New Gallery Available - "Knife Makers of Laos"

Knife Maker, Ban Hat Hien LPDR

I have finally have caught up on the editing and post processing of my photographs from the past three months.  I am not complaining because having so many photographs to work on indicates that there have been many interesting experiences during that time period.

There have been two funerals, an elementary school field day, rice harvesting, rice threshing, reunions with old friends, reunions with family, and some travels - all milestones for us as time passes.

One of our travels was to the Lao People's Democratic Republic ("Laos" or "LPDR").  We went to Luang Prabang as a respite from the emotional environment created by the death of Duang's father. It was a relief to get away from all the commotion back in Tahsang Village.

One of our destinations in Laos, was to revisit the knife makers of Ban Hat Hien, a small village across the road from the Luang Prabang International Airport.  Three years ago we had watched knives being created by the villagers out of recycled motor vehicle suspension leaf springs.

During this trip we also visited a Khmu village in the highlands outside of Luang Prabang where we encountered a 90 year old blacksmith making knives.

A new photo gallery of photographs on my photography website, documenting the knife making, is now available at the link below

http://www.hale-worldphotography.com/Laos/Knife-Makers-of-Laos/36637899_hmCg4d

Knife Makers of the LPDR

Khmu Knife Maker In the Highlands Near Luang Prabang

I enjoy witnessing and documenting handicrafts by the local peoples of Southeast Asia.  This affinity for appreciating and being fascinated by people making things for their everyday life stems back many years to when I was a child.  Our family for many years had a garden that supplied the kitchen with fresh vegetables.  In the Fall my mother would can tomatoes, and pickles.  Best of all we would scour the countryside for wild grapes that we would pick and my mother would magically turn into paraffin topped jars of exquisite grape jelly that would last until the next Fall.

In Southeast Asia there are still countless opportunities to experience people making do for themselves, their family, and their neighbors.  Depending upon the time of season there is rice planting, rice harvesting, peanut planting, peanut harvesting, cotton weaving, saht weaving, silk weaving, sugar cane planting, sugar cane harvesting, butchering of animals, weaving of fishing nets, fishing, making ethnic treats over outdoor charcoal fires, building gunpowder rockets, and many other interesting activities that help to definite the local cultures.

As a child back in Connecticut, we often went on field trips as part of a family outing or as part of a school class.  Two places that we went to often were Mystic Seaport and Old Sturbridge Village.  Mystic Seaport focuses on the New England whaling industry of the 18th and 19th century while Old Sturbridge Village deals with 18th and 19th century rural New England life.

Both the Seaport and the Village are living museums with people performing tasks and using the resources as well as the techniques available to our ancestors during the period that the museums focus upon.

Mystic Seaport Blacksmith Making Lantern Brackets

One of my favorite living exhibits at both of the museums was the blacksmiths.  The blacksmiths at Old Sturbridge Village were typically occupied making nails.  The blacksmiths at Mystic Seaport, if you were fortunate, would be making a harpoon head.  If you were not so fortunate they would be making brackets or hinges for ships.

I first encountered knife making in Southeast Asia in 2010 during our trip to Luang Namtha, Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR).  We ended up visiting many ethnic villages in the surrounding area.  One village that we visited was a Khmu village, Baan Sopsim, where several men were working together making knives.

That experience was a subject of a previous blog:

http://hale-worldphotography.blogspot.com/2010/02/village-blacksmiths-laos-day-3.html

Knife Making In Baan Sopsim

On our second trip to the former royal capital of Laos, Luang Prabang, we went out to a village, Ban Hat Hien, renowned for the resident's metalworking skills.  We witnessed knives being made out of recycled leaf springs from the suspensions of motor vehicles.

Once again our experience there was the subject of another blog entry:

http://hale-worldphotography.blogspot.com/2010/12/baan-hat-hien-blacksmith-village.html

Ban Hat Hien Knife Makers

On our last trip to LPDR in December 2013, we wanted to return to Baan Hat Hien to watch the people make knives out of the recycled steel.  On the morning of our second day in Luang Prabang, we drove out to Baan Hat Hien which is located next to the Luang Prabang International Airport.

