7th Grade Trip Ban Lac, Mai Chau, Vietnam
March 2014
The day before we left, we learned a few different White Thai traditional crafts and games.
The 7th grade class visited the village of Ban Lac in March 2014. During our trip, we interviewed people who live and work in the village. Here are their stories. Table of Contents: 2—3...Animal Farmer 4—5...Bamboo Furniture Marker. 6—7...Chieng Chau Middle School 8—9...Cook 10—11...Dancer 12—13...Embroider 14—15...Home Stay Owner 16—17...Rice & Fish Farmer 18—19...Rice Wine Maker 20—21...Sticky Rice Maker 22—23...Visitors 24—25...Weaver
Animal Farmer By: Shimli, Adelaide, Hazel, Ethan, Thang, Dylan, Jae Yoon and Eui Sung
Our class took a trip to Mai Chau, and while we were there, we went to an animal farm to interview a White Thai citizen. His name was Tran Cuoc Thai, and we talked to him about his daily life, and his job. He is a farmer living in the village of Ban Lac.
Group Picture with Mr. Thai in the Middle
One of the main job Mr. Thai did was raising Pigs but he sustained numerous jobs, in order to achieve a steady income. Here are a few of them : He raised pigs for live sail, he maintained rice fields, and processed the harvested rice to make it edible. Also he rents music speakers to a variety of villagers. Mr. Thai also kept little white rats as pets. Rice Fields in Ban Lac, Mai Chau
He learned how to be a farmer from his parents, who (like many parents) play a very existential role in life as a child. The only holiday Mr. Thai receives, is five days in celebration of TĂŞt. He only visited places in Northern Vietnam (including Hanoi) due to his lack of time. Mr. Thai usually tries to sells his animals as soon as possible, in order to make enough money. Mr. Thai really likes his job, and believes it is important for the community. He enjoys taking care of his pigs, and selling pigs.The part of his job he dislikes is when the pigs get sick and then die, and when he has to sell them for food.
Mr. Thai’s Pets (rats)
Animal Farmer Describe your day:
He wakes up at 6:00 am.
He feeds the pigs.
He goes to the rice fields and works there for about an hour.
He eats lunch and sets up the music speakers.
Baby Pigs
He has to wash the pigs in summer so they stay cool. The baby pigs need different food, because they're still learning to eat. He dislikes it when the pigs are sick .
Mr. Thai Feeding the Pigs
When he was a child he remembers the roads and houses weren't nice to look at and the roads weren't flat. His family wasn’t that rich, but they still were able to afford food but now they he can afford more things.
He likes to keep rats as pets and there were about 10 rats when we came to visit him. He likes keeping rats because they give him company and they're really fun to take care of. Overall, it was great fun meeting Mr. Thai and we hope to see him again in the near future! Click Here to view a video of the trip to the animal farm! Baby Pigs and Mama Pig
Bamboo Furniture Maker Ms. Bamboo furniture maker and her husband live in a stilt house in Mai Chau valley. They live in the White Thai village as they belong to the White Thai people. Their house is made out of bamboo and it contains a lot of the furniture that they made themselves. They make hand-made bamboo furniture out of the bamboo. The bamboo furniture maker leaves the house a lot to go buy
the essentials or to do another job. The Bamboo Furniture maker is cutting some bamboos to make furniture's.
During the harvest season, they harvest rice instead of making bamboo furniture but once harvest season is over, they have to do another job to keep earning money. She makes a lot of furniture but mainly chairs and tables; she sells them for about 300 VND. She says that sometimes she can sell the furniture and sometimes she can’t. She learned how to make bamboo furniture when her husband went to watch other people make the furniture and he learned how to make the furniture just by observing. He taught her how to make the furniture and she has been making bamboo furniture for over a year. She buys the bamboo from other people and she tells us that a lot of bamboo is needed to make the furniture because she needs specific sizes and kinds of bamboo to make the furniture. It takes about 2 days to make a piece of furniture because the process is long and tiring.
The Bamboo Furniture maker is cutting the bamboo.
The bamboo furniture maker is taking the green leaves off of the bamboo.
First, she has to chop the bamboo and then cook it. She cooks it to make the bamboo harder and better for the furniture. After she cooks the bamboo, she either has to wash it vigorously or scrape the dirt off of the bamboo. She also has to chop the bamboo into smaller pieces and after she does this, she starts making the furniture.
