No-one Wears the Pants
Travelling along the Mekong River in Vietnam last year, I visited a Cham village. The Cham are an ethnic group in Southeast Asia, and are the remnants of the Kingdom of Champa, that ruled much of Vietnam from the 7th to the 15th centuries; there are smaller populations in Cambodia and Malaysia, and most live in riverside villages.
The society is matriarchal – our guide informed us with a wink that it was the women who wore the pants in Cham society – unlike elsewhere in Vietnam! However, you won’t find anyone actually wearing pants in a Cham village – except perhaps the little children running around.
…you won’t find anyone actually wearing pants in a Cham village…
Traditionally, both sexes wear a sarong-like garment called a batik, which is worn knotted at the waist. I was shown how to wrap and knot my own brightly coloured batik, woven from cotton in the village I bought it from. Men usually wear a shirt over their batiks, and the women close-fitting blouses that are open at the throat and have tight sleeves. Their customary headdress is a turban or scarf (both of which you can see in the snapshots above).
My lilac scarf is triangular, and trimmed in lavender crochet; I was shown how to wrap it around my head and hair by one of the villagers. The linen shirt was tailored to fit me better while I waited in a nearby Saigon café; the leather thongs, various coloured jade bangles and silver earrings were all purchased in local markets. Although not all of the pieces conform strictly to Cham dress, the combination does create a charming effect!