We got out of our rented tuk tuk, a very small pick up truck - perhaps 1/2 ton capacity with very small wheels, and started to walk around the village.  Many things had changed.  There were more houses in the village than during our last visit three years ago.  Some of the wood, bamboo, and thatched houses had been upgraded to cinder block and corrugated metal houses.  The location where we first encountered knife making in the village was gone - replaced by a house.  The village square area was now filled with houses.  However as we walked along the road towards the village Vat we encountered a familiar sight - a man and his wife still banging together ... banging glowing bright yellow steel on the same makeshift anvil that they were three years ago to produce knives.  Their metal working operation in the front yard of their hoe along the village dirt road had not changed a bit.

After three years, still banging away, together

The man and his wife recognized us - I suspect that they don't get many foreign visitors who spend an hour with them, talking and taking photographs.

Wife tends to heating steel in a charcoal forced draft furnace(?)

Over the past three years, the division of labor between the husband and wife team had not changed.  The wife was responsible for heating the steel.  Her duties included tending to the charcoal fire that was utilized to heat the steel to a near white temperature.  She added bits of charcoal as required to keep the fire going and she turned on and off the small electrical fan that blew air underneath the fire to keep the fire hot enough for heating the steel. She held the shaped steel in the fire with long metal tongs.  With the same tongs, she quickly transferred the heated metal to the makeshift anvil located within arm's distance to her.  She held the heated, but quickly cooling, steel over the anvil as her husband banged on it to further shape it and commence to put an edge on what was to become a large heavy knife.  In concert with her husband and without any verbal communication she would move and turn the knife blank to facilitate the shaping process.

Shaping the knife blank

The steel cooled quickly from almost white to a bright yellow, on to a dull yellow, a bright red, to a cherry red, then on to dull red followed by a grey color.  When the steel got close to the grey color, the husband took over holding the knife blank and hitting it with the hammer while his wife pivoted to place another blank in the fire to heat up.  By the time the husband had completed his fine adjustments to the cooling steel shape, another piece of steel was hot enough for forging by the team.

Completed knife blanks were cooled, water quenched, in a tub of water between the husband and wife.  This process "freezes" the metallurgical structure of the steel so that it has acceptable properties for a knife.

Periodically the team would heat the up to then, neglected ends, of the knife.  Using long metal tongs, the husband would burn the hot end of the knife into prepared pieces of bamboo that became the handles for the knives.  This generated a great deal of smoke as the hot metal burned and also created steam as it penetrated the bamboo.

Burning A Bamboo Handle On To A Knife

After about half an hour, we left and moved on along the village road.  We walked towards the sounds of metal being forged and shortly came upon another family knife making enterprise.

As steel is  heated in the background, a young man grinds an edge on to a knife

This was a fairly large enterprise with about six people, not counting the children and their mothers who were watching close by - sometimes too close, involved in the metal working process.  There were also some family members next door involved in producing the charcoal that will be used in the fires to heat steel.

Mother and daughter working to make charcoal

I don't know exactly how many people were actually working to produce the charcoal.  There was a woman and her grown up daughter who were working their butts off - hauling wood up the hill, splitting the logs in two or four depending upon their size, and loading the split wood over a fire pit as part of the process to make charcoal.  Making charcoal, to simplify the process and explanation, is essentially baking wood.  Baking wood in an oxygen deficient atmosphere drives out the volatiles from the wood leaving behind carbon (char) that burns at the higher temperatures that are required to work steel.

A wife splitting log to be used to produce charcoal

There was an older man watching over the two women who were working so hard.

I did not see him working.  Through Duang I asked him why he was not working.  He replied that he was too old to work but that his young wife and his daughter were good workers.  I then asked him what I could do to get my wife to work so hard because my young wife does not work like that and I am too old too.  We all had a very good laugh except for his young grandson who was not all that thrilled to see a "falang" (white foreigner).

Splitting logs - Khmu style

Unfortunately for the little boy, we were around for a good while.  Duang had made a deal with the next door knife makers to buy a knife - a special knife.  She agreed to buy a good knife that could cut bone.  I expressed concern about a knife that could cut my bones to everyone's amusement.  Duang assured me that she would not cut my bone with the knife.  She said that if I were to be a "naughty boy" she would use the knife to cut something else on me that has no bone in it!  Everyone roared with laughter ... including me after feigning fear.  Everywhere we go in Thailand and Lao, the people enjoy and are ready for a good laugh.  Seldom do we leave them wanting.  It makes for a good time for all, gets everyone to relax and to be happy.  It often makes for better photographs too.  Oh - the other special thing about the knife was that we got to watch the people make Duang's knife from the very start.  The price of Duang's special knife - roughly $7.00 USD cash.  The cost of watching it being made from a piece of recycled steel - a few laughs mainly at my expense.  The price of spending some quality time with the knife makers of Ban Hat Hien - priceless

Making Duang's "Special Knife"

Our adventures into knife making in Lao was not over for this trip quite yet.  The next day we spent in the highlands overlooking Luang Prabang.  It was a day of unexplored territory and people for us.  It was a great day spent at Lao, Khmu, and Hmong villages.

