Chon (my nickname in Laos), you should study not just electricity, but also the other new things here. We have now roads going to bigger markets and hospitals, schools and a big health centre nearer to us; the Internet. The government and the company already provided for our needs here. We’re now “modern” (thansamai); it's more comfortable (sabay kouaa) here than before,” Pho Keo told us, with conviction.

“Comfortable (Sabay)? Perhaps for you, but not for me, siao (buddy),” Pho Tha responded, and then he took a swig of his beer. As the old man resumed lamenting:

“How can I feel comfortable like you if I don't have money to buy a sack of rice and medicine? I have no work here; I lost my gardens; I couldn't catch fish here because the river has a low water level. I couldn't do swidden because I haven't received the promised land from the company … The forest is also far from here. You ni you lala!! [Literally: Here just living; it means “doing nothing”] … How can I feel comfortable like you if I’m always worried about my son illegally working in Thailand to provide for our needs? … Perhaps we’re both modern now because we have electricity and roads here, but still, we’re different because you’re comfortable here; I am not.”

Then Pho Tha excused himself for a while to go to the toilet. “He's already drunk; he already talked a lot,” Pho Keo told me. After that, he proposed a toast to me.