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Tran Quang Hai’s Coin Clappers

“Hai Hoa” is Vietnamese farming song, sung about the flower harvest.


When we sing the song in our classes we “pick” our children as flowers, putting colored scarves over their heads, clapping and singing and harvesting all. Colorful flowers — brilliant yellow, orange and red blossoms — are an essential symbol of renewal and good luck during Vietnamese Lunar New Year celebration of Tet. Flower farms in Vietnam prepare all year for the December harvest in advance of the February holiday. While we’re not singing this Vietnamese farming song ourselves we can enjoy the heck out of this video of Tran Quang Hai’s exciting version, performed on the coin clappers.

We can’t get enough of Nha Nhac

Which form of imperial Vietnamese court music is your favorite?

If I had to bet on it, I’d put my money on Nhã nhạc. The term “Nhã nhạc” refers to music performed from the days of the Trần dynasty to the last Nguyễn dynasty of Vietnam. Vietnamese music particularly thrived in the 19th century when music in the imperial court also featured royal dances, many of which had the goal of encouraging the king’s long life and supporting the country’s wealth. Feel free to dance royally while you’re enjoying this video’s performance of Nhã nhạc.

We Visit Vietnam

All Around This World maps of Southeast Asia featuring Vietnam

This week in our online class we visited Vietnam — and all two thousand miles of its coastline. Since the formation of the first Vietnamese state over two millennia ago Vietnam has fought for the right to determine its own fate. Since way back in 111 B.C.,Vietnam has been under the rule of the Chinese, the French, the Japanese and, for all intents and purposes, the United States. The Vietnamese know that every time a power invaded, no matter how long they stuck around (the Chinese ruled for a thousand years), Vietnamese independence movements successfully sent them packing. Today Vietnam is officially Communist but is economically a free-market state. The economy has boomed, surviving setbacks such as the 1997 Asian economic crisis and the 2008 global recession. The Vietnamese government has a spotty human rights record and maintains control over most media and social policy, but it has also normalized diplomatic and trade relations with most nations, including the U.S., enabling today’s Vietnamese to become an increasingly globally-connected lot. This week we’ll enjoy Vietnamese music and culture, both homegrown and intertwined with the world.

In Vietnam, Rice is Nice


In class this week we harvest rice, more or less. Rice is the second most-produced grain on the planet after maize/corn and is the staple food of roughly half of globe’s population that of Vietnam. In class we pretend that our children are grains of rice and take them through the steps of production, from the field to the table. As we learn, unmilled rice is known as “paddy” and is best harvested when the grains are moist. After harvesting, which farmers mainly do by hand, comes threshing, which ideally takes place within a day or two after the harvest, and then the paddy has to go to a mill (or sit in the sun by the side of a road) where it must dry quickly to avoid becoming moldy. When the rice is dry, hullers remove the outer husk–another process that is often still done by hand. The hulling process can yield brown rice — the huller only removes the outermost husk, leaving most of the nutritional value intact — or white rice: further “polishing” removes the bran and the germ (and most of the vitamins). In class, after we harvest, we eat! (Or, just as we imagined the harvest, we pretend.)

A Day in the life of a rice farmer

Meet me in the Mekong Delta for a day in the life of a rice farmer.


Rice is by far the most important crop in Vietnam, both in terms of production — Vietnam is the world’s second largest rice exporter, after Thailand — and consumption — Vietnam is the world’s seventh-largest consumer. Vietnam’s national economy rises and falls with the undulating price of rice; in the Mekong Delta, for example, which is known as “Vietnam’s Rice Bowl,” about 80% of the population is engaged in rice production. (We see the rice-harvesting magic happen in this video.) Beyond its economic benefits, rice provides Vietnamese with an estimated 80% of their daily intake of carbohydrates and 40% of their protein. Very literally, Vietnam can’t live without rice.

Seven Decades of Songs from Pham Duy

Are you a fan of Phạm Duy?


During Vietnam’s struggle for independence from the 1940s to the mid 1970s, the “Vietnamese” nature of the nation’s traditional music became much more conscious, as traditional composers such as Phạm Duy began emphasizing national themes. When the nation split into Communist North and American-supported South in the ’60s, Phạm Duy disputed the North’s censorship and moved to the southern city of Saigon. When Saigon fell to the North in 1975 he was able to relocate to the United States where he lived in exile for several decades, traveling the world to sing his new songs about Vietnamese refugees (tị nạn ca) and songs about prisoners (ngục ca). With Vietnamese society becoming increasingly open in the ’90s and 2000’s, Phạm Duy moved back to Vietnam in 2005; the government didn’t rebuke him or his music. He passed away in Vietnam in 2013. In this video we enjoy a stage show consisting of his songs.