A few months ago, I stopped over at Hmong Village to pick up a few items from the fruits and vegetable market and as I was heading out I realized that an older man was selling these two string bowed instruments we called "Xis Xaus". It was the Hmong rendition of the Chinese Er Hu instrument. As I picked it up and began to tune the instrument to play the chords, another couple stopped by to check the cool instruments. He picked up an instrument and began to tune it also. As I inquire the owner of the table-stand as to who made these instruments, the passerby played his music….I believed he was playing the tone from the "Striped Hmongs" or Hmoob Ntxaij. While playing, he spoke to his significant other in White dialect while smiling.
As I continued to tune the instrument in my hand, one of the strings broke. As the passerby looked at me in awe, he said to me in White Hmong "young man, do you even know how to play this instrument"? Seeing as I have broken a string on this instrument, I quickly pulled my wallet out and handed the owner of the table-stand a $20 for compensating the broken string. I quickly glance to see if any other part of the instrument was also affected by this mistake I made. As I reconcile with the owner, the passerby told me in White Dialect Hmong that I was responsible for buying the whole instrument. In my defense, I told him that the part being broken was the string and it was up to the owner of the table-stand to deem fit if I was required to purchased the whole instrument. The passerby looked at me in disgust but as he did so, the owner spoke to me in my native Green Dialect that he didn't want anything for it because it had been the instruments that everyone was touching and tuning. I insisted that it was only fair to be able to restore the string so that the instrument could be played again. The owner agreed.
Not showing any sign of sympathy, the passerby told me that tuning the instrument did not require much adjustment. He insisted that playing the instrument needed only to be in a particular chord. To my amazement I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I told the passerby that these instruments would need to be tuned in accordingly to whether he was a White Hmong or a Green Hmong and in particular…that these instruments were very particular as to the tone it can be played because it represented what region or location the instrument player came from OR what hill tribe he was representing.
I suppose the White Dialect Hmong passerby had issues with me, not because of the instrument incident but actually by his prejudice that I was speaking in Green Hmong. The tone he gave off was quite child-like as he was maybe in his late 40's….somewhere there. The fact that he had beef with me on something he didn't own bother me not a bit but the fact that if he was going to school me on something, he should know his materials let alone if he was a straight up hater…well then I can't help those kinds of people. One thing for sure is he isn't a Star Trek fan because if he were, he'd understand that accepting other people's difference is the key to exploring new life and that would be boldly go where no man has gone before. Now as I reflect back to the incident and if my hand had quicker reflex I would of given him the Spock hand-sign of peace and prosper, you know the sign where he splits his hand between his middle-finger and the ring-finger.
Topic: Hmong green and Hmong white-please be serious about the topic (Read 24170 times)