The Significance of the Red Dao Headdress

Source: Kyle Sandilands, CBT Vietnam Team

In Vietnam, the Dao ethnic minority is an umbrella to a variety of groups, including the Red Dao; The Red Dao are the second largest ethnic minority, following the Hmong who are the first largest. Researchers say that the two groups have quite close relationships; the differences can be easily recognized by appearance, costumes, and way of life. A unique characteristic of this minority is their vibrant costume. The women wear long indigo blouses over trousers, which are endowed with many different red and white decorations at the collar and the lap. In the Sapa market, their costume is often considered one of the most beautiful.1

Source: http://sapatoursfromhanoi.com/exploring-the-red-dao-ethnicity-culture-in-ta-phin-village-sapa/

One of the most important features of the Dao woman’s identity is their headdress known as the Huong. When a young girl reaches about 13 years old, she is gifted a headdress from her parents. It is at this age that she is old enough to go to the market, and to begin courtship.2 Aside from being experts in silver-smithing, the Red Dao are also exceptionally skilled in brocade. In fact, the craftsmanship of brocade is a focal point of their marital system; unless a girl has mastered the art, she will not be married.3

Source: https://vickychong.wordpress.com/2014/03/13/vietnam-trekking-in-sapa-with-red-dao-tribes/

As you can see, the actual appearance of the gorgeous headdress is quite distinct. It is also normal for the headdress to be adorned with coins, silver bells, and tassels and to have about 20-25 layers of red cloth. Once folded, tucked, and tied, the headdress becomes a round, puffed shape. Hair is tucked inside the cloth to ensure that no strands are to be exposed.2 Because of Sapa's (sometimes) harsh weather, the headdress is not only beautiful but functional! So, if you ever find yourself in Sapa, Vietnam, you may just be lucky enough to see this craft yourself!

 References:

1. About Red Dao people in Sapa. (2015). Retrieved April 19, 2016, from http://www.dirtbiketravel.com/news/about-red-dao-people-sapa

2. Dao - Taphin, Sapa. (n.d.). Retrieved April 19, 2016, from http://www.craftlink.com.vn/projects/ethnic-groups/Dao-Taphin-Sapa.html

3. The Red Dao in Ta Phin. (n.d.). Retrieved April 19, 2016, from http://www.taphin-sapa.info/Home/Our-Ta-Phin/History/The-Red-Dao.php

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Marketing the Market

Imagine walking through a market in another country. As a tourist, we tend to just browse through the selection and ignore the people trying to sell to us, afraid that if we talk to them we'll have to buy something. Usually the most important task will be trying to get a product for the cheapest price.

Reviewing ideas for merchandising

This last month I, along with Sabrina, were blessed to work in TaPhinwith the Red Dao women. This formalized market was recently completed and we were given the opportunity to discover new ways to bring the market alive to attract more tourists. Our work began before we arrived as we took photos of local Vancouver markets to illustrate various ways of merchandising and cooperating.  We had so many ideas running through our heads and wanted to be sure that tourists could feel comfortable in browsing the market AND talking with the locals.

We spent six days meeting and working with the market sellers in both group and one-on-one sessions. I felt that we only scratched the surface of the Red Dao culture and development of a successful market.

Sabrina dressed in traditional Red Dao garments

During our discussion of culture, we generated ideas for improved tourist experiences. We helped the women display their booths in appealing ways, such as creating bamboo hangers in order to display the handicrafts and clothing. For product diversification, we helped each woman see the benefits of placing their differentiating products at the front of their booth, instead of featuring the same products as their neighbour. We expect to see in the near future, as high season approaches, booths filled with teas, fruit and vegetables, and herbal bath products. 

Discussing ideas

Through our discussions, the women began to think of new ways to manage street selling and the hassling of tourists. The most difficult task moving forward is keeping the market full. Many of the women cannot come to sell every day due to other responsibilities in the fields. Also, there are many women who prefer to sell on the streets because this is the way it has always been done. We hope that our efforts and cooperation with the Red Dao women and local government will create a more sustainable and beneficial tourism product for the people of TaPhin. 

The relationships we developed, in such a short time, have impacted our lives in numerous ways. I have already made a promise to myself that I will come back someday. The women have told us that the time we spend to get to know them is very special, as many of the tourists treat them as if they do not exist. 

