Relics of Triumph in Điệnbiệnphủ

                                               by Jim Goodman

Vietnamese tourists playing on a tank

        Điệnbiệnphủ today is a quiet town in northwest Vietnam, close to the Lao border and straddling the Nậm Rốm River.  It lies 478 km from Hanoi and around the turn of the century, when I first visited, took two all-day bus rides by land.  I flew the first time, which is a better way to arrive anyway, as it gives a much broader view of the landscape, important because of its historical context.  Điệnbiệnphủ is famous as the site of the 1954 battle that ended French colonialism in Vietnam.  Flying in reveals the whole setting.

       The city lies in the Mường Thanh Valley, heart-shaped and roughly 20 km by 6 km.  High, rugged mountains surround it.  When General Henri Navarre decided in late 1953 to make Điếnbiếnphủ a last stand against the Việt Minh he had to parachute six battalions of French troops into the plain.  The previous year he had defeated Việt Minh assaults on a French base near Sơn La by luring the Vietnamese into set battles in which French firepower could be decisive.  He assumed he could do that again here.

the countryside beyond Điệnbiệnphủ

       After the Sơn La campaign stalled the Vietnamese turned to other fronts like Lai Châu in the north and, with their Pathet Lao allies, Sam Neua province in Laos, adjacent to Điệnbiệnphủ.  They also continued harassing the French garrison at Sơn La.  In August 1953 Navarre abandoned the Sơn La base in favor of a new one at Điệnbiệnphủ.  He knew the Việt Minh would follow, but here he believed he could repeat his Sơn La strategy, lure the enemy onto the plain and prevail with French artillery.

       What Navarre never considered was the possibility that the Việt Minh would be able to haul artillery pieces over the mountains and besiege the French.  But that they did, with the help of ethnic minority allies.  General Christian de Castres, the commander of the new French garrison, probably didn’t even suspect he was actually trapped.  In an interview with the Australian reporter Wilfrid Burchett at this time, Hố Chỉ Minh took off his helmet, placed it upside down and pointed out to Burchett that the French were at the bottom of the helmet, the Viêt Minh on the rim.  There was no way out for the French.

the Nậm Rốm River at Điệnbiệnphủ

       Replicating their strategy at Sơn La, the French established three complimentary defensive sub-sectors.  The central one, surrounding the city center and airport, held two-thirds of the 16,200 troops under de Castries’ command.  Troops manned various resistance positions around the city that de Castries named after the mistresses he’d had in his life—Éliane, Dominique, Béatrice, Gabrielle, etc.  When the Vietnamese began moving through the mountains the French launched artillery and air strikes.  Yet they did not disrupt the transport of heavy artillery and anti-aircraft guns.  In fact, they were not even aware of it.

       On 13 March Việt Minh forces, now swelled to over 50,000, launched their attack.  Thanks to their totally unexpected use of artillery and anti-aircraft guns, within four days they had captured the northern sub-sector and penetrated the central one.  By the end of the month the Viêt Minh were battling the French for control of the central sub-sector.  Meanwhile they took over the southern sub-sector and on 7 May captured the central command post in the city, as well as General de Castries and all of his staff. 

main street in Điệnbiệnphủ

       The remaining 10,000 French soldiers surrendered, but only after blowing up the prison and killing all of the anti-French prisoners they’d been holding.  But the French sued for peace at the just-convened Geneva Conference and not long afterwards the victorious Viêt Minh paraded through Hanoi.

       Among the captives murdered by the French just before surrender were many ethnic minority supporters of the Viết Minh, especially Thái and Hmông, both of whom outnumber the Vietnamese in the province.  The Thái are actually the dominant ethnic group in the plains of northwest Vietnam, of two main sub-groups—White Thái in the north and east and Black Thái in the west.  In pre-colonial times they had a loose autonomous federation called Sipsong Chutai. 

Việt Minh warriors

       This did not evolve into a proper state, however.  Clan loyalties were more important than any sense of pan-Thái identity.  The same held true for the Hmông, who were split up among numerous sub-groups.  If the clan chief backed the French, they fought on the French side.  If the clan chief opposed the French, they joined or supported the Việt Minh.

       As it turned out, though, the great majority backed the Việt Minh.  The colonial government had already experienced Black Thái uprisings at Sơn La in 1897 and 1914-1916, as well as a revolt by the Hmông around Điệnbiệnphủ 1918-1922.  Antipathy to the government increased in the following decades, due to the ruthless exploitation by the French-recognized Thái lord of Sipsong Chutai, the Depression and the harsh years of Japanese occupation. 

