Real-Life Tarzan Who Lived in a Jungle for 41 Years Had No Idea Women Existed

No source can convey human experience better than fantasy. Imagine living in a world where the sky is above you, trees surround you, and animals and your family are your only friends.

This was the extraordinary reality for Ho Van Lang, a man who managed to live 41 years in the Vietnamese jungle, forgetting that there is a world outside with all those amenities and the opposite gender.

A Tragic Beginning

It is noteworthy to mention that Ho Van Lang embarked on his life of solitude during an unfavorable situation. In 1972, when Lang was just a year old, a US bomb razed his village during the Vietnam War, killing his mother and two siblings.

Desperate and devastated by such a painful loss, Lang’s father, Ho Van Thanh, along with some of his children, moved to the thickly forested regions of Tay Tra, Quang Ngai province. Thinking that nothing could be worse, Thanh resolved to eliminate whatever little contact their family had with the world outside.

Life in the Jungle

In his late 30s, Lang, his father, and his brother Tri stayed in the jungle for more than four decades without contact with the outside world. Their living standard was a direct reflection of the existing resources in the neighborhood.

Their main activities were to construct houses from bamboo and leaves, hunt for animals, and gather fruits and bees’ honey.

Through this, Lang became such an expert in hunting that there was almost no animal he could not capture, however cunning it might be. His diet consisted of a variety of foods found in the jungle, including monkeys, snakes, lizards, frogs, and rats. Though it was reported that he abhorred meat, he was partial to rats’ heads.

Lang could not have been more than a few years old when he was taken into the wild, which explains why he lacked an understanding of many important concepts that the majority of human societies take for granted.

Tri nicknamed him a “baby in a man’s body,” who had limited knowledge of what could be considered legal or unlawful. The brothers acted out of instinct, with no regard for the norms and values of typical society, as young Lang did not have the chance to learn them from his father or society.

Discovery and Rescue

For many years, the family kept to themselves, only to be discovered in 2013 by a photographer named Alvaro Cerezo. The possibility of meeting a modern “Tarzan” became the subject of popular interest.

Cerezo and the rest of the team were able to locate Lang and his family and get them out of the jungle and into a small village. However, the process of becoming a member of modern civilization was far from gradual.

Lang’s father experienced terrible difficulty adapting to conventional society and had an immense phobia stemming from the effects of war. He never believed the war was over and in fact, feared going back to what was deemed civilized society.

Lang, however, after the initial shock, slowly started to transform in his new environment. He was amused to see animals that did not run away at the sight or scent of human beings, and the noise made by the inhabitants of the village, which was unlike the deadly quiet of the jungle, appealed to his senses.

An Innocence Untouched

Perhaps the most striking element of Lang’s story is his lack of knowledge about the very existence of women. His father, who had seen the risk of human contact threaten him so many times, taught the boy little about gender differences.

In the new village, Lang could not differentiate between males and females, even after he had accepted membership in the village. It was pointed out that Lang did not have any libido or nymphomania impulses, and even after he came to the present world, these aspects remained undefined.

Naturally, being an innocent and wholesome soul, many people loved Lang when they got to know him. Little by little, Cerezo became completely infatuated with Lang, who trusted him from the bottom of his heart, as he was the most adorable human the photographer had ever met.

A Life Cut Short

Ho Van Lang, who lived for 52 years died of terminal liver cancer struggling with the disease.

The solitary life he led could be seen as a symbol of the determination and strength of people who are able to overcome their circumstances and transform themselves depending on where they live.

References:

1. Metro UK
2. LADbible