With Ta May

One of the relationships I created on this trip was with Ta May. I will be working closely with her over the next month because she has taken on a huge responsibility. Ta May told us as we were leaving that she wants to be in charge of the market. She will work each day with the Red Dao women to keep the ideas flowing, in hopes that one day they will be able to stop street selling and have a thriving market. 

The development of a relationship is a two way street. If these women are taking the time to learn how to interact with tourists in a polite and enjoyable way, it is important for tourists to take the time to sit down and talk. If tourists take the time to get to know locals during their travels, they will have a more memorable experience.

I thank Capilano University, the PATA Foundation and our partner in Vietnam Hanoi Open University for the most amazing experience and opportunities.

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TaPhin: Where Life Goes by Different Rules

There is a road in SaPa that goes all the way from the mountain down to the valley. I once called it the stairway to heaven. If SaPa is the stairway to heaven, TaPhin is heaven itself! 

We left SaPa on Monday morning and arrived in TaPhin village before noon. The car dropped us off near the entrance of the village in an area known as Doi Mot, or the Commune One. We walked down the valley, crossed a river and trekked up the mountain for about 30 minutes to get to where four home-stay owners run their businesses. The scenery was breathtaking. 

We spent the whole afternoon meeting the owners, touring the homes, asking them about the challenges they are facing, inspecting the capacity and potential development of the homes, and talking to them about promotional and marketing strategies. 

We split up into three groups in the evening to stay in different homestays in Doi Mot, in order to experience what tourists experience when they stay in those homes overnight. I stayed at Ms. Ly May Lai’s house and got to meet her family and extended family who were visiting from China. I offered to help prepare the dinner and May Lai showed me how to clean the pumpkin leaves before she cooked them.

Fresh and local aren't just trends here!

The process of preparing meat is very different from what we are used to in Vancouver. Even in scratch kitchens in North America, things are not as ‘from the scratch’ as are in the village! I didn’t expect the pork and chicken to come out of beautifully sealed packages, but I was still surprised when they just grabbed them from outside, killed them in the kitchen, clean and cut them, and then cook them right away! When I told my host that my family eats rice, I was asked if we have a rice field!

Preparing dinner

Getting ready for dinner

We spent the whole evening cooking on one stove at the corner of the house. There are usually two stoves in each house in TaPhin: one for cooking and one for preparing the herbal bath. May Lai was sitting by the stove the whole time and cooking the dishes one after the other. When one dish was done, it was put into a plate and sent to the table, but no one started dinner until all the dishes were done and placed on the table. The process of preparing ten different dish on one stove and in one pot took about an hour. The whole family then gathered around the dinner table and rice and alcohol were served.

Herbal baths

Even though I was planning to have a herbal bath, I was too tired to stay up late that night. May Lai’s house has two guestrooms. Since I was the only guest that night I got the whole room to myself. The room had 7 beds in a row with red/pink flower patterned blankets. A blue mosquito net was hung on top of each bed, and there was another door at the other side of the room which opened to the washroom and herbal bath areas. I called it my own en-suite shower room. 

Bamboo bug!

Roosters woke me up at 4:30. This was not my first time away from home opening my eyes in an unfamiliar environment, but it sure was the most authentic one. Outside the glassless window chicks and piglets were playing; the sound of a woman singing in the distance had added a mysterious feeling to the foggy view of the valley; and the smell of the burned bamboos in the fireplace was like no other worldly smell. Even the big bamboo bug that May Lai’s father had found outside and brought in didn’t look scary anymore! The time had slowed down letting me grasp and take in this new experience. That morning as I walked down the valley and crossed the river through the fog, I knew I was a different person; I had seen the heaven. 

Ms. May Lai and Hedieh

(Written by Hedieh Ahmari, student volunteer)

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It's a small world

I am very excited to be working with the CBT Vietnam team again, and cannot wait to show the world what a group of five girls can do. This year I am lucky enough to be chosen to actually travel to SaPa and work with the communities. All the memories from Vietnam are rushing in again like someone opened a floodgate!

Last year I wrote a blog about these memories (click here to view) and included some photos. One of the photos was my brother and me standing with some of the Red Dao women. I knew that this photo was full of people CBT Vietnam still work with today.

This semester, I learned that this picture hit closer to home than I thought. I took a class with Chris and was fortunate enough to meet Lo May, as she was also in the class. I showed her this picture and she was shocked to see her mom standing right behind me! This picture was taken when I was seven, and today I am a nineteen year old meeting the daughter of one of the women in this picture. 

