DSpace at VNU: Community-Based Videos and Migration Issues: The Case of the Thai Community in Hanoi

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Visual Anthropology: Published in cooperation with the Commission on Visual Anthropology

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Community-Based Videos and Migration Issues: The Case of the Thai Community

in Hanoi

Nguyen Truong Giang Published online: 24 Apr 2013

To cite this article: Nguyen Truong Giang (2013) Community-Based Videos and Migration Issues:

The Case of the Thai Community in Hanoi, Visual Anthropology: Published in cooperation with the Commission on Visual Anthropology, 26:3, 204-214, DOI: 10.1080/08949468.2013.775213

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08949468.2013.775213

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Community-Based Videos and Migration Issues: The Case of the Thai Community

in Hanoi

Nguyen Truong Giang

After decolonization, Thai cadres from the Northwest and elsewhere in Vietnam were appointed to government posts in Hanoi The Thai community in Hanoi has since grown into a large, closed community The researchers and Thai community members recorded, discussed and analyzed challenges of migration by highlighting the voices and views of insiders Migration to Vietnamese urban areas raises broader global and regional issues not new to anthropology, including the preservation of ethnic traditions, integration, and changing perceptions of social status This case study offers a new perspective on these issues, using the method of community-based video and providing an opportunity for self-expression for the Thai community

COMMUNITY-BASED VIDEO: A NEW MEANS OF COMMUNICATION AND PUBLIC SELF-EXPRESSION

Community-based video (CBV) is a new filmmaking approach in visual anthro-pology Advances in small-sized, affordable digital video recording and editing equipment have created new possibilities for voice and image recording In recent years community-based videos have been produced in several countries, especially in China, the United States, Canada and Vietnam.1CBV is an impor-tant contribution to the field of visual anthropology that leads to new trends in anthropological research and ethnic studies

In the 21st century anthropology is concerned with broad sociopolitical issues such as human rights, gender equality, religious freedom, ethnic identity and issues of ethnic and national borders In this context community-based videos set up close co-operation between researchers and the communities involved during the filmmaking process Because the stories told in these films are chosen,

NGUYEN TRUONGGIANG is a visual anthropologist at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, part of Hanoi National University He also serves as a documentary filmmaker for the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology Dr Giang’s films have been screened at various documentary film festivals, including A Pottery Seller (in Vietnam, 2005), Stories About Festivals: Voices from Communities (Smithsonian, 2008), We the Tai People (Yunfest China, 2009) and The Rag-and-Bone Man, A Peasant in the Town (Yamagata festival, 2011) E-mail: truonggiangvme96

@yahoo.com.vn

Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN: 0894-9468 print=1545-5920 online DOI: 10.1080/08949468.2013.775213

204

expressed and edited by members of the communities themselves, they can be seen as genuine representations from their own point of view Consequently the CBV approach addresses humanistic concerns in a fully participatory and ethical manner

This article explores the question of how a community-based video approach provides a new means of communication and public self-expression This ques-tion will be investigated through the case study of a CBV project with the Thai community in Hanoi The Thai CBV film is part of a larger ongoing project begun

in 2006 and expected to conclude in 2012 that includes films made on the subsidy period in Hanoi, the Thai people in Hanoi and Dao people in Ha Giang.2

To date, much of the research on media in Vietnam has focused on the role of newspapers, television, radio, publishing and government-issued magazines, all

of which strictly control information before releasing it to the public These estab-lished media outlets have been heavily influenced by specific administrative bodies so as to meet particular national objectives; and therefore there is a focus

on a scripted approach to the presentation of information so as to guide public opinion For example, filmmaking in Vietnam is structured so that overall the film studio is in charge, followed by the film director, the script editors, the cam-era person, then the main actor=actress and others Film ideas and content always illustrate topics of current issues and events There are very few films or videos that are concerned with the feelings and lives of specific communities In this context, the collaborative, bottom-up approach of community-based videos becomes a new means of communication in Vietnam

