Gia Lai Folk Festival 2024
This weekend was the Ngày hội văn hóa các dân tộc tỉnh Gia Lai which was a celebration of the indigenous peoples of Gia Lai province. Each of the province’s 14 districts sent a village to represent their culture. They put on displays of crafts, music and dance. There was also festive food for sale: spit roast pig, grilled chicken and com lam (sticky rice cooked inside bamboo)
Yumi’s village was there and they greeted me; there were a lot of familiar faces from the Christmas party as well as one guy who’s a bit of a social media influencer who’s Facebook name is Tarzan, I was surprised to discover he speaks English.
I also caught up with the Dak Doa group, where one of the dancers happened to be a former student of mine from my stint teaching in Dak Doa town. It’s moments like these that make you appreciate the richness of living cultures and the power of self-expression.
Hannah’s Birthday
Sunday marked a special occasion: Hannah’s sixth birthday. We went to “Happy Kids” (think Wacky Warehouse) with a group of her cousins where the staff had set up a special birthday display.
Cacao at Grandma’s
For a birthday present, Hannah got a book about rainforests. While flipping through it, I mentioned to Yumi that I’d never tried cacao fruit before like I saw in the book. She replied that her grandma had a cacao tree brimming with fruit, untouched because nobody really liked them. So that evening, we decided to pay grandma a visit.
Grandma’s cozy home is adorned with cherished family photos and cultural touches like an ethnic woven mat and catholic paintings. Amidst lively chatter in the Jrai language, we embarked on a cacao harvesting adventure in the backyard, disturbing roosting chickens along the way.
Yumi cracked open the cacao fruit’s pumpkin like skin to reveal a cluster of seeds wrapped in white pulp. As I popped one into my mouth, Yumi warned me not to chew the seeds but to suck on them like sweets. Too late! I had already bitten into the seed which was soft like a cashew nut and unpleasantly bitter. We took an armful of fruit back into the living room and I contentedly sucked on the seeds as the women chatted away.
Kontum
Friday was a bit of an adventure. I popped over to Kontum for a couple of reasons. Firstly, to catch up with a mate I met online who’s also teaching English. He’s been busy producing a book of folk stories from the Xodang people (Yumi’s dad is Xodang). He even wrote a paper about it! He kindly gifted me a copy, and you’ll never guess what I gave him in return: cacao fruit! It’s a beautiful book, and I’m itching to dive into it.
Of course, while in Kontum, I couldn’t resist popping by that temple I mentioned before, the one with the legendary tiger. I was pretty sure I got the right spot because they had the photo on the wall that I included in my last article. When I started asking around about the tiger, people gave me these odd looks, like I’d lost the plot. Nobody knew anything about the legendary beast.
When I was researching the tiger originally, there were alternate versions saying it wasn’t a Buddhist temple but this Catholic church. Could some rogue Buddhists have coopted the story? I’ll have to go and have a look and speak to people there next time I’m in Kontum.
Eastward Ho! 