The Tay Stilt house at the back with Thuy playing on a swing like structure : )
With some of my friends at the front gallery
Traditional weaving of the Cham minority
It is really tiring but a fruitful trip. We got to know much more about the different minority groups in Vietnam, their style of housing, what they eat, what they play and what their believed etc. It was good to see that all my Vietnamese friends are as interested as me in the ethnic minorities. I remembered one of them asking me how many races Singapore has. I told them we have 3 main races. She said that they have around 54 and the best thing of all is that they learned to live peacefully together. Even though there are still a lot of things to do to improve the lifestyles of all, at least they can accomplish things better and faster in an environment of peace and hope. Which I totally agree : )
However, I also enjoyed myself as it was fun wandering around playing different games with my friends in the club.
Thuy and Ha skipping rope! I really forgot that skipping ropes can be so simple but fun: )
Turn out that there are many couples taking wedding photos, and I really like this one! see how happy and bless the bride looks. Because of her, I decided that Ao Dai is the prettiest traditional costume!
-Shi Lei
It was a full day at the museum, learnt many things from the Vietnamese students, as well as from the various exhibits at the museum, got a glimpse of what are the various ethnic minorities there are in Vietnam and where they come from, and what their lifestyle is like, particular among the groups on display which I noticed is the Hmong ethnic minority, located at and around the region of Sapa, which there are many kinds, 2 of which are the Black Hmong and the Flower Hmong. At the museam, we got to see the machines which they work with to produce their beautifully decorated clothes, the traditional houses that they stay in, as well as got to play some of the games that they would play at leisure.
These games include skipping rope, and an interested game involving a ball and chopsticks, whereby you would throw the ball in the air the take the chop sticks, something like 5 stones, a traditional Chinese game.
Also on display are some of the religious sculptures of the ethnic minorities, that had a wide variety of symbolism, such as fertility.
Overall, we had a very enriching experience. And this visit had helped developed my understanding of these ethnic minorities in Vietnam, particularly with my visit to Sapa as well, which I got to meet first hand, these ethnic minorities, lived at their villages and got a description of what how these minorities lived. Here's a short video presentation at Sapa on the life of a particular group of ethnic minority, the flower Hmong.
As a tourist destination, at Sapa, I got swamped by people from these ethnic groups asking me to buy things from them, following which they would follow me and the group all the way to the various villages in order to sell their things, which are clothes and other traditional items, mostly made out of cloth and sewn. It is quite disheartening to know that some of these sellers were children, being told by their parents to sell these items, instead of going to school, which they could not afford or was too far away from their houses. My friend told me that buying from these children was not the solution as they would be encouraged to continue on with the types of jobs they are doing now instead of going to school to develop a more promising future.
In turn, we also got the chance to visit the weekend flower Hmong market at Bac Ha province near Sapa, where villages would gather there once a week to trade goods as well as find prospective partners. It was a very busy atmosphere, with a huge crowd of people everywhere. The tour guide recommended us to go eat some of the local delicacies of the region, but when we found out how it looked liked and what it was as we didn't know the English translations for the names of the food, we decided not the eat it, as it didn't look too appetizing, perhaps its our differences in food culture and taste likings..:)
In all, the museum trip, coupled with the visit to Sapa, deeply enriched my understanding and situation of these ethnic minorities. And I really feel that their lives can be improved a great deal through humanitarian help. Something that can be achieved through funding and greater developments. At the area, I decided to give away some pens and my friend followed up with some notebooks as I was told they had to keep reusing notebooks and didn't have enough pens. When I gave them the items, their faces of these children from the ethnic minority groups started beaming with joy and happiness, which gave me a deep sense of fulfillment as well. Simple items to us, but yet meant so much to them and their future. It touched me deeply and I would in future, consider doing humanitarian work in this region. :)
Cheers,
Daniel Foo
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