a powerful blessing that Bluth was able to have this interview because this will be gold for her and her family for generations to have this documented story. And oh, that, you know, all of us, especially those of us who come from, you know, diaspora that have been scattered in duress,

that we would have, you know, sort of this opportunity to keep a record of our travails and of our joys and to know where we came from. So for me, that was that, that was really the thing to look out for, you know, what is Bluth experiencing asking these questions? She's been doing this work as a translator, like many immigrant kids, if not most immigrant kids, who are first generation, you know, this is not new to her to be doing this translation, but just a skill with what she translates. That's the thing that really stood out to me besides all of the wonderful details about this heroin, decades-long journeys through the woods and the jungle. And that whole generation seemed to have been brought up on the run. And what that means, you know, and I think

about that as, you know, an African American here in North America, you know, like, what was that like, you know, because we have some of that story, too, you know, in a different way, of course, in a different time under different circumstances but a similar reality of it makes me think of you know enslaved Africans

who took their freedom and ran with their children you know or relatives into unknown parts and places throughout the Americas starting maroon colonies where they again for decades

lived in a hard one very perilous type of freedom so it's awesome to hear that and to hear the details. You know, something I couldn't imagine also, too, is that they were really on the run,

but this was a lifestyle for them. How in the world you have livestock in the jungle? That for me was something I thought a lot about, you know. How do you care because you can't tell chickens to be quiet, you know, certainly. And if they have a cow or a buffalo, I can't imagine. So just sort of what it must mean psychologically, spiritually and emotionally. the generations have grown up on the lookout knowing when to be quiet. You know, I thought about what it meant for raising kids in that environment.

I thought about the foods that they were found. I thought about how they got closer even to the earth. I mean, they were already a farming and a land-based people, like most human beings on the planet. I'd like to remind us. But living with no resources, no infrastructure except what God provides. And, you know, from Mother Earth was just extraordinary to me. And yeah, there's so much more to say and to think about. But, you know, I'll stop there.

I recommend people look up our Chimbong seed packet on our website. I'm going to do it right now just to be sure. But to look at this beautiful portrait of Nagele, if you search Chimbong on Trulofseeds.com, C-H-I-N-S-B-A-U-N-G, and actually looking at the page with the seeds doesn't show you her portrait, but if you search that, you'll see there's a poster listed also,

and that's a big picture of her, and you'll hear us talk about the process of having that made with local artists in the community. Just so you can see a picture of her, But we'll also put that in the show notes. Let me make it easier. We'll put in the show notes and photos from that day so you can see the whole family. And one other thing, it was a cold day, and my coworker, Sarah, was like, why don't you make a fire?

And that made all the difference because a lot of these stories really came out of the fire. The fire played a role in so many of these stories, and they even told me that at one point, that the fire made all the difference for the storytelling. And also when I asked them about their faith, the whole mood shifted. And they got into so many deeper stories. I just really appreciate the openness that this family had to tell the stories of their travels and their journey and the things they love and the things that were very, you know, so difficult. So thank you to them. And transporting you all now to the fire at our farm to hear these stories.

My name is Gweli My name is Muna My name is Cecilia My name is Blute So Gle is my grandmother Mune is my mom And Cecilia is my aunt Her and I are both the last child

Thank you all so much for coming to our farm today And thank you for sharing your stories with the world Of course We're in front of a warm fire on a cold day and the sun and I wanted to ask you first what you hope people learn from this interview what do you hope that this interview does for your community and your young people. Yp. I.

I had a daughter, so she just wants you guys to just hear how their lives were, back, in Burma, Thailand, but also America, and how they live their lifestyle, how they eat, and what they teach from their language and their food experience, planting, cropping, whatsoever, and to just take it as like a lesson that, you know, some people's lives are different from others and that's okay. Thank you. What do you hope to learn during this interview? For me, I just want to hear more about their story.

I feel like growing up I never hear what they went through, only some bits and parts of it. And I've always been okay with it, but now that we're here talking about it, I think I'm going to learn to, you know, be more connected to them, you know, from their past. So I think that's really good. And to also like learn more about crops and plants since I'm going to be around it so much more now. Wonderful. Can we start with life in Burma before the war? When I wake up in the morning, I get up and get ready, then go and wash some rice, you know, to cook. After that, I go out in the woods, collect some woods to start a fire, to come home and cook. After that, I feed all my kids and I head out to my job.

My job in Burma was to just go pick rice. When I was little, my life was very simple. We didn't really have much to do. We just lived in a small village and my life would just be based on what my parents did throughout the day. I would just follow them wherever I go. If they went to farm, then I would help out farm some squash, pumpkin, peppers, For all that meals. I didn't really have much growing up to eat.

