Tub Ntsuag, Tub Ua Teb, or Orphan Boy the Farmer (2005) is a book that weaves traditional Hmong storytelling techniques and content together with contemporary practical agricultural concerns. Well-known folkloric figures—such as the eponymous hero Orphan Boy and the Sky King Yer Shao—introduce new inventions and techniques, such as the mechanical tiller and hygienic food handling. The result is a collection of modern Hmong folktales published by the Minnesota Agricultural Experimental Station in an attempt to teach safe farming techniques to the immigrant Hmong community. Authored by Hmong American playwright Cha Yang, who wrote Tiger Tales, and developed in consultation with Hmong families engaged in agriculture, Orphan Boy the Farmer represents an attempt to fulfill needs within that community identified by research funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Orphan Boy the Farmer draws upon extensive fieldwork among Hmong farming families to learn enough about traditional storytelling and the place of agriculture in Hmong culture to be able to reenvision the modern Minnesotan farming experience of immigrant Hmong families through the lens of their traditional culture.
This collection includes three contemporary interpretations of traditional Hmong narrative material. Chapter 1 is entitled Ua Cas Qoob Tsis Taug Kev Los Tsev Lawm, or “Why the Crops Don’t Come Home Anymore” and begins with a recap of the Hmong creation myth, which tells of a first man and woman who emerged from a fissure in a mountainside. When this couple initially came into this world, they brought with them many seeds. Some of these they ate when they were hungry, but most they spread far and wide so that crops grew almost everywhere. What was miraculous about these crops, however, was that they would harvest themselves when they were ripe and come home to the farmers. All the Hmong had to do was to build storage bins to receive the bounty of the fields. This age of plenty came to an end, however, when a lazy farmer chided the crops for coming home before he had built their bins; angry at this rejection, the crops all vowed to stay rooted in the fields until the farmers came to get them. What’s more, the farmers then had to weed the fields and to harvest the crops by hand at just the correct time. After this, only the most energetic and clever farmers were rewarded with full bins of crops at harvest time.
Many long years later, there was an Orphan Boy who lived with his brother and sister-in-law. The Orphan Boy worked very hard on his brother’s farm, but his sister-in-law begrudged him the food he ate and turned his brother against him. So Orphan Boy went off in search of his own land to farm, and after walking for a long while, he stopped to rest and to quench his thirst in a stream. There he saw a vision of his dead father in the water, and his father told Orphan Boy to walk a little further to the old family farmstead. Orphan Boy did as he was told, but he was stunned and dispirited when he saw all the trees and weeds he would have to clear to farm the land, so he crawled sadly into a hollow to sleep. During the night a great storm rose up, the wind knocked over the trees, and lightning struck the brush, starting a fire that cleared and fertilized the land. When Orphan Boy awoke, the land was ready to be tilled.
When he saw this, Orphan Boy was heartened and went to ask Yer Shao, King of the Sky, for advice concerning how to complete his tasks without tools. Yer Shao took pity on Orphan Boy and gave him a new machine—a roto-tiller—which allowed Orphan Boy to work alone to till the land much faster than he ever could before. Yer Shao was very stern, however, in his admonition that any user must follow all the safety precautions necessary to avoid injury while operating the machine. Orphan Boy then returned to his brother’s farm to borrow seeds to plant a crop, and when his brother heard of the miraculous new device that tilled the soil so quickly, he wanted to try it too. Orphan Boy gladly let his brother try the machine, just so long as he did so safely. The foolish sister-in-law demanded to be allowed a turn, as well. However, this ended in disaster, as according to the safe-use directions she was clearly too small to control the device. She ended up losing control of the roto-tiller and was dragged through the pigsty. This misadventure transitions neatly into a recap at the end of Chapter 1, which notes that the tale imparts a number of lessons concerning the safe handling of roto-tillers and summarizes these using bullet points.
Chapter 2 is called Dib Pab Tub Ntsuag Nrhiav Poj Niam Tau Li Cas, or “How a Cucumber Helped Orphan Boy Find a Wife.” This chapter takes up where the first one left off. Orphan Boy continued to be a successful farmer but was lonely because no family would allow a daughter to marry an orphan. One day an old woman appeared in his fields and in exchange for food and kindness gave Orphan Boy some advice. The next day three young women would pass by, and Orphan Boy could choose a wife from among them; whichever girl he asked would not refuse his proposal. The old woman added the caveat of a traditional Hmong proverb, however: a bad crop brings sorrow for a year, but a bad wife brings sorrow for a lifetime.
The first woman was very beautiful and was riding a horse to match. Daughter of a chief, the woman despised Orphan Boy for his poverty, but was so hungry that she accepted his humble gift of cucumbers. Disgusted by the filth and squalor of his farm, however, she refused to let him peel the vegetables for her and took his knife to do it herself. A rich girl like her had never used a knife before, and although Orphan Boy tried to warn her about how to use it safely, she ignored him and ended up cutting herself. Although Orphan Boy knew he would be rich if he married this girl, he remembered the old woman’s advice and allowed the first girl to storm off in anger.
