These panels explore the Hmong community’s past water culture. Water culture represents the activities and moments happening around water, such as crossing the Mekong River or fishing at Phalen Lake. Learn about each experience and reflect on the privileges and differences the present gives.
Gathering water from a well at Ban Vinai Refugee Camp, Thailand, 1980s.
In Laos, Hmong people accessed water through shared community wells or mountain streams. Each family brought their own bucket, scooped up the water, and carried it home where it is used for cooking and boiled for drinking.
These water sources, especially wells with no protective linings to prevent pollution or contaminations, may not be very sanitary. In addition, each household dipping their own buckets into the well may also introduce bacterial contamination. These factors contributed to health issues, including diarrhea.
The Mekong River leads to Khone PhaPheng Falls, in the south of Laos bordering Cambodia. It is the widest waterfall in the world. Large fishing nets are cast over the rocks of the waterfall. Local fishermen and villagers recall that in the years after 1975 those large nets caught many dead bodies wearing ethnic clothing instead of fishes. It was during the height of the escape of Hmong refugees from Laos, crossing the river to Thailand.
Mekong River looking across to Laos, Chiang Rai Province, Thailand, 1980s
Hmong folklore about water often involve dragons who can shapeshift into fishes, humans, and other beings. Dragons are feared because of their ability to take away a person’s spirit, making them ill. For this reason, Hmong are cautious around lakes and rivers. A well-known Hmong American superstition is that a dragon dwells in Lake Phalen of Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Families lined up and waited at the refugee camp’s water tanks to fill up their jugs with water. Women carried the heavy jug on their back by wrapping a thick cloth around their waists to support the bottom of it. They wrap another rope around their chest to the top of the jug to keep it balanced on their back. Women also carried water using two buckets of water hanging on each end of a stick.
