Dao San Market

On the Lai Châu border, some mornings the whole mountain country seems to wake at once.

Early in the morning, people are already coming down from villages that lie hours away on foot. The Hmong come in brightly colored embroidered skirts. The Dao wear costumes of glowing red. The Hà Nhì wear heavy silver rings around the neck. They carry brocade in baskets on their backs, and they bring pigs, chickens and wild herbs. Traders from China also cross at the border gate to do business.

All of them are heading for one place, the Dào San market.

The market meets every Thursday and Sunday. It is held in Dào San commune, about 40 kilometers from the center of Phong Thổ and close to the border with China. It is not an ordinary market. It is the biggest social event of the week for this whole border region.

There is a reason for holding a market in such a faraway place. In the high border country, villages lie far apart, the roads are difficult, and not everyone has a phone. The weekly market is the one chance in the week to meet, swap news and visit relatives and neighbors. For young people it has another meaning too. It is where they look for a partner, through the sound of the khèn and courting songs.

Color is the first thing a visitor notices. Hmong skirts, especially those of the Flower Hmong, are embroidered by hand, stitch by stitch, in complex geometric patterns of red, yellow, white and a blue-green woven together. A skirt made with such care can take many months. At the stalls, women sell their goods and embroider new pieces on the spot. They do not need to put their skill on show. It appears naturally in every stitch.

Among the stalls, goods from China are laid out beside the wares of the people of the area. The mix of local goods and border trade, of Vietnamese and Chinese speech, of Kinh and Hmong, gives this market a character of its own, unlike other markets in the Northwest.

The food area has a smell of its own, and the thắng cố reaches you from far away. Thắng cố is a traditional Hmong dish. Horse meat, or buffalo or beef, is simmered with organ meats and mountain herbs in a huge pot, and the pot bubbles from early morning. That smell is unmistakable, and it belongs to every highland market of the Northwest. Beside it there is bánh giầy, a cake made from sticky rice pounded smooth. Hmong women pound it on the spot in stone mortars, next to jars of strong, fragrant corn liquor made by people of the area.

The market usually thins out toward noon. Buyers carry their goods home. Sellers shoulder their baskets and begin the long walk back to the village. Next Thursday or Sunday, they will all meet here again.

The khèn rings out among the mountains, embroidered skirts glow in the early sun, and the smell of thắng cố drifts through the cold mist. This is the rhythm of life at Dào San on the border, kept whole through many generations.