Sapa tips - all you need to know when visiting local houses
Sapa is home to many ethnic minorities such as Tay, Giay,
H’mong, Red Dao, Xa Pho, Ha Nhi, etc. Your Sapa trips will be truly fulfilled
with a visit to the enticing local house. As a common idiom, when in Rome, do
as the Romans do. Before visiting the local house with exciting Sapa tours, let prepare some basic
information about this with our article on Sapa tips - all you need to
know when visiting local house. Enjoy reading!
1. When entering the village – Sapa tips: What to notice when visiting local’s house:
Before coming to an ethnic house, we need to enter their village right? Read on some Sapa tips when entering the ethnic village to behave properly.
On the way entering Ha Nhi’s house, if you see a temporary gate hanging with wooden knives, swords, chicken wings, etc. that is when the villagers are holding a ceremony to drive away evil spirits.
The common ceremonies for worshiping the village gods, expelling evil spirits of the Tay, Thai, Giay, Lao, Bo y and Xa Pho, etc. are usually held annually in February or June and July of the lunar calendar.
Keep on reading this article on Ethnic groups in Sapa to learn more about them.
When worshiping, villagers put taboo signs that forbid strangers from entering the village like hanging green bunches of leaves at the high pillars on the road to their village or hanging bones of pig, buffalo and cow on fox’s eye shaped plates. No villagers go to work, nor allow strangers to enter their village.
If strangers unintentionally carry things, wear hats, use umbrellas, wear backpacks, etc. they will be punished by submitting a full number of offerings to remake the worshipping ceremony. In case of an emergency, if visitors want to enter the village immediately, they have to remove their hats, backpacks, shoulder bags and all belongings must be carried by hands.
There are forbidden forests in each ethnic village for worshipping supernatural forces. The worship place may be in a big tree or a big stone in the forest. The forbidden forest is the shared forest of the whole village. Villagers voluntarily protect the forest. No one is free to cut, defecate there. Boys and girls are not allowed to go there for chitchatting.
2. When visiting the house – Sapa tips: What to notice when visiting local’s house:
And now you are around to enter an ethnic house. Check out the explicit Sapa tips when entering their house to have great Sapa tours.
Before visiting ethnic minority houses, visitors need to observe carefully. If there is a branch of green leaves or a branch of thorns or a fox’s-eye-shaped plate, all signals that the family doesn’t want the strangers to enter their house.
In the house of a Black Ha Nhi family, you can find two layers of doors. Guests are allowed to enter the first layer of door. If you want to enter the second door, you must get approval from the family. Thai people’s house has stairs, women can only go upstairs with the right yard (on their left-hand side), not up the stairs on the right-hand side. The most important position in the house (the wall of the middle room or the first corner of the house) is the place for worshipping ancestors.
The decoration for worship place of each ethnic group is different but sharing the same concept: the place of ancestor worship is the most sacred place. Guests are not allowed to place hats, accessories and other belongings there and do not touch worship objects.
When sitting, do not turn your back to the worship place. In Black Thai area, women are not allowed to go to the first room of the house – the place for ancestor worship. Black Ha Nhi Black family has two layers of doors, guests should only enter the first layer of the door.
About the kitchen in their house:
There is a fire in the middle of the ethnic house which is the place for both cooking and welcoming guests. This place is considered a sacred place to worship the Kitchen King and the Fire God. Here comes the things you should remember: don’t place your foot over the fire or move the stone in the fire. Because these stones are the residence of the god of fire, according to the ethnic groups.
If you observe thoroughly when cooking, the Tay, Thai, Nung, Giay, Bo Y, Lao, Lu, etc. don’t turn two pans and pots to the way of the house’s crossbar (because that is the laying direction of the dead) but place them in the direction of the roof. In the Hmong, Dao and Ha Nhi areas, when putting firewood in the kitchen, do not put the tops first, because it is feared that the host daughter will later be born backwards. When sitting near the kitchen, do not turn around and stomp on the kitchen, do not use your feet to push wood into the kitchen, do not bake rice because ethnic people believe this action will lead to crop failure.
If the host invites us to enjoy meal with them, how should
we behave? Keep reading the full article with Sapa tips – what to notice when visiting local’s house on GoAsiaDayTrip’s blog.
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