Hani In Vietnam

FLOWER HMONG & BLACK HANI NORTHERN VIETNAM The HANI and the HMONG originated from southern China where they are several millions people, the Hani of northern Vietnam are a small community of 15000 people, various Hani subgroups also live in Laos and Thailand. Visiting the BAXAT market (near chinese boarder) was the opportunity to meet several women willing to sing to be recorded. Flower Hmong women have extremely long hair and sing with similar patterns as the black Hmongs; the black Hani belong to the Tibet-Burmese ethnolinguistic family and have their distinctive singing patterns and use their own language. As with many other ethnic groups of the area, an original traditional singing pattern is used , each singer is adapting the words to describe his/her own life story. Many of these songs express tragic life experiences and strong emotions that bring tears to the performers, while they are singing. Songs 1 to 5 recorded in Sapa, but the singers come from La chau district 1 <my name is Xing> a flower Hmong song by one woman called Xing 2 mouth harp played by Xing 3 an autobiographic song about dead parents and being a single woman, sung by Xing 4 an autobiographic song about dead parents and life with her sister, sung by a flower Hmong woman called Li 5 a love song by Xing Songs 6 to 9 recorded in San na pen outside of Muong hum village, Ba xat district 6 <I ll never leave you> a black Hani love song, sung by a man called Luoka 7 <my parents don t like my girlfriend> a black Hani love song, sung by Luoka 8 a black Hani autobiographic sad song about marrying so early when her parents died, sung by Luoka s wife 9 to 12 recorded by the river in Muong hum, Ba xat district each track has a different black Hani woman singing her love song 12 <my boyfriend is dead> a flower Hmong sad love song, sung by an old woman RECORDED BY LAURENT JEANNEAU WITH SHI TANDING DECEMBER 2007