Jenny Lo Publishes Book based on Hmong Experience

The Hmong community is gradually making its way into the world of publishing. Y. Jenny Lo has now added her voice to the number of young Hmong people sharing their experiences with the world. Her book Husi: A Clouded Future is Still Translucent follows a fictional Husi through her experiences in Southeast Asia.

As a child Husi sees her family killed. The book follows her transformation from a, "scared and traumatized little girl to a beautiful and strong young woman." While she plans revenge she "learns how to forgive and love."

While Lo is clear that, "This book is fictional, it's all in my imagination. There were no personal experiences of myself or any living person in my novel. All the events were created to make the book more interesting." She adds that, "I believed my book represents a lot of the Hmong people. In some ways, we experienced similar hard times (but not all of them), separation from loved ones, and loneliness in a new world."

Lo was born in Long-Cheng and like many of her generation experienced early childhood in a refugee camp. At the age of 11 she came to the U.S. with her family. She recalls that learning English was very difficult for her, "It was like placing a baby in six grade. I had to start from scratch-learning my ABC's and 123's." However she excelled and is now writing whole books in English.

Husi is written in a narrative fashion, alternating between Husi directly speaking to the reader and the reader "looking in" on the events happening around Husi.

After trying her hand at fiction Lo plans to incorporate more personal experiences into her next novel, "I have a rough draft of my next novel which will be based on my life experiences as a war-child. I want my children and the next Hmong generation to know where we (the first Hmong immigrants) came from and how hard it was for us to get to where we are today. The draft (as of now) is entitled, 'The Crying River'."

Lo has experienced a lot of support within her family, "My family has been extremely supportive. Writing this book has been a long, and difficult experience for all of us, and they were very patient with me." However Lo knows very few people in the larger Hmong Community know about her book yet. But she hopes that, "they will support my writing. Writing has been a long time dream. I want to share my gifts as a writer. I hope every reader will be inspired by my book (Husi) to live their lives to the fullest and to accept who you are."

Lo is also the author of a children's book entitled Disobedient Ducklings. She lives in Bethel, MN. For more information on purchasing her books go to www.outskirtspress.com/husi or http://www.amazon.com/

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On the Verge of a Hmong-American Literary Movement

New America Media, Commentary, Mai Der Vang, Posted: Aug 19, 2008

Editor's Note: A member of a Hmong-American writers' group reflects on the importance of the written word in a culture that did not have a written language until the 1950s. Mai Der Vang writes from Fresno, Calif.

FRESNO, Calif. — As a young girl, I collected books, magazines and newspapers. On Sundays, I watched my uncle read the Fresno Bee. After he was done, I saved the newspaper with the idea that it would be useful somehow in the future. Even then, I was aware of the importance of the written word.

These memories came back to me as I performed poetry and prose with other Hmong American writers at the Fresno Art Museum’s Bonner Auditorium on July 26. Several people in the audience cried. Others said coming to our event was like discovering a hidden gem.

The flyer for the event portrayed a young Hmong girl speaking words that floated across the page and landed on the pages of a book, transferring the verbal into the written.

For generations, the Hmong passed on traditions and folktales through oral transmission. There is little if any written documentation that they had a literate culture.

But on that evening, a crowd of more than 150 Hmong and non-Hmong felt the energy of what we were communicating, as if an entire community was rediscovering its literary voice.

This was the first convening of its kind and caliber in Fresno. Until that night, many people were not aware that the Central Valley harbored a small group of dedicated Hmong writers.

We touched on topics from genocide in Laos, to the time it snowed in Fresno in 1998; from learning to speak Hmong to the custom of marrying young; from our cultural history to our memories of joyriding as adolescents; from serene images to social critiques.

The event, titled “New Threads,” was organized by our group, the Hmong American Writers’ Circle (HAWC), a small cohort of established and emerging Hmong creative writers in California’s Central Valley. Other art forms, such as theater, film and photography, added to the evening’s impact.

One of the performers that evening was Burlee Vang, HAWC’s founder and a young up-and-coming writer. Vang read two poems: one about a humorous experience during a visit to the post office, and another about his father confronting the onset of aging and death.

I wonder if similar literary events took place centuries ago in Hmong villages.

To my knowledge, the Hmong have no official history of written literature. If it ever existed, it is likely that those writings may have perished during the many cycles of migration and wars that the Hmong endured through the centuries.

