The people of Ban Phon Song live a simple life. They grow rice, vegetables, fruit, and herbs, and raise ducks, chickens, and cows. They make a living by selling surplus, baskets, and cloth. One of the women interrogated us about our love lives, trying to tempt us with one of her daughters or sons, even offering a couple cows for a dowry!
On July 12th, the SAILers and I travelled to a village about two hours North of Vientiane, famous for its preservation of traditional rural living and subsistence farming. We rolled up a road carved with potholes and stepped out into the rain to greet the little town. The house that welcomed us must’ve held a large extended family. It was spacious and each room was open to the outdoors in some way. A handful of women in the kitchen lead us in stripping herbs from the stem until we left for the rice fields. It rained the entire time, which was nice because it kept the mosquitos away. The rain dappled the water of the fields and everywhere seemed to be alive. Through the brown water swam tiny frogs and grasshoppers, while giant stripped spiders and water bugs skimmed the surface. We teetered across thin grassy strips of land, flanked by calve-deep pools. When we arrived, villagers taught us how to pull up young rice plants. The young plants need space to grow large so we were to pull them up, and replant them in another field. The process was as follows: grab at the base of a couple plants, pull them up with a twisting motion, and once you have a big clump, hit it against your bare feet to get all the mud off the roots. It was a messy process for us unskilled foreigners, though the locals seemed to remain quite clean. Then we took the bushels over to another field and planted the rice in “neat” rows by just pushing the roots under the mud on the bottom of the pools. We were worried our field was so ugly it would not grow, but the villagers assured us it was fine. Once our little field was planted, we returned to the house for a traditional meal followed by longyan for dessert and basket and fabric weaving. Again the locals zoomed effortlessly through the motions, but we struggled to copy. The most difficult part was the basket weaving – the pattern was extremely complex and no matter how hard I studied it, I could not figure it out. Click this link to watch a video showing the process of basket weaving: http://youtu.be/QpYZRWzZYN0
The people of Ban Phon Song live a simple life. They grow rice, vegetables, fruit, and herbs, and raise ducks, chickens, and cows. They make a living by selling surplus, baskets, and cloth. One of the women interrogated us about our love lives, trying to tempt us with one of her daughters or sons, even offering a couple cows for a dowry!
0 Comments
There seems to be only one religion in Laos and it’s so entwined with the culture that one could argue that its name is Lao Culture. Religion seems to be consistent across the people of Laos (except for rural minorities that follow their own forms of Animism), and if a person chooses not to partake in a respectful way, no one minds. Religious practices come from three main sources: Animism, Brahmanism, and Theravada Buddhism. Animism shows in the form of ancestor worship and belief in spirits. Brahman influence seems to show in ceremony and ritual. Buddhism is probably the most obvious – extravagant Buddhist temples are sprinkled amongst the neighborhoods like churches would be in the Minneapolis suburbs. You can see monks of all ages sporting their neon orange smocks on the bus, in the market, and just about everywhere. Every Lao male is required to become a monk for at least three months before he is married. Sometimes you’ll see little boys in orange, but with such young ones their education is considered more of a summer school. Boys are encouraged to become a monk sometime after high school. Even still the position of a monk demands outmost respect and you must regard them higher than you would an elder, even if they are nine years old. Women can become “monks”, but they are rare and do not share the same position in society. Women can only reach enlightment after they are reborn as men. The most popular kind is papaya salad, but cucumber, banana, and snake bean salad are also around. These salads are made from sliced raw veggies, mixed with chilies, fish sauce, peanuts, sliced tomatoes and limes, sugar, MSG, and fresh herbs and cabbage to taste. In Lao, papaya salad is dtam mak hung, which literally translates to “smashed papaya”. To make it green unripe papaya is shredded and mashed together with the other ingredients with a pestle in a tall mortar. These salads are common as street food (given in plastic bags of course) because they’re so quick and easy to make. The food stall lady will usually let you taste it so you can tweak the ingredient ratios before she’s finished. Watch out though; these salads get dangerously spicy.
