120 Part II: Outsiders
Descriptions of the Miao in China continue to emphasize their colorful
customs and their differences from the Han and encourage maintenance of
some, but not other, practices. Miao religious practices are summed up and dis-
missed as worshipping spirits, ancestors, and ghosts and wasting lots of money
on ceremonies. Yet their music, dance, and costumes can be encouraged, if
they are not set in a religious context and if they make a good show for televi-
sion, as proof that the cultures of the minorities are respected.Hmong in Thailand
After uprisings among the minorities of southern China in 1698, 1732,
1794, and 1855, “Miao scattered in all directions” (Culas and Micraud 1997),
above all southward into the high mountains of Southeast Asia. As we have
seen, this is difficult terrain consisting of deep clefts between fast-moving
mountain streams, mist-hidden peaks and ridges, and steep slopes that the
armies of the Han Chinese and the valley padi kingdoms could not reach. Here
groups like the Hmong were safe to practice hill rice cultivation, hunting, trade
across upland paths, and cash cropping of opium, free from oppressive states.
Jou Yee Xiong’s ancestors probably arrived after the 1855 rebellions. The
Hmong settlements moved across the northern hills of Vietnam, into Laos, and
later into northern Thailand. Some of these Thai Hmong settlements were
founded as recently as the 1970s, including the village of Chengmengmai
described later in this chapter, whose settlers crossed over from Laos as the
Vietnam War was winding down.
The Hmong do use color terms to designate their various subgroups, as
Chinese ethnologists noted and puzzled over a century ago. Modern scholars
are also not sure why color terms are used, but it seems to be an ancient prac-
tice (and groups other than the Hmong also use color terms for their sub-
groups). Almost all the Hmong in Thailand are members of either the White
Hmong (Hmong Glor) or the Blue Hmong (Hmong Njua) (who are known as the
Green Hmong in the United States). There are linguistic differences between
the two groups, although the dialects are mutually comprehensible. Again,
women’s clothing is diagnostic: Blue Hmong women wear short skirts woven
of hemp that are deeply pleated and have a light blue batik pattern on indigo.
White Hmong women sometimes wear a white skirt (hence their name), but
most of the time they wear dark trousers with a long embroidered sash that
hangs down the front and back.
There can be no doubt that today the Hmong of Thailand consider them-
selves one ethnic category distinct from other groups, whose villages are inter-
spersed with theirs. Hmong villages may share a hillside with Karen or Akha
or Lahu villages, the best land in the possession of whoever got there first. The
sense of common identity among Hmong is not expressed in territoriality or in
any kind of political organization at a level higher than that of the village,
although everyone has kinship ties with people in other villages, and the clans
also cut across village boundaries.