It was not until the early 1950s while living in the hilltribes of Laos, that they were visited by missionaries who not only brought Christianity but also a new tool for communicating with the western world: writing. These missionaries developed the Hmong Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) script, which has become the most widely-used system of writing for the Hmong language.

In 1959, another script, Pahawh, was developed by a Hmong man named Shong Lue Yang who claimed he received this character-based writing from his dreams, perhaps given to him by a “spirit.” In 1971, Yang was murdered by government officials afraid of his spreading influence.

Today, few people know the Pahawh script, and most of us are more comfortable writing in English than using the Hmong RPA system developed by the missionaries.

History has shown us that writing has been vulnerable and transient for the Hmong people, whether it was created for us by outsiders, or something we once had but lost.

As I far as I know, there is no such thing as a “Hmong” William Shakespeare, Robert Frost or Virginia Woolf. The lack of a legacy in our writing leads some of us to feel out of place compared to writers of other cultures.

But this also challenges us to work harder, knowing that our efforts today will lay the foundation for our future legacy.

At our event, we handed out a book of the readings presented that evening. Performing our pieces was one goal, but it was also important to us to preserve the writings in print.

When HAWC convenes for its bi-monthly workshops, we read, critique and dissect one another’s pieces. Since 2004, our goal has been to provide a space for the social, professional and creative support every emerging writer needs.

After that July evening, many of us walked away feeling as though we were on the verge of something momentous.

As young Hmong writers, we belong to a new generation of refugee children raised and educated in this country. Documenting how our cultural past connects to the present – as we are straddling dual identities, and rediscovering our roots – allows us to do something our ancestors long ago could not: preserve this moment in history for the next generation to read.

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Thailand Hilltribes traditional dress

To look beautiful in the Akha world is to dress in the most carefully crafted costume possible;
Two Akha tribeswomen display their intricately crafted headresses and costumes.


This also Akha tribewoman

Beauty takes on exotic new definitions in Northern Thailand, for hill tribe women have a very different concept of what makes a girl pretty, even from tribe to tribe. Some traits are common to all, such as the lack of makeup, the use of silver ornaments and the general preference for bold, bright color. But no style quite resembles any other other, while within eash style subtle variations express individuality.

In addition, hill tribe women in general draw on a staggering array of decorative devices from both the natural world and the modern. These combinations may startle uninitiated visitors, but they soon find that their aesthetic sense, in the tribal environment, quickly accepts the local norms. And they leave with the feeling that traditional dress makes even tribal "plain Janes" look fetching.

When city women go shopping for clothes and jewelry they purchase ready-made items. Hill women make their own outfits and only buy the components. Some tribal women - the Akha, Hmong, Palaung, and Karen - weave their own cloth as well. Karen weavers lay in decorative patterns while the cloth is still on the loom. Lisu and Lahu sometimes weave belts and shoulder-bag cloth, but buy the the main costume parts in bolts of different colors. Yao do not weave, but like the Akha and Hmong are meticulous embroiderers.

The Karen are famous as meticulous weavers of uniquely patterned cloth

The Akha, Karen and Palaung grow their own cotton and spin their own thread, whilst the Hmong raise hemp for their cloth. Karen weavers dye the threads first, but Akha and Hmong weave it white and dye it with indigo afterward, when the Hmong also apply designs by batik. Akha and Karen cloth is used for all parts of the costume, while Hmong cloth is only for the skirts. Once the cloth is dyed the next step is to assemble the costume parts. The applique and patterned stitchwork comes at this point, which can take months of tireless, dedicated work to produce a fully embroidered pair of Yao trousers or an Akha girl's jacket, leggings, skirt-guard and shoulder bag.

Lisu women buy raw material at a local market to make their vivid costumes

Recycling the past; old colonial British rupees are often melted down to create local jewelry including these Padaung neck rings.

Girls of all tribes become adept with spindles, needles and thread at an early age, not from any formal training, but just by copying what their big sisters and mothers are doing. In the most remote villages, where tribes have to make their own clothes because they can't afford to buy any, females of all ages spin thread whenever their hands are free and there's enough light from the sun, the moon or an oil lamp. And they learn to weave as soon as their legs are long enough to reach the threadles.

Town girls are familiar with a much broader range of beauty models. They've been bombarded all through their formative years with the images of the world's styles and instructed on the ingredients of attractiveness. They are offered the ability to adopt one look for today, another for tomorrow, one for the office, a different one for the big night out, one for the sober presentation, another for the festive occasion.