The Bamboo Furniture maker is buffing the bamboo .
She uses machines such as the sander and the driller to make holes inside of the bamboo so that she can stick bamboo inside of bamboo to keep the furniture together. She puts this kind of powder on the furniture to make it yellow and it also acts as an insect repellent. A good piece of furniture that is preserved well can last up to 7 years.
The bamboo furniture maker is buffing the bamboo.
Click here to see a video of the interview.
A group picture with the Bamboo Furniture Maker
Chieng Chau Middle School, Mai Chau Rohan, Gaeun, Bach, Thuy Anh, Jack, Toya, Minsoo
Chieng Chau Middle School, located in Mai Chau, Hoa Binh, is a Vietnamese government-run school with promising students and dedicated teachers. These students follow the Vietnamese curriculum. The principal of the school, Mr. Tem, is very thoughtful about his student’s studying environment and achievements that he has donated all his time and money to the development of the school. UNIS identified this action as a courageous and virtuous action and decided to help. In year 2008 the school community donated 5 old Dell desk computers, which by now have worn out. This year, the UNIS tech department donated 12 Fujitsu laptops, which hopefully will last longer and be more useful for the students.
In UNIS, there is a service learning group which caters to help support the studies of these students in Mai Chau. Members of this group consist of Mr. Vermeire, Bach Le, Gaeun Lee, Thuy Anh Ho, Jack Langston, Toya Tabe, Rohan Gowda, and Min Soo Kim. In November, we went as a service group to the school to get an idea of the condition. In our visit, we saw that the condition of the school was very low and the environment where the students were studying was very poor. The main school building was in construction so the students had to study inside small individual straw houses for different grades which were very dark and there was only one light bulb for 30 students to share. However, since the school got hold of this situation, we focused on delivering the tablets and helping whatever the principal still needed help with or require. Since all the assemblies happen in the big field in the center of school, Mr. Tem told us he needed a big tent to prevent rain and sunlight when the students and teachers met for an assembly or gathering. We are still working on this and once the building is finished, it is most probable that Students from UNIS interacting with the students this will be our second mission. from school As of now, the principal is very happy with the laptops we brought for them and asked his students to perform for us in turn for our gratitude, which was exactly what our service group hoped to achieve; to create a strong bond between UNIS and Chieng Chau Middle School. Hopefully in the future, we will be able to extend the education possibilities in Chieng Chau Middle School by offering more advancements Students from the Chieng Chau Middle School perto create our future leaders. forming the fan dance for UNIS students If you want to see more about what we did at Mai Chau, here’s a link to a short video: Click here to see the video.
THE COOK
By: Mirai, Kiridan, Viet, Tommy, Trang, Ted and Ngoc Anh
Hà Thi Tim is a white Thai cook in Mai Chau. She is 32 years old and she has lived in Mai Chau all her life. She first learnt to cook from her grandparents and the skills of cooking have been passed down to each generation. Her family has been cooking for almost around 20 years. Her grandparents are still alive and she has a husband and one girl that is 11 years old and another child on the way.
This is a picture of big over view picture of the kitchen. As you can see it is quite big.
Although it seems like cooking is Hà Thi Tim first job, it isn’t her main job is farming and her secondary job is cooking. But with Hà Thi Tim doing both jobs she still only has enough money to feed her family. This is a picture of Hà Thi Tim mother. She is peeling carrots for lunch.
One of Hà Thi Tim’s favorite foods is fish from the pound with rice. She also likes chicken with tomato. Hà Thi Tim tells us that during the year there is barely any change in the food that she makes.
This is a picture of the fire place for the food. As you can see they aren’t able to cook a lot of things at the same time.
This is the area where they prepare the meat. This is also the area where they wash the dishes
Many of the 7th grade students and teachers from UNIS really loved the food that Hà Thi Tim had created. She was an excellent cook and she created so many different types of food.
This a picture of us interview Hà Thi Tim. Tommy is asking the questions, Viet and Ngoc Anh are translating and Kiridan and Mirai are talking notes and Trang and Ted are taking videos and pictures.
