We made it to the Coc Ly market to find that it was raining there too. There were some interesting bits, like seeing some of the Flower Hmong people, so named because they wear these fantastically bright clothes - beautiful pleated skirts, embroidered shirts and leg wraps. And there were other realizations too. For instance, when your market serves a population of subsistence farmers, it doesn't contain rows and rows of lovely veg. Instead it contains mostly stuff of which it may be hard to grow or make-like the footwear of choice-clear shower sandals made in China. There most of been 5 stalls dedicated to this product alone. There was medicine too, tabacco, rice wine and cleavered pig parts too. There was also a lot where you could go and buy yourself a water buffalo. Buffalo aside, all these wares were mounded up on top of blue tarps, which lined a very muddy and getting even muddier path. Top that off with some tarps over head, or more precisely for me, at shoulder height. And there you have it. After the market, we made the decision to pass on the 1.5 hour boat trip down the river, again under the shelter would be shelter of a green tarp. I am sure it would have been nice on a sunny, warm day. But T has a new theory he's working on along the lines of avoiding any intinerary that includes a boat excursion; today I was very happy to oblige him!
The true highlight was having the chance to talk with our guide, Chau. Since most of our trek yesterday involved me focusing on the ground in front of me, lest I tumble into another paddy or to a craggy rivine along the way, I really didn't get to pepper her with my now adroit tour guide interview routine. Today, however, she told us many interesting things about the minority hill tribes. For example, the people here live in Vietnam, but would never consider themselves Vietnamese. They call their countrymen "Vietnamese" much as they call their trading partners across the Red River "Chinese." Couples are married through arranged marriages, sometimes as young as 15, and typically start having kids around 16 or 17. In contrast to Cambodia, for example, the farmers all own their land. Most of them have water buffalo, 5-10 pigs and innumerable chickens. They eat a fair amount of meat.
She told us more about the Flower Hmong minority we met at the market. The land in this area is along a river valley. Warm enough for two crops a year. Apparently they grew some rice, but the soil in this area tends to drain more quickly, therefore growing corn was much more common. Many of them spoke Chinese and intermarried with Chinese.
Chau spoke the Flower Hmong language had a few friends at Coc Ly market, but generally didn't like the Flower Hmong tribe. Over the past several years, the Flower Hmong had begun to take young women from Sapa, selling them to the Chinese. Young beautiful women would be sold as prostitutes. Older ones - like 25 or so - already were married and had children, so these women would be sold as wives to old, "rich" men.
How could they be taken from their village, I asked? Mostly through deception, it seemed. Impressionable women would meet a nicely dressed "office man" who would buy her something at the market or who would offer to take her to dinner. Or they would simply offer a young woman a ride back from the market. Chau told us that over 25 women had been taken from Sapa thus over the past 2 years, including one of her friends. And that these women never return.
Chau also told us a bit of her story. She is 25. Chau grew up in a traditional minority tribe family as a middle child with 11 other brothers and sisters. Her older brothers and sisters are married and work their rice fields, like their family does. Her younger brothers and sisters were in school. Chau's father has not spoken to her in four years, since she became a tour guide.
Chau also told us a bit of her story. She is 25. Chau grew up in a traditional minority tribe family as a middle child with 11 other brothers and sisters. Her older brothers and sisters are married and work their rice fields, like their family does. Her younger brothers and sisters were in school. Chau's father has not spoken to her in four years, since she became a tour guide.
How did you become a tour guide, I asked? When she was younger, her mother had a small stand in the village (population 800), where she would sell drinks and food to tourists. Chau told us about how she cried the first time one of the tourists took her picture. Over time, she made friends with a woman from Hanoi. The woman would come every week with a group of 10 or 20 people. She would bring her groups to Chau's mother's stand to buy refreshments. Chau was fasciated that this small woman, not much bigger than herself, could command the attention of such a large group of people. That she could hold their interest and make them happy. And so she asked the woman from Hanoi how she could become a tour guide like herself.
The woman told her she musn't be afraid of having her pictures taken. She should also try and learn English. So once Chau became a teenager, she began to go to the markets and learn English from the tourists. Slowly she learned to speak fairly well. After 2 years of practice in this way, she also began learning language of the other minority tribe people as well. She told us about her first tour - two "fat old British ladies." Being fat, she said, they couldn't take a hard trek. She figured they probably would enjoy seeing village life. For an entire afternoon, therefore, she took these two women from house to house, to sit around a fire or to introduce them to friends of her family. The women raved about her tour, sent her photographs, recommended her to many people. And the rest is history.
But I guess that is not right to say; its a glib phrase for the challenge that Chau has seemed to face.
Her family did not understand. She has had to move out of her home. Since she cannot work in the rice patties, she hires workers to help her family with the harvest. She buys them coats when it gets too cold. Her father will wear them, but still will not speak to her.
From her father's perspective, however, she is disobidient. He has raised her. Now she is lazy. He gets no work from her. He thinks no one will marry her, and therefore, he has lost a dowry. And she encourages her younger brothers and sisters to stay in school and to study hard. Now they are lazy too.
Chau loves her job though, and wants to learn how to read and write English too. She told us how last year, she asked her family's permission to go to school to study English. She posed the question to her father, through her mother. As a response, her father slapped her mother. He said if she goes to school, she will owe him her dowry.
Chau told me how it will be different for her children - how she will have only one or two, how they will go to school. Hearing this all, I remembered a study two or three years ago. The study found that educating women in underdeveloped countries is one of the most efficient forms of philathropy/investment, per dollar spent. Public health improves, infant mortality rate declines, literacy rates improve, and eventually per capita GDP improves, etc. This makes sense to me, but I now keep thinking that there is another side of this study? That there are hidden costs, if you will? These are the costs borne by women like Chau, who with or without aid of charity, are challenging what is expected of them. Brave, smart Chau pays a very dear price indeed.
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