Singing as Social life

Singing as Social Life: Three Perspectives on Kwv Txhiaj from Vietnam by Lonán Ó Briain, Hmong Studies Journal 13.1(2012): 1-27.

5

because they depend on the wordplay of the singer. As with phrase lengths and rhythms, the
scales employed by singers, although typically pentatonic or tetratonic, also tended to vary in
pitch by region because they were based on local linguistic dialects.
6

Rice’s model for subject-centered ethnographies is an ideational space that considers data
on three dimensions: time, place, and metaphor. Since “we and our subjects experience music
socially in multiple locales” (Rice 2003:160), place is conceptualized as a sociogeographic
dimension in his model. Suggested nodes for this “projection of the social in space” (ibid.:159)
include, but are not limited to: individual, subcultural, local, regional, national, areal, diasporic,
global, and virtual (ibid.:161). Time is considered on two planes: chronologically and
experientially or phenomenologically. Both of these planes must be considered when plotting the
place nodes because they help define the sociogeographic context. The metaphors of Rice’s
model are concepts of what music is. Suggested metaphors include music as art, music as social
behavior, music as symbolic system or referential text, and music as commodity (ibid.:166-67).
These are intended as
fundamental claims to truth, guides to practical action and sources for understanding music's
profound importance in human life. Rather than true or false, each claim is merely limited,
one of many possibilities. A given metaphor probably achieves some goals and makes some
sense in certain situations but fails to account for the full range of music’s possibilities and
significance. I further suggest that multiple musical metaphors probably guide action and
thought in individual lives, in society and through time. Sometimes they happily
commingle; at others they may become alternative, competing strategies. (2001:22)
Some of the metaphors discussed in this article were verbalized by the people themselves while
others were interpreted by the author based on stories told by the singers relating to the music
and the time and place nodes which they generated.
While I met, interviewed, and recorded many Hmong women between 2009 and 2011
this article only considers a representative sample of these. All three recordings were made by

6
See Mottin (1980) for a comprehensive analysis of the kwv txhiaj style and Poss (2012) for an examination of the
relationship between Hmong linguistic tones and musical phrases.
Singing as Social Life: Three Perspectives on Kwv Txhiaj from Vietnam by Lonán Ó Briain, Hmong Studies Journal 13.1(2012): 1-27.

6

the author in the Sa Pa district of Lào Cai province during this period. After returning from the
field, the individual cases were selected based on a number of similarities and differences
between them. To highlight some of the more significant of these traits: the similarities or
sameness of gender, ethnicity, geographic location (in some part of the Sa Pa district), and
traditional song style bind them; the differences of age (young adult, middle-aged adult, and
elderly adult), song text subject, and status as amateur or professional
7
musicians serve to
provide contrast. This balance between sameness and difference serves to highlight the diversity
of traditional songs and singing practices within one Hmong community in Vietnam. The aim is
to demonstrate the variety of contexts in which Hmong songs thrive and to find out what makes
these musical activities meaningful to the participants.
Case Study One: The Nine-Year-Old Bride
While the Hmong have always been noted for their free and open relations between the sexes by
comparison with the strict and formal hierarchical society of the Kinh Vietnamese, a Hmong
wedding ceremony traditionally forms a bond not only between two people but also between two
lineages.
8
Before a wedding, the two families meet to agree on compensation in the form of
money, farm animals, clothes, and jewelry such as silver coins from French colonial times or
handmade necklaces (xauv). Kinship relationships in Hmong society are based on patrilineal
descent. Typically, after marriage the bride moves into the groom’s house and becomes a
member of his family. Her family by birth must be compensated adequately for their loss. The
amount depends on the woman’s standing in the community; if she is young, healthy, and likely
to bear many children the price could be as much as twenty million VNĐ ($960) plus extras

7
There are very few professional Hmong singers in Vietnam. However, the third case study in this article
demonstrates how one Hmong woman has been able, albeit sporadically, to supplement her income through singing
and working as a cultural representative for the Vietnamese-Hmong people.
8
There are certain special forms of marriage including marriage by capture and marriage by elopement which are
designed to escape this traditional approach and can be used when a couple falls in love.
Singing as Social Life: Three Perspectives on Kwv Txhiaj from Vietnam by Lonán Ó Briain, Hmong Studies Journal 13.1(2012): 1-27.