Hà Thi Tim believes in the white Thai culture. One of important thing she does when cooking White Thai food is putting in all the right spices. Hà Thi Tim really loves living in Mai Chau. One of the things that Hà Thi Tim does when she is cooking food for foreigners is sees if they like the food and makes improvements so that her food is always better. At first it was really hard for Hà Thi Tim to cook foreign food, but now she can use the internet to tell her how to make food from other countries. Hà Thi Tim has gained a lot of experience from making food for foreigners and she always wants all her visitors to taste the white Thai food. Here is a man cutting some vegetables in the meat area. As you see all the space in the kitchen is used.
This is the area where the food would be served. There are many extra tables and chairs because at that time grade 7’s from UNIS had come to stay at Mai Chau.
This a picture of one of the cooks preparing the food for the UNIS 7th grade students and teachers.
This is a link to the interview:
AI CHAU IN ERVIEW (interviewing A DANCER)
Miss Tinh teaches us how to dance “The Butterfly Dance”
Miss Tinh teaches us how to dance “The Butterfly Dance”
Click here to watch the video:
Miss Mai’s troupe performs before the Open Mic.
Miss Mai’s troupe performs before the Open Mic.
Miss Mai’s dancers perform the Bamboo Dance,
Our students are trying the Bamboo Dance.
The Embroider By: Uyen, Tasha, Hana, Jongbin, Taiga and Quan Pham
Miss. Vanh is a rice farmer taking the job of a part time embroiderer. She lives in the small tourist town of Ban Lac which is located near the tall mountain tops in Mai Chau. She is married and has a son who is 22 years old. For the most part of her day Miss. Vanh works in the fields planting and harvesting rice, when she has free time, she works on her embroidery.
Miss. Vanh answering to our questions while showing the process to create embroidery. Miss. Vanh makes a few of them every day.
This is a big bag a threads that Miss. Vanh gets delivered each month. She buys them from a village nearby.
This is another work of Miss. Vanh, some have the same colors, but each one beautiful as the last. Miss. Vanh says she picks the colors based on her personality.
The embroidery pattern a worker showed us in one of the work shops that we did. Disabled women from the village work in a shop which sells bags to tourists.
The threads are already through the needles, so that she can change the colors quickly. We were amazed by how well she was organized to work in a short amount of time.
Miss. Vanh is showing all her threads she uses for making her exquisite embroidery. She answered all of our questions politely and we learned so much about her work.
The stilt house she is embroidering on a piece of cloth to put it onto a small bag. This cloth has small holes in it, which makes the embroidery more complicated.
Click here for the link to our video
Ms. Mai (Tourist house) Group 9 *Khushi, Minh Quan, Will, Neo, Yeon Su , Jieun ,...* Ms. Mai is a 40 year old woman who owns a homestay in the Ban Lac village of Mai Châu. She has been working there for 15 years now and she started doing this job when she was 25 years old. Ms. Mai and her family live in a stilt house together and Ms. Mai is a hardworking woman who has been providing the homestay to Grade 7 students who come to Mai Châu every year for their field trip. She has stayed in Mai Châu for a reasonably long time and she has seen various improvements in the Ban Lac village, along with the whole of Mai Châu. Ms. Mai is a kind person who enjoys her life a lot because she grew up in Mai Châu and she feels like she can easily connect with the culture and traditions of the place. When Ms. Mai isn’t taking care of the people who visit, she is usually working in the fields, weaving or doing laundry.
She chose to join this field of business because the income was stable. This is because there were many tourists who came to stay in the Ban Lac village. There have been improvements in Mai Châu that Ms. Mai has witnessed. One of them is that there are new opportunities in Mai Châu. Tourists learn about the culture and traditions of Mai Châu and vice versa. Her daily routine consists of her doing the normal things in the morning like brushing her teeth etc. Then, she cleans the house. After that, she weaves/does laundry if there are no tourists to take care of. If they are tourists to take care of, she will help out.
Interview with Ms.Mai Ms. Mai likes doing her job it’s a family house and her family likes to welcome people. She also loves what she does because there are many new opportunities.
Our group is interviewing with Ms. Mai
Ms. Mai has 2 children. One of them has gone outside Mai Châu to study. She wants her older child to work in the government and help the government of Vietnam. They are translating what Ms. Mai said.
She got better as time went on. The more tourists came; she got better at her job.
Ms. Mai’s house. Here is the link to our video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0YPEOaYNCc&feature=youtu.be 2
Inside the Life of a Rice and Fish Farmer
This is the rice paddy. The green part is where the grass is. And the fish can go in and eat the grass. Outside that line, is where the fish are.
