All In

by Jerry Yang

  “No, wait!” I yelled, but it was too late. I watched my father, my baby brother, and my older brother disappear into the darkness. I feared I would never see them again.

  Just in time, our old relative looked back from the front of one of the vehicles to see my father running desperately in the rain. The truck slowed down.

  My father later told me how it felt to see the fading taillights of the two trucks: it was the worst moment of his life.

  We drove through the night. As our vehicle rocked along the bumpy road, I tried to sleep, but my growling stomach kept me awake. Rain beat constantly on the tarp covering the truck bed.

  I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew, the driver was shouting, “Out, out, out. Everybody out!”

  As the sun rose, I jumped out of the truck with my family. The moment my feet hit the ground, my father yelled, “Follow me. Quickly. Run!”

  With no time to look around, I found myself racing down a steep hill, across a rice field, past a couple of houses, and into a small hut surrounded by tall grass, bamboo, and palm trees.

  “We must wait here for the sun to set,” my father said.

  But the sun hasn’t even come up yet, I thought.

  Gunfire echoed outside as the Thai and Pathet Lao armies shot at one another from opposite sides of the Mekong. The little children in our group cried. Angry adults snapped: “Shut those kids up before you give us away.”

  I started to ask if I could have something to eat but stopped myself. No one had brought any food with them, since no one had really known how long it would take to get from Num Chang to the Mekong.

  We couldn’t go out without getting caught. We had no choice but to sit and wait. No food. No water. Nothing.

  It was one of the longest days of my life.

  Finally, night came. Just after dark, two men walked to the hut and said, “Come with us. We’re here to take you across the river. Do you have the rest of the money?”

  “Yes, of course,” my father replied. “I will give it to you once we are safely across the river.” My father had already given them half of the price he’d agreed to the day he’d come to the Mekong with the old relative.

  “No, we want it now.”

  “After we cross the river.”

  “You give us the money now, or we will leave and you can swim across.”

  My father held his ground. “I will happily give you the rest of your money after the last person in our group steps on the Thai shore. That’s what we agreed to.”

  For a moment I wondered if the two men with the boats were going to back out and walk away, leaving us stranded in this horrible little hut.

  Finally, they gave in. “Okay, okay, whatever you want.” I could tell they weren’t happy with my father.

  As the two men left to get their boats, my father gathered everyone from our village. A few friends of our old relative had also joined our group. They, too, wanted out of Laos.

  “The boats cannot carry everyone at once,” my father announced. “We’re going to do the same thing we did when we crossed the roads in the jungle. Divide into groups. The boats can take no more than ten people at a time. The mothers and small children will go first. My family will go last.”

  For the first time since we left our village, I saw hope on some people’s faces. Yet most of us were still frightened.

  My father sensed the fear in our group as well. He led us in prayer, then said, “All right, the first group needs to head out.”

  I think it must have been about nine o’clock at night. We hadn’t had anything to eat in almost two days.

  The first two groups piled into the boats. No sooner had the last person climbed aboard than the boats took off across the river. They meandered along, doing their best to look like a couple of fishing boats working the river.

  Sitting on the bank and waiting for our family’s turn to come, I heard the gunfire filling the air and watched the tracer bullets flying from both sides of the Mekong. As the night grew darker, I heard the distinctive whoosh of mortar fire followed by an explosion on the opposite side of the river. From time to time, the shells fell short and exploded in the river.

  Yet the worst sounds of the night, the ones that haunt me in my nightmares, were the wails echoing along the river. “Save me! I’m drowning!” Off in the distance, a mother crying out, “Save my child.”

  The voices never stopped from the moment the sun went down until it came up again. The cries, so desperate, so filled with pain, came from those with no choice but to try to cross the Mekong without a boat.

  Most of these people didn’t make it. Those who didn’t drown were shot by the Pathet Lao. So many people died in that river, especially children. Oh, so many of my people.

  When I close my eyes, I hear the cries.

  About an hour after they’d first set out, the boats returned to pick up the next two groups. They ferried people across the river through the night until my family, along with three of my uncles, were the only ones left on the Lao side of the Mekong. By the time we climbed into the boats, the eastern sky was starting to light up.

  I didn’t realize how small the boats really were until ten of us crammed into this little fishing boat built for no more than two. With so many people, the boat floated low in the water and the slightest wave splashed over the side, soaking us all. I thought for sure we would sink.

  Our boat had barely set out from shore when the driver said to my father, “I don’t think we can do this right now. It will be light before we get to the other side. We’ll be shot.”

  “So what are we supposed to do?” my father asked. “We can’t go back and press our luck staying where we did yesterday.”

  “I know of an island in the river where you should be safe. Lots of brush. No one ever goes there.”

  “Whatever you think is best.”

  Another night had passed, and still we had no food, no water. Nothing.