Việt Minh troops marching through Hanoi

       The post-war Việt Minh campaign was slow to start in the northwest, but after the siege of Sơn La began picking up rapidly.  The guerrillas could count on widespread sympathy from the minorities.  In the preparations for the Battle of Điệnbiệnphủ, Thái, Hmông, Dao, Sila and others joined Vietnamese peasants making up the 200,000 non-combatants in the ‘Brigade of Iron Horses’ that carried heavy artillery, anti-aircraft guns, ammunition and other supplies over the mountains on foot or bicycle.

       For a long time Điệnbiệnphủ served as the capital of the sprawling northeast province of Lai Châu.  In 2003 the government separated the southern half and created the new province of Điệnbienphủ, with the same city as capital.  It is one of the four provinces in the country where ethnic Vietnamese (Kình) are a minority, accounting for just 20% of the population, mostly in the towns.  The Thái comprise 38% and the Hmông another 30%.  The remainder consists of 19 other recognized minorities, including a community of ethnic Lao.

Vietnamese villagers selling farm produce

Flowery Hmông in the market

       Thái of one kind or another dominated the Mường Thanh plain for over a millennium.  From the 9^th-13^th centuries it was the center of a Thái Lu kingdom until supplanted by a Black Thái state.  In the early 1700s Thái Phẽ invaders from China conquered it, but later that century the local Thái, led by the Vietnamese insurgent Hoàng Hông Chất, evicted them.  He also built a citadel 11 km south of Điệnbiệnphủ, but only a few stones and the lower part of a rampart have survived.  A temple erected to Hoàng Hông Chất still stands in the vicinity, though.

White Hmông woman

White Hmông in the market

       Hoàng Hông Chất soon became the de facto ruler of a large swath of the northwest.  After his death in 1767 the Vietnamese government in the north, then in the last stages of control by the Trính Lords, moved to reassert its authority.  But then came decades of chaos--the collapse of the Trịnh government, the Tây Sơn Revolt and the slow consolidation of national territories during the establishment of the Nguyễn Dynasty.  Faraway places like the northwest frontier became prey to bandits and foreign aggressors.

village in the Mường Thanh Valley

       To deal with Siamese and Chinese incursions, the Nguyểb government in 1841 established the fortified post of Điệnbiệnphủ.  But peace prevailed only so long as the government was strong.  By the 1870s the Nguyễn regime had fallen into terminal decline.  Renegade soldiers from the failed Taiping Rebellion in southern China moved into northern Vietnam and formed various bandit gangs that ravaged the area.

       The following decade, when the French conquered Hanoi, Siamese forces in 1884 attacked Điếnbiếnphủ in a three-year campaign to claim sovereignty over the Thái of Sipsong Chutai.  Local resistance kept the invaders at bay and a French military campaign in the northwest 1888-89 cleared the area of both foreigners and bandits.  The colonial government established a garrison at Điệnbiệnphủ that terminated invasions and roaming bandit gangs, but left the administration of the area largely in the hands of the Thái lord Đèo Văn Trị, recognizing him as the head of Sipsong Chutai.

Black Thái houses

       Revolts against the Đèo family and the colonial authorities broke out in the early 20^th century.  But after the suppression of the Hmông revolt in 1922, Điệnbiệnphủ and vicinity enjoyed three decades of relative peace and stability.  After the commotion of its brief years in the historical spotlight, it reverted to its role as a sleepy provincial town, only with Vietnamese administrators instead of French officials or Thai lords.  It did not suffer from bombing in the American War, for it was far from the Hồ Chí Minh Trail.

       The population today is about 150,000, mostly Vietnamese, who either work for the government or run the businesses.  A short distance from the town lie a few Vietnamese farming villages as well and residents often come to the city to set up produce stalls on the streets.  I was the only foreigner around at the time, but the people were universally friendly—150 ‘hellos’ a day.

Thái women in the market

       There was very little vehicular traffic back then, not even many people riding bicycles.  It was not a large town anyway, and less than an hour’s walk from one end to the other.  The main activity was in the central covered market, a warren of shops and stalls selling a variety of goods.  This was also the best place to see ethnic minorities from the outlying villages and surrounding mountains.  Some of them even ran a few of the stalls.

       Most were Black Thái from the plains and two kinds of Hmông from the nearest hills.  One was the Flowery Hmông, the same sub-group as those around Bắc Hà, whose women wore pleated batik skirts and side-fastened embroidered jackets.  The other was a branch of the White Hmông.  Their women dressed in black jackets, trousers, long aprons and a conical cap festooned with red tassels.

a former French command post

       The Black Thái inhabit most of the villages of the Mường Thanh Valley.  They grow rice and vegetables and live in sturdy stilted wooden houses.  They are animist, not Buddhist, and the only religious structures in their villages are the ancestral shrines and the altar to the local guardian spirit.  A conservative people like the Hmông, their women almost all prefer the traditional dress.  This consists of a pastel colored, long-sleeved blouse, fastened with silver buckles down the front, worn over a black sarong and with a black headscarf, embroidered with bright geometric designs.