This is the farmer we interviewed. The rice and fish famer. He is showing us the grass that he feeds the fish.
Going to Mai Chau, we got to learn so much about the people and their culture. But we also get to learn and try their job like weaving and embroidery. We got to interview a person in the village that does a job that is taking care of the rice paddies and caring for the fish. The person we are interviewing takes care of the rice paddy that has fish in it. This job he does earns him money, but also food. He plants and takes care of the rice, and feeds the fish grass or the plant around the farm. His job helps him to earn money because he could sell the fish to get money.
Click here for the video to watch when we were interviewing the farmer This is where the rice paddies are.
The grass is in the rice paddy.
During the Interview How did you learn to do your job? This rice and fish farmer learnt his job by his parents. His parents taught him when he was small and grew up learning it. He also said that he learnt this job partly by himself. Since it used to be his parent’s job, it is now passed on to him and he is the person with the job. What is the process for growing crops and fish? The rice and fish farmer cuts the grass from around the rice paddies (that has fish in the pond), and feeds that grass to the fish in the rice paddies. To grow the rice, he throws rice seeds out to the paddies to let it grow. To catch the fish’s attention, he would throw it strong instead of sprinkling the grass on the rice paddies because if the grass falls on the paddies strongly then the fish can feel it, and then it will go toward the grass. What happens to the fish? Sometimes, the rice and fish farmer would sell the fish to earn some money. Sometimes he would take the fish and make it food for him to eat. Do you enjoy your life at the Mai Chau Valley? Yes I do, it is my home so I do enjoy being here. How old were you when you started this job? I started this job when I was 8 years old. Extra: The fish in the rice paddies only eat in the morning and they stop eating in the afternoon. When that happens, he would cut more grass and throw it on the paddy so that the next day, the fish would already get feed. Extra from the farmer’s life: In this farmer’s life, when it starts to turn to night time he would go to the Ban Lac village, his home.
The rice and fish farmer is throwing grass into the rice paddy to feed the fish.
This is the rice and fish farmer in his house while we here interviewing him.
Krisha Valle- Manya Arora - Nikhil Mahajan - Kakra Adu Gyamfi - Royce Jose - Thanh Le - Khanh Linh
Rice - Wine Making - Mai Chau 2014 Rice-wine making is not the most popular job in Ban Lac a small village in Mai Chau. There are several occupations within the Ban Lac village that someone may choose from. Mr. Dao is the only rice-wine maker in his area, but this isn’t his main priority. His actual job is a rice farmer, but this Mr. Dao, the rice-wine maker
doesn’t provide much for his family. This is when he decided to start making ricewine.
Mr. Dao lives in a small house in the Ban Lac village. He is joined by his wife, but his two daughters are now living with their spouse. Rice-wine making has been passed on by generation. Mr. Dao has shared the knowledge on how to make rice-wine to his daughters. The husbands of his two daughters are the ones that are now making rice-wine.
This is where Mr. Dao and his family lives.
Krisha Valle- Manya Arora - Nikhil Mahajan - Kakra Adu Gyamfi - Royce Jose - Thanh Le - Khanh Linh
Rice - Wine Making - Mai Chau 2014
Steps on how to create ricewine: - Cook the rice
Rice - wine making in process
- Once the rice has been cooked let it
Mr. Dao has been making rice-wine for 10
cool down
years now. The rice-wine isn’t something that
- The rice may now be fer-
is drank on normal days. Rice-wine is drank
mented (in the
during special occasions like; a wedding and
same pot)
Tet holiday. Though this beverage is usually
The pot was being - Let it sit down sealed before it starts for 10 days - After 10 days, transfer it into another pot - Top it off with the lid. Seal
drunk during special occasions it is not prohib-
ited for that to drink this on normal days. There is a special festival in the Ban Lac vil-
the lid using clay. - This will be heated with fire for about
Mr. Dao, the rice-wine Here are links to the interview with the rice-wine maker and our walk to his home: Link 1
The rice-wine being cooked in the pot.
How do you even make sticky rice?
How did you learn how to do your job?
