Colorful brocade
The most impressive thing when coming to Muong Khuong market is the colorful space with diverse costumes of the highlanders from remote villages, which are colorful brocade colors, simple indigo, gentle purple... Each ethnic group brings to the market a unique color, creating a unique space.
Hmong girls go to the market wearing multi-layered flared skirts, wide-sleeved shirts, belts, aprons, leggings, headscarves and silver jewelry. Meanwhile, Giay girls wear light, long-body dresses in red, blue and purple, creating a multi-colored palette...
According to the Muong Khuong Market Management Board, this is the wholesale market for brocade in Lao Cai province. The market has a separate area for brocade, with more than 50 households sewing, embroidering, producing and trading this item. Each household in the market has a sewing machine, a foot-pedal embroidery machine to tailor, repair and design right at the counter, not simply a place for display and sale like in Sa Pa market, Bac Ha market...
Ly Thi Chu and her husband, H'Mong ethnic group, are the owners of Kiosk No. 3 at the brocade market. With 15 years of experience in the brocade business at Muong Khuong market, her family said: The family specializes in embroidering, weaving, and selling all traditional dresses of local ethnic groups. A complete set including skirt, front bib, back bib, belt, and beads is meticulously and delicately handcrafted, so the price is quite high, averaging about 1.8 million VND, high-end sets can cost up to 2.2 million VND/set...
Pointing at the young girls eagerly choosing dresses, Ly Thi Chu said that they were girls who were taken by their mothers to shop for their weddings. However, each market day, her shop only sells a few sets; at the end of the year, preparing for holidays and Tet, she can sell 10 sets or more each day... In addition to retail, her shop's brocade products are also ordered by customers in the Central Highlands, Ho Chi Minh City, and even exported to the US and some European countries upon order.
Ms. Ha Linh, a fashion designer in Hanoi, said she was very excited about the unique designs and patterns of ethnic women's dresses at the market. When she returns to Hanoi, she will design dresses and skirts stylized from these designs and structures to display in fashion stores in the capital and Ho Chi Minh City.
Holy land of precious agricultural products
Muong Khuong is a special land, any local product here is a famous delicious specialty. From the tiny rice grain, the famous delicious Muong Khuong seng cu, the spicy and aromatic chili, to the Muong Khuong tangerine, Ban Lau pineapple, Pha Long banana or black chicken, Muong Khuong black pig... all are famous.
Mid-autumn has not yet come the season of tangerines, bananas, pineapples have passed, now in Muong Khuong it is the peak of the chili season. On the roadside at the corner of the market on Na Bu street, there is a group of about five or seven women gathered next to a large pile of chilis, they pick chilis for hire for chili mill owners.
Ms. Giang Dung Se, Ban Lau commune shared: Many agricultural products have not yet entered the harvest season, so on the main market day, she comes here to pick chili, remove the stems, discard rotten and damaged fruits for chili factories to grind and sell. The work is simple, not hard, so the salary is quite low, picking 100,000-35,000 VND for fresh chili is paid 30,000-35,000 VND, on a busy day, she earns more than 100,000 VND.
In addition, many stalls in Muong Khuong market also sell all kinds of herbs such as: Panax notoginseng flower buds, Panax notoginseng roots, cinnamon, star anise, and traditional remedies of ethnic minorities. These stalls attract the attention of tourists who choose to buy them as gifts or buy oriental medicine to support their health.
Head of Muong Khuong Market Management Board Nguyen Van Dung said: Currently, Muong Khuong market has about 200 regular business households, and this number increases much more during the main market session every Sunday. Visitors to the market can reach several thousand people, from ethnic minorities in neighboring communes to visitors from Lao Cai, Hanoi...
With nearly 10 years of market management, Mr. Dung said that Muong Khuong market's operations are quite smooth, with no major incidents such as fires or explosions. However, due to the large market area, surrounded by roads and having four market gates, ensuring security and order is difficult, especially during the Sunday market. Currently, Muong Khuong market still does not have a parking lot, nor a specialized area for buying and selling livestock, causing difficulties in planning and collecting market service fees...
Lao Cai has many famous highland markets: from Can Cau, Y Ty, Bac Ha, Lung Phinh markets to Coc Ly, Ta Phoi markets... Each market has its own natural geographical features and strengths in goods with different characteristics and colors.
Many opinions say that if planned, invested in properly and preserved in a scientific and long-term way, the highland markets in general and Muong Khuong in particular will become modern markets, both large wholesale markets supplying agricultural specialties and rare brocade fashion not only for Lao Cai, the Northwest region but also for the whole country, while preserving the unique traditional colors.
Source: https://nhandan.vn/mua-thu-di-cho-xu-muong-post906419.html
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