At the first Khmu villages that we stopped at we came upon an old man making knives in his forge attached to back of his house.

Old Khmu Blacksmith

Working by himself he was producing knives like we had seen down in the valley.  These knives are all purpose utility knives.  They are used for butchering animals, harvesting sugar cane, food preparation, cutting firewood, and collecting food stuffs from the surrounding forest.  You will frequently see people of just about all ages with both a woven basket and one of these knives strapped to their backs.

There is a legion about Icarus who flew to close to the Sun which melted his wings resulting in him plunging into the sea and drowning.  The good blacksmith of the village did not get too close to the Sun but there is evidence that he has gotten too close to the fire.  Unlike Icarus the blacksmith has not perished, in fact he has thrived to be 90 years old.  The effect of his getting too close to the fire is that a portion of the plastic frames of his glasses have melted and deformed.

Our encounters with knife makers was concluded for that trip.  It had been very informative as well as entertaining.

I returned to Thailand once again with an appreciation and admiration how the people of this region are able to make do with what they have available to them.  The ability to fashion a living from their environment for me is an inspiration.  It is also testament to their self sufficiency.

Children Being ...

A Laughing Lao

One of the simple pleasures that Duang and I enjoy here in Isaan is observing the many small children that we encounter in the villages.

As soon as they are born, babies spend a great deal of time outside.  If they are not being held by their mother, grandmother or even great grandmother, babies are being rocked in hammocks suspended from the log columns of the thatched roofed elevated platforms that just about every home has in their front yard close to the narrow street.

Just about every passerby stops by to spend some time gossiping, eating, drinking and of course paying attention to the babies.  School children hustling along the village streets on their way home from school, stop by to play with the babies.  Babies develop surrounded by people of all ages.  Babies develop surrounded by the sights and sounds of an extended  family as well as community.

Once the babies are able to walk, their social circle widens greatly.  The toddlers are left to their own devices and although watched over by elders and perhaps older siblings, they are free to roam about the yard.  It is at this time that they start spending their time outdoors making friends and learning to play with cousins and neighbors.  If other children of their age are not available, there are always village dogs and chickens to occupy their attention.

By the time a child is two to three years old they are fairly well independent.  The entire village is their play yard.  They spend the daylight hours outside playing in the dirt, playing with bicycles, playing with rocks and sticks.  Puddles and mud are especially attractive to these toddlers.  You will come upon small groups of these children throughout the village - groups of focused, determined, confident, and vocal little people.

Khmu Children Interrupt Their Play to Watch the Visiting Foreigners

Our visits to Lao Peoples Democratic Republic are no exception - throughout Laos we find many groups of children playing and starting out on their life journeys.  On our last trip to the villages outside of Luang Prabang, Duang remarked at least twice that there were "many students (children) in the village, not have good, TV too much boom boom"  I suspect that the lack of quality television as well as the long and cold nights in the dry season does contribute to the large number of children.  Another factor is the demographics of the populations.  Thailand and Laos, as well as all of the other ASEAN countries are much younger populations than the USA.

Lao Children Huddle Over A Charcoal Fire at the Village Store

In the Lao Loum village of Xiang Muak or Ban Xiang Muark or Ban Xiang -Nouak (just as in Thailand the spelling of the native language villages and streets can vary and is subject to a great deal of interpretations), we encountered a small mixed group of heavily dressed children huddled around a small charcoal fire on the porch of the local market.  The children were bundled up and huddled around to escape the cold of the highland morning.  The children were as interested in us as we were in them.  We engaged in small talk with them for quite a while. The nine year old girl, the most outwardly member of the group, pulled a tuber out of the ashes of their fire, peeled it and gave it to me to eat.  It was a taro root and tasted similar to a sweet potato.  It is always rewarding for us to be able to bring some of the outside world to people especially children.  It does not escape us that as much as we are learning about the lives of the local people we are also teaching them about our life - a situation that we take very seriously.

