January 19, 2009
Heaven and hard work in the mountains
Authorities from Mu Cang Chai District, northern Yen Bai Province are working to promote their homeland as a top tourist destination. The reporter takes a trip soak up the mountain air and experience the region’s rich cultural heritage.
You will not for a moment regret a trip to Mu Cang Chai District once you arrive, but getting there is another story.
To reach the 30km-long Khau Pha (Heavenly Horn) Mountain Pass, which rests 2,000km above sea level and is where the beauty really begins, one must first wind wildly around valleys and up mountains full of rocky, hair-raising inclines and breathtakingly narrow passages all covered in obliterating pockets of chilly fog.
Khau Pha Pass, however, marks an end to the alternately nausea – and terror-inducing journey. It offers a break from what often seems the desolate landscape in the northwest of Vietnam and heralds the approach of the district’s La Pan Tan, Che Cu Nha and De Su Phinh villages. Here, the sky turns a brilliant blue in the afternoons, the mountain air is perfectly crisp and clean, and imposing terraced rice fields rise and fall around you.
In the distance, Mong ethnic minority children in colourful dress play along the stream banks, and the wind whistles soft and low through the needles of the green pine forests. Now there is a blanket of pink blossoms, or to day (wild peach trees), announcing the approach of the New Year and the imminent arrival of spring.
You have arrived.
Treasured landscape
Mu Cang Chai is a little town on the bank of the Nam River in Yen Bai Province (which borders Lao Cai, Lai Chau, Son La, Tuyen Quang and Phu Tho provinces).
“The district’s terraced rice fields, which look like giant yellow staircases leading to the sky, have long been a source of pride for the Mong people, here in particular, but also across the country,” said secretary of the Mu Cang Chai Party Committee Sung A Vang, with a broad smile.
The fields are more than a source of pride; they are an intrinsic part of Mong culture. Fashioned from the mountainside, land is selected for development according to the gradient of the slope, water resources and soil.
After choosing a suitable area, the Mong people claim ownership of the land with a metre stick and begin working the soil when spring arrives. This is a very significant moment, and Mong people believe that if an accident occurs while breaking fresh ground, their souls will leave their bodies, and only a medicine man can call them back.
“It’s said that the rice paddies here are the fine results of the locals’ hard work, creativity and shared knowledge,” said Hoang Van Tuc, vice chief of Mu Cang Chai District’s People’s Committee Secretariat. “Husbandry and planting techniques came to the district as crops shifted from growing upland to wet rice. The terraced rice paddy system has contributed considerably to forest protection.”
Waves of brilliant yellow fields cultivated over many centuries now serve as a symbol of the scenic rocky district. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has even declared the greater area a national heritage site.
“Since our rice paddies have been identified as a cultural heritage site, many people have come here,” said Ho A Sua, a local in La Pan Tan Village. “People have said that our home is impressive, especially the natural surroundings, fresh air and the rice fields. They’ve taken many pictures and have given us many gifts, especially candy (that we’ve never tasted before).”
Challenges
Life in Mu Cang Chai District, where the population is 90% Mong, is much like the landscape surrounding it: rocky and difficult. The district’s rugged terrain and remoteness isolate its 13 villages and the township. Even the modest population of 40,000 people is scattered within it.
Compounding the problem of isolation, severe food shortages between crop harvests still occur with frequency. And although farmers toil from dawn to dusk, they lack rice and have no time for entertainment. The period between March and August is when rice shortages are most severe, so the community turns to corn, cassava, sweet potatoes and soybeans to supplement their starch intake.
“We rarely eat meat or fish,” said Ly A Do, a seven-year-old girl in La Pan Tan Village. “We used to have rice with vegetables. Chicken and pigs are raised for sale and only killed during Tet (Lunar New Year) or for other special festivals.”
The erratic food supply is one of the leading problems for heads of the three villages of La Pan Tan, Che Cu Nha and De Su Phinh.
Giang Pang Nu, head of De Su Phinh Village’s People’s Committee, also worries about his village.
“At present, my village has approximately 244 out of 309 households (about 80%) who are very poor. The income of each person is lower than VND200,000 (US$13) per month,” Nu said.
“Authorities from Mu Cang Chai District and Yen Bai Province in collaboration with our three villages are working to secure food and end shortages. I hope we’ll have access to more fertiliser, free high-quality seeds and cultivation areas, so we can increase our crop numbers from one to two and improve our lives.”
Firm trust
Though life is hard for local residents in Mu Cang Chai District, the farmers here are optimists who firmly believe that the Gods and their ancestors will help them.
Theirs is a spiritual way of life, with many communal religious ceremonies like gau tao (New Year), cau mua (rain praying) and com moi (new crop) ceremonies which are celebrated respectively in the first, fourth and tenth months of the lunar calendar, according to Nong Thanh, head of the Relic Management Bureau of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s Heritage Department.
“Farmers hold the ceremonies to give thanks to their ancestors and Gods by offering newly harvested rice, to pray for rain, bumper crops and happiness,” Thanh added.
“Where we live, these are very important annual events which have supernatural, inexplicable power,” said Ly Ble Rua, vice head of Che Cu Nha Village.
“We all believe that the deities and our ancestors can bring us happiness, good health, prosperity and crops if we worship them with respect. Otherwise, disaster is inevitable, storms will come, our harvests will fail and the ploughs will break,” Rua said.
Along with worshipping ancestors and deities, dancing with khen (pan-pipes), singing traditional songs or playing other instruments are also key elements of the Mong’s festival.
A brighter life
The Mong people may believe in the power and support of ancestors and deities, but their lives have certainly been improved a great deal thanks to efforts by the State and local governments.
Yen Bai Province and Mu Cang Chai District authorities say life in the district has been improving since the adoption of State projects 134 and 135, which target hunger eradication, poverty reduction and the establishment of basic infrastructure in the mountainous regions.
These projects are responsible for connecting remote communes with safe roads to provincial centres. This has in turn eased the transportation of goods, seeds and fertiliser. Projects have also helped with irrigation canals, helping the district to expand its crops and the picturesque terraced landscape upon which they reside.
Head of the district Party’s Committee Secretariat, Nguyen Tien Quan, said that although living standards had improved considerably, the district leaders wanted to keep up development speed. He said their key tasks were to increase crop numbers, find plants suitable for growth in the area, bring farmers new technology and boost tourism potential.
Already, Yen Bai Province’s tourism industry yields some encouraging figures. Many tourist projects have already been implemented (including the programme Pilgrimage to the Roots co-organised by the northwestern provinces of Lao Cai, Yen Bai and Phu Tho).
“The number of tourists to Yen Bai Province rose from 18,320 in 2001 to 200,000 in 2007,” said Le Xuan Dinh, deputy chairman of Yen Bai Province’s Department of Culture and Information. “This brought the province’s income from tourism activities up from VND4.98bil ($312,000) in 2001 to VND52bil ($3.25mil) in 2007″.
Dinh confirmed that the province presently has seven national heritage sites and 24 others at the provincial level, so the government is putting great focus on tourism development.
“With Government support, we plan to invest VND2,478bil ($154mil) in provincial tourism development projects between 2006-2015, of which VND11.7bil ($732,000) will be spent to help preserve Mu Cang Chai’s rare animals and forests. It’s amazing because the province’s total investment capital for tourism development projects in 2001 was just VND21.2bil ($1.33mil),” Dinh added.
Looking at the winding terraced rice fields which look like yellow silk ribbons, speaking with the warm local people and inhaling the pink and white blossoms announcing the arrival of spring, such figures should come as no surprise.