       Black Thái villages are within walking distance of the town, separated by rice fields and grazing areas.  And punctuating the spaces in between, still in place after 65 years, stand the intact war debris of burnt out tanks, field posts and bunkers of the fateful battleground.  These, not the ethnic minorities, are what the Vietnamese tourists come to see.  For its national significance, Điệnbiệnphủ attracts a steady stream of them, even the youth.  They inspect the command posts and trenches, explore de Castries’ bunker and crawl over the tanks for photographs. 

typical bunker from the battlefield

       The most important place for visitors pursuing the city’s historical legacy is the Victory Museum.  In a city characterized by modest-sized buildings, the museum is quite extravagant, occupying 22.300 square meters.  It’s shaped like a truncated cone, resembling the netted camouflage hats worn by Việt Minh soldiers.  Erected in time for the battle’s 60^th anniversary in 2014, it replaced a much smaller museum and has a greater number of exhibits.

       Tanks and artillery used by both sides stand on the grounds outside the museum.  Rooms inside include lists and portraits of the Việt Minh participants, photos and dioramas of military and Party leaders planning strategy and old photographs and paintings of key decision moments.  Other exhibits display military field gear, weapons, uniforms and conveyances used to porter supplies.

artillery from the battlefield

       By far the most interesting exhibit is in the largest room, containing a huge relief map of the Mường Thanh Valley.  It indicates the positions of the French and Vietnamese forces by the placement of little green and red lights.  Then a narration begins recounting the course of the campaign.  Flashing lights mark the battle sites, followed by an illuminated display of the two sides’ positions afterwards.  The narration is in Vietnamese, but even without a translation it is easy to follow the story.

       After this comes a video of Vietnamese filming of the events, with a little footage from the French spliced in.  Once again, lights flash on the relief map following scenes in the film.  After this show, a visitor knows exactly how the Battle of Điệnbiẹnphủ turned into a tremendous Vietnamese triumph.  The only thing missing is a clip of Hồ Chí Minh turning his helmet upside down in the interview with Wilfrid Burchett. The French are at the bottom.  We’re on the rim.  They can’t get out.  It’s only a matter of time.

graves of fallen Viêt Minh soldiers

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Mai Châu to Lai Châu: Through the Thái Lands of Vietnam

                                                               by Jim Goodman

Black Thái woman in Sơn La

       From 1999-2002 I made three trips to Vietnam, focusing on the people and places of the northern border areas.  I had already been researching the minorities of southern Honghe Prefecture, just across the border in Yunnan, China and many of them lived on the Vietnam side.  These included the Thái, who were animist like their counterparts in the various Dai sub-groups in Honghe.  As I had been living in Thailand for twelve years before my first Vietnam excursion, the Thái in Vietnam were naturally of more than marginal interest for me.

       With over 1.5 million, the Thái are the third largest ethnic group in the country, behind the Kình (Vietnamese) and the Tày.  They inhabit the plains and river valleys of the provinces along the Lao border, from Nghệ An to the northwest corner of Lai Châu.  Most travelers encounter them by taking the route throughout northwest Vietnam, beginning in Mai Châu in Hòa Bình Province, then west to Sơn La and Điện Biện Phủ, north to Lai Châu and then east to Sapa. 

Thái house in Mai Châu district

White Thái woman

       Mai Châu, 160 km southwest of Hanoi, was already built up as a tourist attraction by then, featuring home stays with local villagers.  The town lies in a secluded, flat valley surrounded by high hills.  It is the administrative center for the district’s Thai and Hmông villages but back then was scarcely more than an urbanized village, with a school, a few government buildings, some three-story shop houses in the Hanoi urban style and a single hotel, usually empty.

weaver at her loom in Lác village

       Travelers don’t stay here, but continue to nearby Lác village.  A friend in Hanoi gave me the name of a family in Lác to stay with, which turned out to save me a lot of probable trouble trying to choose a house on my own.  Lác was well geared to the tourist trade and every house was a shop and guesthouse.  Woven textiles and sundry other items were on display in front of every house, along with cold drinks stands. 

