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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Rainy Day Excursions to Chiang Mai Museums

                                       by Jim Goodman

model of the King of Lanna's coronation procession

       When the sticky hot dry season of long days of temperatures hovering around 40 degrees C. finally ends, usually late June, it comes as quite a relief.  Early rains clear and cool the air and it becomes possible to walk around, even in the sunshine, without perspiring heavily and risking exhaustion.   Intermittent, heavy cloudbursts are followed by a couple intervening dry hours before another rain.  And the longest periods of precipitation only start late at night.

model of ancient city protection rites at Hua RIn Corner

     That changes after several weeks.  Tropical storms batter the coast of Vietnam and, while the mountains between Vietnam and Laos block the winds, the torrential rain proceeds westward into northern Thailand.  Then Chiang Mai might have all-day rains.  If not constant precipitation, the weather will anyway be very cloudy.  This precludes any trips to the lovely countryside or even much time outdoors in the city.  It’s the Buddhist retreat season, so there are no festivals to watch, either.  

       In such conditions, the best way to appreciate Chiang Mai is to spend time in the museums, for the city has many.  Some are for specialists, like those for stamps, coins, textiles and even insects.  But others are more multi-faceted, highlighting the most interesting aspects of Chiang Mai’s history and culture.  Conveniently, five of them are right in the heart of the old town.

historic photo of elephants in the city streets

       A block north of the old town center is the Three Kings monument to Mengrai of Lanna, Ramkamhaeng of Sukhothai and Ngam Muang of Phayao.  Behind it stands a wide, three=story white building that was City Hall before the administration moved a few kilometers north.  Now it is the Arts and Culture Center, dedicated to various aspects of the city and its development.  In the first room, visitors watch a short film, narrated in English, introducing the city’s attractions.  Other rooms feature exhibits of historical photos, models of ancient activities, key moments of development and aspects of rural life.

       The old photographs date from the late 19^th to early 20^th century.  A view of the iron bridge from the west bank of the Ping River shows how heavily forested the east bank side was back then.  Other photos show elephants in the streets and old-fashioned bamboo and wood houses with thatched roofs, right in the heart of the city.

opening scene of a film on the Burmese occupation

       One room displays small models inside glass cubes that depict city protective rites at the four bastions of the old town.  They include small crowds of officials and a line of monks connected by a thread.  Oddly, though, since this was a rite performed in the Kingdom of Lanna days, the bastions look like models of the ruins of them that stand today.

        In another depiction, of a royal procession into the city, at the head of the line is a man leading a dog on a leash.  This actually was the old Lanna coronation rite and the man with the dog was a Lawa tribesman, representing the original settlers of the Chiang Mai area.

Ping River scene from a century ago

       Thematically, the exhibits then jump ahead historically to a century ago and Chiang Mai’’s modern development.  Another glass cube model depicts elephants at work in the logging industry.  Then comes a scale model of the railway tunnel north of Lampang.  Next is a room with a film of events like the opening of the railway station and airport, plus the establishment of churches, corporations and schools.  The remaining rooms include a rather perfunctory introduction to the hill tribes and an exhibit on rice production, with a very informative film about the entire growing cycle.

old photo of a Chiang Mai nobleman

       Behind this building is the separate Chiang Mai Historical Center, which deals with periods not covered by the Arts and Culture Center. Exhibits cover the entire story of Chiang Mai, beginning with before the Tai Yuan even came here.  Then the area was the home of Lawa, or Lua, a Mon-Khmer people who were hunter-gatherers, whom visitors learn about at the first exhibit.

        Next is the story of King Mengrai, Chiang Mai’s founder, and of the laws he made for the kingdom, with samples of these, written on palm-leaf manuscripts, displayed in cases.  A large map identifies the boundaries of Lanna and the other kingdoms in the region during the centuries of its heyday.  At that time it was a commercial hub for the region, with resident traders from so many different neighboring states that Chiang Mai was known as ‘the city of twelve languages.’  Another map shows the main trade routes of the times, by river and by land, and lists Chiang Mai’s principal exports.  These included things travelers recognize; like salt, leather, ivory, rhinoceros horn, gold, silver, minerals and honey, and a few unexpected resources; like lac, an insect product used for making dyes and shellac, as well as gum Benjamin and civets.

model of King Tilokarat in the Inthakin Museum

       Another room covers the period of the Burmese occupation from 1558 until 1774.  A short film montage here covers that period, with actors in historical costumes portraying the events.  Apparently Burmese rule was not particularly oppressive, at least in the beginning, for the film doesn’t have any such scenes and only mentions that there were revolts occasionally, especially in the last decades, and two invasions by Ayutthaya.  The film ends with the expulsion of the Burmese, but emphasizes the role of Siam more than that of the northern rebels. 

