The steep slopes of Muong Chon

"In the old days, Muong Chon was very poor. Only the sick got to eat rice, healthy people got to eat porridge during the harvest season, and on the third day of the eighth lunar month, they had to eat wild yams, wild ginger, and other similar plants, but they had to go deep into the forest to dig them up, almost to the point of falling on their faces...", an elder in Muong Chon began his story with a visitor from the lowlands.

Children in Muong Chon don't go to school because they're too busy herding buffalo and gathering firewood. (Photo: Nguyen Duy)

The village elder continued: After the revolution and the restoration of peace, Muong Chon was renamed Binh Chuan commune, belonging to Con Cuong district (Nghe An province). Life for the people improved; children went to school, the elderly had enough to eat and wear, and could watch television and listen to music…

Muong Chon is isolated.

It is said that: In the old days, some Kinh people from the lowlands, due to famine, went up the mountains to dig up roots and gather bamboo shoots, and settled down, gradually forming villages that became Muong Chon as it is today, with 8 villages bearing 8 very unusual names: Quoc village, Quan village, Xop Met, Tong Phay, Tung Poong, Na Co… Currently, Muong Chon has 557 households, nearly 3,600 people, communicating mainly in Thai, not including about 20% of the villagers, mostly officials, who know how to speak Kinh.

Low literacy rates, economic hardship, and a production method that remains fundamentally based on slash-and-burn agriculture, with production entirely dependent on nature, mean that the lives of the people are still full of suffering.

From Con Cuong town to Muong Chon, it used to take a whole day of walking along a rugged, steep mountain road. Sunny days were manageable, but rainy days brought mosquitoes, leeches, jungle rains, and landslides that would hinder travel. Often, storms and floods would isolate Muong Chon, turning it into a remote island. But now, thanks to the Government's Program 135/CP, a road to Muong Chon has been built, though it's only accessible during the dry season, and the only means of transportation is a motorbike taxi. A round trip by motorbike taxi costs nearly 500,000 VND, a high price due to the complicated roads and difficult living conditions.

Due to the complex terrain and low level of education, agricultural production here remains largely natural, relying primarily on forest trees, slash-and-burn agriculture, fish from the streams, and vegetables and fruits from the forest. Cattle graze in the forest, and pigs and chickens roam freely. Rice is stored in sheds in the fields, and people carry back what they need to eat. Food sources are provided by the mountains and forests, and livestock are raised naturally. If they want vegetables, they carry knives to the forest; if they want fish, they carry nets to the stream.

According to preliminary statistics, only 15-20% of households in Muong Chon have stilt houses; the entire commune only has 5-7 dug wells. Industrialization in Muong Chon is represented by a rice milling machine powered by diesel fuel, spewing thick black smoke throughout the village. Modernization is the Min motorbike that "can be ridden even without eating grass."

A view of Muong Chon. Photo: Nguyen Duy

The arduous task of learning to read and write in Muong Chon

Hunger, poverty, and backwardness have made literacy in Muong Chon a difficult and arduous task. Most teachers who come to Muong Chon are young, recently graduated teachers on short-term contracts. Many young teachers consider this a "duty without a time limit," resulting in low teaching and learning quality. They leave Muong Chon at the first opportunity. The entire commune has one kindergarten, one primary school, and one secondary school, but the children in the village only learn to read and write.

The number of middle and high school students can be counted on the fingers of one hand. After finishing middle school, students get married, have children, and then forget how to read and write. Last year, the district opened a training course for prospective Party members, and more than 30 Youth Union members attended. The diploma check showed that all of them had graduated from middle school, but… they couldn't write because they had “forgotten it since they last used it.”

The Muong Chon people are poor; they can only support the kindergarten teacher and village nurse with their "heart," not with money or food. Besides the 80,000 dong they receive monthly, they have no other income.

All the village officials here are in debt to their wives. Mr. Phong, the village chairman, years ago when he was the head of the militia training unit, had to borrow a buffalo from his wife to buy food because the village lacked funds. That debt is still recorded in the village's ledger. Last year, Mr. Thuan hired workers to make tables and chairs for the village, and when it came time to pay, he also gave his wife's buffalo to the workers.

The guys who worked at the commune in the previous term had to secretly borrow money from the bank without their wives' knowledge to pay the workers building the school…

Muong Chon is so hard-working and difficult. The people of Muong Chon are so poor. After returning from Muong Chon, my heart is filled with longing and nostalgia for it!

Tran Hai-Nguyen Phe