Tag: Ho Chi Minh City

Slippery Saigon

I went out for my morning jog in slippery Saigon.  I was hoping for cooler weather. Now that my wish was granted, I begin to have second thought: if it’s cool here, it means somewhere up North, people are freezing, or boats and houses destroyed.

We live in a connected world and leave behind carbon footprints.

A cigarette tossed into the wild could ignite a forest fire. A harsh word, ill-thought-out and unsolicited comment could damage a child’s self-esteem.

Should they be protected, insulated and shielded from the pain-filled world out there?

How much “reality” should a show depict to open a child’s eyes?

When 9/11 happened, my then 10-year old could not comprehend its magnitude.

Now, my second kid and I are “following” each other on Twitter. Cool!

Back in my time, my parents hardly ever sat down with me, much less “follow”. I am a product of multiple generations, where an uncle, a cousin, an aunt and now nephew, all chipped in with unsolicitated advices. It’s our version of social compact.

But when this social compact broke down, it’s quite ugly e.g. to pay down gambling debt, a father/mother would offer their daughter(s) as payment (to be an unpaid maid or concubine – a phenomenon not unheard of in the bordering towns near China and Cambodia).

WE HAVE A BIG 21st CENTURY PROBLEM: TECHNOLOGY IS MOVING FASTER THAN OUR CAPACITY TO ABSORB IT, WHILE OUR CULTURAL MORES STAY IN THE BACK WOODS OF EMERGING COUNTRIES.  People are still auctioned off, raped, murdered and mutilated over a fake I-phone, for instance. In India, gangs raped bus passenger or Swiss couple who camped out.

Our Western liberal mind screams out when hearing about these incidents.

Then we shrugged it off when the Mafia in Chicago make their extortion route.

Hollywood even made money on these film-noir genre. Hypocrisy? Absolutely.

Who am I to judge? Who am I to carry the chip on my shoulders (Hey Jude).

In What the Dog Saw, Malcom Gladwell pointed out that although imaging and images have better resolution, our capacity to read them (intelligence) will have to increase ten fold to make it effective.

So we need to keep up with our own invention. The tool has become the teacher. This begs a related topic: our capacity to reflect. To think about our mistakes (committed or omitted), to change course. This integrative skill differentiates us from mere technologists (repetitive) order takers (reactive). Back when the 3 networks (TV) ruled, the anchor who could ad-lip was highly sought after. He/she had the skill to see and describe reality in context and in step with what were happening  real-time. Peter Jennings did that during 9/11. After having a smoke, he died of lung cancer. He crossed that journalistic line, from being an observer to being a participant of that same drastic event.

It’s still slippery outside. I promise myself not to slid and slide in the rain. Now is the time to reflect on slippery Saigon. On our capacity to keep up with modern technology. Just have to stay away from the clans who somehow manage to crawl on Facebook, trying to “friend” you with unsolicited postings. Something isn’t going to change, or avoidable. Just like the wet weather here today.

World on wheels

You want to see wheels at work, you come to Saigon.

(Baby) strollers, scooters, (food) stalls, all on wheels.

But instead of having you walk up to a vending machine, here the merchandise come to you. Ladies in cone hats would walk about with all sorts of knickknacks on their shoulders: toe clippers, wallets, key chains etc….

At night, snack vendors come around the neighborhood, waking everyone up.

“Banh gio”.  KFC, Pizza, Hot noodle bowls all delivered on wheels.

It’s a 24/7 world on wheels. Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river.

They finally put the canal fences up, but the “river doesn’t flow through it”.

Saigon used to be known as the Pearl of the Orient.

Neither Paris nor London, Saigon is a synthesis of every strand and shape. Young people from the country side pour in and mix in to form a kaleidoscope. It is as if the old energy from a mix of Cambodian and Chinese were not enough. Now with young and old, East and West, it is transformed into something unrecognizable. Perhaps a Singapore of the next century.

I live next door to a young couple. Their son is just one year old, barely taking baby steps. In the morning, mom would be walking vending machine. In the afternoon, Dad would walk around shoe-shining. The boy is well cared for. The boy has just got a toy automobile for Christmas. The young couple were discussing about buying a Nokia phone.

The future of Saigon. Of Vietnam. Soon they would save up enough for a scooter. Nuclear family on wheels. The kid after all had already got his wheels.

World on wheels.

