Is This the Last Generation of Northen Vietnam’s Ethnic Tribes?

We're in Hoi An, a town on the coast of the South China Sea, roughly at the midpoint between North and South Vietnam. Rien is a French photographer who first visited Vietnam in 2007. Falling in love with the country, he came back often before settling in Hoi An in 2010. He now owns a well-known gallery in which he exhibits his work. Fascinated by the different ethnic minorities of Vietnam and their traditional costumes, he has made them his pet subject. While strongly influenced by Chinese culture, the country has also adopted aspects of the cultures of neighboring Laos and Cambodia. It's also a very welcoming country, home to people who've come from China or further afield, arriving by sea. During his early days in Vietnam, Hoi An didn't have to go far to satisfy his curiosity, since the streets and markets of Hoi An attract people of many different origins. It's a common misconception that the country has no more than two or three ethnic minorities, who all live somewhere in the north of the country. In fact, there are no less than 54 different people scattered all over the country, although most, it's true, are to be found in the north, near the Chinese border. Fairly quickly, the photographer decided he'd set out to find the more remote of these ethnic minorities. His ambition was to take a census and document them, with a photographic record of each. In his quest, he soon realized that costume was an important identifying marker. It's often one of the last remaining visible elements of their culture and traditions. Gradually, on his travels, Hoi An formed bonds with these families. They became friends, and a relationship of trust was established. The photographer is off on his again. This time, he goes first from his home in Hoi An to the capital, Hanoi. From there, he heads to Sa Pa, the gate to the northern provinces. His itinerary will take him along the Chinese border, reaching as far north as possible. Perched at an altitude of over 1,500 meters, Sa Pa was for a long time an isolated spot, until the arrival of French colonists at the start of the 20th century, who established a military outpost, a Catholic mission, and then a spa resort here. The Vietnamese have made it a popular holiday destination, an ideal base for discovering the mountains and surrounding nature. Around Sa Pa, there are some 94 villages. Hoi An is going to one of these, Ta Pin. Far off the tourist circuit, it's a village of which he's particularly fond. It's home to a community of the Red Dao ethnic minority, who always give him a warm welcome. Numbering almost a million, the Red Dao are one of the larger groups in the country. They came here from China around 400 years ago, and have managed to preserve a good number of their traditions. They wear their costumes every day, and that's something I really like. One of my favorite moments is when they wear their costumes, and that's something I really like. One of my favorite moments is when I'm with them, seeing all the grandmas getting together in a sort of embroidery club out in the open air. In fact, they work on their costumes all day long. You see, here you have cat paw prints. This is how it looks on the right side. Here you have a man's face. There are the cat paws. And here, cherry and lemon balm blossom. The girls start to learn how to make their costumes from the age of six or seven. In fact, knowing how to sew like this will later on be a condition for getting married. I started learning how to embroider at the age of six. First, I learned how to do straight lines, and then, when I was seven or eight, I started doing embroidery of flower patterns. And gradually, as I got older, all sorts of other motifs. It was my mother, and my aunt too, who taught me everything. The children nowadays go to school, and it's more important for them to concentrate on their schoolwork than to do embroidery. So obviously, they don't do so much sewing. They know fewer patterns. They're not like we were, learning all of this from a very young age. But they do it at their own rhythm, and the tradition is being preserved. I'm still worried, though, about what the future might bring. One of Réan's ways of earning the trust of these families is to spend time with them. He's seen the children grow, and an affinity has developed between them. Every time he comes, he brings some prints of his previous visits. While the surprise factor has gone, the subjects of his photographs still like to see how his work is developing. This changes the nature of their relationship. Doors open, and he's often invited to a special dinner organized especially for him. On the menu, mountain vegetables, duck, chicken, and other specialities like grubs, which grow inside bamboo trunks. All washed down with so-called happy water, rice spirits. On the other side of the valley is the territory of the Black Mong, who live nowhere else but in this province. This is probably the ethnic minority that has been the most successful at preserving its culture. Réan is with the family of this young woman, Ka, whom he has known for several years. Ka has learned English, meaning she's able to earn a living as a guide. So our cloth is very important because we made it from hemp. It comes from marijuana tree, yes. So we learned it from our great parents or parents. So we start to learn like embroidery stitching, like something like this. And then when we are 10 or 15 years, and we have to know how to do the hemp, the embroideries, and the dyeing, and then before we get it buried. I was fascinated by the different stages involved in making a costume. It was the Mong and Dao who inspired me to undertake this project. So the dyeing is like you pull down the bottle five minutes and then you take it out five minutes and then we do like this. So the color will be