One woman in Sapa is called the “Queen of Herbs” for her knowledge about traditional Red Dao medicine, a practice largely being forgotten.
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| Mrs. May checks quality of her products |
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| A rare herb |
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| Searching for herbs |
Chao Su May is 53 years old, and she has spent 50 of those years learning about finding, preserving and using herbs that grow on the mountains surrounding Sapa.
Her family has been known for four generations to be well versed in this practice, and her father was considered a famous traditional healer. It was him who began taking her on trips to harvest wild herbs.
Mrs. May said, “I remember when my father told me that a lot of people just dig up these valuable plants. It made me worry - maybe they would disappear forever. So I asked my parents to start telling people not to do that. They could just pick the leaves they need, they don’t have to dig them up and kill the plant. We also wanted people to mark the herbs that they harvested, so that others would give them time to grow back. It took a long time, but people finally came around.”
Arduous medicine
After the 4th grade, May stayed home from school learning her father’s craft. As she became more knowledgeable, her herb-finding trips became longer and longer. By time she was 10, she had climbed Mount Fansipan, the highest mount in Indochina, nine times.
According to May, the most potent herbs are always located very high. But not many are willing to climb that high. The journey can be treacherous, May once came quite close to death herself when she lost her footing while climbing the mountain.
There are around 100 herbs used as Red Dao traditional medicine. In her 50 years of searching the mountains, May has found 34 of these. After gathering, they are combined in different ways to create specific remedies.
According to Dr. Tran Van On, Head of the Botany Department at the Hanoi University of Pharmacology, May is among only about 10 people proficient in Red Dao herbalism in Ta Phin.
She intends to pass her knowledge along to her son, Ly Lao Lo, who is supplementing this with additional training by professors and doctors.
In November, 2010, May and her son established a company that provides bathing herbs to most of the hotels in Sapa. They also have a shop in My Dinh, Hanoi.