Dating is never easy, but finding the perfect partner when you live in a tiny, remote village in the Vietnamese mountains is almost impossible.

The solution? A love market.

For generations, young people from the patchwork of ethnic minority groups in northern Vietnam have gone to the local town of Sapa on a Saturday night to find their future spouses.

"It was so exciting. I wanted to see if I would meet any nice girls," traditional Hmong musician Giang A Vang, 50, said of his first visit to the love market three decades ago.

One girl in particular stood out from the crowd.

"When I saw her for the first time, I was playing my violin. I asked her if she liked it ... if she liked me. I was a little nervous," he said.

Fortunately, his affections were returned. For the next few weeks, he returned to the market to meet his sweetheart, Vang Thi Xo, and play music with her as part of a Hmong courtship ritual - he on a traditional violin, she playing a leaf.

The Hmong turn leaves into music - usually banana leaves - by curling the leaf up and positioning it in the mouth so that it vibrates when blown. It makes a loud, high-pitched sound.

The pair soon married and have been together ever since.

"I was a very lucky man to meet her in the market, but I think she was lucky to meet me too!" Vang enthused.

In recent years, Sapa has become a hugely popular tourist destination, with foreign and Vietnamese visitors flocking to the picturesque town famed for its terraced rice paddies and stunning scenery.

Sapa is the main attraction of Lao Cai province, which received 1.2 million visitors in 2013, up from only 360,000 in 2003, according to official figures.

While this influx has brought a measure of prosperity and development, it also has negatively affected local customs and traditions, Vang Thi Xo said.

"The love market is very special for me. It was how I could meet a good husband like him," she said. "Now I don't like it. People are playing music just for fun, or for the tourists to get money, and we are losing part of our culture."

As more young people attend schools or work in Sapa in jobs related to tourism, they do not really need the love market, let alone arranged marriages, which were also once traditional in the area, musician Vang said.

"They might meet a boyfriend or girlfriend in the village, or in town ... they choose for themselves," he said. "I want my children to find their own husband and wife - it is better that way."

Sapa does not have an airport, and the area is only reachable from the capital, Hanoi, either by an overnight train or a long drive. But its remoteness has not deterred tourists.

"So many Vietnamese tourists came, and they gave money to couples who were playing music to each other at the love market," said Ly Thi My, 54, a Hmong woman who met her husband there. "Now people just perform - they aren't doing it for real," she said sadly.

But it is not just tourism that has transformed the local tribes' traditions. Mobile phones and the Internet have also played a part, My said.

"Before, the boy would whistle outside the girl's house and she would come and play a leaf to show she was interested," she said, describing traditional Hmong courtship rituals.

"Now they have mobile phones!" she exclaimed. "It is too easy now. It was a nice challenge to find love before. I would prefer to go back 20 years."

For Ly Thi Do, 52, of the Black Hmong tribe, the love market has become "a joke".

"Before all the tourists, when I was young, when we still used to grow opium and pan gold in the rivers, the market was just for locals," she said. "Now it's a business ... everyone comes to make money and sell trinkets."

Some young locals still come looking for a relationship.

Ha Ngasu, 26, a farmer, has been to the love market several times to look for a wife. His date for the evening, Giang Thi Si, 16, sat beside him.

"My parents met at the love market," he said, "so I've come here as well."

(China Daily 08/08/2014 page10)