Life style : Food and Diets of Mien

Food and Diets
      The food source: Miens get their food from various sources such as from their own agriculture and from nature such as the mountains and forests. The food sources of the Mien people are as shown below:

1.Food from them has grown.       Usually the Miens obtain their food from their agriculture, which forms the main source of their food, including rice and vegetables. They plant many varieties of crops in their farm. Some examples are rice, corn, cassava, sunflower, sesames, chilies, eggplant, tomato, gourd, pumpkins, beans, cabbage, garlic, taro, sweet potato, ginger, galangal, onion, cucumber etc.

2. Food obtained from nature.       Food can also be obtained from the forest. There are different kinds of food available from different seasons. The main kinds of food are mushrooms, bamboo shoots, rattan, banana flower, spinach etc. Nature also provides a source of proteins for the Miens in the form of meats from the boar, wild chicken, barking deer, birds, rabbit etc. The fishes, crab, shells, shrimp, turtle, vegetables, frog etc in the rivers and lakes are another source of food for the Miens. 3.Food obtained from their community.       Nowadays, every village has roads leading to them and has access to transportations, thus making it easier for the Miens to obtain foods for themselves. The villagers have business dealings with each other to buy or sell food. These food obtained from outside are easily accessible to their village, which consist of many kinds of seasonings such as sugar, fish sauce, shrimp paste, monosodium glutamate, salt, and other food like instant foods, vegetables and meats.

Preparation of food 1.Cook       Miens cook rice by pour the water from the boiled rice. The processes to cook rice, the rice grains are first placed into the pot and rinsed with water1-2 times and put on the stove for cooking. The rice is brought to boil and tested to see if it is cooked. When the rice is cooked, the water is then poured away and the pot is put back on the stove for the rice in the pot to dry.

2. To flavor the food.       Miens flavor their food by using the oil from lard to fry the vegetables, together with water and salt. Usually, Miens do not use knife to cut the vegetables, instead they use their hands to tear the vegetables into pieces. However there are exceptions such as eggplants, cucumber, and pumpkin, which are cut into filaments and then fry with lard. Mien principle to eat cooked food exception spicy minced meat salad. Miens’ food is generally salty. They do not use the chili paste like the locals but buy seasonings from the locals like salt, fish sauce, sugar and monosodium glutamate. Usually, Miens do not use fish sauce; they commonly use salt to give their food a salty taste.

Stove       Usually, Miens have 2 kinds of stoves - the Chinese earthen stove with a triangular stand ( it has three stones to support the pot) and a big stove to boil food for pigs or boil water for scalding the pig skin, for sick person to shower and for steaming sweetmeat. Moreover, they use this stove to boil alcohol. They have another stove to boil hot tea for the guests. Miens like to sit around the bonfire to exchange knowledge or experience with each other. Miens believe that there is a spirit living in the bonfire and will not pour water onto the bonfire nor turn their back to face the bonfire.

The pregnant women do not go close to the bonfire. Miens believe that the spirit from the bonfire will come to harm those who violate these rules by inflicting wounds, or by exploding etc.

The equipment used to prepare food.       1. Cooker (Change in Mien language) Now they use a crock bought from the market in the city. In the past they used the cooker that resembles a monk's alms bowl. Some households still use the cooker that does not have handles like that used in the past.       2. Pan (Chang Bean) for frying. Miens have a lot of pans.       3. Scoop. Miens do not like to use this tool. They often use a small paddle.       4. A ladle (Hang-Juey) they like to use  softwood to make a ladle like a paddle to mix rice when they cook because Miens cook rice by pouring water off from the boiled rice.       5. Chopsticks (Jeaw) Miens like to use chopsticks to eat. They are usually made from bamboo. They dye the chopsticks red because this color is considered auspicious and is often used in wedding ceremony. The other reason is to protect the chopsticks from fungus so that the chopsticks can last longer.