In the third week of August, a group from the embassy went down to drop off three of the Fulbright ETAs in Savannakhet, where they will teach for the next ten months. The five of us ETAs have been inseparable for the past two months, so to say the least, I’m sad to see them go... Savan Vegas.Savan Vegas is the only casino in Laos. The currency of the casino is Thai baht and it mainly caters towards Thai tourists. The casino doesn’t allow photos inside, but it resembles American casinos and may be the cleanest, most well-kept establishment I’ve been to so far in Laos. It’s got live music, drinks, free water, delicious cakes, and common games played in the US. One I’ve never seen in the US (though I’ve only been to one or two casinos) is a game called Dragon Tiger, which originated in Cambodia. It’s essentially a game of War, with the high card winning every time. Not sure how much strategy it takes!
The Dinosaur Museum.The Banana.The banana is more often than not extremely small! Bananas familiar to us in America are hard to come by and expensive. These tiny bananas taste more like plantains and have a chewier texture than regular bananas. You can buy them for $0.62 per bunch or get them fried in batter, grilled, or cut and made into sweet oily banana chips (seen in the bag at the left of the photo).
The Coconut.The Custard Apple.The Durian.The Guava.The Jackfruit.. Don’t let its playful bumpy surface fool you, opening this fruit without the aid of a professional is a terrible mistake. While the taste is an incredibly scrumptious banana-mango fusion, it’s sap is sticky and DOES NOT come off with soap and water. The trick is oil, like cooking oil. Apparently it's a good idea to coat your hands and the knife with oil before opening the fruit. The fruit has an inedible tough stringy part that hides the delicious meat surrounding the seeds. You’ve got to slaughter it to get at the good part. I recommend buying jackfruit pre-cut and packaged.
The Langsat.The Mango.Mango is sold everywhere in its sweet ripe form, and also in its crisp unripe form with a more sour taste. Premature mangos are green and mobile fruit carts will sell them peeled and cut so that you can break off chunks to dip in chili salt or spicy fish sauce. On the left is an unripe mango for dipping. Also pictured are two other kinds of sweet crispy fruit for dipping.
The Mangosteen.The mangosteen is native of Indonesia and Malaysia, but I ate a lot of these in China. The pieces of this purple fruit are bright white, sweet, and have a tinge of tang. Now it’s late in their season. Stands across Laos are still selling them, but everywhere the fruits seem to be infected with this nasty yellow fungus. I’ve stopped buying them.
The Lao Melon.The Passion Fruit.The Pineapple.The Soapberry Family.Contains lychee, rambutan, and longan. All are whitish-clear fruit with pits and so, so sweet. Longan was my personal favorite in China called 龙眼, or “dragon eye” because with the black pit, they look like dragons’ eyes. Pictured is a rambutan. I’m not a huge fan because the meat is difficult to separate from the pit and therefore tricky to eat.
The Tamarind.Tamarind is a very strange fruit. It has a crunchy shell that must be chipped aside to get at the gooey brown fruit underneath. After the shell, fibrous veins ensconce the fruit, which surrounds hard round pits. You’ve got to be skilled with your mouth to avoid getting brown goo all over your hands. In my opinion tamarind is worth the work. It’s sweet and tangy and is often made into jams or pastes for dessert.
Laos is a country full of domesticated animals – the further from the heart of Vientiane, the more varied the animals become. In the city, cats and dogs abound, and the difference between strays and pets is difficult to discern. Sometimes an animal will have a collar, but I doubt that denotes “owned”. These animals are dirty, and some have wounds or bald spots. Yet they are adorable and generally very friendly! None are neutered and most of the females look like they’ve nursed many babies. If the heat is blaring the dogs lay on the ground in a death-like state. If the day is alright, they prance around, panting, tails-a-wagging. In the country, small chickens with long legs are constantly dashing away for cover. Cows and goats graze alongside major roads and can sometimes be spotted on a medium. Multicolored ducks and geese with grotesque wattles are also represented. These animals run free, but I’ve been told the communities are close enough so that no one dares steal livestock during the day, and at night the animals return to their shelters.
Not soon after entering Laos, one can determine this country loves the convenience of plastic bags. Bags come in every color, and most are the perfect size for small purchases. Many foods are homemade so the best way to sell them is to sai tohng (put in a bag). I was most surprised by the fact that soups and drinks pretty much all go into bags. Lao people have developed a refined technique to wrap a plastic bag to be liquid-tight.
