Nhung was sit­ting in front of her wood­en house when we walked into her vil­lage. She had a warm smile and kind eyes. Speak­ing to her was dif­fi­cult as she didn’t know Viet­namese, so her son told us about their life and culture.

“It was very dif­fi­cult in the past, they had to go to the for­est to find roots and catch fish to feed us. In win­ter­time, we did­n’t have enough clothes to wear. It was very cold and we gath­ered around the stove to warm up. Some­times, we had to wear 1 pair of clothes for 2 or 3 years. Our ances­tors used to hunt tigers to get meat and the skin. The skin will be used to make sleep­ing mats, or make clothes.”

“Our ances­tors told me that we used to call our eth­nic group “Lá Vàng” (Lá Vàng means yel­low leaves). In the past, they built hous­es using green banana leaves for the roof. When the leaves turned yel­low, they moved to a new place. Wher­ev­er there were lots of ani­mals, they stayed there until there was­n’t enough food, then they moved. When the leaves turned yel­low, that meant they hunt­ed all the ani­mals. The whole vil­lage always moved to a new place together.”

Nhung, 82 years old
La Hu Eth­nic Group
Lai Chau, Vietnam