“My life is bound up with gongs,” Xo says. “Even if I wanted to, ridding myself of the gongs would be impossible.”

The lifelong love affair began forty years ago, and Xo says that ever since, he’s been traveling throughout the northern province hunting for gongs. But the more he travels, he says, the more he realizes that the art form is standing on the edge of an abyss.

Do anything

With some gongs over 400 years old, Xo and his collection are well known in his ethnic Muong community in Boi District’s Vinh Tien Commune. Many are in awe of his extreme dedication to finding and collecting the rare, obscure instruments.

In 1990, he rode his bicycle 100 kilometers to Tan Lac District in hopes of persuading a family to sell him a gong.

One of the family members said, “This was left behind by our ancestors. How can we sell it to you?”

But other families not longer care about their gongs. They often sell them for pennies to scrap collectors. But the same collectors know how valuable the metal instruments are to Xo, selling the pieces back to him for millions of dong each.

But Xo will do anything for gongs.

In 1987, he spent a month building a stilt house for a family in Mai Chau to receive a gong as payment. In 1993, he sold a herd of eight cows and oxen to buy some gongs.

Now, Xo’s gong collection is worth up to VND100 million (US$5,618). But he says he’ll never sell or give up the gongs, he’ll just keep collecting.

Like a lullaby

Xo not only collects the gongs, he plays them. Any visitor to his home is likely to be treated to an impromptu concert, with the clang and wail of the gongs filling the small house and indeed, the entire village.

He performs various styles of Muong gong music, each with its own unique rhythm and mix of high treble tones and low bass notes.

The gongs, usually between 20- 80 centimeters in diameter, are indispensable at Muong folk festivals. During celebrations for the New Year, crop planting, harvests and weddings, you can hear the gongs and the songs of the Muong throughout the region.

They often use the gongs to “welcome” the various events. A team of gong players usually wanders the village for communal celebrations, playing a song in each house. For weddings, the bride’s family plays on the way to the groom’s home.

The Muong believe they speak directly to the gods through the gongs, praying for health, luck, happiness, rain and good harvests. They also use the gongs to thank the gods for rains and healthy crops.

Xo says that each ritual has a certain recognizable style of gong song. Different styles inform the residents of a community social event, sad local news, elders discussing an important issue and news of a coming disaster, such as floods.

And the traditions are not exclusive to the Muong of Hoa Binh. Many other communities practice their own gong arts.

“Gongs from the Central Highlands create sharp sounds, while Muong gongs in Hoa Binh are bass instruments with louder echoes that travel farther,” he says. “A gong can in fact play as many tones as some string instruments,” Xo asserts.

Each of Xo’s gongs has its own tone and pitch. He uses different combinations of his 34 gongs to play familiar anthems from the northern, central and southern regions.

Vinh, Xo’s neighbor, says his family enjoys the gong music the best.

“Listening to Xo’s gong music, our children sleep well without needing a lullaby.”

Spread the love

Sadly for Xo, less and less people are passing knowledge of the music down to their children, he says.

So, for 10 years now, Xo has been teaching people how to play gongs for free. He travels far and wide into the Muong hamlets of Da Dac, Tan Lac, Mai Chau and Cao Phong gathering people who still want to learn to play and preserve gongs into informal classes.

Though Xo makes a meager living repairing motorbikes and bicycles to put his daughter through university, he travels around giving free gong lessons whenever he has free time.

But Xo worries that what he’s doing is not enough.

He says cultural management agencies in Hoa Binh do not have plans or programs to preserve and promote gong music.

In 2005, UNESCO recognized The Space of Gong Culture in the Central Highlands of Vietnam as a Masterpiece of Intangible Heritage of Humanity, but funds from that preservation project will not reach Hoa Binh, as it is a northern province outside the Central Highlands region.

Bui Duc Tan, chairman of the People’s Committee of Vinh Tien Commune, praises Xo and says the committee supports what he is doing. However, he simply shakes his head when asked if the local government would fund the teaching of gong music.

“I cannot save the Muong people’s rapidly-vanishing musical treasure alone,” Xo says. “I can only pick part of it and teach what I know.”

Reported by Van Hai - Giang Bac