Hiking Sa Pa Vietnam

The Ethnic Groups of Sa Pa

The largest ethnic groups who currently inhabit Sa Pa, Vietnam (5255′) include Red Dao and Black H’mong. Others with small populations are Giay, Tay and Pho Lu.

The Red Dao migrated to Vietnam starting around the 12th century as a result of continuous severe droughts and repression by Feudal landlords during the Minh Dynasty.

The H’mong migrated back in the early 18th century. They came from southern China near the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers where evidence claims their ancestors go back as many as 2000 years.

The Quing Dynasty who ruled China and represented the majority Han people, had historically repressed and enslaved other ethnic groups. This repression intensified causing armed conflicts between H’mong and Han forcing the former to emigrate further south…into Vietnam.

 

 

The French in Sa Pa

The French first came to Sa Pa in the late 1800’s. As established colonizers of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia (French Indochina), their interest extended to Sa Pa primarily to protect their Vietnam colony from Chinese invasion. Sa Pa was on the border.

The French Empire colonized Indochina for one reason: to enrich themselves. They did it by taking the raw materials off and out of the land and used cheap labor to get them. Vietnam, like Laos and Cambodia became a virtual French dependency for nearly a century.

The French brought two good things with them: Baguettes (which the Vietnamese cherish to this day) and schools. Many of the ethnic people still speak French today.

1997 in Sa Pa

Though the town of Sa Pa was growing rapidly with tourist amenities, the surrounding countryside had changed very little. The Sa Pa high mountain valley reminded us of fabled Shangri-La. Fansipan, Vietnam’s highest mountain at 3,143 meters towered above in magic splendor. Rice paddies carved from steep hillsides wrapped around peaceful thatch villages. A single dirt road and miles of well-trodden footpaths kept the possibility of noise and pollution in check. We roamed the inviting trails for a week, never getting enough of the beauty or the people.

We did not go to Cat Cat Village. It already had a reputation as a tourist destination, and we liked traveling more off the tourist track. We simply followed the farm roads through the villages and fields and met the local people on our own terms. On one day, we hired a local guide who took us into some homes. Our encounters with the H’mong were friendly. We never felt pressured. We were lucky to be in Sa Pa in the early years of openness.

 

Sa Pa was changing quickly: new guesthouses, restaurants and tourist transportation made it easier for visitors to come and to stay in the old French Hill Station. In 1932, the French drove the locals out of Sa Pa and developed the town into a health resort with tennis courts, spas and over 200 villas. Under French rule, most minorities were forced into unpaid labor and heavy taxation. The minorities resisted with seven revolts during the colonial occupation until the 1945 August Revolution finally pushed the French entirely out of Vietnam.

  After the Chinese invasion in 1979, only ten French buildings survived in Sa Pa, but the H’mong still used the French language to communicate with the resurgent foreign population. With the recent reopening of Sa Pa to the world, the people were adapting to the presence of tourism and drawing financial benefits from it: through the sale of their beautiful embroidered clothing and the influx of modest modernization in the form of tourist facilities.

As soon as the grandmother’s guild departed, two beautiful H’mong girls took my hands captive. They wore the traditional embroidered, fanned skirts, split-fronted blouse with long waistcoat tucked beneath a richly embroidered sash. Sash-like turbans wrapped around their thick dark hair. Large silver hoop earrings dangled from each ear.

“Hello, what is your name?” they asked in perfect English.

“Anna,” I replied. “What’s yours?”

“Glin. This is my sister Ali.”

“You speak very good English. Do you study it in school?”

“I don’t go to school,” Glin acknowledged. “I learn from the tourists.”

 

We wandered the paths into the scattered villages.

The bamboo houses, capped with thatch looked like giant hay stacks.

They complemented the landscape as if nature planted them.

H’mong curiosity about us prompted them to invite us into their homes.

It was a rare opportunity as a traveler to meet a people and lifestyle in its authenticity.

The hard dirt floor was spotless. Small wooden stools only three inches above the floor served as chairs. Though chickens and pigs tried to make a place for themselves, the guardian children shooed them outside. An open fire stone hearth centered in the main room. Smoke found its own way out. One electric light bulb dangled from the pole rafters. Power came from tiny one-foot dams in the creek passing by.

 Woven reed mat beds lined the floor in a back room. Thirteen people lived in this household.

Many of the children did not go to school, even though it was provided. Informal lessons in accounting, however, developed like English, through contact with tourists.A crew of hard working youngsters was returning from the fields. A girl, the same age as Glin, showed us her basket woven from the bamboo. She opened a dark indigo cloth and revealed her store of mineral water and Coca-Cola. We could not speak H’mong, but she took charge of the sale by raising five fingers for the 5,000-dong purchasing price. The younger boys watched the sale with acute interest, specially the part where the money changed hands. What more schooling did they need than that!

As forests diminished, so did minority wealth in the form of medicinal plants, mushrooms, ginger, fuel wood and lumber products.

Sandalwood trees, harvested before a burn, brought modest income to a group of ten men. They were hauling two giant beams, each weighing over a thousand pounds, up the hillside to our path.

They would sell each piece for $100 to a Chinese buyer. Each worker would receive about $6.00.

By the time the beams reached Hong Kong, they would each sell for $300. Sandalwood was China’s prized furniture lumber.

It was a strange feeling to wander about freely through villages, to be invited into stranger’s homes, to be greeted with such warmth. They expressed an excitement to reveal, to share their traditions and their lifestyle. Perhaps they saw our presence as a possible solution for their economic problems.

Certainly, the tourist brought needed money to the area. We as a group could prove beneficial. We were among a privileged few to participate in the transition of a people and their culture to interaction with tourism.