Lesson 2: Stilt houses, brocade and water wheels

(Baonghean) -Mr. Vi Van Tien - Vice Chairman of Quy Chau District People's Committee said that in this mountainous locality, only Hoa Tien village (Chau Tien commune) is familiar with tourism. Through the press, I learned that the village has a famous brocade weaving village far and wide. The products are available in the South and the North. I heard that they have even reached Europe and America...

For more than ten years now, the Hoa Tien people have been accustomed to tourist groups from Japan, Thailand, France, etc. Every year, there are five or seven foreign tourists coming to the village. Domestic tourists come more frequently, an average of two or three times a month.

Previously, I happened to meet the Hoa Tien village women and their rattan chairs, brocades, and incense in the capital. That time, the Vietnam Cooperative Alliance organized a fair of traditional craft villages at the Museum of Ethnology (Hanoi). With their inherent simplicity, the women convinced the most demanding Western guests to happily open their wallets to buy brocade products. At that time, I used to think that in addition to their creative efforts, one of the things that made them successful was their innocence and honesty in marketing their products.

Weaving - a side job for women here. Photo: Tran Ngoc Lan

There was only that much “data” about the Hoa Tien women before I visited their village, one day in the first month of the second lunar month. Mrs. Sam Thi Bich’s house is right at the beginning of the village, where there is also a brocade weaving stall with a sign in both Vietnamese and English. In the house, the brocade weaving artisans are still working diligently, only the owner pours water to invite guests. Mrs. Bich said that her weaving group is urgently preparing goods to participate in the fair in Ho Chi Minh City next April. The women who work as weavers here are very familiar with the press and television, the people who contribute a large part to the reputation of the craft village.

Ms. Bich said that from around 1996 until now, at the beginning of each year, the village has welcomed groups of French tourists. They come to visit the village and the water springs that irrigate the fields. Their most frequent activity is mountain climbing and exploring nature. Almost every time they visit, they go to the source of the river or stream and then go down the raft to the village. Foreign tourists, whom the Hoa Tien villagers call "sports people", are also an important source of consumption for the brocade products of the women here. Thanks to them, Hoa Tien brocade products have the opportunity to be exported abroad. According to Ms. Bich, the happiest time is when there are Thai tourists. They still have some cultural similarities with the Thai people of Vietnam, especially in language. Therefore, when Thai tourists come to the village, they hold a wine festival to welcome them.

On occasions when visiting the village, French tourist groups often choose the village chief Sam Van Duan's house as their accommodation. The house was built in 1996, following the ancient architecture of a Thai stilt house. Mr. Duan said that tourists coming here are usually not fussy about their living arrangements. They are willing to sleep in the room that the locals still have the habit of giving up when they have distinguished guests. Western tourists also eat Thai dishes, such as canh bon, canh ot, and are as gentle as the locals. They also listen to nhuon and xuoi singing, blow pi and like the architecture of the stilt house...

Mr. Duẩn added that what makes tourists want to come to Hoa Tien village, in addition to the brocade products that have been mentioned a lot in the press, is the architecture of the stilt houses and the lifestyle of this pure Thai village, which can also be considered a tourism product. Foreign tourists love the rice fields and water wheels of the villagers. Not only do they travel, they also organize charity activities and give gifts to students. Another important thing, according to Mr. Duẩn, is that thanks to tourists, the locals here are aware of preserving the environment. "Visitors often give candy wrappers and other waste to trash cans. This makes the locals think a lot about preserving the living environment," Mr. Sam Van Duẩn added. The clean and beautiful landscape is also one of the factors that attract tourists to return to Hoa Tien.

Water wheels in Hoa Tien. Photo: Tran Ngoc Lan

However, tourism is only a secondary occupation for the local people here. The people with the highest income from tourism and brocade production and trading are members of the Hoa Tien Brocade Cooperative, earning about 1.5 million VND per month. Member Lo Thi Nga shared: Farming is still the main source of income for the whole village. Village chief Sam Van Duan said that the number of tourists coming to Hoa Tien village is still low because the promotion and infrastructure investment have not been focused on.

We crossed Tong Mong field at the beginning of the village to return to the lowlands just as dusk fell. The red sun gradually disappeared behind the mountain peak. In the middle of the green rice fields, the irrigation wheels were still patiently pouring water into the water pipes leading to the fields. On the grass path, farmers leisurely drove their buffaloes back to the village. In the distance, the roofs of stilt houses appeared and disappeared under the canopy of trees. All of it evoked a peaceful picture of the wilderness. I suddenly thought, if the local government built this place into a tourist destination with large-scale infrastructure projects, would it still be able to maintain the simplicity that has been and is making Hoa Tien village attractive to visitors from afar?

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