The second woman was even more beautiful and was a governor’s daughter. She also held Orphan Boy in disdain although she admired his flowers and demanded some for her sister. Unwilling to allow a filthy farmer to touch a gift to her sister, the woman demanded the use of Orphan Boy’s knife. She also was ignorant of how to wield a knife properly, and she too injured herself and then rode off in a state of irritation and anger.
The third woman was filthy and ragged and starving, and her horse was in worse shape than she was. She had been lost for three days and scorned by all she had approached for help, so she gratefully accepted Orphan Boy’s offer of hospitality. Orphan Boy offered her his cucumbers and knife, and she politely asked him for instruction concerning how to peel the vegetables safely. Orphan Boy thought it strange that a poor farmer girl would need such guidance, but he happily showed her and then led her horse to water while she ate. When he returned, however, the dirty girl had been transformed into a stunning princess far more beautiful than Orphan Boy’s previous visitors. She then revealed that she was the king’s daughter and had searched far and wide for a kind man to marry. She had been disguised to test the true kindness of those she visited. The princess married Orphan Boy and they had many children, and as these children grew up, they wished to help their parents on their growing farm. Orphan Boy taught them how to handle and use knives safely and how to clean and bandage wounds. The summary at the end of Chapter 2 goes over the main points of knife safety and first aid covered by that chapter.
Chapter 3 is Pog Qhia Txog Txoj Kev Xyuam Xim, or “The Grandmother Shares her Safety Wisdom,” and once more begins where the last chapter left off. Orphan Boy and his family became so successful that they had a surplus of vegetables. The gifts and wisdom of the Sky King and the mysterious, wandering Grandmother made Orphan Boy a very productive and happy farmer. Having seen open-air farmer’s markets before, Orphan Boy thought that it would be a simple matter to sell his fresh and beautiful crops to the people of the city, but he was wrong. He didn’t bring a tent for shade or enough food and water for himself, and by the end of the day he was exhausted, dispirited, and ready to give up. His vegetables had begun to wither in the heat of the sun, so when an itinerant elderly lady asked him for a little, he offered her the lot, as it would not keep until the next day.
Pleased by the kindness of Orphan Boy, the old woman revealed herself to be the same wise Grandmother who had counseled Orphan Boy about marriage. Now she gave him both encouragement and advice, counseling him concerning how best to sell his produce in the market while keeping his family safe and happy. She especially encouraged him to employ his confident and outgoing children to sell to the customers he himself was too shy to approach, but only with strict regard to their safety, health, and happiness in the strange and sometimes dangerous streets of the city. As ever, Orphan Boy followed the wise Grandmother’s advice carefully, and before long he and his family were the most successful merchants at the market, selling their surplus crops, which were the most delectable produce available. The summing up at the end of Chapter 3 reiterates the main points covered by that chapter regarding a fruitful and safe experience working at a farmer’s market.
Printed in facing-page-translation format and richly illustrated, Orphan Boy the Farmer is bilingual to help immigrant Hmong learn English, with a range of content of interest to readers of all ages. Indeed, this collection seems explicitly designed to bring generations together to read and to discuss the nature and lessons of these stories. Complete with summary and commentary concerning the agricultural practices and lessons a reader will glean by reading the individual tales in this collection, Orphan Boy the Farmer represents an exciting, vibrant twenty-first-century appropriation of traditional Hmong storytelling techniques to help the Hmong community to assimilate and to thrive in the agricultural industries of contemporary America. Folktales have always represented a vehicle through which vital cultural information might be transmitted. Orphan Boy the Farmer thus embodies a self-conscious contemporary attempt to utilize such practices to teach important new lessons to a people who wish to thrive in their new home while remaining very much in tune with the ancestral vision of the place of farming in Hmong culture.
C. Fee
See also Great Gourd from Heaven, a Laotian American Myth; South Asian American Folklore and Folktales; Tiger Tales of the Hmong Americans
Further Reading
Gerdner, Linda. 2015. Hmong Story Cloths: Preserving Historical & Cultural Treasures. Atglen, PA: Shiffer.
Hmong American Writer’s Circle. 2011. How Do I Begin? A Hmong American Literary Anthology. Berkeley, CA: Heyday.
Hmong Resource Center Library. 2015. Hmong Cultural Center website. http://www.hmonglibrary.org/hmong-studies-virtual-library.html. Accessed October 13, 2015.
Johnson, Charles and Se Yang. 1992. Myths, Legends and Folk Tales from the Hmong of Laos. St. Paul, MN: Macalester College.
Yang, Cha. 2005. Orphan Boy the Farmer, edited by Michele Shermann. St. Paul: Minnesota Agricultural Experimental Station.
Yang, Kao Kalia. 2008. The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir. Minneapolis: Coffee House Press.