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.

The Games That Some People Play ...

A Hmong Young Man Plays Pov Pob

The games that some people play ... is not about deception, cheating, or the manipulation of human emotions or social intercourse.

The games that some people play ... is not about politics or even politicians.

The games that some people play ... is not about international affairs involving Iran, North Korea, the USA, or any other country.

This blog is literally about some of the games that we saw the Hmong people playing during our trip to Laos in early December 2010.

A Hmong Beauty Prepares to Catch A Ball

We had gone up to Luang Prabang to once again witness the Hmong New Years Celebration.  The Hmong people in Laos celebrate New Year after the harvest and in accordance to the stage of the moon in accordance with their lunar calendarr.  It is a time for the people from various clans to get together and socialize when there is a lull in the field work.  During the Hmong New Years celebration there are spiritual rituals and observances that are rather private and mostly limited to family members. During the public aspects of the celebration there is traditional music, traditional dancing, traditional clothing, eating drinking, gambling, and socializing.  The public activities are very interesting events for at least four of the five senses - propriety limits the opportunities for the sense of touch.  Socializing besides involving sharing gossip includes playing games.

Hmong Girls Playing Pov Pob

The most widely known Hmong game is most likely "Pov Pob".  Pov Pob is a ball tossing game.  It is played throughout the year in Laos but it is special during the New Years festival.  Especially in the older times it was difficult for young Hmong men and young Hmong women to find potential mates.  Hmong people are forbidden to marry within their clan.  Since the villages are often made up exclusively of a single clan and the burdens of farming leave little time to go off in search of a potential mate.  It was at the meeting of various clans at the New Year Festival that the young people had an opportunity to meet potential husbands and wives.  This tradition continues today for the Hmong people in the Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR).

Pov Pob In Progress at the New Years Festival

Pov Pob is described as an activity for adolescents and akin to a courtship ritual.  That is true just as it is true to describe dancing as a fertility ritual in the United States.  Although it is true in both situations, the description is incomplete and also not completely accurate.  Just as you will see very elderly people in the USA dancing to the tunes of their youth and thoroughly enjoying themselves, you will observe older Hmong people playing Pov Pob.  The older Hmong people participating in Pov Pob like the adolescents are looking for a mate.  They are either divorced or widowed however there are some who are looking for an additional mate.  Polygamy is illegal in Laos but some old cultural practices still remain albeit not commonly.  During our visit last month we found a middle aged man who with the assistance of his middle aged wife was courting an 18 year old girl to be his wife.

Young Boy Holding a Traditional Hmong Ball for Pov Pob

Willing, if not yet capable of playing "Pov Pob"

Along with the adolescents and older  people playing the match game, there are plenty of young children who also participate in their own way in pov pob - sort of like young children dancing back in America - they imitate their older siblings and just because it is FUN.

Hmong Teenaged Men Participating in Pov Pob

Because of the match making possibilities of Pov Pob during the New Year Festival, girls wear the best traditional Hmong clothing.  Their garments are colorful, emblazoned with intricate embroidered designs.  The girls and women also wear their traditional Hmong silver jewelry.  Their ensemble is often topped off with a traditional and colorful hat.  To a lesser extent boys and young men will wear elaborate if not traditional clothing. 

Sometimes a person has to generalize in order to describe or to approach any semblance of effective communication.  The mere fact that it is a generalization means that the description is not 100% accurate for all cases and circumstances.  As is the case for most things in life there are exceptions.  In order to describe Pov Pob I will be generalizing.

A Girl Sings As She Prepares to Catch A Ball

In general girls and boys form two lines facing each other.  A small soft cloth ball, or a tennis ball, or sometimes an orange is lobbed back and forth between the lines.  Girls can throw to girls but boys are not allowed to toss to another boy.  In addition you are not allowed to lob the ball to a member of your own clan.  The person on the receiving end of the toss catches the ball with one hand.  If you are "interested" in someone you toss the ball to them.  If a boy makes a good throw to a girl and she doesn't try to catch it, she is letting him know not too subtly that she is not interested him.

If you make a good lob to someone and they drop the ball or miss catching the ball, the person is supposed to take a piece of their costume, a piece of silver, or  a bell from their costume to the person across from them.  To get the ornament or trinket back, the person has to sing to the person opposite them.  The singing and ball tossing are ice breakers for the people.   For those who are playing the game to find a match, 15 years and older, if they make a love connection they and the person who is also interested in them will leave the game.  The pair go off to get to know each other better.  If they determine that they are right for each other they will publicly announce their intentions three days later and will be married about three weeks later when the moon is right - a new moon.

