Tag: Catherine Deneuve

Caught in the thick of rain

It’s not Les Parapluis de Cherbourg , or Catherine DeNeuve with her trench coat.

Just anything over the head to stay, well, less wet.

We got out of the pool, just to be wet all over again.

Tropical summer.

Impeding traffic and time planned.

Here in Vietnam, it takes a lot just to stay cool and dry.

Survivalist and minimalist.

Yet, magician is coming in town for three days of show.

Guy Kawasaki will also be here, to tell his Standford basket ball story.

And the controversial Bob Dylan was also here a while ago.

Jane Fonda started it all (by visiting Hanoi), then Bob Hope and Raquel Welch in the South.

From then, it’s like, you got to make a stop at the once-a-battle-field, to gain street cred.

Bill Gates, Mark Zuckeberg, Robert De Niro, Brad and Angela have all made this stop.

Mind you. It’s not a major airline hub.

But famous people want it incognito (The Pitts visited Con Dao Island, once a French prison).

I am sure these people got hit by the heat, the dust and the rain.

Call it “Roughing it in Vietnam”.

Their own Matterhorn.

To feel the Sorrow of War.

The  sadness of summer.

The frustration of dream unfulfilled.

What made people leave the comfort of their own homes, to come to a God-forsaken place.

Traffic is everywhere, especially at the French Colonial Roundabout.

You can’t even stand it, if it’s in Paris.

Yet people endure and emerge.

Having tried it hard to play catch up since 1985 and after, the country has been on the path of growth.

The trajectory went nicely for about twenty odd years, until recently.

Then, the rest is what is taken place now.

With its own “valley of death”.

Too much growth heats up inflation.

Too slow, the economy might crash.

It takes a village, albeit without the young people who had already migrated to urban centers, to come to term with modernity and progress.

Even with the best malls and fastest fast foods, no one can discount the force of nature.

So it rains, pouring rain.

And everyone dashes in and out of traffic trying to stay dry, to survive.

Nature, and human nature, are both blessing and curse.

Geography aside, human spirit and its resilience is all that’s left and working for this country.

I can’t hear the sound track of “It’s a wonderful world” today as played in Good Morning Vietnam.

I hear the chewing gum commercial of Rhythm of the Rain. And maybe Happy Together, to sell some Heineken, good to drown down one’s sorrow, amidst of misery, man-made or otherwise.

Cote D’Ivoire as I recall

I set foot on Cote d’Ivoire  summer 86.

Abidjan looked like former Saigon. Both were built on French architecture template.

Next door Ghanians got shinier skin. But hearing French spoken by the people there made me feel at home. In fact, so at home that I, upon discovering a Vietnamese restaurant in town, stopped in for lunch. And they did not even take our money. Fellow countrymen, in a foreign land, as far away as one could possibly imagine.

The owner mentioned about flights from France that would supply needed ingredients for egg rolls and other authentic Vietnamese dishes.

They must have been one of the very few early Asian settlers in the country.

Then, yesterday, on the Newshour, we watched Peter Pham, expert on African affairs, interviewed for the segment on current regime change in Ivory Coast.

I have seen his book on Africa‘s affairs. And to hear him on air, was just as delightful.  The word “positive deviant” came to mind.

Instead of rebelling against strict parental and cultural codes e.g. pressures to become a doctor or an engineer, some people harness their passion to pursue something totally “deviant” but with a positive spin. And Peter Pham was one of those. Vietnamese, but expert on African affairs.

A few years back, I was also surprised to see a Japanese expert on Vietnamese language.

The depth of his knowledge about our culture and language would put any of us to shame.

There certainly were some drawbacks being born outside of the culture, but this also is made up by his objectivity and relentless pursuit. In short, he went in deep.

My short stint in West Africa was my attempt to understand a culture so different from mine. To experience the world via someone else’s eyes.

In Liberia and Ghana, I relied on English to communicate. But in Cote d’Ivoire, I was forced to pull out language I acquired in my early years. Oui, oui.

I wish for the people of Cote d’Ivoire the best, when the country can be stabilized and rebuilt to its former glory.

Its boulevards and police posts were so Saigonese that I felt at home there all of a sudden. That kindred feeling that is reserved only for relatives.

Former colony, fellows of the same dreams (in French, of course). I am sure people there can recognize Alain Delon, BB and Catherine Deneuve in an instant.

That was in 86. I don’t even want to venture about its current state of internal warring. And how a hotel that turned compound for the President-in-waiting can accommodate that much aspiration for change and modernity. Any disruption, if well-capitalized, can be turned into opportunity for growth. The continent is awaiting to see if election model work out for this former French colony. All eyes are on Ivory Coast, including mine.

Vespa in Vietnam

The brand is revitalized and resuscitated here in Saigon.  If not for the helmets, I would think it is a replay of A Roman Holiday.

Back then, the burning monk was pouring gasoline on himself and asked a younger monk to lit the fire.

He earned a memorial in that intersection.

Another Buddhist temple a few blocks away took collection to renovate. The presiding monk took off with the proceeds, leaving behind an abandoned project. Good monk bad monk. It’s Mid-Autumn Festival. Children with lanterns and adults with sweet cake. Fairy tales that had to do with an uprooted tree now replanted on the Moon. VIet Nam in the Sputnik and Space age.

The city is now catering to whatever clients demand and could afford: Gloria Jeans Coffee and Ha Long Bay tours (without Catherine Deneuve).

And back to my French coffee, Italian Vespa and USA‘s Hard Rock Cafe. You would have thought I am someplace but Vietnam.  I can assure you it’s Vietnam, with multiple English schools and exam prep “store fronts”.

Young Vietnamese design games, play games online and love watching soccer. They have street racing here too. And while doing it, they might as well feel the wind by taking off their helmets.  Electric bikes couldn’t make an inroad here, especially after they changed the regulation which required electric bike riders to wear helmets.

So forget the love for sustainable environment or the disgusting gas price. Young people zoom by on Vespa, adopt I-phone and continue to play games online. There isn’t enough open space for them to play soccer ( I notice a strange absence of basketball, US urban youth favorite past time sports).. On this Mid-Autumn day, my old neighborhood gets one less choice of temples: the abandoned Temple is still sitting there, “torn”, but not completely torn down while Vespa after Vespa zooms on by. Thang Cuoi in a Space Age. I will never look at the Moon, or Vietnam, the same way again, even with some familiar handles into the past like Vespa and lanterns on the street.