The Trip - Part VI

In Luang Prabang we visited a centre on ethic minorities in the Laos region, which dedicated much of its information to courtships rituals, and boy, there were a couple of absolute rippers.

One in involves the interested girl to weave a basket then pop in a cooked chicken (I'm suspecting not from the supermarket!) and have it delivered to the house of her crush. If the family think her weaving skills are sufficiently, well, skillful they send the basket back with things like bangles, needles and coins as their indication that it’s all on. You can imagine that would be anxious couple of days, with some besotted teenager, checking for the return of the basket every few minutes. And what happens if it never comes back? I was unclear what the waiting period is before all hope of a hook up is dashed.

For another tribe, it’s up to the potential mother-in-law to assess the needle skills of a potential spouse for her son, again to see if she’s sufficiently skillful, but in this case specifically for the task of making the mother-in-law's funereal attire - how joyous!

Check out this gorgeous little guy!

Our guide, Khom Sing is from the Hmong hill tribe, who had for centuries lived a fairly subsistant existence in the jungle with the help of their key cash crop – opium. That was until the government outlawed its cultivation. It's a decision I don't necessarily condone; after all, Tasmania produces opium for the legitimate (as opposed to recreational) pharmaceutical  market. But the result of this has been devastating for the Hmong people. They have moved their villages to the edges of main roads where they pedal their rather crappy and dirty souveniers – of which we of course purchased plenty! They are desperately poor and there are beautiful kids everywhere. 

A little kid in charge of a littler kid...

We were lucky enough to be there for their 10 day new year festival - courting time! Girls as young as 13 and 14 dress in traditional elaborate costume and head into the forest at the edge of the road. They stand in a line opposite a row of young boys and toss balls back and forth while flirting enshews. The balls used to be made of cotton - these days they use tennis balls.

These little ones weren't playing, just dressed up
 to practice I guess

Glam eels - even in the dirt.

If they do fancy each other, they nip back to the village, let their parents know and then get married and start having babies. (I kept our 13 year old away from the line and the ball throwing....)

You can see how elaborate their costumes are
on this beautiful young girl

It was great to catch this, but I was still very moved by their destitution. We bought many small picture books from an organisation that prints them for just such kids and their schools and ended up buying even more books to send back to the village with Khom Sing. So it's amazing that out of this dusty, dirty environment stroll these beautiful young girls, like phoenixes. It's such a different world....