The Invisible Armada

27/09/2023 

INTRODUCTION

Vietnamese documentary Những Đứa Trẻ Trong Sương (English title Children of the Mist) by Hà Lệ Diễm has earned international recognition since 2021, winning accolades like the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival’s Best Directing and First Appearance Award, and securing a spot on the 2023 Academy Award feature documentary shortlist. 

Children of the Mist follows the coming-of-age journey of Má Thị Di, a teenage Hmong girl who lives with her family and goes to a lower secondary school in a mountainous village in Vietnam’s Northwest region  – a land that is all year long enveloped in a layer of mist due to its high altitude – which likely inspired the filmmaker to title the film “Children of the Mist”, as it captures not only the literal fog shrouding the village but also the broader symbolic significance it holds for the villagers’ lives.

Initially intended as a light-hearted documentary about the process of a girl growing up, Children of the Mist ultimately evolves into a compelling story of Di and her family’s struggle and negotiation with the event of Di being kidnapped to be a bride. The documentary highlights the challenges faced by Hmong women across various generations as they grapple with demanding cultural norms and expectations, particularly concerning child marriage and bride kidnapping. As the documentary unfolds, it becomes clear that the question that Di and her mother struggle to address is: how to successfully reject the marriage proposal of Di’s kidnapper, for which they adopt different strategies. 

Using the documentary as primary data, insights gleaned from a post-production interview given by documentarian Hà Lệ Diễm and protagonist Má Thị Di, and drawing on the existing literature on Hmong culture, this article analyzes the diverging strategies of rejection strategies employed by Di and her mother, emblematic of two different generations of Hmong women.

CONCEPTUAL APPROACH

Scholarship on Hmong communities have often portrayed Hmong women as passive individuals subjected to patriarchal structures, beholden to idle husbands, and often unable to express their own opinions (Young 1969; Cha 2010). The situation is similar with Vietnamese mainstream media’s depiction of Hmong and other ethnic minorities, often with scholars from Vietnam’s ethnic majority, the Kinh, interpreting and commenting in documentaries or newspapers articles about Hmong lives and culture. According to Langill (2023), these depictions are not only inaccurate, they also stifle the voices and agency of Hmong women while failing to capture the nuances of gender in Hmong culture and society. Recent studies have demonstrated that diversified, intersectional examinations of Hmong women’s experiences can shed light on the complexity of how gender, ethnicity, age, generation, marital status, occupation, and even location interact with one another in shaping women’s life experience (Hạnh, 2008; Nguyen, Oosterhoff & White, 2011; Jones, Preslerl-Marshall, & Tran, 2018; Langill, 2023).

Guided by this body of research, this article draws upon intersectionality as a conceptual framework to explore the experiences and coping strategies of women from various generations as they navigate the profound and life-altering phenomenon of bride kidnapping. This framework recognizes that a woman’s life experience is shaped by her multiple subjectivities. The experience of one subjectivity, such as being woman, is inherently interconnected with the experience of another, like being Black (Crenshaw, 1991; Bowleg, 2008). In this case at hand, these subjectivities involve being Hmong, young school girl or married woman and mother. While gender is a fundamental aspect of a person’s identity, it may be inadequate to examine the intricacies of power dynamics experienced by women and girls solely through a gender-centric lens. Thus, this study broadens the exploration of Hmong women’s life experiences beyond the dimensions of gender and ethnicity to encompass generational identity as an integral aspect in analyzing the experiences and coping strategies of individuals like Di and her mother in the face of Di's bride kidnapping.

HMONG ETHNICITY

Believed to have originated in China (Vang, 2016), most Hmong people nowadays live in the Southeast Asian Massif (Culas and Michaud, 1997; Lemoine, 2005), although they are also found in the United States, Australia, and South America. The Hmong communities residing in Southeast Asia mostly inhabit mountainous areas of four thousand feet above sea level (Vang, 2016) and have historically maintained a considerable level of autonomy (Langill, 2023). 

