Montagnard agriculture and history: a visit with Thomas Eban

Several of us went on a field trip to visit Thomas Eban, a Montagnard community member with an amazing urban farm (1.6 acres) in Greensboro, NC. We spoke with Thomas about his agricultural work, and also about Montagnard architecture, and how to make various things with bamboo and other natural materials.

Thomas also spoke with us about the years he spent as a fighter for Montagnard independence and liberation (coincident with the years when America was also fighting with the North Vietnamese).

The land Thomas works is in an area of Greensboro with fairly small lots and lots of houses, so a 1.6 acre parcel is a pretty surprising sight to behold. Thomas told us the land was formerly some sort of golf practice course. He said he still occasionally digs up golf balls when he is working! The picture below shows one part of the property, and in the foreground you can see planting for the new growing season has just begun.

Traditional Montagnard musicians visit UNCSA

UNCSA is primarily a conservatory of Western art, so opportunities to experience the music, dance, drama, film, and visual art of non-Western cultures are rare here. We had one such opportunity on May 11 when two accomplished Montagnard musicians visited our school to speak and give a demonstration of the use of traditional instruments.

NC Heritage Award recipient Dock Ramah (standing in the picture on the right) and Y Suk Bukrong (sitting) played a variety of hand-made instruments and spoke about a variety of cultural contexts, including courtship, informal evening entertainment, etc., in which traditional music plays a vital role on Montagnard culture.

Students and others were able to ask questions of the musicians on a wide variety of topics, including questions on the attitude of young people in Montagnard culture towards traditional music and culture. Dock Ramah indicated that it was an uphill battle to interest the young in making and/or learning to play traditional music, or in being involved in other traditional forms.

This is a particularly intriguing problem to present in the context of UNCSA because, as noted above, our school is a conservatory of traditional art forms/genres in Western art and culture. Students clearly appreciate and learn traditional forms, but it is also abundantly clear --for example by looking at the number of students who are members of contemporary-music bands, who write and perform their own hip hop pieces and so forth-- that respect for tradition is balanced with contemporary concerns and involvements.

We haven't heard yet from Montagnard youth themselves on this topic of traditional vs. contemporary culture, but I think we will very soon. Andrew Young is hooking us up to talk with a young Montagnard writer in NYC and a young Montagnard rapper who lives in Raleigh NC. We are also looking to welcome a contingent of young Montagnards from the Greensboro NC area to talk with us and take a tour of our campus.

Montagnard Food and Cooking at UNCSA

On May 5th, Khin and Kwol (two Montagnard women who we also met with earlier in the term via videoconferencing) traveled to UNCSA with Andrew Young to show us some cooking techniques and talk with us about Montagnard food.They brought the ingredients and the knowledge+skills, two of our students --Emily and Nathan-- contributed their labor, and four or five of us documented the event with still images and video.

When people get involved in doing things together --simple things like cooking--wonderful things tend to happen. For example, storytelling and reminiscing seem to emerge naturally. A short video that Andrew Young assembled (in part to experiment with subtitles on videos, in part to get one of Kwol's stories on record) is included in this post. In it, Kwol tells the story of the extended time she spent living in the Cambodian jungle.

After the food event Andrew and I took Khin and Kwol on a tour of the UNCSA campus. This was great fun. From an anthropological perspective it was very interesting to be on the other end of the camera, so to speak, as the two Montagnard women gathered their own narrated footage on the UNCSA campus.

Glenwood celebration and Goat Lady Farm trips

Our first two Montagnard-related events --the Glenwood Neighborhood Celebration and the Open Farm Day at the Goat Lady Dairy Farm -- were great successes. Both of these events established relevant contexts for our study of the Montagnards, and were full of delightful opportunities to live and learn.

The Glenwood celebration revealed Greensboro to be a city with an awareness and appreciation of multiculturalism. A contingent of Montagnard weavers showed and sold their wares, demonstrated the use of a spinning wheel, and answered questions. Their presence added a wonderful dimension to the festivities.

A reggae band sets up and plays!

The event drew very significant numbers of attendees, and featured an impressive and varied group of entertainers, vendors, and information providers. There were plenty of opportunities to hear good music, watch good dance performance, have good conversations, and in general enjoy the rich weave of cultures in our local area. The Glenwood neighborhood is in the midst of a revival and, based on this year's celebration, the movement of the people seems to have momentum. Several veteran attendees of the celebration noted that this year's event was by far the largest to date. The event is in its fourth year.

I gathered documentary video materials and assembled a short documentary piece that is now posted on this site's Products page. Hopefully it captures some of the flavor of the event for those who couldn't attend. At least three groups of students also attended the celebration and gathered video assets for documentaries. I'm really looking forward to seeing what they assemble from their gatherings.

The Open Farm Day at the Goat Lady Dairy Farm was also an excellent event. The context established for our work in this instance is simply that the Montagnards are expert agriculturalists, as are the folks at the GLDF. What would a cultural study be without agri-culture anyway!

I had a wonderful conversation with the proprietor of the dairy and his son, both of whom proved to be extremely astute observers of the current state of the planet and its peoples. I am in the process of assembling a short documentary centering around this conversation.

Field work now lined up and ready to begin

This upcoming weekend we have our first opportunities to do field work, and I'm delighted that we have folks who are ready and eager to jump up from their computer screens to venture out and take it to the field.

On Saturday the Montagnard community in Greensboro takes part in the Glenwood Neighborhood Celebration. Glenwood is a neighborhood in Greensboro in which the Montagnard community is well represented. This promises to be an interesting event to document, offering a unique opportunity to see the Montagnard community in relationship and in context. It will be my first time to attend this celebration, and I'm really looking forward to it.

Goat Lady Dairy Farm on Open Farm Day

On Sunday Montagnard weavers take part in Open Farm Day at the Goat Lady Dairy Farm (GLDF). This promises to be an interesting event as well, since the GLDF is quite an amazing place to see successful sustainable agriculture in action. I have been to the farm a couple of times and am eager to return. It is very intriguing to see how the most cutting-edge contemporary practices in agriculture --such as those at the GLDF-- mirror the methods of traditional agriculturalists such as the Montagnards. So the connection is very strong and intriguing.

We watched a video early in the term of a Wade Davis presentation entitled Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World and in many ways the Goat Lady Dairy Farm is an object-lesson in not only why ancient wisdom matters, but also how it can be applied in contemporary life.

Starting with videoconferences sets the stage

After two weeks of preparatory/organizational work --involving sharing and discussing background materials in Anthropology and Media Studies, along with the usual start-up tasks involved in college courses-- we are, as of today, officially under way.

A Montagnard garden in Greensboro NC

It seems official today because we had our first direct interaction, via video-conferencing, between participants in three sections of the Digital Media for the Artist (DMA ) and members of the Montagnard Dega community living in the Greensboro NC area.  On the UNCSA end of the Skype call, we introduced ourselves and talked with two Montagnard Dega women, both of whom were engaging, kind, and delightfully honest and forthright. My friend and colleague of 15+ years, Andrew Young, did a masterful job of introducing the Montagnard Dega women to us, and facilitating our interaction with them.

We asked questions ranging from what they missed about their home culture in Vietnam, how it came to be that they settled in Greensboro NC, and what the challenges their youth face here in the USA. We also asked Andrew Young how he came to be interested in Montagnard Dega culture. In each instance the responses were enlightening and informative. I include the three video-conferences below: