The Hmong New Year: What the Jews Can Learn from the Hmong People

Last week, we went to a village near Chiang Mai in Thailand to join in the celebration of the Hmong (Mong) New Year.  The Hmong people are an ethnic minority, originally from Southern China, but beginning in the 18th century, they started moving south due to political unrest.

A Hmong woman doing traditional string weaving while carrying a basket on her back. She is dressed in traditional Hmong clothing.

One thing really impressed me about the Hmong people when Rabbi Ben and I were at the Hmong New Year celebration last week.  That was how the vast majority of the Hmong still clung so steadfastly to their traditional ways.  Most of the Hmong were dressed in very traditional costumes, which they still make themselves, to this very day.  Most of the activities and competitions were traditional ones that would have been exactly the same hundreds (if not thousands) of years ago.  And most of the dances, songs, and performances were completely traditional.  Even the food was still cooked on the fire like it has been since time immemorial.

The Ba’al Shem Tov says that everything we see has a purpose and that Hashem shows us each and every detail because we must learn a lesson from it. So, what lesson can we learn from the Hmong people?

The Hmong hill tribes of Thailand are not assimilating.  They do incorporate certain useful tools from the modern world, such as trucks, phones, and microphones/speakers.  They even use washing machines! Yet, they do not change their fundamental culture.  They still keep to their traditions.  They dress differently from the rest of the people living in Thailand.  They still sew their own clothes; even though it would be simple just to mass-produce and sell them, their clothing is a way they demonstrate their skills and also their unique identities.  They still have their own language, spoken at home and in the village.

Rebbetzin Rachel dressed in traditional Hmong clothing, standing with a young Hmong villager. She is dressed in traditional Hmong clothing. All the Hmong women, young and old, still sew their own ceremonial outfits, holding onto their tradition.

We Jews also have our own culture and heritage.  Yes, we can take certain advantages from the modern world; there is nothing wrong with that.  Yet, we must cling to the vital parts of our traditions.  Unlike the Hmong people, we no longer need to sew our clothes; however, we must still make sure we are holding to our beliefs and dressing modestly, even if it makes us different.  We have certain foods that we must and must not eat; we should not assimilate with the world around us that eats anything and everything with no limits.  We have our own community… let’s not lose it. Like the Hmong people, let’s stick together!

So that is what I learned from the Hmong people when I attended their New Year’s celebration.  It was a beautiful experience and I am really glad I went.  I learned so much, both about them and about myself.

Happy Hmong New Year!

Celebrating the Hmong (Mong) New Year near Chiang Mai, Thailand

We were fortunate last week to be able to celebrate the Hmong New Year, which occurred on January 15, 2013.  As I have mentioned, we met some Hmong villagers in Chiang Mai’s famous Sunday Market, who offered to let us come with them to the village for the celebration.

During the Hmong New Year, each village joins in a giant parade.

We had to leave Chiang Mai by 5 AM to go to the village because preparations for the celebration began early. Unlike our Jewish new year celebrations, their new year does not begin at sundown. Nor does it begin at midnight like the secular new year does.  Instead, it begins at sunrise, and so do the festivities! By 7 AM, villagers from Hill Tribes for miles around were arriving in their finery for the parade and party.

First, the Hmong family all got together early in the morning – everyone was up before 6 AM, even the small children – for an early breakfast. (For more on how to keep kosher at mealtimes when visiting a tribal village, CLICK HERE.) Then, everyone got dressed in their fancy outfits (more on these in a subsequent post!).  After that, it was time to start celebrating the Hmong New Year!

The celebrations of the Hmong New Year started off with a gigantic parade.  Unfortunately, Rabbi Ben and I missed most of this, as Adventuring Akiva was sleeping and we didn’t wake him in time (what a party pooper).  Once we’d woken him up and dressed him in his Hmong outfit, the family we were visiting dressed us up in Hmong outfits, too! Then we headed out.

Women, both young and old, take part in a sewing and embroidery competition during the Hmong New Year celebration.

Walking through the village, we saw thousands of people from all the neighboring Hmong villages, buying food, toys, umbrellas, and clothing from the various stalls. At a main gathering area, there were hundreds more of the Hmong people.  Some were sitting in the shade, eating. Some were performing on stage – singing, dancing, etc.  Others were engaged in competitions, such as sewing competitions.  Some were playing courtship games.

