They [government officials] don’t want us to worship Jesus Christ or to uas neeb [conduct
shamanic rituals]. They ask us to organise communal festivals, but when we did,
they complained that we did it wrongly. For each festival, they sent us their researchers
who told us to do this and to do that. Lately, I attended a meeting in the district cultural
office about what to do to bring our Hmong people away from Christianity. I asked
them, since all gods/spirits are forbidden, can we Hmong people worship Uncle Ho,
for example? Next day, our commune officers came and warned me not to attempt
mocking the national leader. I did not mean to mock anyone when I proposed to
them to let us worship Uncle Ho.