Orijyn is helping a school in Laos develop sustainable handcraft businesses for artisans in remote villages who have few revenue opportunities. Following are impressions of Laos we’ve gathered along the way.
On one of the legs of our road trip we spent a night in a town deep in tiger country. Laos has the highest concentration of tigers in Asia and the center of it is where we stopped. People don’t walk around much at night. I don’t think you’re in big danger unless you strolling through the area's virgin jungle. But it sounds like there is a long history of attacks on the trails in and out and so it's name. Our guide said they come down from the jungle peaks during the rainy season. Probably slide down the hills, as muddy and steep as the terrain is there.
A small guest house in the 3 block town was all that was available. Power would only be on between 7 and 9 pm, so we plugged in all we could and hoped the twisted wires would hold up.
Lush rice fields here for the time of year–it’s a two crop town with the river for water and warmer temperatures in the dry winter.
I went for a steamy rinse in the local hot springs. The locals line up at dusk to wash clothes, bodies and even boil eggs in the hotter pools. Best hot scrub I’d had in a few days and a good remedy for 7hrs of rolling back and forth on twisty roads.
We got up early the next morning for the wet market. Little ladies from different ethinic tribes bring their fresh harvest of herbs, produce and eatables to a candlelight opening at 6am.
We caused a cackling scene among the women there with Julie buying a skirt (sihn) right off a produce vendor. She had seen Julie eyeing it and made her an offer. Fortunately she had an under skirt as the Lao are very shy and proper about things like that. We’d noticed that the old sihns they wore were a finer quality with more traditional and interesting patterns than what we were seeing woven for the market now. We saw many we would have liked to buy off the wearer, but it’s a bit awkward buying that way.
We walked around town before hitting the road again talking to weavers working their looms under each house and stringing the warp threads to hang on the loom for the next run of a pattern. They said they can get 20 sihns per warp. It was good to see so many weavers working and finding ways to sell their products. It seems sustainable as long as Lao women wear their sihns.
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On our last trip, to get to where we were going in the North, there were some 7 hour days on the twisty one lane roads through the mountains and valleys of Xeing Khouang and Houaphan. These roads are only safe this time of year, it’s the dry season. Even dry, the road hazards keep you at 35mpg on a good stretch. We got used to the near misses and corner drop offs. You get anesthetized rolling back and forth for 7 hours. But every evening we’d be reminded that we should be thankful when the guide would call his mother. His first words were always, “It’s OK I’m still alive”.
Make sure you’ve got a good driver if you do this kind of trip. You need two people, a driver and guide when you do this. You don’t want the driver talking on these roads, just driving. If you’re interested in a road trip we can put you in contact with Loc, who can pull all the pieces together and recommend the places to visit.
We were a rolling classroom actually. As you go, you learn to tell the different ethnic villages by their home construction, or how they carried their foraging basket. Two straps for highland Lao, one strap over the forehead for midland Lao and one over the shoulder for lowland Lao are how you sort things out. Different tribal groups would fall into this classification system, there are over 50 groups in Laos. No matter what kind of straps, you’d see the women carrying their weight in wood home for the cooking fires. We also learned about the plants and their uses, and some personalized language lessons. I haven't made much of an attempt to learn the language aside from courteous pleasantries, I figure it's better for them if I teach English than speak juvenile Lao.
We were also able to see how things are changing in Laos. Power lines being strung through cleared virgin jungle, villages being relocated to the roads by the government for better access to education, healthcare, power and water. Over the last 5 years the few main roads got paved. Good things for quality of life, but the beginning of homogenizing the ethnic groups. The next generation of village youth will be very different from the last.
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After last years Santa Fe Folk Art Market, we were back in San Francisco sorting through the maximum amount of things Bandith could legitimately haul back to Laos. He had brought twice the limits of luggage because you can coming this way. The Asian airlines are used to massive packages of all sorts of things when Asian people travel–gifts and items to sell usually. We had to make sure he’d get through the limits and screening of our TSA going home.
It had been a great visit by Bandith and his family and at the Market, but we had sensed a concern that he felt he wouldn’t be coming back next time. It's a juried show with no guarantees, but something else was bothering him.
After dropping Bandith off at the airport we found his investment in the future. The Lao believe that if you want to return to a place, leave a little something behind, usually money.
I noticed the first bill right away, then found the rest of the offerings over the next couple of days. I didn’t go seeking them all out at first, just let them reveal themselves as I puttered around.