Crying girl

I walked by a shop today and I saw a girl holding a knife, crying.

She was peeling onion for the restaurant.

Artificially induced tears. Not triggered by sad emotion.

Real, nevertheless.

It made me appreciate behind-the-scene people (since I happened to have breakfast with real onion, the same kind this girl was peeling).

Nickel-and-dime folks make a living by sweat and tears.

Or those who shed blood for our nation’s security.

Blood, sweat and tears.

My friend’s Dad who recently passed away, used to deliver a sermon on Jesus Wept.

The I-am-with-you gesture only God incarnatel can extend.

Go ahead and tell the Newtown parents to stop crying.

Tears from the onion peel might stop, but tears that well from within (induced by tragedy uncalled for) are hard to stop. Ever. They will creep up at unexpected hours, in the dark of the night, or in the middle of a crowded lunch hour.

I am sure the girl I saw had been doing this for a while, if not everyday.

She knows when to stop, but then, not stopping too long.

The mechanical reliability performed by human.

If only the owner went ahead and bought a machine.

Then the girl would be out of a job.

She would then be crying for real.

Some factory girl in China would dutifully ship the order, my job over yours.

Blood, sweat and tears.

We were “cursed” to toil the ground per breaking the contract with our Maker. For now, tears to make a living in Saigon, tears for neighbor’s kids in Newtown, Our Town, and tears in Heaven, as Eric Clapton put it.

Yes, we need perspectives and point of view to overcome tragedy. We also need help and comfort from one another (in Newtown, strangers gave each other a hug, very needed hug). No man’s an island. Many eat onion, some don’t. But someone got to peel the damn thing. What I saw today was real tears. What I saw on the NYT photos the other day, was digital, but real nevertheless. Jesus wept. Not just Crying Girl, but also Crying God.

Traffic dance in Saigon

First-timers to Saigon are shocked on arrival: the dance of two-wheel traffic.

Some even had to flag down a cyclo (three-way cycle) to take them across the street. An Ivy-League Math Prof was killed when crossing the street. He was there for a conference on solving traffic problems.

I have slowly built up confidence and coordination not to fight traffic but to dance with it.  Here are some observations:

– People ride on survival instinct and years of communal living: negotiating, turn-taking…

(unlike Western’s right of way)

– Expect the unexpected (scooters that go the wrong way)

– Traffic signs are not hundred per cent observed. In short, break all rules

– At rush hour, people tend to ride more slowly to accommodate heavy volume

– With the helmet law strictly enforced, there have been fewer accidents

– Almost everyone has been hit, ran over, or got a scratch. It’s a badge of honor

– When in an accident, people quickly blame the other party (emblemic in face-saving culture) then move on

– Buses, automobiles, scooters, cyclos, pedestrians, handicapped people v.v… all have equal right of way, but buses have louder horns and weave in and out of traffic per passenger’s request

– best way to navigate rush hour traffic is to take a “xe-om” (taxi-scooter) since these drivers know which alleys and arteries for short-cut

– when it rains, it’s best to stay out of the street, since available surface is taken over by undrained water (sewage problems).

Traffic don’t just get to be this dense overnight. It’s been built up over time.

The same with your capacity to become one with it. It takes time. In my case, many trips and trials (got whacked once by a wrong-way scooter) barely got me to be a member of the club.

After that, your next lesson will be how to stay out of the sun given a few shades left in the city. For now, watch in ALL directions when crossing, not just the designated flow of legal traffic. Survival trumps legality. Be brave and smart. Watch before you leap, but then, he who hesitates is lost.

If you got in an accident, blame the other party first, then move on.

From Mandarin to Model (Lung Dai-Chan Dai)

My generation have been a betweener one: from Mandarin to Mobile phone system, from French Colonial to Fashion TV (with Asia Next Top Model).

The saying goes like this “Vong Anh di truoc, Vong Nang theo sau” i.e. when a man passed the King’s exam, he went home to the village , with his lady in tow. Now, it’s the Model who get the gusto.

The Mandarin was supposed to quote from literature (like the old Hamlet), his back elongated from years of reading lying down. Now, it’s the Model whose legs stretch out on catwalk. Hence, from Lung Dai to Chan Dai.