Big Brother Watches Over His Little Brother

In another village we encountered two young brothers waiting as their young mother prepared food on the thatched roofed porch of their woven bamboo home.

AYoung Mother Prepares Food For Her Family

The home was a very humble abode - woven bamboo walls which allowed plenty of drafts in the home, a corrugated metal roof with an attached covered platform for preparing food and taking care of babies. As their mother cooked food over a charcoal stove, a gallon sized cement lined vessel, the baby played in his hand made crib suspended from the beams of the patio while his older brother divided his attention between his younger brother and his nearby mother.  I approached the home to speak with the children and to take some photographs.  Rather than being suspicious and perhaps apprehensive over a stranger approaching her home, the young mother was very welcoming.  This is a typical reaction here in southeast Asia, the people are extremely friendly and hospitable.  There are some hill tribes that are shy about being photographed so it is best, and always polite to ask permission first.

The children and their mother were dressed in heavy clothing to ward off the chill of the highland morning.  I suspect that the temperature was around 18C (65F) and the morning fog had just burned off.  Sixty-five degrees may seem a heat wave for early December in may Northern climes but hypothermia can be caused in elderly and babies overnight in a 60F house.  Drafts and moisture increase the risk of hypothermia.  In Thailand the government donates thousands of blankets every year that are distributed by the Royal Thai Army in the highlands to assist the people to survive the cold season.

Visiting and talking with the young mother brought back memories for Duang when she was a young child living in a woven bamboo house without much food.  Upon leaving the family, Duang gave some money to the mother.  I have always been impressed with Duang's compassion and her generosity continues.

Young Boy "Helps" His Father Make A Knife

In another part of the village we spent quite a bit of time with some knife makers.  The situation developed that one of the knife makers ended up making a knife specifically for Duang.  It was a great opportunity for me to photograph the entire process of producing a knife from recycled leaf springs of motor vehicles.  I had photographed knife making in the Luang Prabang area three years earlier and in the Luang Namtha area.  However just as in visiting the same location more than once, photographing the process a third time allowed me to recognize the nuances and different details missed previously.  At this stop, I was entertained by the knife maker's son who hovered over his father and even interfered a couple times with his father's work.

The boy seemed to be torn between the curiosity about a strange man visiting his family's business and a naturally reservation about something completely foreign to him.  Standing by and over his father seemed to meet his needs - to learn and observe the foreigner up close but still be within the safety zone afforded by his father.

Khmu Boys

In a Khmu village we found a man busy making bird snares.  We saw children at play throughout the village.  Our presence in the village interrupted the play of some of the children.  Shortly after we arrived and set up taking photographs several little boys joined us.

Although they interrupted their play, one boy continued to chew on a piece of freshly cut sugar cane.  One of his friends was completely oblivious to the fact that he was completely naked from the waist down.  When I asked him where his pants were, he just smiled and laughed with no sign of embarrassment or care - just happy and content with his situation.

Two of the boys had been playing by rolling a motorcycle tire around the village much like I had read about children playing with hoops in the earlier days of America,  The tire that the boys were playing with did not have a rim or wheel.  No problem.  The villagers had bamboo.  You can do just about anything with bamboo - eat it, build scaffolding with it, make a raft with it, build furniture out of it, cook in it, build shelter with it, create lacquer ware with it, support bean plants with it, make ladders out of it, make bird snares out of it, make rat snares out of it and now I saw how it can be used to make a wheel.  The wheel could never be used on a bicycle, motorcycle, car , tuk-tuk or truck but the wheel was fit for the purpose of allowing a tire to be rolled around using a short piece of bamboo.

Pieces of bamboo had been cut to fit inside of the rubber tire and woven together to keep the tire round or at least round enough to roll along the dirt paths and dirt roads of the village.  Once again fit for purpose and the ingenuity of local peoples made the most of what was available to them.  I suspect that these children have never been and will never will be bored.  Imagination and practicality go far in meeting any one's needs.

