Sapa

The Sapa trip have opened up my eyes to many things. Sapa town is a lot smaller than I expected and we pretty much have to travel outside of Sapa town to see and do things. There aren't much to the town. I enjoyed the experience a lot due to the minority people that I met there. I felt the warmness from them talking to me trying to sell the little products. There is this old lady that followed me for the whole day trying to sell me her hand-made bracelet.  No matter what, she always have this very sweet smile on her face and it reminded me of my grandma. I also met this one little girl that A-Thai knew from couple years back. It is about 7PM already but she said she can't eat until she comes home in the highlands late at night. When A-Thai treated her out to dinner, I was able to get to know her a little bit more. I asked her about the Love Market. She told me there's not much to it anymore, before it meant for people to find their lovers, but now it has turn into a performance catering to the tourists. From her response, she does realized that the meaning of that cultural event changed and have been shaped differently. Instead of doing it for a more meaningful purpose, the Love Market is now just another way to make money for the minority. Due to poverty, the minority groups have to find a way to make money to support themselves, and unfortunately, they have to give away "part of their culture" trading for food.

Development have been offering more opportunities for people to "live better" but those opportunities are not offered to everyone. While people can take advantage of the economy blooming, others people are living of day by day and barely making enough. Khu, our tour guide, she mentioned how girls are being sell overseas to make money for their family. They are tricked into thinking they can make "easy money" elsewhere, and some never return home. Human-trafficking is a big issue in Southeast Asia countries. When farming can no longer put food on the table, people seek to find other alternative. Often times they are forced to move out from their home to other places (thanks to transportation) in order to make a living. It is a risky decision in which they have never been elsewhere but their hometown, going out into the "world" there are more risks than luck. Seeing how the minority people live, it pains me to realized how they are being pushed back up in the highland into like this "little corner" struggling to make a living while people in the lowlands have more opportunity to make a living. At tourist places like Sapa, the culture also lost it meaning. While people come there for authentic souvenirs, most are made from Hanoi in the factory. Tourism and development have done a lot of damage to the "cultural authenticity" of a certain place. While I have a lot of fun, but realized I am actually contributed to all of this changes also.