Nonetheless, the handicrafts-especially the embroidery-were wonderful! I fell in love with the scenes that showed daily life in Vietnam--life on the coast, life in the rice fields, and life in the hills and mountains.
Nonetheless, being on a tight budget, I at first balked at buying any of the more expensive embroideries.
Suddenly, a coy sales lady with a slight limp explained to me that the handicraft goods were made by disabled peoples, such as her friend who can only use one hand. She showed me her friend's work. It was certainly of good quality
I looked around for confirmation that what she was telling me was true, i.e. this was run by and for the benefit of handicapped peoples in Vietnam.
Finally, I spied above the cash register in the corner, a single black and white sign explaining that victims of war, victims of land mines, and victims of agent orange were included among the handicapped peoples who produce in and work at the handicrafts center.
Naturally, I went and bought one of the more beautiful and more expensive embroideries to be hung on my wall.
As I visited the handicrafts center a second time, I noted again that most tourists weren't being told by their tour guides that the goods there were made by handicapped persons. I noted that only a few of the workers and artists doing embroidery had any evidence of disabilities. I wondered if silence on the matter had to do with the fact that the locals were bending over backwards to be friendly and didn't want any Americans or Australians to feel guilty for what had been done to Vietnam in their name decades ago. [This doesn't mean that some peddlers didn't lay a sort of guilt trip on me at times, though-but that occurred only rarely.]
However, it dawned on me later that in many parts of Asia, people with disabilities are still ostracized and thought of as bad luck. So, they tend to be kept out of the public sphere.
I hope this situation improves and that a lot of other Americans go and buy goods to aid the disabled of Vietnam. (NOTE: Since 1975, at least 38000 Vietnamese have been killed by previously unexploded ordinance left over from earlier wars.)
MONTAGNARDS
Next, I took an all-night train to go hiking for a few days amongst the hill tribes and towns on the border of China. I actually slept well as the train wiggled its way from Hanoi to the highlands, where the peoples the French colonialists had called Montagnards lived. So, I was looking forward to a great day when I woke up early one morning in the mistier and much colder part of the country.
The Mortagnards are by no means a homogenous group. The various tour guides I met and the Museum of Ethnology in Hanoi reported that there are at least 54 ethnic groups, with their own cultures and languages, living in the country. Some of these peoples are the white Thais. Others are the red Moungs. There are dozens more.
Before going to Vietnam I had been aware of Montagnards. In fact, I had learned of them a bit while reading the novel, The Barking Deer when I took that Vietnam War Seminar in Kansas so many decades ago. It was one of the first literary work by a U.S. special forces officer who worked with the hill people during the war.
Later, I taught refugee Montagnard children called Hmongs (mostly from present day Laos) while doing my student teaching days in Kansas City.
Although almost all of the Hill Tribe peoples of Vietnam (1) are still not well integrated into the growing Vietnamese economy and society & (2) have often been persecuted in the past, I was pleasantly surprised to see that there has been greater regional assistance and expertise in development brought to these Montagnard peoples in recent decades.
NOTE: Similar to the U.S. in its treatment of Native Americans historically, the ethnic peoples have been victims of Viet dominated society. This is certainly one reason why many of the hill tribes in Vietnam and Laos joined with the United States and South Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s in their struggles against communism.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
