In a small village in the north, there is a stilt house. In the house, a Tay family are living together: the grandparents called Dinh and Pu, the parents called Lai and Pha, and three children called Vang, Pao and Phong. Every day the grandparents stay at home to look after the house. Mr Lai and Mrs Pha work in the fields. They grow rice and other plants. Mrs Pha goes to the market twice a week to buy food for the family. Mr Lai sometimes goes hunting or cutting wood in the forests. Pao and Phong go to the primary school in the village, but Vang studies at the boarding school in the town about 15 kilometres away. He goes home at the weekend.
The family live simply and they enjoy their way of life. There are a few difficulties of course. But they say they live more happily in their stilt house than in a modern flat in the city.