Food preservation.       Miens like to preserve meat so as to keep them longer, especially pork. They have many ways to preserve their food such as those below: Hang the meat under the kitchen roof above the stove. This allows the meat to be smoked from the cookings. This way the pork is kept longer. When they want to eat, they will just cut away the blackened layer from the smoked meat and cook. Ox-Sui, which is pickled pork. They chop the pork and cook it together with rice to make the meat tasty, and the cooked meat is preserved with salt and put into a jar to be sealed until when the meat is needed.   Or-Buan-Sui or pickled meat. They soak rice for around 2-3 hours and pound the rice, followed by mixing it together with pork and water. They keep this pickled meat in the jar and can be kept for a year. Ip-Or-Sui or meat fried to dry the lard and kept in a jar. Pickled bamboo (Bae-Sui) they pickle bamboo with salt. Pickled Chinese cabbage (Rai-Sui) they cut the Chinese cabbage into small pieces and soak them in some boiling milk-like water for around 4-5 days or until the vegetable turns sour. Pork skin or cracking (Or-Faw) Miens will fry the pork to get the lard, thence they get the cracking with out lard. They keep this together with lard or put some meat. They warm the cracking and meat when they want to eat or cook them with other food. Coarse rice       Miens eat coarse rice. They use a mortar to pound the rice and the mortar is important for the child spirit because they believe that the fetus between 3 to 9 months old will live in the mortar that they do not break the mortar.        Usually, Mien women will pound rice and prepare food for the family after they finished their housework. In some homes, they will pound the rice in the morning and this sound will wake everyone in their family up. The coarse rice is preferred because it is nutritious and tasty. The Mortar       There are 2 types of mortar. The first one requires manual pounding and is called Ta-Toi and other uses the energy generated by water and is called Oam-Toi. Miens do not pound rice at noon because the chickens will interfere. They will get rice bran from them pound for their pet. Nowadays, Miens usually take their rice to the rice mill because it is more convenient and less tiring since they do not have to pound the rice manually.

Food for people in different age groups. 1.Food for the women who are pregnant and women after giving birth.       They eat simple food like those that they eat every day including chicken, meat, egg, chilies and green vegetables but not wild animals and twin fruits. Miens give priority to the pregnant. The main course consists of rice and chicken with the herbs, and they do not eat eggplants, pumpkin, cucumber, gourd, banana flower, ripened banana, ripened papaya, cabbage, guava and fish.

2. Food for babies and children.       Food for the babies and children consist mainly of milk from their mothers. They will consume supplementary food when they are about 3-5 months old. The supplementary food for the baby are ground banana, boiled egg, soup, rice porridge with pork or chicken, rice with oil, water or sugar or salt, ground rice mixed with banana. Babies and children cannot eat tiger meat, wild cat, eagle and bees because they believe that babies and children will convulse when they consume these meats.      (is it better to take out children? Just mention babies because children can be from a few years old to 12 years old) 3. Food for the old and the elderly.       There is no special diet for the elderly. They eat the same food as the other people in the village, such as vegetable soup and spicy meat soup. However, the elderly do avoid spicy food and food that are not easily digestible. In the Miens’ tradition, they will prepare food and offer them to the elderly before eating.    4. Food for the people who are sick.       Food for the sick people are usually easy to digest and bland, such as boiled vegetables, grilled meats, soft-boiled egg, soft-boiled rice with salt, meat curry. There are some restrictions in diets for the various sicknesses. For people suffering from beriberi, they cannot eat pickled food; for people with skin diseases, they cannot eat meats; for people running a fever, to avoid eating sweet food, and people with injuries to abstain from chicken, fish, frog and crab meat. The reason behind this is that these foods will slow down or prevent recovery.

5. Food for ceremonies or cerebrations.       Foods for cerebrations or ceremonies are special. They usually use pork or chicken meat as the main dishes. The food used in the ceremony or celebration will  be shared with people who attended the ceremony after the ceremony or cerebration. The food used can consist of a large variety, including food that they can buy from outside.

Life style : Medicine

Miens have a number of techniques for treating people with both physical and mental afflictions. They have a method to treat as drag or knead in the painful, treat with herbs, worship the spirits or go to the hospital in the event of an injury. Worship is conducted concurrently with this treatment.