In Vietnam, according to a survey on the nation’s 53 ethnic minorities in 2019, by that year, the Hmong population was almost 1.4 million people, one of the largest and poorest ethnic minorities of the country (Vietnam Committee for Ethnic Minorities and General Statistics Office, 2020). Mostly living in the upland provinces of the Northwestern region, the Hmong people’s primary livelihood activities encompass subsistence agriculture, livestock raising, hunting and gathering, and engaging in small-scale trading activities (Turner, Bonnin, and Michaud, 2015; Vue, 2018). According to the survey, a majority of Hmong people (51.5% of Hmong population) get married before the legal age (ie., 20 for males, 18 for females), of which there are more child females than males entering a marriage union. 83.1% of Hmong women reproduce between 15 and 24 years of age, on average mothering 3.75 children each. These statistics mean that Hmong childhood, especially of girls, is cut short by the event of marriage, which is often shortly followed by pregnancy and parenthood, all happening in relative poverty. The abrupt ending of childhood can be particularly traumatic for young girls, especially when coupled with the cultural practice of bride kidnapping.

BRIDE KIDNAPPING IN HMONG CULTURE

Marriage among the Hmong community follows a traditional custom known variously as “bride kidnapping”, “bride capture”, “marriage by capture” or “bride pulling”. Within Hmong traditions, “bride pulling” (kéo vợ or kéo dâu) is often a prearranged event involving a mutual agreement between a man and a woman who wish to marry one another. The man, typically assisted by his male relatives or friends, carries out a symbolic abduction of the woman, bringing her to his home. During this enactment, it is expected that the woman vehemently resists. According to Hmong beliefs, the intensity of the woman’s resistance serves as an indicator of the potential happiness in the forthcoming marriage. This ceremonial performance is considered a cultural ritual, intended to be a joyous display, with onlookers refraining from interfering. However, there are instances where a kidnapping occurs without the woman's consent, and her struggle is not part of a planned performance. Moreover, in some cases, the prospective bride may be under the age of 18.

Vietnamese law prohibits both child marriage and bride pulling without the woman’s consent; perpetrators are subject to administrative fines according to Decree 82/2020/NĐ-CP while repeated violators can be convicted according to Criminal Code 2015, Code No. 100/2-15/QH13. Nevertheless, when marriages between legal minors take place, families simply do not register them until the couple is old enough to legally marry, which circumvents breaking the law.

XAY (DI’S MOTHER): DAUGHTER VERSUS CULTURE

“Tie your clothes together, don’t let him touch you”

“The house is empty without you, there’s only me home so your father keeps drinking and yelling at me”

“If you don’t go, don’t let them talk nonsense”

“Don’t listen to his sweet talking”

“His father drinks even more than yours, he is crazier than yours”

“He will beat you up. Don’t you see your father beat me up?”

“If you’re not gonna go [with them], come back inside, pour liquor and talk it out”

The utterances above are spoken by Di’s mother, a Hmong woman named Châu Thị Xay, around the advent of Di’s pulling. This section traces along some of these utterances and Xay’s behavior to elaborate on her living conditions and shed light on the sociocultural structures that shape her experience and strategies in dealing with her daughter’s capture. 

With her eldest daughter, La, married and her husband usually drunk and neglecting housework, Di is Xay’s biggest helper in the family. If Di decides to marry, Xay will lose not only her helping hand but also the time for her sole leisure activity: social drinking with her neighbors. On a phone conversation with Di, who was kidnapped and is staying at her captor’s house, Xay expresses an intimacy and vulnerability that are unseen in her daily exchanges with her daughter. She sobs, “The house is empty without you, there’s only me home so your father keeps drinking and yelling at me”.

