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Born on the Mountain, by James Xiong, illustrated by Gikong, photographs by James Xiong
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A special thank-you to Katy Schneider, Carlos Terra,

Becky Schaller, and Karyn Joyce, for editorial help.
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 Contents
Introduction 5
My family 7
Family stories 10
The Seasons 12
My village 17
How to build a wooden house 20
Village government 24
Village work 24
Village celebrations 26
Our animals 30
Playing and having fun 33
Getting into trouble 40
Ceremonies and beliefs 42
Weddings 42
Births and deaths 45
Ghosts and spirits 48
Starting school 50
Living away from home 53
Moving to Luang Prabang 58
Learning new things 60
My dreams and a new life 62
Afterword 63



 *
Introduction
Hello, my name is “James”, as in “James Bond”, although that’s not
the name I was given when I was born. My family name is Xiong. I’m
about 17 years old, but I’m not sure because no one knows exactly when
I was born.
I was born in my parent’s house in Phou Luang Tai village. For the
first three days, my mother and I slept on a mat with grass under it. The
grass kept us warmer, and protected me from evil spirits, because I had
not yet been named.
After three days, I received my first Hmong name, Gia. Hmong
babies do not get named until after 3 days. As a baby, I was very sick.
The village shaman, a spirit doctor, said maybe it wasn’t a good name and
my parents should change it. He suggested Theng. My parents agreed to
change my name, and I got better. Many children get a new name this
way.
As a teenager in high school in Luang Prabang, during English
practice, someone nicknamed me “James.” As I had seen a James Bond
movie, I liked that name and used it.
My mother rested with me at home for one month after I was born,
which is customary when a new baby is born. Our culture says a baby
must not leave the house in the first month of life, because it might
encounter bad spirits or other things that could hurt it. That month also
gives the mother a chance to get healthy again.
At the end of the month, our family had a ceremony. I was one


month old, so of course I do not remember this ceremony, but I have
seen it many times for other children, and my parents have told me about
it. My parents invited the shaman to come. Before the shaman arrived,
my father brought a pig, a chicken, an incense stick, and an egg into our
home. On one wall, we hung the spirit paper. This paper is about A4 size,
like a sheet of writing paper, and has feathers and blood from a chicken
pasted onto it. A new spirit paper is made every Hmong New Year, and it
is put in the house to protect the people inside. My parents also prepared
a shaman’s table. It’s a short, narrow table, almost like a bench. When the
shaman arrived, my parents placed the shaman’s table opposite the spirit
paper.
My mother sat with me on the table. Next, the shaman tied a long
rope to the neck of the pig. He walked around the table with the other
end of the rope and tied the two ends together. As part of the ceremony,
village people in our home killed the pig. The shaman dipped a buffalo
horn into the pig’s blood and used it to put three marks on my back.
After that, my mother and I got off the table. The shaman sat on it
and spoke, in a sort of chant (Hmong and sometimes Chinese), for a long
time. Finally, the shaman took the chicken and stood at the front door
and spoke my name, to call my soul into the house. When the ceremony
was completed, I was safe from bad spirits, and for the first time I could
leave the house where I was born. Now, my parents could take me with
them when they worked in the fields. Often an older brother or sister
looked after me while my parents worked.
I was my parent’s seventh child, although one of my brothers died
when he was a little boy. Now I have two older brothers, three older sis-
ters and one younger sister. Everyone is married already and has children,
except for my younger sister and me.


 *
My family
My father’s name is Chai Lu Xiong and my mother’s name is Suae
Yang. They were about 15 when they got married, which is the standard
age to get married in the countryside. There was a school nearby, but
they just went for a few weeks
when they were children.
Their parents told them they
had to work in the field or
take care of their sisters and
brothers, so they didn’t have
time for school.
My oldest brother is Suae
Tong Xiong. He and his wife
have only one son. When my
brother was a boy he was quiet
and shy, and he didn’t like
studying. He started primary
school when he was about 12.
My parents had to push him
to go to school as he didn’t
want to go. When he was in
grade four, he was 16 years
old, and he told my parents My father, in our village. The pig stable is
that he would stop school and behind him.


Left: My mother and my nephew, in about 2010. Right: My brother Dua, at
his wedding.

help them in the field. My parents told him many times to go to school
but he didn’t go. Soon after, he told my parents that he would like to get
married, and then they knew that was why he wanted to stop school.
Now he’s a farmer. He and his family live in a new village, about a
30-minute walk from our village. My brother and his wife and our grand-
parents were the first people in that village. They cut down trees and
made a house. Then other people went to live there, too. Now it’s a village
with about 15 families, approximately 100 people.
My second brother is Doua Xiong, a tour guide in Luang Prabang.
He is 7 years younger than my oldest brother. He is married and also
has one son. When he was a boy he liked studying, and he started school
much younger than Suae Tong. He finished grade three, which was the
highest grade in our village school. Then he went to study at the Lao vil-
lage to continue grade four and five. It was about a one-hour walk away,


so he left early every morning, and came back late each afternoon. After
he finished primary school at the Lao village he wanted to go to high
school. He moved to Chomphet district, and my father built a small hut
next to the school for him to live in. Later, I slept in the same hut when
I was in high school. He studied very hard, and his favorite subjects were
Lao grammar and English. He went to high school for six years. After
finishing studying English at the University in Vientiane, he returned to
Luang Prabang to find a job as a tour guide.
I also have three older sisters. Yeng is married, with six children.
Yeng did not go to school, she worked in the fields, helping my parents
and also helping Mum in the house. She was 16 years old when she got
married. She and her family still live in my village. Yeng now lives with
her husband’s family, which is the common way in Hmong culture. Yeng’s
husband is a farmer in our village and is also the headman of the village.
Dee, the second older sister, is also married, with five children. She
did not go to school either, she helped the family in the fields and around
the house. She also got married when she was about 16 years old. Dee’s
husband was from my village, but they moved to Udom Xai province,
north of Luang Prabang to be farmers in an area where they have
­cousins.
Dao, my next older sister, is married, with two children. Like my
other sisters, Dao did not go to school and got married when she was
about 16. They live in the same new village as Suae Tong, my oldest
brother. Dao’s husband is a farmer in this village.
My youngest sister, Jai, is a student in high school, the same grade as
me. I did not pass to second grade after my first year of school, so Jai and
I are now in the same class. After grade three, we went to the Lao village
together for grades 4 and 5, and then we went to Chomphet together to
go to high school. She’s very good in physics, better than I am. She would
like to be a doctor one day.


 Family stories
One night when I was a child, my mother was carried back from the
field by many villagers. They put my mother on the bed. I didn’t under-
stand what was happening with my mother. When I asked my father, he
said that my mother had a stomach ache. My sisters, brother, and I were
standing around the bed, looking at my mother, helpless. My father got
local medicine for my mother to take, but it did not help. The next morn-
ing, my father went to the shaman to tell what was happening with my
mother. The shaman said that my mother’s illness was caused when she
went someplace by herself when she was on the farm. The spirits didn’t
like her going there and they caused her illness.
Someone else came with the shaman to tell the family what the
shaman and ghosts said. People who came with the shaman killed the
pig — this is very expensive for most families as most families only have
5 to 10 pigs, and some have even fewer. If the family is very poor and
does not own a pig or cannot afford to buy a pig, they do not sacrifice an
animal. The cousins also helped. Then they waited two or three days to
see if my mother got better. If she had still been sick, they would have
called another shaman, and if she still wasn’t better, they would try to take
her to the doctor in the village. But she got better after the first shaman
came.
When I was sick, often I would have a headache and be tired. My
mother called the doctor, or the medicine man. If they prescribed oral
medicine, I took it. However, if I saw that they were going to give me a
shot, I would suddenly tell them that I felt better, and go outside to play
with my friends.
When I was young, if we got sick, the only treatment was by a
shaman. Now there are people in our village who have trained in nursing
and a bit of medicine. These days the village people usually try western
medicine first but if that doesn’t work, they visit the shaman to see if he

10
can cure them. Some families still prefer to visit the shaman first.
The first time I had a loose tooth, my mother pulled it out. It hurt a
lot. After that, when I had a loose tooth, I didn’t tell my parents. Some-
times, I wiggled the tooth myself until it came out, and other times I lost
the tooth when I ate something tough, like meat. One of my baby front
teeth never came out. So, when the adult tooth came in, there are now
two teeth where there should have been one tooth.

Some of the
drawings in the
book were drawn
by Gikong, a
Hmong artist
who has llustrat-
ed books for Big
Brother Mouse.
This picture is
from his Hmong
Life Coloring
Book. It shows a
shaman, stand-
ing on the bench
as he chants.
The man behind
him is his assist-
ant.

