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Show His name is Wongsiri Lamsam. I met him a few weeks ago at the Provo plant of the Pleasant Grove Canning Company. He was working on the corn huskers and doing a good job of it, too. He was short and stocky about five feet four, with the olive skin, flat face, high cheek bones and straight black hair of the typical Oriental. His hands -were small for a man, but he used them deftly as he fed the corn ears into the husking machines. During a ten-minute rest period, he came over and sat down on a tomato box beside me. We naturally natur-ally fell into conversation, and from his broken English I assumed assum-ed he was Japanese. "Were you bom in Japan?" I asked. "Oh no," said he, "I was born in Thialand. I suppose you know my country better by the old name of Siam." Like most Orientals he was rather on the quiet and reticent side; but through friendly questioning ques-tioning he was stimulated to unwind un-wind the following story: He told of his boyhood in Siam and the work of the "Elephant Boys" in the teak forests of his native land. "What is the prevailing prevail-ing wage for a young man in your country?" I asked. "About fifty dollars a month," he answered, "but you can buy 20 times as much with it as you can here." He came to Provo two years ago by way of Australia, where he had paused for a year or so to recoup his finances. He is currently cur-rently a junior in the school of Engineering at the Brigham Young University the only Siamese registered reg-istered in the school, he said. When asked why he came to BYU, Wongsiri said that his sister sis-ter had visited Provo on her honeymoon hon-eymoon to the states two years ago. Returning home she stopped to visit him in Australia. Wongsiri Wong-siri told her that he intended attending at-tending the University of Arizona at Tucson. "No you're not," said she, "you're going to the BYU." "And so," said Wongsiri, "I'm here." He said that he had joined the Mormon Church, after giving the campus missionaries a rough time. "I drank and smoked; but that's all behind me now," he added. When asked what he thought of the Americans, he said they are always in too much of a hurry; and that some of them will take advantage of you if you don't watch out. He explained that a garageman had quoted him a price of $150 to fix his jalopy, while another one repaired it for $25. So this is the story of a young Oriental traveling half way around the world to a strange land, and accepting friendly advice to attend a great University. In two years he has acquired a new language, a clean set of habits and is well on his way to success. How many Utah boys have squandered such an opportunity? So long 'til Thursday. |