A Private and Personal Pov Pob - Perhaps a Prelude to Much More



A Spinning Top Is Hurled Down Field

During this trip to the Hmong people in Laos, Duang and I watched another Hmong game called "Tujlub" (Spinning Tops) which is played by men and boys.  We watched a spinning top match on our first day in the field that served as a parking lot at one of the two festival sites that we visited throughout our stay in Luang Prabang.

The tops are carved out of very dense hardwood.  They reminded me a great deal of  turnips that were cooked for Thanksgiving dinners back in Connecticut.  A heavy cotton string about 3 or 4 meters (9 to 12 feet) long is wrapped very tightly around the wood top.  The other end of the heavy string is attached to a stick about 4 to 5 cm in diameter (1-1/2 in. to 2 in.) and 60 to 90 cm (2 - 3 feet) long.  The top is held in one hand the stick in the other hand.  The top is thrown down field while at the same time the stick is jerked downwards in a whip like or slashing motion.

The rules for playing Tujlub differ from location to location.  For the match that we watch, this appeared to be how the game was played.  There were two teams of three players each.  The first team went down the hardened dirt pitch about 10 meters (30 feet) and set their tops spinning in a somewhat tight grouping in a slightly recessed area which reminded me of a greatly worn horseshoe pit.  Once the tops were set about spinning the other team members one by one heaved their tops at the spinning stationary tops to strike them; driving them out of the area and stopping their spinning.  Apparently points were awarded for every top that was stopped by the second team.

One of the Target Tops Is Set to Spinning While One Is Already Spinning

The process was repeated again about 20 meters from the starting line and once again about 30 meters from the starting line.  After completing the three distances, the teams swapped positions with the second team setting up their tops spinning at the predetermined distances and the first team attempting to hit the spinning tops by hurling their tops down field.


A Spinning Top About To Escape From Its Line

It was amazing how often a spinning top was hit by a hurled top.  The sound of the colliding wood tops was like the sharp crack of a well hit baseball with a hickory bat.  From my position down field I had a clear and impressive view of how fast and powerful the tops were hurled towards their targets.  I was also impressed and extremely grateful as to how accurate the players were.


A Player Puts All That He Has Into His Hurl

At the other end of the festival site, men - older and appearing to be of a higher social status, were playing petanque.  Petanque is similar to bocce.  It is a French game whose current form was developed in 1907.  It is played with metal balls on a hard compacted dirt or gravel rectangular area.

A Petanque Player In Vientiane, LPDR

A small wood ball is thrown and points are earned by throwing or rolling the larger metal balls closer to it than the other team's attempts similar to bocce and not that much different than horse shoes.  Perhaps the saying of "Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades" should be modified to "Close only counts in horseshoes, bocce, petanque and hand grenades as well as nuclear weapons".

Part of the game strategy in addition to getting your balls closet to the wood ball called "cochonnet" is also to knock your opponent's ball away from the wood ball so that yours are closer or his are eliminated from the pitch.


Petanque Players Figuring Out Who Is Closest

The penchant for playing petanque is a legacy of French colonialism here in Southeast Asia.  There is a factory that produces petanque balls (boule) in Vientiane, Laos.  Although the French never colonized Thailand, petanque is played here in Isaan.  I suspect the interaction of Thailand's Lao Loum population with their cousins across the Mekong River in Lao People's democratic Republic goes a long ways towards explaining its popularity here.  I have played some with my brother-in-law and the Tahsang Village officials.  It is a nice game to play when the weather is hot and the beer is ice cold.

Playing Petanque Along the Bank of the Mekong River In Laos

It was interesting to see how people in a different culture entertain and amuse themselves.  A common denominator for all three of the games was the fact that people were making do with what was readily and perhaps more importantly what was cheaply available to them.  Their games did not involve a great deal of investment of time, equipment, space, or energy.  The Hmong games were also very social events with participants socializing as much as they were competing.

You Can Bet On That ...

Gambling is illegal here in Thailand.

But as former US President, Bill Clinton, is quoted "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is", here in Thailand it depends on what the meaning of the word 'gambling' is. Just as it is most likely in the United States and else where in the world, it also depends on where and how the word is applied. Just as it makes a difference if the word is applied to conduct in the White House or in your house, there is a difference here in Thailand as to where and how the word 'gambling' is applied.

There are no casinos here in Thailand. There are casinos across the border in Laos, officially known as the Lao People's Democratic Republic. It seems rather ironic that a one party political system would refer to themselves as "Democratic" or a "Republic" but I guess to some extent we are all culpable for the names we selected or prefer to use to describe or to identify ourselves. It is almost as if selecting the proper word absolves us of all behaviors, omissions, and transgressions. It is also ironic that a Communist state would be home for gambling casinos though my understanding is that Lao citizens can not gamble at the casinos.