11
 *
The Seasons
Because we are farmers, life in my village depends on the seasons.
December is the start of the cold season, and this lasts until Febru-
ary. January is especially cold on the mountain. We wear big coats and
sleep under warm blankets. When the women wake up at four a.m. to
begin chores, it is still dark. They start cooking breakfast by the light of
a lantern. When they’ve finished cooking, they wake up the men to eat.
The men and the women eat together. After breakfast, the men take a
lamp or flashlight to go to the well and collect water and feed the animals.
In the cold season, nobody wants to bathe in the morning, when the air
and water are both very cold. We usually bath after we finish working in
the fields, when the air is not so cold, and we’re warm from working. The
children, during the cold season, might go for many days without bathing.
As we leave for the fields at six o’clock, it is just starting to get light.
If the field is far away it may take one hour to walk there. By the time the
sun rises at seven or eight a.m., everybody is already working hard in the
fields. We start cooking lunch at about 11:30 in a little hut in the field. We
use vegetables from the field, or bring some from home. We eat lunch
and relax for half an hour, then work again until 4:00. Then we collect
food for the horses and pigs, and go back home.
When we get back home from the fields, we start cooking dinner.
We eat together whenever it’s ready, at six, seven or sometimes eight p.m.
In winter it’s too cold to play outside at night, so we stay inside and keep
warm. If someone comes to visit, we sit around the fire and talk together

12
about our day. Otherwise, if no one comes to visit, we listen to the
Hmong or Lao programs on the battery-powered radio or we go to bed.
Because there’s no electricity, we don’t have TV.
In March it starts to get warmer and April is very hot. At this time
the rice and corn fields that have been harvested are dry, so we can burn
the stalks to clear the field for replanting. During this season the sky gets
smoky and sometimes the sun looks red. In the summer, kids play outside
until eight or nine o’clock. When it gets dark we use a lantern or flash-
light. We sit together outside and tell stories about what we did during the
day, and about funny things that happened to us in the fields or at home.
The rainy season begins in May and June. It’s foggy in the morning,
and we can only see a little way in front of us. We have to be careful going
to the well to collect water because the path is slippery. In dry weather it
takes about 10 minutes to walk down to the well and about 20-25 minutes
to walk back uphill with the water. In wet, slippery weather it can take
also take about 10 minutes but coming back is much more difficult, it can
take up to 35-40 minutes.
We hoe the fields, pull out the weeds, and start planting corn and rice.

13
I like the planting time
best, because planting rice
is easy. The men use sticks
to make the holes in the
ground, and the women
put about 4 or 5 seeds
in each hole. We make a
special mixture from a
white powder you buy at
the market, and water to
put on the rice to stop the
ants from eating it.
Most of our rice is
the steamed rice type,
but we also grow sticky
rice. We plant cucumbers
in the rice fields, and in
the corn fields, we plant
pumpkins. We also plant
three root vegetables (yams, taro, and sweet potato) at the same time, but
in different fields. We don’t usually sell these vegetables, our family eats
them. Some families also plant sesame. During Lao New Year we pound
the seeds and use them to cover candies, so the candies aren’t too sticky.
The rainy season continues through July. We start planting vegetables
in the gardens near our homes. First we clear the wood from the garden.
Next, we hoe it before we sow the seeds. We plant many vegetables such
as lettuce, cabbage, cucumber, spring onion, and coriander. We also grow
papaya trees and chili peppers to eat during the September rice harvest.
This is also the start of our school holiday. We usually get a 3-month
holiday from June to August. Children who study in other towns come
back to the village to help their parents in the field.

14
 In September and October, the corn starts ripening to a deeper
yellow, and the rice is about a meter high. We start harvesting the fields.
We have two kinds of rice, “three-month rice” and “six-month rice.” The
names tell how long it takes each type to ripen. We plant both types at the
same time but usually plant more six-month rice than three-month rice.
However, we grow more three-month rice if we are running out of food,
and need to harvest more quickly. The problem with three-month rice
is that because it ripens faster, all the birds and mice come to eat it first.
If most villagers are growing six-month rice and just a few are growing
three-month rice, the animals may eat a lot of the three-month rice
before it can be harvested.
It takes from two to ten days to harvest each field, depending on
how many villagers can help, and the size of the field. Everyone works
together to make the task easier. We use machetes to cut the rice stalks,
then we tie them into bunches to dry in the sun. When they’re dry, we
beat the stalks onto a big cloth spread on the ground to collect the grains
of rice. Then someone pounds the grains with a piece of wood to break
the husks. Pounding is hard work. You get hot and tired very soon. When
pounding the rice, pieces of rice and husk fly, so it’s uncomfortable and
unpleasant. We then have to separate the rice from the husks. We fill a
basket with rice, and climb a tall ladder. We pour out the rice onto a wide
cloth below. The wind blows away the husks. If there’s not enough wind,
we use a bamboo fan. We put the rice into bags, then the horses carry the
bags back home and we put it into the rice granary.
When I was about ten, my father began letting me lead the horse as it
carried rice from our field. We made three trips each day. It was a boring
job, because we went along the same trail, again and again. When they’re
old enough, both boys and girls help with the harvest until school re-
opens for the new school year.
Usually my whole family went to the fields. By the time they are six,
children start working in the fields with the rest of the family, though

15
usually their job is to look after the smaller children instead of doing the
field work. Each person has a sickle to cut the rice. Some days, we might
help another family that has a large crop ready for harvest. A few days
later, they help us.
In November, when the harvest is finished, we prepare for the
biggest event of the year: the Hmong New Year Festival. We go to other
villages to buy chickens or pigs in preparation for a big village feast.
Parents may go to Luang Prabang to get special clothes for their children.
My mother and my sisters make new clothes for everyone in the family.
Even small children get new clothes. We don’t have much farm work at
this time of year, so we can stay at home and do things around the house.
It’s our holiday and time to rest.

16
 *
My village
Phou Luang Tai is high on a mountain about twenty kilometers from
Luang Prabang, the main city in the region. Our village is Hmong, and
Hmong villages are often at high elevations. Every family has a farm.
A long time ago, families decided that they would make a village in one
place and organize the land together. They didn’t need to buy the land
from anyone because it was unoccupied. They simply started farming.
Now the government registers the land and there are records to show that
you own your fields.
Everyone grows rice. Some families also grow corn, Chinese mustard,
tomatoes, green beans, eggplants, chili peppers, squash, gourds, onions,
and cilantro. Everyone has chickens, too. Most families keep their pigs
in a pigpen near the house. Some also have a buffalo, which stays in the
forest, and a horse, which stays in a small shed near the house.
When I was a boy, about fifty families lived in my village. Now there
are only twenty-three. The others have moved to villages closer to roads,
where life is easier. My family’s house is the highest one in the village,
at the top of the mountain. From my house you can see all the other
houses. You can see people going to work or play. At night you can watch
the people coming back from the fields.
On clear days, we can see Luang Prabang and the airport from our
mountain. The buildings are very small in the distance. When I was a
child, I asked my parents what the buildings were, and they told me they
were houses made from stone. When we heard the sound of airplanes

17
I took this picture of my village from in front of my house.

flying past, we all ran to see them. But some children were scared of the
planes, because the old people used to tell us that the airplanes would
take us away if we played too far from home. It was a way to keep us
close to home. Older people were also afraid of the planes, as they still
remembered the war, and there were bomb craters in the area. There was
unexploded ordinance (UXO) from the Indochina war in our village and
field area but now it has been cleared.
My parents told me that Luang Prabang was a big town, but it was
too far away for me to walk there. My legs were too small and I wouldn’t
be able to keep up with them, as they had to go there and back in one day.
They would walk to Luang Prabang, carrying rice on their backs to sell.
They bought dried noodles for soup. Sometimes, they would buy a shirt
or clothing for me or my brothers and sisters, and they always brought
back candy and presents.

18
 The first time I went to Luang Prabang was with my older brother,
when I was about eleven. We took a goat from the village to sell at the
market there. We walked all day. We didn’t arrive until evening, and slept
with friends of my brother. We left again early in the morning, so I didn’t
really get to see the town at all.
Now, it’s easier to go to Luang Prabang because we can ride in a
tuk-tuk, which is like a small wagon attached to a motorcycle, for some
of the way. We wake up in the morning about 4:00 a.m. to steam rice
and prepare anything we want to sell. Next, we walk an hour down to
the Lao village of Ban Som. The path is very steep so sometimes I slip
coming down, especially in the rainy season. There we wait until a tuk-tuk
comes. There is no schedule, but if we wait long enough, one will come.
We pay 8000 kip (approximately US $1) per person. We ride in it past the
Khmu village Ban Houe Tanh, and the Lao villages Ban Na Sai and Ban
Na Kham. At each village, the driver collects more passengers, and then
we finally arrive in Chomphet District, which is across the Mekong from
Luang Prabang. We sell our rice in Chomphet town. Then we cross the
Mekong in a small boat to Luang Prabang, where we walk to the noodle
soup shop for breakfast. Then we ride a tuk-tuk, or sometimes we walk,
to the market to buy other things we need, before we begin the trip back
home.
We return the same way. The tuk-tuk ride ends at Ban Som, then
we walk up the mountain to our village. It takes one-and-a-half hours
if we’re walking fast, or two-and-a-half hours if we’re walking slowly or
have a lot to carry. There is no road to my village, only a path. Cars and
motorbikes can’t get up there, only people and horses. If we have some-
thing heavy to carry, like rice, we use our horses to carry it up and down
the mountain.

