Inside Hmong Beliefs and Values

By Xee Vang, Neeg Magazine
Published: November 18, 2002

The guest speaker from Eau Claire prepares her table in front of her audience at the Thompson Community Center. The table is filled of craft hand woven unique items of art, small pha ndaus, a green plant, Hmong articrafts ranging from small to large objects, a large craft pha ndau, and even a family picture. Setting her manipulatives on the table, Mrs. Houa Vue Moua takes her audience inside the Hmong culture, beliefs, and values. She is scheduled to speak for four hours. The audience can be sure of quite a show, different than other usual workshops!
Some topics to be discussed in depth through out the workshop are myths and taboos, different dating styles, social and cultural aspects, the role of men and women, and other related subject matter regarding the Hmong culture. Her role and objective is to educate and involve her audience in her speech with captive activities that capture and can attain their attention. Her main goal is to educate and grasp the audience deep into the root of the Hmong culture, beliefs, and values. It is an evening promising a night filled with enjoyment, and wonder. KajNtug Children's Fund, Inc. is the first to attend and offers this presentation workshop for the awareness of Hmong culture to the community as a whole.

Mrs. Moua begins her presentation giving an example of a myth within the Yang clan. She narrates the story that is hidden behind the meaning of the myth. The story begins.
" Once, long ago, the Yang was preparing a meal for the ancestors. They had boiled all the body parts of an animal inside a very huge pot. The meat and body parts were to be offered to the ancestors. Once when all was cooked, the heart of the animal could not be found. They needed a heart to offer to the ancestors. There was an orphan boy who was there. The gethering men thought that because he was an orphaned boy, he must have eaten the heart. So, they decided to use his heart and offered it to the ancestors.
After the offering, when the ladies went to clean the pot, deep down in the broth and hidden on the bottom of pot was the animal heart. They thought what a terrible thing they had done. How selfish they were to think that the orphaned boy had eaten the heart of the animal. They had become blind by their own selfishness and had not seen that the heart, indeed, was with the other parts of the meat within the pot and, instead, had killed an innocent orphaned boy.
From that day on forward, there was a curse. The curse stated that from that day and forever more, the Yang men can never eat any heart of any animal again. For if they do, they will become blind and will never become successful in their future. And for any women who intentionally allows a Yang man eat the heart of an animal will become blind herself and will not be successful in life but the man that did not know he was eating it would not be blind or affected by it." This is why the men in the Yang can never eat any heart of any animal again.

Mrs. Moua discussed taboos such as the taboo of dating each other's clan members and the rituals that do not allow a person to enter into a Hmong home for a certain period of time. The same clan (meaning the same last name) cannot date each other. They cannot converse conversation or be attracted to one another. It is a "law" for the Hmong community not to date an individual with the same last name as one's own. How one person must choose their soul mate that will be with them forever is not the one that loves that person before marriage. It is the individual that one has never seen before, never loved before, never fed before, never correlated with before, that will be that person's soul mate to the end. In simple and specific upfront detail, if an individual really loves a person before a marriage, it will last only somes.
One such topic of dating is the blowing of leaves. In its own language and dialects, it denotes a way of communication within its own unique sounds. These sounds represent a romanticism within two couples that dare not communicate to be seen. The sounds of blowing leaves symbolize an emblematic love and trust within the two couples. It is a sacred trust and mutual understanding between the two that is more profound than that of everyday language.

Family values were issues in the agenda that were addressed by Mrs. Moua. She gave an example of a Hmong home. That home may have lots of children, have grandma and grandpa living there, and only have three bedrooms. She states that the home may be small but the heart is large. The Hmong community value families. The extension of offspring is the pride and importance in the heart of Hmong families.
Younger generations value the respect for their elders, husbands and wives value each other's respect, and the population of Hmong value the respect they have in the community. It has always been taught as a lesson and a curriculum to always respect others as you would like to be respected. For the young, the elders are to be considered as an ultimate being that has great knowledge to guide and aid them in the future. It is a respect understood, both by the young and the elderly. Husbands and wives respect each other the same as do the young respect their elders. Wives are to look upon their husbands as the individual who will lead them to success and bare his name as sacred. His name is to be blessed upon and never to be spit on. Respect for other Hmong individuals in the community and working together as a society and as a team is always expected of the Hmong population. If you are respectful, you will be respected.

Racial interrogation is a chapter that Hmong people endure today in American Society. Stereotypes that falsify the Hmong name and image control the minds of certain citizens in society today. Mrs. Moua gave models and illustrations how she has encountered and coped with these individuals that stereotype and use racial issues against her. It happens in every neighborhood, in every town, and in every society to anyone as proposed and shared by Mrs. Moua.

Through out the night, she continuously speaks and demonstrates the priceless habits, traditions, customs, and way of life of the Hmong people. From life in Laos to modern life living in America today, Mrs. Moua reveals, exhibits, and explains in detail the hardship and the enjoyment of living in America as a Hmong woman. The adaptations and endurement that she has had to assimilate with and the adaptations that had to be made for her survival in a society so different from the one back in the country that she was born, have led her to an understanding between two cultures. The connection that she has concluded between the two cultures have contributed greatly to having a successful career cross-cultural group speaking about each other's differences and the respect that we, as a society and as partners, should have for each other.

Mrs. Moua suggested that a non-Hmong should spend a day, a night, or a few hours with a Hmong family and a Hmong family should invite a non-Hmong into their family. The great influence of the two cultures will have upon each other will greatly benefit them both in an advantageous way that cannot be bargained for. This is the type of partnership and affiliation that can only conquer the types of issues that seem hard to overcome.

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The purpose of NEEG Magazine is to foresee and respond to the communities need for information about:

People, Arts, Infomation, and News(PAIN).
Promoting Hmong's Linguistic, Social structure, and Cultural values (Txuj Ci).