mural of 15th century daily life, Inthakin Museum

       The final exhibits deal with the repopulation and resurrection of Chiang Mai, its development over the next two centuries and a room full of photos from the early 20^th century.  Only a few have captions, however, but among the most arresting are of a nobleman dressed in fancy clothes and a shot of a large water wheel on the east bank of the Ping River, with the iron bridge in the background.  Since water wheels are used to convey river water to farms, one can assume that back then farms lay close to the river.  Now that area is all urbanized.

       A museum devoted to Lanna’s Golden Age under King Tilokarat (1441-87) stands just across the lane south of the Arts and Culture Center, next to Wat Inthakin.  This small temple used to house the City Pillar, a sacred icon of Chiang Mai, but it was removed to Wat Chedi Luang after the city was restored as Lanna’s capital in 1796.  The small temple, built with black wood and gold trimming, is still one of the city’s most attractive.

model of a spinner, Lanna Folk Life Museum

        Next to it is the Inthakin Museum, with exhibits dedicated to the life and times of King Tilokarat, who reigned in a period of great prosperity and prestige.  Tilokarat expanded the kingdom’s territory in all directions, which is shown on a map inside, and was also a great promoter of Buddhism.  He had Wat Jed Yod built, now on the other side of the super highway north of the city, to host a World Buddhist Council. 

antique loom, Lanna Folk Life Museum

       The museum exhibits include wall murals depicting scenes of the daily life of the commoners, like weaving, cooking, carrying water and dancing, as well as elephants going off to war.  Elsewhere there are statues of the king in his court, models of events in his reign, including a life-size elephant transporting the Emerald Buddha, warriors with their weapons and famous monks of the times.  Altogether, the Inthakin Museum gives a well-rounded picture of everyday life in Lanna’s Golden Age, from daily chores to royal spectacles, and even the 15^th century style of punishing criminals.

basketry exhibit, Lanna Folk Life Museum

       Still in the same neighborhood, across the street from the Three Kings monument stands a two-story, white, 19^th century building, originally a royal palace, that for a long time served as the city’s courthouse.  When that, like the City Hall, was moved north of the city, the building later became the Lanna Folk Life Museum.  Intended to be an exposition for both foreigners to understand the lifestyle, art, traditions and culture of Northern Thailand, and Chiang Mai’s residents to appreciate their own heritage, the museum has eighteen exhibition rooms covering a variety of cultural themes.

antique house, now the Lanna Architectural Museum

       Some displays deal with the material side of daily life, such as the spinners, thread winders and looms used to make cloth, including a fine antique loom with carved decorations on the lower horizontal beams.  Samples of antique sarongs from the collections of famous Chiang Mai noblewomen hang inside glass display cases.  Another room shows the craft of weaving baskets, in others various types of betel boxes and other lacquered containers, eating utensils and rich people’s ornaments. 

       Other exhibits deal with traditional arts, like the golden stenciling on red backgrounds known as laikhram in Thai, the techniques of painting murals, like the ones at Wat Phra Singh, with the pictorial outlines stenciled on one side and fully colored on the other, and the casting and styles of bronze Buddha images   Other rooms are dedicated to describing the elements of temple architecture and displaying the typical kinds of artworks the people give to the temple, from flower displays, images and lanterns to the long, thin, woven cotton banners called tung.  Models and photos also depict activities at the temples, the festivals and entertainment such as the graceful fingernail dance.

bedroom in the antique house

       Certainly this is the place to become familiar with the traditional aspects of the Thai lifestyle. Much of it is still going on, both within the city and especially in the rural villages.  For a look at how the upper class used to live one can visit the Lanna Architectural Museum, just a block south, opposite Wat Phantao.   This temple features dark teakwood walls and roofs and was originally part of a royal palace in the mid-19^th century.  The temple went up after that king died and his successor lived elsewhere.  It was the heyday of the teak trade and many of the city’s finest old houses date from that period.

Highland People's Museum

       The two-story house across the street is a beautiful example.  Rectangular and built of teak, a plastered white colonnaded façade surrounds the ground floor.  Living quarters are upstairs, with comfortable elevated beds, mosquito nets, some elegant furniture and a balcony all around the building. The house sits within a walled compound because in the past all the houses of the nobility had walls around them, which were forbidden for commoners’ houses.  There is no class division anymore, so nowadays everybody has compound walls.

