Vanishing Asia- The Khau Vai Love Market

Photos from a special section in the Wall Street Journal about a market located in the remote mountainous northern region of Vietnam on the Chinese border. The region is settled by various minority groups- Dao, Lolo, Giay, and Hmong people, who come once a year to the market above the town of Meo Vac where they can meet and drink and get to know people from outside their family group. Some come for the all night singing and dancing and drinking and others come for the lovin. With the opening up of the frontier region to trade from China and regional tourism the market is undergoing rapid and permanent change.





Khau Vai village, site of the annual love market that is famous throughout the mountain villages.





White Hmong women.




Hmong children living together in an extended family at the border of the frontier area.




A Hmong boy stands at the Ma Pi Leng Pass in Ha Giang Province, one of the poorest and most remote places in Vietnam.




A market stall holder sells imported cheap plastic Chinese trinkets to a Nung girl, in blue, at the Khau Vai Love Market. There is a distinct lack of authentic minority wares such as clothing and silver jewlery at the market.





A Hmong lower primary school grades 1-4, yellow building at left, in the Ma Pi Leng Pass in the Meo Vac District of Ha Giang Province, where the teacher is a self-taught Hmong speaking Vietnamese woman.