19
 How to build a wooden house
When I was born, my family’s house was made of bamboo, but later
my parents made a new house from wood. Wood is much stronger than
bamboo. I was too young to help them, but I’ve helped other families
make new homes. Every family in the village helps when a new house
goes up.
To build a wooden house, first we prepare wood for the walls. We go
into the forest and cut trees. Then everybody helps cut each log into long
boards. This is a big job. Two people use a long saw to cut each log. First
you cut off the top and bottom and each side, so it’s a square shape. Then
you start at one end, and saw to the other end, to make a long plank. It
takes about one hour to cut each plank. Many people help, and we take
turns when we get tired. You must be careful to saw in a straight line.
Now, people draw lines on the board to help them cut straight, but when
I did it, we didn’t draw lines, you just had to use your eyesight.
One house takes about two or three hundred boards, approximately
2 large trees. It also needs some tree trunks that haven’t been cut into
boards, to use as columns. We also need long pieces of wood to make
the frame for the roof. The roof is made from long grass, which is bent
around a stick, then tied in place, to make large flat sheet. These sheets
are laid on the roof frame, so they overlap, like tiles.
When we have all the wood and roof material, the village elders
choose a good day to start building. One person from each family comes
to help. In the morning, we measure out the area, then we dig and hoe the
soil to make it level. After lunch, we start building the house. Usually we
finish after 2 days.
A Hmong house has two doors. The family uses a door at one end.
On one side is another door, for spirits and for ceremonies. Some houses,
including ours, have a third door, in the back. Hmong homes don’t have
windows.

20
 Usually we cook in the middle of the house. There’s no chimney. The
smoke just goes out through openings in the wood and ceiling. There’s
no bathroom, so people go into the woods. If the village has a stream,
people go there to bathe. My village doesn’t have a stream, so people go
to the well to bathe.
Now, many people in Laos use cement columns for the first meter of
their house. That keeps termites out. But we didn’t have cement. If the
termites ate the wood, after a few years, we got new wood and built a new
house. None of the houses in our village use any cement.
Once, I helped another family in our village build their house. I had
just gotten up from bed, filled the water buckets at the well, and dipped
water in the bowl to wash my face. The family that needed the house
sent people around the village to tell everyone that they would build
their house that day. My mother asked if I wanted to help, and I said yes.
After breakfast, one person from each family took a machete and went to
where the family had gathered to build their home, to wait for everyone
to come together.

21
Our village doesn’t have a stream, so we bath at the well.

First, we dug the ground and moved dirt to make it flat. We used a
rope to measure the distance between where we needed to dig the holes
for the columns. Five or six of us dug the holes. After about thirty min-
utes, we got tired and someone else would change with us and continue
digging. We dug nine holes for strong posts for the columns. Other
villagers told me how deep to dig. Three holes were on each long side of
the rectangle and three along the middle. Three tall posts went through
the middle of the house, and three shorter posts went along each side.
Each column had a notch at the top, to hold a beam that went across. In
some villages people use nails to connect the wood for the roof. If they
don’t have nails, they use rope, vines, or strips of bamboo to tie the wood
together. For this house, we had a few nails for the most important joints,
and for everything else we tied the wood.
I liked it when they put the logs on the roof and then put the grass

22
over the top. I liked it best because I climbed up on the roof. Many
people were on the roof. They made rope from bamboo, and we used it
to tie the grass on the roof.
The floor of the house is just the earth. It gets very hard as we live
there. The homes of some ethnic groups are raised off the ground but
Hmong houses are not, and we have only one floor. Some of the other
houses in Laos take a long time to build, if they are made with cement, or
if they are big and fancy. You can build a Hmong house in just two days.
Our house has four rooms. There is a main living area where we
cook, eat, talk, and live. My parents have a bedroom. My brother Suae and
his family have a room, because the house was built before they moved to
their new village, and my sister has a room. When I was younger I slept
in my parent’s room, but when I was about ten my parents made a little
wooden platform where I could sleep in the main room. When we had
visitors, I usually slept with one of my friends at his house.
We have no electricity in the village, so we use oil-burning lanterns
for light. We make a fire on the floor in the house for cooking and to
keep warm. Some days we just eat vegetables. If we have guests, then we
kill a chicken for a special dinner. When we have guests, usually the men
eat first with the guests, and the women serve the food. When the men
and the guests are done eating, the women bring out other food to eat
with the children.
Doua, my brother who is a tour guide, sometimes had foreigners who
wanted to see our village. If they had enough time, he would bring them
to visit. They usually stayed at our house. We put mats out on the floor
for them to sleep on. I liked it when foreigners visited, as they would take
photos and then show the photos to the children. Other children from
the village came to my house to see the foreigners. Occasionally, they
would give us candy, or dolls, or toys. Usually, two to six foreigners would
come with my brother, or with other tour guides.

23
 Village government
Every village has a headman. His job is to take care of the village,
and protect each family, and to solve problems. Every three years we have
a meeting. Everyone comes to help choose a headman. We want someone
who has a good heart and who will be fair.

Village work
When I was a child, I got up early every morning to help my parents
with the housework. In the morning, about 5:30 or 6:00, one of my
sisters and I went down to the well to get water. Sometimes we saw our
friends at the well. We asked how they were doing, and if they worked
in the farm or stayed at home. We each carried two or three buckets of
water on a bamboo stick which rested on one shoulder. Often, we got
more water in the evening.
Other chores were to feed our pigs, dogs, chickens, and the horse.
I had to watch our pigs while they were eating to make sure the other
pigs in the village didn’t eat their food. In the evening I rounded up our
chickens and put them in the chicken coop to sleep.
Until I was about nine years old, I went to the fields with my parents
every day. We planted corn and squash together because they help each
other grow. We also grew chili peppers, ginger, and rice in other places
on the mountain. Sometimes I went with my older brother and his wife
to look after their baby while they picked the weeds out of the vegetable
garden. In those gardens we grew lettuce, coriander, green vegetables,
spring onion, and Chinese cabbage.
Our village has five sets of fields. The closest fields are about 10
minutes walk away and the furthest fields are a one-hour walk. Every
year we change fields and every 5 years we rotate from the furthest to the
closest fields. We cannot use the same fields every year because the soil is

24
not so good and needs four years to recover from the crops.
Sometimes we had enough chickens to eat one even if it was not a
special day. A couple of times a month, when I came back from the field,
my father said, “Theng, go to the chicken pen and catch a chicken for
your mother to kill for dinner tonight.”
“Okay,” I answered. I don’t like killing animals. But I would quickly
catch a big chicken. My father used a knife to cut the chicken’s neck, and
caught the blood coming out in a bowl. Afterwards, my mother and sister
put the chicken into a pot with hot water to make the feathers loose, so
my sister could take the chicken outside to pull the feathers off. After
she finished plucking the chicken, she cut it into many piece, and boiled
it, adding the blood to the water. During that time, I usually played hide
and seek with my young sister and brother. When dinner was cooked, we
stopped playing, and I called my brother to eat. We were always happy on
the evenings that we had chicken for dinner.

25
 Village celebrations
Every year, I attend the Hmong New Year festival in our village. The
festival takes place when the moon is very thin, but is beginning to get
bigger. It is a celebration after all the rice has been harvested, separated
from the stalks, and pounded. Usually, the New Year festival is in Decem-
ber, but sometimes we’re too still too busy and don’t celebrate until
January. Hmong people don’t have many festivals, so this time of year is
special. Hmong children are allowed to leave school to visit their families
over this time. If you are working in some of the companies in Luang
Prabang or other cities, it can be difficult to get time off though and you
are not able to go celebrate
New Year with your family.
At this festival, our
family welcomes in the New
Year by having a ceremony.
My father welcomes the
souls of our ancestors into
our home. We share a meal
with them: usually chicken,
and sometimes a pig, vegeta-
bles, and of course the new
rice that we’ve harvested.
The village festival lasts
a week, sometimes longer. It
is fun for everybody. When
I was a child, I especially
liked to play spinning tops.
You start with a good piece
of wood, and carve it so
He is calling the souls, to
come celebrate the new year.