Something is happening in Vietnam, very subtle and sensitive. Women assert  and insert themselves into traditionally male arena: homosexuality, clubbing, gang fighting, adultery, cougars, even robbing (as accomplices). Just stop short of having female wrestling.  The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo got translated and sold here.

Conversely, some guys went to Thailand for sex change.

It’s one thing to turn blind eye, in praise of equality. It’s another to acknowledge that with new-found freedom, Vietnamese women have yet figured out what to choose from the menu. The other night, I kept inhaling second-hand smoking from two young gals in an extremely crowded club (thankfully, those trendy cigarettes were slim).

Career? check. Stress? check. Marriage? no.

Kids? impossible (very cramp and tight space in Asia). Cosmopolitan? check.

In trading up their aspiration, they down-grade traditional mores.

Something must give. Tension abides in their climb to the top. Boy friend from the country side? Machismo? Spouse abuse? Out. Sugar daddy? Negotiable. Sugar Mamma? All the better and safer, with less complication.

Those who went abroad acquired sophistication and success (cosmopolitan). Those who stayed behind in the bubble, followed their instinct and insisted to have the cake and eat it too.

Change could go three ways: up and down in class, sideways when country side collides with city life, and speed of adoption ( women adapt more quickly with modernity than men.) With overseas travel, cable TV and internet,  the flat world pronounces mercilessly who the winners are (and the rest can just pack their bags, as in Next Top Model).

Vietnamese women, and counterparts around the world, walk the tight rope between: how to keep up a sense of self (motherhood and womanhood) in face of change (technology enabled and a more tolerant environment).

Don’t blame them for banding together for mutual support. (as of this edit, I am not sure Sandy’s book, Lean In, would soon be translated into Vietnamese).

Knowing this culture shift, one no longer is in shock when seeing women main-dans-la-main on the streets of Saigon. And those manifestations are just the tip of the iceberg.

The funny thing is, Mandarins are slow to catch on to this trend. Lung Dai-Chan Dai shift presents a dilemma. A very painful and irreversible one. Welcome to Mars, our next frontier for men and women. (Moon was mostly men’s discovery).  From here on out, it’s a two-way street for all.

No rest for the weary

Saigon currently is under a shield of grey. The weary, the worried put on ponchos, just to take them off. False alarm.

Oh Come Ye O Faithful blasted out from neighboring homes.

Christmas is in the air. but not for those who make a living hand-to-mouth, and there are a lot them. Maybe this year is the year they can go back home to the countryside.

At rush hour, on CMTT, I spot one blonde girl in a taxi, engulfed by thousands of bikes, inching for any empty space.

The Western lady and the common folks, both try to get somewhere. But they are worlds apart (albeit separated by only thin glass). Even American felt hemmed in on narrow streets of Paris

let alone being in this tight a spot.

It’s symbolic of today’s Vietnam. You may find I-phone 5 and I-pad here.  You can even spot a celebrity now and then. But from their standpoint, even when it moves fast, it still cannot catch up with ROW.

With rising expectation we find more crime on the street. I heard two incidents where people yell “cuop” (thieves).  Scooters chasing scooters. Not sure who was who.

But on cooler days like today, with Christmas in the air, I hope for some rest,for myself and for the weary. For those who sell lottery tickets, those peddlers, recyclers, those who wear cone hats or contact lens.

We even have a blind singer who shouts “We will we will rock you“.  May he have some rest before tonight’s show.

It’s been hot here, with almost two weeks of drought.  You can see it in people’s faces.  Just find a shade, a tree, a breeze, a fan or a A/C room.

Don’t judge (until you experience it for yourself) why people start drinking cold beer around 3PM.  Or the girls, traditionally prefer lighter skin, only go out late evening.

With low GDP, high temperature and young work force, the combination hast been far from perfect albeit promising. As a whole, Vietnam has one thing in its favor: the future. For now, the analog generation is giving way to the digital.

And it’s the latter who shall rule. First online, then off. For now, the weary keeps selling lottery tickets, sweeping the streets by hand, and even starting a fire by charcoal. Just to earn those three meals a day is hard work.  Just so the young can play games online. Can learn English. And occasionally, ride a Wet-and-Wild at nearby theme parks.

Life is good.  The population is happy.  What’s a credit card anyway? I got my change back given to me in two hands. I respect that. Keep at it. Don’t lose it.

The Filipino Invasion

You will find a bunch of Filipino bands around Saigon, from Hard Rock Cafe to Acoustic.