       The hostess recommended to me was quite gracious and friendly, fed me well and conversed with me about Thailand and Vietnam.  She made no effort to press me to buy something, but as soon as I was outside I was confronted with the sheer commercialization of the village.   Prices for drinks were quite high, too, though because the village had many active weavers, operating looms under their stilted houses, at least some of the textiles on sale were locally produced.

the central pond in Sơn La

       Lác villagers, and those of the other settlements in the valley, are the White Thái sub-group.  They live in stilted houses of wood and bamboo, with thatched roofs.   Inside, the walled-off kitchen is at the far end.  The host family provides a mattress and mosquito net for the guest and when there are more than one, family members may sleep in the kitchen.

       The autumn harvest was completed by the time of my visit.  I hiked to the other nearby Thái villages, but though they were not yet full of handicraft sales displays like Lác, there was little field activity and after just two nights I departed Lác for Sơn La, another 165 km west.  It was a pleasant ride through rolling hills swathed in thick forests, interspersed by settlements of stilted houses, backed by jagged limestone peaks that got craggier closer to Sơn La. 

reconstructed watchtower at Sơn La prison

       The city was not very big, consisting of three main streets radiating from a pond in the center of town, two commercial and one residential.  A small hill stands within the city limits, with a broadcasting tower, illuminated at night, on its crest.  In front of it stands the ruins of the former French prison, Sơn La’s chief tourist attraction.

       Sơn La was an active theater of resistance to French rule and the prison was used to incarcerate anyone even suspected of political activities.  Famous Việt Minh cadres Trương Chinh and Lê Duan spent time here.  The French themselves bombed the prison in 1952 and Việt Minh troops further ravaged it when they took control of the city.  Now it’s the city museum, with its original entrance intact and parts, like the watchtower and kitchen, reconstructed.  The rest is heavily damaged, but in the display room behind the kitchen is a scale model of the original, where one can see just how small the cells were and where the punishment dungeons lay.

Sơn La Prison gate

Black Thái woman on her way to the Sơn La market

       The site also includes an ethnic museum devoted to the province’s minorities.  The Black Thái dominate the province, but there are also villages of the Mường, Tày and Hòa (Chinese) in the city’s vicinity.  The hills are home to Hmôing, Dao, Si La and Khơ Mú, while elsewhere lie villages of the small minorities Xinh Mun, Kháng and La Ha.  The latter three, and to a great extent the Khơ Mú, dress and live like the Black Thái. 

harvesting rice near Sơn La

       Black Thái women still prefer their traditional clothing. The outfit comprises a long-sleeved pastel-colored blouse, fastened by rows of silver, butterfly-shaped clasps down the front, over a black silk sarong, with a simple cloth belt around the waist.  They wrap their hair in a bun and cover it with a highly embroidered scarf, which dangles over the neck.  The ensemble is almost like an ethnic uniform, but individuality is in the headscarf designs, no two of which are the same.  No distinction in dress exists for marital status or age.

Thái women in the 1920s

       Old photos show no basic change in the outfit for at least a century.  But there are variations.  For weddings the bride dons a long black cloak with colored vertical panels in the front.  For funerals they wear an extra jacket, usually a bright maroon red color embellished with lots of embroidery and appliqué, presenting a far more colorful ensemble than on ordinary days (or even weddings).  The Thái believe that death is not just a termination of life in this world, but also a transition to the next life.  So people mourn the passing of the deceased, but also celebrate the soul’s rebirth. 

       Vietnam’s Thái are animist and besides venerating their own pantheon of spirit-deities they also pay particular attention to the care of the individual soul.  Several rituals are designed to repair a damaged soul, call it back from wandering, insure its health, etc. Some may involve the participation of a female shaman.  She will dress in the standard outfit of blouse and sarong, but with two additions: a special four-cornered hat and a wide belt, appliquéd with little arabesques and fringed with triangular cloth pendants.

Black Thại woman at her stall in Sơn La

White Hmông woman, Điện Biện Phủ 

       The Black Thái began migrating into the area from southern China from the 9^th century, continuing to settle around Sơn La throughout the first centuries of Vietnamese independence.  The Vietnamese did not directly administer the province and did not officially annex the northwest until 1337.  They then assigned it as a fief to the White Thái Đèo family in Mường Lay.  They were not very loyal vassals, however, and supported the Chinese invasion and occupation of northern Vietnam from 1408.  But when Lê Lợi drove out the Chinese and established a new Lê Dynasty in 1428, the Thái were more autonomous than the new emperor found acceptable.  So he campaigned for two years against them, until their submission in 1432.  

Black Thái houses near Điện Biện Phủ 

       Today Vietnamese form the majority in Sơn La city, but many Thái have also taken up residence there, running market stalls, restaurants and other businesses.  Their villages are a short walk from town and their women frequent the city markets.  They carry their goods in trays or baskets suspended from each end of a balance pole.