26
that it’s perfectly round, with a point on the bottom. Everyone knows
how to make these tops, but some people carve them better than others.
The bad tops don’t spin well, but many times you can fix a bad top by
carving off a piece of wood from the right spot. Next, you wrap a string
around the top, toss it ahead of you with one hand, and pull back quickly
on the string with the other hand, to make it spin. If you do it well, the
top will spin a long time. Everybody enjoys spinning tops. We make two
teams, with about five people on each team. The first person on one team
throws their top. Then the first person on the other team tries to knock
over that top with their top.
Several years ago, I started playing another game that I like. We start
playing this game when we are about 12 years old. The girls make a small
cotton ball. They each bring one ball to the festival and give it to a boy.
Then the boys and girls each make a line, facing each other, and throw the
ball back and forth. Everyone sings back and forth to each other while
playing.
Throwing cotton balls isn’t just a game. It is an important custom
of the Hmong people. We do it only once a year, when boys and girls

27
Spinning tops is a popular game. One boy, in the right, is ready to throw his
top. If you look carefully you an see another top, above the dog’s head.

come from everywhere to celebrate the New Year festival in their villages.
Throwing the ball is a time that a boy can talk to a beautiful girl, and
everyone hopes to find a good wife or husband. Most marriages occur
during this time when a boy and a girl throw the ball to each other to
show that they are interested in learning more about each other. Hmong
courtship can happen at other times of the year but it is usual to find your
husband or wife during the ball throwing games at the New Year celebra-
tions. If a family does not approve of the choice made by their child, the
marriage may not go ahead. But if the couple can show that they really
love each other, then the parents usually give permission.
The first time I played this game, the first girl that gave me a ball was
Mae. She was very beautiful. I liked her before that, but I didn’t tell her
because I thought that I was too young, and she is a little older. I am still
a student and I would like to finish school before I have a girlfriend.
During the festival we wear our traditional Hmong clothes. However,
if the weather is very hot, on some days, we wear Lao clothes, which are

28
cooler. My Hmong shirt is black cotton. My mother and older women
in the village used thread with many colors — yellow, blue, red, white,
purple — to make designs and patterns on it. I also wear a very wide belt
with pockets, which is just as colorful. I add two strips of red cloth that
cross my chest. There are old coins hanging from everything.
Villagers make rice treats for the festival. Two men use a big mortar
and pestle to pound the rice until it is like sticky mush. This is fun to do,
but you have to be strong, because it is tiring. I would pound until I got
blisters on my hands. Then we put the rice mush into a bowl, and the
women make it into balls. They wrap banana leaves around it to protect it.
During the Hmong New Year festival, since we do not have shops,
we play games, talk together and then have lunch at home. We eat
vegetables, pork, chicken, or beef. After we eat lunch, we return to our
activities. During one New Year festival, my best friend met a girl and

These men are pounding rice, to make candy.

29
they fell in love. Now they are married and already have a son. I’m very
happy for them.

Our animals
Our family owns a horse, about 10 goats, 20 pigs and 50 chickens.
Some families have several horses and two hundred chickens. As a boy,
I liked playing with the chickens, some of which lived outside our house
in the chicken coop. Most chickens live in the fields, that’s healthier than
being close to the house, because the farm chickens can eat grasshoppers
and other insects. The coop chickens only ate the corn and rice we gave
them. It is safer to keep the chickens in the coop but keeping them close
together means that they can get sick and all die. This is why we leave
most of our chickens out at the fields.

30
 My friends and I often took our roosters to fight other roosters
around the village. We threw two roosters together and they fought until
one ran away. I also enjoyed taking the chickens from the coop to my
family’s field, which had lots of grasshoppers for them to eat. We had to
carry the chickens to make sure they didn’t run away. The field was about
an hour from my house on foot, or about thirty minutes by horse. While
the chickens ate, we rode our horses in the field. We slept overnight in a
hut to guard the chickens. Our family had food, such as pumpkin, grow-
ing in the field, so we cooked that for our dinner. The next morning we
collected banana leaves and other food for the horses, and carried it back
home to the village.
Often the animals got sick. There are no toilets in houses, so people
go to the bathroom in the forest. There is no specific area in the forest
for that, you can choose any spot. The pigs would smell the excrement
and eat it, and then they’d get sick. The sick pigs would sleep with other

31
pigs, and the other pigs would also get sick. Some owners ate their pigs
that died. Other owners carried them into the forest to get rid of them, if
they died of sickness. Sometimes the owners buried their dead pigs, and
sometimes they didn’t bury them. Even buried, these pigs decayed and
started smelling. Sometimes, the other pigs would smell the decayed pig,
and go eat them.
Chickens lived around the pigs, so they might get sick if the pigs were
sick, or if they pecked at the dead pigs. Sometimes we bought chickens
from other villages, and didn’t know they were sick, and then our chickens
got sick. Since we had chickens in two places, if the chickens around the
house died, we still had the chickens at the farm. When a chicken looked
sick, we gave it a small dose of people medicine that we had bought at the
village. Sometimes that medicine worked for chickens, too.
I loved riding our horse, but many times I fell off when it was afraid
and jumped, or when I made it run too fast. When I was about six, my
parents and I were coming back from the field. My father was leading the
horse that I was riding. Someone nearby was cutting down a banana tree.
When the tree fell, the horse heard the sound, got scared, and started
running. I fell off, hurt my head, and cried. My father picked me up and
put me back on the horse. He said, “Theng, stop crying, don’t be afraid.”
My father led the horse, and he walked very near us. That way, he could
control the horse, and I would not be afraid. I felt safe as I rode back
home.
My friends and I liked to ride our horses to the field to harvest the
horses’ food, things such as banana leaves. Sometimes my friends would
whip their horse with a rope to make it go faster. On the way back, the
horses’ food sometimes got so heavy that I would throw the food on the
ground, to make the horse go faster. The horse knew that this was its
food and it would stop and wait until I picked up the food.

32
 *
Playing and having fun
Por and Vew were my best friends. Por always had a good sense of
humor and liked playing games, such as jumping rope or hide-and-seek.
He also had several fighting cocks, and liked to take them to fights. Por
always had many good stories from his father. Often, when we were play-
ing, he told those stories so his friends could enjoy hearing them.
Once, many friends came to play in my house. We sat around, quietly

33
listening to Por tell a story. Here is his story:

The Chicken and the Civet Cat

Long ago there was a rooster and a hen, who were a married couple. They lived in
a big barn. One day the rooster went to live on the farm for many days, so the hen had
to send food to her husband every day.
The trail from the barn to the farm forked, and became two trails: a high trail and
a low trail. One day, as she walked back to the barn after taking food to her husband,
the hen met a civet cat that was standing at the fork.
“Hello, where have you been?” the civet cat asked.
“Hello, I’m coming back from the farm,” the hen replied.
“Do you go to the farm every day? And which trail do you take?” asked the civet
cat.
“Yes, I go every day. I usually take the upper trail.”
Then the civet cat knew the hen would come along that upper trail every morning,
so he made a plan to kill the hen and eat it for breakfast.
The next morning, the civet cat went to the upper trail and waited for the hen to
come past. But the hen knew that the civet cat wanted to kill her, so that day, she used
the lower trail to take food to her husband.
The civet cat waited all day, but no hens came along the upper trail. The civet cat
grew tired and was hungry all night long.
The next morning, the civet cat met the hen again at the fork on the trail.
“Oh! How are you? Did you get home safely from the farm?” the civet cat asked.
“Yes,” the hen replied.
“Which trail do you usually take, when you go to your farm?”
“The lower trail,” the hen said, and then she ran very fast to the farm.
The next morning the civet cat waited on the lower trail to kill the hen. The civet
cat waited all day, but no hens came along the lower trail. The civet cat thought for a
long time about how to kill the hen. Finally he had a new idea.
In the morning, the civet cat sat at the fork where the lower trail and upper trail
met. When the hen came by, the civet cat jumped up, caught the hen, and ate her.

34
 That day the rooster waited all day but his wife never brought food to him. Finally
the rooster got so hungry that he started walking back home. When he arrived at the
fork in the trails, he saw his wife’s feathers and blood there. That made the rooster sad
and very angry. He wanted to know who killed and ate his wife.
The rooster went to ask the old Hermit for advice. The Hermit told the rooster to
return home and scoop up a big pile of cow dung and put it in front of the door, then
collect one bucket of water and put it in the middle of the barn. Then, said the Hermit,
catch one bee, cover it with a bowl and put it beside the bucket of water, and find one
egg to bury in the fireplace. After that, open the door and fly up to the roof of the barn
to sleep. Then when you crow, the civet cat will come to kill you, so then you will see
who killed your wife.
The rooster ran back to barn and did exactly as the Hermit had told him. When
the rooster crowed, the civet cat heard and was happy to think about getting another
meal. So the civet cat went to the house. There it smelled the egg in the fireplace. That
made the civet cat hungry, so it used one paw to dig up the egg. But the egg broke and
splashed the civet cat in the eyes. The civet cat couldn’t see anything so he ran to find a
bucket of water, but instead he turned over the bowl that covered the bee. The bee stung
the civet cat. Then the civiet cat ran to the door, but it stepped the cow dung, which
splashed onto its body.
That’s why the civet cat has many colors in its fur today.
Por had many fun stories like this, and we always enjoyed listening to
them.
***
As a child, I liked to go with my friends to catch the small rice birds
in the fields. We made a bamboo cage and put rice in the cage. When
the birds went inside to eat the rice, the door slammed shut and the bird
was trapped. After one bird was inside, the other birds heard it calling
and flew down to play with it. They went inside another cage to eat the
rice, and got trapped as well. We would catch many birds, 10, 20, or 30,
and keep them together in a cage. If we had a lot of birds we ate some,
otherwise we just kept them as pets. We liked the ones that sang fast.