really, really dark blue and they can go very deep to the fabric. So the color will stay there for a long time. Ka is very close to her grandmother, often helping her with her work. After we dye the fabric, we need to put on the middle of the stone and then we use our light to move the stone to rub it to be very shiny. So the shiny is for the showlings, the people, they can look you very far away so they can see how beautiful your clothes and how Other parts of their costumes are dyed using the batik technique, which involves using wax to design the pattern, which is revealed after the dyeing. The Mong costume is particular in that it has continued to evolve through the centuries. They've incorporated embroidery and the batik designs are more and more elaborate. The painstaking care taken over the creation of their costumes makes them unique and instantly recognizable. So is the sister. The idyllic surroundings with the terraced rice fields are famous the world over. They have inevitably attracted investors who've started buying up large plots of land on which to build hotels and restaurants. There's a danger that the communities living here will eventually be swamped with tourists and end up losing their identities. As we move further north towards Banglin, the rice fields start to have a more yellow color. This shows that the rice is ready to be harvested. Rehan has never before been to this village, home to people of the Thai ethnic minority. His attention was piqued by seeing the villagers working in the rice fields in traditional costume, something quite rare. It's a sign that the village is remote enough not to have been influenced by the way of life of neighboring towns. One thing that these villages have in common is that they wear quite an unusual conical hat, different from the usual Vietnamese hat. These are made by one of the grandmothers of Banglin, just across the river. The homes here are on stilts because the waters can rise rapidly during the monsoon season. Aged 78, Nam Thi Nan is one of very few people left who know how to make these palm leaf hats. If you don't wear a hat like this, you can't work outside. I need four palm leaves to make one hat. And I use a needle to sew them. No, I'm not beautiful. Yes, you are. After traveling 40 kilometers on narrow winding roads through the mountains, we come to a village barely marked on any maps. This is home to a La Chi community, who live in almost total self-sufficiency. Today is market day. Some have trekked for up to four hours through the mountains to come and do their shopping. What drew Vian's eye is that all the women wear their traditional costume at all times, whether at home, in the village, or working in the fields. It's a hardy, warm outfit, and needs to be. At an altitude of almost 2,000 meters, the nights here can get chilly. The La Chi are a native ethnic minority, numbering only 13,000 throughout the country. Far from the tourist circuits here, living at altitude, they're shy and not easy to approach. So to earn just the minimum amount of trust requires patience. So here we are with the La Chi. He's 75 and he's 78. This is the only place I've seen cotton in my 10 to 15 years of traveling around. The La Chi really are the only people that grow cotton. Other ethnic groups used to grow cotton, but a really long time ago. Now they've turned to more profitable crops. It may be an archaic-looking device, but the quality of the result speaks for itself. My name is Long Thi Chang. I belong to the La Chi ethnic group. We grow this cotton all around here, and we use it to make our clothes. The women harvest the cotton in late spring, early summer. They store it for a few months and use it to make their clothes when the winter comes. La Chi culture has survived well. For one thing, their villages are perched high up in the mountains, where roads end, making access particularly difficult. The views may be magnificent, but few people venture so far. Also, the La Chi are self-sufficient, in a similar way to the Amish in the United States. Furthermore, they don't speak their country's official language, which further limits their contacts with the outside world. Going back down the valley following the river, we come to the village of Polinai, with its rice fields that look like they were designed by an artist. It's a village of the Nung people, who specialize in working silver. During the colonial era, they recycled coins of the Indo-Chinese currency, turning them into jewelry. Even today, they still melt and patiently shape the precious metal. My name is Lenz Thi Ba, and I'm a Nung. Our tradition is to create and wear silver jewelry. My father-in-law makes it for the whole village. We wear it for weddings, parties, and to go to market. Lenz Thi Ba sings a diphonic song in the Nung language. We gradually draw closer to the border with China. We've come to the district of Quan Ba, and the tiny village of Tan Tien, of which Rian is especially fond. The people living here are of the Bo Yi ethnic group, originally from China. In 2013, on his first major exhibition, Rian met the only woman still living who knows how to make the traditional Bo Yi costume, with mastery of every stage, from dyeing with indigo to the embroidery. My name is Lu Thi Fong, and I live in the village of Tan Tien. I have four sons and one daughter. We used to live in these traditional houses. It took eight people to build one, two people to do the measuring and mark it out, two people to carry the materials, two people to do the digging. We did it all ourselves. I myself have been involved in building two or three. Lu Thi Fong now lives in a beautiful house next to the old one. This is where she carries out the various painstaking operations of indigo dyeing. She also keeps an eye on her son's grocery shop. He's left the village for a city job. Lu Thi Fong is well known in