  The boat owners hid their vessels in the reeds off the shore of the island. Around noon, they came to my father and said, “We’re hungry. There’s no sense in hiding here on this island with you all day. Without you in our boats, the soldiers won’t bother us. We’re going back to Laos to get something to eat. Once the sun sets, we’ll come back and take you the rest of the way to Thailand.”

  “I know you must be hungry,” my father said, which to me was the understatement of the year; our last real meal had come the night before we’d left Num Chang, which felt like a week ago. “But I prefer that you stay. If you must go, please leave one of the boats here, just in case something happens to you. Otherwise, we’ll be stranded.”

  “Nothing will happen to us. Listen, we’re hungry, and we’re taking our boats to get some food.”

  “Please take only one boat.”

  “Stop telling us what to do with our boats.” I could tell the man was getting angry with my father. He was already mad that my father hadn’t paid the entire price in advance for ferrying us across the river.

  “I’m not trying to tell you how to run your business, but we are vulnerable here. We can’t stay on this island, and you’re our only way to the other side.”

  The driver cursed. “We’re leaving, and there’s nothing you can do to stop us.”

  My father looked at my mother. “Now.”

  She reached under her dress and pulled out a .38 my father had strapped to her leg before we’d left our village almost a month earlier.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes, and neither could the boat owners.

  My father pointed the pistol at the two men. “This is the way it’s going to be. One of you can get some food, but the other isn’t going anywhere. Do you understand me? I gave you your chance. I tried to be reasonable, but you gave me no choice. Now you’ll do things my way.”

  The two men cursed at my father, but he was correct. They had no choice but to do things his way.

  Still, they did a cruel thing. One of the men went to Laos and bought a bag of grilled
chicken and sticky rice and brought it back to the island. Then he and the other man sat and ate every bite in front of all of us without offering even one of the smallest children a grain of rice.

  My empty stomach ached; my mouth watered. I would’ve given anything for just one bite.

  The sun had barely set when one of the two boat owners yelled at my father. “It’s time. Get in the boat. Let’s go.”

  “No, it isn’t dark enough.” My father refused to yield to their anger.

  Finally, night came and with it the cries from the river. We climbed back into the boats and took off. At one point, I saw an empty inner tube and knew someone hadn’t made it.

  The moment our boat touched the shore, the drivers cursed at my family. “Get out.” Throwing our few possessions onto the ground and pushing the women and children out like baggage, they said, “Give us our money.”

  My father handed them every valuable we had. Other family members were supposed to help pay for our passage, but when the time came, they claimed they didn’t have the money.

  The two boat owners snatched up the treasures, jumped in their boats, and off they went toward Laos.

  About the time the boats took off, we heard someone running through the brush toward us. Lots of someones.

  A squad of soldiers burst out, guns drawn.

  I thought for sure we’d been caught by the Pathet Lao and NVA. As the children in our group burst into tears, I looked for a place to hide.

  The soldiers shouted something I didn’t understand.

  My father answered in a language other than Hmong or Lao. Then he turned to my family. “It’s okay. They’re Thai soldiers.”

  At long last, we were safe.

  12

  “I Actually Belong Here”

  “It looks like I may be here a while, little brother,” I said to Kham Dy from my hotel room in downtown Las Vegas during one of our daily calls during the World Series of Poker. While I would have loved to chat with him in person, at this point in the tournament, being by myself was probably best.

  “How long is a while?” Kham asked.

  “I don’t play again for a couple of days. There are still too many players to get everyone into the Amazon Room all at once, so I’m guaranteed at least one more day. I believe I can do better than that. My chip count is in the top 20 percent of the field.”

  “Are you kidding me? Brother, that is very impressive.”

  “Thank you. Not to sound overly confident, but I honestly think I can finish in the money.”

  “What’s the least you will take home if you cash out?”

  “Over $20,000.”

  “Wow. And how much did it cost you to play in the tournament where you won your seat?”

  “Two twenty-five.”

  My brother laughed. “So when do you plan on telling Father?”

  “I wish I could call him and tell him right now.”

  “You aren’t going to, are you?”

  “No. But if I make it into the 621 who cash out, I’ll try to get him to Vegas to watch. I could use his support.”

  My brother laughed again. “Good luck with that, big brother. I think you have a better chance of winning the whole thing than of getting Father to come to Las Vegas to watch one of his sons in the world’s largest poker tournament. You know how he feels about cards and gambling.”

  “Why do you think I never told him I took up poker?”

  Kham Dy and I had talked about this before. Even though he is a pastor, Kham Dy never questioned my decision to take up poker. He didn’t like gambling any more than my father or wife did, but he also understood I never spent more of our family’s money on poker than many of the men in his church spent on golf every weekend.

  “So what can I do to help you, Brother?” Kham Dy asked.

  “Just pray. Pray I’ll have the patience, discipline, and wisdom I need to play my best. I want to represent Jesus the best I can while I’m here. Pray I will.”

  “Of course.”

  We spent some time praying before hanging up.

  After all that the two of us had been through together, I couldn’t imagine facing this challenge without him on my side.