35
 We also all enjoyed catching mice. Even when I was going to high
school, and went back home for the harvest season, catching mice was
fun. Mice often dug inside our rice to eat it. On Fridays, I arrived home
from school about 4:30. I met my friends, Vew and Por, and we prepared
to catch mice in the field. We used a mosquito net to catch them. We also
each took a bow and a few arrows. We walked quickly from the village to
the field. We were happy because we heard people in the village say there
were many mice in the field. We felt very confident we would have a good
hunt. As we walked, I said, “Vew and Por, I am sure we’ll catch many
mice tonight, what do you think?”
“Yes! I think so!” Por agreed.
We arrived at the field about 6:30. The three of us waited at the field
hut for about half an hour, preparing the arrows. Afterward, we went
to the rice field. When we arrived, Vew and Por held a mosquito net in
front of the rice, and I used a piece of wood to make a noise to scare the
mice. “Vew and Por, hit them, hit them,” I called. “Toop tup! toop tup!
toop tup!” were the sounds of Vew and Por hitting the mice. We got 10
big mice, and many small ones. Some of them were very big, as big as
our fists, in English you might call them rats, but in Lao we use the same
word for many sizes.
We kept catching mice until midnight, and by then we were sleepy.
We ended with a full bag of mice. “Good night,” we said to each other,
and we slept in a pile of straw in the field. Straw is very comfortable and
warm. In the morning we barbecued some of the mice and ate them
for breakfast. Mice taste good barbecued. After we ate, we divided the
remaining mice. Each of us got about 20 mice to take back home.
Sometimes, when I played with my friends, they had toy cars their
parents had bought for them in Luang Prabang. Once, when I was
about ten years old and my nephew was about five, we were sitting on
the ground in the front of our house with my friend Por. I said to Por,
“Yesterday, when I went to play with my friend, he had a toy car. His

36
Sasha took this picture of some Hmong boys in 2003. You can see one
mouse, and 3 mouse tails, if you look carefully. I was about this age in
2003, and he was close to my village, but this was not my village. I did not
know Sasha then, but I did know the boy in front.

parents bought it in town. Let’s see if we can make a toy car.”

Por said, “Okay, but how will we make it?”
I had an idea.
First we found a plastic water bottle, then two sticks to use as axles
and four round seeds for wheels. We cut off one side of the water bottle
with a cooking knife and laid it down, with the cut side facing up. We
made four small holes in the bottom and put the sticks through the holes.
We made a small hole in the middle of each seed with a pointed tool.
Then we attached the seeds to the axles. It worked! We made another toy
car for my nephew. We tied a string around each bottle’s neck, to pull the

37
car. We put stones and other things inside the cars to give them weight.
Then we pulled the cars along the paths to show our friends and others in
the village. My friends asked, “Who made those cars?”
“Por and me.”
“Really? Can we pull the cars with Por and you?” they asked. So some
of my friends walked around the village and pulled the cars with us.
Another time I made a wooden tricycle with Vew and Por. We used
a broad piece of wood for the seat. We attached a wheel to the front
and two small wooden wheels in the back. We used a stick to steer, with
another stick for handlebars. It was attached to the front wheel. When we
finished, we took our tricycle up a hill. Other friends who had also made
tricycles went with us.
When we got to the top I said, “Let me try first.” I sat down and
held the horns (in English, I think you say ‘handlebars’), then pushed to
start going downhill. After it was moving, I put my feet up on the wood
in front. It ran very fast. We took turns racing down the hill. We mostly
rode the tricycles during the dry season; in the rainy season, the hills are
too muddy and the wheels don’t turn well. Once, one of my friends had
almost reached the bottom of the hill when a back wheel fell off. His
tricycle turned over and he rolled over with it. My other friends and I all
laughed. He stood up fast and he laughed too. He brought his tricycle up
the hill so we could help him fix it.
I liked playing jump rope with my sister and my nephew. We used
rope, or vines from the trees. I also liked playing hide-and-seek, in our
houses or in the forest, with my friends. In the forest we hid behind the
trees, and in the house we hid under the bed or in dark corners. When
one person was caught, they helped the seeker find everyone else. If the
seeker couldn’t find everyone, they had to be seeker again for the next
game.
Another time, on a Saturday about 4:00 p.m. while I was guarding
the chickens, my mother asked me to go to our farm and collect banana

38
leaves for our horse. I asked Por to come with me. It took us over an
hour to go from my village to our farm. Sometimes we ran, but mostly we
walked. Sometimes, we walked slowly, so we could shoot at birds with our
slingshots. We arrived at the farm about 5:30.
From about age 13 we could go to the farm for the night by our-
selves. I told Por to start a fire and steam rice for our dinner. Meanwhile,
I collected the ends of a pumpkin stalk to cook. This part of the plant is
soft and tastes good. The pumpkins were not big enough yet to eat. After
dinner, it was dark, and we took a flashlight and knife to catch fish at the
nearby river. We caught many kinds of fish to eat in the morning. We also
saw many snakes, frogs and insects. There was a small hut on the farm,
and we returned there to sleep.
In the morning we ate breakfast, just a little rice and water. Por and
I played, jumping in the rice straw piles. I wanted to show him that I
could do a somersault, because I had seen a movie hero do that in a film.
Unfortunately, my somersault didn’t work and my head hit the ground
while my feet were still up
in the sky. When I stood
up, my neck hurt, and I
couldn’t turn my head
at all. I could only look
straight ahead. I was afraid
my parents would punish
me for getting hurt, but I
did my chores and col-
lected some banana leaf
for the horse and returned
home.
When we arrived
home, my father asked
me “What happened to

39
your neck?” I just told him that I fell down. My father didn’t say anything
more to me. He got some leaves, and pounded them to put in a cloth
wrap to go around my neck. I just stayed home, and did not go to school
for a week. I was very sad because no one stayed with me to talk to me.
I learned that it isn’t good to try somersaults in the air, and I did not do
that any more.

Getting into trouble

Many times I got into trouble with my parents. One day when I
was about three, I made my sister cry. She was just a baby at the time,
she could crawl but she couldn’t walk. She was playing by herself, and
I wanted to carry her. I tried to pick her up, but she didn’t like that and
started crying. My father was angry and he punished me by hitting my
bottom with a small piece of wood. I cried and said, “I won’t do it again.”
Then my mother came and stopped my father from hitting me.
Punishment didn’t come only from adults. When I was about seven,
I liked to play spinning top with my friends. Sometimes my nephew,
who was a couple of years younger, played with us. Once I snatched the
spinning top from him. He was angry, but he pretended not to be, so I
thought he had forgotten. When I wasn’t looking, he hit my finger with
a hammer, and broke it. I cried for a long time. My mother pounded up
some leaves to make a medicine paste, and put it on my wound. Then, she
wrapped my finger up in cloth. It hurt a lot and I couldn’t bend it for a
few weeks. I still have the scar. We still use these healing methods in our
village when children get hurt.
One of my jobs was to collect water from the village well. The well
was at a big tree, where water came up from underground. We built a
short wall with stones, so the water didn’t flow away as fast.
We used the water for cooking, drinking, and washing dishes. The
pigs and chickens got some too. To wash clothes, or to bathe, we didn’t
40
carry the water up, but instead, we went down to the well. It was a dif-
ficult task, walking along a steep path from the village down to the well.
It took about an hour every morning and another hour in the evening,
because I had to make two or three trips each time. One morning, I went
down to the well as usual to get the water. It had rained that morning
so the path was slippery. I used my bowl to scoop water into the two
black pails. I carried them back up the mountain, hanging them from a
wooden pole balanced across my shoulders. I was about halfway back
when I slipped and fell. One pail, and my bowl, both broke, so I only had
one pail left. All the water had spilled on the ground, so I had to go back
down to the well and get water again. This time, I borrowed my friend’s
bowl to scoop up the water and I carried it back in the unbroken pail. I
was afraid my father would scold me, but he just reminded me to be more
careful next time.
 *
Ceremonies and beliefs
Ceremonies are an important part of Hmong culture. I’ve already
told about the ceremony when I was a baby and I was sick, so they gave
me a new name. Ceremonies are for people to celebrate something good,
like a wedding or birth, or to feel better about things like a death. Cer-
emonies also are important to keep spirits satisfied.

