H’Mong Mafia
Posted on January 4th, 2004 by aj
Sapa is perched up in the northwest highlands of Vietnam. Peaks loom somewhere above the mist, but you can never tell how high they go. Occasionally the sun finds its way through and big spikes of marble are revealed growing out from the mountain at odd angles. Clouds roll over the cliffs like passing trains, flowing through the bamboo forests and on into town so thick you can’t see across the street. Stone footpaths wind about the heights connecting villages. There’s so much up and down you can sometimes find yourself only a couple hundred feet away from someone on an adjacent hill. Sound carries well through the cold air, so villagers shout messages between the vistas.
Aside from the gorgeous views, the chief attractions of the region are the many varieties of colorfully garbed minority peoples. These hill tribes are very poor sustenance farmers. They are short, wiry, and seem full grown at ten. They have the wide, muscled, almost hand-like feet that you get from carrying logs up mountains barefoot every day. The Zao women can fly past you up a rock face, even carrying their children. In one tribe the women chew a root that stains their teeth completely black. The women of the various tribes trek to Sapa to sell their detailed embroidery, jewelry, hashish, opium, and marijuana. Young girls sell a lot of the crafts. Toothless crones are the drug dealers.
The H’mong girls, in particular, are incredibly aggressive. The touchiness of the Vietnamese is totally eclipsed by the H’mong. Every tourist woman that enters Sapa instantly gains an entourage of adoring H’mong “sisters.” They cling, give hugs and kisses, and play patty-cake, punctuated with pleas to buy from them. Every time Mandy hit the the street, H’mong girls took each arm. While Mandy was plied with affection, I got punches to my floating ribs, shin kicks and bites. The H’mong girls were the first women I ever saw playing at kickboxing in the street. They are deceptively strong for their size. One girl threatened to knife me for not buying cloth from her.
We went trekking to the villages of the different tribes all around the area. Outside a Black H’mong Village we met this guy, Ju, who wanted to play with my camera. He wanted to take pictures of the irrigation system he built out of bamboo and his rice paddies. After fooling with my camera a bit, Ju gestured us down a path to his hut.
We crawled in and huddled around the firepit. With our heads bumping drying corn and the family shotgun, we met Ju’s eight kids and two puppies. Ju’s wife, Ku, cooked rice soup while Ju babbled H’mong at us. He offered us hot water and a strong rice wine. We managed to sign out a rudimentary conversation and then Ju brought out a bamboo water pipe. I accepted a smoke to be friendly, but whatever else was in the tobacco was too much for me and too much for Ju.
He started singing for a while and then crying. Confused and unsure what to do, we were rescued by Mao, Ju’s son. Mao knew enough English to tell us that this only happens when Ju hits the pipe and drink. Ju dragged us out to his anvil and signed as if beating his own arm on it and waved at the world around us. Mao thought it best that we leave, so we thanked everyone and Mandy led me away.
We took quite a few photos. Battered and bruised I fled from the H’mong Mafia into China…