Lisu life exhibit, Highlands Museum

       Other than a desultory description in one of the Arts and Culture Center rooms, Northern Thailand’s hill tribes do not get any attention in the city museums.  To become acquainted with these fascinating people’s culture one goes north of downtown Chiang Mai, a little beyond the super highway and then west to the museum dedicated to the hill tribes.   Three stories high, at the edge of a large pond, with restaurants lining the banks, it is commonly known as the Hill Tribe Museum.  Yet signs in the vicinity identify it as Highland People’s Learning Museum or Highland People’s Development Museum or Tribal Village Museum.

model of a Hmông opium smoker

       On the first floor each exhibition room features one of the hill tribes.  Models depict domestic scenes with typical male and female activities—weaving, embroidering, whittling, etc.  Various traditional items like baskets, containers, tobacco bongs, musical instruments, trays and containers lie around the exhibit floor and are also mounted on the walls.  Varieties of ethnic clothing hang from the opposite walls.  Besides typical domestic chores, the exhibits include one of a reclining Hmông man smoking opium and another of Hmông children spinning tops and musicians on lute and gourd-pipe in the background. 

       The hill tribe museum doesn’t get the traffic the others do.  Unlike the old town museums, which are all within a short walk of each other, visitors to the hill tribe museum need a vehicle for transportation to and fro.  In an effort to boost interest, the city government this year sponsored a Tribal Life Festival for four days in August.  Stalls lined the lane leading to the entrance.  Some of them had tribal women doing embroidery, others were just mixed handicraft stalls.   At times entertainers took the stage at the end of the lane, like Lisu dancers or a Karen harp player.  Many dances were Thai however, and with rain constantly a threat, the audiences were a moderate size.  The most splendidly dressed participants were the Palong women, from a tribe not even mentioned or given an exhibit in the museum; perhaps because they‘ve only been here about 25 years.

Akha exhibit , Highlands Museum

Palong woman at the Tribal Life Festival

       The festival, like the museum, laid emphasis on entertainment and handicrafts.  But entertainment is part of traditional life.  And the handicrafts are like relics of a bygone age, when people made themselves what they wore and used every day, unlike these modern times, when folks simply buy readymade, manufactured items in the shops.  We cannot bring back Chiang Mai’s past, but thanks to its museums, it has been preserved for us to remember and appreciate.

Karen women at the Tribal Life Festival

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Home-stay with the Dao in Quản Bạ

                                                       by Jim Goodman

Núi Đôi--the breast-shaped hills of Quản Bạ 

       The northeastern province of Hà Giang is one of the most remote in Vietnam.  It’s also one of the poorest, consisting mostly of rocky mountains with stone-studded slopes, the kind of terrain that precludes agricultural development.  But it is becoming more attractive to travelers, for access is much easier nowadays.  Around the turn of the century it took two full days to drive the 313 km from Hanoi to the provincial capital Hà Giang City, and another full day to reach Đồng Văn in the far north.  Now it’s a smooth ride of six to seven hours.

       Hà Giang City, the provincial capital, is not particularly interesting.  Other than a small museum housing prehistoric artifacts and the clothing of the ethnic minorities, there is little to appreciate.  The city lies along the Lô River, but its banks are usually full of refuse.  But it does have an attractive setting among steep hills backed by high mountains, a foretaste of what’s to come further north.

typical Dao house in Nậm Đâm

       Leaving the city, the road north runs a while through pleasant valleys, passing stilted houses of the Tày minority, and then climbs into the hills.  About 40 km north of Hà Giang City it comes to the pass known as Heaven’s Gate.  From here is a splendid view of Quản Bạ town and its unique setting.  Just beyond the flat fields of the northern suburbs sit two hills beside each other, called the Twin Mountains (Núi Đôi), bereft of farms or trees, exactly the same size and shaped like a woman’s breasts.  Higher mountains lie in the distance beyond.

       According to a local legend, once upon a time a Hmông man playing his gourd-pipe lured a fairy from Heaven who heard his music and fell in love.  She stayed on Earth and bore him a child.   The Lord of Heaven found out and ordered her back.  So she left her breasts behind to nourish the child.

Dao male attire

Dao Aó Dài woman's outfit

       A medium-sized town with little traffic other than inter-city buses, Quản Bạ is becoming more geared up for tourism, with several hotels, trekking services and restaurants with Western food and English menus. Vietnamese dominate the urban population, while Hmông and Dao are the main ethnic minorities in the district.  Most hotels offer home-stay arrangements for travelers to stay in minority villages.

