The simple life By Yeow Pooi Ling
Publisher:The Star - Publication Date: 26-05-2008

Our Vietnamese guide Thao Thi Khu looks like the average Black Hmoung girl in her village. Her waist-length hair is pulled to her forehead and pinned with comb and hairclip, and she wears traditional dark blue attire with colourful flowery designs.

Her legs are wrapped in a cloth that acts as protection against the harsh rocks and hard tree trunks of the jungle. Her faithful purple Wellington boots provide a firm grip while trekking in the mountains.

To the Black Hmoung, having long hair is considered beautiful and only 'crazy women' have short hair, Khu tells us, her tourists for the next two days.

My two friends and I learn a lot about the Black Hmoung and their culture during our trip to Sapa, where valleys of rice terraces and tribal people flourish.

Sapa was first built as a train station by the French in the 20th century. It is located at an altitude of 1,650m in the Lao Cai province, northwest Vietnam. The Black Hmoung, who originated from China, migrated to various parts of South-East Asia in the 18th century.

Khu tells us that Black Hmoung women learn how to sew when they are little girls and think little of spending a whole year making just one new dress.

When they get married, they are responsible for making clothes for their husbands and children.

When we first met Khu, she was in the midst of preparing her new attire for 2009 by hemming hay to thread.

“The ones in the shop are not beautiful. By making my own, I get to choose my own designs and colour combinations,” she told us when we enquired.

The indigo colour is derived from a plant, which the Black Hmoung boil and then put in the cloth to soak for about six hours. Do that twice, and the colour will seep in well.

This August, Khu will turn 23, which is considered a little old to be remaining single.

But Khu is not like the other girls in her village in Lao Chai; she’s willing to spend 4,000 dong (24 US cents) an hour to surf the Internet on a weekly basis. She writes to her foreign friends via her Yahoo e-mail and updates her Facebook account regularly.

She’s the third woman in her family to speak English fluently without having any formal education, thanks to lessons in a Catholic church in Sapa. Both her father and brother do not speak the language.

Khu decided not to settle down when she turned 15 because she didn’t want to be tied down to a husband and children.

“Couples have to work very hard when they have children. They don’t have time for anything else,” she says.

Khu is a nak thai (“aunt” in Hmoung) to her 25-year old brother’s five-month-old daughter. Her teenage sister is presently pregnant with her first child. Khu herself has had several proposals from foreign men but has declined all of them.

This doesn’t mean that she wants to remain single for the rest of her life. She hopes to marry a man in her village one day and settle down among her own people in the mountains. But for now, Khu wants to explore as many things as possible, and maybe live in another country.

Interestingly, the Black Hmoung have a weekly 'love market' every Saturday. This is when bachelors pluck up the courage to approach the women they fancy.

Khu says if a girl dislikes a man, she can refuse to even talk to him. But if the feelings are mutual, the couple will most likely be married within weeks.

Wedding celebrations last about five days, and during the first three days, the couple can choose to separate if they should find each other unsuitable. If it is the bride who decides to separate, her family will have to offer rice wine to the groom’s family as compensation.

Like most Asian families, boys are preferred in families. Girls are often the ones who have to go out on the streets hawking goods while the boys stay at home and play. Khu says boys are usually shy, hence they are not suited to become traders.

She tells us not to buy anything from very young girls, however, as this might encourage them to stop schooling in order to make more money.

Khu, who has been a guide for a year in Sapa, prefers to conduct two-day tours rather than those lasting three or four days and take her to far-flung villages where the mosquito problem is bad.

“I don’t like them because they bite me and leave marks on my skin,” she explains.

Khu earns US$100 a month regardless of how many tours she conducts. When she is not working, she is likely to be in her village helping her parents to cultivate rice. It costs about 100 million dong ($6,000) to buy a buffalo and 3 million dong ($185) for a baby buffalo. It costs almost the same for a motorbike.

“I prefer buffalos to motorbikes because buffalos can help us earn money. With motorbikes, you need to spend more money on fuel and maintenance,” she says. But, what do you know – Khu owns a bike, which she uses to commute to town.

“Bikes are good, but buffalos are better!” she explains.

Khu seems like someone caught between eras. Her lifestyle is as simple as it could be in the old days, and yet she is exposed to the modern world.

There are no fancy electrical equipment in her home, and her family, like all their neighbours, uses wood to heat the stove and bamboo to make tables and chairs.

Toilets, while decent, are simply a hole with running water from the rice terraces flushing away the waste. There is no heating out here in the cold, hilly climate; only layers of clothes to keep warm.

Yet Khu knows how to use the computer and speaks fluent English. She doesn’t watch TV but knows about various places from interacting with tourists of various nationalities. Despite her desire for more exposure to the world outside, she is still firmly anchored to her own culture and customs.

There is no doubt in Khu’s mind that one day she will settle down in her village and live life just as it is now.

As we bid our farewell on the third day, my friends and I have learned from Khu to be open-minded and not to judge others. Sometimes, we’re so used to our own way of doing things, we think those who live differently are not really living.

Khu has shown us that it is possible to have a simple life while still being connected to the rest of the world.