Reason #18 we should go to Thailand: We know the Hmong/Mong

As we've mentioned in our biography and in a number of blogs already, Amber and I are huge fans of culture. We don't just want to experience it, we want to immerse ourselves in it. As the old cliche goes, all politics is local, the same could be said of culture, especially when considering a very old country like Thailand.

Thus my interest in unique cultural experiences is often boiled down to the local level. As an undergrad in the geography department, I once wrote a short 15 page paper on the Hmong/Mong, specifically the white Hmong (Hmong Der) and the green Mong (Mong Leng). I described their history, their culture, and their future as my final paper for a class on southeast Asian cultural geography at Ball State University. I was fascinated by this unique group of people, but frustrated by the dearth of material available to me.

When I returned to graduate school at Ball State in linguistics, imagine my delight when I discovered that my faculty adviser Dr. Elizabeth Riddle was an expert on the Hmong/Mong language. We spent several hours discussing her research on this fascinating language inside class and out.

But it wasn't until I worked as an English as as Second Language teacher that I was able to encounter Hmong/Mong culture and its people in an interpersonal way outside an academic or research based environment. I taught several Hmong/Mong refugees from Thailand and Burma in Louisville, Kentucky, (of all places!) As it turns out, Catholic Charities has its second largest immigration center in Louisville, a city of 750,000 people.

Many of my refugee students from Thailand and Burma were Hmong/Mong. I came to know these students well, and was even invited to a Hmong New Year's function by some of my students. I got to meet several members of differing clans, taste some wonderful food, and even see a game of pov pob! These students were some of the kindest and earnest I had; I felt honored to be invited into their home. Politics aside, the chance to speak with some of the estimated 140,000 Hmong/Mong living in Thailand is just too good to pass up.

I dare say no one else in the Ultimate Thailand Explorer competition would truly understand and appreciate this opportunity as well as Amber and I. To see local culture as it truly is, and not some idealized Disney-fied spoon-fed schlock is important. We need to see how people really live before we can truly understand them. Considering the way many cultures and traditions around the world are disappearing with the enormous tide of globalization, it's important to see them while we still can.