So every day our meals would be the same. Just rice, some chili paste, also fish paste, you know, spicy fish paste sometimes. And, you know, cooked vegetables that would make her the happiest because that's all that she had. Which vegetable was the best? You order, no, that make it until you kill them. Pumpkin. Pumpkin leaves. Can she describe the rice growing practices?

So the rice would be in the forest, and they would just go cut the rice from the bottom of the stamp, you know? They come home, lay it out, and lay it out for a couple of days again, and they would, like, use your feet to, like, help get the rice out, and, you know, step on it and everything. Sometimes they would use, like, a little chatt-o, you know, to like pound the rice and that's how they would get the rice. So they would pound it in the clay maybe to remove the husk around the rice?

Okay. And when they walked on it, was it just on the ground or was there some kind of blanket or something? So their blanket is actually made out of bamboo too. You know, they would lay it on the ground. They would sort of make it like this, but you see how like this is kind of like has a shape. would be like flat. Here they are talking about the baskets that they're wearing, which are made out of bamboo and called koo.

You know, it would be flat, blanket, carpet, where they lay on it, then they would lay the rice down and step on it. Can you ask her how they made the blanket out of bamboo, like what the process was? So they would get the bamboo in the forest, and then when they come home, they would shave it down with the knives. and kind of get it to like a specific shape. You know, sometimes they would have to like make it really thin, you know, but I know to make a carpet, they would have to make the woods like flat,

but also long and thin to be able to like bend it and move it and stitch it in certain shapes. When they're young, of course, we cook it and boil it and eat it. But when they're old, it's better to use it for home-based materials that we use. And she also said that her bags, they've never seen like traditional bags, you know. I don't know if the last time you saw, but they wore some traditional bags that were made out of yarns. Those didn't exist before, you know. So back in the days, this was our bag. Yipidak he, but this is called Q in Koran.

This would be like their everyday bag of, you know, going up in the forest, collecting some vegetables to cook, coming home, you know, on the woods. This is just what they would use. Did her family have water buffalo? She has never worked with them because she had a fear. She feared them. She was just scared to, like, be around them. Her parents worked with the water buffaloes and cows,

but she would never. She was just scared to, like, go around them. But they became useful for her parents. Are you surprised to learn that she's afraid of something? Yes, yes. She's a feisty woman to me. Can we talk about when the war started and, like, what was that like for her?

What was happening? And how did they kind of, what did her family have to do at that time? So she said that she started running from the war during the Japan War that was going on back in Burma. She was just a little kid. She had three siblings, her parents, and they were all young, just trying to survive that. How did they survive in the jungle? So running from the war, they wouldn't carry them. war they wouldn't carry much but they would carry like everyday necessity use as just like some

few pots and pain not like big big ones you know they would carry their own plates you know to each their own when running but they would have to stay like really quiet when running because um sometimes the the soldiers would be like nearby so they would have to lay really low on the ground and have to take cover and sometimes use camouflage of the leaves and the stuff around them and when they knew that the soldiers weren't close then they would get up and cook and try to eat a little bit and then from there on they would continue their journey what foods did they carry with them and which foods did they find in the jungle she said that they carried some rice and fish paste fish paste is just like the

paste itself with the fish and they would pour like water to be to let it come like soupy and they were just carry like seasoning as in MSG salt pepper flakes sometimes peppers itself and if they had meat then a little bit of meat but that that would only come and go here and there sometime and how did they get the fish paste can she describe how how they got fish paste well yeah So they would actually go out and catch the fish and then after that they would come home and lay it out for like in the sun for maybe a few days and when it was ready they were pounded in it's called a chateau in Karen but I can't really think of the word in English. It's not really made from wood you know like the clay where they end up like pounding food and sauces in there that and then they were fermented for like maybe a couple of months and then they would eat it. Mmm, delicious.

My mom would like to answer. So she said from her experience is basically the same as my grandmother, but they would carry their stuff in this They would have to lay low again. They would have to lay low again. And when it rained, sometimes they would have to cover up with like just like plastic. Plastics around them so that they wouldn't get sick. You know, I think to them it's just the worst to just be sick and running

because then your life stability is kind of low at that point. And some meat that they carried would just be like shrimps and crawfishes that they would catch by rivers. So when running, like my mom said, that they also took care of some cows and chickens, so they would have to kill it to obviously survive and have some sort of meat around them. so they would have those meat, you know, pork, chicken. Yeah, only those two, though. And I'm interested in this question because you're in the medical field, but what would they do if they got sick while running? When they would get sick, there was no hospitals that we could go to,

any nurses or doctor around to really examine. someone and diagnose someone of their illnesses. But if they notice that a cough or fever or any sort of sickness were coming up, they would use, um, mondeboada, tumourke mea, tumric. Or they would use a tumric roots. They would boil it and then they would give it to the person that was sick to drink it. But most importantly, they would use these leaves, you know, that they eat. It's called pala. You know, I don't really, yeah, I don't really know how to say it in English. Do we have it here on the farm? No.