When the British rock bands gained noteriety in America back in the 60’s, the phenomenon was coined The British Invasion.

Now Vietnam is experiencing similar invasion by their neighbors.  They got the language (English), the look (still brown-skinned), and the connection (E2 in cross-cultural distance).

Acceptance rates have been high.

You will find in Saigon clusters of APEC (Japanese Alley, Korean district , backpackers district and Chinese district).  The Filipino bands just show up, when it’s their turn to play.

Rap and rock.

All with long key chains, tight jeans and wool caps.

Some Western faces were there in the audience. Beer choices are also varied, from Tiger to Heineken, Corona to Coors.

To see Saigon of the future, you need to tap into this crowd.

Kids who first are in step with the beat from strange shores, then to eventually be resettled there (Ivy League even). It happened to me with “California Dreaming”. Now, a bunch of my classmates are living there.

This Christmas will see a wave of Vietnamese from overseas back for a vacation.

Fuel to the fire.

Rock on.

The irony is the Filipinos who taught ESL in the refugee camps back in the early 80’s, kept staying put, while their Vietnamese students (the audience in this case, which often had a feel of a “repeat after me” English class ), moved on to America, where the British Invasion once took place.

For now, while the set last, nobody noticed if you were black or white.

Music unites. Especially when singers stick their mikes to the audience during the refrain “I try so hard, and get so far, in the end, it doesn’t even matter”.

Romancing Saigon

Good luck! Bit it’s better  for you to wait until the scorching heat subsides, before you have a chance.

There are layers to Saigon, like you would peeling an onion.

Cafe Sua Da prices fluctuate from one street corner to the next.

On the main tourist strip, you still find Zippo lighters and even dog tags next to pirated copies of Vietnam War classics.

In fact, you don’t need to visit the museum of war (atrocities) to turn the clock back. The whole city could be viewed as a museum of war. The battle of ideology 1963, battle of Tet 1968 all took place here . Just walk the streets, you can relive the intensity of those struggles. Yet, in danger, there are romances. People live faster lives (translated to shorter ones). Self-immolated monk wasn’t the only one who burned himself to nirvana. Privileged youth are fast-tracking there as well, a phenomenon familiar to US “urban youth” (whose life expectation has  been rumored to be just above the legal drinking age.) Here, it’s already an improvement as compared to back then when widows and orphans were common.

A plane load of orphans took off and crashed just before the city itself “fell” to the hands of victors.

Now, you find bars. reincarnated versions of what used to be night clubs, hang-out places for GI‘s and their unspent payrolls. Today, beers popped open. Conversation started, most of which like two ships passing in the night. And young backpackers, many of  whom with Lonely planet’s guide, searching frantically to geo-ID themselves.

Oh well, drop those guides. Follow your instincts. Live a little. risk a little. Romance it. Don’t expect everything is set.

But then, what do you expect. War time might be over, but it’s still a “war zone”.

Can’t miss that tank on permanent display at Independent Palace.

Yes, you will find romance, but the price is to drop your guards, your expectations and prejudices. Saigon and Vietnam always reward seekers. But serious inquirers only. And the down payment is stiff, once paid in blood during the conflict.

And pain lingers on. Someone has to pay for reparation. It might as well be you. And you, and you. Sorry to pass on the virus which I myself have contracted while romancing Saigon.

Madonna and child

Not the Seine in Paris. But Rach Nhieu Loc in Saigon. She wore a cone hat. Baby tanning in the morning sun, resting in her bosom. The other hand, she checked her messages from a mobile phone.

It’s  Thanksgiving in Vietnam. People  have a lot to be thankful for. It’s now ranked second on Happy Country Index (the US 25th on infrastructure).

Infrastructure and Index of Happiness. By all counts, the canal stings. But people as a whole are considered happy. Many would care less for the Mayan calendar and its doom prediction.

When it gets too hot, it rains. Nature idea of  a “smart” grid. GE is investing heavily in “industrial internet” (the way Bill Gates referred to in his “at the speed of thoughts”.)

People here move about at the speed of motorbikes. It barely rains and people are already in ponchos and helmets , zooming by non-stop. No delay, no second thought.

Moving forward. Day after day. Only the future. When school is out, kids pour out into the concrete sidewalks, like a disturbed  beehive.

