Fading way of life in mountains of Vietnam
VOV.VN - Deep within the heart of the mountains of Vietnam reside many ethnic groups, whose elders hold on tight to their traditional way of life in the face of a fast-developing society.
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After bearing witness to their remote and self-sufficient lifestyle, French photographer Réhahn, a resident of Hoi An, feels it his duty to capture them before their cultural heritage fades away forgotten forever. |
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Réhahn says that over the past five years he has photographed 40 of the 54 ethnic groups and plans to document the remaining 14 groups within the next two years. |
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As a photographer, he says he feels that if he doesn’t shoot, other people probably will never be able to see them. |
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Therefore, he feels obligated to document these disappearing or soon-to-disappear national heritages, so as to pass on the culture and preserve a valuable anthropological photographic file. |
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It isn’t easy, he says, and it sometimes takes him several days just to find a village in the remote areas, as many of the villages are deep in the mountains with very little information on their exact whereabouts. |
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Once he does locate them, he spends much time listening to the stories of elders and photographing where they live. |
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He says their eyes often light up when they boast about their traditional costumes and talk about their culture. |
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But many elders are sad, he says, as they feel that young people are not proud of their heritage. |
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Most young people are not intent on preserving the traditional culture from which they come. |
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This is partly why the minorities are disappearing. |
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All of these things have inspired Réhahn to set out and capture these tribes and their way of life. |
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The French photographer hopes to raise awareness of these ethnic tribes around the nation. |
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He says that many Vietnamese are completely oblivious of the fact that so many cultures around them are losing. |
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For example, there are only 397 Brau remaining in the country. |
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This 78-year-old woman is the last remaining Odu ethnic in Vietnam and there are only about 500 in the rest of the world. |
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He feels that if the Vietnamese general population can see the ethnic cultures through photos, maybe it can help them recognize their importance. |
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Réhahn also photographs many traditional costumes of ethnic groups. His goal is to establish a national cultural museum in Hoi An visually telling the story of the ethnic minorities of Vietnam.
