Madison

Today at the Kaj Siab House, we learned how to play the top game. We also saw the food that they cooked. The food that they cooked were egg rolls, stir-fry, rice/sticky rice, and this noodle dish. There were also music at the Kaj Siab House. The instruments were k’eng, flutes, and see saw (Xim Xaw). At the Kaj Siab House, we had a lot of fun. We played a top game. The player will have to throw the top and try to hit the one that is spinning on the ground. If you knock it down, you’ll get a point or something.

–Pao

Today I observed that Hmong egg roll dip is almost kind of like the Chinese egg roll dip but the Chinese dip is sweeter and they don’t have any pepper in the egg roll dip and there was a different one and that one was hotter than the other one and it was tiny. There was a qeej player and his name was Et I think, and he was dancing when he was playing the qeej, and I thought it would take a lot of practice playing the qeej and dancing at the same time and I thought if you play the qeej like him you would have to take a lot of breath to play a long song. When we were playing Hmong games I observed that the rubber band game was different than the one we played at Bayview. We call it the qej kog kai and when we play in group and we play it we jump in a different way. The game we played was kind of similar to escape the tops.

–Jenny S.

At first when I looked at the food I thought I’d not like it. But when I got the plate I did not know what to get. When I looked at the food, well it smelled good and looked good. I only like the rice, bread, soup and punch. I liked the rice because it’s sticky and tasty. I liked the bread because it has the taste of canela etc. I learned that you can’t trust the lunch by its cover. The same thing as with a book. The games were great. The first game you played by throwing the rock and ten sticks up and catch the rock. If you catch it you go on but if you don’t that means you lose. I learned if you get all of the ten sticks you start the game again but of course you start out with two sticks. If you win that one you start another game but this time three, then four, then five sticks and etc. Another game is jumping over the string. I couldn’t do any of them well except the first because it was low. Then it got higher until no one could jump over. I forgot the rules and I didn’t bring my note book out so I didn’t write anything down so I can’t write anything about the rules.

–Cristina

Today at the Kaj Siab House I learned how to play Hmong games that I never had heard of and seen played before. I also learned that Hmong like hot spicy foods and have rice you eat with your fingers. Many different cultures have different foods than I am used to. I learned that k’eng players not only played k’eng, but they also dance to their music and most Hmong cultural music has meaning that speaks for itself. Today going to the Kaj Siab House on the bus I was a little nervous on how the Hmong elders would react. I also wondered how the food would taste and if it would be very spicy. When the school bus pulled up I was pretty frightless, but I still had a little bit of it. We entered the Kaj Siab House and the smells were familiar and different. The smells of people was the same, but the air smelled a little like the food. After we got out our note books, we headed out for a quick tour of the building. Mr. Wagler asked if anybody wanted to see the food and interview the cooks. I think that everybody went to interview the cooks.

–Jeremy G.

I never thought I would have had so much fun as I had at the Kaj Siab House. The food was delicious, the entertainment was awesome, and the games were so fun! But the Kaj Siab House sure gave me some surprises. First of all, when we came out of the room where we had put our coats and backpacks, a man passed in front of me. Behind him was an elderly man. I let him pass. He then stopped in front of me, reached down and tousled my hair. Then he went on. I was amazed how welcoming they were to us! They did so much. Next stop was the kitchen. They were making noodles, pork, carrots, stir-fry and egg rolls (those were just the main dishes). There are different dishes in which different things are made in. For example, big bowls are usually for things like stir-fry and noodles, since they serve a lot of those. Then we all gathered in a big room at the center of the Kaj Siab House. First there were acknowledgments, then some speeches, and then a gift to the Kaj Siab House. It was a big wooden sign that said, “Welcome to the Kaj Siab House” in big letters with translation in Hmong on the bottom. There were designs all around the words and a frame that looked as if it was made of bamboo. The entertainment followed. First a man came out with four flutes. He told us that Hmong think flutes can speak to you. The first flute was called the tambla. It was big and played a little like our flute, except it was lower and bigger. Next there was a little flute, played a bit like a recorder, except it was higher and more piercing. The man sometimes slid his fingers when playing it, perhaps to make it quicker. The lei mei was the next flute he played. It was skinny, and it looked like the little flute, but it sounded more like a tambla. Next was the little tambla. It sounded like the tambla, except quicker and higher. After that, he asked us if we had heard the flutes talk. I don’t know if I did. The next piece of entertainment was a teenager playing the qeej (keng). He wore Hmong clothing and he had bare feet. He was making gestures with the qeej in a sort of dance. As he danced the coins on his clothing jingled, making even more music. Last in the entertainment was a player playing the Hmong violin. It had a wider bow than ours and he moved around while he played it. Its strings were very taught and pulled away from the wood/bamboo. It had only a few strings but it was interesting to listen to! After lunch, we learned how to play some Hmong games. Spin the top is one. Another is jump over the rope. One is a little like jacks, except it’s played with sticks and rocks. We tried to play all of them! I was having so much fun that I didn’t want to leave. All of the people encouraged us to come back. They sure were hospitable hosts! I hope we’ll go back soon.

–Izzy L.

Today at Kaj Siab House I learned about cooking, Hmong instruments and about Hmong games.

Cooking

We interviewed some Hmong women about the dishes they made for lunch. The first one was a noodle dish. It had thin noodles, and vegetables in it. The next one was one that had baby corn, pepper, and vegetables, and a sauce on it. It also has pork in it. It is stir fried. In the egg rolls there are noodles, carrots, meat and eggs. They are delicious!

Performers

First there was a man who played four different kinds of Hmong flutes. The first one was a long, deep sounding flute. The second one was a small, high pitched flute. When he played that one he moved his fingers very quickly. The third one was a thin, medium sized flute. It was low sounding but not half as low as the first flute. The third flute was a medium sized flute that was pretty thick. Its pitch was in between high and low. The next performer was a qeej player named Etti. He danced really fast while he played the qeej. It didn’t sound like he took one breath. The next man played a Hmong violin. The sound was very high. The bow is underneath the strings. The bottom kind of looks like a drum.

Games

Outside we played a game where you make a top spin on a board with a stick with a string on it. You wind the top up in the string then whip it onto the board. Then other people try to knock your top off with their tops. The game is very fun. Another game is where you try to jump over a string of rubber bands. You can push the rubber band down a bit, but then you jump over it. That was my favorite part.

–Dylan

I learned how to play a Hmong game a lot like jacks, one game I didn’t know the name of that had spinning tops in it, and a game where you jump over a rope of rubber bands.

Food

There was purple colored sticky rice, normal white rice, some rice noodle dish with pork and some green leafy plant and a dish sort of like cashew chicken except with baby corn and mushrooms. They also had egg rolls. They were my favorite food there.

Drinks

They had two kinds of drinks at the Kaj Siab House, some kind of grape Kool-Aid and a squash. They also had water fountains.

–Martha

Today I learned a lot about Hmong games that are really fun. I think its unusual that there are men’s games and women’s games. In my family, if we like a game we play it. We don’t have to be a certain gender. I also learned that there are a lot more Hmong instruments than the k’eng. I think the violin looking one was interesting because of its sound and where you place it on your body when you play it. I also didn’t know that the k’eng sounded like so many instruments we’re playing. I think it’s kind of cool that way. What was also interesting was the rice was purple. The rice I usually eat is white or brown, not purple. I noticed that Hmong food is a lot like food in the other cultures of Thailand, like the really thin noodles I’ve ordered all the time in Thai restaurants. I also thought that, in a way, Hmong culture is a lot like my culture. For an example, they like games and I like games. But, then again, when I think of games, I think checkers or tag. When they think of games, they think of hit the top with another top, jacks, or jump over the rubber band.

–Sara K.

At the Kaj Siab House there were padaus and a little qeej hung up on the wall with the pandau. The Hmong women were cooking some food to eat. Some of the Hmong women cooked a noodle dish and it looked delicious. In the noodle dish they cooked the meat first and then made the vegetables and put them in the bowl. If you put the noodles in boiling water the noodles would get softer. The stir-fry dish had lots of vegetables in it. The egg rolls had eggs in them. The egg rolls could also have any kind of meat. Lee Pao Yang is a flute player because he looks like he has a lot of flutes. Tha bli is a flute that he plays. Tha gia is what Lee Pao has. The laylay sounds low and not very loud. Et was playing the qeej and dancing with the qeej. He was wearing Hmong clothes with money on the clothes. The qeej looked like it was singing. Et is also a Hmong singer. Et is a junior student. Sea saw is like an instrument. It’s a stringed instrument. The sound of the sea saw is soft and gentle.

–Mark T.