If you’re looking to cut living costs in Laos, a diet of noodle soup is a good option. Each bowl comes with plenty of options for customization: fish sauce, oyster sauce, shrimp paste, chilies, bean sprouts, mint, cilantro, basils, lime, and cabbage, to name a few. Khao Piak Sen.Lao chicken noodle soup with shallots and fried onions often eaten for breakfast. The noodles are soft and made of rice. Usually they’re made fresh daily. Phe.A close relative to the Vietnamese pho so popular in the US. Beef soup with rice noodles and bean sprouts. Khao Poon.My personal favorite, this dish is difficult to make, and therefore difficult to find. So far its only been seen in the food court at the Morning Market. It’s a spicy coconut curry soup. Luang Prabang Noodles.The recipe originates from Luang Prabang, but we in Vientiane still get to enjoy its spicy fermented peanut pork skin taste. It has flat rice noodles, everything just stated, and also pork, scallions, fake meatballs, snake beans, herbs, and this wonderful peanut paste I haven’t found with any other dish.
It's been almost two months in my current hotel room and soon I will switch to a hotel near the National University of Laos, where I’ll live for the rest of the year. Although I’ve grown quite accustomed, I can’t say I’m not a bit eager to leave. The thing I may miss most about my hotel room is the company of all my critter friends. From bright green mosquitos to cockroaches, I never feel alone. These creatures live on my bathroom walls and for over a month convinced me they were just chunks of dried organic material. One day I noticed a large one swaying in a breeze that did not exist. I immediately began investigation. Turns out it was a larvae household casebearer, or plaster bagworm, dragging its pod-house around. The animal is a moth that needs a humid area to mature. The most interesting thing about this friend is that when I poked its head, it just came out the other side of its pod! Check out this video to see the bagworm inching around: http://youtu.be/Q0MR1jGVXf4 When the insects get too out-of-hand, the lizards have my back. These nocturnal beings are rampant throughout the nighttime in Laos. You can spot them by every light that attracts bugs – in the city or the country. They love to hang upside-down near ceiling lights, which may explain why they are always above my head before I fall asleep. They are typically well behaved, but as of two days ago one of them started releasing a piercing call in the dead of night.
In Lao culture, milestones like weddings, birthdays, reunions, and retirements require a Baci ceremony to bring well being and good fortune. The purpose of a Baci ceremony is to call back one’s kwan, or the spirits that guard a person’s 32 organs. Getting sick or experiencing trauma are events that may be signs that a person’s kwan are wandering, therefore Baci ceremonies are commonly performed for the sick. When the SAIL program ended, our graduation was commemorated with a Baci ceremony. During our ceremony, a pha kuan, or a decorative tower made of banana leaves and marigolds, was used as a centerpiece. Food like khao tom, sweets, eggs, and sticky rice surrounded the base of the tower. Connected to the pha kuan were candles and threads for tying and holding. We all gathered around the pha kuan and held on to the long holding threads. Then our mor phon, or the master of the ceremony, began chanting into a microphone. When he neared the end of his chanting, every phrase ended in a long call that coordinated with a woman who threw shredded marigolds on us. When he finished, he picked up candles and the woman lit them and tied threads around his wrists, thereby initiating him. He then began walking around, giving blessings and tying threads. Once the elder people had their wrists tied, they also began to go around and give blessings and threads. Everyone had strings tied around both wrists, but there is a belief that the left wrist is to call your kwan back, and the right is to keep them in. When the strings are tied, usually you have offerings of food for the spirits in your upturned palm. Hardboiled eggs are a must. If your other hand is empty, it should be held at your chest, fingers pointing straight up in a gesture that shows you are listening. Before the strings are tied, they are brushed up and down a person’s arm to signify in with the good, out with the bad. All the while, the giver of the string gives spoken blessings to the receiver.
After our ceremony, the spirits had eaten the spirit-part of the food, so we could eat the physical parts of the food. Each person must eat their own hardboiled egg. If they don’t, their spirits may not return entirely. The role of the egg in the ceremony has its origins in Brahman ritual. |