Minorities

I have spent the last few days in Sapa, located in North Vietnam and famed for its rice fields and indigenous diversity. There are approximately 24 different ethnic minorities in this area, each with its own language, culture and traditions. The Kinh and Hmong are the most ubiquitous while groups such as the La Chi and Bo Y are disappearing fast. As you walk through downtown Sapa, there are numerous women and children dressed in traditional garments practically begging you to buy their crafts. On a four hour trek to Lao Chai and Ta Van villages, Hmong women follow tourist to pose for pictures for a fee. Some even follow you and ask for money for providing some basic information or just plain gracing you with their company. Once in the villages, one hardly sees anyone farming and the new school buildings are practically empty. Children tugged at you asking for money and some are aggressive and look unhappy. Although inevitable, tourism has done more harm than good. It has commercialized culture and shifted the focus from healthy agricultural communities to the selling of a people. Many traditions are dying off and native clothes are worn only in town when in the presence of tourists. The children are not sent to school where they can find alternatives to tourism and learn to be doctors or teachers thus contributing greater value to society. Instead young Hmong girls can be hired as the play mates of western children, acting as a sort of doll or pet. The first English words they learn are “Buy from me” and “Money! Money!” Sure there is dignity in selling ones craft but there are too many of them selling the same thing. It is impossible to walk ten feet without having someone hound you to buy something, anything. The interaction between westerners and minorities is merely a transaction. There is no mutual respect for culture when one is viewed as something exotic while the other is just a dollar sign. It breaks my heart to see girls as young as five out in the streets late at night walking the streets, selling, or men on the corner drinking and gambling. They seem desperate and unsatisfied. They have modernized for they have learned that money is most important. Oh if only we could go back and remember that family, community, respect is what matters most. They had so much more to teach us than what we could ever teach them but no one seems to realize this as we charge full force towards self destruction. Tourism is the new face of colonization and we are losing our cultures and ourselves as we strive to “develop.”