Community-based video also uses new filmmaking methods It is a collabor-ation between the researcher, who takes on the role of facilitator with a ‘‘seed’’ idea, and the people of specific communities, who take active roles in the whole filmmaking process Community members shoot film, discuss community con-cerns, express their opinions and attitudes, edit video content and structure and provide key feedback in the creation of the rough-cut and final film Original footage and rough-cuts of the videos are screened so as to gather feedback that will be incorporated into the final cut of the videos These therefore present views and opinions of insiders without the influence of outsiders They are a self-expression of the specific community, created from their stories and views, real stories in real contexts; therefore the goal is to present a genuine portrait through the real experiences of the lives of specific communities Broader issues and generalizations can be raised by the researchers but the specific illustrations, stories and viewpoints are contributed and chosen by the communities

OVERVIEW OF THE THAI COMMUNITY MIGRATION TO HANOI

Migration involves the movement of people and=or communities of specific ethnicities from one place to another In recent years, it has followed two main trends: first, internal migration from rural to urban areas caused by the pull of economic potentialities and possible employment; second, external or inter-national migration from one country to another, prompted by political, kinship

or other reasons.3Both trends have shaped the migrations of the Thai community

in the latter half of the 20th century

There are several reasons for the migration of Thai people from their home villages in Son La and Dien Bien, in the northern highlands of Vietnam, following the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 According to memories of Thai people living in Hanoi after 1954, Deo Van Long, the Phong Th District Chief

in Lai Chaˆu province, who had co-operated with the French, pushed a portion

of the Thai community (mainly the noble Thai families and Thai people who had served in the Thai battalions of the French colonial government) to migrate

to the south of Vietnam and settle down in Tung Nghia, Da Lat These forced migrants were those people who were unwilling to co-operate with the new socialist government, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, which had been founded in the North following the August 1945 revolution and firmly estab-lished after the battle at Dien Bien Phu Another part of the Thai community, con-sisting of wealthy families, was forced into exile in Laos, whence they moved on

to the United States or to Thailand; there they were concentrated mainly in Napa-nat village, Loi province, Udonthani, and Phetburi In addition, some Thai noble-men went to France However, at this time most of the Thai people, and particularly those who had taken part in the Indochinese War of Resistance against French colonization, stayed in their home villages in northwest Vietnam The migration of the Thai community to Hanoi occurred in two separate waves, each with different motivations The first wave came after 1954, following the victory at Dien Bien Phu This wave consisted of both Thai soldiers aiding in the fight against the French, and Kinh (the Viet ethnic majority) cadres serving in governmental bodies in the northwest provinces who brought their wives and children to settle in Hanoi The second wave began after 1975 In 1975, after the defeat of the Americans and the reunification of North and South Vietnam, the Northwest Autonomous Zone was dissolved A number of Thai cadres who had held official posts in that Autonomous Zone were subsequently appointed to posts in the Central Government in Hanoi, to serve as representa-tives of their regions.4During this period there were also a large number of Thai students in universities and colleges, particularly those attending the Central Eth-nic Pre-University.5After graduation many students stayed in Hanoi to work in government or academic institutions.6

A number of Thai people have also migrated to Hanoi through marriage: Thai men who have married a Kinh wife, or vice versa According to 1999 Hanoi popu-lation and housing statistics, the Thai community consisted of 800 people work-ing in sectors such as: government administration, study and research, education and training, trade and service, and art and performance Over the course of the several migration waves that spanned more than 50 years, Thai people have created a close and cohesive community in Hanoi

SELF-EXPRESSION OF THE THAI COMMUNITY’S STORY IN HANOI Community-based video is a filmmaking method, as we have said, that is new to Vietnam, differing from the approach discussed above This method helps film-makers identify typical constituencies within a community, learn which stories are of importance to the community itself, record those stories (in both video

and audio) with the help of the community, and develop ideas on the basis of community suggestions

