Has the Hmong lost its way in the fight for the tourist dollar?

Mao is not quite sure why the tourists are coming to Sapa. “They like our clothes,” she says. “They like to take our picture.” Then she shrugs, as if puzzled by, but accepting of, the habits of fleeting foreigners. 

A 20-year-old from the Hmong tribe, Mao used to sell jewellery and embroidered bags to tourists on the streets of the small town of Sapa in northwestern Vietnam. She now works as a trekking guide in this mountainous area.

The tourists provide for her a livelihood; for the tourist she provides an insight into Hmong traditional life. Or at least that is what the tourists expect.

About 100 years ago, the French colonialists, desperate for respite from the tropical heat, began retreating to Sapa during summers. However, it is no longer the cool weather that encourages tourists to make the long, arduous journey to this gateway to the stunning scenery of the Tonkinese Alps.

Nowadays, Sapa’s people are the draw.

Ethno-tourism is popular worldwide, with travellers looking to photograph minorities living mostly in remote areas. The Sahara has the Tuareg, Tanzania and Kenya the Masai, Cameroon the Baka Pygmies and Indonesia the Papua. Northern Vietnam has the Hmong.

The Hmong have different terms for their various sub-cultural divisions, and the Black Hmong, predominant in Sapa, have differentiated themselves from other Hmong sub-groups by adopting unique headgear and clothing, which is a deep indigo blue, often embellished with embroidery. Their earrings are big and round, their jewellery heavy and silver. The Hmong wrap their legs, from ankle to knee, in black velvet, which is held in place by a colourful band. On their heads they wear a tall, round black hat. Some embed a large colourful comb in their hair.

Tourism is a two-sided coin, says Mao. The drove of tourists brings money to an impoverished area and has reinstalled a sense of pride in a province heavily controlled by the Vietnamese government, which doesn’t recognise hill tribes. Yet ethno-tourism in Sapa is less about reality and more about giving tourists what it is they have travelled so far to see – and providing a much-needed income to the tribes.

Like many places in Vietnam, a quick sell is a good sell, and the Hmong are as eager to receive the tourist dollar as other businessmen in the country. Despite being the main draw, the Hmong do not own any of the hotels that pack Sapa, so their livelihood relies on selling their wares to tourists. And try to sell they do. When travellers step out of their hotels, these hardened women immediately swarm them.

“Buy from me,” they call as they eagerly show off bags and other everyday objects that have been turned into souvenirs. “On the way to Ban Ho you can see Red Dzao and Black Hmong,” reads one trekking brochure, advertising the tribes like rare species of birds.

Some of the women wearing traditional gear are not even Hmong, Mao says: “Some Vietnamese dress up as Hmong otherwise they cannot sell anything.

” The exotic costume, often made from materials bought from China, is clearly a strong marketing ploy – and the local people know it. Men who have little contact with foreigners dress in a Western style, says Mao. Homestays, an ‘authentic experience’ as touted by the many tour groups in the area, involve sleeping in a house built solely for the purpose of accommodating tourists while the family sleeps and eats in their actual home nearby.

While trekking in Sapa takes in gorgeous rice terraces and shows a picturesque view of rural Vietnam, it remains one side of life. The other is a much harder life where the tourism dollar is gold. The tourist-Hmong relationship is well established.

It is what it is: a business transaction.