I’m writing this from Hoi An, in the Central part of Vietnam. The disparity between the people here and in the northern highlands is striking. I suspect it will be even more evident when I get to HCM (Ho Chi Min City, aka Saigon). The South is generally richer and more economically developed than the North due to historical French colonization, a head-start on market-oriented policies after reunification, more foreign investment. But economic progress is ongoing everywhere -- maybe just slower for the Hmong and other ethnic groups.
Food is central to life among the ethnic groups -- the growing, the shopping, the preparation. Cooking is done over an open fire inside, often leaving the walls black with soot. They have gas (propane, I guess), but it’s expensive so they mostly use wood.
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The diet is, of course, largely rice and corn. You do see some equipment but many tools seem pretty primitive. There are some used for grinding corn and removing the hull of the rice grain. (Videos would not load here, so stills may be added later.)
Any rice or produce in excess of what the family needs is taken to the market. We discussed the concept of a co-op where everyone in the village would share equally in the harvest. Apparently this was tried “many years ago,” but was “bad for the economy” because (of course) some farmers took advantage and didn’t try to produce their fair share.
Chicken and pork (the black pigs are supposedly tastier than the pink ones!) are the most common meat choices, prepared with pig fat. (Although our guide said his wife uses soybean oil. Didn’t even know it existed!) The guide said the Vietnamese prefer tougher meats, like farm raised chickens vs. “factory” chicken, because they are tastier.
There’s beef in restaurants although I didn’t see many cows in villages.
The manure from the pig pen is collected, mixed with water, I think, and used as fertilizer.
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As I said in prior post, food is prepared for the pigs everyday. They aren’t just fed “slop” or bags of pig food (which I did see in a store). This photo shows a woman preparing bamboo to feed her pigs.
The Hmong eat rat. And, in a North Vietnamese restaurant, horse is a delicacy: $10 per bowl (which is a lot here).
Most families have at least one water buffalo to help in the field. A baby water buffalo costs $500, an adult female $1500. They are often taken to the mountains to feed. Otherwise, it was common at the end of the day to see women trudging along the road, their backs weighed down with a huge bundle of bamboo greens to feed the water buffalo.
Many of the ethnic groups wear clothes dyed with indigo. I saw this strip of cloth hanging by the path, so dark it was nearly black. When I touched it, my hand came away blue.
Traditionally the fabric was hemp. I think today it is cotton. This older woman is making a finely pleated skirt so common with the ethnic women.
They also use the indigo for crafts. This series of photos shows a huge drum of fermented indigo dye made by boiling indigo leaves for a couple days.A cloth has a design drawn on it with wax. It is soaked in the dye for two days. When it is removed, the wax is melted off (hot water) and you see the design!
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Incense is important to the Vietnamese as it is burned on every altar. In the northern highlands, they were made with cinnamon. Cinnamon trees were growing naturally everywhere and there were cinnamon farms. The dried bark is ground up and mixed with sawdust and water. The woman I saw pressed the mixture into a form. Out came these little pyramid things which then dry in the sun a couple days, depending on humidity. I saw the more typical incense sticks made in Hue. The woman uses a small paddle to roll the bamboo stick back and forth in the mixture, here, scented with jasmine, lemongrass or grapefruit. She then drops it into the large bamboo tray in her lap to be put out to dry.
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Medicine in Vietnam relies heavily on natural remedies. This is true in the South and definitely in the ethnic villages where people may be some distance from a clinic. They either know the recommended traditional treatment or visit an herbal doctor (who has studied and received a certificate in natural healing). And most northern Vietnamese (even my guide and the front desk staff at my hotel in Hanoi) wear a small plain silver necklace which you can see on this woman. It keeps you healthy. When it turns dark, you are sick. When you are well again, you clean it with toothpaste and lemon juice!
Markets were filled with various herbs and roots and animal parts to be used in healing.
Women are told to eat a broth made from pigs feet to increase breast milk. And women take some special herbal bath after giving birth so they can go back to work in the fields within one week.
There’s even a natural “viagra.”
The markets are, of course, amazing! Women fill their large bamboo baskets with a huge variety of “greens” and fruit. Meat is fresh and often being butchered on-site. Or burning the hairs off the pig.
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There were also tools for farming. Here you can see a sickle for cutting rice, and baskets made from tires to hold the feed for animals.
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One thing I noticed quickly was that it was nearly always women doing all the work. Women carrying the bamboo up a hill to feed the water buffalo. Women selling in the market. Even women working building roads.
Turns out there is a very big “happy water” problem among ethnic men. You see them gathered, drinking, well before noon. These photos show the drunk, bleary-eyed men at a table in the market and next to them, but clearly separate, a table with rice bowls for the women. When I asked the guide, “is it because there are no jobs that they drink?” the reply was “No. They’re just lazy.”
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There any many different customs around death, burials and funerals, varying from the south to the north to the mountains.
In the south, they cremate remains. In the central area, they bury the body. In the north, they bury the body. But then after 5 years, the body is exhumed and the bones cleaned. Then the bones are buried in a box. (See photo) I first saw these boxes in a store in Hanoi and couldn’t make sense of it. They were clearly too big for ashes.
In the Hmong home, they had several wooden boxes carved and stored in the attic…just prepared, I guess. All burials in Vietnam include many of the person’s belonging for use in the afterlife.
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A full seven days is more than most tourists spend in the mountain areas of northern Vietnam. And even though I covered many villages, I can tell you I only saw -- or understood -- a very small part of the Vietnamese ethnic community.
Now off to Central Vietnam!