The tribal exposure to various interpretation or beauty is much circumscribed. No real media influence exists in the tribal girl's world, which is instead heavily saturated with the images of her immediate environment. A tribal girl doesn't want so many "looks." She wants to look like all the other women around her because that has been all she has seen, except for maybe a few hurried glances at the town girl and other tribalspeople in the plains markets. The only beautiful women she's ever had a good look at have been fellow tribalswomen. I's no wonder they all wear such similar costumes. To look beautiful in the Akha world is to dress in the most carefully crafted Akha costume possible. To be a beautiful Karen girl is to wear the most expertly woven Karen dress that she is capable of creating.

Likewise, on the plains, tribal girls dress up to impress other women more than to attract a male. The big holidays and weddings are times to show off one's skill and compare one's work with that of other. Akha, Hmong and Yao girls will examine ech other's embroidery and if if they see something new will at once try to figure out how it was done. They'll observe what decorations were used and how they were deployed, inspiring ideas for their next holiday fasion. Lisu girls will count the shoulder stripes on the blouses of their rivals to see whether they have more or less than their own, which is the Lisu girl's measure of applique skill. Karens may do the same with the brass bangles on the arms of fellow villagers.

The city girl has a plethora of jewelry selections. Tribal ornaments are of two kinds: silver items and natural products of their environment. Tribal silversmiths generally fashion the rings, discs, neckrings, chunky bracelets and bangles, from melted down British silver rupees, 92.5 percent pure. These coins are also used as ornaments, especially by the Akha, who attach them to headdresses and stitch them onto jackets and bags. The Hmong and Yao do the same with French Imdochinese piasters. Even the Lisu are particularly fond of silver ornaments. During festivals girls wear blouses covered front and back with silver studs and pendants, while the occasional girl wears little silver fish in her headdress or suspends a larger one from a thick; silver chain hanging down her back.

Besides silver jewelry, some of which are family heirlooms, tribals fetch ornament materials from their jungles. Both the Akha and the Karen use Job's tear seeds and the shiny wings of green beetles as decoration. The Karen make beads to be used in necklaces from coconut shell, while the range of Akha embellishments includes animal parts such as gibbon fur and red horsehair tassels. Also, the Akha are perhaps the only people in the world to make a decorative device from chicken feathers. Women twine the tail feathers around a two-string bow loom, knock them in place with a bobby pin and tie off the tassel at the desired length. They next dye them red and attach them to headdresses, shoulder bags and jackes.

As for hairstyles, most women in the hills keep it in turbans or headdreasses and even those who don't ordinarity, like the younger Lisu and Karen, wrap it up for festivals. The simplest, and even strangest headgear is that worn by the Palaung and the Lahu Sheleh. It is nothing more than a brightly colored hand towel, like the sort you see hanging in your suburban friends' bathrooms. Most other headgear is a version, in one from or another, of the turban.

The most elaborate headpiece, though, is that of the Akha, which varies according to subgroup. The Ulo Akha headdress consists of a bamboo cone, covered in beads, silver studs and seeds, edged in coins (silver rupees for the rich, bath for the poor) topped by several dangling chicken feather tassels and maybe a woolen pom-pom. The Pamee Akha wear a trapezoidal colt cap covered in silver studs with coins on the beaded side flaps and long chains of linked silver rings hanging down each side. The Lomi Akha wear a round cap covered in silver studs and framed by silver balls, coins and pendants and the married women attach a trapezoidal inscribed plate at the back. By the way, Akha women sleep with their headdress on, though the Ulo women remove the top half first.

The stype of visiting tribals to other traditional villages contrast with that of the welcoming host, and the burden of adapting to the unfamiliar is on the visitors more thn on their hosts, who are, after all, on home ground. But just as the guests usually find it easy to behave respectfully once they discover their hosts behaving likewise, they also have no real trouble in the tribal world. Some adjust so well they even fall in love.

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The Chinese Hmong

Got this from a traveler's blog. Check out the pics here on her blog but I copied and paste her experience here.