High-margin items are on display, all mobile related (I phone casing, eye glasses and sun glasses, helmets of all stripes, pull-overs and book bags).

Students from the country side try hard to accommodate themselves off campus by working at odd jobs.

I found an eatery with decent meals. Sharing a round table with strangers: meat, rice, soup and iced tea.

French-style cafes are extremely popular, serving cafe-sua-da at all times of the day.

007 is shown here too, interlaced with Twilight.

I wonder if the life style depicted in those movies ignite young people’s aspiration.  The Twilight cast, red-eye aside, all look perfect when they don’t go “hunting”.

Books are confined in a dozen outlets, scattered around the city, still priced themselves out of reach of the average wage earner.

The publisher I am in talk with has a branch office behind a huge pagoda, which is located across from Vietnam’s famous Vinh Nghiem pagoda. So, it’s not just KFC and Burger King who stake out prime locations. Religious outfits do so as well.

Meanwhile, the population understands health and fitness, how they relate to happiness. A nation ranked second after only Costa Rica in Happiness can surely connect the dots.

Their diet is healthy and their movement swift.

It starts early in the morning and early in life.

I saw the evidence this morning. Mother and child. Sun bathing.

Texting and tanning.

All contribute to the formula of healthiness besides discarded Vinamilk pouches on the street.

Perhaps technology has contributed much to Vietnam’s progress. Today, if you found a bicycle moving about, it’s a rare sight.  You can’t reverse history (especially in China, where automobiles are now as common as bicycles three decades ago).

You can only move forward with industrialization.

You read these lines. You know I am at an internet cafe next to my cafe-sua-da.

I do have something to be thankful for. I found a high-speed internet location.

Love sees differently

It’s half past five AM. Outside the Women Association of Ho Chi Minh City, I heard music. Not hip hop, not trance. Jut Gold music “Gui Gio Cho May Ngan Bay”, blasted from a boom box . It’s dark, but the sidewalk hosted a group of women practicing Tai-Chi.  The music was about acceptance, about one wing drops after another. But here they stood, with graceful moves and fateful lives.

Their counterparts meanwhile distribute magazines, newspapers, meat, seafood etc.. for the city of 10 million. I struggled to find room on the sidewalk for the run, before hordes of scooters claiming their right of way.

Common city dwellers don’t seem to be able to afford living space. NUSKIN and new Life Insurance, big-box Fast Food and sugar-drink companies such as Coca Cola drove up commercial real estate prices.

As a result, the face of the city has changed, over the last six months (faster than in the US).

One can spot the need for women gyms, for skin care and cosmetic products.

But then, love sees it differently. Here were mothers of revolution . Of future leaders.

and of past glory. Still out there before dawn. Still guarding the age of romanticism (w/out make-ups or cosmetic surgery).

Still staying fit for the fight. Vietnam is synonymous with war. War against Chinese invaders, French colonialists,  American reluctant Imperialists, Cambodian “cap-duon” and now, in full circle, back to the Islands against the Chinese  industrialists.

Still “Gui Gio Cho May Ngan Bay”, still with that cigarette-hoarse voice of Khanh Ly, the exile folk singer, muse of Trinh Cong Son (and Trinh Nam Son will be here for just one night) known as Vietnamese Bob Dylan.

Love sees it differently. The same song could be used to soothe the soul, comfort the afflicted, or to motivate the team . At any age, at any time.

I blogged about the resilience of the Vietnamese women (Mom’s Ao Dai).

Now I realized I did not know what I was talking about. I barely scratched the surface .

The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram spoke of a woman doctor who walked the Ho Chi Minh Trail, just to be near the war front where her lover had gone before. It spoke of the diary with “fire”. To others, war was hell. Love sees it differently (she died a martyr’s death, never to be reunited with her lover).

The irony did not escape me that, in contrast to Western sense of appropriateness,

here women could be warriors, housewives and heads of  firms, with no conflict.

Their ability to synthesize and compromise says a lot about how this society manage to gloss over enormous challenge.(see After Sorrow).

A city of 10 million or 1 million, it doesn’t matter.  What matter was how those women have taken over the education in public, and the management of the household in private. It’s they who make it happen. Just show up and see at 5 AM, the music and movement. Then you will see the tip of the iceberg. Often we don’t see those undercurrents. But love sees it differently. It got you up early and forced you to notice. I noticed. I learned.