CHAPTER 2: LIFE BEFORE THE WAR

A FARMING PEOPLE

• Married children built their huts close by their parents and grandparents huts.
• Farmers planted rice and corn.
• Farmers also kept cows, pigs, horses, water buffalo, and some raised fish.

CLEARING LAND

• For centuries, the Hmong had used the same methods to grow their crops.
• Hmong farmers cleared the fields by cutting down trees and burning them. (This practice has destroyed much of the forests in their lands)

PLANTING RICE

• Women and children weeded the fields
• Women mostly did all of the rice planting

FARMING ON A MOUNTAIN SIDE

• Some Hmong walked miles each way to get to their fields in the mountains.
• Families would work together when farming.
• Often there was not enough land in the valleys to grow food for everybody.

EVERYONE MUST WORK

• Everyone in the family would work morning to late night.
• Most all work was done by hand.
• Some lucky farmers got water buffalo to pull their plows through the muddy rice paddies.

LITTLE TIME FOR SCHOOL

• Few Hmong children attended school.
• If children were to go to school it would be the boy in the family that would be going.
• It would take a long time to get to school so their children would live at school on week days then walk home on weekends.

THE FRUITS OF WAR

• The Vietnam war changed there way of life majorly.
• Many Hmong fled into the jungle during war.