Up until now, our interactions with people have been solely with those of the Han nationality. THis isn't surprising, given that the Han makes up the overwhelming majority of people in China - 93% of the nation's 1.3 billion. As soon as our plane landed in Guizhou Provence, however, we noticed a difference in culture. The women on the streets of the city of Guoyang were not all dressed in the western clothes that even the people in the rural villages near Luoyang wore, but instead sported silk-embroidered velvet tops, and piled their long black hair on top of their heads, adorned with a flower, comb, and decorative chopsticks. These women carried a wooden yolk balanced on one shoulder. Fastened to either end of this straight, flat stick is a basket, filled with grapes, peppers, silk, or other products that they are selling in the city. On their backs they are often seen carrying a child in an embroidered velvet backpack.

Trying my hand at plowing a rice field

Behind the outward appearance of the small, sturdy-looking women, is a long history of migration and persecution that parallels that of the Jewish people in the west. These women are part of a culture that call themselves Hmong, and who the Chinese call Miao. I have heard different stories from different Hmong people about whether they embrace or are offended by the term Miao, so I will use Hmong here. They are, however, the same culture, carrying the same rich history.

My host parents saddling their pack pony

The first impression that I had of the Hmong, women with fancy hairdo's and elaborate clothes, soon opened up to me as a colorful and culturally rich group that works hard, laughs often and fully, and holds strong to their traditions. The Hmong have been pushed around China and other parts of Asia since before recorded history. Five thousand years ago they were pushed west from the coast to the Yellow River Valley, and 2,000 years ago during the Han dynasty they were pushed southwest into the mountains, developing a gift for turning even the most difficult terrain into productive farmland. The Chinese exploited this talent, and again "relocated" these farming communities 600 years ago to the hills in Guizhou where they remain today.

The Village of Xijiang

I had the privaledge of staying in one of the larger of the Hmong villages, Xijiang, about a two-and-a-half hour bus ride southeast of the city of Kaili. From the bus, I became familiar with the intimate relationship the Hmong had with the limestone mountains of Guizhou. Thankfully for my stomach, which was becoming overwhelmed with foreign bacteria and spicy food, the roads were mostly paved, albeit narrow, full of potholes, and abutting a steep drop-off with no shoulder whatsoever. The mountains are landscaped with terraced gardens of sweet potatoes, corn, squash, a decorative grass used for basket-making, tomatoes, cucumbers, forests of pear trees, and rice paddies! Yes, rice! Growing on flat terraces high in the mountains! My previous experience with rice is that it is a wetland crop, refusing to grow unless submerged in shallow, slow- or non-moving water. I was shocked when I realized that this plant was happily growing hundreds of feet about the stream-beds, and enquired about this to the guides. I was expecting to hear about genetic engineering and drought-tolerant varieties, but what Iearned was even more amazing: the Hmong farmers have manipulated the landscape and built intricate aquifer systems that channeled all the rainfall on the mountain and trapped it in the rice terraces. I was still skeptical, and spent a lot of time examining this during the three days we spent in our village homestays. The terraced rice paddies do indeed trap water in flat-bottomed man-made ponds that ducks played in and children catch on lines small fish with a dorsal fin that encircled their bodies. And rice grows there, too!

Women working on the tourist buildings

There are very few places on the mountain that do not support a harvestable plant. Along with those for food grows Tung Oil Trees, whose fruits are squeezed for their oil that is used to coat wood to keep bridges and houses brightly colored and rot-free. My host mother is up before dawn each morning working in the rice fields or tending to other vegetables before collecting sweet potato greens and other weeds (in her double baskets, swung over her shoulder on a yolk) which she grinds up and cooked with grain and water over an open fire to feed to her pigs. After slopping the pigs and gathering eggs from the chickens, we cooked and ate breakfast. My host father was already gone, having saddled up his pack-pony, he made his way down the mountain to help move earth and bricks to build the new shops and hotels in the valley. The Hmong in Guizhou found a new, easier way to make a living: catering to the ever-increasing tourist population. They are currently exploiting to the fullest the fact that people want to come see indigenous communities, buy their traditional products, and stay in 5-star hotels with air conditioning, and eat western food with only a sampling of the traditional rice noodles with fried eggs and scallions that we had for breakfast that morning.

A Hmong woman hard at work in a rice paddy

My host family's life is an interesting mix of their traditional way of life and modern amenities. They cook over a wood fire, pry corn kernels off the cob by hand, peal potatoes with a sickle, get water from an outdoor faucet, and relieve themselves in an open latrine, and yet have reliable electricity, and we watched the lead up to the Olympics in Chinese on TV during dinner. Technology has not missed this rural mountain village!