Conventionally, the main tools used in ethnology and anthropology have been notebooks and pens, with cameras when resources permitted The primary meth-odology involves participant observation, detailed interviews, and household or other surveys The limitation of these methods relates to how difficult it can be to access human feelings and body language For example, one cannot capture the intensity of religious rituals on paper alone A camera however does record something of the quality of the total experience, including the light, sound, move-ment, facial expressions and ideas Thus film can help local communities to share their views, ideas and experiences actively and confidently As a result of this project, the Thai community here accepts that film is an effective way to com-municate its particular stories to a wider public audience

This project, funded by the Ford Foundation, was realized as a collaboration between an outside researcher (myself) and a member of the Thai community

in Hanoi, Tri.nh A Sinh, who was the core Thai researcher for the project The goals of the project were to help the Thai community find its own voice to express its experiences in Hanoi The community members selected to participate

in the project were chosen by the researcher and the core Thai participant in col-laboration with the community as a whole The participant group consists of twelve members, each with varied jobs and social status They include govern-ment administrators, scientists, architects, students, artists=singers=dancers, retired people and housewives, ranging in age from 14 to 78 Some participants are ethnic Thai and some are of mixed ethnic background, including both Thai and Kinh There are some families in which both spouses live in Hanoi but some with husbands in Hanoi and wives in their home villages The primary criteria that helped define the Thai film group was that all members in this community had close blood relationships; that is, they were relatives in the same clan and=or from the same home villages (Son La, Lai Chau or West Nghe An provinces), and=or they shared a workplace in some ministerial office The selection of varied members of the community in Hanoi enabled us to get multiple views and stories

as we posed open-ended questions and held focus-group discussions

Thai migrants face a variety of challenges in adapting to the new life in Hanoi, including a different language, different livelihoods, customs and traditions This community has to find a way to integrate into the majority ethnic culture but still retain its own cultural identity (These same challenges surface in many other multi-ethnic countries.) It was in this context that we conducted numerous inter-views and discussions among community members over the course of the study Within the limits of this article we would like to address some main issues and stories that interest the Thai community and that came up in the research process

Of particular interest to these people is the issue of discrimination by the Kinh majority against Thai migrants in Hanoi Questions on this issue were sensitive but we got much feedback We wanted to explore issues arising from discrimi-nation the people might have suffered when they first came to Hanoi Most of the Thai people in our CBV group thought that these questions were too serious, because when they first migrated to Hanoi they felt that the majority of Viet people respected their cultural distinctiveness The interview data however show

that some specific forms of discrimination toward minorities in general and Thai people in particular do still exist We could divide the kinds of discrimination experienced into four categories as follows:

Attitudes of Explicit Discrimination

When I left my homeland in the highlands of the Northwest to mingle with the lowland peoples in order to get an education and to improve myself, my friends at first always teased me, calling me ‘‘Tho’’ or ‘‘Man person,’’ that is, ‘‘Man from the Forest,’’ and other hurtful nicknames It took a long time of living and studying together for the discrimi-nation to fade away [Interview with Mr Trinh A Su, 48-year-old architect, December

18, 2006, in Hanoi]

Some Discrimination

When my youngest daughter, of course with my surname of Lu, went to school, people believed that she was a Meo [Hmong] person and so she would not be such a smart pupil At first, when people did not know who you were, they thought of you in such way [Interview, March 11, 2007, with Mr Lu Que, 67 years old, retired official of the National Ethnic and Mountain Board]

People hesitated at our front doors, they liked to see how the Thai ethnic people spoke, ate, and drank They looked strangely at my Thai brocade bag However, they did not show any discriminatory attitudes [Interview with Ms Trinh Chi Na, 40-year-old coffee trader, December 14, 2006]

No Discrimination

There is no discrimination Truly I have eaten Kinh rice, drunk Kinh water since I was small My parents took care of me only until I was 11 years old, since then I lived with Kinh people [Interview, December 16, 2006, with Mr Cam Trong, 73 years old, ethnologist (died in 2007)]

In March 2008 we met with the Thai community in Hanoi to discuss issues of discrimination that had come up in our earlier discussions Most of the com-munity members thought that in the early years, when Thai people first moved

to Hanoi, there was some discrimination as the migrants did not have enough information and knowledge to integrate well into a new cultural context Over time the Kinh majority got to know the Thai people through their work and per-sonal contact, and thus began to accept the Thai so that discrimination faded away

