Tourism in Tây Bắc is often discussed as a force that changes culture, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. What is often overlooked is how cultural change unfolds gradually, through everyday decisions that rarely appear in tourism plans or policy documents. Lê’s ethnographic study of Hmong women in Sa Pa (2015) invites us to look at tourism from this quieter angle.
In this research, tourism is not the centre of life. Farming, household work, childcare, and seasonal rhythms remain the main structure around which daily life is organised. Tourism-related activities are fitted into these rhythms when possible and set aside when other responsibilities take priority. Participation is not constant, nor is it assumed to be desirable at all times.
The author’s perspective challenges the idea that tourism simply “brings culture into the market.” Culture here is not something extracted and displayed on demand. It is carried through daily routines, moral obligations, and practical judgments. Decisions about when to go to town, how long to work with tourists, or when to return home are also decisions about what should remain unchanged.
Tourism does introduce new spaces and encounters. Through engaging with visitors, Hmong women move beyond the boundaries of village life and into more public roles. Yet these movements do not signal a clean break with tradition. They involve careful negotiation between opportunity and responsibility, visibility and reétraint.
For our work on tourism and changing cultural narratives, this raises an important question: more than ten years after this research was conducted, how might these everyday negotiations have shifted? As tourism intensifies, digital platforms expand, and aspirations evolve, do the same rhythms and choices still hold, or are new forms of balance being quietly worked out today? Paying attention to everyday choices provides a lens for seeing culture not as something lost or preserved, but as something continuously weighed, adjusted, and carried forward.
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Author: Song Nhi
Photo Credit: @backpackeninazie.nl
References:
Lê, T. D. D. (2015). Experiences of Hmong Women Engaging in Tourism-related Activities in Sa Pa, Northwestern Vietnam. [PhD-Thesis – Research and graduation internal, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam]. https://research.vu.nl/en/publications/experiences-of-hmong-women-engaging-in-tourism-related-activities/
Vietnam Outdoor Tourism Research 