The Culture of the Hmong has not been lost, despite the infiltration of television. I was fascinated by watching the women. They have their own language, different from the Hmong language spoken throughout the village, and the Mandarin that is making its way in, of which most people in the village speak at least a little. This language of the women is a sing-songy, melodious speech that, although I don't understand a word of it, appears to be full of ritual and respect. As I walked with my host mother by the house of her sister-in-law, my host mother chanted and sang until her sister-in-law came to the window. They exchanged songs, and between each one we would walk away, only to be called back by the singing woman at the window, who apparently beckoned a reply. This ritual was repeated at least eight times before tradition permitted us to be on our way.

A group of dancing girls

Courting and marriage are other customs that are rich in culture and tradition. Young women wear their hair piled in the signature oblong bun on their head. Married women wear their hair in a mushroom-like or umbrella swooping over their ears and the side of their faces, and also have it piled on top of their heads. Tradition states that women have to marry men outside their village and move to their husbands village. I have heard lots of different courting rituals, including girls handing boys bells if they're interesting in courting, and girls parents cutting a small hole in her bedroom wall that boys come up to at night and sing through. If the girl is interested, she sings back. If they sing back and forth until sunrise, it's a sign that they should get married.

Looking down at the terraced rice paddies

My interest in fabric arts made the embroidery one of the most interesting Hmong traditions to me. Girls each embroider a beautifully decorated skirt for ceremonial dances. We were welcomed into the village by two chanting women wearing these skirts and their matching embroidered jackets with silver necklaces and crowns, carrying bowls of baiju for us. We were also serenaded at a feast for us by women singing and dancing, and men playing the lu sheng, a multi-piped wind instrument that reminded me a lot of bagpipes. I had a chance to use the brightly colored silk thread to embroider a dragon on a piece of cloth. I'm not sure what it was for, but the pattern was beautiful.

I fear that this rich culture will fade over the next couple of generations. Tourism is becoming a bigger and bigger industry, and with tourism comes money and modern amenities. On one side, it will make the lives of these hard-working people easier. On the other, with an easier lifestyle comes a loss of culture and tradition because it will no longer be necessary, and introducing people of different traditions will water down their own traditions. I am curious to see how much this village will change in the coming years.

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Hmong Family and Clan

Hmong are group oriented. Hmong society is built on thousands of years of war, resistance to oppression, and dislocation. In these circumstances, the survival of the individual depends on the survival of the group. As a result, the interests of the group come before the interests of the individual. A Hmong person belongs to a family, the family belongs to a clan, and the clan belongs to the Hmong people. Hmong often use the term we to refer to their family, their clan, and their identity as a people. It is very common for a Hmong person to say peb tsev neeg (‘our family’), peb lub xeem (‘our clan’), and peb Hmoob (‘our Hmong people’).

The family is the basic social unit in traditional Hmong society. It serves as the unit of production, consumption, socialization, social control, and mutual assistance. While a Hmong household may vary in size from a married couple to more than 20 people, a typical household consists of an extended family made up of many generations.

There are about 19 Hmong clans in Laos: Cha or Chang, Cheng, Chu, Fang, Hang, Her, Khang, Kong, Kue, Lor or Lo, Lee or Ly, Moua, Phang, Tang, Thao, Vang, Vue, Xiong, and Yang. Within the clans, there might be several subclans, whose members can trace their ancestors to a common person or share a common tradition of ancestral worship and other ritual practices. Clan membership is obtained by birth, marriage for women, and adoption. Although a married Hmong woman continues to identify herself by her birth family’s clan name, for all practical purposes she is a member of her husband’s family and clan.

Members of a clan consider each other clan brothers or clan sisters. Socially and culturally, they are obligated to help each other. When two Hmong meet each other, they greet each other by saying Koj tuaj los! (‘You come!’). When someone passes through a Hmong village, a villager usually greets the passerby and insists that the passerby stop by his or her home for a meal or at least a cup of water. After greeting, they exchange names, ages, clans, and generations to establish their relationship in order to properly address each other. If they belong to the same clan, they will establish the precise relationship within the clan. If not, they will establish their relationship through the marriage of their kin, beginning with their wives and aunts. They will address one another using kinship terms, such as brother, uncle, aunt, and so on. In the highlands of Laos, every Hmong is related, either through close or distant relatives.

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