Growing up in the Eighties
By Douangchit Mounghane

Ever owned a banana clip, neon colored clothing, had big bangs and hair, went through a can of hairspray a week, wore a lot of black and white and those oversized collar shirts, got all caught up in the whole New Wave era (remixes of stolen songs), and attended a lot of bouns (community parties)? If so, then you grew up as Lao adolescents in the eighties. Like other Americans growing up in that decade, we share a common experience. Take a look at this edited version of a chain e-mail I received in January of 2003. I am not sure who is the originator, so cannot provide credit where it is due.

When I was a kid adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; walking twenty-five miles to school every morning uphill both ways through year-round blizzards, carrying their younger siblings on their backs to their one-room schoolhouse where they maintained a straight A average despite their full-time after-school job at the local textile mill where they worked for 35 cents an hour just to help keep their family from starving to death! And I remember promising myself that when I grew up there was no way I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I've reached the ripe old age of twenty-nine, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you won't even know how good you've got it! I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. When we wanted to know something, we had to go to the library and look it up ourselves! Remember those encyclopedias? And there was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there! And there were no MP3s or Napsters! If you wanted to steal music, you had to go to the record store and shoplift it yourself! Or we had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and mess it all up!

We didn't have stuff like call waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal! And we didn't have fancy caller ID boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was; it could be your boss, your Mom, a collections agent, a telemarketer, you didn't know!!! You just had to pick it up and take your chances!

Moreover, we didn't have high-technology Sony Playstation videogames with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and "Asteroids" and the graphics sucked! Your guy was a little square! You had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens; it was just one screen forever! And you could never win, the game just kept getting harder and faster until you died!

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy sat in front of you, you were screwed!

And sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 20 channels and there was no onscreen menu! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! And there was no Cartoon Network! You could only get cartoons on Saturday morning. Hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK, you spoiled little ones!

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1984!