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Rural Life
On Wednesday morning after breakfast we went for a stroll throguh the valley where the villagers farm. It was already clear that they mainly farm the staple of rice. Currently they are harvesting the crop and this is entirely done by hand.
They use a scycle to cut a bunch of shoots which are then placed on the stalks to dry. Later these are collected together and carried by hand to the road side where a mechanical thresher removes the seeds. This work clearly takes a lot of labour and time and many of the workers are women. It is suggested by the guide that in fact it is the women who do most of the hard graft and they men stay at home. Not for them the daily grind of hard labour. Instead they spend their time manufacturing a rough local spirit and then consume it in a leisurely fashion!
The workers seem to pay little attention to the traffic since the road is one of the few spots in the valley which is dry and on which they can move carts. Rice hay is left in piles on the road so any bus that attempts to get to the village, like ours, has to weave between the obstacles first, if that is possible. Some of the hay is burnt and the resultant smoke drifts across the valley floor but the rest is stored for use as thatching and, no doubt for other purposes.
What struck me as we wandred about was the pre-indutrial nature of what was happening. Small hamlets or even isolated house. Houses on stilts with the underspace used to house tools and animals like buffallo or cattle. They do have chickens but they seem to roam wild....unless they are a cockerell. They are kept, and clearly they are used for fighting. In one case they were training two of them in a pen but I did not watch this. It is also evident in the fields structure with clear divisions between the small plots. It is unclear if the raised narrow banks are just to keep the water in a small space or are only pathways or really do represent individual holdings. Our guide was not very clear on this point.
The only mass indsutry was the brick kiln. This was large and men were busy preparing new bricks in molds ready for firing. Yet most houses are built of wood so its not clear where these go. The villagers do use some modern equipment. For example, many of the stilts which support the main parts of the houses are now encased in concrete at the foot and for about a metre upwards to protect them from flooding as well as termites.
However, the women seem to be heavily employed in making and selling fabrics, particlularly silk and all through the village we can see them using hand looms. Several houses had these stored under the houses so they could be seen as we wandered about. Of course, this meant the moment we showed an interest they could leap out and help us to select something useful!
All of this seems quite idyllic when wandering through the fields on a warm sunny morning. It was so quiet and utterly different form the madness of Ha Noi. Yet its not that simple. Men have bikes and their is electricity in the town, even internet and satellite dishes. Also, we were told, there are not enough men so young men come down from Ha Noi looking for a potential wife. Howver, they may have to run the gauntlet of the rural wedding system which, we are told by our vietnamese guide is still very traditonal. Payment in involves pigs and buffallo. And you have to live with your in laws for 6 months to prove that you are a worthy husband for their daughter before you can leave to build your own home.
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