Khmu Village Boys Playing Petanque

Village children in Southeast Asia are free.  They are, by and large, free to play amongst themselves without adult interference.  There are no organized and adult supervised youth soccer teams, no Little League Baseball Teams, no cheer leading teams, no CYO basketball leagues, no swim clubs, or even youth bowling leagues.  The children are free to pick their sports, their teams, officiate their own competitions.  There are no adults imposing their will and choices upon the children.  Most importantly there no adults interfering with the disputes that arise from competition as well as all the childhood issues that cause disputes.  The children have the freedom to resolve their own disputes.  They have the opportunities to learn the arts of negotiation and skills of compromise on their own and at their own pace.  They are empowered rather than coddled. At an early age they learn to solve their own problems.

What Some Children Have to Do To Go Outside to Play

I was first introduced to the French game of petanque when I lived in Algeria.  Just as Algeria, Lao Peoples Democratic Republic (LPDR) was a French colony.  The French, besides bringing French cooking and French pastry to their colonies, they also introduced petanque.  Thailand, previously known as Siam, was never colonized by European powers.  However here in Isaan, people do play petanque undoubtedly another cultural connection to their Lao Loum cousins across the Mekong River in the LPDR.

Petanque is a team competition were a small ball is tossed down a a rectangular court usually compacted earth or sand but sometimes, especially in the case with children, a strip of ground as it exists.  Teams then take turns tossing heavy metal balls towards the small ball at the other end of the court.  The object is to get closest to the small ball.  You have a choice to make when you toss your ball down the court. You can flat out try to get your ball closest to the small ball or you can attempt to knock your opponent's ball away from the small ball so that one of your team's balls becomes closest. One point is earned for each completed round.  The match ends after 10 minutes with the winning team being the one with the most points.  In the case of children without watches they just play until they get bored.

In the adjacent village, a Hmong village, we discovered some children, boys and girls, playing what appeared to be a game of war.  A game with picking up logs, throwing them, running to them to throw them again all the while yelling.

Hmong Boys Playing Spinning Tops

Further into the village we found our third group of the day playing with spinning tops. Tujlub is a game where a heavy wood top is set to spinning people then take turns tossing their spinning tops trying to knock out the original top and cease its spinning.  Often children play a variation where they just toss their spinning top at the center of a circle and watch the collisions.

The top are home made carved solid pieces of heavy wood.  The free end of plastic strapping is wrapped around the top.  The other end of the plastic strapping is tied to the end of a stick.  The top is tossed out and as it flies through the air the stick is jerked in the opposite direction to impart a spin to the top.  I tried it once an failed miserably much to the amusement of the onlooking children.

Letting the top fly and spin

As we sat in the back of our hired tuk-tuk bouncing along the dirt road on our way back to Lunag Prabang, we were both very pleased to have witnessed so many children ... so many children being children.  These were confident and independent children preparing for their adult lives.

The greatest gift that parents can give their children can not be purchased.  The gift is not shielding them from the challenges of life or the realities of life. The gift is to empower their children to be confident, to allow them to make mistakes, to allow them to solve their own problems ... to let them be children.

Build a better ...

Khmu man making bird snares

There is a popular saying in the USA that states "Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door"

The saying is actually a misquote of Ralph Waldo Emerson's words "If a man has good corn or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods."

On our recent trip to Luang Prabang, Lao People's Democratic Republic (Laos), we traveled broad hard beaten and dusty dirt roads not through the woods but rather the jungles of highlands to visit some less visited villages.  What we found was unexpected.  What we found was extremely interesting.  What we found was not a better mousetrap but apparently some pretty darn good rat and bird snares.

Since this trip was our third to the region, we had several places that we wanted to revisit.  However by the third day we had visited most of those places.  I knew that our guide had developed a good sense of what interested us.  On the morning of the third day, he asked us where we wanted to go.  I replied that we would rely upon his judgement as to where we would go.  He said that he knew of some villages, Lao, Khmu, and Hmong that not many tourists visited.  Sounded good to us!

We set off and were soon bouncing along a dirt road that climbed up through the cool highland morning mists.  We drove higher and higher surrounded by verdant peaks.  After a lengthy visit to a traditional Lao village we visited two Khmu villages.

Traditional Khmu Houses

There was a great deal of activity in the villages.  Rice was drying out in the sun along with beans, each on their separate tarps.  An old blacksmith was busy making a large cane knife in his foundry attached to the back of his thatched roofed woven bamboo house.  The sharp metallic staccato of his striking the hot metal with a heavy hammer on his improvised anvil echoed throughout the village.

