Almost half a century ago, war threw a boy from a Vietnamese village into the jungle. He grew up in the woods, never met other people, did not watch TV and knew about cars only by hearsay. After returning to the modern world, many surprises awaited him. Lenta.ru has studied the history of the Vietnamese hermit Ho Van Lang, who spent 41 years in the jungle.
In 1972, American planes bombed the village where Ho Van Thanh lived. Almost the entire family died before his eyes. Only his son survived - little Lang, who was then only two years old. With him, he hid in the jungle to escape from enemies. They hid in a low place at the foot of a mountain range, where a river flowed, in which there was a fish, and it was warmer than on a hill. The boy spent the first years of his life there.
The Vietnamese jungle is full of dangers - you had to be on the lookout in order not to face predators. As long as the camp was defended, there was little threat to Lang or his father. They built huts a few meters above the ground, using thick tree trunks for support. In order for the fire to always burn, they, like primitive people, had to constantly support it.
To get food, they hunted and gathered. The boy and his father ate fruits, vegetables, honey and whatever animals they could kill. Lang tried meat from monkeys, rats, snakes, lizards, frogs, bats and birds, but most of all he liked fish. From time to time they blocked the course of the river with logs in two places, and then they stunned the swam fish with a stone and pulled them out of the water with their hands.
Jungle life
The story of Lang and his father is a bit like that of the Japanese soldier Hiro Onoda. During World War II, he defended the Philippine island of Lubang, and when the Americans occupied it in 1944, he took refuge in the mountains with the remnants of the Japanese garrison. They did not know about the surrender of Japan and continued to wage a guerrilla war. Even when he was left alone, Onoda refused to lay down his arms. He hid in the forest for 30 years and gave up only in 1974.
Lang and his father found themselves in the same situation. Although the Vietnam War was long over, they still believed it was deadly to return home. The boy grew up far from civilization and could not imagine another life. Years passed, but the only person he spoke to was his father.
Promotional video:
Lang had never seen a clock, and his knowledge of time was limited to the fact that night followed day. Nor did he know about electricity. The only sources of light he knew were fire and the sun. Lang imagined his appearance only by the reflection in the river and could not count beyond ten. “I asked him how he explained to his father that he had caught 15 bats,” says the Spanish traveler Alvaro Serezo, who met with Lang. “He replied that he was just saying“a lot”or“more than a dozen.”
Ho Wan Lang catches bats.
Bats are caught.
Ho Wan Lang prepares the loot.
Bat trap.
Ho Wan Lang eats prey.
But Lang knew the forest like the back of his hand. The Vietnamese Tarzan had an amazing ability to find food anywhere. He considered almost all the plants in the jungle edible, and if he managed to catch an animal, then everything went without a trace. “In the jungle, I saw Lang eat bats like olives,” says Serezo. "He swallowed them whole, together with the head and offal."
Although no one saw them, both Lang and his father wore loincloths, and in winter they protected themselves from the cold by donning homemade bark clothes. For all the time they spent in the jungle, they never had any serious health problems. Sometimes they had to fight a cold or poisoning, but everything ended well.
Even far from people, they did not eat with their hands. To do this, they had bamboo chopsticks and a variety of kitchen utensils. In the early years, Lang's father made it out of any available materials, including steel from bombs dropped by the Americans. Aluminum, which they found in a crashed helicopter - one of the few objects of civilization that Lang saw up close, went to pans, pots and plates. Others, such as light bulbs, cars and televisions, he knew only by hearsay.
The father did not tell his son everything. He believed that the war was still going on and wanted Lang to be afraid of other people. But there were other reasons as well. After fleeing into the jungle, the boy did not meet women and did not even know about the existence of a female. His father did not tell him about women in order to "suppress his instincts." The plan worked. Even as Lang grew older, he did not experience the slightest sexual attraction.
Throughout his life, Lang saw only five people, but even those - only from afar. After each such incident, he and his father abandoned familiar places and moved higher into the mountains. At some point, they had to stop, as they believed that the summit was inhabited by spirits. They were trapped: civilization was approaching from behind, but there was nowhere to run.
Return to civilization
Lang's father thought his entire family had been killed by American bombs, but that was not the case. One of the sons, whose name was Ho Wang Chi, survived and spent years looking for his father and brother. He was helped by rumors of people living in the jungle, which began to spread in villages near the places where Lang and his father were hiding.
In 2013, he met them in a forest near the Cha Sin settlement in Quang Ngai province. By that time, they had been hiding from people for over 40 years. Recent years have been particularly difficult for Lang. He could not sleep at night because he was afraid that his old and sick father would fall from the tree. It was more difficult to find food in the mountains and it was impossible to fish, so Lang was left without his favorite food.
The brother began to meet with them regularly and persuade them to return home. The father did not immediately believe that this was really his son, and was afraid to leave the familiar forest. Lang, on the contrary, accepted the appearance of a relative with joy and did not mind when he visited them and brought salt and spices. He willingly agreed to go to the village with him.
Ho Wang Lang after returning to the village.
Ho Wang Lang after returning to the village.
When his brother came to pick them up in a car, Lang could not believe his eyes. He heard about cars from his father when he was little. Lang spent the entire journey staring out the window at the jungle sweeping by. He had never felt such speed before.
Everything in the village seemed strange. Lang was surprised that the animals were kept as "friends." In the jungle, the animals were afraid of him and tried to escape. He saw women for the first time and learned to distinguish them from men, but he did not understand exactly what the difference was. In gastronomic terms, the main discovery was fish from the ocean, which immediately became his favorite food.
“In the evening he was struck by the electric light from the light bulbs,” says Serezo. - The ability to enjoy the light even at night seemed to him something completely incredible. And after that, he first saw the TV, which he also knew from the words of his father. Therefore, he knew that the people on the screen were not sitting 'inside' the box."
When the Spanish traveler met Lang and his father, they lived in the village for the third year, slowly adapting to civilization. The first year was the most difficult for Lang for several reasons, the main one being health problems due to bacteria and viruses new to his body. His father never resigned himself to the forced return and was still torn into the jungle, but Lang liked life in the village. He spent most of his time helping his brother work in the fields.
“After the first hours of communication with him, I could tell that Lang was delighted with the idea for the first time in a long time to return to the places in the jungle where he comes from,” Serezo wrote on his blog. "Lang accepted the invitation without hesitation, and together with his brother and translator, we recovered into the heart of the jungle."
Spanish traveler Alvaro Serezo (left) and Ho Van Lang.
Ho Wan Lang could only count to ten.
Tools, weapons and utensils were made from scrap materials.
Ho Wan Lang was very fond of fish.
Ho Wan Lang didn't look in the mirror until he was 43.
For rainy days, Ho Wan Lang had a homemade umbrella.
Lang's direct behavior reminded the traveler of a child. He noticed that his sense of humor was almost identical to that of a child. He liked to copy facial expressions and had a lot of fun playing Ku-ku, which kids love. Lang confessed to Serezo that he believes in God, but believes that the moon was made by a man and then every day he hung it from the sky with a rope. He knew about death and understood that someday he would die, but he refused to talk about this topic.
The hermit made an indelible impression on Serezo. “At first I intended to learn from him only about new survival techniques,” he wrote. “But I soon realized that, without noticing it, I had met one of the most endearing people I’ve ever met.”
Author: Ekaterina Tikhonova
