Sapa is a beautiful landscape formed by the nature, also a tourist destination with a convergence of diversified culture from many ethnic minorities such as H’Mong, Tay, Red Dao, Giay. Coming to Sapa, tourists will learn more about some ethnic minorities’ culture, explore the simple, happy life of people living in the high land. 
 

H’Mong ethnic group accounts for more than 50% of Sapa’s population and considered as the most crowded group in Sapa. Their major agricultural products are corns, upland rice, potatoes, buckwheat, coix seed, sesame, beans, and other types of vegetables. Fruits such as apple, peach, plum are also very popular. Besides, they plant medicines such as false ginseng, ligusticum striatum, root of pilose asiabell. 

H’Mong people mainly live in Sapa. It is easy to recognize their outfits: men often wear black or dark blue pants, short-sleeved blouses with a lap cover their buttock. They often wear tiny round shallow hats on the top of their heads. Some of them are black decorated with brocade embroidery. 

Women wear black too but they also wear a black scarf. They put on a sleeveless overcoat running to the knees like men’s coat. This special overcoat is rolled with beeswax to make a silvery black color. Especially, H’Mong women wear knee-length shorts, not skirts. They wrap the leggings around their calves carefully by a narrow strap.
 

 
H’Mong people in Sapa

In Sapa, most of H’Mong people live in Cat Cat village which is 2km away from the main town. Here, tourists can find out and explore their daily life and enjoy unique dishes such as thang co (horse meat) – a Sapa’s specialty, chicken blood soup, corn alcohol, dau xi (fermented peanut).  

In the cultural life, H'Mong people are passionate about their folk songs that are the songs of love and marriage. They often sing when they’re working on the field, weaving or going to the market, attending festivals. 

Gau tao is an outstanding festival of H’Mong people. The folk songs are not only expressed in words but also through traditional musical instruments like pan flute or horn. H’Mong youngsters like playing panpipes, they blow it while dancing and expressing their heart to their companions for life, praising the beauty of life and their country. 
 

 

Explore H’Mong people’s Gao Tao festival when visiting Sapa 

Red Dao ethnic group has the second largest population in Sapa, follows after H’Mong. In particular, Ta Phin village, chosen by many tourists, is a village with a large concentration of Red Dao ethnic people with many unique traditions. Ta Phin is about 12km away from Sa Pa town. The road is tortuous with steep slopes.
 

 

Majority of Red Dao people in Sapa live in Ta Phin village

Nowadays, come to Sapa, you can easily recognize the Red Dao’s costumes. It’s colorful. Red Dao men often put their hair in a bun on their nape. Their clothes are often short with indigo blue and black color. Red Dao women’s costumes are more colorful with 5 colors but the red is the main one. The iconic appearance of Red Dao women is that they wrap their long hair in a special red scarf all over their head.
 

 

The Red Dao’s colorful costumes

While H’Mong people often choose high mountains to live, the Red Dao choose valley or halfway up the mountain to cultivate maize, plant rice and cardamom. They like to build houses in the shape of three or five compartments. There are 2 kitchens: one for cooking and the other sub-kitchen near the door for warming up all the family’s members when the winter comes. In other compartments, they store some types of vegetables to eat gradually.

“Cap Sac” ritual is a typical festival bearing a big significance in Red Dao people’s daily life. According to many tourists’ travel experiences, you should travel to Sapa in the end of the year to start exploring as well as seeing this special ritual with your own eyes. The Red Dao’s Cap Sac ritual often held in November to December annually because this is their free time. 

The purpose of Cap Sac ritual is to recognize the people as the real descendants of Ban Vuong (the forefather of the Red Dao). The ritual is divided into levels: 3 lamps, 7 lamps, and 12 lamps. The Red Dao boys have to undergo the Cap Sac ritual at 3 lamps or higher level to have heart, virtue, and be recognized as descendants of the Red Dao’s forefather. 
 

 

Cap Sac ritual – the cultural celebration only in the Dao ethnic group

The Red Dao’s Cap Sac ritual has a spiritual significance in life as well as high education. The traditional Cap Sac ritual of the Red Dao is to educate people and always remember their origin of ancestors, nation. 

After H’Mong and Red Dao, Tay ethnic group has the 3rd largest population in Sapa. Existing in early age, Tay is one of the ethnic groups speaking Tay – Thai. In Sapa, they mainly concentrate in some Southern communes, namely Ban Ho, Nam Sai and Thanh Phu, which are fertile valley areas with many rivers and streams.

Coming to Sapa, you can easily recognize Tay people because their costumes are very simple with a dark blue. Both men and women wear four-part shirt with a V-cut, crew neck, and 2 pockets in the front lap along with a wide cloth belt wrapping around their waist, embellished with glitter. On the special occasions like holidays or festivals, they wear five-part ao dai with right-armpit split and copper buttons. 
 

 

Tay ethnic group’s simple costume on the occasion of holidays and festivals
 

In terms of culture and art, Tay people have their unique types of folk music such as “luon” singing (a kind of duet between lovers), “khap” singing. “Luon” singing is performed during the summer nights or greeting their guests. In January, Tay ethnic group organizes the Long Tong festival in Ta Van village to pray the Agriculture Genie (Shen Nong), hopes god bring to the village a good harvest.
 

 

Long Tong festival – The typical Sapa festival of Tay ethnic group 
 

Coming to Sapa, tourists will be excited when exploring Tay people’s life style in Ho village which is 15km away from Sapa town. In there, tourists will experience the highlights of their traditional customs such as sleeping in stilt house, eating stream fish and mountain pork, learning how to weave brocade and enjoying Tay girls’ Xoe dance, bamboo dance. 

Giay ethnic group belongs to the Tay – Thai group. They concentrate in villages around Ta Van valley – one of the five villages listed in tourist most popular destinations in Sapa. Similar to Tay people, Giay people cultivate on flat fields and plant rice. In addition to growing rice, Giay ethnic people also raise chickens, ducks, buffaloes and horses. In the past, they often cooked rice by boiling it then put it into a steamer, continued cooking and used the boiled rice water as daily drink. Giay people’s costumes are simple like Tay’s but less of embroidery. They only use a color band wrapping around their neck and their lap. Giay people in Sapa build houses on soil ground. The mezzanine lies an altar in the middle as the place for reception. 
 

 

Giay people’s unique outfit in Sapa 

The Giay’s typical festival is “Roong pooc" that held in January to pray for a year of great harvest, favorable weather. The Giay’s folk-songs and proverbs are very diversified, especially there are many tales explaining the phenomenon in nature.
 

 

Roong pooc festival is a specific trait of Giay ethnic group in Sapa

If you have a chance to visit Sapa, you will experience and learn about the unique cultural customs of different ethnic minorities groups. Far East Tour offers you some of our best selling tours:

1. https://www.fareastour.asia/vietnam-destinations/sapa-vietnam/sapa-trekking-tour-1-day/

2. https://www.fareastour.asia/vietnam-destinations/sapa-vietnam/sapa-2-days-with-bicycle/
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4. https://www.fareastour.asia/private-tours/vietnam-classic-tour-packages/grand-vietnam-in-3-weeks/