Seido Family: the Bhutan, Nepal, Omaha, Chicago Connection

from the September, 2011 issue of Kiai!

By Jun Shihan Nancy Lanoue
Co-Executive Director
Kyoshi Sarah Ludden
Co-Executive Director

Most martial artists get the gifts of good health, mental focus, and a persevering spirit from their practice. In addition to these, we Seido members get a very special gift – the opportunity to connect with people from across the globe whom we would never have met had not our shared love of Seido brought us together. Kyoshi Sarah and I recently received this gift when we invited Mon Tamang, a Seido student from Nepal now living in Omaha, Nebraska, to come to Chicago for 10 days to train intensively at Thousand Waves and stay with us in our home.

Jun Shihan Nancy’s Report:

Mon is originally from Bhutan, a small Himalayan country in South Asia. He is a member of the Lhotshampa ethnic group, a people of Nepali origin who began immigrating to Bhutan hundreds of years ago. In the early 1980s, discrimination against the Lhotshampa escalated into full-scale ethnic cleansing. Over 200,000 people, including nine year old Mon and his family were eventually forced out. Most of them ended up in refugee camps set up in eastern Nepal by the United Nations and local NGOs to accommodate them temporarily.

As so often happens with refugees, a temporary solution became permanent, so Mon grew up and spent 19 years in the Goldhap refugee camp, enduring poor nutrition and crowded conditions of great privation. In the camp there was only mud and thatched roof housing and no modern sanitation. Cooking had to be done with wood or charcoal, creating terrible air pollution.

Fortunately, Mon was able to go to school and receive an education including English language study, and there he discovered martial arts and his passion for it. Shito-ryu, a traditional Okinawan system, was offered in the camp school, and Mon became an avid student, eventually reaching the rank of brown belt. Despite his talent and dedication, he was unable to earn his black belt because he could not afford the testing fees.

As a young adult, Mon was offered a job as a teacher at a school in Bhairahawa, a town in western Nepal and was able to leave the camp. There he found a Seido dojo that had been established by Senpai KB Rana, who had affiliated with Seido after connecting with Kaicho in India. KB Rana has himself never been able to come to New York to study at honbu, but he has done his best to learn the massive Seido syllabus from Kaicho’s books and pass it along to his students. After several years of study at the Bhairahawa dojo, Mon earned his Seido shodan (1st degree black belt) in 2007.

After returning to the Goldhap camp, Mon took over the dojo there when the Shito-ryu teacher left and began teaching Seido. He enjoyed teaching, and his dojo thrived. He continued teaching there until March of 2010 when Mon, his wife Mongali, their three children, and extended family members were resettled by the United Nations in Omaha, Nebraska.

In his new Midwestern home, Mon went right to work on getting established, and eventually succeeded in getting a job for himself with the postal service, and a job for Mongali at a meat packing company. His family is working now with Habitat for Humanity in a sweat-equity program that will enable them to get a loan for and move into their own home by the end of this year. But he never forgot his dream to get back to teaching Seido Karate.

Anyone who wants to teach Seido Karate needs Kaicho’s permission and to get that, the person must go to New York and train, so that Kaicho can check their knowledge of the syllabus, but more importantly, get to know them and know their character. When Mon told Kaicho he was not able to afford a trip to New York at this time, Kaicho suggested that he try to come to Chicago to study with me and Kyoshi Sarah, and when he wrote us requesting permission to visit, we enthusiastically said yes.

Kyoshi Sarah’s Report:

The adventure began at the airport – me eagerly awaiting our guest with my “Mon Tamang” sign, our cell phones not connecting , Mon’s luggage lost then found, and my friend Kim waiting patiently for almost two hours in the cell phone lot. But we eventually connected, shared shy embraces and drove to my house. Kim left for work; I showed Mon to his room and then nervously prepared lunch. Fortunately, we had rice, vegetables, and fruit, all prepared the way he likes.

Our home is blessed with the international cooking skills of my partner Nancy, with spices and foods from all over the world. She loves to cook, nurture relationships via food, and has had cooking mentors from many countries, including south Asia. And, it turns out, Mon is a great cook, too!

During Mon’s visit, we cooked and ate together, talking and laughing while we prepared many delicious south Asian dishes. “A perfect Nepali kitchen,” Mon happily exclaimed the first night, when we were able to proffer all he asked for – chana dal, turmeric, basmati rice, ginger, garlic, cumin, etc. We were off to a great start.

For the next 10 days Mon took every class offered at our dojo, trained with black belts in the mid-day and studied with Jun Shihan Nancy intensively, starting with breakfast and ending late each night. While Mon learned Seido curriculum and history, we learned about his history, culture and personal aspirations. He is a devoted family man and extraordinarily dedicated to Seido karate. By the time Mon left us, we had worked our way through ALL the colored belt and shodan syllabus. With one more visit, we are confident he will reach his goal of wanting to know everything a Seido shodan in the United States is expected to know.

The plan as we go forward is that Senpai Mon will visit Chicago again and we will finish preparing him to go to New York to study with Kaicho a year from now. In the meantime we encouraged him to practice his teaching by introducing his own extended family to Seido karate.

What a heart-opening experience this has been for all of us at Thousand Waves. Every student was deeply touched by Senpai Mon’s story and his commitment to studying Seido karate, and very grateful for the opportunity to connect with a brother karateka from Nepal/Bhutan. We so appreciate Ron and Jane May for hosting Mon for several days at their home, Senpai Yesica and Michele for showing him some Chicago tourist sites, Senpai Max for arranging a special Japanese bento box lunch, and the many black belt students who scheduled special training sessions outside of class.

Shihan Nancy and I have been lucky to experience these wonderful international connections that Seido karate provides many times already. When we went to Cape Town, South Africa in 2004, for example, we were graciously, and completely unexpectedly, hosted by Kyoshi Anver Wahab and his wife Tammie. They said a firm NO to our hotel reservation and insisted we live with them for the entirety of our stay. We experienced South Africa less as tourists and more as family visitors. What an honor and privilege!

We are now lifelong friends with Kyoshi Anver, his family and dojo. He has since come to Chicago and of course lived with us during his stay. Our students have gotten to know him, some from visiting Cape Town, others from training with him at Gasshuku, and everyone from when he visited Chicago. In a world of tension, fear and violence, these international, cross-cultural relationships nurture peace and understanding and are a beacon of hope for our troubled world.