Dao women going home from the fields

       The nearest of these is the Dao village of Nậm Đâm, a few km north of Quàn Bạ, consisting of about fifty houses and 250 inhabitants, members of the Dao Aó Dài sub-group of the Làn Tẻn branch.  [In Vietnamese the letter ‘d’ is pronounced like a ‘z’ so it’s Zao Aó Zai.]  Some Dao are famous for the colorful embroidery with which the women embellish their jackets, trousers or both, like the Red Dao around Sapa, the Tá Pàn Dao in northern Hà Giang and the Sewing Dao of Lào Cai province.  The Dao Aó Dài dress in mainly plain black clothes, without any embroidery, like other Làn Tển sub-groups the Black Dao and Dao Tuyền.

       Men wear a front-fastened, long-sleeved, plain black jacket over black trousers.  The aó dài tunic worn by the women is also long-sleeved, but side-fastened, knee-length and split on each side from the waist down.  It resembles the aó dài worn by Vietnamese women, except it is shorter and has no upturned collar.  It’s not completely black, for a thin band of red trimming runs along the neck and lapel and thicker bands of red, blue or white wraparound the sleeve cuffs.  The women also wear a red cloth belt tied around the waist.

Dao woman with child

Nậm Đâm children

       The headscarf is more like a turban with a flap in the back.  The front features bands of spangled white and red across the brow and the top is usually white.  The long flap that hangs halfway down the back is black underneath and bright red on the outside. Young girls and children dispense with the headgear, but otherwise dress the same.  Silver neck rings, often more than one, and long silver chain necklaces are the most popular ornaments.

host couple with home-made herbal rice liquor

       Like other sub-groups of the Dao, the Dao Aó Dài in Quản Bạ have maintained their traditional culture and are very conservative.  Thus, the women prefer to wear their traditional garments and one of the attractions of a visit to Nậm Đâm is the exotic sight of ethnic clothing everywhere.  In addition, the houses are old-fashioned, two-story structure of wood and rammed earth, with thick thatched roofs.  Fields and gardens separate the houses and there is no real congested area in the entire village.  The only non-traditional buildings in Nậm Đâm are those constructed for the home-stay guests.

preparing dirt for house walls

       “Home-stay” is a bit of a misnomer.  Unlike trekking in the Himalayas in Nepal, or visiting hill tribe villages in northern Thailand (my own experience) visitors do not actually stay in anyone’s home, but in a separate building.  The individual rooms have a thick mattress on the floor, lots of pillows and blankets, an electrical outlet and no furniture.  Guests share a toilet and shower and a computer if they haven’t brought their own, and every such home-stay establishment, of which Nậm Đâm has five at the moment, has wi-fi connections.

       By staying overnight in villagers’ homes, whether a separate bedroom or s mattress on the dining room floor, travelers witnessed a great deal of domestic life.  They saw who goes to bed early or late, who wakes up first, what was the first task of the day, how the meals were prepared and so on—all insights into traditional culture.  By putting guests in a separate building, all that is lost. 

the 'rammed earth' method

       The simple breakfast consists of a choice between noodles or banana pancake—the backpacker favorite, with at most one family member joining the guests.  But for the mid-day and evening meals, the whole host family joins.  And of course, the greater the number of guests, the greater number of dishes, both of meat and vegetables.  Rounds of herbal rice liquor, a local specialty, punctuate the repast and the Dao women will drink as much as the men.  But they don’t get drunk, for the Dao only consume alcohol at meal times and not afterwards.

      While the home-stay experience does not allow for the observation of the intimacy of family life, for anyone interested in the ethnic life style, it’s still preferable to lodging in a city hotel.  “Home-stay” may be just a rural guesthouse, but travelers wake up in an authentic village environment with plenty of opportunity to observe the people’s outdoor work.  This depends on the season, naturally, for farming is every Nậm ̣Đâm family’s occupation. 

Dao domestic altar

Dao girl excavating dirt for house walls

       I was there in winter, when the fields lay fallow.  Women went to gather herbs and edible plants growing wild or harvested something raised in their gardens.  Winter is also house construction time.  The Dao first layout the foundation and then place two long parallel boards on the lines where they want to erect the walls.  Women dig up dirt from a pit created nearby, break up the large clods of earth, load the dirt into a basket and carry it to the house site.  Then they empty the basket of dirt into the trough between the parallel boards.  A man with a big wooden hammer pounds the dirt to make it compact. 

young Dao man learning to write Chinese characters

       Then men raise the boards to make a new trough to receive another load of dirt and slowly but surely the walls rise, by what is known as the ‘rammed-earth’ method. The two-story building, when finished, will include wooden corner posts and window frames and a roof of thick thatch.

