Vietnam rural home- Tet preparations, pig

About this recording

Creator

Kristin Post

Provider

Greensboro News-Record

Date created

January 26, 2001

Duration

0:59

Location

Sapa, Vietnam

File

MP3

License

This recording copyright ©2001. Terms of use

In the classroom

Tourists and locals in Hanoi frequently escape the city by spending some time in a mountain village close to the Chinese border. Sapa is a former French colonial hill station, still popular among tourists who come to experience the culture of hill-tribe villages and buy local crafts. The lush rural scenery is also an attraction, especially in the spring and summer.

For my tour, the Vietnamese government arranged everything from the bus leaving Hanoi, to the hotel, to the villages that we hiked to visit. Each village might belong to a different ethnic group, which is usually identified by the predominant color they use in their detailed and elaborate weavings. (I mention Black Hmong in my journal, which I believe refers to the Hmong or Muong who use indigo to die headcoverings and clothes.) Though these ethnic groups have not traditionally been well-treated by the government, they nonetheless generate important revenue for the Vietnamese tourist industry.

For me, it sometimes felt as if the local people were on display, especially when large groups of tourists tramped their homes. On the other hand, the tour did provide insight into a different lifestyle than that of the Vietnamese majority living in urban cities. Though I know that most of the money I spent on the trip did not go toward making the local people prosperous, I did by some weavings, which I assume is helpful for the local craftswomen.

I visited Sapa just before Vietnamese new year, known as Tet. This is the country’s biggest holiday. People who work get several days off to travel home and visit family. Tet is celebrated by several days (usually a week) of feasting and drinking with friends and family. Children are given new clothes, houses are thoroughly cleaned, new pots and pans are used in the kitchen, special symbolic foods are prepared, all to celebrate the beginning of a new year.

From my journal:
Group started walking around 9am. First stop was a Black Hmong house- pig hanging out to dry, corn in the rafters. A very early pioneer look. Pig’s blood on the table. A vat of alcohol. Back in the kitchen, a huge wok rested over the fire- men were boiling pig fat. Men were doing all the work ’cause it’s festival time- big party. They we went by some ponds, up some rice paddies- lingered at a small gorge under a bridge where the French had built a hydroelectric plant.

Transcript

(chopping sounds on cutting board, water running.)

Kristin

What are they making? Soup?

Tour guide

uh, they are boiling the corn in order to enjoy the Tet holiday. Yeah.

Kristin

More alcohol? (Laughs)

Tour guide

Yeah. And uh, in the Tet holiday every family (at least?) they have one pig, they get one pig. And nowadays the local people, they have to work very hard but they eat only corn, rice, (and vegetable?). It’s very hard for them to have a chance to eat with the…pig or chicken. Only just Tet holidays they have a chance to eat rice with the pig…and also..

Kristin

rice with the…?

Tour guide

Pork. Pork.

Kristin

Pork. OK.

Tour guide

And also from the pork they can create a lot of kind of food. They have the boiling pork and the fried pork, yeah.

Kristin

So he’s cutting up pork fat, yeah?

Tour guide

Yeah.