Thanksgiving Weekend in the Mountains

For the last 10 years of my life, I have spent every Thanksgiving weekend with my father in Huntingdon County, PA at our cabin in the mountains, eagerly awaiting the first day of rifle season. Therefore, although unarmed and in Vietnam, it was only fitting that I spent last weekend in Sa Pa in the Tolkinese Alps, breathin’ the good air and drinkin’ the good drink.

This was my second time in Sa Pa, having already been there with Scott about a month ago. As luck would have it, I’ll actually be going back again when my parents come after Christmas. No complaints. I love this place.

When you arrive in Sa Pa, you can feel the distinct quality of altitude. You know what I mean--the air feels crisper, the sky looks cleaner, and you just feel so damn good to be a little bit closer to God’s big heaven than you were the day before. It’s amazing to me that the feeling of a mountain town can transcend continents, but you get that in Sa Pa.

Sa Pa is perhaps best known as the hub of the Ethnic tribal people who live in the North of Vietnam. The most dominant groups are the Red Dao and Black Hmong, but there are many others. I could try to go on about them, but truth be told I’m no expert and you’re better off consulting Wikipedia. What I will tell you is they are a fascinating and beautiful group of people. They are exotic, earthy, and unmistakably aggressive when it comes to selling their wares.

Our second day in Sa Pa, we had arranged for a 6 hour hike through the mountains and a few local villages. Our guide was a tiny 24 year old woman named SuMay who now lives in Sa Pa town, but hails from one of the Red Dao villages. From the beginning I just really liked her. SuMay only went to school through the US equivalent of 8th grade and has never taken an English class. She has learned complete conversational English just from listening to tourists over the past 5 years. Truthfully she must be a genius. She was dressed in traditional clothing, with the exception of the traditional Red Dao kerchief or headdress. She wore a little bit of make-up and had a dusting of faint freckles over her nose. She also had a sweet grin and a black cavity in one of her front teeth.

We started the trek, and taking it all in, I ended up somewhat apart from the group. This landed me next to SuMay. As has become my pseudo-Vietnamese habit, I asked her early on about her husband and children. Seeing as she is a 24 year old Ethnic woman, I was sure that she had them. She told me she has a little girl--2 years old--then skipped a beat before saying she’s been divorced for 6 months. She is the first woman here--either Vietnamese or Ethnic--who I’ve met who's had a divorce. I was surprised, but just kept the conversation going. Eventually she circled back to her ex-husband and explained how he was an abusive alcoholic who refused to work, stole her money, and just completely became a different person after they were married. She said, with the same awestruck regret of a woman anywhere who finds a man is not who she thought he was, “I just can’t believe I was with him. I can’t believe it happened.”

As I listened and said all the seemingly cliche but true things we women tell each other-- "You had to for your daughter.” “You’re so strong.” “It’s not your fault.” “That is amazing you stood up for yourself.”--I realized that she probably hadn’t heard those things very much, if at all. Turns out that many people in her village no longer speak to her and constantly talk about her behind her back. She’s not looking for another husband now, but she doesn’t know if with a daughter she could ever find another man in Vietnam. I think it would be so easy for her to feel hopeless and lost, but she didn’t give that sense at all. She seems angry, and rightfully so, but resolved and self-possessed.

The way she talked about her daughter, you could just tell how much she loves that little girl. A lot of the women in the mountains carry their babies in packs on their backs. SuMay said she always straps her daughter to her front so she can look at her. My mom once told me she did the same thing for us when we were babies.

I’ve been thinking about SuMay a lot since last weekend. What is next for her? What choices does she have? She has a childhood friend who married a Western man and now lives in California. You get the feeling from SuMay that she sees that as a chance out for her as well. I often recoil at the idea of an American man showing up here and taking a Vietnamese woman home with him because it doesn’t always happen under the best of circumstances, to say the least. Still, truth be told, if I were SuMay I think I would see that as my best shot, too.

After our trek, we told the hotel manager how wonderful SuMay was, and he told us that he’s planning to help her start her own guide business. I hope that happens.

Ironically enough, the night before this trek, 5 of us ambitious and independent American women sat in our hotel room and--somewhat obnoxiously in hindsight--talked about the role of women in Vietnam. We’ve all had different challenges when it comes to adjusting to our own gender roles in our particular situations. Some have had it harder than others, but all of us agree we’re looked at differently than we’ve ever been before. Things aren’t perfect for women in America, but it definitely feels like a big step back here. But then, you meet a woman like SuMay, or some of the very intelligent and progressive women I work with, and you see that the future here is going to change. I hope its just a matter of time.