Children skited about rolling bicycle and motorcycle tires much like children did many years ago in America.  Other children congregated to check out the strangers that had just appeared in their village interrupting the the monotony of a simple life.

Village dogs acknowledged our presence more out curiosity than any sense of duty or sense to intimidate.

Khmu Man Constructing A Rat Snare

Shortly after commencing to explore the village, we encountered a man working.  He was making homemade snares to capture rats.  The snares were to be placed on trails frequented by rats in the nearby jungle.  The snared rats would then be brought back to the village to be eaten,

It was very interesting to watch the man craft the intricate snare out of natural locally available materials other than the braided nylon string.  Tubes, rods, straps, loops, and peg components for the snares were fashioned from the readily available and free of cost bamboo.

Khmu Man Making Bird Snares

Further into the village, we came upon another man building snares.  The snares that this man was constructing were more intricate and, in my opinion, bordered on being works of art - sort of like kinetic sculpture.  Through our driver we learned that these snares were for catching birds.

Just as in the case of the rat snares, other than the nylon braided line, all components of the bird snare were fashioned from local bamboo.  To produce the various components of snare from the bamboo, the craftsman used a handmade large knife and for a vise to secure the raw material to be worked, he used his bare feet.

 

 



The craftsman was very friendly as he continued to fashion his snares next to a smoldering fire that gave some warmth against the early morning chill of the Lao Highlands.  For added warmth he was wearing a large, several sizes too large, jacket.  In addition to us he was soon joined by other people - curious children.  Two young boys interrupted their play to join the snare maker while chewing on a freshly cut sugar cane.

Sugar Cane Chewing Boys Join the Snare Maker

 

With gnarled and weathered fingers bearing testament to a long life of subsistence living, the snare maker expertly fashioned the components into working snares.  One reason that I enjoy visiting the peoples of outlying villages is to see how they live and to photograph how they are able to survive by exploiting local resources and relying upon themselves.  I, with my engineering degree and over 40 years of work experience, could not help but contemplate how long I could survive in similar circumstances.  I am continually amazed at the talents and skills of people that I encounter, people who lack the formal education and experience of living in technically as well as self-perceived "advanced" societies.  Whereas I would expect to survive 3 to 5 days in their situation, the peoples manage to survive, thrive and in many cases remain happy into advanced age.

Our Guide Purchases Some Bird Snares

 "Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door" or rather the proper quote "If a man has good corn or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods." was confirmed during our visit to the Khmu village.  The craftsman was not producing a better mousetrap but was making bird snares.  I don't know if they were better snares than what other people produce.  They looked fine to me and seemed very fit for purpose.  However our guide was someone who knew of these matters and had experience with those things.  He spoke with the craftsman and closely inspected the bird snares.  After a while he ended up buying five snares from the man.

Our guide said that often his family go off and have picnics.  He said that the snares would be very helpful for those family outings to catch some birds to eat.

Having completed our visit to the village we returned to that broad hard-beaten road through the jungle to go on to the next village and what encounters along with any amazement that could be awaiting us there.

Wonders and amazement along the back roads of Laos were awaiting us.

Wonders and amazement await all of us along the journey of this life.

New Gallery Available - "Ban Sopsim - Khmu Village"

A new photo gallery, "Ban Sopsim - Khmu Village", is now available for viewing

http://www.hale-worldphotography.com/Travel/Ban-Sopsim-Khmu-Village/11486319_sPc5g#808160675_CspZx

The Village Blacksmith(s) - Laos Day #3

The Village Blacksmith

"UNDER a spreading chestnut-tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.
His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns whate'er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man. ... " Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

On our "leisure" day trip on Wednesday, 27 January, we encountered the village blacksmiths in the Khmu village of Baan Sopsim. Lacking a spreading chestnut tree, the blacksmiths toiled under a thatched roof lean-to that was attached to some one's home. Outside of their smithy shop, women tended to babies and kept watch over the older children who were occupied with their play. The wood stairway leading up into the home made both a convenient seat and observation post for two of the mothers. Off to the side, a grandmother stood crocheting a fine meshed nylon bag typically used for holding fish or snails gathered in the nearby river.