It seemed to work, we’ve been invited back to Santa Fe for the 2011 Folk Art Market. Bandith will be reunited with the friends he made there over the last 2 years. We’re making the travel plans now.
You should too. Santa Fe is an exceptional Folk Art market, and has been called “Best in the World”. I’ve never seen such high quality indigenous artisan work in one place, and who doesn’t like Santa Fe. http://folkartmarket.org
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Just as we think about the possibility of losing centuries of handcrafts in Laos, Martin is concerned about the music of Laos. During a recent visit to the Bay Area, he was telling us his experiences with some musicians he met in Luang Prabang. I was immediately transfixed and wanted to know more. He has graciously written the following blogpost for us and sent the sound file and CD cover.
Martin is a man of many facets (not least of which is baker of zucchini bread). We met Martin through my cousin, Sandy and her husband John, (all from Seattle) who visited Laos with us in 2008. Back then, Martin was developing his since published, Lao-English phrase book called "English for the Masses", because during his first visit in 1998, students told him they wanted so much to study English. Books are rare in Laos and people are always looking for new books, especially those in both Lao and English.
Getting a book published in Laos is a difficult business. Martin is not only the researcher and author, designer and photographer, he has had to find and fund the printer and then peddle the books door-to-door. He has since published 12 other books and has been teaching English in schools in Luang Prabang and southern Laos. He is teaching English, but also introducing a new method of teaching called "Action English", which engages students and aids them in memorizing words and phrases quickly by using Lao Sign Langauge. To make this possible, Martin is currently learning as much Lao sign language as he can and trying to help standardize and publish more collections of this neglected language.
But, that is another blogpost. Back to Martin's experiences with the Royal Lao Music...
You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone
Imagine that the Goldberg variations were never transcribed and the last person who knew anything about them was soon to die. This cultural heritage would be gone forever. Luang Prabang in the north of Laos is a UNESCO designated World Heritage site. The sidewalks are paved with handmade bricks and real estate has skyrocketed, but the true intangible treasures are quickly disappearing.
Bicycling home late at night, I could hear the sounds of drums, gongs and the Lao xylophone coming from behind a storefront. Out of curiosity, I finally stepped in to listen. Trained in Western music, I found the sounds confusing at first. No chord progressions or codas. Nothing seemed to follow a score and nothing seemed to begin or end at the same time. Then, I begin to just absorb the sounds.
The piece they’re playing, I’m told, is a processional played for when the king exited the palace. It is slow and stately and you can imagine the glittering mosaics and rustle of heavy silk brocade. It was obviously a spectacle.
I was told that in times of the royal court, every neighborhood ("ban" or village) had an orchestra that performed music for ceremonies and festivals and music was an integral part of daily life. The meaning of each song was common knowledge and most likely anchored the patterns and significance of communal life. Many say up to 90% of the population left Luang Prabang after 1975. The social role of music changed drastically under the new government. It is only recently that there signs of a nascent revival. A wealth of musical tradition has been lost in Luang Prabang.
The young musicians I heard that night, come to practice every evening after school. I had never encountered such artistic integrity anywhere before and I decided to invite them to record at the local radio station. In the studio, they showed that they were professionals. Listening to the test recording they’re put their ears right up to the speakers or make comments just looking at the sine waves on the computer. At one point, they could hear that the air conditioning was drying out the drum skin and took emergency measures to save the sound. At noon, they told me apologetically that they didn’t like the timber of the Lao zither. They wanted to record again. They were talking about quality and about their own high standards. How could I refuse? After several more hours, they felt satisfied and after all the formal playing was done, they suddenly broke out into an exuberant jam session.
To make a CD cover, I wanted some background information to the songs. The musicians didn’t know the details so I searched Luang Prabang for someone that knew. Finally, I was referred to someone who is said to be a descendent of the last king. He was there when the processions were played and he could name each song after hearing the first few notes. He pulled out other CDs and complained that nothing was complete. He was familiar with each piece and explained that no comprehensive recording has been done. The basic repertoire includes more than 60 pieces. Now in his late 70's and of failing health, all will be lost when he passes away as there is no formal system pass to on musical knowledge in Luang Prabang. Recording this repertoire of classical Luang Prabang music is of the utmost importance.
I don’t have the resources to do a complete recording myself, but I tried with a few pieces they chose. The CD covers have been printed, but unfortunately track 5 doesn’t press so the project is on the back burner. I still think about it as it simmers. Why is this magnificent cultural treasure overlooked? Nobody seems interested in recording it. It could take close to $20,000 to make it happen. My concerns are about cultural heritage in Laos, but Lao people need to know and value what they’ve got. That takes education and that’s why my main efforts are in publishing and teaching. It’s a monumental task, but someone’s financial gifts could make wonderful things happen in Laos?