7

including large farm animals but if she has been married previously or has some other social
handicap the bride price could be as low as one million VNĐ ($48) with a few small farm
animals. When a wife moves to her husband’s house she has to take on many new
responsibilities including household chores such as cooking for her new extended family,
cleaning the house, and embroidering and washing clothes. The stresses of this transition period
can be compounded by her unfamiliarity with the other people in the house and their lack of
sympathy for her. For these reasons, and in contrast to many wedding cultures in other parts of
the world, typically, a Vietnamese-Hmong bride will be very upset on her wedding day.
When I interviewed Mu Xiong (Figure 1), an elderly woman from Séo Mí Tỉ village, she
chose to sing two songs for me: a daughter-in-law’s song (nkauj ua nyab), which she learned at
the time of her marriage, and a funeral song (nkauj tuag), which she dedicated to her late
husband. Mu was born in the year of the pig, probably 1923, thus making her one of the eldest
consultants who took part in this study. Before Mu was married she used to play nplooj (leaf)
very well and even claimed that she could play qeej, an instrument that is now considered only
for men. The marriage arrangements were made by her parents and she had never met her
husband before the wedding day. After she married she was too busy with her work as a
housewife and a daughter-in-law to make time for playing music. Occasionally she would play
when alone but her husband discouraged her from doing so because he did not understand why a
woman would want to play music as it only took away from the time she could be doing more
practical housework. By the time her children had grown up she had forgotten how to play and
decided to give away her instruments.

Singing as Social Life: Three Perspectives on Kwv Txhiaj from Vietnam by Lonán Ó Briain, Hmong Studies Journal 13.1(2012): 1-27.

8



Figure 1: Mu Xiong watches herself singing on camcorder with the author, 16 June 2010. Photograph by
Bernhard Huber.

After the early challenges of her marriage Mu clearly grew to love her husband dearly.
Her husband was a shaman who passed away over thirty years ago. When recalling him in
conversation she had to hold back the tears. They had eleven boys and two girls together. Mu
estimated her extended family comprised as many as three hundred people, and others who knew
her in the area supported this claim. Aside from her social position as a widowed grandmother of
an extensive family, Mu was important to the local community as an expert in herbal medicine—
the skill of being able to “divide the spirits of herbal medicine” (faib dab tshuaj; Lee and Tapp
2010:29) tends to be part of the shaman’s skill set but this is not always the case.
Singing as Social Life: Three Perspectives on Kwv Txhiaj from Vietnam by Lonán Ó Briain, Hmong Studies Journal 13.1(2012): 1-27.

9

Despite the strong bond of love between Mu and her husband which developed after
years of marriage, in the days leading up to her wedding, when she was only nine years old, Mu
said she was extremely sad. In order to raise her spirits and help her overcome the challenges she
would face when she first moved into her husband’s home, her grandmother by birth taught her a
song about marriage.
9
Mu said this song made her feel strong when she sang it and she wished to
sing it for me so that it might be preserved for her children and grandchildren to learn.

Tav ntuj tas tav laus nas es yos,

Kuv leej txheeb nus ntshaw luag tus nyuj
pwm i rov kaus laus,

Muab kuv qua plhuav lawm tej teb i kab kis
zaub nas,

Kuv leej nam leej txiv yuav ntshaw luag tus
nyuj pwm i rov nkhaus raws,

Muab kuv qua plhuav tej teb i kab kis taws
ntuj teb,

Kuv de zaub tsis muaj zaub daus kub khaws
taw tsis muaj es laus,

Kuv kuv tau daus xib daus npu yaj yaws txij
qhov raws,

Nes leej nam nes yem yos,

Kuv tsis tau kev tseb maj tag kuv tseb maj
tag txuj kev deb.


Hmoob txwg Vaj laus tau kuv lub kwm maj
tag kawm kuv lub kawm maj tag daus deb.

Now I am old and have lived a long life,

Long ago when I was very young my dear
family needed a buffalo,

So I was used as dowry and had to travel far
to a place I had never been before,

I married and my family received the animal
in payment, it was very hard for me,

I had to go so far into the mountains to
gather firewood in this new place,

Sometimes walking through the snow, with
it up to my calves,

And I had to get food for the pig, even
though the ground was frosted over,

It was really difficult for me,

I had to go far to plant hemp but the land
was not good and had many stones and
rocks.