Maybe next time we could bring it to you because my mom dares to grow them. But they would use that leaf. She's trying to look for a picture. Here she's talking about Betel leaf, which is a cousin of black pepper. It's in the same genus, Piper. Uh-huh. So they would use that leaf and pour it with like very hot water, you know, and a pinch of salt. And then they would just drink it.

And that would mainly be how, like, they cure coughs and any sort of illnesses. What do you, I know that you're, are you studying to be a nurse? And so you're learning, we talked about this last time, you're learning such a different type of medicine, Western medicine. And so how do you balance your traditional knowledge of plant medicine and the knowledge you're learning now through your studies? I actually don't get sick that often, but I know that if I had like a sore throat or had like a headache, I would only use my mom's medicine, you know, that she gotten it from. shipped it from Thailand. But, you know, if there was an illness that I wouldn't know how to describe it and I couldn't really explain it to her, then I would definitely use, would you say,

like, the American medicine? Yeah, the American medicine. Can you ask which foods they would eat to not get sick? Like, what would they make sure to eat to keep themselves healthy? From where they're from, they don't really get sick a lot, you know. They've never really encountered people with any illness or sicknesses, but one food that does keep them just stable, their day-to-day life is rice. But ever since they came to America, the doctors have told them, like, eating too much rice is really bad for you.

It causes like high blood pressure, you know, high sugar, you know, high sugar. sugar level, low sugar level, and eating too much is not good for them. But to all of them, rice was their daily like meal, you know? It would either be plain rice or sometimes with vegetables and hearing their meat, you know? So that's just one thing that just keeps them going, you know? To other people, like it's not, but to them it's what made them survive and keep them as long as they are here. Awesome. I read that grandma was in the jungle for 20 years,

fleeing the violence, sometimes sleeping in trees. You said it started with a war with Japan, and I know that there was a lot of conflict following the British leaving Burma. I wonder if you can say anything, anybody here can say anything about anything about what was going on with all of that. And then I'd like to go into talking about the camps. She said that her mom and her, like, experience two different war.

My grandma started running from the war in the Japan era, but she started running from the war due to the Burma military situation. and how the country was just going downhill because of the government and how they ruled, you know, not because they're like the British or anything, but they just started running in two different era, you know. And my mom was running from the war for, like, 26 years. And when she started running, my aunt, Cecilia,

was just four months in the womb, you know? So, and in that time, like, their dad had died, and she has, like, five other siblings, you know, younger siblings that she also had to take care of. But looking at it, I think that she said that she just thinks that it was just based on like the government ruling back then that just kind of divided everyone up and just made things harder for them to live. So the Burmese army was targeting Karen people and other ethnic groups.

Yeah, they was just shoot. and not people and trying to kill everybody. If it was just in their sight, then they would. And sometimes they would even kill their own people. You know, running from the war, once they would settle in a good place for like a certain amount of time, they would build their houses out of bamboo, you know, like old bamboo. And it would last only about three years. Then they would have to like build a new one.

And their schools and churches, were also made out of older bamboos, and that would pretty much be it. Yeah. What was the religion at that time? What kind of churches? Thubawar Ram Dadu da-da-budabali. Christian. How did their faith help them survive in the jungle?

Their beliefs and their beliefs, their faith, and praying just kept them going. When they were running, they were all young, and the scariest moment of her life, my mom's life was when my aunt was still in the womb, and my uncle, who was just like a year above her, was only like weeks, you know, and I think that was like the scariest moment of her life

was just losing her family, you know, and she remembers specifically just when the Burmese soldiers were coming, and they were just, like, flaming, up everybody's houses and they grabbed what they could and just ran down to the riverside and hid for as long as they could until they saw that the flame started disappearing and people were like quieting down but when they started quiet down you would just know that they either just didn't make it or they ran as far as they could but for them they just

survived by just hiding near the riverside and waiting for that flame to just go down That day that you had been in the money to me, because I'm about my play, but then you know. That day just stuck in her mind forever because that day they didn't feel hungry at all. Like the only thing they had was just water, no food, no nothing, and just trying to keep the whole family quiet from what was just like by their side, you know. And they just thank God and just kept praying that he's, was going to free them from whatever was just terrorizing them and the people you know and I think

he did free them you know because they yeah yeah that day was just like unforgettable because of how close they were to just not being here great and God protected you and your family mm-hmm that sounds very scary I'm so sorry yeah um just it was grandma have anything she wants to add about that? Wow. When they were all hiding, she was about to shower my uncle, who was still a baby, you know, but then they didn't have time, so she just wrapped him up in a little blanket that they had. It wasn't really a blanket, maybe it was just like a cloth that they had and just hid each other.

