Preserving the spirit of “Muong”

From the front yard, a tall, thin, white-haired, eagle-eyed man led me to his simple house, which lies at the end of Quan Tri village. Inside there I saw an old wooden bed, worn chairs and tables, many orders and medals on the walls and a bulky bookcase next to the bedroom, where Du has kept a wealth of Muong ethnic manuscripts. Most of the writings on the shelves are unpublished materials including a Vietnamese-Muong dictionary and a book on Muong communication and behaviour.

“The book case is my treasure,” Du told me proudly.

He showed me the introduction to his fourth collection of Muong love songs inherited from his ancestors. He said it may take Muong boys and girls four or five nights to sing all the songs but nobody has had a profound understanding of the words.

“The previous collections compiled by Hoang Anh Nhan, a Muong cultural researcher, are far from complete,” Du said.

This special collection of Muong written scripts with clear scientific annotation is the result of Du’s hard work after a long period of travelling around the Muong-inhabited region.

A long time ago, Du said, some Muong people with a good command of the Han (old Chinese) language had created a Nom-Muong language. However, the language could hardly develop because most of the Muong people were illiterate. 

Brocade has long been part and parcel of the Muong people

“Why are you so interested in preserving the Muong culture and creating a Muong written script?” I asked the old man.

“I have an urge to learn more about the origin of my ethnic group. Language and culture are the key to the development of the Muong community,” he said.

“I always want to preserve the spirit of my ethnic group,” Du added.

The Nooc House put up for the Muong middle class

With love and care

Du was a soldier involved in the Dien Bien Phu campaign in 1954 and later became a teacher at the School for Ethnic Youth in Thanh Hoa. Since his retirement in 1986, he has had plenty of opportunity to continue his work.

Now that the book on the Muong culture is almost complete, the 80-year-old author is afraid that he cannot live any longer to see it come out well in the end.

Every time Du was seized by one of his coughing fits, his wife brought him a glass of water and some tablets and asked him to follow the doctor’s advice and give it a rest.

“I couldn’t live until today without her care. She has never distressed me since we got married a very long time ago,” Du said.