Most of the people at the center are Hmong elders. There are two story cloths and one of them is a picture of them escaping Laos and it shows them in the USA. But both of the cloths have writing on them, which they usually don’t. Next to one of the cloths there was a mini-qeej but I am not sure if it really works. There also are some pictures of the Hmong villages and people in them. For lunch they made a noodle dish with pork, onions, peanuts and a lot of vegetables. They made the noodles soft by soaking them in water and then they stirred the vegetables in. Another dish was a chicken stir-fry with some onions, peppers, nuts, baby corn, and some mushrooms. That dish was very spicy. They are able to make a lot of food quickly for about fifty people in like two hours. They also made egg rolls. The egg rolls, of course, had eggs, carrots, noodles and some pork. At the place there was a picture of a Hmong house and what was around the house. I think that they are going to use it to help them build one for the exhibit. There was also a big huge fan on the wall that had a picture of a Hmong village on it. The Hmong flute sounds a lot different than the ones that I hear. There are a few different sizes of flutes and they all have different sounds. There was also a Hmong violin and it had a bow and everything, but it only had one string so you would have to work differently on the Hmong one. There was also a game called tulu and they played it for us. You have to take a top thing and spin it with a stick and string onto a piece of cardboard or hard surface. Then each team has a chance to hit it off with another top and string. Another game is a game that is kind of like jacks, only with a rock and sticks. Once you get all ten of the sticks, you start over and you have to pick two sticks up, and the next time three sticks, etc. another game is when you take a bunch of rubber bands and tie them together like a rope and you keep raising it higher and you have to keep jumping over it. I forgot one thing about lunch. There was a lot of rice. There was this different kind of rice that was purple and sticky but it tasted the same.

–Gabby

Kaj Siab House is a place where Hmong elders can get together and talk in Hmong about both old and new times. Though most people there speak Hmong, some people speak English, too. They helped translate. One on informational poster on the wall, I read about a typical Hmong household, which would consist of a house, a storage shed for food, a community school, a blacksmith’s shop, pig pen, cow barn, horse stall, chicken coop and a fenced-in garden. The food they served us was delicious. There was a noodle dish with noodles as well as pork, carrots, peanuts and onions. We also had two different kinds of rice, one white and the other sticky. The egg rolls were filled with the noodle dish and they were my favorite. Later, we heard a handful of Hmong instruments played, four different flutes, the keng and the Hmong violin. After that we were introduced to some Hmong games. One was a top game, and another was a game where you have to jump over a huge rubber band. The last was a game like jacks but it was played with sticks and a stone.

–Izzy S.

Pao Vang is a manager at the Kaj Siab House. There’s a woman whose name is Sheng Vang. She said to all the people that were at the Kaj Siab House that the people who work there made the dinner for the people who work at the Children’s Museum because they are helping the Kaj Siab House. Coral gave Tim a sign that says welcome to Kaj Siab House. They made it for the house. There was a musician that played some instruments called ndaj plai, ndaj jhia and another kind of flute. There’s a boy called Et Yany and he goes to East High School and at Kaj Siab House he played the qeej. Chang Xiong played a sea saw and it kind of looked like a violin. When we went to the kitchen, they made some noodle dish, egg rolls and more things that had vegetables in them. I really liked the peppers. Outside, some elders played touloue. I don’t really know how to explain things like how you play this or what it’s made of.

–Pakou

At the Kaj Siab House, I learned how to make some Hmong foods. To make a noodle dish, you make the noodles soft in water. Then you put pork and vegetables into the noodles before mixing them all up to make egg rolls. You basically put this stuff in the wrapping and you have an egg role. These things are not very traditional. I also learned what the traditional Hmong household is like. It has seven pieces. The first one is a home, of course, then there is a storage place close by. There is also a school and blacksmith, there is a pig pen, stables, cow place and a chicken coop. There is also a fenced-in garden. A funny Kaj Siab House custom is that when they say something is at a certain time, it is thirty minutes to one hour after that (today we were right on time). Hmong people use all sorts of things to represent Hmong history and culture. At the Kaj Siab House, we saw quilts called story cloths representing farming and immigration. We also saw a fan that had a painting of a Hmong village, in Laos, probably. I learned how to play some Hmong games there, too. In one of them, one team spins a top like thing on a board with a stick and string. The other team has the same materials to try to knock it down. In another game, you throw up a rock and a bunch of sticks, let the sticks fall and catch the rock. Then you throw up the rock, pick up a stick, then catch the rock with the stick in your hand. You keep doing this until you have all the sticks, kind of like jacks. The last game I learned is very simple, you merely jump over a long rubber band. To play some Hmong instruments, this is what you do. To play a Hmong violin, you put a barrel-like thing and bow across the strings. You blow into qeejs and Hmong flutes.

–Benjamin

When we first got to Kaj Siab House, we first put our coats away. Then we went into the main area and had welcoming speeches for a half-hour. Then came the performers. The first was a man who played four different flutes, and he played them all for us. On the first, it sounded like a kazoo was in harmony with a jug blower, or a set of pan pipes. The second was more kazooish, as though there were now several people with one set of pan pipes. The third was amazing. On the lower notes it was the sound of blowpipes, the upper notes, a qeej. I do not remember the fourth. The next performer was a qeej (pronounced keng) player. As he played the qeej, he did an intriguing and mesmerizing dance, and it was obvious that he was barefoot. I didn’t know why. The final performer was playing a Hmong violin, a one-stringed instrument. It had a drum-type base and a long stick to which the string was attached. I cannot describe it beyond this. Next, we went to the kitchens. We saw some of the things the Hmong cooks were making for lunch. They were making a noodle dish, egg rolls, and other things which I didn’t see. Then it was lunch. After lunch, we went outside. We saw a game called Toolee. They took large tops and spun them with string on sticks. Then someone else threw a top at the spinning one, trying to knock the top over. Then, we tried to jump over a giant rubber band, held shoulder high. There was an element of sport about it, with some mention of good teams and strategies. But I did not latch on.

–Tim

Some Hmong culture I observed is that they are great dancers and musicians. My favorite instrument played was the qeej. The man who played the qeej danced to the rhythm of his playing. He was wearing traditional clothing and strapped to a vest were hundreds of little coins so that when he danced they clanged together and made a cool sound. Another cool thing about Hmong culture is the food they make. It was delicious. I especially liked the bowl of soup broth with noodles, many vegetables, and peppers. Everyone except me thought that the peppers were very hot. My personal favorite thing that I observed today was the games Hmong people play. The one I liked the most was the one where people would start a big wooden or plastic top in the middle and two teams tried to knock it off a board that was under it. If a person on your team knocked it off, your team got a point!!

–Nate

Foodways/Cooking

We went to the kitchen where they make these wonderful things. The egg roll is one of the favorites among our class. They showed us, well, actually, they told us how to make them. You put pork (or whatever meat you’d like) in and some noodles and vegetables in a bowl. Then you wrap some of the noodles, vegetables and pork in the egg wrapper and work. Most of their food ways they’ve adopted from America. They served Kool-Aid and had stir-fry and nice combinations of both cultures.

Clothes

On the street, Hmong wear clothes just like you and I. But on special occasions, and sometimes when playing instruments, they wear their traditional clothes. Traditional clothes often have coins hung on them. They often have bright colors like bright pink and neon orange. They tend to have triangles and circles, too! They have spirals, too!

Music

Well, today we saw a ‘k’eng being played. This k’eng player would play and travel around and do dances. He’d go in circles in one place at first, then he’d go in circles with one foot up. Then he began to go in a big circle, spinning around. Near the end, he went in zigzags, too! Someone played something called the Hmong violin. It has a wooden bow and two strings. There’s a barrel down near the bottom with a silver shine. These instruments sound like something you’ve never heard before. The k’eng is supposed to talk to spirits. That way, people can tell when you’re faking. These instruments are used for more than music.

–Erika

Thai Vang was a refugee at Ban Vanai, Thailand, for the first several years of his life. His father had two wives, and he had four sisters and seven brothers. When he was 4 or 5 the spirits started sending him messages through dreams, signaling for him to become a shaman. He had become very sick, and was reborn a shaman. A shaman is a Hmong doctor that heals people with troubles, whether it’s stress, or a car accident or anything. Basically he can just tell if he looks in the victim’s eyes what is their problem, he can also tell whether he’ll be able to help, and if the person will live or die. Even if he knows the patient will die, he still says they’ll be fine, and does his best to heal them. He helps them by going into a trance. He goes into the trance by having helpers beat drums and shake rattles because the instruments will help his body spirits fight the bad spirits. Once he is in the spirit world he makes a deal with the spirits, like “I’ll give you a chicken if so and so is well in 2 days.” And I guess the spirits agree and he comes back. If you are asked by the spirits to be a shaman you must not refuse, but it is such a great gift Thai doubts anyone would.

–Sarah M.

People think that Thai is the youngest shaman in Hmong history. He was 5 when he first became the youngest shaman ever. Usually a shaman is sick before they become a shaman. That happened to Thai. He was so sick, nothing would cure him. Then the spirits told him that if he became a shaman, he would get better. So he became a shaman. Unlike other shamans, he had no tutoring from an older shaman. One of his abilities is being able to find out what happened to the patient even if they don’t tell him. He just looks into their eyes. He can heal non-Hmong, also.

–Izzy L.

Thai Vang is proud to be a shaman, because it is a gift to be a shaman. Thai Vang was born in Thailand, and is very traditional. He has been to the spirit world many times, and I wonder what it is like? If it is a good place or a bad place? And why they go to it? His more recent shaman act was helping a woman give birth to a child.