Evidently, in her mother’s eyes, Di serves not only as a household helper but also as a companion and a shield, protecting her mother from domestic abuse. To Hmong women, domestic violence has long been reported as a prevalent problem, especially that which is fueled by alcohol (Jones et al., 2018; Langill, 2023). The issue has cast such a shadow on Hmong women and girls’ lives that being non-abusive becomes the first criterion for young girls when selecting husbands. While boys looking for wives aim at “maximising their [boys’] gains”, girls looking for husbands aim at “minimising their [girls’] losses” (Jones et al., 2018, p. 133). They evaluate boys’ potential for vice, with a top priority being a husband who will not beat up his wife when drunk. Xay sadly endures an abusive husband who becomes verbally and physically aggressive when intoxicated, though viewers are spared from witnessing such violence.

Because of her bad experience with an abusive marriage, Xay warns her daughter about the potentiality of Vàng becoming an abuser.  On another phone call with Di after Vàng’s family visited, Xay cautions her that “his father drinks even more than yours does, and he is even crazier than yours is”. Xay’s advice for her daughter after making this remark is that Di should not marry Vàng. However, when Di returns home with Vàng and his family after three days, Xay warmly welcomes them, treating the visit as a joyful occasion and displaying deep respect for the tradition of bride pulling. She calls Vàng “son in-law” as an indication of her approval of the marriage. 

Xay offers Di and Vàng cups filled with liquor, symbolizing their consent to the marriage, a crucial premarital ritual in Hmong traditions. By performing this ritual, Xay shows that she respects the tradition and wants to fulfill her role as the bride’s mother even though in her evaluation, Vàng and his family may not be ideal choices for Di’s husband and in-laws. Her gender and ethnic identity as a Hmong mother who complies to the expectations of her role is fully performed here. As a Hmong woman, she feels compelled to adhere to customary rituals in welcoming her daughter’s kidnaper’s family. Simultaneously, as a mother, she must caution Di of the hardships she may face ahead. This apparent inconsistency in Xay’s behavior reflects the internal struggle she experiences. 

Xay disapproves of Di’s approach to rejecting the marriage proposal, deeming it improper and overly direct. Di wanting to say to Vàng, “I do not like you” is utterly absurd in Xay’s view, which prompts her to scold her daughter, “If you do not agree [to marry Vàng], do not let people gossip [about the family] [and think you’re] an improper girl…You keep humiliating us [parents].” In contrast to Di’s bluntness, Xay’s rejection is soft and indirect to avoid offending Vàng’s family. Teaching her daughter to be diplomatic in her rejection, Xay says, “[Say] I love you too but we are not destined to be husband and wife. Do not say I do not like you…Go to where the sun shines for you.”

Xay is a mother torn between supporting her daughter and honoring her culture. Based on her life experience within her community, Xay may not believe that Di can necessarily avoid the typical destiny of a Hmong woman, even if she doesn’t marry this particular individual named Vàng, as long as their living conditions remain unchanged. As far as this mother is concerned, her daughter may eventually marry another boy and still end up with a drunk, abusive husband. Given the prevalence of this situation among women in the community, it must be challenging for Xay to imagine a different life for her daughter. 

Xay's conflicting thoughts lead her to employ the clever strategy she has developed over the years as a woman. She utilizes diplomatic language to navigate the challenging situation of potentially disregarding the well-respected tradition within her community. Meanwhile Di – still a child and hardly a woman herself – is not as clever, but rather intuitive in her handling of the situation. Most of the communication between the two families are done by women, that is Di’s mother and Vàng’s mother and sister, who all seem to make efforts to appease the others and keep up appearances. If these adult women’s communication is characterized as clever and diplomatic, Di, on the contrary, is intuitive, unapologetic, and thus “unwomanly”.

DI: THE NEXT GENERATION OF HMONG WOMEN

“There are places unlike this place, which mom couldn’t imagine. Living in the countryside, mom isn’t aware.”

“I’m not going with you. You are good, your parents are also good, I did not want to say it but my mom made me. I’m not going because I don’t love you. You go find your sunlight, I will find my sunlight, so we will not be bound.”

