1. Historical origin

The Ngai ethnic people are originally from Wudong, Fangcheng District, Guangdong Province (China), concentrated in Mong Cai city and Tien Yen district, Quang Ninh province; and some localities in the provinces of Bac Giang, Bac Ninh, Bac Kan, Thai Nguyen, Cao Bang, Lang Son, Ha Giang, and Tuyen Quang. ‘Ngai’ means ‘I’ or ‘me’.

The Ngai people also call themselves ‘San Ngai’, which means “people living in the forest”, which reflects their residence area in the past and at presence. They are one of the early residents in Vietnam, and consider themselves an indigenous ethnic group.

2. Population, language

- Population: According to the Survey of 53 ethnic minorities issued on April 1, 2019, there are 1,649 Ngai ethnic people in Vietnam, including 881 men and 768 women. The household size is 3.7 people per household. 72.2% of the population lives in rural areas.

- Language: The Ngai ethnic language belongs to the Sino language group (Sino-Tibetan language family).

3. Geographic distribution

This ethnic people used to live Enping county-level city in, Guangdong province. After the defeat of the Taiping Rebellion (1849-1863), in which they participated and were thereafter suppressed by the Qing Dynasty, they had to migrate to our country, now residing mainly in Mong Cai city and the Tien Yen district of Quang Ninh province; and some other localities.

4. Main features

Diet: Ngai people like to eat porridge; their main food is vegetable leaves. They prefer to use spices such as garlic, chili, and ginger in their meals.

Clothing: The Ngai ethnic people’s clothes are usually not embroidered. Men wear wide straight pants, and their shirts have 2 or 3 pockets. Females wear a five-flap shirt and like to braid the hair around the head.

Housing: The Ngai ethic people reside in the provinces of Bac Giang, Cao Bang, Lang Son and Quang Ninh in houses with many different architectural styles and roofing materials. Those living on the coast and islands often live on their boats.

Marriage: Ngai people live in a monogamous society. A wedding has two rituals, including the marriage ceremony, and the wedding room entrance ceremony. Ngai people get married at an early age.

Funeral: The Ngai ethnic people believe that death means the soul moves to live in another world. Therefore, they often bury the dead with items that they used when they were alive. Funerals have many complicated stages, including funeral announcements, placing the dead into the coffin, and burial.

Worshipping ritual: Ngai ethnic people believe in the existence of two parts of man, including the body and the soul, as well as the existence of gods, and human souls. The Ngai people often worship many deities such as ancestors, gods, Buddha, forest ghosts, and the spirits of ten kinds of beings. The ritual of worshiping each deity is different with different types of offerings.

Festivals: In addition to popular holidays and New Year festivals such as Lunar New Year and ‘Han Thuc’ (Cold Foods Festival), Ngai people also celebrate the new rice festival on the tenth lunar month.

Education: The Ngai people speak many different dialects of Southern Chinese, but in the past, few people were literate. Today, most school-age children know the Vietnamese script.

Arts: The Ngai ethnic people have a rich treasure of folk art, with various art forms such as folk songs, folk dances and especially oral literature. They have many legends, fairy tales, idioms, and proverbs representing their conception of the worldview and human life view, both rich in human meaning.

5. Economic conditions

* Crops

Wet rice is the main crop in the farming activities of the Ngai ethnic people. In Ngai ethnic group, field means “ten” and farming means “pha then”.

Ngai people grow both glutinous and sticky rice, the glutinous rice being grown in two thirds of the household's field area, larger than the area of sticky rice. In the past, hybrid rice varieties were not popular in their community, most of the Ngai people grew traditional rice varieties with long growing times. In addition, the application of science, technology and mechanisation was not popular, so their rice productivity was not high.

Since 2000, hybrid rice varieties with high yields and short growth periods have been widely planted by the Ngai ethnic people. Since then, their rice crops have also changed with two crops: the summer-autumn crop and the spring crop.

* Breed

Ngai ethnic people often breed large cattle, including buffaloes, used as animal traction and for fertilizer. Small cattle, such as pigs, and poultry are raised in almost all households, and are used to provide food for Tet holidays, funeral ceremonies, weddings, offerings, and for trading. Previously, cattle and poultry were raised with feed available in nature and home grown feed such as sweet potatoes, corn, and cassava. The livestock raising is both free-range and indoor, depending on the type of livestock and poultry.

* Forestry

The forestry of the Ngai people in Tam Thai village is just a supporting activity because their residence area is convenient for agricultural development. On the other hand, the Ngai also have sharp skills in service and trade. Therefore, forestry has not developed among the Ngai people, they only exploit natural products.

* Handicrafts

The handicraft of the Ngai people is just a side job, creating products for agricultural production and family activities, partly for exchange in the market. Their crafts include making honey, sweets, vermicelli, woodworking, knitting, and making bricks.

Their bamboo and rattan products, and wooden furniture have a long-lasting value, and play a special role in daily life, made only for personal use rather than selling in the market. Most of the Ngai households in Tam Thai used to work in sugarcane pressing, and sugar extraction by manual methods.

* Service exchange

Living in lowland areas, near markets and convenient for transportation, the Ngai ethnic people in general and Ngai people in Tam Thai village in particular participate in trading activities. Although goods are not diverse, a few Ngai people have organised long-distance trading trips selling products such as honey, , molasses, herbal medicines, tea, confectionery, noodles, and vermicelli.

According to the survey carried out in June 2015 in the Ngai ethnic community in Tam Thai village (Quang Nam province), their trading and service activities are quite diverse with many forms, such as selling vegetables at Chua Hang and Doc Do markets, herbal medicine, opening grocery stores, operating breakfast restaurants, and selling dog meat.