Just How Meaningful is a Chicken?

Chickens. I admit, we never meant for my little hobby to get this crazy. But, chicken math. We’ve had chickens for a long while and I’ve had chickens on and off since I was a child.  In the Hmong culture, chickens hold a very important role. In fact, it is believed that when a person passes, it is a rooster that guides the person’s soul into the afterlife. Every time a relative visits from afar, the lady of the house will pack an entire steamed chicken with rice for the relative’s journey home. It is a custom from the old country when traveling by foot meant the journey home could take days. The chicken would fill the traveler’s belly so they could make it home without going hungry. It is a symbol of love to have someone pack a chicken for you. A few years ago, I read an essay written by a young Hmong man whose mother had passed away. When he and his friends went home for the holidays, he watched as all of the other mothers packed steamed chicken and rice for their sons for their journey back. In that moment, he regretted all the times he had thrown away the chicken his mother had packed him in favor of a Big Mac from McDonald’s. It’s the simple gestures that you miss when a loved one is gone. He cried ugly tears when one of the other mothers packed a chicken for him as well. Ever since reading that essay, I eat every bit of everything that my mother packs me when I visit, even if it takes me a week to finish it all.

My father told me that the whole reason my family is here in the United States is because of a couple of chickens. Let me explain. It is believed that when a chicken is poached whole, that the way the feet and eyes look will give you an indication of the future, good or bad. After the Vietnam War ended, the Americans pulled out of Laos. That left the Hmong fighters who had fought on the side of the Americans at the mercy of the ruling Communist Lao government. They had two options: flee to Thailand and leave everything behind or stay and risk death. My family offered up two chickens to the ancestors and asked them for guidance. One chicken represented the dangerous trek to Thailand and the other, to remain where they were and hope for the best. Both chickens were butchered and poached, then had their feet examined by the elders. The feet of the chicken indicating Thailand looked much better. So, most of the village packed up with they could, and they fled the country. Thousands of people died making that journey. Still thousands more stayed and lost their lives to the continued fighting. My parents arrived in Thailand in 1979 and were placed in a refugee camp (where they fell in love and married but that’s a whole other story). Countries from around the world offered to take in war refugees. My parents were given the option of three different countries in which to resettle: the US, France, and China. Again, they left their fates in the hands (actually feet) of chickens. This time, they offered 3 chickens to the ancestors and asked for their guidance on where to go. My father says the worst chicken feet were on the chicken that signified China. The group of refugees headed to China ended up having their convoy attacked and most of the group died. The second best was France. Many Hmong resettled there. But for our family, my father says the best-looking chicken feet belonged to the chicken that signified the US, so that is where they decided to go. Three years later, I was born. Then, in 2009, I walked across the stage at UCLA to accept my Doctor of Dental Surgery degree. I find it ironic that I spent my entire life trying to find a way out of poverty only to find my solace back in a yard full of chickens.