The naturopathy by massage or knead and scrape on the body.      This technique is having pains and aches or exhaustion.      1. Nib-Sa involves using the back side of the index finger and the middle finger. After being dipped into water, they pull the flesh around the breast and the shoulder inside, left and right. Around the breast they have three to seven points to pull. When they finish the Nib-Sa procedure, the flesh will be red from bruising. The patient treated by this method will fresh because it causes bleeding. People who are fat cannot use Nib-Sa; they will use Gwau-Sa instead.      2. Gwau-Sa involves using a coin or razor blade to slit the patient’s skin and burn the paper and put it in the bottle, covers the skin that has slit by the bottle until the smoke in the bottle gone. The blood that area changes the color.      3. Gwai-Ti-Tan is for treating a person who has a fever and a backache. They pound ginger and mix it the lard and brush it on the area that has pain, then cover it with a bowl and scrape it down. If the back has toxicity as the skin has become tanned.                          4.ung-Sa is bloods test in fingertip. First, they drive the blood from the body to the arm and tie up the arm to restrict circulation; they then drive the blood from the arm to the wrist and tie again. They tie each finger up one by one. When the blood is dark in the fingertips, they jab the pin into the fingers. They do this to all the fingers and toes. Mien believes that they get better when they drive the waste bloods from themselves.

Treat with herbs.      Mien ancients passed down the wisdom that any plant in the forest is a potential herbal medicine. When Mien root a plant out, they will hold their breath because they believe that the herb has rich and be full-flavored.  If the Mien doctor himself has an illness, he cannot go to the forest and pick the herbs himself. Fortunately, even today, Mien has adequate knowledge of traditional herbal medicines to get their own herbs from the forest.

Treat by worshipping spirits.      When a person is treated with herbs but still does not recover, Mien believes that a ghost made them ill. Therefore, they will cast lots or Bowb-Gwa-Ton (casting lots by flipping a stone). The leader of the worship knows how to cast these lots. When the lots have been cast and the case is the same as the ghost tell is the stone will oscillate. They will have to make an offering of food to the spirit to satisfy the spirit and help the patient get better.  http://mien.hilltribe.org/english/

Life style : Death

For Miens, the death of a family member requires carrying out a very specific set of ceremonies. If a parent has died, for example, then the first son would have to help shut the eyelids, and insert a silver coin in the corpse’s mouth. Miens believe that when a person dies with his/her eyes open, it means he/she died unhappily (may still have regrets). Therefore, by closing the eyelids of a corpse means “please go happy, leave any regrets behind.” The Mien have a saying, “A rich, valuable individual died with a silver coin in his mouth," something similar (but opposite) to the American saying, “A rich individual was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.” When a father dies, the corpse is laid flat on a wooden board, facing up. The sons must then take turns to hold their father’s head with both hands, gently raising it up, and lowering back down. It means, “Go in peace father.” The corpse is then washed, dressed in traditional clothes, and put in front of the altar with the feet facing out toward the main door.

Upon a Mien person's last gasp of breath, the first thing that must be done is to fire a gun into the air three times, in order to call heaven to help watch for the spirit and soul. The noise from the gunfire also helps warn the neighbors that a family member has just passed away. The surrounding residents often show courtesy and respect by taking a few days off from farming to help the family cope with their loss. Usually, one person or two from every family in the village would come and help prepare for the ceremony. The chief of the village selects six special helpers to help cut down a tree to carve a casket. When the casket is completed, the helpers bring it from the forest. A sorcerer performs a ritual around the casket, knocking the casket inside and out, chasing away the evil spirits, which may be hiding inside the casket. Once the corpse is put inside, the casket is sealed, nailed tight, and decorated with variety of paper-designs. The sorcerer keeps the dead person informed on every step of the way.

