What Farming in Vietnam Taught Me

Pod Room: What Farming In Vietnam Taught Me

--by All Of Us

Below are very rough notes from the Pod Room conversation with Hang Mai in early May 2023. View the full video recording here with passcode: hangmai

-----------------------

MODERATED Q+A:

Question: You grew up in a city, away from farms. You went to law school, worked at a multinational corporation, and have been a social entrepreneur. How did you get inspired to become a farmer?

Hang Mai:

As a child, was exposed to villages only during some summer vacations. “Success” meant living in the big city.
Learned about village when I worked for Decathalon. The founder’s wife decided to create a foundation – her message was: if any employees were involved in local nonprofits, we can get funds from the foundation for the activities. … I spent many weekends in villages, and I realized there is something not fair: We (Vietnam?) are #1 exporter of coffee, etc., but farmers are very poor. Why do we export like crazy, but farmers get nothing? I realized the shortcomings of CSR. I worked for 10 years at Decathalon, and trained very well. I wanted to learn from villages. I realized the problem was the supply-chain. The supply-chain is too long – and when it’s too long, it’s out of everyone’s control.
Read One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka. We published it in Vietnamese. It creates a movement – it’s so powerful. I had no plans to practice farming. I thought when I published the book, my work is down. “Farmers have to change, not us”. :) After 3 years, I saw the group of readers – it reached 10K people. Many are young people who grew up in the city and have no idea about the countryside. They all were inspired by the book and want to do something. I was confused – I published a book, now what? The book is the philosophy behind farming – it’s not a handbook to farming. I looked to learn more about farming, I bought land, and met my husband, and started farming.
2016, my mom passed away. Because she passed away, we talked about death. When you have a beloved one pass away, you realize we don’t have as much time as we think. And that’s why we moved …

Question: What drew you into natural farming. Can you share a bit about permaculture and how it differs from conventional farming, for those who don’t know?

Hang Mai:

Bill Mollison and ____ … “Traditional farming is labor intensive. Conventional farming is chemical intensive. Permaculture is design and information intensive.”
Natural farming, to us, is something where we learn from nature’s patterns. The most important thing is to not hurry. Lao Tzu said, “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”
The first thing we learned when we went back to the village is to slow down.

Question: Between 2016 - 2023 you’ve seen many more permaculture (or prema-culture**) farms and circles, where food, skills, tools, etc. are shared. But also some farms that are aware of what you are doing have remained mono-culture farms. Why do you think that is? Do you think that might change?

Hang Mai:

We, human beings, are connected with nature. You realize the disconnect obviously when you live in the city. Cities are designed for isolation.
Just like the fish in water have no idea of water. But when fish get thrown out of the water, in that moment, they know what water is. So people in cities see the disconnect much more clearly.
For practicing ‘prema-culture’, you should have a long-term vision. In order to have a long-term vision, you should not be too busy with your short-term. If your head is down focused on the short-term from morning to night, we have no space for middle or long-term. Most people living in cities then become interested in premacultures are those who have good jobs, are wealthy in finance (not all, but many) – so they don’t have to worry about what to eat tomorrow.
Many conventional farmers don’t want to be farmers. They don’t produce for their own need, they produce to be able to buy things they need.

** Note: “prema-culture” is a play on words, combining “prem” (Sanskrit for “unconditional love”) with “permaculture”.

Question: If permaculture is being resisted, is there a way to engage more farmers in the practice?

Hang Mai: In every movement, there’s only “pioneers” … When ecosystems are established, only some kinds of trees can grow at first: “pioneer trees”. They create space for others to come. Any pioneers are welcome. But we cannot push those who are not pioneers to be pioneers. If from inside, they are not ready, just let it be. They will join in the next phase, or the next, next phase.

Question: I’ve heard that you live on two dollars a day, and you don’t want the third dollar. Growing up in a city, being a regional director for a multinational corporation, this is quite a different lifestyle. What enables you to practice voluntary simplicity to such a degree? What challenges and insights have you encountered along the way?

Hang Mai:

It’s by choice, so I don’t encounter difficulties. If it’s by choice, then any problem, you have a solution.
First, living simply helps myself. I don’t have the burdens of money. I don’t have to work like crazy to earn money. You lighten your own burdens. Consequently, you lighten the burdens of the earth.

Question: You make it sound so easy!

Hang Mai: A friend said: “From understanding, to doing, to taking action – how long does it take?” He said, “‘Instantly.” Because if you understand, you do it. If you still have many questions, it means you don’t understand.”

Question: Your house was built by volunteer labor and materials that were gifted to you. And you say that that helped establish community, which would not have occurred if you had paid for that labor and material. Can you explain why volunteering/gifting was important for building community?

