Khi Tes: The Strings That Bind Us All Together
There is an idea that there is no real concept of “self” within the Hmong culture — that we live our lives as a collective whole. And when I stand in a room with my wrists raised for all my relatives to tie a string to, I feel that collective nature at its strongest.
Strings were tied around my wrist when I was born. It was part of the hu plig ceremony to welcome me into life, where a shaman stood at my doorway and recited a chant to call forth my soul into my body.
The smell of incense filled our duplex, its trail of smoke rising from a bowl of uncooked rice that held the sticks in place. Next to the door was a chicken that was bound by its feet, its life soon to be sacrificed in exchange for the safe arrival of my soul.
When the shaman finished, my parents carried me to a table where all of my relatives then crowded around us, tying a string around my wrist as they recited a blessing.
My whole life has been a process of holding up my wrists to have these strings tied around them. Sometimes they were decorative — thin red, black, and white strings twisted together to become one, and it would just be that single string upon my wrist. Sometimes they were just a plain white cotton yarn but with dozens running up each wrist, like the strings I received as a newborn.
The strings are meant to bless me and to place good fortune upon my life, but as I’ve gotten older—and when I really pay attention to what’s happening in that room—I begin to see the real meaning in the beauty of the strings.
The meaning stands in juxtaposition to who I am as an individual. I grew up always searching for this need to be free, and this freedom came through a process of self-discovery. But the irony of my self-discovery was that—it was not a matter of selfhood—but instead a matter of realizing just how many things outside of myself I was truly rooted into.
The strings have come to represent that sense of rootedness. A rootedness to things beyond myself, things bigger than myself—more important than myself: My family, my friends, my community, my culture, my people. Our history, our heritage, our beliefs, our story.
And when my inner nature makes me feel alone within my journey, the strings remind me of all the things that I am rooted into. The strings are more than my relative’s blessings over my life. They are my relatives themselves. They are my family, my community, my culture, and they remind me that I am part of a story that is so much bigger than myself.
There is an idea that there is no real concept of “self” within the Hmong culture — that we live our lives as a collective whole. And when I stand in a room with my wrists raised for all my relatives to tie a string to, I feel that collective nature at its strongest.
It is a powerful feeling to know so intimately the collective story of everyone in that room, of how not even 50 years ago we had lost our homes to war, but somehow came together and found a sense of home amongst each other.
It is a home that cannot be revoked, a home that we cannot be exiled from, a home where there is no displacement because it exists everywhere. This home is our collective story, where my story is a continuation of my parent’s story, and their story is a continuation of their parent’s story. And a beautiful web develops within the community because we understand one another’s story without ever needing to state it.
The strings around my wrist are tied into an infinite loop. They are a never-ending reminder that my story is not my own, but instead one that is shared between all the people inside of that room. The strings I receive possess the same meaning and blessing found within my relative’s own strings—the same meaning and blessing found within your’s, the very string tied around your own wrist that binds you and me together.