Everyone was dressed in their finest and it seemed that everyone wanted a photo of or with Adventuring Akiva!  We thought we would go to the Hmong New Year celebration and take photos of all the Hmong people, but instead, the Hmong people took lots of photos of us.  What a role reversal!

All in all, it was a fantastic day.  It was a thrilling cultural experience and we learned a lot about the Hmong people and the Hmong culture.  Interestingly enough, I also feel I learned an important lesson as a Jew, which I will, please G-d, post about tomorrow.

Happy Hmong New Year!

Keeping Kosher when Visiting a Tribal Home (Mong New Year)

One of the most difficult things to do when you are a kosher traveler is to visit a local, tribal home.  That is because in most cultures, the offering of food to guests is very important.  Yet, as a kosher traveler, we have to turn down these offers. In most cultures, turning down an offer of food is very rude.  So what to do?

Inside a native Hmong (Mong) home, our hostess prepares an elaborate breakfast to celebrate the New Year. To refuse to eat anything at all would be incredibly rude, but what could we eat and still keep kosher?

Imagine you meet a visitor traveling from a faraway country and culture you have never even heard of before.  You are excited to get to know them and invite them to your home for a Friday night Shabbat dinner, to show them your home and culture.  When they get there, they refuse to eat, but happily sit through the whole meal not touching a thing.  Awkward at best, this could be downright insulting.

Fortunately, most of us Westerners have come into contact with people with other religious and cultural beliefs that affect food consumption.  We understand (because we keep kosher) that perhaps a Muslim will only eat what is halal. We can understand the strict Buddhist tenant not to eat after noon.  We can even grasp the Jain concept of not eating, breathing, or even walking on bugs.

But people from small native villages don’t have this exposure.  The concept of refusing to eat a meal with your hosts can be deeply insulting. So what do you do?

Firstly, it depends on the level of kashrut you are keeping.  If for you eating vegetarian food is kosher, then you can probably get by with only minor challenges.  But if you keep strictly kosher, you will have a harder time.

In some cultures, such as the Hmong (Mong) and Thai cultures, rice is a staple food.  These cultures will have a special pot set aside for cooking rice and nothing but rice will be cooked in it.  You can probably help them check the rice (they usually check it for stones, but you can always help them look and look for bugs instead!) and then offer to help stoke the fire or add the rice to the pot, so that you are participating in the cooking process.  If you pose it as wanting to be involved in, learn about, and participate in their culture, they will usually be enthusiastic about you helping with the cooking process.

At least then you can manage to eat some plain rice.

Making chapatis requires a special kind of plate, which is used only for this purpose.

The same kind of process usually applies to whatever the staple food of the culture is, whether it is rotis, bread, or chapatis. Most of these foods require a special dish to cook in and you can help with the cooking process in some way without offending your hosts.

Any other kind of food cooked in the place you are visiting is likely to be too difficult to make kosher, unless you managed to find a tribe of vegetarians (they do exist, but I haven’t found them yet). Otherwise, it’s likely that food will get mixed up and even a purely vegetarian dish will not meet kosher standards.  For example, at the Hmong home we visited during the Mong New Year this week, they prepared a vegetarian dish of pumpkin – after chopping it directly on the same chopping block as the pork, without washing it in between.  So that dish was clearly not kosher.

Stick with the plain rice or chapatis and you’ll be fine, or at least less awkward.  And if you can’t manage to do that, at least in a Buddhist country you can always explain that you only have fresh fruit and water after noon!

Happy eating and happy travels!

Traveling & Backpacking with a Baby or Infant: Opening New Doors – The Mong New Year!

Recently I posted about how backpacking or traveling with a baby or infant can open new doors for you as you travel.  Last week we discovered that firsthand!

We went to the famous Chiang Mai Sunday Market and decided to buy Akiva a special outfit for us to dress him up in on Purim.  We hunted around and eventually chose one, a traditional outfit worn by the Hmong (or Mong) hill tribe of Northern Thailand.

Ben with Akiva and his Mong Hat. If we hadn't stopped to buy Akiva a Mong outfit, we would never have learned about the Mong New Year. Traveling with a baby is a great conversation starter!