the village. If you need a traditional costume for a wedding, for example, she is the person you come to. My mother taught me everything. I watched how my elders worked and I listened to their advice. I think I must have made something like about 50 costumes, but I haven't got any left, only three or four for my grandchildren. A lot of Boi youngsters leave to find work in the big cities to send money back to their families in the mountains, which makes it even more difficult for these younger generations to retain a link to their traditions and culture. My daughter lives abroad, working for a big company and isn't interested in learning how to make our costumes. She said, who'd buy them? Our ethnic group is too small. She's not interested in learning the techniques. In the middle of this trying on session, Lu Thi Fong's 88-year-old sister turns up with her magnificent smile, which Rheanne can't wait to photograph. We'll both get our costumes on. This is a beautiful skirt. It really suits you. The headdress too. The warmth of the bond between the two sisters has been an extra gift for Rheanne, this session helping to reinforce his relationship with Lu Thi Fong. Still close to the Chinese border, the village of Tuong Son nestles in a beautiful valley. The people living here are of the Dao Ta Pan ethnic minority. Unlike the other groups met so far, no one here seems to wear traditional costumes. We live in the village of Tuong Son. My name is Dang Thi Fong and I'm 51. Our village specializes in making incense. For several years now, whenever possible, Rheanne has been collecting costumes that are no longer worn. Most of the time he buys them. Dang Thi Fong has a few interesting pieces for him. Rheanne has only just met this family, but the warmth of their welcome is astonishing. When asked, do you still have any traditional costumes? Dang Thi Fong responds by taking five minutes to go and change, coming back ready to be photographed. When I got married, my parents-in-law taught me how to make incense and I'm still getting better at it. I cut bamboo to make the sticks, then soak the ends in water and coat them in cinnamon powder and a mixture of forest leaves. And I repeat that process five times. People we meet say that ours is a really beautiful costume, whatever the event might be. They say it's the most beautiful of all the ethnic group's costumes. I think that by making them proud, by highlighting their culture through photography, through recording sounds, and quite simply by spending time with them, I think that's the best solution, the best way of keeping their culture alive. Just outside the Kwan Ba Nature Reserve in the village of Truk Son, Rheanne visits a family he knows well. Having met them in 2013 and 2015, he watched their little girl grow. She's now a young mother. They're of the Dao Cham ethnic group. Rheanne is immediately invited to join them for breakfast and there's some work for him to do. To his great satisfaction, they're all wearing traditional costumes. My name is Le Thi Vinh. I'm 20 and I live in the village of Truk Son. We earn our living by going into the forest to pick wild cardamom, which we shell and then go to sell in the market. When we're at home, we speak Dao and when we go outside to the village, we speak Vietnamese. Personally speaking, I'd rather stay here in my village than move to a big city. I'm happy here. I have my routines. We wear our jewelry on the occasion of special ceremonies, but we wear our traditional costume every day, the Dao ethnic minority costume. This necklace is our heritage. My grandmother gave it to my mother and I'm now passing it on to my daughter. Le Thi Vinh's mother is busy in the kitchen. Everything is ready. How old are you? 50. I'm 43. Rhian always tries to buy old costumes which are no longer worn. These are added to his collection, which he exhibits in a museum next to his gallery. She doesn't know how to make her costume. Her mother has to make it for her. Do you still make costumes? Yes. In the stai next to the house, Vietnamese pigs wait impatiently to be fed. These black pigs with pointed ears are omnivorous and aren't fussy eaters. Dong Van in Ha Giang province is one of Vietnam's northernmost villages. Every Sunday here is market day. We're at Dong Van market. In Dong Van there are 14 different ethnic groups. I love coming here just to get the feel of the place but also to find the ethnic minorities I've missed or who interest me, the ones that are the hardest to find. I just have to walk around a bit and when I see a costume, ask them where their village is and sometimes even go there with them. Dao and Mong. Right, Dao and Mong. I haven't been here for a few years. I can see the change in what they're wearing. I used to see a lot more traditional costumes when I started this project 10 years or so ago. Now it's printed polyester skirts made in China. Dong Van is part of what we call the Ha Giang loop, Ha Giang province. Then there's the town of Meo Vac. The market at Meo Vac is pretty much unchanged. It's well known for its buffalo market and has more or less stayed the same. Having said that there were 14 different ethnic groups here whereas at Meo Vac there were just five or six. At Meo Vac the cattle market is well underway and the haggling is always fractious. Across the street they're haggling over pigs, sheep and goats. Some Dao women have been here since five in the morning selling their rice. By eight o'clock the market is starting to wind down. 40 kilometers from Dong Van, after having come over a steep mountain pass, we arrive in the valley of Sung La. The temperature here is a few degrees cooler. This is the home of the Lolo flowers. Rian is keen to find little Ni, who was three last time he photographed her. She'll now be six. They're in their beautiful Loloa costumes. Amazingly, Ni remembers the foreigner who