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| Mr. Trieu Tong Giang. |
Special legs
Greeting us with a radiant smile over a cup of green tea, Mr. Trieu Tong Giang pulled up a chair and glanced out at the front yard, where several children were laughing and trying to stand on stilts made of bamboo.
His house nestled at the foot of a hill in Hamlet 2, Tan Long Commune. In front of the house, several bundles of bamboo were neatly stacked, next to which were stilts propped against the wall beside sacks of freshly harvested bamboo shoots.
In the old days, the villages were very wild and undeveloped, with rough, rocky terrain, and the roads were slippery when it rained. Many people going to the fields would stumble and fall while wading through the mud, so stilts became an integral part of the villagers' lives. Stilts were not only used for transportation but also as weapons to ward off wild animals and defend themselves in dangerous situations.
He vividly remembers his childhood in the old Tan Tien area. After school, the children would follow their parents to the fields, and in the evening they would gather in the earthen courtyard. For the Dao Thanh Y people, or the villagers here, they used whatever the mountains and forests provided. The girls would go to the forest to gather vines to make ropes for playing jump rope. The boys would find the straightest bamboo trees, carve two sections to make stilts.
He recounted that back then, more than half of the children in the village knew how to walk on stilts. Those who were proficient taught the beginners. Those who walked before passed the knowledge to those who walked after. And so, the laughter, the falls, and the getting back up continued through generations.
“In the early days, my toes had to grip the bamboo stick tightly to maintain balance. After walking for a while, my feet would blister, and the pain would keep me awake at night. But the next day I would continue walking. I guess back then, we were just kids, competitive and fearless.”
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| Mr. Trieu Tong Giang is guiding the children in the village in practicing the traditional stilt walking game. |
A person's life is intertwined with… bamboo.
In 2002, Trieu Tong Giang enlisted in the army at Regiment 148, Division 316, Military Region 2. Two years in the military were enough to instill in him discipline, diligence, and an unwavering will to overcome difficulties.
He recounted that the marching and physical training exercises back then sometimes reminded him of his childhood stilt-walking practice. Both involved maintaining endurance, breathing rhythm, and perseverance to the very end.
In 2004, after completing his military service, he returned to his hometown. Facing hardship and poverty, he went into the forest to build a hut, tilling the soil and clearing weeds to cultivate fields for a living. The local area has a barren, rocky terrain, making it difficult to grow common fruit trees. Recognizing the strong root system of bamboo, which thrives in rocky crevices, in 2017, Giang was one of the pioneers in the village to introduce bamboo for cultivation as a trial. “My whole life has been connected to bamboo. When I was a child, bamboo gave me stilts; now, bamboo sustains my whole family,” Giang said with a smile.
Currently, his family owns 1 hectare of bamboo for harvesting shoots, supplying raw materials to a local bamboo drying factory and traders serving the markets of Hanoi, Hai Phong, and Quang Ninh. From May to August of the lunar calendar each year, his family's bamboo grove yields 3 to 4 tons of fresh shoots, selling for 10,000 VND/kg at the beginning of the season and 5,000-7,000 VND/kg in the middle of the season. Mature bamboo is also sold as raw material for toothpick production, pulp, and bamboo leaves are also purchased by traders, bringing in economic benefits. Combined with 3 hectares of oil palm plantation with an 8-10 year harvesting cycle, each harvest brings in 200-300 million VND, and raising 4 cows and a flock of ducks in the stream, his family's total income is stable at over 300 million VND per year.
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| Mr. Trieu Tong Giang won the Gold Medal in the stilt walking event at the 14th National Sports Competition for Ethnic Minorities, Region I. |
In 2020, at a sports competition organized by the commune, Mr. Giang participated in the stilt walking competition and immediately won a high prize. Following that, at the 13th National Ethnic Minority Sports Competition, Region I, held in Lang Son in 2024, he excelled, winning a Bronze Medal in the 100m race and a Silver Medal in the 250m race. Notably, at the 14th Competition, Region I, held in Thai Nguyen in 2025, Mr. Giang won a double Gold Medal in both the 100m and 400m events, contributing to the overall success of the Tuyen Quang delegation.
Every afternoon, after work, he takes his stilts out to the yard to teach the children in the village how to walk. Eleven-year-old Ha Bao Lam from the neighborhood, balancing on his stilts, smiled and said, "I like watching Uncle Giang walk. He says you should fall and get up, and you'll get used to it if you walk a lot. I want to compete like him someday."
Watching the children happily playing on stilts, Giang said that what made him happiest wasn't the medals, but the fact that there were still people carrying on the traditional folk games of his village.
In particular, in 2023, he was elected as the Head of the Veterans Association Branch in the village. In his new role, he continued to mobilize members to develop the economy, build a cultural life, maintain local security, and encourage the younger generation to preserve traditional values.
Comrade Nguyen Manh Dung, Vice Chairman of the Fatherland Front Committee of Tan Long commune and Chairman of the Veterans Association of Tan Long commune, said: “Comrade Trieu Tong Giang always upholds the qualities of Uncle Ho's soldiers, setting an example in labor and production, actively transforming the crop structure to develop his family's economy. Not only is he successful in business, but he is also willing to share his experience and encourage members and villagers to develop bamboo cultivation models for bamboo shoots, contributing to increasing people's income. What is most valuable about Mr. Giang is his spirit of preserving and spreading traditional cultural values; the medals he has won in sports competitions are a source of pride for the locality.”
Mai Dung
Source: https://baotuyenquang.com.vn/the-thao-giai-tri/202607/nhip-buoc-ca-kheo-f3322f9/