–Mariah

You have to be a good person to be a shaman. It is a big responsibility because if that person dies it’s your fault. Not all good people become shamans. The spirits choose you and if you don’t accept you will get sick and won’t get better. When he helps someone he knows right away if they will be ok but he isn’t allowed to tell the people. Shamans bring back spirits to people’s bodies. Every person has 12 spirits and the main spirit is the body spirit. The bone spirit never goes away. Sometimes he has to tie the spirit to the body so it won’t go away. He has a net that catches the spirits. After you have it you cover it with the buffalo horns. Shamans think that sicknesses are spirit losses. Shamans work with doctors because sometimes the doctors can’t find anything physically wrong but there might be something mentally wrong.

–Gabby

To become a shaman you must be a good person with a good soul because if you have a bad soul the people you try to heal will only become much sicker. Different shamans have different powers, for instance one shaman may have a stronger soul so that would make them more powerful. The human body is made up of twelve spirits, your ears, your eyes, your nose, your mouth, your body, your arms, your hands, your legs, your feet, your head and your shadow. If you lose your shadow you die. When Thai was 4 or 5 he died and was reborn as a shaman.

–Nate

Thai’s grandma was a shaman who helped people from their sickness. Shamans can be an old person or a young one. There are men and women shamans. The shaman has 12 spirits in the house, I think. The special spirit is the body spirit because it has bones and it can break easily. Some people tie a white or a white and red thread to your hand to make you feel better and sometimes that person has to say something to make you become better.

–Pakou

About one out of one hundred Hmong People are shamans. Most Hmong shamans become shamans when they are over sixty. Every person has twelve spirits. One spirit is your shadow. The main spirit is your body spirit. That’s the one that shamans talk to when they are in a trance. If one of your spirits dies, a shaman tries to make the spirit alive again. All kinds of Hmong people are shamans. You could be a house builder and a shaman. Thai lives in two different worlds: the spirit world and the earth world.

–Emma

Thai has been a shaman since he was 4-5. The spirits came to him and taught him how to be a shaman. A lot of people were shocked to find out about such a young shaman. Thai might be the youngest Hmong shaman in America. He goes to emergencies and also goes to hospitals. He started healing when he first became a shaman. His tools to use in the spirit world are a big ring and buffalo horns. He goes into a trance to get into the spirit world. If he fights a spirit it is hard on his physical body too. He is very glad he is a shaman.

–Dylan

Thai is a shaman. There are many shamans but there are not a lot of shamans in Madison. A shaman is a healer. Thai is happy that he is a shaman. Thai has an ordinary life. Shamans use instruments to help them. They use buffalo horns. Shamans sometimes fight the spirits and the music helps them.

–Mark

I never knew shamans are never allowed to say somebody is going to die or that they are very sick. I also had no idea shamans actually communicated with spirits. It’s amazing how shamans go into the spirit world. I wonder how you feel when the spirits talk to you. I wonder what Thai felt, maybe he was very happy or nervous. I would feel excited and worried. Maybe he felt that way. I don’t know.

–Martha

When Thai was the ripe age of 7 he was taught the qeej. He is now a master at it and can identify the old Hmong played through the deep, low pitches of the qeej. Many people his age and older cannot match his ability. One reason is he has a talent of course, but what made it easier was that his grandpa, father and brother played it and he grew up hearing the qeej. To be a master qeej player you have to know 50 or 60 songs, as well as the words. As he plays he tells himself the words he is playing. The qeej is played mainly to talk to spirits, because unless you’re a shaman you can’t directly talk to them. Thai Vang is only 17 and already is a master at the qeej, as well as the movement or dancing that accompanies the qeej playing.

–Sarah M.

Thai’s father had two wives because he played the qeej. In those days, if you played the qeej, you were like a superstar. Then all the girls’ parents would want her to get married to him, because then he could take care of her and things like that. That’s why his father got two wives. The qeej was passed down in Thai’s family. Thai and his brother inherited it. The qeej is an instrument with 6 pipes, one large, short pipe and 4 long, skinny pipes. The last pipe is skinny, but it’s shorter than the large pipe. Inside each pipe is a metal reed. There are 8 different notes you can play on the qeej. It is usually used in funerals, New Years, and it used to be played at weddings, but they lost the music to weddings. So they don’t play the qeej in weddings anymore. The rooster song is played at funerals. It talks about how the sun and the moon would not come up. The people tried and tried to make them come up, but it was no use. Finally, the rooster came and with his cry he called the sun and the moon up. He played the story on the qeej. That sounds sort of cool, playing a story.

–Izzy L.

Long, long ago the qeej was only used for weddings but as time went on it was used for more. Next it was used for funerals then even more. Now it’s used for New Years and other celebrations. On New Years the songs are joyful and the qeej is used to show off and attract girls and people. At funerals the qeej plays slow mournful music. It’s used to call the spirits and tell them to leave this place and not come back. A real qeej master can hear what the qeej is saying. The master can then tell if it is a real qeej player that he is hearing. Another thing about the qeej is that women are not allowed to play it. The reason is tradition and also they’re not able to call as well so spirits may not leave. So men play the qeej.

–Erika

The Qeej is probably the best known Hmong instrument. It is used for funerals, weddings and Hmong New Year. The qeej talks in a way to the spirits. The person playing the qeej senses the spirits through the qeej. Qeej songs have different meanings. In funerals it is mainly about being reborn. At New Years it is wishing people a good year. The qeej can also tell stories. Very few people can understand the words to the qeej music. It is very old. To play the qeej at funerals you need to know 50-60 songs because you can be playing at a funeral for weeks!

–Benjamin

Years ago, the qeej was only blown at weddings, but now, the qeej is blown at funerals. Thai has been to a lot of funerals. The qeej can talk to the dead spirit to help it get to another world.

–Pao

The qeej is culture. The first time people would play the qeej was four hundred years ago and they were only played at weddings. The qeejs talk with the spirits at funerals and also at Hmong New Years. The way to make a qeej is out of special bamboo. If you bought one it would be $200. You have to take your time when you play the qeej; if you rush, it will sound bad. The qeej is like a Hmong bagpipe in sound and in the way you blow.

–Emma

Thai’s qeej playing was excellent. I wonder if Mark and Pao will sound that good after ten years. I bet Thai is almost a master. To me, all qeej music sounds the same. I wonder if Hmong people who are learning qeej think that or have they heard it before and can tell it apart.

–Martha

Thai Vang is a 17-year-old Hmong teenager that came to Madison from Laos. When he came to America he was just 12 so it was hard for him. Back in Laos he didn’t have any food, money, maybe clothes. When Thai came here he first had to learn the ABCs, 123s, in the language they mostly speak here, which would be English. When he was 12 or 13 he had to sit in a first grade class and learn English while other kids did other work.

–Cristina

Thai Vang was born in Banvani, a refugee camp in Thailand. When he came into our class he said, “Banvani brings back horrible memories.” Thai’s family came to the U.S. in 1997 to escape hunger among other things. His family was one of the later Hmong families to move to America because his father didn’t want to lose their culture. But finally they decided to move. “We had no choice,” said Thai. “We couldn’t go back to Laos and we couldn’t stay in the refugee camp, they didn’t want us there.” Now Thai is a junior at East High School in Madison. He plays the qeej, is a shaman and knows 5 different languages. Thai believes in being friends with everybody no matter what their culture is. Many of his friends are very interested in his culture and they love his mom’s eggrolls.

–Izzy S.

Being a shaman, and playing the qeej and such doesn’t mean he cannot also be American. Thai said that he has the privilege of going between two worlds (American culture and Hmong culture) and speaks many languages (English, Hmong, Spanish, Thai, Laos) and hopes to learn French! His reasoning: he thinks that to know many languages is a great gift, so you can talk with all ethnicities. “If everyone can speak all languages we all will be relatives and share the world,” Thai says. In his American culture he has many American friends, one wants to learn Hmong. He likes the Backstreet Boys, and rock music, he likes to watch football, baseball, and basketball.

–Sarah M.

He doesn’t just like Hmong music, he also likes American music like the Backstreet Boys. He plays sports like football. He lives in two different worlds, he has to change his home and schools. A lot of Hmong people are afraid of Americans because they think we are going to hurt them. A rumor is if you dig a deep hole you will go to America, and there is a giant here and people shouldn’t come. He speaks 5 languages, he is working on Spanish and next year French. He has been in plays and talent shows. For the Hmong, when you are 14 you are considered an adult. A lot of kids argue with parents about wanting to be American. He teaches a class for young Hmong people on culture and language.

–Gabby

Most Hmong teenagers want to be American but their parents want them to be Hmong. Thai is different, he wants to be both. It is harder to be a Hmong teenager than a Hmong kid, Thai says.

–Benjamin

In America, Thai quickly made lots of friends by simply going up to someone and saying “Hi!” Thai doesn’t understand why Hmong people stick together and don’t try to make friends with other Americans. He wants both nations to think of each other as equals. Why can’t we be buddies? is his question.

–Abigail

Thai aims to have friends of all different kinds from all different cultures and places. He feels that he has a special gift that many people don’t have, a special way of connecting and communicating with different people, and that includes different spirits, and others. Thai doesn’t believe in lying. He knows that it doesn’t do any good, especially specifically if you’re in a bad position and you’re trying to weave your way out of it. It’ll only make things worse for you and won’t help at all. Thai wants to be American but he also wants to stay forever Hmong, always loyal to his culture, religion, and traditions. His goal in life is to get good grades in high school and college, and teach young Hmong children about how to be a better Hmong person, and what it’s like to be a true Hmong person.