Hang Mai:

I’m grateful to be joining the flow of people who are inspired by the book, One Straw Revolution. Because their occupations are so diverse: mechanics, doctors, anyone can want to be a farmer.
We published the book and started sharing circles all over Vietnam. So the network widened and widened.
When we built the house, we still needed a cheap architect. I invited a local carpenter, and I paid him double – not to do things, but to teach people how to do it. He only interfered when people were not doing it right, or not knowing what to do. He observed people and taught them what to do. So when the house was built, a lot of people knew how to build their own homes.

Question: You have said that we should tend to our “inner garden” if we want to have a flourishing “outer” garden. Can you say more about that?

Hang Mai:

I learned this concept from a French book, Candide [by Voltaire].
You understand a farmer through their farm.

Question: “Do nothing farming” isn’t doing nothing at the beginning. You have to let the land return to a healthier, more natural state before you can know that nature is ready to take over and you can stand back and observe. In his book, One Straw Revolution, Masanobu Fukuoka writes about letting 400 acres of a citrus orchard die in order to tap into the ‘natural pattern’ of that land. How can you tell when you’ve reached that point?

Beyond farming, from a permaculture lens, it takes effort to ‘do nothing’. There’s a fine line between inaction versus action in inaction. How do we discern if we are undoing a natural pattern, or actually just not doing anything?

Hang Mai:

When we know nothing, do nothing. Externally, do not touch. But internally, you have to work a lot with your inner gardens. First, we have to drop our intention. When I have a farm, I want to plant everything. But Fukuoka said, “The question is: ‘what grows here?’ Not ‘what to grow here?’” …
There’s no boss.
After 3 years, we see the difference….

Question (Andrea): What exactly does a permaculture farmer do on a daily basis?

Hang Mai:

The main thing we learn is to learn how to observe. To understand: “What does that mean?”
For example, I shared in a previous call, there was an area of land with weeds with lots of thorns – a lot of cows on that part of land, so nothing can grow there except for those weeds.
My husband and I thought: is that a sign that mother nature doesn’t want us to step there?
We just stepped there to plant some bananas (because bananas plant provide a lot of shade…)
Doing nothing means seeing the flow … When you row a boat, if the boat is in the same direction as the water and wind, you do nothing. Because nature is flowing and you just go with the flow.
The job of a natural farmer is to observe …

Question: Many of us on the call are not farmers. What lessons would you like to share from farming that we can consider adopting and applying in our own lives?

Hang Mai:

People in cities more and more realize they are disconnected with nature.
Many people realize that we need to reconnect – with ourselves, with others, with nature.
How to reconnect with nature when we are living in cities? It’s a hard question – just like connecting to wifi, you move towards the wifi or the wifi comes closer to you. You have to move closer to nature.
Personally, in a city, deep down, the insecurity was there. What would you do if there was no electricity? What would you do if there’s no water? What would you do if there’s no food? When you move yourself next to nature, you have all that around you – and it’s all free.
Today, everything is indirect. Now we have so many religions between humans and God. And we have so many other people to teach our children, not ourselves. We have to work for someone to get money and buy our food.
All the direct things have become indirect.

COLLECTIVE Q+A:

Guri: From the climate challenge, we’ve been learning a lot about how much ends up in landfills, etc. After the shift from the city to the farm, how would you describe your relationship to stuff (material possessions)?

Hang Mai:

Many people are scared of letting go of material things, but I think it comes from the insecurity inside you. Now living on a farm, we stopped buying clothing. I realized, I had too much before. Living in cities, shopping is something I did when I was under stress. Unconsciously, you want to change your look, and you might feel a little better. I had tons of clothes. When we moved here, I felt good with just 3 sets of clothes for every season. You wash it, dry it, wear it. And you feel the freedom of having less. People often say I became a farmer. Actually, I didn’t become a farmer. My husband is a farmer. I am a farmer’s wife. It’s more complicated than that. You have to manage everything behind – I organize the house, cook, pack for him when we travel. I learned about having too much in the 1st and 2nd years that we came here. In the first rainy season, the things we didn’t touch after 6 months, fungus appeared on our clothes. And ants. They come to your clothes to hide. I realized that the things you don’t need – if you don’t touch it for 3 months, you don’t need it. Sometimes, you need to keep warm clothes for the cold season. But other than that, if you don’t touch something for 3 months, you don’t need it.
We are living in a wooden house. You shouldn’t have too big a house. “Anything you have, take your time.” – Satish Kumar Your time is your life. We have less things, but we have more time.

Guri: What changes do you notice in yourself as you have shifted from city to village?

Hang Mai: We chose this life. We know there’s pros and cons, and we accept it. It’s about acceptance and adaptability. […]

Larry: What crops do you grow? And how have you grown them through what you’ve learned from One Straw Revolution?

