Mountain People
Sa Pa, northern Vietnam.
Farmers burn rice straw leftover after the harvest.
Thick smoke fills the valley like incense.
The Black Hmong come down from the hills.
Colour & Tradition
In Vietnam, performance belongs to everyone.
Temples, school courtyards, town squares. Not self-expression but service.
Where I come from, you perform to be seen. Here, you perform to give.
A brief cheer, an acknowledgement, and it is done.
A dance troupe at the temple. Yến is in full costume, hugging her mother before her moment arrives.
The Street · Bắc Giang
An hour north-east of Hanoi.
Surrounded by the supply chains of the modern world, Samsung, Foxconn and the like.
The rice fields are still standing, buffaloes graze on residential plots waiting for new housing to erupt. The global economy arrived here before the tourists did.
Yet inside the city life moves at a different pace. Markets, temples, schoolchildren, motorbikes.
A place becoming something new without quite knowing what.
This is where I live. From here I move through the delta, along the coast, into other cities and other provinces.
Nobody comes to Bắc Giang for the scenery. I came to teach English and stayed because something held me here.
This is where I live. From here I move through the delta, along the coast, into other cities and other provinces.
Nobody comes to Bắc Giang for the scenery. I came to teach English and stayed because something held me here.
These pictures belong to this place.
Some of them are for sale and 50% of every sale goes directly to the children in them.
© 2026 Jim Sutton