Every morn­ing along with her sis­ter, Ba runs a short fer­ry across the Thu Bon Riv­er in Hoi An. While her morn­ing cus­tomers are typ­i­cal­ly locals, lat­er in the day and into the evening she gives boat rides to tourists.

“I came to Hoi An in 1966. I used to be a fish­er­man before. I just start­ed to do the boat ride about 2 or 3 years ago.”

“Kore­an tourists just talk to each oth­er. I can’t under­stand the lan­guage. I just under­stand some words in Eng­lish. West­ern tourists are kind and respond polite­ly to me when I invite them to take a boat ride with me. Kore­an tourists dress up very lux­u­ri­ous­ly and nice­ly. They all wear Ao Dai (tra­di­tion­al Viet­namese cloth­ing). They don’t hug and kiss each oth­er on the streets. They are also nice. They eat a lot at the restaurants.”

“I am taught some words in Eng­lish but I always for­get them right away.” (Laugh­ing)

“West­ern­ers are eas­i­er. If they want to go to the river­side, they point to the river­side and I will know. How­ev­er, Kore­an tourists talk talk talk, I can’t hear and understand.”

“The old woman over there (Madam Xong) trav­els a lot. She trav­eled to Hanoi and many places includ­ing the embassy in Saigon. There is a young west­ern man who bought her a boat. I am hap­py for her. She rides a boat for a round, the clients give her $50. When peo­ple come onto her boat, they hug and kiss her like they do with their dad and mom. If they see her, they are very hap­py. Her pic­ture is everywhere.”

Ba, 70 years old
Hoi An, Vietnam