  Some people think poker and God are contradictory. I get this from both sides of the question. During my run at the 2007 World Series of Poker, several people criticized me for praying at the table. To them, God didn’t have a place in poker. Some church people have criticized me because like my father, they believe cards and poker have no place in the life of a Christian.

  I had to wrestle with this myself before I took up the game. Could a religious person play poker without losing all credibility? To me, the answer was easy. I found myself attracted to poker for the mental challenge it presents. Luck plays a part, but the real game comes down to who can best apply and withstand the pressure each hand potentially brings. When I started playing, I didn’t take food out of my children’s mouths or use the mortgage money to try to strike it rich. While I played to win, I never risked money I couldn’t afford to lose. I never expected to recoup the $50 per week I’d set aside when I first started playing the game. Essentially, it was money I spent on a hobby, which happened to be poker. I see this as no more of an ethical dilemma than a tennis player faces when deciding whether to join the local tennis club.

  Other players as well as some commentators criticized me for bringing God so openly to the poker table. Some saw my praying as an attempt to get God to change my luck or make the cards fall my way. I can see why some players didn’t welcome this. Going up against another player and the luck of the draw is difficult enough without having to take on the Almighty as well.

  To me, though, praying at the poker table is not a good luck ritual. I pray because prayer and God are a large part of who I am.

  As I’ve mentioned, I grew up in a Christian family, although that was not always the case for the Yangs. My grandfather grew up worshipping the traditional Hmong gods and spirits. When he was a boy, he had a dream about a man in a black robe pointing at him and saying, “I have great things I want you to do for me.”

  When my grandfather awoke, he went to his father and told him about his dream. “What does this mean, Father?”

  His father was excited. “This is a sign. A sign that has stood for many, many generations. You have been chosen to become a shaman. The spirits have vested you with a special power, and now you must use it.”

  In the traditional animist Hmong religious culture, the shaman is the highest, most respected member of the community. He communes with the spirits for the people of the village as a healer, spiritual guide, and community leader. To have a son become a shaman is one of the highest honors any family could have.

  The presence of a shaman in the family also meant they would never go hungry. Whenever someone gives an offering to one of the gods, a portion of their sacrifice goes to the shaman himself. If you’re told to sacrifice your prize bull, you do it. The shaman eats the meat not burned up on the altar. In a country where hunger abounds, becoming a shaman was like winning the lottery.

  My grandfather went away and trained with an elder shaman. There he learned all of the traditional rituals and ceremonies as well as how to discern the signs of nature. One of his most important roles was that of healer. When a person became ill, my people believed the person’s spirit moved away from the body. If it moved far enough away, the person would die. The shaman could bring the spirit back only if he determined that the family and friends had presented the right offerings and sacrifices. Even though most Hmong in Laos were very poor, they did whatever the shaman commanded and paid any price. If they had only one cow and the shaman told them to sacrifice it and give the meat to him, that’s exactly what they did. He always had the ultimate word.

  For twenty or thirty years, my grandfather led his village as the chief spiritual leader. No one commanded more respect.

  Then one day my grandfather became extremely ill himself. While fighting a high fever through the nigh
t, he had another dream. This time, a man in a glorious white robe told him, “You must leave everything behind and come, follow Me. I have a new mission for you.”

  My grandfather awoke in a fright. He had no interest in changing anything about his life. He was the single most powerful figure in his village. To turn his back on the role of shaman and the wealth it brought to his family, to say nothing of the beliefs handed down to him from generation to generation, was unthinkable, but he couldn’t shake the image of the man.

  As time went by, my grandfather’s illness grew worse. Finally, he told my grandmother about his dream. Word spread from her to people from a nearby village who happened to be Christians.

  A couple traveled to my grandfather’s village and went into his home, where he lay sick. One of the men looked at him, pointed, and said, “The man in white you saw in your dream was Jesus. He wants you to leave the ways of shamanism and follow Him. You will then bring many people into a true knowledge of God.”

  The man might as well have told my grandfather to throw all his possessions into a pile and set them on fire. “I can’t do that. I’ll be driven out of my village. Everyone will mock me, and my family will starve.”

  As time passed and he grew weaker, though, he finally decided he couldn’t ignore the dream any longer. I’m going to die anyway. I might as well give this so-called Savior, Jesus, a try.

  Believe it or not, my grandfather quickly began to get better. Before long, every symptom disappeared, making a true believer out of him. Having always thought of himself as a great and powerful shaman, he now understood Jesus was much greater and more powerful than he.

  Just as he had feared, however, my grandfather was driven out of his village. People shunned the entire family, including my father, who was a teenager at the time. Critics said, “You’ve betrayed your people by going along with this white man’s religion.”

  Undeterred, my grandfather knew Jesus was real and that neither he nor his entire family would turn back from following Him. Until the day he died, my grandfather firmly believed God had a mission for him, and he did his best to live it every day.