HBO) – The charming Mai Chau valley is home to various traditional cultural traits of the Thai ethnic group. While exploring cultural traits of Thai people in Mai Chau, we were amazed to learn that besides wooden stilt house, xoe dance and brocade weaving, the Thais here have also kept their traditional cuisine almost unchanged, with fish regularly used in food offerings for ancestors and in daily meals.

Thai people residing in Mai Chau valley still maintain their unique custom that there must be a fish dish in food offerings in important celebrations. However, not everyone knows the custom’s origin. Guided by local elderly, we arrived at the house of Mr. Kha Tien in Nghe village, Van Mai commune. The elderly man, who has spent many years studying Thai people’s culture, told us a meaningful story of maternal love related to the custom of Thai people.

Legend has it that a family had two daughters, with the elder sister marrying into a poor family, while the younger one was better off. 

Traditions of the Thai and some other ethnic minority groups in the northwest region required that food offerings for new rice ceremony and ritual for relieving bad luck, must included as many "heads of animals” as possible (in some places, it must be seven chicken heads and three pig heads – reporter’s note). One year, before the new rice ceremony, the elder sister and her husband discussed what animal they should use for the offerings, as they only had a hen and a brood of chicks. Thinking for a while, the couple decided to cook the hen.

In her sleep that night, the elder sister had a dream, in which the hen told her chicks that tomorrow the owner would slaughter her as an offering to ancestors, then she would no longer be able to raise her chicks though she really wants to. Thus, the mother told her chicks to take care of each other.

The elder sister deeply thought about the dream. As a mother herself, she understood and sympathised with a mother’s pain when parting with her children. The next morning, she told her husband that what is important in worshipping ancestors is the real emotion of heart and suggested that they should catch something in the stream and cook that for the ancestors.

The couple caught fish in the stream and cooked different dishes to offer in the ritual. Many local families followed their example from then on. Fish dishes gradually became an inevitable part of food offerings of Thai people in Mai Chau.


Elderly Thai women show their children how to cook traditional fish dishes.

Since then, fish dishes hold a significant meaning in new rice celebration and lunar new year holiday. Thai people do not cook chicken for their food offerings. The suitable types of fish are kyphosus vaigiensis, anabas, squaliobarbus curriculus and carp, among other. However, one must take notice that fish without scales like catfish, cranoglanis and loach are not used as food offerings./.

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