ICU:Nan Trip
So far this is the best excursion I’ve have in the Thai studies program.
On March 25 we left for paklan village in Nan province for four day; unlike our first village stay in mea cham, we each stayed with a different host family but all the villages were close together, for instance some Hmong villages were closer to the mien and the lua’s. Also we had a flexible schedules, we were basically suppose to observe the families, their lives and do whatever activates they planned for the day
I stayed with a Thai Hmong family which consisted of the mother, the father and their two sons. We arrived around 6 in the evening, so we all departed with our individual families to our villages. After having dinner with my family, we went to a Hmong funeral ceremony which was for my host father’s sister. It quit interesting because although they black and white clothes on, the atmosphere wasn’t sad as other funerals. They had a calm music playing at the background; they were serving beverages and snacks while others played respect to the body in a casket which was decorated very nicely and not that obvious. Then they had monks come in and medicated for quite some time. I really liked the setting because they did not make it seem sad as funerals I have observe and nobody was mourning or looked sad
On Thursday morning, after having breakfast, I went off for a village with my brothers, we visited different types of Hmong house, for instance the rich ones lived in a nice brick houses while the not very well off family live in houses. We also saw people making the Hmong traditional clothing is worn on New Year’s; we also visited the silver shops where they made silver jewelries for the village. After having lunch, my family and I went to the mountains to see the big linche farm they own. After dinner with my family, I went back to the assembly hall for an hour Hmong 101 form Dao and Seashia in order to survive for the rest of the trip. After that, our host Jacob who had been in the village for quiet sometime gave us the brief history of the Hmong and how they migrated to Thailand.
Friday was a very busy day; we had a trip to the formal refugee camp. It was a vast of land that had been own by the United Nation where they built refugee camps for the Hmong’s who fled Lao during the 1970s. After walking for quite some time, we head off the water falls where we had a good for an hour; everyone then went home to have dinner with their family. Before dinner was served, my host mother took my friends and me to see her mango garden. It was really interesting because after she explained, half of the family’s income for year comes out of the mango and the other half from the linche farm. After dinner, Kathy, Shannon, Ashley and I went to see a movie which was shown outside on the high school park. Finally, our bus departed to Chiang Mai at 10:00am. Overall, I really enjoyed this trip because I got to know more about the history of the Hmongs and I was glad to see the differences between Mae Cham and Paklan.