Every day stories of a ‘small world’ experience come to light, yet it still shocks me just how small our world is. I believe there is a connection between everyone. All one must do is ask.  

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A Night in Taphin

A key objective for this trip is to, once again, bring the women entreprenuers of TaPhin back to Hanoi to meet tour operators.  We did this last October and have found some success in operators sending tourists to the Taphin homestays. 

There is a reason why people enjoy staying at these homestays and last night I had the pleasure of staying at the homestay of Ms. May Kieu.  I met May Kieu on our last trip, she has a quiet demeanour and a smile that lights up a room.  She is passionate about her homestay business and always ready to share her culture and engage in a participatory experience.  

She spent time showing me some of the items she plans to take to Hanoi and how she makes them.  Each is hand embroidered and each section has meaning, some show girls and boys, some have trees and flowers.  The piece is then sewn together with a sewing machine.

Showing me how she makes wall hangings

Her homestay is beautiful, with private rooms, platform beds, full washroom with heated shower and a kitchen with a huge fireplace.  All of this makes for a comfortable atmosphere. 

Beautiful Fireplace for Cooking

One aspect that is special about these homestays is the fact that the villagers grow almost everything they eat.  It puts 100 mile diet in a whole new perspective.

Tonight’s dinner consisted of rice which came from their fields, grated pumpkin and steamed pumpkin leaves from her garden out back and chicken which was brought in the house squawking at 7:00pm and we ate at 8:00pm.  During dinner she informed me that she also keeps chickens specifically for eggs and grows carrots and eggplant for additional vegetables.  I noticed a shelf full of pumpkin leaves on one side of the room, she said that those ones were no longer good and will be fed to the pigs.  When it comes to food waste, there is very little.

But that was not the best part of the evening.  That came when her husband, Loua, went out to their beehive and collected fresh honey.  This honey was bottled to give as a gift to one lucky tour operator next week in Hanoi. I had never tasted honey fresh from the hive and was able to sit and pick pieces off from a huge bowl with her mother-in-law and grandma.  It was delicious!

Enjoying Honey

It is this kind of experience that tour operators look for and they are fortunate to have May Kieu and the other Taphin homestays providing such a great product.

For more information on May Kieu’s homestay visit www.taphinhomestay.com and the Taphin homepage at http://www.taphin-sapa.info/ 

Submitted by: Stephanie Wells

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Colours of The Red Dao

Last night I was inspired to get creative so I got out my art supplies and made a new entry in my art journal. It is the first of many that will be dedicated to my Vietnam adventure. The profile picture on the CBT Facebook page(pictured below) is what inspired me to create my journal entry (pictured above). It shows beautiful hand embroidered clothing worn by traditional Hill tribe Red Dao Women of Ta Phin.

My Journal entry took me a couple hours but the hand-made embroidery takes the women five to six months! Their detailed work is all done by memory and each woman makes a new set of clothes for her family once a year and the old set becomes the clothes for farming.

Take a moment and try to imagine what it would be like to have just two sets of clothes. Imagine how different our culture would be if we too let go of material possessions and, like the Red Dao, valued family and community instead.





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The Past 72 Hours - A Filmmaker’s Perspective

The past 72 hours has seen our second film, When the Village was Heard for the CBT Vietnam project erupt with views, shares and support from around the world; and, it’s been an exciting thing to witness as a filmmaker.  I suppose it’s a bit like watching your kid leave home and head off to college.  You’re not really sure what people will make of your son or daughter; whether it’ll stand out and make you proud, or if it will simply go out and slip into the crowds of videos that make up YouTube.  (A recent stat says that 48 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute - nearly eight years of content every day!!)

With this second video, we really tried to make the focus less about the Canadian/Vietnamese group delivering the training, and more about the women telling their story in their own words.  As Dao language is their native tongue, it made sense to do as many of the interviews with the women in Dao as possible, sometimes creating the need to double translate from English to Vietnamese to Dao.  A big thank you has to go Ly Lo May who spent several hours going through the video in the editing room (which in this film’s case, happened to be various coffee shops in Hanoi), helping translate the Dao language into English.

Hearing the women speak in their own language, confidently and comfortably, is something that, as a filmmaker, I’m most proud of with this new video.  We took great strides to make sure the translations were accurate, and it’s a fascinating language to listen to - very different than Vietnamese or other South Asian languages.  Dao is an oral language, one that cannot be written on paper, and it has become something that I’d like to pretend that I’m unintentionally learning, after watching and listening to the footage for hours upon hours.

