Tourism has changed a lot for me, my family, and other families from my village — it's a new way for us to earn money. I live in the village but spend most of my time in Sa Pa town, selling souvenirs to tourists. My mother and the other women make the handicrafts I sell; I can make some myself too. My mother stays home to look after the house, my father, and my brothers and sisters.
I really love being in town with my friends — we all stay together in one house, just us girls. I miss my family, of course, but we need the money, so town is where I mostly stay. My friends become my family there; we look out for each other, and if one of us doesn't sell anything while another does well, we share the money.
My friends are my family when I am in town, we all take care of each other — if one of us does not sell anything and someone else sells a lot, we share the money.
We have a good time with tourists, and sometimes we become real friends with them. I don't like every tourist who comes through, but most of them are genuinely nice. Not everyone buys something from me or my friends, and that's fine — I'm happy on the days I sell a lot, but I don't feel too bad on the days I don't. Usually I make enough to eat, and to save a little for my family.
The people who live in Sa Pa town are ethnic Vietnamese, and not all of them are kind to people from the hill tribes — some think they're better than us and talk badly about us. Others try to profit off us, buying our goods cheap and reselling them to tourists for more. But there are kind people too, ones who give us food or a little money without expecting anything back.
I didn't go to school for very long, just a few years, but I don't feel like I missed much. I've learned a lot from working in town and talking with tourists — some of them taught me English. The only thing I'd change about tourists is that they should buy more, honestly, and not bargain quite so hard. Some of them really just want everything as cheap as possible, but we need to earn a living too.
A house of girls looking after each other, and an education that came from the street instead of the classroom.