Weddings
I was about four years old when my sister got married to a man from
our village. I still remember it. Before the wedding, the groom’s father
chose two men to come to our house. They had to decide details: the
month and day of the wedding, whether it was to be a big wedding or a
small wedding, and whether they would kill a big pig or a small pig. They
talked to my parents and reassured them that their daughter would be
safe with her new husband. Usually in Hmong culture the groom’s family
sends a respected male elder to talk to the bride’s family. Unfortunately,
sometimes they would kidnap the girl from her village if she did not want
to marry the groom.
For my sister’s wedding, the elders decided on a small wedding party
and ceremony at our house. We killed a big pig and chickens. Everyone
sang and drank Lao rice whiskey. During the party, the boys from the
other family gave alcohol to the boys in my family, and in exchange we
gave them meat to show that we are now cousins and belong to the same

42
family.
At my sister’s wedding we also had two mej koobs. They are impor-
tant people at a Hmong wedding. One is a representative for the groom,
and one for the bride. Mej koobs are also the men who have learned
the wedding song, and can sing it at the ceremony. They communicate
on behalf of, and between, both families. For example, if there are gifts
exchanged between the families, such as clothes or money, the gifts are
given to the mej koob, who gives it to the other mej koob, who then gives
it to the family. All mej koobs get paid to perform their job but it is not a
huge amount.
When a Hmong couple get married, the bride and groom stay at the
groom’s parents’ house for three days before the wedding. They can’t
leave the house during that time. When they arrive at the house, the
mej koob takes a closed
umbrella and hangs it on
the wall to protect the bride
and the groom from bad
luck. The groom’s father
calls to the spirit of the
house to introduce the new
bride and welcome her into
her new home. Now she is
part of the family, and the
spirit will protect her from
harm. Food and alcohol are
prepared in the house, then
the mej koob leads the party
to the home of the bride’s
parents.
The bride and groom
As part of my brother’s wedding, there was a
wear traditional Hmong baci ceremony at the home of the bride.

43
clothes — colorful embroidered skirt or pants and a jacket, and a hat if
they have one. If they don’t have special Hmong clothes, they just wear
new clothes. When the bride and groom arrive at the bride’s parents’
house, our custom is that they take off their shoes as they walk through
the doorway. Once inside, they can put on their shoes again. That has
been our custom from long ago. This is only on their wedding day, usually
when you walk through the door of the house, you keep your shoes on.
When we have a traditional Hmong wedding at our mountain village,
we don’t have electricity for music or musicians, and only the mej koob
sings the wedding song. He sings standing up and everyone sits and
listens. We don’t dance. However, now many Hmong people who have
moved to the valleys have a Lao-style wedding with a big stereo, speakers,
music, and dancing. One of my older brothers got married in the valley,
so his wedding was a mixture of Lao and Hmong customs.

As the wedding party walks from the girl’s home to the boy’s home, they
always stop halfway for a meal.

44
 Births and deaths
Babies in our village, are usually born in the mother’s house, because
the hospital is far away and travel is difficult. Many babies die when
they’re born. The older women help the mother give birth in the house.
The men cannot enter the house until after the birth. For three days after
the birth, the mother and baby can’t sleep in the bedroom because it’s
too cold. They sleep on the floor next to the fire to keep warm, and the
new mother eats chicken for her strength and to make milk for the baby.
When the babies are three days old, the parents have a basi ceremony to
welcome their new baby, to name it, and to introduce it to the family’s
spirit.
For fifteen days the father cooks and does the housework to help the
new mother. The mother has warm showers from water that is heated
especially for her, and she drinks warm water. For one month the baby
cannot go outside. Men can’t wear shoes in the house at this time because
we believe that the shoes take the baby’s milk. Also, while a man’s wife
is pregnant, he can’t go into another house which has a small baby. We

45
believe that his presence will take the milk from the little baby to give to
the unborn baby.
Births are not registered officially in the village. Each family has a
family book where they write the names and birthdates of their children.
These dates are stamped by government officials when they come
through. Many times the books are only updated when the officials are
due, which is why most Hmong children do not know their exact birth
date or even birth year — some visits can be up to 5 years apart.
My oldest brother is twenty years older than me, and he had two
sons. The eldest was half a year younger than I am, and the youngest was
three years younger than me. We used to play together a lot when we were
young. Unfortunately, when the older son was five years old, he got a bad
fever. We didn’t have money to take him to the hospital, and he passed
away. My brother cried very much for his son, as did everyone else. We
had a little ceremony for him and we killed a chicken and a pig. A man
played the khene, a musical instrument with six long bamboo tubes, to
send him up to heaven to be reborn. I felt sad and very sorry.
My brother and his wife couldn’t have any more children, so they
adopted a baby girl from a Lao village. This baby girl’s father had died
before she was born. When I was about twelve years old, I helped look
after her. When my brother was at work in the fields, and I didn’t have
school, I carried her on my back and fed her milk from a bottle. She was
very lovely, but when she was just eight months old, she got a fever and
she died. Now, my brother just has one son left.
When old people in our village die, we usually sacrifice two buffaloes
or cows, and four or five pigs. For a little baby, we just kill two or three
pigs and no buffalo or cows. The family kills one animal every day to
cook for the funeral guests. If the funeral lasts for many days, they kill
many animals. Two people cook, four people collect firewood, and four
people collect water. We check the calendar to choose the day of the
funeral, so that we can have it on a special day.

46
 To decide where to bury the body, a village elder throws an egg in the
forest cemetery. If the egg breaks when it lands, the site is a good place
to bury the body. If the person is buried here, he or she will be reborn as
the son or daughter of a dragon king. If a body is already buried there,
they move the burial site a little to the side. We follow an old tradition of
putting stones on top of the grave to stop the tigers from digging up the
people and carrying them away. Some old people in my village say that if
someone from my Hmong clan dies, they will be reincarnated as a bear.
Others believe the person will become another animals, such as a tiger.
This is the grave of my older brother’s mother-in-law, near my village.
 Ghosts and spirits
When I was young, I never traveled to other villages because they
were far away and along either side of the path was a Hmong cemetery
that I was afraid to pass. The old people didn’t want children to play far
from the village, so they told us there were ghosts in the cemetery. They
told us that if we touch a ghost we will die, and we believed them. I was
scared of ghosts, so I just played around the village and at home.
I was scared of ghosts because I remembered the faces I had seen
of people who had died in my village. I still feel scared when I think of
them. When a person passed away, the body was kept on a raised wooden
platform in the parents’ house until all the family from other villages had
come to see the person and mourn them. A musician played the khene
for a long time, until the body was taken to the forest to be buried. I
didn’t like to look at the dead person’s face because after a few days it had
turned different colors, like yellow, green and black, and it looked strange
and ugly. I imagined these faces when I thought of ghosts.
Once I was walking with my friend in the forest and we heard a noise
like a baby’s cry. Then wood, stones, and dirt flew at us from the trees.
We couldn’t see anyone, and we were very afraid. We thought it might be
a ghost trying to scare us away. We ran back home. The next day, early in
the morning, my mother and our dog had gone to collect water from the
well. Again wood, stones, and dirt flew at her from the trees as she walked
down the path. Our dog ran to the trees to find who was throwing things,
but it became afraid and ran back to my mother. We thought it must be a
ghost, because a person wouldn’t throw something at an old woman.
When I was about fifteen, I had an experience with a tsog, which is a
spirit that makes people weak and unable to move. Nobody knows why a
tsog picks a particular person. I was lying in bed, on my back, half asleep
and I felt a big weight on my chest, like the weight of a man. I couldn’t
move, speak, or breathe. I wriggled a little, and after five minutes, I woke

48
up properly. The weight lifted as the spirit went away. This happened to
me many times, and I became afraid to sleep on my back. I started sleep-
ing on my side or sitting up. Many people in my village had had the same
experience, and I heard from the old men what to do about it. I put a
rope next to me when I went to bed. When I felt the weight on me again,
I woke up and took the rope in my hand. I said “I will tie you up.” I used
the rope to tie up the spirit. You can’t see a spirit, and you can’t touch it,
but you can tie it. When I’d finished tying him up, I said, “I’ve tied up the
spirit already,” then I took the rope outside and tied it to a tree. The spirit
didn’t come back after that.

