Tag: Ho Chi Minh Trail

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.

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.