Regarding the migration and integration process with the Viet majority in Hanoi, many Thai people emphasize the struggle between preservation of tra-ditional customs, feelings, habits and lifestyles and a pull toward the new culture

in the dynamic capital of Hanoi The Thai have a proverb, hit mo nha tang, hit cau nha vang (‘‘do not take leave of old customs, do not add in new ones’’) However,

in this new cultural situation each family has different ways of adapting to the new culture Some families in which both spouses are Thai still follow a Thai way of life: even after decades of living in Hanoi they have maintained almost the same traditional ways of eating, drinking, clothing, daily communication and religious practice Typical examples are Mrs Cam Thi Chau, Mrs Dieu Thi Nuoc, and Mrs Ha Thi Nien, Prof Hoang Luong’s wife They speak in Thai with their husbands and children, still wear traditional skirts with a short dress (xua com), eat sticky rice at breakfast, and sleep on Thai mattresses brought from their home villages Mrs Cam Thi Chau (Mr Cam Trong’s wife, who is of the Black Thai group from Son La Province) still rolls her hair on the top of her head

in the tang cau (the hairstyle of married Thai women) Mrs Dieu Thi Nuoc ties down her curl of hair in the style of the White Thai of Lai Chau Mrs Ha Thi Nien always cooks steamed fish and makes sour bamboo, traditional Thai dishes, for her family’s meals When they talk with Kinh people they still speak with a strong accent and are not fluent in Kinh pronunciation Thus in coming into con-tact with them people might think that they just left their homeland in the north-west of Vietnam since they have kept all their original Thai characteristics Because these women, who followed their husbands to Hanoi, moved there as adults and because they had the support of their husbands, conditions favored the maintenance of cultural traditions within their families In the words of

Mr Trinh A Su, an architect, ‘‘I admire these people: they are pioneers in preser-ving cultural identity These people don’t want to lose what makes them who they are’’ [interview with Trinh A Su, December 18, 2006]

For current Thai youth and middle-aged mixed Thai–Kinh couples, however, the preservation of ethnic identity has faded and they are more open to adopting new cultural forms This is in part a result of living in close contact with other cultures and in part a result of the self-consciousness of Thai people in the face

of scrutiny by Kinh people, who wonder why the Thai lifestyle and customs dif-fer from those of the majority We know from interviews with Thais in Hanoi that age and social status influence Thai feelings and ideas about cultural adaptation

It is particularly evident among Thai women who married Kinh husbands When the wives become members of their husband’s Kinh families they must follow strict Kinh traditions of those families because the role of the daughter-in-law

is a particularly well-defined one in Kinh culture; therefore they have to pay attention to all daily activities, follow annual rituals on the first and fifteenth days

of lunar months, practice ancestor worship, and maintain clan relations with both paternal and maternal sides of the family They not only follow the new customs

of the Kinh majority but practice and play important roles in the new communi-ties as well:

It is difficult to live in an established Hanoi family Thus, I had to take care of everything in daily life in order to teach my children when they were small customs such as [saying]:

‘‘please, yes please’’ and something like this, because we did not pay much attention to these behaviors when we lived in the homeland Then, the old women in Hanoi praised me as a good mother in teaching my children It is true that I tried to educate them in the Hanoi way of life even though it was strange to me I thought it was hard to follow this new and different lifestyle [Interview, March 10, 2007, with Mrs Vuong Thi Thai, 58 years old, a Thai from Lai Chau who married a Kinh husband living in the Old Quarter in Hanoi]