I lived in Hanoi for three months this past spring where the majority of this video was edited.  Living in the Old Quarter of Hanoi in a hotel room without A/C was an experience I’ll never forget, and I have many thanks for the cool floor tiles, and the electric fan that saved my life and kept the MacBook Pro alive and running fine.

Cutting a video down from the hours and hours of raw content into its current length is never an easy task, and like the first video, there were a lot of ideas and issues to get across in a six-minute piece.  The goal for this video was to show the progress that has been made as a result of the project training through the eyes of the Dao women.  We also wanted to show the great risks that the women are taking in order to build tourism in their village.  Chao Ta May, for example, has invested 75 million Vietnamese dong, roughly $3700 USD to make improvements to her homestay.  If tourism dries up, she and her family have a very real problem.

Topics such as the successes of the temporary community market and how it’s providing a place for the elderly women to sell were important to showcase.   Of course we also wanted to feature the tour operators meeting the Dao women in Sapa, the cooperation between the government, private organizations and Capilano University and Hanoi OpenUniversity.  And we wanted to set up how training is beginning to take shape in the neighboring Black H’mong community of Lao Chai.

This last week has been an exciting one.  And as we approach 1000 hits, I have a lot of people to thank.  Bill Thumm, probably first and foremost, for thinking of me and putting me in touch with Chris Bottril and Chris Carnovale in a last minute meeting to have a videographer film what became When the Tourists Come. Last year’s video had us borrowing a lot of camera equipment from the Bosa Centre for Film and Animation on incredible short notice (72 hours!!)  Chris Curran-Dorsano and the rest of the studio team did a great job in hooking us up with gear, and I was very happy to be able to bring it back in one piece..  Sorry about the mud guys.

Many thanks need to go to the team members on the each of the project trips I’ve been a part of now  (three so far!).  Helping schlepp gear around Hanoi and in the villages, rounding up interviewees and simply working out logistics to make my job easier are all big reasons for the videos turning out the way they do.  And it’s that unseen help that is so important in this style of small-unit documentary filmmaking.  And a shout-out to Capri Studios and composer Luke Dunn for the great work on the original music created specifically for this video. 

Thank you to the PATA Foundation, the generosity of whom is now being seen all around the world.   

Thanks also have to go to the women themselves, for allowing me into their homes and to interview them on camera.  They are fantastic, and when you put them in front of the camera and attach the mic to their lapels, they have the same kind of nervousness and pre-interview jitters as anyone else.  But they did a great job of speaking on camera, better than many English-speaking interviewees I’ve interviewed here in Canada.

To get the kind of international exposure in making videos such as these, and to be able to travel and see another side of the world and it’s unique and remarkable culture, is something that has absolutely changed my perspective.

To get to know and befriend the Dao women, to be able to go inside their homes and document their incredible stories has been a tremendous privilege, and an absolute pleasure to be a part of.  It’s hard work.  Mentally, physically and psychologically challenging.  You’re in a place where extreme poverty is all around you, and it’s something you absolutely must be able to adapt to.

But I have no regrets in being a part of these videos and I can only hope that there are more projects like these around the corner.  More stories to be told.  More long days of editing in foreign countries in air-conditioning-less hotels.

It’s been a fantastic project to be a part of, and I hope people enjoy the videos and find themselves wanting to learn more about what’s going on in the CBT Vietnam universe. Thanks again for joining us over the last 72 hours, as we launch this video, and share what so many have been a part of. 

Cheers,

Kyle

www.kylesandilands.ca

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When a Village was Heard - Capilano U / PATA Foundation Tourism Project (Sapa, Vietnam)

Here it is! The NEW video by the CBT Vietnam team. We hope you enjoy it! Please fell free to comment below - we love hearing your feedback!


A community tourism training project in the Sapa region of Northern Vietnam operated by Capilano University Vancouver, Canada, and Hanoi Open University, Vietnam, and supported by the PATA Foundation. The project features tourism training to help sustain vulnerable ethnic cultures and maximize benefits of tourism to small and unique villages in Northern Vietnam. Training is done by Capilano and Hanoi Open University students and faculty.

This video is illustrative of a second two-year project that will look to enhance networks between the village of Taphin and private sector tourism companies. The project will also deliver tourism training in the Hmong community of Lao Chai. 