My family sent me to marry very far away
and I carried a heavy bag on my back and
cried with sadness.

9
A video recording of this song can be accessed at: https://vimeo.com/41665694.
Singing as Social Life: Three Perspectives on Kwv Txhiaj from Vietnam by Lonán Ó Briain, Hmong Studies Journal 13.1(2012): 1-27.

10


Excerpt from the lyrics of Mu Xiong’s nkauj ua nyab.
10

The lyrics of the version sung by Mu have clearly changed significantly from the version
her grandmother taught her. While Mu described her grandmother’s version as though it was a
form of social education or therapy, the version she sang for me might be best described with the
metaphor of music as memoir as she recounted the hardships she endured after her marriage
including the difficulties she had in planting hemp, the birth of a child, the inability of her small
child to provide assistance to her, and her difficulty with using the loom and its component parts.
Unfortunately there is no recording of her grandmother’s rendition to make more conclusive
statements about the nature of musical change as it pertains to this song.
Chau Hang, a research assistant who helped me interview Mu Xiong, provided some
interesting insights on the performance. Although Chau is not an expert in kwv txhiaj, her views
are important to consider because they represent a large proportion of Hmong youth in Vietnam
who are untrained in the art of the kwv txhiaj. Chau thought that I should not include this
recording in my study because the form of the song “does not make sense”. As is evident when
comparing this song to the transcribed lyrics in the third case study, the form of the latter song
more closely resembles binary form which is related to the fixed texts of popular songs in verse-
chorus form.
11
Chau, who has lived in Vietnam her entire life, is explicitly aware of how Hmong
culture has been portrayed as lacking in sophistication in the national media. In her opinion, the
inclusion of this song would reinforce those stereotypes because she does not believe that the

10
I am sincerely grateful to Chau Hang, Choua Lee, Lang Yang, and Chi Yang who assisted with the transcription
and translation of these song texts. Any remaining errors in the text are solely the responsibility of the author. As I
chose to transcribe the songs using Hmong RPA instead of the Viet-Hmong script, I encountered many difficulties
with the transcription and translation of the texts. Few Hmong in Vietnam are fluent in either script because neither
is taught above an elementary level in formal education. For those wishing to access the complete songs please see
the recordings.
11
See Ó Briain (Forthcoming) for an examination of the impact of foreign-produced Hmong popular music
recordings on Vietnamese-Hmong culture and society.
Singing as Social Life: Three Perspectives on Kwv Txhiaj from Vietnam by Lonán Ó Briain, Hmong Studies Journal 13.1(2012): 1-27.

11

extemporized form of the song can compete with the fixed texts of popular songs in verse-chorus
form which she regularly listens to. Instead, Chau thought I should use songs in verse-chorus
form and which were sung by professional Hmong pop stars from other countries such as the
recordings that were available on YouTube. Her wish for Hmong music to be represented by
these songs suggests a change in aesthetic taste that relates to fixed versions of the text and also
demonstrates her own emphasis on the song lyrics rather than the singer, the social context and
the art of improvised wordplay.
By shifting the focus to the singer instead of the song, however, in much the same way as
Warner (1994) does for the tellers of folktales, we can understand how kwv txhiaj songs are
manipulated through time and space in a similar way to other folklore. Now, the “imperfections”
can be reinterpreted as participatory discrepancies (Keil 1987) which highlight the personality
behind each specific rendition of the song. At this particular time and place, Mu Xiong’s
emphasis on recounting an episode from her life through song, thereby applying the metaphor of
music as memoir, takes precedence over the desire to adhere closely to the traditional song form.
In his collection of fifty-five Hmong songs gathered in Laos and Thailand Jean Mottin
includes five examples of nkauj ua nyab (1980:44-61). As long as these marriage practices
continue to be an important part of Vietnamese-Hmong social structure, this song style will
maintain its relevance to the community and therefore be sustained as a tradition. But as these
cultural practices become less commonplace, as has begun to occur in certain parts of Vietnam,
this song style will become obsolete and merely function as an historical record of past
traditions.
This case study has demonstrated how Mu Xiong’s experience of music and of one
particular song has changed through her life. From her description of the version taught to her by
Singing as Social Life: Three Perspectives on Kwv Txhiaj from Vietnam by Lonán Ó Briain, Hmong Studies Journal 13.1(2012): 1-27.