During the ceremony (which takes three days and three nights), all of the children, and relatives who are younger than the dead must wear a white cloth over their head. It is a sign of honor and respect. On the first day, friends and family prepare paper money, make dolls out of dough, make a paper boat, dress up the dead, and make the casket. On the second day, they build a miniature wooden bridge with towers, calling all known spirit ghosts to come down from the heaven to help guide the way. The third day encompasses finalizing the ceremony and taking the corpse to nearby cemetery for cremation and/or burial.

Choosing a Burial Spot A burial site is usually a mid-size forest near the village. Before the casket is carried out of the main door, there are more rounds of gunfire. A group of men help carry the casket on their shoulders walking from the house to the nearby cemetery, accompanied with family, and relatives, playing drums, gongs, and other music instruments. At the cemetery, the casket is laid on the ground. A lady holding a rooster walks around the casket three times to ensure that the soul is separated from the body. Immediately after that a sorcerer steps atop of the casket does his chanting, steps down, and the casket is lit on the four corners. Minutes later, everyone turns his/her back and walk away from the site, never to look back at the fire. There’s a saying “if you look back, your spirit may go back with the death.”

The next morning, a sorcerer and few of his helpers return to the burning site to collect the bones for a permanent burial. A burial site can be a pre-selected spot, chosen by the dead person (when he was alive); it can be a peaceful place away from the cemetery, atop of the mountains, etc. The group brings with them an egg and a chicken to the selected burial area. The sorcerer does his chanting, informing the dead what he is about to do and tosses the egg on the ground. If the egg breaks, it means that particular spot is desired by the dead for the burial of his bones. But if the egg does not break, they will have to keep on tossing it around in different spots until it breaks. After the burial is done, those in attendance prepare the chicken and have a picnic as a compliment for a job well done. The above ceremony is for adults only. If a child dies before the age of twelve, before his cuotv biangh liemh ("flower blossoming") ceremony, he is usually buried in the village cemetery, no need for selecting sites, nor preparing a big ceremony. http://mien.hilltribe.org/english/

Life style : Government

The Household Rules In the Mien family, men are honored with respect and admiration. For example, when there is a big dinner or during a special ceremony, men are the first to be seated around the table. When men are done eating, women help clean up, reset the table, and refill all the dishes with fresh cooking. Then the women and children can eat. Generally, husband and wife share equal value, make decisions together for their family and children. The wife respects her man and the husband shares his concerns with his wife and at times asks for her decision. Mien people believe in family value and hard work. It is very important that a family stays united and not be divided without a good reason. The head of the household makes most of the decision. The father teaches his child(ren) the survival skills (hunting, farming, education). Mien have special respect for their elder men and women. The youths must listen and learn from their elders. Mien Community Fundamental Positions Chief of the village/district Elder/Mediator Planner (Celestial) Blacksmith Silversmith Physician (herbal doctor or dia-sai)

Authority and Governance
Chief of the district/village, his duties include (but are not limited to) taking responsibility for the welfare of the villagers; public relations; ensuring peace in the village, town, or district; making executive or administrative decisions; and arbitration of feuds or conflicts.
In the case of domestic conflicts which include spousal disputes, boy/girl love affairs, theft, etc., both sides (the accuser and the suspect) must prepare and supply foods for the judgment day at the chief’s residence. Usually some prominent elders are to be selected from each side of the families for the hearing, or as witnesses. Both families must bring in some whiskey, a whole chicken, some rice, and some currency. When the table is furnished with food (vegetables, chicken, bowls of rice, and at least two bottles of whisky), a shaman will call for certain spirits from the heaven to come down as witnesses to this matter. A judgment can either be accepted or rejected by either side of the family. If a judgment is rejected, no one can enjoy the food on the table. Therefore, all dishes must be dumped or trashed, and the process will begin anew the following day. This process may be repeated until an agreement is accepted by both parties.

Life style : The immigrant of Mien

The reasons for migration of the Mien people.
There are 2 reasons that resulted in the Mien people migrating to live in other places.

1.The land for agriculture.
The first time that the Mien people migrated to Thailand, they live on hillsides and plant the vegetation on the hillside too. They will make the soil in their place slide down and make the soil more fertile. Normally for 2-3 years, the paddy field will have good harvests, but after that harvests will start to decrease. The Mien people will then move to another paddy field somewhere else and will build a hut in the area but they do not stay in that place.

