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March 1998
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Cultural Icon
Vietnam's Nón Lá
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In a country where seven out of 10 people earn a living from the land, Mother Nature is the most influential member of the family. To the Vietnamese, she's a moody matriarch with an intense, erratic personality, as evindenced by bouts of blistering sun and driving monsoon rains. But under the cover of the nón lá, the traditional cone hat made of tightly woven bamboo or palm leaves, the residents of this pocket of Southeast Asia have learned how to defy her.
For centuries, the Vietnamese have celebrated the day-to-day struggle to put rice on the table in proverbs such as "The sun is good for cucumber; the rain is good for rice plants," and "A bowl of rice is traded with a bowl of sweat." Underneath the nón lá, they put those proverbs to the test, withstanding the seasonal cycles of torrential rain and unrelenting heat with remarkable aplomb.
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