Born and raised in a Cham ethnic community in the hot and sandy Phuoc Nhon Village, 10km from Phan Rang City, Ninh Thuan Province, Kiều Maily made a life in HCM City as a broadcaster and writer, but ancient Hoi An City became a favourite destination for her to promote the traditional culture of Cham people.

Maily, 36, travelled to Hoi An in late 2018 to begin her journey in introducing herbal therapy – one of three key trades of the Cham, including My Nghiep brocade weaving and Bau Truc terracotta – in Ninh Thuan.

 
Almost all the villagers in Phuoc Nhon Village who are part of the Cham Bani, a religious community in Ninh Thuan, leave their homeland for herbal medicine practices nationwide, even crossing the border for two to seven months per year. They generally only return home for the traditional Ramuwan festival, the biggest festival for the Cham in Vietnam.

The home-grown herbs are concocted and developed in traditional families, so at least 80 per cent of villagers in Phuoc Nhon and An Nhon learn herbal medicine from their ancestors.

Maily grew up surrounded by the arts and traditional culture of the Cham and almost all Chăm women learn folk dances in kindergarten.

 
"I learnt dances in traditional music from five years old. Cham dances would transmit from mothers to their baby girls, and then girls grow up with dance skills learnt from their mothers," Maily says.

"Traditional dances have been with me since childhood. I could play the "paranung" drum, a rare Cham woman able to. But I'm not allowed to play at ritual festivals because it is reserved for men only as a rule."

The Cham artisan says she cooks ethnic cuisine as a nutritional therapy that has been branded for the community in Phuoc Nhon Village.

Maily began a life in HCM City by broadcasting in the Cham language on Radio the Voice of Vietnam (VOV) and writing books and poems while promoting Cham culture.

However, she eventually recognised that Cham culture needed an art space to make it well-known among tourists and people worldwide, and set up a cultural house in Hoi An.

"It's the reason I decided to leave HCM City in late 2017 to begin the Cham culture introduction in Hoi An – an international tourism hub – where millions of visitors from over the world come to experience the mixed culture and architectural preservation of a 400-year-old busy trading port," she says.

 
She opened the Champa Amaravati House Hoi An (Amaravati was a small state of current-day Quang Nam and Da Nang of the Champa Kingdom in 657-1471), a Cham art, history and cuisine space in a tranquil suburban area near the Cam Thanh nipa palm forest in Hoi An.

"Hoi An still preserves the arts, lifestyle and culture of the Champa Kingdom, which has blended with different cultures and architecture of the Great Viet, Japanese and Chinese over previous centuries," she says.

She officially debuted the Champa Amaravati House Hoi An tours as an art, exhibition and cuisine experience space in 2020.

"The Champa Amaravati House is the only site in Hoi An reviving Cham culture that was rooted in Hoi An and central Vietnam a long time ago. Before, tourists could only see Champa culture through exhibits at Da Nang-based Cham sculpture museum and tower ruins in My Son Sanctuary in Quang Nam, or the terracotta trade in Hoi An," she says.

"The Champa Amaravati House offers visitors lively performances and Cham cuisine. Tourists enjoy the true art of Champa culture while sharing the historical stories of exhibits and art performances told by Chăm artists."

 Maily says she hosts tourists with paranưng drum playing and dances in Cham costume, cooking demonstrations and experiences with tea, cakes and stories of family tools and instruments as well as the history of song and dance in Chăm tradition.

She does everything to serve tourists in her art space, from preparing food and making tea to art performances and reciting ancient stories.

"Tourists can find a typical Cham's living space at my cosy house with activities and different aspects of traditional culture through my descriptions of food, dances and drumming," she says.

"It also provides a Cham culture tour of archaeological objects in the museum and architectural ruins and is a multicultural experience exchange site."

She also sings old folk songs in the Cham language that her native people used to play at ritual festivals. These songs highlight the beauty of the Cham people and land, lifestyles and love duets sung by the men and women.

Native village

Phuoc Nhon Village in Xuan Hai Commune – a suburban area of Phan Rang – is where 85 per cent of the Cham population make a living from herbal medicine passed down from many generations.

Cham Bani villagers are famous for making remedies from garden-grown plants. However, herbal physicians from Phuoc Nhon travel with remedies to offer treatments nationwide.

"The Cham people in Phuoc Nhon use herbs collected in the forest for the treatment of stomachaches, joint pains, colds, nerve pains, or hypertension," Maily says.

"They use main materials including citronella, ginger, turmeric and spicy leaves such as pepper mint as ingredients for daily cooking to protect against illness."

The artisan says she wants to make her birth village an eco-tour site in the south-central coastal region, highlighting ancient culture preservation, the medicinal herb trade and the lifestyle of the Cham.

She hopes the Champa Amaravati House will help build tour links on Cham culture in destinations from Thua Thien Hue to Binh Thuan and southern provinces.

Curry with goat, fish and chicken is a favourite food of the Cham, which Maily often cooks for visitors at the house.

Popular Cham dishes such as muthin ritong (rice served with fish), lithei jrau (rice mixed with meat and vegetables), abu mutham (gruel served with fish and traditional vegetables), and kari cam murong (chicken or beef curry) are the most popular on the menu, she says.

Maily has also introduced a book on the culinary techniques of the Chăm – Unique Chăm Cuisine – which includes 96 dishes mostly cooked with medicinal herbs.

 
"Food not only provides nutrition and energy but keeps families healthy with ingredients from garden herbs. Cham people often offer medicinal herbal cuisine and drink to ease seasonal colds, headaches, joint aches and tiredness. Spicy herbs and roots can be easily found in gardens or the jungle," she says.

"It is why I included cooking culinary techniques and stories of the healthy function of herbs that have remained the major non-drug treatment for the community for centuries."

Maily says the outbreak of COVID-19 disrupted the operation of Amaravati House for several months but expects tourism to fully resume in Hoi An this year.

She has begun decorating the unique Cham cultural space after months of COVID lockdown, so that visitors can experience the unique culture as part of Hoi An's recovery plan. 

Source: Vietnam News