       Nậm Đâm is an officially recognized ‘culture village’ and has its own modest museum.  Tools, implements and machines used in agricultural work comprise the bulk of the exhibits, as well as a palm fiber rain cape.  But a typical home altar is also on display, for it’s an essential ingredient of every Dao household.  Dao religion is basically animist with a heavy Taoist overlay.  Shamans are still an active tradition and the people take their religious ceremonies very seriously.  
       Shamans undergo successive initiations to become qualified to conduct a range of rituals for different events.  These include rites of passage like births, becoming an adult, marriage and funerals, others’ initiations, expelling bad luck, honoring ancestors, calling back the wandering souls blamed for unexplained illnesses and so forth.  They wear special coats and hats and for major rituals they may decorate the venue with paintings of Taoist deities.  They often accompany the rites with the deployment of power sticks, fortune-telling dice or musical instruments such as gongs, cymbals and drums.

shaman manuscript pages

       They also read aloud from ancient Taoist manuscripts, written in Chinese characters, which around Nậm Đâm could be up to five centuries old.  They contain narratives of myths or complex prayer formulas and tradition requires a chicken sacrifice and a ritual before they can even be taken out for use.  Most pages are just text, but some contain colored illustrations of life in the afterworld, its pleasures and its punishments.  
       Other than the New Year rites, ceremonies conducted by shamans are semi-public, in that they take place in a private house or yard, but anyone, including passing travelers, is welcome to observe and even join the feast afterwards.  That certainly enhances any visitor’s experience, but even without such a lucky coincidence, a stroll around the village, or out to another one a few km away, is quite pleasant.  The people are friendly and hospitable, used to foreigners without being overwhelmed by great numbers of them and the landscape offers views of other valleys and of black limestone boulders jutting up from the ground, sometimes in arresting shapes.

Hmông in Quản Bạ on market day

       Sunday is market day in Quản Bạ, which draws many of Nậm Đâm’s residents to town, mostly women.  They may add a little jewelry for the occasion, or a colorful scarf, but otherwise dress the same as any other day.  Dao Aó Dài from other villages in the vicinity also turn up in Quản Bạ in Sunday, as do a few Tày, lots of Hmông and local Quản Bạ Vietnamese.    

       Dao Aó Dài women dress more or less the same, with little variation in the outfits.  Hmông women around Quản Bạ, in contrast, do not have a uniform style.  They may wear some of the traditional clothing components, like long slit tunics, pleated, over-the-knee skirts and a long, thin apron in front, but very different from one individual to the next.

pigs for sale in Quản Bạ

Hmông girls examining a necklace

       The regular daily covered market is in the southwest quarter of the town.  On Sunday stalls and stands, or just goods laid out on a cloth, go up on all the lanes branching off from the covered market, as well as the main street in front of it.  Vietnamese run the shops and most of the stalls in the covered market, but Hmông and Dao-run stalls occupy side streets and the areas outside the covered market.  Some hawk vegetables or herbs, others textiles or jewelry.

       At the north end of the market an empty field is the venue for the livestock market, mostly buffaloes.  On the market side of it smaller animals are on sale.  The pigs wear a muzzle of split bamboo and are tied to bamboo poles to make for easy vertical transport on the buyer’s back.  The fowl vendors provide a cage for those purchasing chickens and ducks.  Dog vendors are also there, the dogs tied to leashes for customers to walk them home, whether purchased as pets or as food.

Hmông woman selling vegetables

Dao Aó Dài women in Quản Bạ

       Sugar cane is a popular item and customers often break off a small piece to gnaw on while touring the market.  The liveliest stalls are those selling jewelry, crowded with girls holding up and examining necklaces, bangles and neck rings, fantasizing what they would like look wearing the ornaments.  The older Hmông and Dao women tend to congregate around the textile and thread stalls, buying cloth to make their own clothing.

       Several noodle stands open for the day, so lunch is possible in the market area.  But shortly after noon the crowd begins thinning.  Some look for last-minute bargain finds, youths may arrange for a date with someone they met today, and villagers running stalls gather up the unsold merchandise and prepare to take it home.  Unless it’s a particularly busy time in the agricultural cycle, they’ll be back next Sunday.

Dao women at a silver jewelry stall

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Delta Tours Vietnam can make arrangements to visit Quản Bạ and other destinations in Hà Giang province.  See https://www.deltatoursvietnam.com/other-tour-options