The shared sociocultural structures

While Di's approach to her situation differs from her mother’s expectations, they both operate within the same sociocultural structures that influence their experiences and perspectives. Firstly, the main livelihood of the Hmong community is agriculture where women serve as the primary labor force. This way of life prepares Di for her future role as an agriculture producer herself upon marriage. 

Secondly, regarding bride kidnapping, culturally, it is often discouraged for abducted girls to depart from their future in-laws’ home. It is believed that when a girl is pulled, her “soul” is also taken, binding her to the future husband’s family. She would lose her soul upon leaving. Kidnapped girls are also reported to avoid returning home due to fear of community disapproval (Jones et al., 2018). This disapproval of girls rejecting a marriage proposal by kidnapping is observed in Di’s mother when she reproaches Di for wanting to turn down the union and thus causing her parents to lose face. Unwritten rules that have been followed for hundreds of years indeed have a hold on Hmong women and even young girls, regardless of new ideas and education. 

An example of the omnipresent cultural pressure on Hmong women and girls can be observed in a conversation between Di and her teacher. Following Di’s disclosure of her reluctance to marry Vàng, her teacher, in an empathetic gesture, discusses the burdens placed on women who bear numerous family responsibilities, which, at Di's age, she should not have to concern herself with. Albeit the teacher’s progressive thoughts, which are in line with the Vietnamese government’s promotion of gender equality and prohibition of child marriage, Di is fixated on the fact that “[Vàng and his family] haven’t drunk [her] family’s [rejection] liquor”. This interaction underscores a notable cultural gap between what Di and her Kinh teacher perceive as the main problem of the situation. While the teacher almost dogmatically lectures about the unjust burdens on women regardless of ethnicity, it is the Hmong community’s way of life that exerts an unliftable weight on Di’s mind and heart: regardless of the sensibility in her teacher’s words, what concerns the teenage girl the most is still her cultural traditions. Regardless of her exposure to progressive ideas addressing gender inequalities and discriminations, Di’s life trajectory is shaped by her living conditions and the perception of her family, relatives, and neighbors. As noted by Jones and colleagues (2018), teachers and officials, although wanting to help, rarely understand girls’ vulnerability while girls’ mothers – who usually do understand their daughters’ vulnerabilities – are trapped by the rules of their culture.

The generational differences

While Xay and Di share the experiences associated with being female and Hmong, their individual journeys shaped also by the generational disparities, including the accessibility of education, daily experiences, and exposure to the broader world beyond their community and culture. This section examines the strategies employed by Di to navigate her kidnapping, which are influenced by the attributes of her generation. As Di tells Diễm, the filmmaker, at the beginning of the documentary, she “does not regret being born Hmong, but to live as a Hmong is a non-stop challenge”. That is her comment after her capture and the entailed struggle – a pivotal moment in her life that transforms her from being a carefree child who engages in theatrical plays about bride kidnapping to being a kidnapped girl who is forced to play the role of an adult. Di refuses to comply, which is a decision that is informed by her experience with education and her imagination of a wider world. It is also a decision that distinguishes her from her mother’s generation.

Education has undoubtedly been the most significant change in the lives of Hmong girls over the past decade. In only one generation, nationally driven policy and messaging and strict local enforcement have altered not only what girls do but also what their communities and families believe they should do. According to Vietnam’s Law on Education 2019 and the 2014 Decree on universal education (20/2014/NĐ-CP), primary and lower secondary education is mandatory for all children aged between 6 and 18. As a result of this national policy, commitment to universal education and reinforcement at the local level, Di is among the first generation to receive a formal education within the Hmong community in Vietnam.

Moreover, Di’s daily experiences and the exposure to the outside world also differ from her mother’s due to the developments in technology that Vietnam at large has been experiencing in the past couple decades. Her smartphone exposes Di to life outside her immediate surroundings, prompting her to, for example, adopt slang terms that are used by Kinh teenagers. This virtual connectivity also enables her to engage in flirtatious conversations with different boys she has never met in real life. Di’s kidnapper, Vàng, is in fact one of Di’s online “boyfriends”.