       Men leave the market activities to the women, but women also take part in house construction, though only the men do any required climbing.  In fieldwork, women do the weeding, but at planting and harvest time there is no real division of labor.  It was harvest time during my visit and both sexes did the same work of reaping and threshing and women as well as men handled the buffaloes that drove the plows over the newly cleared plots.

White Thái village near Mường Tè

       The only morning bus to Điện Biện Phủ left Sưn La at 4 a.m.  We were still in pre-dawn darkness when we approached the first town Thuận Châu, yet already many Black Thái women were walking single-file along the road, carrying their shoulder poles with baskets at either end, heading for the Thuận Châu market.  Seems to be an early riser culture, at least in the rural areas.

       Continuing past Thuận Châu the road rises gradually into a rather barren, Hmông-inhabited area to the Pha Đin Pass, which also marks the boundary between Sơn La and Điện Biện provinces.  We arrived here just after sunrise and on the descent into the Tuần Giáo valley I could see the Thái were already busy harvesting rice in their fields.  From Tuần Giáo southwest to Điện Biện Phủ is Black Thái territory, though the city itself, famous as the place the Việt Minh inflicted a crushing defeat on the French Army in 1954, is mostly Vietnamese-inhabited.

White Thại village along the Black River near Mường Tè

       Smaller than Sơn La, it is a major tourist attraction for Vietnamese more than for foreigners, with war relics scattered throughout the vicinity and an informative museum next to the cemetery.  The town market attracts two branches of the Hmông from the hills and Black Thái from nearby villages.  The Black Thái also dominate the valley north of Điện Biện Phủ, but then the road climbs into the hills, passing settlements of the Red Hmông, until descending to Mường Lay and the border of Lai Châu province. Formerly known as Lai Châu city, a branch road here leads northwest to Mường Tè district, home to White Thái in the valleys, La Hù, Hà Nhì and small minorities like the Cộng, Mảng and Si La in the hills.

       Near the junction is the ruined palace of the last autonomous ruler of the area—Đèo Văn Long.  Following Lê Lợi’s campaign the Đèo family still remained in power and Vietnamese authority in the Thái areas was tenuous at best.  In the 16^th century White and Black Thái chieftains formed a loosed confederation called Sipsong Chutai, after the twelve (Sipsong) mường (Chutai) of its members.  From then on, northwest history is the struggle for power between the Đèo of Mường Lay and Black Thái chieftains to the south. 

White Thái house near Mường Lay

       In the late 19^th century the Đèo family led forces to expel a renegade Chinese army from Sơn La and won the support of Black Thái chieftains.  Initially, Đèo Văn Trị led the resistance to the French forces, but was forced to surrender n 1890.  Afterwards the French appointed his family as governors of Sipsong Chutai.  The last of them, Đèo Văn Long, appointed 1940, was a notorious despot who worked closely with the French to insure the supply of opium.  He backed the French against the Việt Minh until forced to flee the country in 1953.

       The road past the Đèo mansion to Mường Tè is one of the least maintained in the northwest.  Because of the security restrictions, limiting a traveler’s exploration, and the fact the route doesn't continue to another destination, foreigners skip it.  I went there to meet the Hà Nhì, whom I’d been researching in Yunnan.  I met them in the town, but was not allowed to hike up to their villages in the hills.  Instead, I wound up spending much of my time in the large traditional White Thái village next to the town.

Thái water-wheel on the Black RIver

       It was more authentic than Lác, since there was no tourist trade to cater to, and all houses were traditional ones on stilts, with baskets of split bamboo stacked on the open-air balconies.  They had water-wheels in the river to convey water to their fields and an animist shrine at the edge of the village.  People were friendly and hospitable, if a little surprised by a foreigner there.

       After a few days I returned to Mường Lay and later proceeded to Phong Thổ for its Sunday market day. Both are White Thái areas, though the markets are more dominated by sub-groups of Hmông and Dao.  Lai Châu/Mường Lay was set up as the French colonial headquarters for the northwest and was later heavily damaged during the 1979 war with China.  A White Thái village lay beside the town, with water-wheels in the river and typical stilted houses on the banks. 

        With the construction of the Sơn La dam on the Black River, 50 km north of  Sơn La city, which opened in 2012, the village and most of the town were submerged.  No doubt the villagers relocated in a similar environment and carried on as before.  Vietnam’s Thái are a very conservative people. Ancient traditions still govern their lives, for these have always served them well in the past and people expect them to continue to do so far into the future.   

White Thái women carrying firewood home to Mường Tè

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