There are also casinos in Malaysia. Malaysia is a secular Muslim state so guards at the bottom of the mountain going up to the casino check the identity of the people traveling the road to ensure that no Muslims are going to go up and gamble. I have been to the casino in Malaysia - sort of. I can not describe what it is like to gamble there. My understand that you are not given free drinks while you gamble. The casino also said that I could not gamble without wearing a tie. They rented ties for people who arrive without one of their own for $7.00 USD. That was the last straw for me ... I rationalize the loss at the tables as the cost of a night's entertainment largely offset by the free alcohol and free shows. To charge rent for a tie in order to "take" my money and not getting me drunk or at least feeling better about losing was too much for me to accept. We ate dinner at the casino and spent the night in a naturally cool room in the Genting Highlands high above the hot and humid remaining regions of the rest of Malaysia. The highlight of the stay was to open the window and door of our room and watch the clouds pass through.

Back to Thailand and more specifically here in Isaan - gambling is illegal. "Games of Chance" conducted on Buddhist temple grounds are acceptable. We have attended numerous festivals at Wats over the past three years. The festivals were to celebrate religious holidays and sometimes were to raise funds to support the Wat. At every celebration there were "Games of Chance" where people paid money to have the opportunity to win a prize. The games of chance are very similar to games that you would encounter at county or state fairs back in the USA. People pay a small amount of money to throw thee darts at inflated balloons - three punctured balloons with three dart throws earns a "prize". People pay money to shoot air rifles at moving targets - so many hits out of so many shots earns a "prize". People pay money to pluck a small plastic floating duck out of a big pool of water with the number written on the bottom of the floating duck corresponding to a "prize" on the rack. For people who are not into the athleticism required for shooting, throwing, or netting, you can pay your money, select a short piece of plastic drinking straw. Inside the straw is a piece of rolled up paper with a number on it. The number corresponds to a prize on display.

I have seen backyard card games amongst neighbors. I have seen dice games outside of funeral rituals. I have seen money changing hands at gunpowder rocket launching competitions. I have seen rocket launches delayed until the "financial arrangements" were acceptable. Like I read in a tourist pamphlet from Laos where they proudly proclaimed themselves as " a democracy with one political party", I can report that gambling is illegal in Thailand. The dichotomy of the Laotian and Thai statements add to the rich fabric of life here in Southeast Asia. It is the nuances and juxtaposition of what is supposed to be and what is reality here that makes life interesting as well as entertaining.

I have seen many "games of chance" (remember gambling is illegal) and yesterday at the Wat in the middle of no where - here in Isaan, I saw a new "game of chance". This game involved a circular arena constructed out of recycled cardboard boxes and bamboo. There were 24 pieces of bamboo penetrating the base of the cardboard ring with a number written above each penetration. In the center of the approximately 12 foot diameter arena, there was an inverted translucent plastic Tupperware type container. A string was attached to the container and ran through a loop to a table outside of the ring where prizes were on display.

At the start of each game, a man went around the arena and sold a piece of paper with one of the numbers from 1 to 24 written on it. The price for each ticket was 5 baht - roughly $0.15 USD. He had no problem quickly selling the 24 tickets for each game. People of all ages were 3 to 4 deep around the cardboard walls of the arena eager to participate. Once the tickets were all sold, there was a announcement and some hype as another man pulled on the string to lift the inverted container revealing a mouse. Now unrestrained the mouse, ran around the arena looking for a way out. Eventually to the accompaniment of yells, shouts, and incantations in Isaan (a Lao dialect) plus some spirited slapping of hands against the cardboard walls, the mouse would run into one of the bamboo penetrations. The number above the selected penetration determined the "winner" of that game. The prize was a small plastic bucket filled with small household products such as soap, candles, talcum powder, small boxes of juice or soy milk. I later found out that the prize cost about 60 Baht so a profit of 60 baht (roughly $2.00 USD) was realized from each running of the game. All profits were going to be donated to the Wat.

The mice were not professionals or pure bred mice. They were typical field mice that are found in the rice and sugar cane fields here in Isaan. I am certain that they can also be found in many of the village homes. Most of the mice used in the game had long tails so that when they entered one of the bamboo tubes a portion of their tail remained outside to be used to extract the mouse from the tube. However one mouse did not have a very long tail. Just as in the Americans With Disabilities Act, this mouse was not excluded from participating in the game. Reasonable accommodation was provided which allowed this mouse to participate. A short piece of blue plastic string was tied to the mouse's hind leg which was used to extract the mouse from its selected tube.

After the running of each game, the mouse was placed into a covered 5 gallon plastic bucket and a new "fresh" mouse was placed under the inverted container in the middle of the arena.

I have heard stories and seen some movie scenes on some the odd things that people would bet on. This was the first time that I had seen mice involved in a game of chance.



You can bet on that ... even in Thailand but it is not gambling! It is a game of chance for a good cause.