This video was scripted by Chris Carnovale, Chris Bottrill and Kyle Sandilands, and filmed and directed by Kyle Sandilands (www.kylesandilands.ca).

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Home sweet home!

Its 2:00pm in Vancouver but 3:30 am in Hanoi. I should be asleep right now, that is what my body is telling me. The race to catch up on not only sleep but all of my assignments has begun however,  I can't seem to focus; all I can think about is the previous 12 days. For a third year university student I consider myself impressively lucky to have been a part of the CBT VietNam project not just once but twice over the past year and a half. It has been an honour to participate in this project and I wish to take this time to express my deepest thanks to all the amazing organizations involved:

• Capilano University
• Hanoi Open University
• PATA Foundation
• Sofitel Metropole Hanoi
• Buffalo Tours
• Footprint Vietnam
• RTC Vietnam
• and Handspan

Thank you all for your contributions. This has been the most significant career building exercise of my life and with out all the above noted it never would have happened. Also I would wish to thank Stephanie Wells, Chris Carnovale, Jen Reilly and Chris Bottrill for their dedication to this project and the to students of Capilano University.

Lastly there are the villagers to thank. The Red Dao and H'Mong communities invited us into their homes and dedicated their time to learning and participating in our project. These people have touched the hearts of all involved and I can only hope to see them all again.

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Phase 2 begins: First trip starts in 4 days!

The CBT Vietnam slogan for this month is: "if you're not running, something is wrong!" We're joking, of course! But seriously, Phase 2 of the PATA Foundation funded project in Northern Viet Nam is underway and it is going to be a busy one!

Returning to Vietnam will be Dr. Chris Bottrill, Dean of Global and Community Studies at Capilano University, Instructor Stephanie Wells, and students Jase Wilson and Taryn Bodrug. Once again we will be joined by Ms. Ngoc Anh (Vice Dean of the tourism faculty at Hanoi Open University - HOU) as well as a team of HOU student volunteers.

It is going to be an exiting, ground-breaking trip for our learners and community leaders in Ta Phin. We will be working on the following:

• facilitation of a business trip for 12 entrepreneurs to the big city of Hanoi;
• here our entrepreneurs will meet with private tourism companies to begin:
• partnerships will be created;
• and, negotiations will ensue.

Tourists to the region would usually book a hill tribe trekking tour that lands them in Sa Pa -visiting villages such as Ta Phin and Lao Chai for merely an hour or two. The home-stay operators from Ta Phin are collectively working towards creating packaged experiences where tour guides bring visitors directly to Ta Phin home-stays. This will be a fantastic development for our home-stay owners and the village of Ta Phin. 

In the village of Lao Chai, the CBT team will continue delivering training on entry level skills. Our goal is to help residents of Lao Chai to increase their capacity to pursue their own brand of successful community based tourism. This is not cut paste here - what works in Ta Phin can serve as a model for success but every case is different. The CBT team will sample what Lao Chai has to offer and connect with local stakeholders.

Our whirl wind two week schedule will start on Thursday September 27th and end October the 9th, 2012. Readers will not want to miss out on what is happening! Over the next few weeks we will be releasing new media and performing regular trip updates. 

So get onto twitter @CBTvietnam and facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cbtvietnam, let us know what you think! We want to hear your voice!

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Project to continue!

Great news has been handed down to the CBT VN team recently. The Dean of Global and Community Studies at Capilano University (Dr. Chris Bottrill) has announced that an agreement has been reached with the PATA Foundation to continue the project in order to add to the recent surge of successes and momentum in the region of Ta Phin. Included in the extension of the project is funding for the village of Lao Chai.

The next two years will be exciting in the villages as the CBT team will look to further polish the host of products in Ta Phin and hand the project over to local ownership. The project in Lao Chai is in its infant stages, there is much work to do. Surely valuable experiences are just around the corner for Capilano University faculty and students, and likewise for our Hanoi Open University counterparts.

The CBT team would like to express our deepest gratitude to the PATA Foundation, and the hard work of all involved over the duration. We are all looking forward to what the future has in store!

Huge Thanks to the PATA Foundation!

To all you readers: help us out! Like our Facebook page here or follow us on twitter @CBTvietnam . There will be lots of updates to come! Stay tuned for more!


Also, check out our website at:
www.cbtvietnam.com

www.capilanou.ca

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