–Maggie

Mr. Wagler asked, “Aren’t all Hmong traditional?” Thai: “Not necessarily.” He said that of the Hmong in Wisconsin, about half were Christian and half were traditional Hmong.

–Tim

Thai doesn’t speak good English but his friends correct him and he likes that.

–Jenny

One of the most interesting parts of Hmong. A time to grieve, remember, show respect, talk, visit, even laugh. A time to help the deceased’s spirit to its ancestors… There are four major steps in a Hmong funeral. The first is as follows: The dead body is dressed in traditional Hmong clothes. But not just any traditional clothing, these are funeral clothes … After being dressed the body is placed on a table. (Later it will be put in a coffin.)

–Benjamin

The body would be dressed in traditional clothes made by the family. It would be made completely out of cloth and other disposable materials. If anything in the coffin could not [decompose] it would bring bad luck to the family.

–Alex

People who don’t like the person who died will often put some kind of metal in the coffin so the person’s spirit will not be able to rest in peace.

–Martha

The body lies, dressed in colorful clothing in the center of the stage, not yet in a casket, for the people that attend the funeral to say their goodbyes and offer any objects or words to help the deceased retrace the steps of her life.

–Sarah

One of the points of funerals is to get the spirit of the dead person back to the place of birth to get the placenta, so it can enter the spirit world.

–Abigail

When a baby girl is born, her placenta is put under the bed in the house. When the boy is born, his placenta goes in the center post of the house. A person called the Txiv Taw Kev guides the deceased on a journey to her/his past by going to wherever they came first in America to Thailand to Mekong River to the person’s village in Laos, then they go back to where they were born.

–Gabby

If the person is old, it takes many hours to lead the spirit through all the home of life and to the placenta. But it doesn’t take very long if the person is young.

–Abigail

The second step involves a rooster, a special man (the Txiv Taw Kev), some spirits, and some gifts.

–Benjamin

The Txiv Taw Kev will ask her questions such as, “Are you really dead?” Of course she won’t answer, but somehow the man knows.

–Sarah

The spiritual guide ceremonially tells the spirit of the deceased that they will be going through the locations in her life, backwards. He guides her back through her life to the spot of her birth to get her placenta, which is the afterbirth. The qeej player also helps her with this. The placenta is very important, because without it the deceased cannot enter the underworld.

–Tim

It is the rooster’s spirit that guides the spirit to its ancestors. The person’s spirit takes their placenta, gifts, food, money and a crossbow for protection as they set off to find the ancestors. … The food is to eat, and the money to pass gates.

–Benjamin

Once the rooster crows and the ancestor’s rooster crows to answer it then it has found your true ancestor! Then it is sacrificed to lead the spirit to the ancestor and to be like the spirit’s pet. It’s killed by cutting its neck half way with a knife. Parts like the liver are put in a container to be the spirit’s food.

–Abigail

Usually this takes about two hours, and during that time they are play the qeej. … Also during that time, family and friends bless the deceased and ask/wish for good luck or a blessing for them too.

–Emily

The step[s] of killing the rooster [are] hold the rooster very tight so it won’t get away, then you cut the neck to half way, then you take out the rooster liver to cook and then feed to the dead person, and then put the rooster in a box with the person who passed away.

–Pakou

Step 3 involves a qeej (keng), its player, the body, body carriers, a drum and a drummer. A special song on the qeej is played with a drum accompaniment as the body is carried, still in traditional clothes, to the coffin. This song can last up to 2 hours.

–Benjamin

Lots of animals are sacrificed at a funeral. Almost always a rooster is sacrificed, but if the person is married they have to sacrifice [anything] from a pig to a cow. If they are not married, or are young, they do not have to make much of a sacrifice. A cow is sacrificed by tying a string to it and putting the end of the string in the dead person’s hands.

–Alex

Traditionally, there would be four qeej players, animals would be ceremonially sacrificed at a butcher shop, and the body would be hung on the wall. There will be more than four at this funeral, the animals will be sacrificed at a farm (as there won’t be any butcher shops nearby), and in Madison they can’t hang the body on the walls as it’s going to be done at a funeral parlor. Fue Chou passed around a photo of the cows that will be sacrificed. I noted that they are somewhat shaggy.

–Abigail

There will be soda or liquor in small cups and that will be given to the entire clan/family.

–Nico

Everybody will sit and remember [the deceased]. There might be crying, laughing, people visiting with old friends, and the qeej and drum. It depends how long this lasts. For Tria Thao, it will take longer because she was an elder. This and the spiritual journey are usually one very long part of the 3 or 4 day funeral.

–Emily

To some people a Hmong funeral is a strange thing. But if you actually start to kind of understand them, they are not very strange. I don’t think they sound too strange.

–Mariah

One last thing: If you ever go to a Hmong funeral, don’t be surprised if there is laughter. Hmong funerals are part funeral, part family reunion.

–Emily

Arrival

On Friday, February 14, 2003, my class went to a Hmong funeral. It was my first funeral, same with some other classmates. Dhia Thao was 88 when she died. She died of health problems. She came to America in 1976, and then worked in a pickle factory with her son. Dhia Thao had seven children, 5 boys and 2 girls.

–Mariah

When I first walked in it was exciting, being at a Hmong funeral. It wasn’t at all what culture I knew. It was astonishing to me. I had expected people crying – black – a coffin. Well, that’s not what I found. When I entered the space, where the body was held, I got nervous. A lot of people were staring – looking – glancing, but then I noticed they were all saying welcome.

–Erika

When we got off the bus, I was all happy. We entered the building. I experienced a little bit of culture shock.

–Jeremy

“Our culture is strange to others,” said Fue Chou Thao, a Hmong man at the funeral. The Hmong have very different funerals from you and me. Their funerals are for four days starting at 8 on Friday and going till noon on Monday. How long the different ceremonies are depend on how old the person is when they die. There have been certain changes since the Hmong have moved from Laos to America.

–Izzy

The 3 1/2 days of rituals aren’t all funeral. They are also the graveside ceremonies and the wake all put into one. It’s hard to say how long each part of it is because they are all blended together.

–Sara

How the Room Looked

When we got there, Fue Chou Thao greeted us and gave us seats where the ceremonies would be done.

–Dylan.

I knew this would turn out to be greatly amazing and it was. Chairs for the audience, a carpeted floor, couches, the spiritual guide, the dead body, the qeej player, the drum, the gifts, the spirit money and the coffin. Amazing.

–Benjamin

The woman who had died was lying near the front of the room. She wasn’t in a coffin. She was just on the floor.

–Dylan and Erika

Sitting next to her was a Hmong man. …The man was a (spiritual) guide. …At the table that the man was sitting at were some small pieces of paper with bars of silver on them. They were supposed to work as money in Dhia’s new life. There was also a box next to the table. It had an umbrella and some food and drink that she would need in her next life.

–Sara

A big drum is hung from a pyramid made from wood. They beat the drum and then hang it.

–Emma

There are many pictures of Dhia on the walls of the funeral home.

–Nate

Then Abigail came running up to me saying how Dhia died and all that kind of stuff. So I said “How do you know all that stuff?” She said “Her life is on that paper over there. I went and read it.” So I went and I found out she was a strong women that had seven children and two heart attacks.

–Cristina

In another room there were flowers and wreaths that I am guessing were for the family, to show respect.

–Dylan

As we walked in the door, we were welcomed by people who were sitting, chatting, enjoying themselves. It didn’t really seem like a funeral at all except for the body of 88-yr old Dhia Thao, dressed in colorful clothes and her family and in-laws at her side.

–Abigail

Most were totally open to having a dead person in the room.

–Izzy

Most of the people around us were men. They were talking and laughing happily with each other. The women were in two different places. They were in the far side of the room hanging up paper string and folded paper that looked like boats. There were thousands of these hanging up in an X-shape across the ceiling. The center point of the X was directly above the body of the deceased, Dhia Tao. We later found that the paper objects were a form on money. … (the other place were the women were) was a room very similar to the one where the funeral was being held that was reserved for women to go and talk to each other.

–Sarah

I saw no one crying but I bet as the days go on there will be more emotional behavior because it getting to the point where they have to say goodbye.

–Izzy

The Ceremonies and Traditions: The Spirit’s Journey

The Hmong believe in spirits and reincarnation. I don’t really understand what a spirit is, but the whole funeral is basically about helping the spirit get back to its ancestors so it can live again.

–Sara

The Hmong have a belief that in order to get into the spirit world, the spirit has to go through all of the places it lived in, and finally get to the place of birth to get the placenta so it can show the placenta to his/her ancestors and pass into the spirit world. The spiritual guide tells her/him where to go and what to do.

–Abigail

…A man plays the qeej. They are instructed by the qeej music to go find their placenta. At birth a girl’s placenta is put under the bed and a boy’s is put near the center pole. So there is a rooster present and a man talks to the person and guides them to all the places they have lived and then when they finally get to the place they were born and get their placenta they can go to their ancestors and the rooster guides them to their ancestors. Depending how old the person is it takes longer because they have been to more places than someone that died younger.