When we first arrived in Sopsim, we did not see the blacksmiths. Our attention was drawn to some woman and children. The woman were sewing and doing embroidery. The children were busy running around and playing - agitated by the arrival of a foreigner. We started to hear sounds of metal banging upon metal in an almost rhythmic cadence from across the dirt road that bisects the village. We crossed the road and investigated.

There were several men engaged in making new knives and spears for spear guns. There appeared to be just as many men watching as well as socializing with the workers. This is typical in Laos as well as in Isaan. Manchester United Football team's slogan is "You Never Walk Alone" A similar slogan could be adapted for Lao culture - "You never work alone" You may not necessarily have someone helping you but you will most certainly have some one watching you.

There was a charcoal fire about the size of a small Campbell's Soup can where the steel was heated in and over. Next to the fire was a round cylinder about 8 inches in diameter which appeared to be wood and about 18 inches long with two 1/2 inch diameter pipes coming out of its side and running underneath the small fire. One end of the cylinder was completely sealed off. The other end of the cylinder was sealed with a membrane that had a small diameter metal rod penetrating its center. At the exposed end of the metal rod there was a wood "T" handle that a young man diligently grasped as he continuously drove the the rod back and forth into the cylinder. The in and out motion of the rod caused air to be forced into the fire to create the higher temperatures necessary for forging the steel. The home made forced draft "fan" or quasi-bellows was very similar to the device that I had recently seen on television related to ancient Chinese technology of over 1,000 years ago. Absolutely fascinating - air was forced into the fire on each push as well as pull stroke of the rod. We watched for quite awhile. Duang asked if I could work the bellows. I made a crude remark about having to place my hand around the rod in a different position to stroke the rod. I used the Lao term for the action (practise?) and the men laughed like crazy. Unfortunately the laugh was not at my expense but at the expense of the young man who had been stroking the rod for so long. He became embarrassed with their teasing and left for a short time. His friend took over but quickly turned over the task to the first young man when he returned. It was all very good natured teasing like you would expect amongst family members or very good friends.



One of the men was alternatively heating some thin steel in the fire and pounding upon it with a medium sized ball peen hammer to turn it into a knife shape. His "anvil" was a spike shaped piece of steel with a 3 inch square head driven into a large diameter hardwood log that was laying on its side underneath the thatched roof.

Next to the anvil a man was busy cutting a small diameter steel pipe. He did not have any electric tools. He did not have a hacksaw or even a hacksaw blade. He was using a file and a heavy knife along with the ball peen hammer to cut the tube. Further back, a man was preparing to put a hole in a piece of wood. He did not have a bit and brace. He did not have a hand drill. He did not even have a twisted drill bit. He was using a red hot steel rod to burn a hole in the wood. Wisps of smoke rose in spirals as the hot steel burned its way into the wood while he twisted the rod.


Another man was carving a piece of wood to be the knife handle. The tapered end of the knife blade would be driven into the hole at the end of the wood handle. Throughout this Lao trip, we saw men walking along the roads and into the forest with their long handled knife strapped to their waist in scabbards made from woven bamboo. The people are very much self sufficient and quite adapt at making do with what resources are readily available to them.

Another blacksmith was occupied in forging parts for a spear gun or rather more accurately a "spear pistol". We had seen several young men walking near the river carrying pistol sized guns that shot spears made out of 3/32 inch metal rods. The devices are used to catch fish.

While he worked on the spear gun, the other blacksmith, was sharpening one of his new knife blades on a piece of sandstone. The sandstone was a piece of rock that had been struck and cleaved to form a fairly flat raw surface that he poured some of the water from the wooden tempering trough to lubricate, cool, as well as create a slurry that he rubbed the steel over and over. Besides creating a cutting edge on the knife blade, he rubbed the backside of the blade to smooth the edges and square the side.


"He earns what'er he can

And Looks the whole world in the face,

For he owes not any man ... "

Recently I was asked how is poor defined in this culture. I responded that the people do not have many material possessions but they are able to care for themselves as well as their families. In this culture spiritual well being and happiness are also considered measures of wealth. Rather than pitying these people for all the material goods that they lack, I am awed by their ability to survive in the conditions that they find themselves in. I joke with Duang that I would be dead in two weeks.

Rather than being poor they are wealthy in the sense that just as Longfellow's Village Blacksmith could they too can look the while world in the face for they owe not any man.

How many of us are that rich?