There is a 1969 North Vietnamese movie that I liked called The Highland Female Teacher (Cô giáo vùng cao). It’s about a 19 year-old Hmong woman who is sent up into the mountains to teach.
She doesn’t have any teaching experience, but she has spent the previous three years in the Youth Shock Brigade (Thanh Niên Xung Phong), and she is determined to succeed at her job. [For more on the Youth Shock Brigade, see François Guillemot, “Death and Suffering at First Hand: Youth Shock Brigades during the Vietnam War, 1950-1975,” Journal of Vietnamese Studies vol. 4, no. 3 (2009): 17-60.]
Upon arriving in the mountains, she finds that the school is in ruins and that all of the school-age children stay home and work in the fields with their parents. The movie then focuses on her efforts to build a new school and win the trust of the local people.
In the middle of the movie there is one scene that I really like. In this scene we see the teacher standing on a mountain top surrounded by students. She holds up pictures of members of different ethnic groups and indicates to the student what each ethnic group is called.
She then explains that high up in the mountains live people like the Hmong and the Dao, and that further down the mountains live people like the Thái and the Nùng.
She then points off into the distance and says that over there in the plains is where the Kinh, or ethnic Vietnamese, live.
And then she finally explains that although there are many different types of people and these peoples don’t live together, they are all nonetheless “like brothers and sisters living together in this beautiful and prosperous fatherland, closely united together around Uncle Hồ.”
What I love about this scene is that it is a great example of the fact that national consciousness is something that has to be taught. What I also like about this scene is that it is in a movie which I am assuming was mainly viewed by ethnic Vietnamese living in the plains far from the mountains depicted in the movie.
As such, this scene which shows a Hmong teacher teaching her students in the mountains about the nation was ultimately meant to teach people who lived in the plains that the peoples in the mountains were members of the nation too.
There was so much cultural material about the ethnic minorities in the mountains that was produced during this period. I wish someone would engage in a critical examination of those materials (films, novels, etc.). It’s a fascinating topic.
There are 100s of songs written about / for Vietnam’s minorities – probably for every ethnic group except the Chinese. Here’s a song similar in theme to the movie above.
http://baicadicungnamthang.net/bai-hat/co-giao-tay-cam-dan-len-dinh-nui-88.html
As is the case with many of these songs, it was written about an actual teacher named Tô Thị Rỉnh. The songwriter wrote the song after meeting her at a Đại Hội Anh Hùng. He consciously imitates the style of the lượn folksong style of the Tày. Here the ensemble consists of several đàn then – a traditional instrument of the Tày.
And if this doesn’t wet your whistle there are always songs like “Cô giáo về bản” and “Cô giáo vùng cao.” It’s one of those subjects I think I might get around to at some very distant time in the future.
I wonder how the minorities of Vietnam have influenced modern day Kinh culture? Obviously, Kinh culture from North, Central, and the South are not the same.
It’s hard to answer your question in a short response, but I can say ‘hugely’ and in many ways. I have a collection of good essays written by Vietnamese scholars inside Vietnam on this topic. The influence is evident in every aspect of the culture. I will perhaps ask LeMinhKhai to help upload some of these writings here so others can view as well.
I’m not sure what Kuching is referring to, so I’ll have to wait to find out more, but the question of why Kinh culture in different areas is different and if contact with (or influence from) minorities plays a role in that is an interesting one. People like to say that this happens, but I don’t know that this explains difference. Americans/Russians/Chinese are different in different parts of their respective countries. Is that because of the influence of indigenous peoples? I don’t think so. I think “big cultures” tend to overrun smaller cultures. But big cultures are never homogenous. So what explains regional differences? I don’t have a good answer for that (yet 🙂 ).
Visitors to Vietnam can still see the minority peoples in the north, as they continue to dress in their tribal costumes. It’s part of today’s Vietnam that I will revela in my book Vietnam 40 Years Later to be published in March 2014. The book will include more than 100 photos showing today’s Vietnam as we approach the 40th anniversary of the end of the war.
You can learn more about the book here: http://www.Vietnam40YearsLater.com
And you can join the book’s Facebook fan page here: http://on.fb.me/175QsXp
All the best!