Muang Sing Market

"They" say that Muang Sing Market is one of the most fascinating in all of Laos;
"they" are right. There is much more to this market than neat piles of vegetables,
a riot of colour calmed by the early morning's mist.

We slurp our breakfast noodles quickly despite the chopsticks grasped awkwardly in our unskilled hands, while next to us an Akka couple breakfasts silently. She holds her head up high underneath her crown of ancient Piastres, strings of beads, jingling bells and next to her he seems nearly invisible in his simple cotton shirt and pants, dyed black with precious indigo. “Ethnic Restaurant” the sign proudly proclaims. Perfect. Because this town is known to have more ethnic diversity than anywhere else in Laos and for the last two days we’ve searched the streets, combed the rice fields for ethnic people. Ethnic.
By which we mean people that look very different from ourselves, exotic creatures in brilliant costumes. Ethnic. As if one must be “other” to have an ethnicity. As if our own ethnicity is the control group by which all else is measured. Ethnic.

So as we eat we also feast our eyes on the beautifully dressed women from a multitude of ethnic groups. The lone foreigners in this fascinating place, we feel that we are at a fashion show. Or a zoo. I try to brush that thought away quickly but it keeps popping back into my mind. In my defense, we receive as many stares as we give. "Look, the foreigners are working Lao skirts!" they whisper. "Listen, that one speaks Lao!".

We bargain and buy trinkets of cotton and silver more for an excuse to take photographs of the market women in their intricate outfits than anything else. "The Muang Sing Zoo", I think again. But suddenly a kind hearted woman in a brilliantly coloured headdress is talking to me in the broken Lao that is her second language. Soon we are joking and laughing together as friends and before I know it she is wrapping my head in a matching headdress of bright red and green embroidery backed by black cotton. "Take a picture!" she orders. "Now you belong to the Thai Dam ethnic group like me." And with this simple interaction everything changes in my mind. Each woman at the market, no matter how elaborate or unusual her style of dress may be, ceases to be a spectacle and instead becomes my sister, my mother, my grandmother.