Traduction / Übersetzung / Translation / Tafsiri / Tradução / 翻訳 / అనువాదం / अनुवाद / Dịch / ແປພາສາ Ta Phin, Sa Pa, Lao Cai - on top of Vietnam In May 2018, we spent 10 days with Lý Mẩy Chạn, from the red Dzao community of Ta Phin, a small village located 12 km away from Sapa in the mountains of north Vietnam. The Red Dzao community belong to the different Dao ethnic groups, who share a common history as described below. The Dzao people The Dao people originally come from China where they are called Yao or Mien. The first Chinese exonym for "Yao people" was the graphic pejorative yao 猺 (犭"dog radical" and yao 䍃 phonetic) "jackal", which twentieth-century language reforms changed to yao 瑤 (玉 "jade radical") "precious jade of green jade”. The history of these ethnies dates back 2000 years ago as the Dzao participated to the Miao rebellions against the Ming dynasty. As a result they were banned and retreated into the highlands between Hunan and Guishou to the north and Guangdong and Guanxi to the south, and stretching into eastern Yunnan. Today they are present mainly in China, Vietnam, Thailand and Laos. They are recognised as one of the 55 ethnic minorities by the Chinese and Vietnamese authorities and represented 2,637,421 people in China and roughly 470,000 in Vietnam in 2000. Dao religion is characterized by a process of Han Chinese-influenced Daoism (also known as Taoism), the endurance of pre-Daoist folk religion, and some Buddhist beliefs. We did not have the chance to share in depth their cultural belief but we acknowledge that the red Dzao live very close to the nature and especially to the trees and plants of which they know the medicinal virtues very well. The red Dzao and other communities of Ta Phin like the Mong are very knowledgeable about the mountains and its flora, they know the paths and the plants. The typical Dzao celebration is called Pan Wang (King Pan) festival. It happens annually on the sixteenth day of the tenth lunar month. The festival celebrates the mythical origin of the Yao people, as well as good harvest and ancestors. The Dzao people have been farmers for over a thousand years, mostly rice cultivation through plowing, although a few practice slash-and-burn agriculture. We had the chance to participate to the rice planting with them as we describe bellow. Our journey with the red Dzao For 10 days we stayed at Lý Mẩy Chạn homestay in Ta Phin. We did some volunteering for her in the rice fields and the garden. We also acknowledge she is very concerned about the need for her community to learn English. Therefore she asked us to give English lessons to her grandchildren. In the following parts of this blogpost we relate on what we learnt at Lý Mẩy Chạn. This was a wonderful experience and we warmly recommend everyone interested to travel to Vietnam to visit her. Costumes and sewing The red Dzao women are easily identifiable by their beautifully-sewed black and dark-blue clothes and red patterned turbans on their heads. Our host and all the women of her family were wearing the traditional costumes. These costumes are a very important part of a red Dzao woman life. They start to sew their own cloth when they are children. Later as they get engaged (weddings are arranged by the family) they receive materials to make their clothes and they have one entire year to prepare around 20 costumes for themselves and a few for their husband. Red Dzao women are sewing on each occasion, between the work at the rice field and preparing lunch, they take every occasion to work on their cloth. Nowadays, the sewing is also a source of revenue as it is well appreciated by tourists who like to purchase pieces of these beautiful sewing pattern. The red Dzao women use pieces of their clothes to make little bags, bracelets and they also sell clothing made of the typical sewing patterns. Plants and medicine Another source of revenue and big share of the Dzao culture are the medicinal preparation based on local plants. Our host, Lý Mẩy Chạn, is a very knowledgeable person regarding plants, she is making her own medicine from the plants she gets from the mountain. We had the chance to go for a few walks with Lý Mẩy Chạn in her garden and in the forest. She was always showing us different plants explaining about their therapeutic virtues, the way to prepare them... She would give us a few to eat directly, collect some others for the baths, and others for her various medicinal recipes. Each plant has a curing power for different areas of the body from the head to the belly, the hips, knees and feet, and more. At each corner of the forest we would hear her repeat “this is for đau đầu (headache), for đau lưng (back pain), for đau gối (knee pain), etc. We were subjugated by so much natural knowledge. I wish we can someday know our forests as well as she knows hers. Ps: we had the chance to use some medicine for the joints and enjoy a few of the famous Dzao herbal baths and it was a real treat. We can only recommend people to go there as they visit Vietnam and enjoy a hot bath after a mountain trekking. There is nothing better than this hot feeling on the skin coupled to the aromatic scents flowing through the nostrils as we gently indulge and forget the cramps and lumbago of a tough trek in the mountain. Work in the rice fields The Dzao community is mostly living from sustenance farming, including the rice culture. Lý Mẩy Chạn seems to take care of a few lots of lands full with rice terraces. Some of them are for her and some are for her children and children’s family. The community works in close collaboration, they meet all together in the morning and start working in one family land. When the land is done they pass on to another family, still together. As we where at Lý Mẩy Chạn we worked on her land and this is how we had the chance to meet her entire family from Ta Phin, a big group of about 30 people. The first day we arrived at around 8:30 and everybody was already working hard, snatching the rice and