There are some Thai traditions and customs that are impossible for these women to practice in Kinh households, such as house ghost worshipping, or some ritual medical treatments Another Thai tradition that was not accepted when they moved to Hanoi concerns the importance of Thai kinship relations, expressed in the following phrase: ai noong, lung ta, nhinh xao (literally, ‘‘brothers

in the lineage, brothers of one’s wife, brothers of one’s children’s clan relations and relations-in-law’’) These relations are central in Thai villages and are in fact extended to all Thai people That is, Thais living anywhere consider each other to

be relatives To maintain close kinship ties, they often visit relatives living else-where, despite the distance This can cause tensions in families that combine Kinh–Thai spouses, in that there are a large number of relatives visiting from the northwest coming to Hanoi These visits could inconvenience their daily life or even result in family disputes, because while Thais believe it is normal to have fre-quent and long-time visits from relatives, the Kinh feel it is not acceptable There are however some combined families of Thai–Kinh who respect and harmonize the customs of both cultures For instance, some Kinh husbands participate in worship

of their wives’ parents As Mrs Vuong Thi Thai (Hang Bong street, Hanoi) explained, during the Tet holidays (the Lunar New Year) and=or on ancestor-worshipping days, Thai people pray and pay respects in the Thai language Otherwise, in urban settings, Thai people seem for the most part to have left their traditions behind because there are few opportunities to practice them in daily life Only during some communal festivals like the Lunar New Year cel-ebration or Early Spring holiday does the Thai community in Hanoi gather together and speak their language, wear Thai clothes, and eat traditional dishes

On such occasions vital Thai identity is aroused in hearts and feelings It is said, with humor, that at such communal gatherings Kinh husbands sit down together

to listen to their wives’ ‘‘short-wave broadcasting’’ and wonder what they are speaking about in the Thai language These events are opportunities for Thai women to relieve their homesickness, express their feelings for Thai ancestors, and maintain ties to their Thai origins [personal communication, Mrs Trinh Thuy Tien, Thai Phong Tho, at a communal meeting, January 16, 2007]

Thai identity in the younger generation, those who were born and grew up in Hanoi or who followed their parents to Hanoi when small, has faded When they live in a new environment it is hard for traditional cultures to be relevant; therefore these young people have a limited knowledge of their grandparents’ and parents’ life back in the home villages While youngsters also feel the need to understand their cultures of origin, their parents rarely have time to impart knowledge of Thai culture while living the busy life in a city like Hanoi As Ms Hoang Thi Quyen, a 30-year-old official at the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology, stated:

I have a number of Thai cousins who were born and grew up in Hanoi They wish to know and keep their Thai traditional cultures in mind There are however no favorable contexts

in which to learn and understand their cultures, as their parents are too busy with their daily lives [Interview, September 24, 2008]

The Thai community in Hanoi is also very interested in the issue of using the Thai language in daily life Language and writing are fundamental factors in

creating identity and are characteristic of each ethnicity For example, this is demonstrated in a quote from a workshop on the Thai written language ten years ago:

One Thai woman, with the surname of Cam, from Son La province, who was formerly a doctor in the central government office, has now retired and lives with her retired Kinh husband, formerly a senior official in the Prime Minister’s office Their family lived in Hanoi and used to be the place where their friends visited and discussed ethnic and mountain area issues They have recently learned that one of their Kinh friends can not only speak the Thai language fluently but also write Thai words and has a good knowl-edge of Thai culture as well When this Kinh friend said that he had read the two great cultural works of Thai ethnics—‘‘Song Chu Xon Xao’’ and ‘‘Khun Lu Nang ua’’—she was

so surprised, but then her smile faded quickly and her voice became serious: ‘‘Unlike you, I am illiterate in my ethnic language.’’7

Now, a decade later, reading and writing Thai is not considered to be as urgent

an issue as using the language in daily life in Hanoi There are few original Thai families there where all parents and children are of Thai origin, and who use Thai language in daily life and maintain that language with a second generation These families feel that the language provides them with an easy and natural way to express their views [personal communication, February 6, 2007, Professor Hoang Luong’s family] The subsequent generations, the grandchildren, however, can-not speak Thai, but only speak the majority Kinh language (Vietnamese) Further-more, the Thai language is rarely used in mixed-marriage families where one spouse is Kinh and the other Thai, as this situation does not favor such communi-cation During the community discussions (CBV), a large number of Thai people worried that the second generation would forget their Thai language and the third generation could not speak any Thai at all The reason they gave is that

in Hanoi it is rare to have time to speak in Thai Moreover they felt that to pre-serve Thai culture, it is most important to keep the language, much more so than

to maintain Thai traditional dishes and=or clothes Therefore the Thai community here has tried its best to organize meetings, visits and discussions with the participation of their children and grandchildren so as to preserve the language