Hang Mai:

We have fruit trees – rambutan(?) trees … they look like longan or lychee.
We practice two things: for the monoculture farm, our job is to diversify crops. We want to keep 30% rambutans and leave space for other crops.
After 6 years of living on the farm, we start to see many other things. Because of the shade, it’s like a pioneer tree – it supports others very well.
Anything can be a pioneer plant – we let them grow. Mainly, we plant bananas – because it provides shade to other trees (we plant those trees under the bananas) … step by step … ecological succession: if we know which ones should go first, we let that guy go first. If we are in a hurry, we can’t survive. We just waste our time and energy.
We mainly focus on perennial trees. Because there are about 7 layers in the rainforest. If you have many layers like that because you don’t have to worry about your food. Many farmers focus only on short-term crops …

Ruth: I wonder if you have any observations about the health and longevity of farmers vs city dwellers? My understanding is that farming is a very physical, sometimes taxing life.

Hang Mai:

Natural farming movement is new. Just 8-9 years, since the book was published in Vietnamese.
Many people had health problems before moving to the farm. What i can see… my husband and I saw our health improve significantly since we moved to the farm.
I used to have a tumor in my belly – it was the size of an egg. I could feel it. My husband had lots of small tumors in his back. After 2 years of living on the farm, it disappeared. There is something different compared to our previous life in the city: we eat more food from our farm (so more vegetables, and fresh food). Also, we have better sleep. We sleep more: the first 2 years, we slept from 8PM - 7AM. Only after doing that, we realized how we did not sleep enough in the city. We are all “superman” living in cities. It’s important, because your body can clean and heal itself only when you sleep.
Just like in hotels, the cleaners can clean only when you are not there.
Our neighbor goes to a health check-up, it costs 2 months expenses.
For friends in our network, many have health problems before coming to village…

Bradley: Climate change is impacting the world deeply. Vietnam went through a drought. Do you worry about climate change?

Hang Mai:

Climate change is now everywhere, and living on a farm, we see it very clearly. Because we have no way to adapt. If it’s very hot, you have to find a way to live with the heat. In cities, we don’t adapt. We isolate ourselves from the heat with air conditioning. This year was the hottest year for the summer. And last winter was the coldest winter. And in South Vietnam, there’s no winter. We joke there’s only 3 seasons: hot, hotter, and very hot. But last winter, during Christmas season, it was cold. And so as a result, we have almost no durians. Our trees only have 2-4 fruits. Biodiversity We had few durians, and a lot of avocados.
We don’t “put all our eggs in one basket”.

Michael: Do you worry about proper nutrition? Is variety ever a problem where you are? Or does nature ever take care of itself?

In a previous call, I shared that when I had a bioshop in the city, we tried our best to provide vegetables to households. We could provide about 30-40 varieties year-round, from 10-20 farms.
When we visited people in the highlands – people who live relying on the jungle – they plant nothing. But they have 70-80 varieties of vegetables year round. They grow nothing - they just pick vegetables and take them home to cook.
We know 10 things, we grow those 10 things. Or, we enlarge our database to know what's edible. Then we don’t have to spend much time to grow short-term crops. Short-term crops are very labor-intensive and time consuming.
In the past 2 years, we receive guests. 300 days per year we have guests who stay with us. We don’t have to buy any vegetables. We do have to buy rice. We exchange with other farmers occasionally. Fish from the pond. Sometimes other farmers have meat, occasionally.
Challenges come from inside. When you choose it, just like i chose my husband, I chose his flaws, too. So when we chose our life in the village, I accept all the flaws of the village. So there’s no challenge. My challenge at the beginning, was – I lived in Ho Chi Minh City – there is 1 thief(?) every square meter. At first, I’d bring all my valuables with me in a back-pack if I had to step out of the village. … In my database, I worried about thieves. After a year, we met all our neighbors, and we became friends. And I don't worry about thieves anymore.

Nitul: I loved what you spoke about observing. I’ve heard a lot of lectures on deep listening. I was about to press a button on Amazon to buy air conditioner. I just realized, listening to you, that I can sit in different rooms at different times of day, based on where the sun is (which makes the

Ashish Agrawal: I’ve observed that people trying something out of the box often have fancy Ivy college degrees and have had a good corporate run. If it is true, what deeper message is it giving to youth willing to contribute towards the larger good? Do we have to achieve ‘success’ at a conventional level before “going off the beaten path”? What advice do you have for youth today who want to contribute to the greater good?

Bradley: How has your family responded to your choices?

Hang Mai:

If you cannot adapt to the city, i’m not sure you’ll be happy in the village.
Happy abilities come from inside you.
Prepare our inner gardens