12

her grandmother and her framing of the recorded rendition, the metaphors of music as social
education or therapy could be interpreted for the former and music as memoir summarizes the
essence of the latter version. For Mu Xiong, then, singing this song makes sense of her life cycle
and in this way her musical activities can be understood as a fundamental aspect of her lived
experience.
Case Study Two: The Horticultural Lover
This case study presents a song which is paired with two types of cycles: the agricultural cycle
and the life cycle. The lives of most Vietnamese-Hmong are shaped by the agricultural calendar.
In Sa Pa, wet-rice cultivation on terraced fields is and has been for a long time the primary
means of subsistence for the Hmong (c.f. Savina 1924; Michaud 1999:3). Rice, corn, hemp, and
other crops must be planted at the appropriate times of the season. Neighboring households help
each other when planting so that each terraced field is planted at the most fertile time. The
importance of this communal work and of knowledge about these practices has resulted in many
musical activities relating to this way of life. The primary medium for sustaining knowledge
about these local practices continues to be through folklore, including songs.
In June 2010, Chi Yang and I travelled to Sử Pán village to visit the singer Mu Yang
(born 1974). Mu was a neighbor and friend of Chi’s whom I had met previously. When we
arrived at her house that day the entire family was out planting rice in their fields. The older boys
were guiding a water buffalo with a plough through the rice-paddies while the younger children
were playing around and passively observing and learning from their elders. Mu’s husband was
sprinkling feed in the fields that had been ploughed while Mu was following behind and planting
the rice stalks. Chi and I offered to help Mu planting the stalks while Mu entertained us by
Singing as Social Life: Three Perspectives on Kwv Txhiaj from Vietnam by Lonán Ó Briain, Hmong Studies Journal 13.1(2012): 1-27.

13

singing a song about planting rice which Chi found humorous (see Figure 2).
12
I recorded five
separate stanzas while in the fields with Mu. As with Mu Xiong, Mu Yang’s performance was
extemporized and included long breaks between each section while she coordinated the workers.
This performance exemplifies some of the fundamental characteristics of the kwv txhiaj
song style. As is typical of the style, Mu begins with a sustained upper tonic (Figure 2). On this
note she pronounces “tab” (“but”) which does not contribute to the meaning of the remainder of
the phrase but is vital to the kwv txhiaj style because it forms a txwm with the second line, as the
third and fourth lines also do. The transcription also illustrates how the tones of the Hmong
language shape but do not necessarily fix the melodic line. Note how the “j” (high falling) and
“m” (glottal restriction/low falling) tones appear when the melody is descending and the “v”
(rising) tone tends to appear when the melody is rising. The “b” (high) tone tends to occur on
higher notes while the “g” (breathy/mid-low) tone tends to occur in the middle of the scale. The
“s” (low) tone also tends to appear around the middle of the scale in the transcribed section.
While this last tone might seem out of place since one would not normally describe the E or G as
“low”, in this context the absence of a low A on any strong half-beat of the melody, aside from
the last note of the phrases each time, demonstrates how this bottom note is rarely used while the
line is moving. The tendency to avoid consecutive repetition of the same melody notes and the
use of a tetratonic scale challenge the singer to match the linguistic tones with the pitch tones
while also singing lyrics which are comprehensible to the listener and fit into the txwm rhyming
couplet structure.


12
A video recording of this song can be accessed at: https://vimeo.com/41693572.
Singing as Social Life: Three Perspectives on Kwv Txhiaj from Vietnam by Lonán Ó Briain, Hmong Studies Journal 13.1(2012): 1-27.

14


Figure 2: A transcription of the first four phrases of Mu Yang’s nkauj cog nplej.
13


In an essay on the “mental world of the unenlightened during the Enlightenment”
(1984:9), the cultural historian Richard Darnton argues that “the great collections of folktales
made in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries provide a rare opportunity to make
contact with the illiterate masses who have disappeared into the past without leaving a trace”
(ibid.:17-18). The fixity of the written collections he analyses belies the diversity of versions that
would likely have been found within any one community or even told by one individual, as
demonstrated in the previous case study. Nevertheless, in showing how the worldviews of the
peasants who told these tales were embedded in the stories themselves, Darnton is able to

13
This transcription is approximately one semitone higher than the actual pitch which Mu sings at in order to avoid
the use of excessive accidentals.

Xem chi tiết: Singing as Social life