–Izzy

After the spiritual guide has gotten her/him to the placenta, a rooster is brought in to the body’s presence. When it crows, that tells the spirit “I have found your true ancestor,” and it tells the way. After it crows, it is sacrificed, to be like the pet of the spirit.

–Abigail

When we were there, the rooster was killed outside. From then on the rooster will serve as her guide. When Dhia Thao comes across a spirit she will not know if he/she is here ancestor or not. So, the rooster gives his Cock-a-Doodle-Doo call, and if the spirit’s rooster answers, that means Yes, the spirit is a true ancestor.

–Sarah

The liver and other parts are given to the spirit as food, buried beside the coffin.

–Abigail

From the moment a Hmong person is born, there is a house spirit that lives in the house and protects her. When the Hmong person dies, she will have to leave the house and make her journey. The Txiv Taw Kev guides her through this part. (The twix taw kev is the spiritual guide.) The spirit will try to keep her in the house.

–Sarah

If the spirit in the house says that you can’t go, then you’ll have to pay and say that I am dead now and I have to leave this house. I don’t belong here any more, I belong in the spirit world with my ancestors. If you don’t let me go, I’ll pay you.

–Pao

Music, Ceremonies and Rituals

When the spiritual guide does his ceremony 80-90% of it is specially designed for her (the deceased). The other 10%-20% that’s left is used in every Hmong funeral.

–Erika

“There is a spirit man who talks to the dead person on the first day of the funeral. He tells the spirit to go to the other world.”

–Pao

The (spiritual) guide started singing and throwing a bamboo stick split in half to make two. While he was singing he was asking her questions or something and if he threw them and …

–Sara

…If both are face down, it means no and the spirits are happy. If two of them are face up, it means the humans are happy and no. But if one is face down and one is face up, it means the both spirits and humans are happy and it means yes.

–Pao

Whenever one was up and one down the family members kneeling by the coffin holding incense would bow twice in a sign of thanks.

–Izzy

Cows and pigs were also sacrificed to act as food and something to carry things on. The sacrificed rooster’s liver is fed to the Spirit. While the larger animals are being sacrificed, there is a rope or string connecting the body to the animal. Many people will often hold the rope or string. My class did not see any of the sacrifices happening. The rooster was killed outside and the cows at a farm.

–Martha

Music

In Hmong funerals, you have to have four qeej players along with some drum players. The job for the qeej players and the drum player are to send the dead person to the other world. The qeej is saying “go to the other world, we don’t want you to stay so you don’t scare us, go to your ancestors.

–Pao

The qeej playing is a very important part of the funeral. There are many many different songs played. The songs can last an hour or two hours, and that might seem very long, but it really isn’t because the funeral ceremonies last for 3+ days!!! Many of the songs the qeej plays are to thank mother earth, the relative and friends of the deceased and all the spirits that have helped her in her life.

–Sarah

When the qeej players play, they play stories. Some about the sun and moon, others about mother earth and the sky.

–Sara

The twix taw kev will sing for a very long time in the funerals, with the sons and daughters of the deceased mourning and bowing to the corpse of their old, wise mother.

–Nate

Family Members

Right next to Dhia Thao her family was blowing with incense because they were wishing themselves good blessings.

–Mariah

Her family members would be around her protecting her.

–Mark

When people brought a gift, the family would come and bow and say thanks and the people who gave the gift would repeat.

–Gabby

The Body and Clothes

Dhia was dressed in special “funeral clothes” that had been prepared for her years earlier.

–Benjamin

Dhia is dressed for all seasons with show shoes, a traditional Hmong coat, an umbrella and a crossbow. The coat and snow shoes are for winter, the umbrella if for rainy times and the crossbow for hunting and killing animals to eat.

–Nate

…the body (was) covered with the beautiful clothes of the traditional clothing of the Hmong. She had a black and white polka-dotted “turban” around her head. The upper part of the body had mostly blues and a little bit of white and black in some places near the arms. The lower par of the body in my perspective was a lot prettier than the upper part. It had pink, orange, blue and a lot of other colors. The feet had grass woven soles and supports.

–Jeremy

The outfit she wears has never been worn before. Also the shoes are made especially for snow because it is cold in China where she will end up.

–Gabby

(The shoes were) purple with the toes curled up. There were pieces of rope on the bottom, to make the shoes serve as show shoes in case of bad weather on her journey through the spiritual world back to her birthplace.

–Sarah

What was neat was that people would come up and fix something. It the shoe was coming off, they’d slip it on. If a button was undone, they’d come and button it.

–Erika

Coffin

Her coffin was made out of a tree found in Laos that is like a pine tree. The coffin was made in Laos, her homeland.

–Jeremy

The wood came all the way from a cedar tree in Laos and smelled really good and fresh.

–Sarah

The coffin … was put together with wood nails. This is a tradition. No metal things can be put in the coffin because it brings bad luck to the person in their next life or the relatives that are still alive. So, on Saturday all of the family members guard the coffin to make sure no one puts any metal in.

–Izzy

Fue Chou explained to us that there are many different kinds of coffins. Some are very fancy, with lots of swirls and such carved in. The one there was standard, not too fancy and not too plain.

–Alex

Spirit Money

Hanging from the ceiling were paper boats with gold and silver foil on them. These represent gold and silver bars for wealth in the other world. The paper boats are made by the family of the one who has died. They can begin making the boats as soon as the person has died.

–Unknown

Spirit money is money that is burned after the dead person’s spirit has finished its journey. Some money is taken by the spirit to pay as it passes through the gate. The money in Laos was actually gold and silver bars. Here, because we don’t use that, they use pieces of paper that are folded into the shape of a boat they have painted gold for gold bars and silver for silver bars.

–Benjamin

Even the spirits need money.

–Abigail

Lasting Impressions

When we got on the bus, I felt proud I decided to come to the funeral, but half of me said to stay, so I got kind of scared I made the wrong decision. When my class and I got there, I felt very scared because of the dead body. I want to explore a new culture because of the exciting activities, food, etc. But in the other way, I wanted to stay at school. … Then we went in where the dead body was and sat in that room. I kept on telling Melissa “I’m scared, are you scared …” … So I just opened my Hmong Culture notebook and wrote what people were doing. We went in to the room where the dead body was. Then everyone looked at us and got us and said “Here are some chairs you can sit on. … They were very nice. I felt right at home with different styles and the dead body.

–Cristina

I am glad I went to the funeral. It was a powerful experience for me. I appreciate them letting us come and see their culture.

–Emma

…And:

There was a spiritual guide at the funeral. He sang the whole time! His voice must have been tired at the end.

–Mariah

I’ll never forget this funeral. It was really a good experience. I can’t wait to go to another.

–Abigail

Sue Bassett came into our class today to talk about people called “highlanders.” Highlanders are people who live high up in the mountains of Thailand and Laos. There are many Sue mentioned like Mien, Akha, Hmong, Yao, etc. All these people have different styles of living, each as unique as the next. One of the different things was that babies wear nothing; toddlers wear just a shirt, kids wear pants and a shirt and adults wear pants/skirt and a shirt. People sleep in big beds with many people in them. They don’t use mattresses. They use bamboo. Sue said it gets comfy after a while. One of the highlander villages was so high up in the mountains that it took twelve kilometers to reach. There are three seasons: cold, dry/hot, and wet. All of these seasons can be enjoyable including the hot/dry season. The main reason Sue was at our classroom was to talk about the refugee camps and refugees. The difference between an immigrant and a refugee is refugees are forced to leave their homelands and immigrants have a choice to leave. She worked as a nurse at a refugee camp called Ban Nam Yao.

–Martha

Sue Bassett, a good friend of Mr. Wagler’s, took a trip to a Thailand Refugee Camp. She met Akha, Thin, Lisu, Mien, and Hmong people and worked with most of them. Sue worked in a clinic, medicating people who had been shot, people with measles, people with health problems, people with bad burns, people with lost body parts, people who did not have enough nutrition, people with skin problems or diseases, and lots more. Sue and other doctors and nurses brought shamans and Hmong elders over to help them. Some people who needed medical care however, refused to go to hospitals, perhaps thinking that it was only a place for people so sick they might die. Or, perhaps, they wanted to use the old spirit–contact way. Who knows?

The Thai people provided the refugees with building supplies: bamboo, grasses, straw, thatching, and more. In summer, the refugees used screens and blankets to keep out malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Usually, there was only 1 table. The people would eat in this order: Elders, men, women, then children. Beds were made of bamboo slats. You got used to the bumpiness after a few nights. The United Nations High Commission on Refugees provided food, machinery and building supplies.

There were also signs-flags, signs, wreaths, etc. that people used. For instance, a white thing on the roof meant that you could trade for toys there. Toys were made of stuff found lying around: Bottles, lost flip-flops (shoes often worn by Hmong people), wood, pens, and other things. A wreath of leaves and branches on a wall meant that there was something like a disease inside, and the mother and child(ren) couldn’t go out.

–Maggie

In all the seasons, the highlanders use houses to store their food. The houses are on stilts and on the four corners of the house, there are metal poles so rodents can’t get in to poop and/or eat their food. (The metal poles are there because they are slippery to animals other than humans.)