First, Thanh finds young bamboo in the forest. She brings it back to the village where she cuts it into small tubes that measure about a foot long. She places a banana leaf inside each tube, which she then fills with a dry rice mix that includes peanuts. Once she has completes this process numerous times, she fills the tubes with salt water, which gives the rice a special taste. From start to finish, the process takes about four hours. On a good day, Thanh can make up to 700 bamboo sticky rice tubes.
Family tradition. What job is the most common in the Mai Chau valley? Rice Farmers How does the change of season effect the Mai Chau valley? It doesn’t affect Mai Chau since rice doesn’t matter about temperature. How old were you when you started working? Mrs. Thanh started working when she was 10 years old to help her family since they were very poor. They also owned a farm but with 3 sisters and 2 brothers it could not feed the whole family. Mrs. Thanh is a very motivated woman who works very hard to still be living a hard life
Here is a video our group composed:
Do you have children? Do you want them to do the same work as you? She had 3 sisters and 2 brothers who worked on their farm. No I do not.
Marcelle, Austin, Nadya, Kesuike, Min Ki, Predtheev
Thanh’s everyday life: In Mrs. Thanh’s daily life she had very few things she did but one of her favorite’s things when she had free time was to make sticky bamboo rice. Mrs. Thanh grew up in a very poor family and did not have a lot of freedom. Mrs. Thanh started working when she was 10 years old to help her family since they were very poor. They also owned a farm but with 3 sisters and 2 brothers it could not feed the whole family. Mrs. Thanh is a very motivated woman who works very hard to still be living a hard life Photo Gallery
Thank you Thanh for letting us interview you and giving us some of your sticky rice!
Marcelle, Austin, Nadya, Kesuike, Min Ki, Predtheev
Visitors
Many shops in Ban Lac, Mai Chau are designed to garner tourists. Due to this, the village has become popular and attracts many tourists every day. tourists have become as much a part of the village as anyone else. The tourists in Mai Chau have come a long way from many different countries, such as France and Germany. These different people have different opinions about life in Mai Chau. Although the stream of tourists are nearly constant, there are only around a dozen in the village at any given time. Click here to see our video about the visitors.
Differences What are the differences between your current life and here? Some of the tourists we interviewed pointed out the differences between their life in France and Germany with life in the village. Many said that in their home countries, from what they could see, there was a lot more working for them there as to how they didn't have to in Mai Chau, because they were on vacation.
What did you expect vs. what you see? Not many of them gave much thought to what they would see upon arrival, but were
Woman Working at Loom and the various fabrics that she has crafted
Positive and Negative:
What is one of the drawbacks? Coming from outside Mai Chau, tourists have seen the lives of other people as well, say that because Mai Chau is a small village, it is harder to get things from the outside.
What do you think about the stilt houses? The stilt houses are a new idea to the tourists, who find them very different from their normal lives. The majority of them stay in the stilt houses to experience Mai Chau life to the fullest when visiting.
Interviewing a tourist
Thoughts: What made you come to Mai Chau? Many people outside of Mai Chau come to the village to explore the lives of the people and surroundings there to know more about the White Thai ethnicity.
Do you think Mai Chau is a pleasant village? Many tourists enjoy the village because they find it a fascinating place which is not too busy or loud, and many find the village and its surroundings beautiful as well.
What interests you the most? Many tourists found the way that the people work together from the same culture interesting, as well as the valleys in the landscape and the women who were equal to the men, as well.
Ms. Duyen—Weaver Ms. Duyen is a weaver in Ban Lac. She lives in a stilt house, and underneath is where she makes and sells her products. She started weaving when she was 12, as she needed money to go to school. It is also compulsory in the village to know how to weave as woman, in order to get married, it is a Thai tradition. All women in Ban Lac know how to weave.
For Ms. Duyen, it takes from 5 days, to half a moth to create a finished product, depending on the simplicity of what she is making.
In the old days, they used to only be able to dye the fabric natural colors, but now they have a lot of variety, by using food color to dye it.
Most of the patterns are of the White That people, but there are also many that are of nature and Mai Chau, and different designs for each holiday they celebrate. They come in lots of different sizes and different type, bed sheets, clothes, etc..
Ms. Duyen, along with the villagers and farmers fork together to grow cotton and spin it into threads, in order to use it in the loom to weave.
Here is the link to the interview video Weaving is done on a loom, and woman do it, men rarely ever do it. Girls start to weave from 12, to 13 years old.