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Black Hmong - Viet Nam
"Serenity"
We live in the Highlands in Northern Viet Nam near the Chinese border. The scenery is magnificent and has many villages of different ethnic groups.
We make or own clothes by growing hemp, harvesting and making thread from it; we then weave the cloth and dye it with indigo dye. The cloth is beaten until the surface takes on a lustrous sheen, then it’s sewn and decorated. New clothes are made each year for Tet.
Girls receive only a couple of years of education, as they are needed to help with their younger siblings and around the house. Some of them go to the nearest town to learn English from the tourists so they can either become guides or sell goods to tourists in the local market. They don’t want to marry because it is a hard life for the women. Marriages are arranged and the man’s family must pay a dowry to the girl’s family.
Sometimes the oldest girl is married off so that her family has enough money to pay the dowry for her brother to marry. If the husband dies, they marry the husband’s younger brother or they must return 60% of the dowry to the husband’s family. The brother may want a child. Because of this, older women can be seen with babies. |