And when the soldiers were like burning up the places, somehow the fire, the flame didn't burn their house, which was right next to the flame, you know, it was amazing. It just surpassed them right away and just kept going. And then all of a sudden like the flames, the fire came down and everybody started disappearing from where they were at and when they came back, like their house stood still.

Yeah. She just thanks God for that they would have been and they've got to-do-jee-and-do-jee. Yeah. She just thanks God for that day. To them, it was just unforgettable because it could have, like, it could have, like, burned up everything

that they had in that home, you know? But I think their faith and their prayer is what just made them stood still in their beliefs, yeah. Thank you so much for sharing this about this difficult day. She doesn't have a problem. She doesn't really, my aunt Cecilia, doesn't really remember much because she was around like 10 years old when she started running. But when she was running, she was the one that got sick and was out for like a month straight.

I know she had her siblings to like carry her because she was the youngest and the littlest, you know, but she was out for like a month straight with no medication, no recollection of any that happened around her at all, you know, because she was just sick the whole time. They were just running, you know, and the only thing that, like, healed her was just, like, people's prayers, you know, there was no medicine that could heal her. There were none at all, you know, and even though she didn't, like, regain all her energy, she still, like, was able to wake up, you know, yeah, so she's just very thankful for that. Yeah, like when she was just sick that whole month, they weren't in any land at all.

They were just hiding in the forest running. What's it? 1997, yeah, around that age. She was about like 10, you know, running. But she was just out. Yeah. So 1997 that year is also like a year that they won't forget because my mom was pregnant with her second, you know, and they're, you know. They were hiding in the woods and they heard that the Burmese soldiers were in the villages

already, you know, terrorizing people, burning down, killing everybody. She was about to be due, but there was no one at all because everybody had just left and, you know, saved themselves and started running and there was only my grandmother there, my aunt, my dad and my mom there and my oldest brother there, you know, and they were just really scared for their life because she couldn't run due to the pain. And all of a sudden they prayed and she just miraculously gave birth. Like I don't know where, like that baby just popped, you know. My aunt just grabbed a cloth and ran with the baby.

Yeah, that's my sister, the second that was born in the jungle, just ran with the baby. And my grandmother just gave my mom like a hot pot, a hot glass of water. And she drank it and then they all just started running from there. Yeah. You ran right after giving birth? Yeah, right after giving birth. Gosh.

Well, when you're going to do. Um, I get a plan, and you play, put to Oba. Yeah, and I say that you'll play, what you play to Opa. What is this called? Ash.

Oh, so when my grandmother was giving birth to my aunt here, she just gave birth herself, pushed it all by herself and everything with no guide. She had to do it all by herself. And after she had to do it all by herself. And after she gave birth, she scoop, three scoop of ashes, put in hot water, drank it. Then she also drank the tumic root, three cups of it, drank it, and then they just started running. Wow.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, there was no one to give birth to her, like to help her out. So, when she was about to be due, so my grandmother just grabbed like a piece of clothing and tied it around her stomach to try help push the baby out. Yeah, that's how like easy the baby was able to come out, just using that cloth to push the belly down and everything, you know. Trying to see other people in the jungle was also hard because, you know, everybody had their own families to save, their own lives to save, so they kind of just had to help each other out. Did you know these stories already? No, I did not know at all. What do you think of all of this?