	When the soil in the village is no longer rich in nutrients, the Mien people will move to other places. The family who do not have a fertile land for growing crops will move. The Mien people migrate because of the land for growing vegetables which is very important to the Mien people.
2. The civil war Around 1967, the Mien people moved to Thailand because of the civil war in the area between the Thai- Laos borders and the Mien people fled to Thailand from the communist terrorists. This is the one of the main reasons for the Mien people migrating to Thailand. In the recent time, they do not have such a problem because the Mien people now have developed and have their own technology too.

Life style : The manners

      If we talk about Mien people, we will think of “who have kindness, friendship and peacefully” Usually Mien people are diligent and skillful in business, like cleanliness and have a good interpersonal relationship. When guest visits their house, the Miens welcome the guest with hot tea or water and prepare a table of food for the guest. During meal time, the head of the family or the son will sit together with the guest and take care of his needs. Usually, they will serve alcohol to the guest as a form of kind gesture.
Believe and the manners.
     Mien believes that the universe has its own regulations and customs. Humans maintain good relationship with nature both physically and spiritually. The traditions are reflective of the considerate and peace-loving nature of the Miens, as they avoid offensive behaviour to others and enjoy harmony within the village as well as in the family. Miens try to adapt themselves to the social rules and customs and behave accordingly to traditions and cultures. The traditional practices are passed down to from generations to generations. They also have great respect for the spirit and god, and maintain connections with them by offering of food. Mien make a lot of promises in their life and these include promises of marriage between the man and woman, promise to adopt a child with the god and also pray to asked help from the spirit to be better after sickness, Pray to the god to support them to be rich in the future. The villagers will keep their promise and do not break them.

http://mien.hilltribe.org/english/

Life style : The way of Mien living

Month	The way of living	Culture, Traditional, Ceremony.
January	Take a relax from they work and welcome Chinese New Year of Mien people by collect the firewood, vegetable from the forest for Chinese New Years cerebration.	Offering food to the ghost who take care they family troughs the fields like offering food to ancestor, offering food to the ghost who take care the forest, mountains, etc.
February	This Month is a New Year for the Mien people. This day Miens people rest from their work and start New Years cerebrate.	Peatfast cerebration. This cerebrate usually have in the importance day such as Chinese New Year or in a big ceremony.
March	This month is the season of the people who make a broom from the some kind of grasses and prepare the equipment like knife, axe for mow the area for farming.	Ceremonial to asked the permission from the spiritual who take care the area for mow the grasses to make a farming.
April	This time, the villager prepares the area and mows the grasses for planting and makes a line to protect the wildfire.	This ceremonial is give offering food to the spirituals that protect the village.
May	Planting, Usually they have a paddy field, corn and vegetables. This time the people will grow the plants by scatter the seeds because this month is a rainy season (for paddy usually after 7 day it will grow)	When paddy in the field breakdown. The people in the village will have a vow the spiritual to protect the rice in the field, when they harvest finish, the people in the village will give offering food by kill pig or anything to offering the spiritual.
June	Paddy grows and the people withdraw and mow the grasses in the paddy field also.
July	Find the vegetables from the forest like bamboo shoot, mushroom etc.	This is the New Years of the spiritual. The entire spiritual will have a cerebration.
August	This time is a rainy season; The paddy and the entire thing that they plant are growing. The villager takes care all carefully and will take in this time also.	Usually in the village will have 4 time in the year to give offering food for an ancestor.
September	Collect bamboo worms and pupa to make a food and the paddy ready to harvest.	-
October	Harvest the plant from the field like corn, paddy and other thing.	Eat New rice from the farm that they harvest.
November	This month the people harvest gramineous to make a roof when they building the houses.
December	Building the house and fixing. For the women will saw clothes for the New Years cerebration.	This time is a favor to have a wedding ceremony.

http://mien.hilltribe.org/english/