VietNamNet Bridge - Lung Van is also known as the "land of longevity," which has many people of over one hundred years old.




Lung Van commune, Tan Lac district, Hoa Binh province, is also known as Thung May (Valley of Clouds) or the land of long-lived people. Local people are honest, simple and they still have to struggle to earn their living, but the commune can be proud to have a lot of people of more than 100 years old, who are still very healthy.

Lung Van is unfamiliar to many people because it is located very far from the main road. Situated at an altitude of over 1,200 m above the sea level, Lung Van is surrounded by deep blue mountains. The valley is covered by clouds over the year round so its name is Lung Van or the Valley of Clouds.

This land is related to many fairy tales but for many people, it is the most impressive that even though the lives of local residents are still difficult but many of them are long-lived and healthy. At the age of 90-100, they still work to help their grandchildren.

Lung Van has 400 families and up to 50 people of 80 years old upwards, said Mr. Dinh Thanh Dung, Chair of the Elderly Association of Lung Van.

We visited Ms. Dinh Thi Chan, 93, when she was sewing next to a kitchen fire. Seeing us, she said hello and invited us to enter the house in Muong language. One of her grandchildren translated her greetings into Vietnamese. She said that Mrs. Chan has never left Lung May so her Vietnamese is limited.

Under the guidance of local people, we went to the home of Mrs. Ha Thi Ny, 100, in Buc hamlet. Mrs. Ny now lives with her grandchildren. At the age of 100, she could still stepped down from the house on stilts to welcome us. Asking her about the "secret" of longevity, she only smiled and said "no secret at all.”




Most of the elderly in Lung May still work in the fields. Mrs. Ha Thi Hau, nearly 100 years old, lives alone in a charity house and does farm work.

According to the elders in Lung May, the local people are poor and simple and they are close to nature, and very timely. They live a self-sufficient life and use water from local streams. Notably, they drink a special kind of tea. The people here love to sunbathe but they sunbathe in a short time, around 30 minutes.

In such a simple life, the local people are very healthy. Most of them never take any pill.

Mr. Dinh Thanh, Chairman of the Lung Van Elderly Association, said, the oldest in Lung Van is Mrs. Dinh Thi Hue, who was born in 1897 and died in February 2011, at the age of 115.

Compiled by Thu Ha