I think that it's amazing. I think these are strong women. I don't really hear men involved, so I'm going to say that they're strong, independent woman. So I'm really proud of them. It makes me very emotional thinking about this because that's not the life that I'm going to have. And, yeah. I'm wondering if we can talk about getting to Thailand and what life was like, how did they decide to go there, how they get there, how they find it. So they were running and all of a sudden they heard from like different people that were just

passed down from like section by section people to people that Thailand existed and there was a refugee camp nearby. So after that they just started walking and climbing through the mountains, the jungle, the forest, rivers, I know they had to cross that and it just kept going until they reached that camp. I don't know how they did it without a map, but... Wow. So she, my grandma actually went to Thailand by herself first with her oldest daughter, my aunt. And it took her one month to get there, you know. So while the other family members stayed behind, she and my aunt took that courage to go and find that place, you know? So they walked day and night just to find it for a month. So when my grandma and my mom,

aunt took the courage to go to Thailand, they didn't go back for the rest of the family. They both just stayed there. Yeah, they both just stayed there and continue living there. So I'm going to ask my mom how she came because she never went back to the rest of her family. After the war died down a little bit, people were able to settle down and started cropping again and started building. and started building a home. But for my mom, like, she was planting the sesame seeds. And sesame seeds were pretty famous back then and known,

and a lot of people wanted it. So she was able to collect some money from it, you know, from people buying it. And she came to Thailand just with her four kids and her. So my dad stayed behind, then came after. They started walking. And there were also, like, fees that they had to pay because they had to cross this ocean,

but you can't cross it without a boat or else you're just going to drown and yeah a ocean or a river it's like a big river though it's not an ocean but it's like big river you know and they had to cross that and they had to pay boat fees you know so that's why they all came like separately because there weren't enough people weren't making enough money but they were only like making somewhere they had to pay for like transportation fees yeah so she paid with sesame seed money yes yes Do you, does she grow sesame seed now? I'm a little bit too. There's no place to like grow it now.

And then my grandma said that each year, each family would come, you know, not to get there. But they were just, each year they would take turn coming because of money fees. And I want to know her experience of how she came to Thailand. So my aunt and her oldest sister found a way to come back to Thailand and Burma. So my aunt and her oldest sister, the oldest sister, found a way to go and come back to Thailand in Burma. You know, so my aunt and her older sister were the first two to actually get to Thailand. But my, they mainly their routes would just be like, you know, walking through the job. jungles, the mountains, and then when they get to that river where they had to pay the feed,

and they would get on the boat. And then you might not eat it. And she stayed by herself. It's just them too. And then my aunt went back for that one month again walking to go pick up my grandma, and then they came back. And then that's when everybody started coming one by one by one. That's when people were like building foundations and everything and there were supports helping out. My aunt was able to put her in school and get people to help her around, you know, to put her through school because it still wasn't free, even though they just got out of this war. So even though there were refugee camp, it was like a big city, you know, and it was put into sections, and each section is still big. And in their section, our family was the first to be there. And then after that, like, we were able to, like, pass down messages to our relatives, our cousins, and others to come to that section too.

How did you survive there? Like, was there work? What kind of things did you eat and grow? Was there enough food? Was there the right food? When they got there, they still worked. but each month they would give out food. Here they are talking about the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees,

and it's the UN Refugee Agency. You know, so they would get a pack of rice, a pack of yellow beans, and a pack of oil. Yeah, each month they would get that. Only like, you know, like maybe like a bag each for each family. So what else did they eat? So in Thailand, I'm all that you, I'm doing it.

Yeah, it's a plada, you're there's a boke. So in Thailand, I remember a little bit that our houses were like still spacious, but like on the side of it, they would have their own crops and land and garden where they would plant their own vegetables

and some sort of, but my mom's favorite, she said, was boke, I don't really know, I don't think I've seen it. Poofoo kind of. Oh, you know, um, I think it's called yuka, yaka. Okay, is it like long? Yeah, it's brown.

With brown and white inside? Yeah, yeah. Okay, yuca. My mom would like... Or cassava? Yeah, yeah, my mom would like plant those and she would also like sell them to other people because it was like, I think it was like hard to get it back then, you know?

It's really rare too. Like not a lot of people know about it here. I didn't know about it until I was maybe in America. Where did you find seeds and roots to grow? There were people that lived up in the Thailand mountains that were pretty known for like selling stuff. So sometimes my mom would go up there by their roots and seeds and they come back down. And the yucca is only sold by the roots, not the seeds, yeah. Sometimes if they needed seeds, yeah.

if they needed seeds to like plant a certain something, since they had like relatives still back in Thailand, I mean Burma, they would like, you know, ask and they would have to buy it because you know everybody was kind of still trying to survive. They would just buy it off of each other, support each other's small businesses. Does she remember which like an example of a seed she had to buy from Burma? Delita, she said that you have it here, but I don't really know the name.