collecting it to re-plant it later. They were playing electro songs with their smartphones and the all atmosphere seemed pretty unreal. The rice was so green, the sun so bright, and these people were working incredibly fast. As we learnt for the first time to snatch the rice, one by one, as delicately as possible, we acknowledge that our work was at least two or three time slower than the work of our neighbors. We were pressured, from all parts they would circle around us, until we were left alone with our last little remaining rice in no time. If not then, they would gently ask us to move on to the next terrace to let them finish the corner faster. We were totally amazed. The following days went the same way, without the electro music though. Every other day we would alternate snatching and planting rice. We were not much faster at planting but after 3-4 days we improved a little, without reaching the local level of course. What we can say about the rice culture is that it is a very agreeable practice, feet in the cold water, immersed in the mud, under the gentle morning sun. The view is amazing and the work is not too force-demanding, which allows everyone to participate. However, one must be very cautious with the position of her/his back, as it requests to bend the body toward the floor for a few hours. Work in the garden Although Lý Mẩy Chạn showed us her garden we did not work so much there since the land was located a few miles away from the homestay. One afternoon however she requested us to come help harvest beans. The view from her garden is breathtaking. I can really say we had the best place to work, we just had to lift the head up to be subjugated. Lý Mẩy Chạn combines the beans with the corns and pumpkins. All the plants were healthy, big and fresh. We would have love to discover more of her garden, unfortunately we cannot tell much more about it. Building a rocket stove As we visited Lý Mẩy Chạn’s sister in a remote area during a trek we got the opportunity to talk about the problem of smoke in the kitchen. At Lý Mẩy Chạn, the rustic fire installation for cooking generates a lot of smoke, which we believe might be responsible for coughing, a common illness in her family. Indeed coughing is only the tip of the iceberg and as you might know, smoke in kitchen and houses is a major factor of illness and death in the world. So as we visited a few families we realized that all the kitchen were very smoky. We spoke with Lý Mẩy Chạn and her sister about a system of smokeless stove, easy and fast to build with local materials. You can find the complete guide here: https://smokelesscookstovefoundation.org/ We want to thank the Smokeless Cookstove Foundation for providing an easy guide to build this amazing rocket stove! We took one afternoon to collect the material and build the rocket stove "doughnuts" (construction modules) at Lý Mẩy Chạn’s sister. We made the different pieces out of clay, straw, sand and little pieces of orchids’ roots (the family grows orchids, so we use the roots to replace the recommended puffed rice because we did not know how to properly cook puffed rice). After one day we came back to assemble the parts that dried under the sun. At our highest satisfaction the cooking stove is working well and we made a happy family. As a reward they gave Mathieu a typical Dzao hat and they gave me a cute little wallet. We are so happy we had the opportunity to try out this technique and to give it to a family that needs it. Giving is receiving and we are feeling very blessed for their trust. English and tourism We gave only one English class of basics English conversation to Lý Mẩy Chạn’s grandchildren. We provided the girls with notebooks and pens in the hope that it would stimulate their learning motivation.
Lý Mẩy Chạn herself speaks little English. We mainly used google translate and conversation to communicate. We believe English could help the community to connect with the outer world, especially with the tourists. In fact, “Vietnamese” (who do not belong to ethnic minority), as the Dzao call them, are investing the land in Sa Pa and Ta Phin, and other small villages around, developing tourism and being the main point of contact with the tourists. Although the Vietnamese tourism agencies and guides contribute to bringing tourists to the community, their monopoly of the communication channels leaves little control to the ethnic minorities on the development of tourism. As a result, tourism develop in the region under Vietnamese rules and the communities receive limited profit from it due to a lack of control. We personally believe that the ethnic minorities could benefit from learning English and take over control on tourism in their area. Indeed, we acknowledge Lý Mẩy Chạn was very happy to receive our visit and especially to receive foreign help with her daily activities. She mentioned she would love to repeat the experience and receive volunteers for English classes. Therefore we created a workaway profile for her to connect with volunteers and hopefully learn English and support her community further. The page is currently under review but you can visit workaway and see how this platform helps host and volunteers to connect all over the world: https://www.workaway.info/ We use workaway for our trip and we are very happy about it. It is a good way to travel and to connect with local people while learning about the culture and helping others. We hope tourism in communities like the Dzao can develop in this direction for more meaningful cultural exchanges and help between people from all over the world.
1 Comment
Pascal Yeme
6/8/2018 04:49:13 pm
Amazing work you achieve, piece by piece, in so many different fields. Planting rice, building a stove with smoke extraction, teaching English, and above all getting close to people, minorities, while undestanding and respecting their origins, their traditions, their way of life, their religion.
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