I was watching “My Fair Lady” last night. It has been ages since I have seen it. I was taken with the part where Eliza leaves and Henry Higgins finds her at his mother’s house. Eliza says that she felt that she has always been treated like a lady by Mr. Pickering and that subsequently she felt like Henry had not treated her like a lady. But Higgins countered that he felt it was more important to treat all people the same. I think there is some truth in that. Of course I believe we should treat all people well and with respect (Henry Higgins admitted he was grouchy with everyone).

Over the years I have been in many positions to learn about the stories of people from other countries and places. For the past 12 years I have been a writer for Hmong Times. The Hmong people are an ethnic group from Southeast Asia that had there traditional way of life uprooted by the Vietnam war. Their story is not so different from my in-laws.

Many Hmong people have settled in St. Paul and are setting up new traditions. For the past 34 years the J4 Freedom Celebration and Soccer tournament has been the event of the summer but for many years I didn’t go, mostly because crowds are not really my thing. But this year I went and was really impressed.  Here are some pictures of the event.

Bee brought three generations of his family to enjoy the event that brings literally 10s of the thousands of people from all over the country. So this summer I encourage you to get out, meet new people, hear their stories and have fun all at the same time.