–Jeremy

Akha is a type of mountain person. Thin is another type, and so is Lisu, and of course, Hmong. Mountain people use gourds to collect water. The roofs of houses are made of grass and the walls are made of bamboo. In each house there is a bed, a table and a kitchen in the corner. There are nets over the beds to block mosquitoes from biting people when they are asleep. If you saw a pole with a bag on it stuck in the ground by a house that meant that people were selling toys that they made. Kids play with chickens, geckos and chameleons. Hmong mountains don’t have very good roads so the villages are hard to get to. Animals run free in the villages.

Because of war, people had to cross the Mekong River. The Mekong River was a fast running, deep river with “licensed to kill” killing guards on the other border. Practically none of the people could swim when they crossed the Mekong River separating Laos from Thailand. Elders had to cross as well as strong men. When they got across they became refugees. In the camp people were provide with thatched roof covering and long sticks of bamboo.

Lots of people had health problems. Most refugees didn’t have very many vegetables and fruits. Lots of kids had malnutrition. That means that they had a bloated stomach with teeny arms, legs and feet. A way of Hmong traditional healing is using an animal’s horn to bring the blood cells up to the skin, and doctors have found that it actually works. Lots of people also lost legs and arms because of left over land mines, and got sick because of that.

–Nico

Today a woman named Sue Bassett came into my class and showed us slides and talked about Thai refugee camps and the people that live in the hills. Sue used to work in a refugee camp as a nurse in the 1980’s.

In the hills, there is lots of grass and there are dirt roads that are easy to get stuck in when it is the rainy season. In a village, most of the houses are made out of bamboo and thatched grass roofs. There are dogs, pigs, roosters, and chickens all over in villages.

Most of the people in the villages had a field to farm on. There was always work going on in the villages. They would also have a rice pounder that would be done by having a long piece of wood with a big stick coming out of the wood that would hit the rice. There was a corn grinder that would be done by putting corn between two stone flat plates. They would move and crush the corn. The women were sewing a lot.

When America gave up the war and came home, the Communists killed everybody they found in the mountain villages. So the Hmong and other people had to run away to Thailand. But to get to Thailand they had to cross the Mekong River. They couldn’t swim, so they had to go across by holding on to bamboo. Once they got to Thailand (if they made it) they had to go to refugee camps.

When they entered, they would be registered and given supplies to build a house. There wasn’t much food, so a lot of people got sick. The refugee camps had lots of people in them. Sometimes if there would be a fire, there was nothing anyone could do. So they had to get away from the fire.

By what Sue showed us and talked to us about I think I understand villages better, and how hard and confusing it was for them.

–Dylan

Laos and Thailand have a lot of low lands. Both lands have high mountains and a lot of mountains. Lots of Sue Bassett’s pictures showed Akha or Hmong women carrying their babies or feeding them. I think Lisu is Hmong green because she is wearing Hmong green traditional clothes. An Akha woman was using a dry empty pumpkin cut in half to get water and she was carrying a basket on her back. She was also wearing a traditional Akha hat that has lots of designs and coins on the hat. There were a lot of houses being built or rebuilt. They were made out of bamboo and straw. There was a picture of a little boy holding a kind of fruit; I think it may be a pineapple. A lot of Hmong women do a lot of needlework each day because in the refugee camps it’s very boring. There are lots of cages for animals. There was a rice pounder and also a corn grinder in the pictures. Lots of families were really farming to get food. There were lots of fences around gardens because lots of animals are mostly outside. Now many houses have electricity and phones. Two Hmong men were blacksmiths and I think they were making tools like knives. Mostly people need wood for fire, not electricity. A lot of women do different needlework with wax. Some pictures showed the bathrooms back then, which was in the ground. A man was making a qeej and two other men played the qeej in different places. There was a dry and wet season. Kids played in the rain. A woman sold vegetables at a market. Another woman was carrying a basket filled with bananas. Two pictures showed the Mekong River in the south side. Two men were smoking a bamboo pipe. Lots of women were getting glasses from the nurses. There was a hospital called Tom Dooley Hospital that let refugees in to make the refugees healthy and safe. Lots of refugees got shot by the communists. Some people even lost their legs or arms or some other body parts. When Sue Bassett first came to the refugee camps, lots of people looked at her as foreign. She only learned Thai words because she was in the refugee camps.

–Pakou

Imagine: you are Hmong and you just got away from the Pathet (communist) Lao. You travel through the Laotian jungles, your belongings and those of your family on your back. You are often getting shot at by Pathet Lao patrols. You reach the Mekong River and find it heavily guarded. You are able to get across unharmed.

You stay at a Thai Hmong house. Meaning no harm, they give you directions to the Ban Vinai refugee camp. At the gates, you are forced to hand over everything you have hauled through the jungle. They then let you in. They tell you to go find a place to sleep. Maybe you get to a place where you can get under the blankets they gave you. This is what it was like in Ban Vinai’s early stages.

–Tim

Some of the houses are traditional (bamboo, mud, etc.) and some are not traditional (tin roof and wood walls). Most houses are not traditional. Every house has a concrete well.

–Martha

In 1975 roughly 50,000 people were crammed into the small space of Ban Vinai. Sometimes there wasn’t enough food to go around. . . . for one day they give a family a bag of rice and hog 3 bags for themselves. Or a rat bites through a bag and the rice goes on the dirty floor then the Thai officials sweep up all that and put it back in the bag so all of the rice that they get is unhealthy. At Ban Vinai people would normally get a bucket full of water a day.

–Thomas

Many people died of starvation, sometimes dehydration, sickness, and lack of medicine. There were hospitals, but they weren’t very clean, and things like needles were often shared.

–Maggie

The school in camp is not like our schools because it has different style. Peng said that first grade means something else. It means someone who needs to know abc, 123. And there are only 5 grades in the refugee camp. So refugee school is very different from our school.

–Cristina

The kids had a better time than the adults because they didn’t have to worry about where they would end up living.

–Gabby

Soccer was the dominant activity. Since many had no job at camp, soccer was a great time-killer. The field was so used, no grass grew there.

–Tim

The soccer games were played like so: two teams come and play, one wins, the team that lost leaves the field, the next challengers come and it starts again. They played from 8 a.m to dusk. But for kids not old enough to play, it was a drag. You had nothing to do all day, every day, until some kids invented some games like jacks except with a rock and sticks, or jump rope, except with a long chain of rubber bands.

Kids had some other games like kow tow, which is kicking a ball like volleyball, also tublub, which is a game where there is a board and you spin big tops on and try to knock the other person’s top off. For the kids it was a lot of fun if you didn’t go to school, because you had lots and lots of free time.

–Nico

Because no one had jobs and the Hmong people had little or no money whatsoever they sometimes snuck out. There was a metal fence with barbed wire on it to prevent this and later a 3-ft. deep ditch to prevent this.

–Izzy

The women didn’t have much to do. . . . Later on the women got materials from the JVC… to make Paj Ntaub [story cloths] and a new style was created. Instead of just symbols and shapes they sewed people and buildings and scenes of villages and the refugee camps onto the quilts.

–Sarah M.

The camps had a unique form of government. First, there were the refugees (of course). Each family had someone to represent them to the officials (usually the father). Each apartment had a leader. He would go to the section leader to get rations and report “misconduct.” Then there’s the section leader. He is in charge of all the apartments in his section and also has permission to go directly to the government. Then there’s the president of the camp. He’s in charge and settles almost everything. But what the Thai government says, goes.

–Benjamin

Peng was one of the lucky ones because he left the refugee camps early. He got to because his father was a teacher and the Hmong wanted to send the smarter people to America first to see if they would survive because if they didn’t, they figured no one else would be able to.

–Sara

Even today, there are still two refugee camps in Thailand, but one is being shut down. In the 1990s, the refugees couldn’t come to America so some refugees went back to Laos.

–Dylan

Quite a few Hmong people we have seen haven’t wanted to talk about the camps. Too painful. “There was no freedom” Mr. Her said. That is why so many people wanted to first escape Laos, and then escape Ban Vinai. Remember, Being Hmong means Being Free.

–Sarah M.

Hmong is a very special tradition that can be funny or sad.

–Pakou

So imagine never using a toilet before and that you had to go outside on a tree every time you had to go [to the bathroom]. Then coming to America seeing a strange appliance and someone tells you that you actually have to go on it. When you finally pluck up the nerves to go, they tell you that you have to drain the water. You wouldn’t know how to, so you think he means you have to get a bucket and take all the water out. Then you see the water going around and around in circles. Ahhh, it’s going to suck me in. That’s what you are thinking as you are running away. Also, the man that tells you to do all this is weird, as he doesn’t have brown eyes and black hair like everyone else you’ve ever met. Nope, he’s a monster with yellow hair and, well, blue eyes. Then, you think he’s trying to suck you into his world and turn you into a monster like him.

–Izzy S.

Back in Laos, they had to wash their feet before they go to sleep. So, they thought it was for washing their feet, so they put their feet in it. The sister yelled and said this is not how you are supposed to do it. You have to pee in it.

–Mark

I didn’t think there are many Hmong comedians, if any. But after I saw this video, I thought differently.

It is just as funny to be Hmong as it is to be American.

–Alex

Tou Ger questioned his father, “What is America?” His father replied, “It’s in the clouds. We take a metal bird up and there’s America.”