came here to take her picture. Her grandmother wears one of this ethnic minority's most elaborate costumes and does so with style. This is a costume I really love. It takes about two months to make it. This ethnic group is the Loloa, meaning the Lolo flowers, because their costumes are very colorful. The costume is made up of these applique with triangles and I read that there can be as many as 400 triangles on one costume, so it takes a long time. They have to be patient and a few families still make them. The younger generation no longer wear these. I don't understand what you're saying. I only speak Vietnamese. For me, this is one of the most spectacular costumes. There's an amazing amount of detail and it's so colorful and when you see one from a distance, when you see someone wearing this come into a village, you can recognize them from a long ways away. I'm a Lolo and I always wear our traditional clothes. I own several costumes and they're what I always wear. When people meet me and see the costume I'm wearing, they know that I'm a Lolo. Nhi's grandmother tells Rean he should meet her neighbor, not because he's the village mayor, but because he's the last person alive who knows how to play and sing traditional Lolo songs. As the village mayor, I asked the government to provide me with some aid so that I can pass on to the youngsters everything I know about our traditional music. I'm the last person who knows how to play the different instruments. I have the feeling that when I'm gone, it will all be lost forever. Anyway, that's how I feel about it and I find that really sad. Crossing over into another valley, we come a little bit closer to the Chinese border. On the advice of some friends, Rean is going for the first time to the village of Sung La, home to a community of Hmong who seem to have remained untouched by the march of time. The surrounding land is scattered with blocks of basalt. The rock is so dense that any available patch of soil must be made the most of for growing vegetables. Rean meets Hong, a young man who quit his studies and city life to come home to the village and start a business here. My name is Hong. I was born in 1994, so I'm 28. I own a boarding house called Lao Sa here in Sung La village, which is near Dong Van. And I'm a Hmong. The Hmong migrated to Vietnam about 400 years ago, before the 17th century. And we've lived here for 10 generations, which is over 400 years. I think that by keeping alive our traditional musical instruments, as well as our songs, we can offer a higher quality of tourism and attract more people. If we can keep our traditions alive, more tourists will come, and the Hmong won't have to survive on farm work. They'll show more interest in preserving our culture and making sure that we never lose it. Come on then, let's go inside. The hen is a wind instrument with seven pipes that was invented in China. This particular kind is only made in Sung La village. If they can keep the demand for these traditional instruments alive, the artisans who make them won't lose their know-how. These are old houses made of cob walls, which are about 40 centimeters thick. They're from 40 to 60 centimeters thick, to keep inside cool or warm in winter. They're really traditional houses, which today are sometimes replaced by houses made of brick or breeze block. Isolated as it is, and with the projects of enthusiastic youngsters like Hong, Sung La village should survive for a good while yet. On the road away from the village, the view from Ma Pi Leng pass is spectacular. Back to Hoi An, Hoi An's adopted home. His photo gallery is in buildings dating back to the colonial era. On my travels, I've been really interested in the costumes, and many of my friends in these ethnic groups have given me old, unused costumes. And right away, I wanted to make them accessible to the general public. So a museum seemed to be an obvious idea. I wanted a museum that would be free to enter, and where everything is explained in Vietnamese, so that the local people, townspeople who haven't been lucky enough to travel to those remote regions, could come here to discover the amazing richness of their country. In 2017, when I opened the museum, I had about 35 costumes. Then as I discovered other ethnic minorities, I offered to buy their old costumes, and people were really receptive to this idea. So I've been able to add to the museum. One of the highlights of this project was the day when I invited some of the ethnic groups to come and visit the museum. They came wearing their costumes, and they were able to see the work I'd done, the way I'd put their costumes on display. That was very emotional. Some of the village chiefs had tears in their eyes, and the younger ones were really moved. It was a very rewarding moment, seeing the gratitude in their eyes. The future of these ethnic minorities is uncertain, especially as regards the preservation of their cultures. Not all are as cut off from the world as the LaChi, and the sudden arrival of the mobile phone has caused a huge upheaval in their relationships and way of life. Many youngsters are deserting their villages, looking for a more comfortable life and material wealth. The work done by Rian is now recognised by many of the ethnic minorities. Most of them only pass down their history orally. Rian's photos amount to a precious iconographic record. And the museum he has created, the only one of its kind, helps to preserve their traditions. Rian is only a witness to their history. He has no control over their future. Even though the government is now starting to take an interest in this unique cultural heritage. For now, Rian will keep travelling through the mountains, using his photos to highlight these aspects of living history that are slowly disappearing, making new friends as he does so, in these natural surroundings of stunning beauty.