It's like a long green... Is it a lufa? Can you use it for a sponge too? Yeah, it's used as a sponge or like, you know, to clean your skin yourself. The lufa you needed to get from Burma. Okay, well, maybe we could talk about coming to the US and then we can look at some plants. Okay. So my grandma, my aunt, Cecilia, and my uncle and his two kids,

were the first in our family to come to America. These organizations would come down to the refugee camp, and if you had the United Nations picture, then that's when you would be able to apply and get a caseworker. But before that, they would have to interview you about your life, live, get to know you more, yet check out your health. I think back then, like, it was easy to kind of apply. People would just kind of ask you a little bit about your life, your family who's coming with you, and get accepted from there. When was this? 2010. And why was your family

interested in leaving the familiar place of Thailand and Burma to come so far away? My little, my. I don't know, ma. I thought that's just about, you know, and the other, it's a good, oh, yeah.

My grandma, since she was the oldest, people kind of looked at her when they were interviewing to be the decision-maker, but she felt confident in her bone that she did not want to come at all because she was old, you know? But then,

somehow the people that were working there in that organization kind of told her kind of told her that since she's the oldest, she would be making most of the decisions and she would know more, you know? But not only that, like, they told her to look at her children's and her grandkids of the opportunities that they would get coming here, you know, so she didn't just make like a quick decision right away. She had to think about it for, like, maybe like a week or so to see if she really

wanted to come here. So that's why I was just making her laugh because she set her mom. mind to go back to Burma and live there, you know. She just wanted to live that quiet village former life, you know. But then she started thinking about all the opportunities that our families could have and that's when she decided to go through with the process. What did the rest of you think? So when my grandma came, the rest of her kids also came and her kids also had like families of their own. but they all came together and my mom, our family was the only family left. And since she saw all her family here, she wanted to come, but my dad didn't want to come.

So they were kind of bickering back and forth about coming or not. And my mom made the decision of having my dad just signed a piece of paper that gave us the right. Since he was the man of the house, he was the one that was making the decision and not us, you know? So my mom asked him to just sign this United Nations paper that allowed us to come as her and her five kids. But when he got to the office, I guess he had a change of heart and didn't sign that paper and decided to continue the process with my mom. You came together? Yes, yes. She was just mainly looking at us to get our education and a better life for everyone.

Yeah. Wonderful. Well, here you are. Can you tell me how you've been keeping the traditions going here, especially around food, but all of the traditions? Keeping our tradition alive to her was just bringing crops and, you know, like keeping those exotic or foreign crops alive with them, and bringing it here and being able to just plant, like how they would back in Burma, Thailand, and here. And ever since working with Nato, like, they had the opportunity to continue their garden to grow more and more, you know, with many fresh, non-chemical or any of those vegetables. But ever since they met you guys and many other teachers, it touched their hearts, and it just kept their country, like in the back of their mind,

you know like it's still alive here too they still grow on six and emily in south philly and then now noddo's kind of helping them expand the garden to like the school furnace you know and now here getting to know more everything yeah okay well maybe we can look at some of those special crops together okay should we start with um we could maybe go to lufa here we're going to switch from sitting around the fire to walking around the field and looking at plants Sometimes when what they would do is just like harvest it, and you know how like when you burn like corn on top of campfires, this is what they would do.

Because they're sweet, it's better to kind of just like cover them over the campfire and eat them after when they're like burnt and done. Oh, so you cook them over the flames when they're young like this? Yeah, yeah. We tried this preparation with the young lufa on the fire, and it was sweet and delicious and juicy. So when they're older like this, then they harvest the seed, and then on the inside, they're like soft but like rough at the same time. They'd use it to like kind of scrape their bodies and clean like pots and pants. Let's look at winter melon too.

Winter melon. What are kind of? Oh, okay. So these are really good for you if you have kidney stones. You can pound it, eat it raw, and it also reduces fat. Okay. Do you make it with soup also? Yeah.

Can you describe like the recipe for the winter melon soup? soup. For the seasoning, you get a big pot of water. You can put meat in it too because it's also good. But for her, she said she mainly uses like chicken feet, boils it. And when the water seems good enough, hot enough, then she cuts this watermelon into pieces, you know, and then put it in, season it with salt, MSG, chicken seasoning, and that's pretty much it. like no.

Okay. Do you remember when we had that chili paste, the green chili paste? So these leaves are also like good for it too. And the leaves of the winter melon? Yes. And do you also remember the yellow flower plant? Yeah, you could put it in a soup with them. It's really good too.

Okay, with the sun hemp. We'll go there in a moment. Oh, nice. So soup with winter melon, shoot, and sun hemp flowers. Let's look at the pumpkin leaf. I think grandma said her favorite food from childhood was the pumpkin leaf. So maybe she could describe it. So for the pumpkin leaves, they would mainly eat it in porridge, you know, with rice and everything.

