This is the photo I took of Ping when I first met her five years ago.
My last memory of her was her standing outside the English Pub in Sapa. It was evening, my last evening in Sapa and the mist was descending on us as we stood there. The light was fading. My friends had disappeared inside to the promise of cheap cocktails and warm company. It was getting dark and damp and cold. Ping stood before me with quiet composure and pleaded with her eyes for me to buy just one more thing.
I didn’t want to buy any more things, I had bought more bags and embroidery and blankets than I wanted already. I had bought things I had “pinky promised” to buy. I had bought things out of good grace, out of guilt and out of charity. I had even bought something that had turned my arm green as the dye seeped out of it. The cries from the Hmong girls still ring in my ears. “Why you buy from her, and you no buy from me”. (The last "me" was always protracted, pronouced "Meeeeee".) There was humour in their voices and a friendly rivalry existed between them. But in reality they were all trying to make a little money, fair trade, to support their families. And I know the prettier and pushier girls would sell more. The ones who spoke English more clearly, who flirted and teased and joked with the tourists.
Ping had a sweet serenity about her, there was no hard sell. We stood there eye to eye. The power all mine, how can I not buy just one more bag? Embroidered by her in her small hut high in the mountains above the village of Lao Chai. It cost me a few dollars, less than I would spend on drinks when I joined my friends inside the warmth of the cheery pub.
I saw a small packet of medication in her bag as she put the money away. “It is for my baby” she said “my baby is sick”. I had no reason not to believe her. I asked her how old she was. “Twenty-three” she told me. I thought of my daughter back at home, only a couple of years younger than Ping, attending university, in charge of her own destiny, the world at her feet.
I couldn’t reconcile the two images in my head.