In September 2008, when we had a chance to visit the homeland in Lai Chau province of the Thai people in Hanoi, I asked some questions of people there about the frequency of use of the Thai language among the second and third gen-erations of Thai in Hanoi Surprisingly the same thing is occurring in some towns

in Lai Chau as is happening in Hanoi In the central town of that province some families in which both parents are Thai, and who have always lived in their homeland, have children unable to speak Thai:

Even in my family, the eldest child knows some Thai language, but my younger daughter only smiles as she doesn’t understand Once, in the 30th day of the Tet [Lunar New Year] holiday, when my husband and I cooked and spoke loudly in Thai but were not quarreling, she thought that we might be arguing and asked us to stop as it was the Tet holidays and we should gather together happily, not argue At that moment we suddenly realized that we were speaking in Thai and so our child could not understand [Interview, September 14,

2008, with Vuong Kim Xuyen, 50 years old, Women’s Union of Lai Chau province]

This story illustrates how difficult it is for their offspring to speak Thai when they did not learn it from early childhood; and their parents did not pay much attention to educating their children in the original language In addition, the youth think that they should focus on the Kinh language and that, once they speak it fluently, they can learn Thai later In these examples it can be seen that the language is disappearing not just in the Thai community in Hanoi but also in their homeland in northwest Vietnam This evidence, the loss of the language in both areas, gave the Thai CBV group much cause for worry and provoked a lot of discussion

Recently Trinh A Su, an architect, said that an interesting observation that relates to the question above is that, when visiting overseas Vietnamese in the United States, he found that a number of families are ‘‘very Vietnamese.’’ In these families many Vietnamese children had been born in the United States, while others had come to the United States before starting school However, it sur-prised him that these children could not speak even a complete Vietnamese sen-tence Their main language to communicate with everybody, even their parents,

is English Their parents said, ‘‘We want our children to rise up and be fully inte-grated into the American society, so we encourage them to learn English as well

as they can We sent them to private schools where many white American stu-dents also attended Keeping them apart from Vietnamese people helps them avoid picking up the negative behaviors of our people, so that when our children

go out, Americans will not look down on them ’’

It is likely that this American phenomenon is similar to what has happened in Thai families in Hanoi (it is also usual among Indian and Chinese settlers in the United States) Since Thai parents want their children to be assimilated into Kinh culture, they choose to push them to speak Vietnamese and learn Kinh ways According to Trinh A Su, it is a choice that helps each person to assimilate into

a new environment However, this choice has a mixed ‘‘positive–negative’’ out-come that generally leads the individual to be fully assimilated The process can lead to loss of the original culture and language; that is, it is different from the desired outcome of integration into a new environment while simultaneously preserving one’s own ethnic cultural identity (‘‘ho`a nhaˆ.p nhu’ng khoˆng ho`a tan’’) This particular example sheds light on an overall picture of the global integration

of ethnicities in countries opening up to the world Cultural exchanges always bring about two sides of an issue: ‘‘preserving’’ and ‘‘losing’’ are significant challenges for each of us when participating in global integration

CHALLENGES, SOLUTIONS AND EFFECTS OF COMMUNITY-BASED VIDEOS

IN SPECIFIC COMMUNITY RESEARCH Our research, using the method of community-based videos among the Thai migrants in Hanoi, permits some conclusions to be drawn Community-based video is a new approach to the study of specific communities; but there are some limitations to this approach Many interesting stories may be collected from the community but these come in the form of interviews: their primary interest lies in the audio narratives of the interviewees Thus they lack the kinds of varied visual imagery that can be used to engage audiences