Complete Dissertation

VU Research Portal Experiences of Hmong Women Engaging in Tourism-related Activities in Sa Pa, Northwestern Vietnam Lê, T.D.D. 2015 document version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Link to publication in VU Research Portal citation for published version (APA) Lê, T. D. D. (2015). Experiences of Hmong Women Engaging in Tourism-related Activities in Sa Pa, Northwestern Vietnam. General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. E-mail address: [email protected] Download date: 05. Oct. 2021 Acknowledgements As with any long-term project, the completion of this dissertation could not have been done in isolation. There are so many people I would like to acknowledge and thank for supporting me on this very personal academic endeavor. Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Professor Oscar Salemink and Prof. Pál Nyiri , my supervisors, for their continuous support of my Ph.D research, for their patience, motivations, enthusiasms, and immense knowledge and also for the great efforts they put into training me in the scientific field. I have been fortunate to have Dr. Marjo de Theije as my co-supervisor. I am very thankful for her inspiring guidance and incisive critique. The insightful knowledge and support from my supervisors and co-supervisor enabled me to refine the various drafts of this thesis as the work progressed. Without their kind and patient support, it would have been impossible for me to finish this thesis. To you I express my heartfelt gratitude. This project would not have been possible without the trust and hospitality of my Hmong friends who opened their doors and shared their lives with me during my fieldwork. To protect the anonymity of the individuals involved, I cannot thank them by name. To them I dedicate this work. I am grateful to the Vietnam Ministry of Education and Training, and the Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture, and Society (Temple University) for providing me with the financial and institutional support which enabled me to conduct this research. My appreciation extends to the Institute of Human Studies for granting me study leave. I also appreciate the support of my colleagues at the Institute who took on extra work during my absence. The completion of this project has been a long and tiring process. Fortunately I was lucky to meet wonderful and generous friends in Amsterdam who helped me and by doing so, made the five years of being a PhD student easier. During my stay in Amsterdam, I enjoyed the company of colleagues with whom I shared experiences and exchanged ideas on topics that concerned us all. For this my thanks go to Scott Dalby, Patcharin Lapanun, Tam Ngo, Priscilla Koh, Ton Salman, Freek Colombijn, Caronine Grillot and other colleagues at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. My special thanks and appreciation go to Maaike Matelski and Joan van Wijk for translating the i dissertation summary from English to Dutch and for being the paranymphs at my defense ceremony; I treasure their helpfulness and precious friendship. I am also appreciative of Annet Bakkers‟s and Chris Kanhaisingh‟s efficient assistance for all kinds of bureaucratic and accounting paperwork. Besides a group of wonderful people at the VU, I also enjoyed the support and friendship of Vietnamese students in Amsterdam. My special thanks go to two Vietnamese couples Chu Manh Dung and Tran Thi Ngoc Tu, and Dang Minh Triet and Anh Nguyen, who always provided me with a room in their tiny home whenever I came to Amsterdam, and who gave me hearty support when I was depressed. Also, there were still other friends who encouraged and supported me during my days in Amsterdam. The simple phrase, “thank you”, cannot express how much their friendship means to me. Also, I gratefully acknowledge Mollie David and John Revington for their time and professional editing of my text, making it as readable as possible. In Vietnam, I would like to thank Dr. Tran Huu Son, Director of the Lao Cai Bureau of Culture, Sports and Tourism and his staff for all their support and assistance during my field trip to Sa Pa. I am grateful for the assistance of Mr. Le Van Hao and Mr. Do Trong Nguyen of the Culture and Information Department of the Sa Pa People‟s Committee for their help with access to various information sources which were important to this research. I owe special thanks to Nguyen Ngoc Thanh who helped me make necessary local connections during my fieldwork. My appreciation also goes to Le Thi Thu Ha and Vu Thi Thanh who encouraged and supported me through the ups and downs of carrying out this research and who always helped me in any way they could, especially in accessing documents and literature in Vietnam. My academic journey would definitely not have been possible without the love, care, and support of a number of people who are dear to me. I would like to express deepest gratitude to my dear parents and family. My father, Le Ngoc The and my mother Cao Thi Sam have made immeasurable sacrifices to give me and my sisters access to education at all times. They endlessly comforted me with affection and concern. My sisters, Le Thi Huyen Tram and Le Nu Cam Le, gave their unfailing support and care and sustained my energy and commitment. My very special thanks go to my son, Le Khanh Hoang, for his understanding about his mother‟s situation. I can never say enough how sorry I feel for having spent too much of my time away from home, letting him live without everyday care from his mother. And my greatest gratitude goes to Bui Tien Hanh to whom I owe more than I am aware of. I cannot imagine how I could have finished writing up this dissertation without his unfailing support and infinite love. ii INTRODUCTION During the tourist season, the town of Sa Pa in the mountains of northern Vietnam slowly comes to life at around 6:00 in the morning as buses full of tourists coming from Lao Cai crawl up the winding mountain roads to drop their passengers off at their hotels that dot the town and the surrounding villages. About an hour later, after the tourists have checked in and dropped their bags in their rooms, Sa Pa becomes busy as they start their day with breakfast in the restaurants and coffee bars along the main road. As they eat, they watch one of the tourist attractions they‟ve come to Sa Pa to see – Hmong and Dao women, ranging in age from teenage girls to middle aged women, all wearing their traditional, colorful, ethnic attire, some with babies strapped on their backs, selling purses, scarves, pillow cases and other handicrafts that they have made themselves. One of the region‟s main attractions for tourists is to experience the “traditional, ethnic” way of life by trekking through the terraced rice fields and spending time with the ethnic minorities and taking part in homestays. These Hmong and Dao women, knowing that their heritage is on display, make an effort to show the tourists hospitality by greeting them when they get off their buses, and making small talk with them as they walk through the streets. On a typical day during the tourist season these ethnic minority women who work as handicraft vendors and tour guides generally have put in a full day‟s work at home before coming to Sa Pa to greet the tourists. These women travel, usually by foot, from their villages around the region of Sa Pa. To get to the town of Sa Pa before the tourists, they leave home in the very early morning, but not before preparing breakfast for the whole family and feeding poultry and livestock. Their work in Sa Pa is to follow the tourists around, sell them handicrafts or give them tours. When there are a lot of tourists, the women are busy, but when business is slow, they sit in groups singing, embroidering and spinning hemp. At around 3:00 pm, they walk home to pick up their housework where they left off, by cleaning up, making dinner for their families, taking care of their children and tending to the livestock and gardens. This is their daily work routine, except during the harvest season from September to October when only a few ethnic minority women come to town, because during this time of the year, Hmong women stay at home to help with harvesting, and drying and storing rice. With the development of tourism in Sa Pa, a town in the Lao Cai province in the 1 north-west of Vietnam, more and more Hmong women, who are traditionally farmers, have become involved in tourism-related activities to generate extra income for their households. These women are involved in three major types of work: (1) self-employed home-based work; (2) self-employed but working outside the home; and (3) employees working for someone else.

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