49
 *
Starting school
Some children started school at age six or seven, but I didn’t want to.
I didn’t go until I was about nine. My parents had to scold me, or beat
me, to go to school. “Theng, will you go to school, or do you want me to
hit you?” my father often said.
“Yes, I want to go, I will go now,” I said. But my parents still had to
scold me very often, because I didn’t like going to school.
At that time I was very shy, and I didn’t learn well at school. I pre-
ferred playing games and running around the village with my friends. I
didn’t like studying. Once the teacher wrote the Lao letter “ng” on the
board for me to read, but I couldn’t read it, so the teacher called another
student. He was younger than me, but he could read it. The teacher told
him, “Cho, go twist Theng’s ear right now,” so Cho twisted my ear as a
punishment. I felt embarrassed, and cried a little. I didn’t say anything, I
ran home because everyone in the class was laughing at me.
After that, I began learning to read and write. I stopped being so shy,
because my dad told me, “Theng, you shouldn’t be shy. If you are too shy,
you won’t learn well. Can you be brave and volunteer in class, and answer
the teacher’s questions?” I said yes, and I was happy to receive this advice
from my father. I studied hard after school every evening. I learned more
and more. But I still liked playing games, such as spinning top and jump
rope, and sometimes I pretended not to hear my father when he called
me to come home to study.
My village school had two teachers. One was a young Hmong man

50
from another village, and the other was a Lao man from Chomphet
district. The people in our village built a house for the Lao teacher and his
wife and son, so they could live in our village. All the families brought rice
and food for them to eat. He lived there for three years, and then another
Lao teacher came to take his place. Both teachers, even the Hmong
teacher, taught lessons only in Lao. We didn’t learn to read or write
Hmong language at school. I learned to read and write Hmong language
from my older brothers and sisters.
There were sixty students in the school, and it had grades one, two
and three. Some of the students came from another Hmong village close
to ours. The school looked like a Hmong house, but it was longer and
bigger, with just one room. It was made from wood, with a thatch roof
and a dirt floor. There was no electricity, and no lights, but there were
gaps between the wooden boards in the walls to let in light. If it rained a
lot, sometimes water leaked through the holes in the thatch, and the floor
could get quite muddy. Inside there were wooden desks, benches, and a
blackboard. We copied from the blackboard in first grade, and after that
we used textbooks.

51
 My favorite subjects were Lao and sports. My least favorite were
music and art, because I was shy and I couldn’t sing well. If we were
naughty, the teachers hit us on the head with a small wooden stick.
Another punishment was that we had to stand in front of the class and
stretch out our arms. Then we had to balance a stone on each hand while
standing on one leg for about ten minutes. If we really misbehaved, we
had to stand there for twenty or thirty minutes. Most of the time, we fell
over or dropped the stones. If we couldn’t read Lao, the teacher would hit
the tips of our fingers with a piece of wood. I didn’t like being punished
because everybody watched and laughed at me.
When I completed grade three, our village hired a teacher from
another village to teach grade four. He moved to our village for one
year. (At that time, teachers in our village were always men. Now, there
are women teachers, too.) All the students in the class donated rice and
food for him. We made a small hut to use as the grade four classroom.
Our teacher asked the students to choose a captain of the class. They
chose me because I was brave and responsible and a good student, which
made me feel proud. I rang the school bell in the morning and organized
students into a line to sing the Lao national anthem before we entered
the school. I also had to keep order in the classroom and make the other
students behave if they were too noisy or naughty.
Sometimes when my sister and I came home from school, we threw
our books on our beds and went out to play. Then our mother or father
would take the books and put them someplace that was high and safe so
our younger siblings couldn’t tear the pages or ruin the books. The next
morning, when we were ready for school, we couldn’t find our books. So
our mother or father had to get them for us.

52
 Living away from home
Primary school in Laos ends with grade five, when most students
are about 11 years old. We didn’t have a teacher to teach grade five in my
village, Phou Luang Tai, so six classmates and I moved to Chomphet,
a village on the Mekong river across from Luang Prabang. Chomphet
was about three hours away from my village by foot. (Now it takes less
time, 30 minutes by tuk-tuk plus two hours on foot to go up or down
the mountain.) It was too far to travel every day so my father rented a
bamboo hut from a Lao family. He gave them three bags of rice to let us
stay there for a year. I lived there with four friends while we finished our
last year of primary school.
I was about ten or eleven years old when I moved to Chomphet. It
was a difficult time for me because I had never left my parents before.
At first, I thought of them all the time, but I was happier after I made

This is the secondary school (grades 6 to 8) that I went to in Chompet. The

school has three buildings, this is one of them.
many friends at the school. There were many new things to learn and
experience. For example, I felt strange when I saw them playing football
and ratten ball because it was the first time I’d seen these games. After a
while, I greatly enjoyed these games and played them many times. Once
I was playing football, and I was having lots of fun until someone kicked
the ball into my stomach. I fell down and cried. My stomach ached. After
that, I was afraid of being hurt, and stopped playing it.
My friends and I stayed in Chomphet to study at secondary school,
in grades 6 to 8. My father built a little bamboo hut next to the school for
me and three of my friends to live in. It was one room, about two meters
on each side. There was one big wooden platform about a meter off the
ground where we all slept on rattan mats. It was crowded. The floor was
packed dirt which we had to sweep every day. We didn’t have windows,
just a bamboo door. We had one gas lamp in the hut to study at night,
I stayed in a hut like this, with my friends, in Chomphet. Now, new students
stay here.
and we used flashlights when we went outside in the dark. We had no
water near the hut but we could use the water at the school for toilets. We
bathed and did our laundry in the small river near the school.
We kept all our things — rice, books, school bags and flip-flops
— together on the platform. When we went outside we locked the door
so no one could come inside and take our things. Once, when all the
students went back to their villages for a week of school holiday, a thief
broke into some of the huts and stole things. We came back to our hut
and found the padlock broken, and our shoes and rice missing. We had to
go back to our village the next day and get more rice. After that, we sold
our rice before we went back home for the holidays, and we always took
our shoes back with us. We could leave our books in the hut; the robbers
didn’t want to steal them.
Our secondary school was bigger than the primary school in
Chomphet, with about twenty teachers and one thousand students. Some
students lived with their families in the village, but most came from other
districts and lived in little huts like ours, beside the school. We created our
own student village, with about 50 huts. All the girls’ huts were together
on one side, and all the boys’ huts were together on the other side, but
we could we walk anywhere during the day and talk to the girls. At night,
however, we weren’t allowed to go to the girls’ section, and some the
teacher chose students to be in charge of guarding the sections. If they
saw a boy or girl in the wrong section, they wrote down their name to
show to the teacher. Then that person was punished, by having to clean
the toilets or fetch water.
There was no running water at the school, so we collected it from
the river nearby. There were two toilets for the teachers, and two for all
the students, one toilet for the girls and one toilet for the boys. However,
because there were so many students, we usually just used the forest,
which is what we were used to doing in our village.
Students from three ethnic groups lived together: Hmong, Lao, and

55
Khmu. At first it was difficult for me to talk with the Lao and Khmu
because I didn’t speak Lao very well. Even though I learned Lao at
school, my best friends were Hmong so it was easier to talk with them.
However, I spent a lot of time with Lao and Khmu students, both in class
and outside, so I made friends with them too. My Lao improved quickly.
At school many things happened to me. Some were good, some were
bad. Sometimes I was happy and smiling, other times I was homesick.
I walked back home to visit my parents almost every weekend with my
friends, and we carried rice and food from the village back to school. My
parents didn’t have much money, but they gave me ten thousand kip per
week (around US $1.00) to buy things that I needed. I only spent five
thousand, and I saved the other five and gave it back to them. I bought
things like kerosene for my light at night, books, pens, and some food. My
parents also gave me rice and vegetables from our farm whenever I went
back to visit them.
At Chomphet, my friends and I always cooked together in our hut.
We cooked things like vegetables, meat (usually pork) and eggs. We
brought the pork from our village, but we could buy eggs and grow vege­
tables at the school. Usually we boiled our food, but sometimes we fried
it or made a soup. We always had steamed rice with our meal. We cooked
the rice on a fire inside the hut on the dirt floor. I already knew how to
cook a little because sometimes I helped my mother and older sisters
cook at home. At Chomphet, there was no one to help us, so we cooked
and did all the other household chores ourselves. We each mended
our own clothes. My mother is very proud of me now, because I’ve
learned to take care of myself. Also, I can help her when I go back home
to my village.
If our firewood was finished, we couldn’t go home for the weekend.
Instead, we had to go gather more wood from a hill about ten kilometers
away from our hut. We walked to the hill to collect the wood and we
chopped it into small pieces. After that we tied them together in a bundle,

56
then we carried it home. If the wood was too wet we chopped it in half
and dried it in the sun for about two weeks until we could use it.
Though we worked and studied hard at Chomphet, we still had a
little free time to have fun. We went swimming in the Mekong River, went
to the forest with our slingshots to shoot birds, or caught fish in small
ponds. We also played sports, like soccer and rattan ball, or games like
spinning top.