Di's exposure to the broader world, primarily through her smartphone, has broadened her aspirations for the future, envisioning opportunities beyond her immediate vicinity. In one of her conversations with Diễm, Di says, “There are places unlike this place, which mom couldn’t imagine… Living in the countryside, mom isn’t aware.” The film does not specify what kind of places Di refers to in this instance, but viewers can infer that in those places, young girls may have opportunities to earn an income and engage in romantic adventures. Although Di’s answer to Diễm’s question “So what kind of woman do you want to become?” is a sheepish “I don’t know”, Di has a clear vision of her desired future and exhibits tremendous enthusiasm for it: “I want to study a lot, later I will make a lot of money. Then I can have as many boyfriends as I want!” It can be argued that Di's response to her kidnapping cum marriage proposal is informed not solely by her gender and ethnic identity, but also by her education and a glimpse of an alternative way of life from the outside world. This sets her apart from her mother’s generation.

The young girl’s strategies

Due to these distinctions, Di's approach to dealing with her kidnapping differs significantly from her mother's. While the mother’s behavior seems to be driven by rules and traditions and informed by societal expectations of her as a Hmong mother, Di’s behavior is that of resistance since she does not want to comply with the cultural expectations of her. However, Di feels discouraged from vocalizing her objection, thus her resistance is materialized mostly in the form of silence. The pinnacle of such profound understanding of the cultural pressure is demonstrated by Di’s cry out for Diễm (the filmmaker behind the camera) instead of her mother for help (“Diễm, help me!”). In an interview, Di said that this is because she understands that parents are to respect traditions by not interfering when their daughter is kidnapped to be a bride (Nguyễn, 2023).

Significantly, Di is silent because while her mother accepts her decision to turn down the marriage proposal, the language that Di is expected to use is different from her inner voice. While Di wants to turn down the marriage proposal simply for the lack of love for the boy, her mother and grandmother prefer that she maintains family and social decorum by using more diplomatic language. Caught between her earnest desire to express her true feelings and her dedication to being a good daughter following her mother’s and family’s counsel, Di delays her verbal response and resorts to silence. Silence becomes Di’s refuge because the words she wants to say are disapproved and the approved words are not true to her thoughts and feelings. 

However, Di cannot contain her screams when Vàng and his relatives forcefully drag and carry her away without anyone intervening to help her. Everybody assumes the role of passive bystanders as this abduction appears to them as another joyous bride pulling event, with the girl seemingly engaged in a spirited performance of protest. However, genuinely not wanting this marriage, Di is not putting on a performance. Midair, she kicks her way out of the kidnappers’ arms and sits on the ground crying. Prompted by her mother who, after being urged by the filmmaker to stop the abduction, sternly says, “If you’re not gonna go [with them], come back inside, pour liquor and talk it out”, Di gathers her resolve, returns indoors and finally verbalizes her thoughts: “I’m not going with you. You are good, your parents are also good, I did not want to say it but my mom made me. I’m not going because I don’t love you. You go find your sunlight, I will find my sunlight, so we will not be bound.” Finally, Di has the opportunity to candidly express the genuine reason for declining the marriage proposal. While she offers compliments to Vàng and his family, Di also emphasizes that the idea is not her own. Nevertheless, her parting words to him mirror those of her mother: “You go find your sunlight, I will find my sunlight, so we will not be bound”. She utters these words without revealing that it was her mother who earlier invoked “sunlight”, or destiny, as a justification for Di to reject Vàng. This signifies that Di embraces certain Hmong concepts, such as preordained destiny, while rejecting others, like the pressure to maintain appearances represented by her mother. Here, we can observe both an inheritance and a discontinuity of Hmong culture within Di’s generation.

