HMONG ABC

Nou Tong Blai Za & Hmong Shee Jhai Gao Jer: A Hmong Folk Tale

Hardcover, 8x10, 42 pages, full color illustration, bilingual
by Hmongland
ISBN: 0-9723624-6-0


Nou Tong Blai Zag & Hmong Shee Jhai Gao Jer is a very old and well known Hmong folktale shared by millions of Hmong in China, Southeast Asia, and here in the West.  It is a story of Nou Blai's lovely wife, Jer, who was taken away by a family of tigers.  Nou Blai pursued the tigers against all odds, never giving up, until Jer was rescued through the blade of his sword, resulting in a happy 
ending.

Hmong are an ancient people, rooted in today's China, and considered by recent research as the first human race to cultivate rice.  Once a highly civilized and powerful society, they had their own kingdoms full of elaborate culture and folklore.  They existed since the beginning of the world, as told in folktales and religious rutuals.  They had lived through a time before ours, when the ancient ancestors of the Hmong and animals could communicate with one another, and when orphan boys and the youngest princesses were the main characters in Hmong folktales.
 
For at least five thousand years, the Hmong have undergone wave after wave of tragic history.  They had suffered and lost nearly everything except their identity and the folktales of their golden past, folktales passed down orally from generation to generation until today.
 
Hmongland takes great pride in publishing one of the greatest Hmong folktales of all times.  For the first time in the history of the Hmong, this great folktale of Nou Tong Blai Zag & Hmong Shee Jhai Gao Jer is being written down in full version, with colorful illustrations for the benefit of Hmong children who have limited reading materials about their own people and culture.  Many already imagine Nou Tong Blai Zag & Hmong Shee Jhai Gao Jer becoming a Disney film in the years ahead.
 
This story was retold by Nhia Blia Xiong, then transcribed, translated, and edited by his son, Yuepheng Xiong, and illustrated by Chun-ye Wang, a Hmong artist and fashion designer in Yunnan Province, China.