57
 *
Moving to Luang Prabang
After two years, I left Chomphet lower secondary school and moved
to Luang Prabang. I finished lower secondary school (grade 8) in Luang
Prabang, then I studied at Santiphap high school. I was very happy, as
I was able to live with my brother while in Luang Prabang. He bought
a bicycle for me to get around town. I hadn’t learned to ride a bicycle
before, as we didn’t have anything like this in our village. I didn’t ride my
bicycle to school because I liked walking and thought it was safer. As I
had more free time, I studied English in the evenings in a little class at the
teacher’s house. I rode my bicycle to evening English class.
Life in Luang Prabang is different from life in Chomphet. In Chom-
phet there aren’t many cars. I had many friends because everybody lived
close together at the school, and everyone knew each other. Nobody
felt sad or lonely. Now, I don’t have as many friends because I’m new to
Luang Prabang, and I don’t know as many people. There are many cars
and many new things for me to experience, like computers and story
books. I can read and learn about new things. But sometimes, I feel lonely
because I stay at home when my brother is out. If I’m feeling sad, on
some Sundays I go visit my friends in Chomphet. They don’t come to
visit me in Luang Prabang because it’s more expensive for them; when I
visit them, I ride my bicycle and only have to pay for the boat, but if they
visit me, they have to pay for the boat and also the tuk-tuk.
One day, I left school on a Friday afternoon about 3:30 to go back to
my village to visit my parents. I crossed the Mekong River to Chomphet

58
on the other side, and from there I hoped to take a tuk-tuk to our village
with my friends. When I arrived at the tuk-tuk station, the last tuk-tuk had
already left and no one was there. I had to walk to our village. I jogged
all the way to the Lao village at the bottom of the mountain. That took
about two hours. I bought a lighter there because it was getting late and I
thought it would be dark soon. Then I started to climb the mountain to
my village. When it was almost dark, I picked some long grass and lit it to
make a torch to light my way. I was scared because I would have to pass
the cemetery. My heart was beating fast, but I made it home safe without
seeing a ghost. It was 7:00 p.m. when I finally got back to my village. I
was hungry and thirsty. The next day my legs were really sore.

Santiphap High School, in Luang Prabang.

59
 Learning new things
My life changed again when I discovered Big Brother Mouse. This is
a company that publishes Lao books for children. It’s also a place where
Lao students can go and practice English with foreign tourists, and it
publishes books, like this, that help students learn English.

English practice at Big Brother Mouse, where my English got good enough
to talk with a foreigner. You can see the back of my head, on the right, third
from the front.

One day after school, a friend invited me to go with him to practice

English at Big Brother Mouse the next morning. I liked learning English
very much, so I was interested to try this. The first time I went, I couldn’t

60
understand much of what the tourists said. I just listened to everyone
talk. After that, I studied hard and practiced English by myself when
I had free time. Someone told me that I was crazy, but I didn’t worry
because I thought practicing English alone was a good way to learn.
During school vacation, I went to Big Brother Mouse every Monday
through Saturday morning for a month and a half, to practice English.
I began to understand more. One day Sasha, who started the company,
came downstairs and asked all students at English practice, “Who can
write Hmong language?” I was the first person to volunteer. Sasha asked
me to work at Big Brother Mouse for a few days, because they needed
someone who could write in Hmong. I did some of the work on a com-
puter and I really liked this work.
Now I work at Big Brother Mouse almost every night after I finish
school. I am learning about story and page layout. Sasha is a good teacher
and helps me learn about computers. Because I am working now, I can
save some money, and buy some things for my parents. I have bought
chicken and fish for them, which they don’t eat very often. I give it to
them when they come to visit me.

61
 *
My dreams and a new life
My life today is very different from when I was a child. When I
was young, I didn’t have any dreams for my future. I never thought that
I could be a tour guide or a teacher. I thought that when I grew up, I
would have to be a farmer, find a good wife, and live on the mountain
like my parents. Then I moved to study in Luang Prabang! I found life in
Luang Prabang strange, very different, but exciting. There are good jobs,
so people are able to buy very beautiful houses and cars. This made me
decide to study hard and make my dreams come true.
After I finish high school, I would like to continue studying English.
I want to study at a university to become a mathematics teacher. I would
like to be a good teacher for Hmong children in my village. I would also
like to be a tour guide, because I love talking and learning about Laos, and
I could travel everywhere.

62
 *
Afterword
After writing this book, James continued working at Big Brother
Mouse while he finished high school. He designed and did layout for
many of our books, and he wrote out many of the traditional Hmong
stories that he heard while growing up, so that future generations can
read and enjoy them. He also compiled three books of puzzles: toothpick
puzzles, sudoku, and tangrams, which are widely enjoyed.
While still in high school and working part-time, he and his brother
Dua, in their spare time, built
a house near Luang Prabang
for their parents to live in. All
of them now live together in
that house. James graduated
from high school. He is now
a student at Souphanouvong
University in Luang Prabang,
and in his spare time he
studies Chinese at a private
school. His younger sister is
also a student at Souphanou-
vong.

63
We hope you enjoy this free book from Big Brother
Mouse
Selected Big Brother Mouse books are available online. We invite you
to:
* Print this book for personal use;
* Print copies for educational use in one school or location;
* Send the PDF file to others;
* Put a notice about these books on your website. Do not link directly
to a book, since these web addresses will change. Please provide a
link to our main site, where people can find the updated list of books
available for download.
You may not:
* Publish this book and sell or distribute it more widely that what is
permitted above, without permisson from Big Brother Mouse.
* Post the full book to a website. Please post only a link to our site, as
described above.
If you like to read, please think about the many people in Laos who
don’t yet have access to any books at all. With your help, we can make
books available in every village in Laos. Please consider sponsoring a
book, or helping in other ways. Our website tells more. Thank you!

www.BigBrotherMouse.com

We have other books that you can

download for free: In Lao, in English,
and bi-lingual. Many school classes
have used our books to learn about
life in Laos, then they raised money
to sponsor a book, or a book party.

64
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* Fif-q[x-VYx-aP Jthcwkn Tu JFd-Fbkn-Bbks-dchks-wcks-jdpa-dcbk-Dpg-HfhlK-a}-nkf-
Hch-whks-jD[s Chk-vmg-Hfh-Riv-lK-a}-nkf-Fkd-lhkn-A]-ahln.
* jlok-VYx-wYa-Ahk jciv-HEh-. dK-t}-ak-jRif-qNs-ehks-dka-jEuglx-Smg-jwOk-rk jciv-HEh
wls-qcd-jRok-figs-Dpg-Hfh-dbkc-Hch-whks-jD[s-aIa.
Chk-Dbka-jViaWoaxid-lbka tls-W<aysjC[s-Tkn-Woa-Ga-VK-jDf-tkc- Q]h-Dpg-vmg-jWpn-jria-
VYx-Fid-jDugl. fhcn-dka-Ebcn-jTul-wls-Dbka qcd-jRok-ek-xkf-jRif-VYx-lbka--Grh-
jC[sjwokjFOkjtogkaIa. wm-Fogs-q[-Fk-tK-ak-eK-Aiv-eK-A]a-dka-q[x-VYx Tu Ebcn-Ga-Dks-
luga. jciv-HEh-wls-qcd-jRokxp-wM-x]a-jqpgx-jSpxtKlNf. wm-wlv-GF!
www.BigBrotherMouse.com

65
Meet
Boom-
Boom

Boom-Boom the elephant helps Big Brother Mouse carry books to vil-
lages that we cannot reach by the road or river. We believe it’s the only time
in history when an elephant and a mouse have been such good friends.
There are still many children in Laos who have never seen a book. Will
you help Boom-Boom and Big Brother Mouse take books to more chil-
dren in more villages?
We want to reach them. But we can’t do it without your help. Because
Boom-Boom works for peanuts – but our printer won’t.
www.BigBrotherMouse.com

66
VYxroclugaDpgAhkeoaGF!
 Everyone’s life is different. Some of us are rich, some are poor. We
live in different places. Some of us live in valleys, some on moun-
tains. We may not know about how other people live, but if they
write about it, then we can learn.
I grew up in a farm family, on top of a big mountain. We didn’t
have modern things. Then I came down to the city where I saw new
things and learned about different ideas. I met people from the city,
and people from abroad.
I am very happy to be able to record my experiences, what my life
was like as a child on a mountain, so that everyone can read it and
learn about how other people live. Thank you very much!
James

VYx-roc-aP-Jxba-dka-via-Dyd-Ep-c[f-dka-jVia-B]b-wls whk-qK-jFOk-jls Fkd-jxugl-dbla-

Foa-jC[s-VK-F}-via, jE[gs-Hfh-wNa-jVia-qk-ek-lis-d[f jqkK-cbk whk-qK-jFOk-xid-RNa-
qk-ek-lis-d[f-Tkn-dcbk-X]b. Chk-cbk-jFOk-xid-RNa-qk-ek-lis-d[f JtK- Bkd-R]h-cbk
Ep-c[f-dka-jVia-B]b-wls-whln-Sbks-dia-Jac-Gf? dK-t}-ak lbka-JSb-SOa-Foa-Fov.
jFxe Eogs 

lhkn-A]-ahln Fif-q[x-VYx JtK JFd-Bkn-VYx-lbka-e]b-X]b-vhka-Sbks\

vbla-Dpg-vmg-jWpn-xp-VYx-lbka-xk-dbla. Dbka-ek-xkf-Eld-rk-xk-lbka-Hfh.
Big Brother Mouse gets books into Lao villages that never had books before.
You can help! Our website tells more.

www.BigBrotherMouse.com

lhknra]ahln Þ Þ Þ 0215 ÉÓÂÎ 978+9932+03+075+0