While I was busy with Akiva, Rabbi Ben got to chatting with the seller and her friends, all from a nearby Mong village in the hills.  They told him that Tuesday was the Mong New Year and there would be a big celebration.  Rabbi Ben spent the next few days finding out more and on Tuesday morning at 5 AM we left for the Mong village to celebrate the Mong New Year!

It was a fantastic experience and I plan to post more about it this week, but the most amazing thing was that we would not even have been there if it weren’t for Akiva. We would never even have heard about it!  The only other foreigners there were members of a tiny private tour group whose guide was a Mong villager.  Otherwise, there were NO tourists at all! Amazing!

By traveling and backpacking around with a baby, we had an opening for conversation and an opportunity to learn about this once-in-a-lifetime travel experience. So, if there are any parents out there wondering if backpacking with a baby will slow you down, think again! Backpacking with a baby may actually open more doors for you… Enjoy!

Parshas Bo: Teaching is the Best Way to Learn

This week, Rabbi Ben and I went to the Hill Tribe Museum in Chiang Rai, Thailand. Usually, we skip museums because after a while they all start to blend together. You forget what you saw where, if you remember any of it at all.  Museums are usually too much to take in all at once, especially when you’re seeing so many of them.  But we made an exception and visited the Hill Tribe Museum anyway.

When we visited this Mong family for Mong New Year, I had no idea what to give as a gift of thanks. At the Hill Tribe Museum I learned that string or beads (for making traditional costumes) would have been the best gift. Now I share this information with all the other tourists I meet.

The Hill Tribe Museum in Chiang Mai doesn’t have many exhibits, but I found it a great visit anyway.  In fact, I really enjoyed it because I feel like I learned a lot about the tribes and cultures of Thailand, which I might never have learned otherwise.  One of the interesting things I read was this idea: A lot of people come to Thailand to do “voluntouring” – volunteering as a way of touring the country.  But perhaps what the tribal people need is less Western people coming to teach them things and more Western people coming to learn things.

It was an interesting point. How arrogant we Westerners are to think we are doing these tribal people so much good! We come in with our English language, our jeans, and our foods and think we are helping them, when really we are just cogs in the great wheel of assimilation that quashes cultures. What we could do, instead, is to visit these tribes and learn from them – and then take that new wisdom, knowledge, and information back to our home countries and teach it to our compatriots.

Pesach (Passover) is just around the corner.  Approximately two months to go and we’re already preparing for it through a massive review of the exodus chapter in our history.  But in this week’s Torah portion, Hashem (G-d) tells us to do more than simply review the story of what happened to us in Egypt and our exodus from that terrible place. We are told to teach the story. The parsha says:

“And so that you may relate in the ears of your son and your son’s son that which I have played with (punished) Egypt, and My wonders that I placed among them. And then you will know that I am God.”

“And then you will know that I am God.”  Rabbi Boruch Leff explains that this means we have to obtain knowledge - not just belief – and that the way to do this is to teach others. Why?  Because, as the Talmud (Taanit 7a) says:

“Rabbi Chanina said: ‘I have learned much from my teachers, from my colleagues even more, but from my students I have learned the most.’”

And indeed, modern science backs this up.  As Rabbi Leff points out,

William Glasser, Ph.D., once conducted a study in which he concluded that people learn 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see, 50% of what they see and hear, 70% of what is discussed with others, 80% of what they experience, but 95% of what they teach to others.

Now, two months before Pesach, we review the story because, when Pesach arrives, it is our obligation to teach it to others – especially our children.  And in teaching it to others, we learn it better ourselves.

So in running the Traveling Rabbi blog, we are not just hoping to share Torah and halacha with others, but also to increase our own learning.  And so, when we learn interesting things, as we have this week at the Hill Tribe Museum, during our stay with the Akha Hill Tribe in Northern Thailand, and during our celebration of the Hmong (or Mong) New Year, we will endeavor to share them with you.  In doing so, we will increase our own knowledge. Look out for those posts.

And of course, feel free to share anything you learn on the Traveling Rabbi blog with others because you will gain benefit also.  If there is anything you want to see addressed or any questions you need answered, send us a message or a comment. We love to hear from you! Let’s all continue sharing, learning, and growing!

Shabbat Shalom!

Read more on Parshas Bo: Taking Responsibility for Our Mistakes