They would cut these into, like, pieces, put it in. You would have to, like, cook the rice first to make it softer to eat. Yeah. You can either put it in the same time, but it's better because, you know, the leaves fall apart and they boil easily. so it's better to just soften the rice first, cook it first, season it with whatever you want to seize it. But, you know, obviously salt and MSG or like the main seasoning, if you wanted a little spice, maybe a little chili flake, and then, you know, cut it up into pieces and put it in. And it's good.

It's healthy. But I remember not really liking the stem of the plant because it would be like hard for me to chew. Yeah. Can you show me the best pumpkin leaf if we would make porridge today? Oh, so like this batch right here. Since they're like babies, it's better and easier. So it's the new tendril, the end of the vine with the little leaves. The other day I saw her like make this porridge.

Yeah, it's very delicious. They shared it with me before. Oh yeah, you tried it? Yeah, it's good. Hi, I would love to hear from you all about the importance of Chimbong, how you use it and any recipes you might want to share, things like that. So they said that if they want like sort of a sour soup, then they would put the chimbab leaf, you know, and sometimes bamboo, like strip it into pieces, slice it, dice it.

But also, yeah, you can also fry it. That's the way I like it, you know, fry it and make it a little bit of spicy for me. And then also you can, do you know these sardine cans? Mm-hmm. Yeah, they're really good to like mix it with them. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, she said that she can make many recipes with this.

She said that maybe Noddl brought like a dish for you to eat last time. So that, that one mainly is her favorite. But she said, they all said that it's really good with sardine can. Like that's the best that it tastes with. Yeah, I had some, and you call it Bessido? Yeah, Bessido. Yeah, so when you said Chimba the other day, I was like, what is Chimba? I've never heard of it, you know, but then my mom, yeah, yeah.

But then that's when I realized, oh, it's in Burmese, you know. So the Korean word is Bessido. Yeah. Yeah, I've had it many ways, and I think I also had it very dry with chili, but the main way is the stew, like the soup with the fish. And the bamboo shoots. You had that before? Yeah.

Many times, many times, because Nado, you know, Nado always brings Bessido. And this is also a seed that we sell in the catalog now. It was very difficult to find the seeds because I know originally they were cooking spinach with tamarind and then cooking the African type, but it was too watery. And now this is the right type from Burma. And now your grandmother's face is on the seed packets. Do we get to keep these? Yes, yes, and I have posters of it also to give you.

Hi. So, as Grandma, I've seen it before. A couple years ago, we worked with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and they gave us funding to hire artists. So we asked each community that we worked with to pick an artist. And Nado worked with Shira and... Enne. Yes, Enne.

Yes, to create, and so she did the portrait of your grandma and N.A. did the portrait of the Bessido in the back. What does your grandmother think of this? She said she can't look at her face. It looks scary. You've been about it either. Or do you mind taking a picture for us or should we do this after? No, I can do it. Yeah. One, two, three. That's nice. I think it's lovely. I think it's really pretty. You know, it shows every detail of her face. And it looks exactly like her.

I just don't know what she doesn't like about. I think it's so beautiful. It even shows the way her hair moves in front of her face. I kept seeing you moving her hair for her. Amazing. Okay. All right. And then this is the type for the leaf,

and that is the type for the fruit. Maybe they can talk a little bit about the fruit. For what they do is they take out the seed and separate it from the skin. and they would dry the skin itself. And for medicine use back then, if you had like hepatitis, yellow skin, or something wrong with your liver, then they would boil it. And you would just drink the soup,

and that would help, like, relieve soothe. Okay, so from the red part, they would make a juice by boiling for medicine. Yeah. Yeah, you could also, like, eat the skin too, boil it. No, just the skin. Just the red part. They don't really do much with the seed because when it gets older like this and you touch it or something, itches your skin.

But there isn't really much used to the seeds. Okay, except for planting. Yes. Okay, the yellow flower. This is Hokka-po in Koran. Yeah, you can also use this in porridge, but you know, they said that it's best to just like soften the rice. first, you know, it takes a long time because the plant kind of dissolves in the soup quickly and it like is really soft and sometimes if you boil it too early, you can't really find it in the porridge.

They don't really know the use of this, but yeah, this is really like good for you, very like energized if you eat it, you know, yeah. Well, we grew, we know it as sun hemp and we grow, we grow up. it just to hold the soil in place while we're not growing another crop. And it's the first time we grew it. They use it for the same reason, too, to also help the crops around and stabilize it. But they also want to give a big thank you because they haven't had it in many, many, many years. You know, so this is the first time they've had it in that many years.