–Erika

Then, his sister showed him the sofa. That was “cool.” They bounced up and down. They saw the TV next. Wow, they thought. Then they noticed the fridge.

She scolded them, and told them about the bathroom [in the house]. They walked in [to the bathroom]. “Where’s the tree?” they asked.

Tou Ger ran to his house and told his mom about the giant [the missionary] and his mother said, “Keep away, they bite.”

–Erika

When he want to school, he saw that everybody liked to skip, and he thought everyone walked weird.

–Gabby

Before, I kind of thought that the Hmong only did things like funerals and qeej playing. I now know that they have their own sense of humor, just like every culture.

–Emily

It was funny when [his dad] said, “Don’t go closer, or they’ll bite you, son.”

I understand Hmong culture differently, because Tou Ger Xiong made me feel a little braver.

–Pao

Just because the Hmong have gone through and endured crossing dangerous rivers, fires, war, and hard times…doesn’t mean they’re just going to say “I’m done…I’ll never laugh or run in fields or help in golden fields of rice, again…” No! The Hmong say, “I’ve gone through a lot. But that can’t stop me from farming, gardening, having fun, etc. I’m going to make the best of it.”

–Abigail

Back in Laos, people went barefoot. The rule was to wash your feet before you go to bed. So, when Tou and his brother saw the big white bowl, they didn’t immediately realize what it was. “Oh, look! A special bowl to wash your feet in! Press the handle and your feet get cleaned.”

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As I stepped off the yellow school bus I saw a white, square, one-story building. There was a sign that read: United Refugee Services. At first I thought the building was kind of dull, but little did I know what was in store inside.

I thought it was interesting that some of the things hanging [on display] weren’t just crafts and things from Laos. There was a bulletin board all about government for the refugees so they would understand government in America. [The bulletin board had] a newspaper clipping with all the presidents and descriptions about them, a written English test, and facts about what’s going on in the world right now.

[There was a doll] dressed in traditional clothing but her skin was pale, her hair was brown and she had blue eyes with extra long eyelashes. She didn’t look like any Hmong person I’ve seen. There are many reasons why this could have been. Maybe that was the only kind of doll they had or maybe the makers were going to sell it to non-Hmong people and thought they would like it better as a European person. (I don’t know about you but I’d rather have a doll that looked like the culture it was from.)

On the bus back to Randall I thought about how different this experience was from Kaj Siab House, but [also] how similar in how kind people were, and generous and welcoming. Thanks URS!

–Sarah

About 20 years ago, United Refugee Services started helping refugees [including] about 5,000 Hmong, 700 Cambodian, 700 Lao and even about 150 from the former Yugoslavia. The United Refugee center [helps] people get new jobs, [find] homes and adjust to their new lives, language and skills

–Emily

The United Refugee Service doesn’t only help new Hmong refugees, they also help Lao, Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees learn English, find a job and resettle in the community. They have a food pantry for refugees that have just come and can’t support themselves.

–Izzy

We all saw a picture of a refugee camp. It was very large and I could see the fence around the refugee area. Some women wore traditional Hmong clothing to the [event at] the center. Jenny said they looked young and pretty wearing traditional Hmong clothes.

–Pakou

The Children’s Museum has been coming here since July to get lots of information about what life was like [for the Hmong] in Thailand and they’ve gotten a lot. That’s because there a lot of people here who [lived] in the [Thai] refugee camps.

–Tim

While we were there we took a look around at [all the] neat things they had on display. One thing I looked at in detail was the story cloth.

At first I thought it showed a Hmong village in Laos. But then I noticed, down toward the bottom of the story cloth, it showed people with baskets on their backs [like] the ones they use for the market. I finally figured it out when I looked at the bottom; it showed a person laying out vegetables on a stand. It was, in fact, a Hmong market place.

[Another story cloth] had white writing underneath each scene. “It’s like a sewn comic book,” I said.

–Erika

My Delights

I had three main delights. My first one was eating egg rolls and drinking Koolaid. My second one was finding out about a new instrument called a “kieta.” My third delight was when I was eating an egg roll and looking at a [Hmong] doll and old man walked up to me, speaking Hmong. I could not understand him but finally I understood what he meant. He meant to feed the egg roll to the doll! So, I pretended to feed it to her.

–Mariah

Hmong flutes are usually for girlfriends and boyfriends. When he plays he doesn’t jump around, he just walks and sometimes bends down.

–Gabby

I noticed that many of the flutes sounded like a lot like the qeej. All of them looked kind of plain, but the sound they made was incredible!

–Martha

All the games [we played] were fun, but it was [even] more fun [playing them] in front of an audience and the class and to have classmates cheering you on. I like these games because they played them in Laos and played them for fun. Now games have batteries; you would never [need to] go to a toy store to get [the things you need for these games]: rubber bands, sticks, old flip-flops. No way! It was very nice for them to have us. Thank you!

–Emma

[A man] picked [some] kids from our class to play a marble game that none of us have ever seen. You take turns trying to shoot a marble into a hole. If [your marble is] within a hand length [of the hole] you can just put your marble in. After you get the marble in the hole, [the other player] tries to hit it. If you do, you win!

–Alex

In one game, you put a lot of rubber bands on a stick, loosely, so they can fall off. You put the stick on the ground and draw a line about ten feet away. You also need a partner and some shoes. Standing by the stick, you each throw one shoe, the person who gets closest to the line goes first. You stand behind the line and try to hit the stick with the shoe. If you hit the stick and knock some rubber bands off it the ones that are not touching the stick are yours to keep. Wherever your shoe lies is where you stand for your next turn. The person who gets the last rubber band wins.

–Nico

At the URS, we met Yang Cha [who] had a Hmong rifle. It was used to hunt and protect the family. The gun has [belonged to his family] since the Vietnam War started. It has a special rock that makes sparks when it goes off [and] you have to reload it every time you shoot. It can shoot about 50 yards.

–Pao

The Hmong people there were so welcoming to us and happy for us to be there. I feel so comfortable with the Hmong people now.

–Dylan

On a gloomy, rainy morning our class drove down Park Street to Bayview. Bayview is a big group of apartments where a lot of Asian-American, African-American, Caucasian, Latino-American, and Native American people live. It is a really neat, diverse place, and it would have been cool to look at apartments of all the different ethnicities, but we were there to study Hmong homes. . . . We split into 4 groups, and set off to tour [4] Bayview Hmong homes.

–Sara

We got on the bus, headed to the Bayview apartments. When I just got on the bus, the bus driver looked at me and said “Hola.” He just looked at me and right away knew that I was Mexican. It felt kind of good having someone else who speaks the same language like me.. . . Mark [a Hmong student in the class who lives at Bayview] always was taking us where to go next because he knows where we are going and practically knows everybody so he is a good help in our group. He even had to translate for us. For him it got a little bit hard to translate because it’s hard to translate from one language to another.

–Cristina

Two things the homes had in common were: #1: they all had flowers (fake) for decoration. #2: They all have photos of family. Oh, wait! They all have gardens outside their doors. And they all have big families (Mark has 10 siblings!) 2 have altars and are shamans, 1 grows bamboo, 1 comes from a family of ministers, and 1 has a picture of General Vang Pao. So similar yet so different!

–Abigail

Each home was organized differently. Space organization is not at all the same because of culture. There is however one exception, the shamanic altar. All of the altars have rice, egg yolk separated into four cups, an egg in a bin of rice, the shamanic bells, and the traditional instruments (bells, horns, knife, gong, drums, etc.)

–Erika

In the house it was dark. All the lights were off because Mrs. Thao only uses them when she needs them. I think it reminds her of Laos a little bit. In the kitchen there was a rice cooker and a rice steamer. The family eats rice three times a day.

–Maggie

A very common decoration I saw was certificates for the men to prove they were in the Vietnam war. Some houses had certificates for the women saying they had lost their husbands in the war.

In three of the houses we went to there were shamans’ altars. Every house also had a bridge of string and sticks leading from the altar to the door. Mrs. Yang said that “if it weren’t for this bridge the spirits wouldn’t be able to come in and if it weren’t for the corn on the door bad spirits would be able to get in and either make the shaman sick or another member of the family.” On every altar there was food like egg and rice and water to feed the spirits. Whenever incense is lit it calls the spirits to the house or apartment. Paper is cut into patterns as some cut snowflakes and is used on the altar. Every year at the end of the year the paper has to be taken down and re-done and every day the food has to be replaced for the spirits. On the wall there was also a design made from folded paper to honor the spirits. These designs are usually made by men and the blood of the rooster is used in making two dots on each side.

–Izzy S.

Neng Leeyang is also a Shaman. She has some strings set up so the spirits can come in and out, a shaman drum, and a shaker, some buffalo horns, and lots of different kinds of medicine plants. She has a garden but only plants healing plants. There are flowers hanging from the ceiling of her house but they are just for decoration.

–Nico B.

The traditional way of how a shaman gets a taller altar is as follows: you have 1 level when you start being a shaman. After 10 years, you add another level. Then, after 30 years, you add the third level. On her shaman’s alter were incense, a knife, a gong, and modern medicines.

The next house we visited was the home of Xee Lee, another shaman. She has photos of people, family, the military, and Laos. She doesn’t believe in the altar levels thing, she’s been a shaman since the late 60s and only has 1.