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Our shipments are not big enough to fill a container on a ship so we have been trying different methods of getting our handcrafted items safely to the U.S. In exploring freight costs and services, we decided to try the Lao Postal Service for a shipment of bamboo basket containers that we didn't need in the next month or two or three.
Bandith constructed a shipping box from two smaller boxes, filled it with the bamboo baskets and had the school van take him and the box (almost as tall as he is) to the post office in Vientiane. Less than a week later, the box showed up in our office in San Francisco, plastered in what I calculated to be $190 worth of beautiful Lao stamps.
Mark called Bandith that night to let him know that the box had surprisingly arrived (and in time that could give the U.S. Postal Service a run for it's money!) Bandith replied, "Thanks the Gods!" with a big sigh of relief.
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After 28 hours of travel to Vientiane I was rewarded with the intense experience of the That Luang Festival. On a full moon day in November there is a pilgrimage of thousands from all over Loas to the golden stupa for blessings and offerings of reverence to Buddha. The stupa, the national symbol of Laos, was built by King Sayasetthathilath in 1566.
This is a multi day event with worship at local Wats, then processions of wax “castles” festooned with Kip notes are brought to the stupa accompanied with traditional musicians. The worshipers circle slowly 3 times clockwise in a solemn sutra led by monks chanting the ancient words of Buddha.
To reach the inner court where the stupa is located you walk the mile through a gauntlet of food and offering vendors, and in recent years the loud music of the CD stalls and groups selling cheap Chinese clothing. Just a few years ago there was no commercial aspect to the festival to sully the atmosphere, but things are changing here.
There are stopping points along the way to offer prayers and acknowledgments to people and deities important to the Lao culture. The last gate allows entrance to the inner court where the music fades and the atmosphere become thick with reverence.
The next morning alms are given to the monks by such a crush of crowds, the older Loa are passed overhead through the gate into the temple. Unfortunately the jet lag from arriving the day before didn’t allow me to wake at 4am to see this part, so I’ll have to go back next year.
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We were fortunate enough to be invited to the Santa Fe Folk art Market this year. The most amazing handcraft show on the planet, http://www.folkartmarket.org. We were excited about the show, and the chance to bring Bandith over to the US to man the booth with us. He’s our main contact in Laos and manager of the group, Saoban, we’re helping build there. This was his first time in our Western world so we wanted to show him San Francisco, and decided to do the drive to Santa Fe, a road trip in my old Westphalia. Bandith had always dreamed of touching snow, and he’d never seen desert, we saw a lot of that.
It was his first chapped skin experience with the heat wave we went through, 114 degrees in a vw van with no aircon. We had to keep the windows closed, seemed a bit cooler. At one point he said “if they give me Nevada, I no take”. I’d agreed with that.
We found our snow at the top of Yosemite on the way back from Santa Fe, a nice break from the heat. All downhill to San Francisco from there, it's a long drive going home.
It was interesting to see what he saw and took note of along the way. It was also good to see he saw what he liked about Laos and the lifestyle challenges we have here. He was happy to go back at the end, missing his Mom’s papaya salad. But he went with the hope of returning next year. We'd like that.
We were so excited to receive an email from Saoban, our partners in Laos, that the first Lao Fair Trade radio show was recently broadcast and already posted to Youtube! In the first show, the host explained the concept of Fair Trade and the benefits it can have for Lao producers.
Part I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaE8gpyLARw
Part II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW7kT_fyxpA
The show will be broadcast every Tuesday, in Lao, between 9:45am and 10:00am on Lao Army Radio (99.7FM). The airtime is being donated by Saoban, the handcraft division of the school in Laos.
Each week will bring an interview with a spokesperson from different Fair Trade companies. We'll let you know when Bandith's interview about Saoban's efforts supporting fair trade is scheduled!
The first time I met Takeo is was at the Lao festival in Sebastopol, CA. Over the next couple of days as we were exhibiting together I got to learn a bit of her background and the work she was doing to preserve Lao traditional weaving. As we packed up our booths Takeo offered to give me a tour of her weaving museum and house on my next visit to Vientiane. I was curious to see the old weavings she had rescued and the process she had developed to recreate these masterpieces.
A few month later I was dropped off in front of Takeo’s house and shop. The shop was loaded with precise duplicates of old traditional pieces and updates of patterns for scarves and wraps. The museum held the real masterpieces that inspire her work. Here is where Takeo began her story.