Oh, I'm so glad. And did you have it, like, dry or frozen or anything? I remember last maybe a couple weeks ago, you saw it and you got so excited and I didn't even know it was a food crop So this is a pretty infamous Crops for everyone around even the world in America because they don't have that at all You know so my mom got home from my mom got home from just picking it, she was just showing it off to her friends that, you know, like, yeah, they have it here and they've kind of like been asking her if they could send it over to like where they are

because they don't have that at all, you know. I think maybe this is the only place they know that they have it here, you know. So yeah. Yeah, and so last week, the four of you came a week ago and spent maybe an hour or two in this patch taking all the yellow flowers and you're welcome to take them again. Only a little bit this time they said. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you for teaching us about this crop.

We had no idea. Also, like, the seeds is also, like, wanted everywhere because, you know, everybody wants to plant it somewhere. Yeah. So you pee a bad bad day. She loves it so much. She's picking it right now in the middle of this. Nice.

Into her basket. Yes, we're hoping that we get good seeds from these seed pods. We're waiting for them to be all the way ripe so we can share them with your kids. community. Ever since being in America, they've kind of compared fruits and vegetables with how they look like back in Thailand and Burma versus here in America, but this is the only thing that they've seen that is like grow the same, built the same, you know, just plant the same

from where they came from. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, maybe we can look at the dish that you've made. with it and end our conversation by the table. Okay. Okay, so this is the dish. Okay, so this is the dish.

Mm-hmm. So, what are beef, blood in the look-ed-doller, be a honey-ha-a-hound-wine-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Sunbeam, right, you said? Sun-hemp. And then this is a bean, maybe a hyacinth bean. scent bean and then there's also like pumpkin leaves here too and some sliced onion we see what do you call this soup

okay it's pretty long but that dotara like a cutu tea yeah tat do that's a lot is just one word vegetable and cututi is the soup and what else did you bring so this is um boiled veggies with the sum ham some bamboo and even boiled chili pepper in here you know and then after that they use the mortar and pistol to like squish it down a little bit more mortar and pestle what do you call that in your language? Uh nya-uh. This one is just in the motor right away so you can like tell the difference between like the paste of it. So yeah this is this has chili and some

fish. Yeah, baby fish and scallian roots in here. Yeah. Thank you so much for bringing this food. Was there something else they wanted to show? Yes. This is the, oh, do you remember the sardine can paste that we talked about? And the, do you remember the baby pepper, like the tiny ones?

So it's used in here? Yep. So the ceiling libuyo, the Filipino bird pepper? Yes, yes, yes. So you said the pepper and the sardines. Some onions as I see in here. Yeah, but don't forget the seasoning because with all that you're going to need. Seasoning, MSG and salt.

Yesg and salt. The two main important for them. Remember the tomato she also picked last week, so this is cooked with this, the fish, some tomato. some tomato. But where do you? So in Koran, they call themselves Kajako, but in English I would interpret it as mountain people.

You know, they grew up in the mountain, planting the mountains, and most of their food are just like hen eaten, handmade and handplant. So I think they're just, I really thankful that everything that they have here fresh for them also I want to share this this is bamboo bamboo and inside here is sticky rice you know so you remember the campfire that's how they were

like heated up get it well cooked and done yeah you can also like cook inside it too like meals and stuff yeah like big with of course like bigger like bamboos I guess one thing one last very last question what are your hope for your daughter and your other children, grandchildren in the U.S. related to Korean culture. They just hope for anyone listening and even for their grandkids that they tell them in person to that to just never forget where they come from and what they went through to just, you know, like kind of keep their tradition and culture alive, but most importantly to just be grateful and thankful for what they've had and to just never like take anything for granted.

Well, thank you for interpreting B, and thank all of you for coming to the farm and sharing your stories. Really amazing stories of culture and survival. And I appreciate all the time you've spent with us. Thank you. Thank you for inviting us. They just want to say that they're really thankful for, you know, inviting them on this podcast and bringing them along in their garden journey. And yeah, maybe I could bring my nephew here because he wants to be a farmer.

Yeah, he wants to be a farmer. Remember my second sister that was born in the jungle, her son. He wants to be a farmer. be a farmer. Please, please bring anybody. Okay, well, someday. All right, I guess we're going to eat. Thank you.

Thank you so much to Nagee, Mune, Cecilia, Mu, and Blute. And thank you for listening and sharing this episode of Seeds and their people with your loved ones. Please share this episode with someone else you know and subscribe to our show in your favorite podcast app. Thank you also for helping our seed keeping and storytelling work by leaving us a review and also ordering seeds, t-shirts, and more from our website.

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