A Trip to Lau Chai Village

Lau Chai is one of the Black H’mong villages that is near Sapa. It is also the home of most of our H’mong friends. Lau Chai is reached by either a long 2-hour walk, or a short motorbike ride followed by a ½ hour walk. One of the many changes since our first visit to the area five years ago is that the road from Sapa to Lau Chai is now paved. Previously this was a dirt road (really, a mud road), with sections that were submerged by runoff and strewn with fist-sized rocks. While the small road that descends into the village itself is still unpaved, even it has been improved and is no longer as treacherous.

Lau Chai Village from the Road

On Thursday Katrina and I visited Lau Chai with Gom to help her family plant their rice. It was also the first time that we met Gom’s new little sister. Gom says that her sister’s eyes are so large that they sometimes scare her! Gom’s mother, Yang, is 39 years old and this is her 5^th child.

Carrying Rice Shoots for Replanting

After stopping briefly at Gom’s house, it was time to go planting. The planting party consisted of Gom, her mother, her cousin, her brother-in-law, Katrina and myself. The family’s rice fields are located high above the village itself. As it had been raining all day, the steep dirt path was very slippery. I thought that I had learned how to walk as a child, but watching how easily the H’mong negotiate these trails make it clear how much more I have to learn! Here, Yang is helping Katrina through a particularly slippery patch.

Climbing toward the rice fields also provided great views of the village below. We passed a number of other groups of villagers that were tending to their fields, or bringing firewood back from high on the trail. Gom says that to get firewood, her family has to walk up this trail for 25 kilometers! For small fires, they use bamboo, which is locally available.

When Gom, Katrina and I reached the fields where we would be planting, we saw the other three family members coming down from much higher on the path. They had gone up ahead of us slow, clumsy foreigners to carry down big bunches of rice shoots that we would be planting. The rice shoots look something like green onions. The idea is to replant them in small bunches so that they have room to grow. This sounds easy, but we managed to make it look hard. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of the rice planting, as I was too busy trying to keep my rows straight, my bunches the correct size, and my rice from falling over in the mud. After a while it started to rain again. Fortunately, the family had come prepared with plastic rain ponchos. Katrina and I kept working in the rain, while Gom stood under an umbrella pointing our our mistakes like a straw boss.

After we had done enough planting for the day, we descended the path and headed back to Gom’s house. Her father had slaughtered a small pig and was preparing a feast for the whole family. It was a great honor for him to make such a big and expensive meal for us. Even though I was just recovering from stomach problems, I felt compelled to eat a lot and to try everything that was offered to me. In the country, nothing goes to waste. Just about every part of the pig is made into food. Even the intestines of the pig were cleaned and prepared as food. My least favorite part was the liver, which I quickly washed down with a swig of rice wine. The scariest part was a gelatinous delicacy made from pig’s blood mixed with milk and “other things.” Gom told me that all men must eat this, or they are not really men. Wanting to show my appreciation for the meal, and not wanting to have my license to carry a Y-chromosome revoked, I took a quick spoonful and ate it before I could think too much… Actually, it wasn’t that bad.

It was a privilege to be guests of honor at this lavish meal, and it was wonderful to meet Gom’s extended family. I especially enjoyed meeting her 95-year-old grandfather (bottom right in the picture above), with whom I drank many toasts, though neither of us could understand what the other was saying.

Watching the Rain