Saravan Province where she was born has always been known for it’s weavings of cotton and silk. Tribal groups created every stitch of clothing for the familes daily life, funerals and wedding dowry. Takeo’s father was a revered teacher who focused on raising the education level of the ethnic tribes in the region. He became well known and caught the eye of the Royal Government who brought him to Vientiane to become a member of Parliment representing Saravan.
Takeo’s mother was a known master weaver, and when she wore her handmade sinh skirts and blouses to Royal functions, everyone noticed and gave appreciation for her talent. Takeo had little interest in weaving at that time. She was focused on her education and living the lifestyle expected in a family considered well-to-do in Laos. She was looking to Paris and college for her next phase of life.
You can imagine the pleasure the French men had as young Takeo sauntered down the Champs-Elysees in her traditional Lao garments. She also embraced the mini skirts of the time and attended embassy parties in tradition attire and the nights on the town in her mini skirt. All was comfortable and exciting in Paris. Not so in Laos as the war was starting to grind in earnest, her life was about to change.
Takeo’s father had left the government before the real fighting had broken out. He was fortunate to not be put on the black list and pushed into exile or worse. The door shut quickly on Laos and Takeo had to struggle to get home to find and help her family.
Their house in Saravan was gone, burned to the ground, and all their possessions had been lost except for some books her father had buried. They had to flee with no money or posessions to Vientiane to eke out a new life from the ruins. Takeo started by raising chickens to sell and growing food in a plot next to their meager dwelling. With her background education in France she eventually found work teaching the children of administrators in the French embassy. This created enough revenue to feed the family, buy a small rice field and to build a modest house they could rent to visitors of the government. In 1982 she became a tour guide and noticed the attraction of foreigners to the woven Lao sinhs (skirts).
All during this time Takeo saw many exceptional traditional weavings being sold on the street and in the market by destitute people trying to survive. Takeo started buying these traditional relecs and found a passion and a hold on some of her past memories of pre-war Laos.
She still had no knowledge of how to weave, but as her collection grew, she ran into weavers who had moved to Vientiane to escape the war that had the skill and dying knowledge to rebuild the patterns. This inspired Takeo to start her weaving gallery and textile preservation efforts in earnest, it was 1984.
Starting a business was not easy in Laos, the government forbid any private business ownership. Takeo was one of a few women entrepreneurs who started weaving groups that eventually changed the way the government viewed private enterprise and opened the path for others. Takeo traveled around Laos collecting information on old natural dying processes, recreating the colors she saw in her masterpieces and sometimes working all night long to get a certain color just right. She also built a group of weavers with the high level of skills needed to decipher the old patterns and recreate them. Her house is now stuffed with these re-usable patterns, some taking 1000 rods to create.
Today Takeo is world renowned. She travels to Europe and the US for exhibitions, and produces many woven products for Obis and other ceremonial garments for Japan. The collectors that flock to her museum and store are mainly from Asia and Europe where there is a higher appreciation for exceptional hand woven products.
When Takeo first showed the government officials what she was doing they offered no support or appreciation, now years later they are pleased she had the fortitude to follow her passion to preserve the heritage of Laos.
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On my initial visit in 2001 we took our first evening stroll along the Mekong to watch the sunset and goings on. There were a group of makeshift stalls serving various local foods and the ubiquitous Beer Lao. It was wonderful food, cheap, and with an ambiance that was otherworldly. Fishermen plied the Mekong, lumber boats heading South full of teak, monks chanting evening prayers from nearby temples and the lights of Thailand coming up on the other shore all accompanied with a golden, steamy sunset.
I learned later that the government would bulldoze these stalls every few years, it was still outside of the law to have a private business they didn’t approve of. But as the tourist trade started to increase they, officials saw the value and have let these businesses develop. The number of proprietors has increased from 6 or so options to over 50. Their structures are becoming more permanent and the fear of bulldozers have become a thing of the past. Today you wouldn’t call them food stalls with their wood floors and platforms, substantial kitchen improvements and running water. The menus are printed and the decorations there to stay.
My favorite meal is fresh Mekong tilapia, rolled in salt, stuffed with lemon grass and grilled over cocoanut husk charcoal. A side of spicy stir-fried morning glory and a watercress salad with dried buffalo make the meal complete. Beer Lao is still the beverage of choice and goes so well with that steamy sunset. A full meal and big Beer Lao is still less than $5US. Priceless.
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