The Northwest — Hoa Binh, Son La, Dien Bien, Lai Chau, Yen Bai, Lao Cai — is the country of the Thai, Muong, Hmong, Dao, Kho Mu, Ha Nhi and La Ha peoples, among others. The music here does not live on streaming platforms. It lives in the yard of a stilt house, at weddings, at funerals, and in circles of people holding hands around a fire.
Thai xoe — a heritage of humanity
In 2021 UNESCO inscribed the art of Thai xoe dancing on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, on a file submitted by the four provinces of Yen Bai, Lai Chau, Dien Bien and Son La. Xoe has many forms, but the one you are most likely to meet is the circle xoe: everyone joins hands in a ring around the fire, the steps are very simple, and the circle keeps widening as more people join.
That is the point of it: the circle xoe is built so that nobody is left standing outside. If you are pulled in, do not worry about not knowing the steps. Nobody is watching, and that is exactly what the dance is for.
Khap singing and the han khuong
Khap is the Thai way of singing: songs of welcome, of farewell, lullabies, and call-and-response between young men and women. The han khuong is a gathering where young people sit on an open platform, spinning thread and singing back and forth at each other — courtship conducted through quickness of wit rather than compliments.
Instruments
- Pi — the Thai family of pipes, in several types. The sound is thin and melancholy, and usually accompanies khap singing.
- Khen be — the Thai raft of bamboo pipes, thick-toned, used to accompany xoe and song.
- Tinh lute — a lute with a dried-gourd body, common among the White Thai of Lai Chau and Dien Bien.
- Muong gongs — the gong sets of the Muong people in Hoa Binh, played as a group with one pitch per gong, forming a mobile orchestra at festivals and funerals.
Muong mo
In Hoa Binh, mo are long chanted verse texts performed by a ritual master at funerals, guiding the soul of the dead through the stages of the other world. Muong mo is on Vietnam’s National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. It is a rite, not a performance — we do not take visitors to watch it.
The Northwest in modern Vietnamese song
Few regions of Vietnam have produced as many songs everyone knows:
- Love Song of the Northwest — Bui Duc Hanh setting a poem by Cam Giang, tied forever to the Ma River and the hills of Muong Hung.
- The Pieu Scarf — Doan Nho, built on folk material, about the hand-embroidered headscarf of Thai women. A real pieu takes months to embroider, and in the old custom, giving one to a young man said something very precise.
- Song on the Mountain — Nguyen Van Thuong, written for the film A Phu and His Wife.
- Inh la oi and Xoe hoa — Thai folk songs so widely sung across Vietnam that many people no longer know where they came from.
When to come if you want to hear the real thing
The first lunar month is festival season for the Thai and the Muong. In March, Dien Bien holds its Ban Flower Festival, when the hillsides turn white — a week with real xoe, real khap and a real crowd rather than a stage. Outside those dates, the music appears at weddings and funerals all year round, which is to say at moments nobody can book in advance.
How to listen well
We do not stage “ethnic culture evenings” on request, and we never pay anyone to sing one more song. If a village holds a festival or a ceremony on the night your group is staying, we ask the host whether visitors may attend — and sometimes the answer is no, which is entirely normal. If you are invited: ask before you film, do not step into the middle of a xoe circle to take a photograph, and if you are pulled into the circle, join it.