One important catalyst that informs Di’s rebellion against the long-standing institution of bride pulling, along Di’s exposure to new ideas through education and technology, is the support that comes from the school teachers and the local authorities. The intervention of the teachers and the local authorities is an execution of the national government’s will to tackle what is perceived as unprogressive and illegal in Hmong traditions. In this meeting, the teachers and local officials explain the national policy against child marriage to the two families. This intervention gives Di courage to speak up about her desire to continue studying in front of everyone. This moment marks the change in her strategy: from silence she now arms herself precisely with the anti-child marriage national policy that is being reinforced by the teachers and authorities, she says: “I know, when I study at school my teachers have taught me about marriage age. I know that for women it should be 18 years old and above. I do not want to get married. I want to continue to study”. It is notable that she never once invokes the policy as reason for her rejection until the presence of the teachers and government representatives. 

FROM CHILDREN OF THE MIST TO THE GENERAL SITUATION OF HMONG WOMEN & CONCLUDING REMARKS

As can be seen, Xay’s and Di's generations are different not only in education but also in their access to the protection of an anti-child marriage policy and the support system from such policy reinforcers. Nevertheless, it is important to admit that intervention like this rarely happens for Hmong girls who, like Di, wish to reject a marriage proposal by kidnapping (Nguyen et al., 2011). There is also little evidence that schooling is leading to significant changes in Hmong girls’ daily lives or enhancing their access to agency and voice. While young girls may have been introduced to ideas of gender injustices and the immaturity of child marriage and exposed to the wider world outside Hmong community, they need strong encouragement and sustainable support to voice their opinions against child marriage and bride kidnapping without the woman’s consent. This support, however, is in short supply. And in fact, although the documented intervention encourages Di to raise her voice, it does not discourage Vàng and his family from trying to snatch Di from her own house afterwards. Thus, sporadic interventions clearly do not suffice to deter child marriage. 

Research has also reported on a lack of role models for young Hmong girls to follow (Nguyen et al., 2011). Although teachers and Hmong commune officials serve as successful examples of those who have stable jobs and monthly incomes, they do not serve to inspire young girls to defy unjust customs because most of them either belong to a different generation, or have not rejected a bride pulling proposal, or not female, or not Hmong (Jones et al., 2018). Di’s resistance should become an excellent example for young Hmong girls to follow should they fall victim to an unwanted bride capture. However, ironically enough, even though the film was commercially screened for six weeks in March and April, 2023 – an unusual length for a documentary to be commercially screened in Vietnam –   most of these screenings happened in major cities where Hmong youths are not present.

Last but not least, despite the availability of education and cellular networks, the main livelihood of Hmong people is still subsistence agriculture (Langill, 2023). Most Hmong children are still growing up in the remote areas that their forefathers chose a long time ago when they migrated from China – an “ongoing practice of reclusive lifestyle [that contributes] to Hmong socioeconomic hardship” (Vang, 2016, p. 28). Their ethnic identity is central to their daily lives and access to non-farm employment is rare (Jones et al., 2018). After graduating from grade 9, Hmong girls are still expected to get married, bear children, and become the main laborer working on the husband’ family farm. Therefore, while subsidized education and mobile networks rouse dreams about alternative lifestyles for Hmong girls, the lack of actual alternative livelihoods keeps them from pursuing such dreams, or at least rebelling against the path laid out for them by traditions. For women living in the vicinity of a tourist town such as Sa Pa, other job opportunities such as being tour guides or selling souvenirs and traditional fabrics have presented themselves. Girls that take these opportunities have been reported to thrive and have their horizons broadened not only beyond their Hmong community but also beyond national borders with friendships with foreigners who share about their lives outside Vietnam (Hạnh, 2008). With her location near Sa Pa and of course the publicity of the film, Di has been able to establish an online business where she sells indigo fabrics. Most Hmong women who live in remote areas in the Northern mountains of the country, however, do not have much opportunity of livelihood outside agriculture. If other job opportunities are still not available for Hmongs, their envisions for future possibilities as a result of education and virtual networks are only going to bring about “incremental change” (Jones et al., 2018, p. 144), but not reshape the lives of Hmong people, especially women. 

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