Disclaimer: No matter how hard I try, I will never be able to articulate how great Sang Hre is.
Throughout the course of the INDYrefugee journey, many a great people have crossed our path. So much so, that I still can not believe the good fortune of meeting them and am like 1000% convinced that God has allowed us to meet the absolute best people that are alive on the planet earth. After much thought, I’ve decided that the only way to try to do them any justice is to introduce you (our loyal readers) to them via the blog! So, this is a pretty good blog addition to a previous post called ‘seriously how are you so awesome lesson 1,’ so I’m carrying on the tradition.
So.
This is Sang Hre and he is from Burma. He is a refugee from the Chin state living and working as a translator in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He was one of our translators in KL for the project. The second night in KL I went around with him to meet several Burmese (from the Chin state) families living there. The area we went to was totally jam packed with Burmese refugees living in small rooms (think of college dorm rooms with entire families living in them) with shared kitchens and bathrooms. We just went from room to room and introduced ourselves and chatted a bit and high fived a lot of little kids. That was the night I met Eli Mang (you’ll meet her later) and Dawt Cung Thang (you’ll also meet him later).
Afterwards, Sang Hre decided that we should go to dinner. And dinner wasn’t one of those buy-some-street-food and call it a night situations. We ended up going to a Vietnamese restaurant where he demanded to order. We ended up with 9 plates of food. That was when I learned something really fast. Sang Hre is super serious about hospitality. He is also serious about guinness.
In addition to being one of the most incredibly intelligent and driven people I’ve ever met in my life, he has a smile that can make even grown men cry. Unfortunately the best demonstration of this is on a video where he is singing along to an Enrique Iglesias song and wordpress blogs won’t allow me to post videos unless I pay them $50, which is total crap. Anyway, here are a few photos that demonstrate the smile at about 38% full effect. 
This is about 47% of the full smile effect. ps. WHAT is my outfit? The scarf-shirt?
The other thing about Sang Hre that he probably doesn’t put on his resume (of knowing like six languages and having an ability to work something like 20 hours a day), is that he has karaoke skills that would embarass most professional karaoke people. You know it’s a good karaoke night when you leave not just with pit stains, but a t-shirt completely soaked in sweat after giving it your absolute all. Oh, and he is funny.
So funny that laughter inciting tears wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. At all. So funny that he knows every word to Bruno Mars’ song “Billionaire,” and loved to patronize me about thinking I could find my way around the city without him and not get lost.
So over the course of the time that Natalie and I spent with Sang Hre, we decided that not only is he one of the most alive and passionate and joyful and profound and wise people that we had ever met, but we officially adopted him as our brother (he is one of three that we adopted as our life-time bros) because we need him in our lives forever.
One of my favorite memories of Sang Hre was something that he said. I had just wrapped up the one of the most intense photo and interview sessions that happened during our time in KL. True to form, I went outside to cry. He stood with me and told me that while listening to the interview “I cried in my heart.”
I could barely take it.
Then there was the night that he and I had about 14 staring contest matches and I lost every single one of them and decided that I should arm wrestle him. I lost that too and was a total sore loser about the whole ordeal. And he reminded me about it later.
Then there was the day that I taught him English idioms. When he started saying that things were ‘off the hook’ we could not stop laughing.
But I guess if I had to choose, one of my favorite memories (and he would dispute this) was the night that we had to explain to him that he was “stubborn” and explain what it meant. He didn’t want to admit that I had, in fact, consumed more of the spicy Tom-Yum soup (it’s a spicy Asian soup) than him. That he had beads of sweat pouring down his face and I was ready for more. That was a small victory in my demonstration that I can deal with spicy Asian food happiness like a boss.
In all seriousness though, I just wish that Sang Hre lived in Indianapolis and I could call him on the weekend and hang out all the time. He is so sweet and each time he sends emails, he ends them with “God Bless and Bless God,” and says stuff like, “what do I have to be disappointed with in this blessed life?” Seriously, why is he so great?
Would someone please tell me how a person gets this awesome? Would someone please tell me how a person can never take a day off of work and stay so focused and full of hope, and live with such an intense resolve to fight tooth-and-nail for a free Burma and never waiver in that?
So yes. Anyway. I’ve decided that no matter what, I need to go back to KL to see Sang Hre (and Tin Mang Shwe and Sang Bawi which I’ll intro you to later). He is one of the key people that made the IR project in Malaysia so great. And he’s just one of the greatest people alive.
Other Sang Hre Trivia: His dream is to get more schooling. He loves drinking hot water. He loves Bruno Mars. He also enjoys photography from time to time.
Natalie, what am I leaving out here?
-Katie
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