–Benjamin

To become a shaman, the spirits come to you in a dream and tell you you have to do or else you will die, not everyone can become a shaman. A shaman is like a doctor, a special kind of doctor. The tools that she has are from Laos.

–Gabby

Gardening in Three Worlds: Mai Zong Vue was born in Laos. She helped her grandma garden there. “I used to tag along,” said Mai Zong. “My favorite thing was when she’d cut a fresh pineapple and we’d sit and eat it in the little shed by the garden after we were done.”

When the Communists invaded, Mai Zong left her first garden at age 7 and moved to the next garden in Thailand. The Thailand garden was different. It filled a space three times the size of a regular room. This garden fed their family—parents, five children, and a grandmother. This time Mai didn’t just tag along. She worked.

When she was in her teens, she moved to her third garden, in America. America again was a change. [Mai’s family planted] this garden so they could have fresh vegetables and not store-bought that came from who knows where. These were vegetables to put in the freezer (a very new concept to Mai and her family).

The Hmong use plants to eat, to flavor recipes, and some even for medicinal uses. Green mustard is from all the way back in Laos. It is a spice and is very common in Hmong gardens. Cilantro is like parsley. Mai Zong brought her cilantro seeds from Thailand. It is used in soups and on fish to give flavor to a dish. Yellow squash in Laos was cut in half. The inside was eaten, and the outside dried and used for a dipping gourd. Snow peas are usually eaten raw by the Hmong. “Once you plant the peas it takes a while for them to grow. That’s why you can plant faster growing plants on top, and they will be harvested by the time the peas start to grow,” Mai Zong commented.

Over the years, gardening has changed for Mai Zong, but she has also kept traditions going.

–Izzy S.

Mai Xiong Vue is a folk singer. She also is working for the Wisconsin Arts Festival in Washington, DC. She has presented in many different places.

–Mark

Outside almost any Hmong house you’ll find a garden. This is for many reasons. One, elders are afraid food [other vegetables] might have poisonous chemicals. Two, it saves money. And three, it’s fun!!!

–Erika

Cilantro is similar to parsley, except it has a stronger (and some say better) flavor and smell. At some places, they call it Chinese parsley…. One thing that is very good is a kind of boiled squash soup. It goes well with rice…. Also the Hmong plant a black kind of sweet corn. The ears are quite small, and the stalks don’t get more than a few feet off the ground. It is very good to eat. Boiled soybeans are delicious. If you let them dry out, you can make drinks. Or you can use them for seeds. Chili peppers are to rice like ketchup is to hotdogs.

Mai Xiong is pregnant. When she has her baby, she will drink a lot of warm water with lots of herbs like lemon grass. She will eat only certain things for a whole month, in a recovery process. [The Hmong believe that] otherwise, when she gets older, she might shake. Or something like that…

Here in the United States, we have things like potting soil and Miracle Grow, but back in Laos and Thailand, all they had was real manure. Their fields used to smell horrible. The best kind was fresh from the cow. It was wet then, so it watered as well as fed the plants. Mai Xiong said even though it smells horrible, she would go back to manure if she could.

–Emily

An interesting fact about Hmong culture is that after a woman gives birth to a child, she can eat nothing but lemon grass, chicken, and rice for one month.

–Mariah

Chili pepper and rice are served with every meal. They are like bread and potatoes are for some families.

–Benjamin

There are many differences between gardening in the U.S. and in Laos and Thailand. In the U.S., you turn on the hose and presto! Water! But in Laos and Thailand, water had to be fetched from the stream in a bucket.

–Tim

The Hmong people would plant squash and cut the squash in half, take out all the seeds, wash the inside of the squash, let the inside dry and it would be good to carry water in a bucket. Mai showed us a basket that they use to carry tools to the garden, but the basket can be used for any other kind of materials, too.

–Pakou

Mr. Wagler told us that Mai was cousins with Pakou…

–Cristina

Mai talked to us about planting the “Hmong way”—without machines, with sharp hand tools that the blacksmith makes, and with fresh cow manure…. She plants cilantro, squash, green mustard, snowpeas, sweetcorn, cucumber, soybeans, chili peppers, and lemon grass. Since she grows them herself, they are money savers, and no chemicals or fake colors are on them…

–Emma

Mai works with the mental health programs to help refugees from all over. She is also a Hmong folk singer. She presents at Hmong festivals and celebrations. She also loves making presentations for children at schools…

Lemon grass is a type of plant you use to spice or flavor your food. Mai uses it for tea, chicken, and pie. After women give birth, they have to have spice in all of the food they eat. If they don’t, it is said they will be weak when they get older. It is a tradition. The Hmong have believed this for centuries. Mai is pregnant and she said she will be having a lot of lemon grass.

In Laos and Thailand they couldn’t just use regular dirt, because it needs fertilizer. So they used manure straight from the cow. Mai always thought it really stunk. But the Hmong believe in natural remedies.

Back in Laos, they didn’t have the materials to make a nice backpack. So what they did was make a basket and tie handles to it. They would use it to take tools to and from the field, or carry crops back to their houses.

In the United States, you can still see some Hmong gardens with the same kinds of vegetables as in Laos and Thailand. If you go to any Hmong house here in the U.S., you usually will find a freezer full of vegetables for the winter, when they can’t garden. Since the gardens here in America are so small, the Hmong can’t garden everything they want. So they form something that Mai calls a co-op of labor. That is when gardeners trade some of their vegetables for someone else’s vegetables.

Rice is a big part of Hmong culture and food. Back in Laos, they ate rice for all three meals of the day. Mint is another plant Mai uses a lot here. She uses it in food like salad, but also in other ways. In her house, she has a hole in the wall mice get through. Mice don’t like the smell of mint, so Mai plants mint around the hole outside.

Looking back on Laos and Thailand, and seeing what the Hmong are doing here, makes me realize how much the Hmong try to save and keep their traditions alive.

–Gabby

Mai Xiong has talked to community elders about their culture’s unique and traditional way of gardening.

–Benjamin

The Hmong have been gardening for centuries. They gardened in China, Laos, Thailand refugee camps, and in America, for non-pesticide plants to eat.

–Jeremy

Mai Zong Vue is a gardener at heart. As a toddler in Laos, she would follow her grandmother into the garden and help her water. Her grandmother would then give her fresh pineapple for a treat. Mai Zong described that pineapple so well I could practically taste it in my mouth! I could tell Mai Zong was tasting it, too.

Hmong people in Laos had to grow their own crops to survive. Gardens were very important. If there wasn’t any rain, there wouldn’t be food, and everyone would starve. They used fresh cow poop for fertilizer! I thought that was gross but I’m sure it worked well. Mai Zong told us the amount of land her family had was [very large]. One person couldn’t plow it alone, so they’d get together with friends for the day and plow one person’s land, and the next day they’d do someone else’s garden, and so on.

When Mai Zong was seven, her family went to the refugee camps. Since the rations they received were very small, they had gardens to help the family eat. The more members of the family, the more garden space they could receive. When Mai moved to America, there was barely any garden space. So the Hmong planted only a few things and then traded with friends and family to get crops they didn’t have.

Mai Zong showed us a bunch of different plants the Hmong depend on. Cilantro has a very strong smell and is used to flavor soups, salad, and fish. Green mustard grows quickly—you can see it pop out of the ground within two weeks! Soy beans can be eaten fresh, right off the stalk. Mai also showed us cucumber, snow peas, yellow squash, and black sweet corn.

Tools are very important. Mai Zong told us the Hmong names for them, Lao Dua and Lao Cavay. One looked like a hoe, with a wooden handle and a slanted, sharp shovel-like metal end. If you want to plant a seed, you dig a hole with the sharp end. The other tool was used to loosen the earth and hand-plow it. If you are lazy and don’t want to bend down, you can get one with a longer handle and work standing up!

Hmong gardening is a valuable tradition that should be passed on. As the years go by, adaptations will be made, but I hope some Hmong secrets stay the same.

–Sarah M.

Mai Xiong Vue told us that when she moved into her new house they had a rat problem. So they put mint all over the house and that made the rats go away because they don’t like the smell.

–Dylan

There is a tool Hmong people used in Laos and Thailand, that was also brought to America. It is used as a hoe. Lazy people supposedly use a longer version, so they don’t have to bend over. You don’t want to get caught using one if you’re an unmarried woman. Because that will probably make your chances for getting a husband zero because men tend to like woman who are active, fit, and un-lazy.

–Martha

After hearing the presentation, I went out into the Randall Outdoor Classroom and planted some Hmong seeds in the raised beds. First went the cantaloupes. They went pretty deep in the soil, and one interesting thing I learned was that you can scatter chili pepper seeds OVER the cantaloupe bed. Then you put a little earth over the chili pepper and water. This is done this way because chili pepper grows faster than cantaloupe.

–Maggie

There are a lot of plants that we helped Mai Zong Vue plant. Cilantro, green mustard, lemon grass, and a type of pea. We hoed and dug deep. Then we put the peas in. We gently covered them up. On one half of the raised bed, right over the peas, we sprinkled green mustard. On the other half, we sprinkled cilantro. We mixed the soil up a bit and then stuck one lemon grass stalk directly in the middle of the raised bed.

–Erika