Tag: Vietnam

Things we wish we could take with us

When at Indian Town Gap in 1975, I was busy helping out at the Bureau of Child Welfare so time passed rather quickly.

But not for my fellow countrymen. Many sat there worried: how were they going to make it in America, that winter was coming.

Many hurried weddings took place at the camp chapel.  People were busy matching up sponsors and foster children.

For me, I was glad I could earn a few bucks by being a translator. And spent them all on cassette tapes.

We recorded music (one machine would play, the other recorded, in the barrack’s bathroom).

“Lovin you” was number 1 on the Hit Parade that year. And ironically, someone was playing “Band On the Run”.

We left unfinished youth: time spent at cafe, listening to Lobo‘s number 1 hit “You and Me and the dog named Boo”.

Or felt so spiritual with “My Sweet Lord” .

If you want to “break in” to the Vietnamese market, best way is to figure out your niche, then play those music subliminally.

Mix in some French songs, because the Romantic era never left Vietnam, especially Hanoi. In fact, time seems to freeze there.

You can still see a Citroen on a good evening.

Back to my odyssey. So when I got to Penn State, I immediately made friends and we threw a party.

It’s one of those times when you could spot someone Vietnamese on a cold Harrisburg night, and he would let you sleep on the floor.

And never forgot the hospitality of people of the same human condition. And I realize now the things I wanted then to take with me: my dreams, my expressions of those dreams, and the heritage I left. No wonder song writers wrote about Hanoi after the evacuation of

1954, and Saigon, 1975. Those places are symbols of one’s lost times, unrealized dreams and definitely, curators of both wise and foolish choices.

To tourists , these cities are just crowded network of concrete dividers, and  trees are few. Tourists would place Hanoi, Hue and HCMC against a back drop of 100 places to see before they died. But little do they know, they have their own” Hanoi” and “Saigon” too. They just didn’t care to acknowledge, until the 11th hour.  No wonder I can identify with Cinema Paradiso. The Italian have a lot in common with the Vietnamese. We both like Sophia Loren.  We know what’s nostalgia is and do not feel ashamed to admit it.

What’s wrong with burning incense and feeling reconnect with loved ones, since they might not be living, but the relationships are very much alive. In fact, one loves one’s parents more when they are gone because absence makes the heart grow fonder. ” I love you too much to ever start liking you, so don’t expect me to be your friend”. Lobo knows how to say it, in a very Asian way. No wonder he can still have some Asian fans, late in his career.

Vietnamese love for French songs

When traveling in Vietnam, you can still hear French embedded in every-day culture:

fork (fut-xet) , suit (com-plet) and tie (ca-ra-vat). Apparently, they just use the phoneticized versions for lack of dynamic equivalents and use literal translation, such as “Hop Dem” (Boite de Nuit) as last resort.

Some old hands can still carry a tune or two in French. From the music of Christophe to Art Sullivan, from Dalida to Charles Aznavour.

Ask anyone from the older generation, they will tell you they know Alain Delon, Catherine Deneuve, Jean Paul Belmondo and Brigitte Bardot.

And you should listen over cafe au lait. You find French imprints in gastronomy and architecture (Notre Dame Cathedral), traffic cop stations and the ambivalent tie (a rare thing given its tropical climate).

Older scholars are still conversant in French. Their worn-out La Rousse copies testify to that (or as Cuban classic Detroit cars – relics of the island’s past).

Chances are they still have a beret laying around (up North, or in Dalat).

Old Time-and-Life pictures show French officers smoking in Hotel Continental and Caravelle in the late 50’s (in shorts). It was also featured as a set in The Quiet American.

Practically every nation on Earth, even North Korea, has an expat den e.g. French Quarter in New Orleans.

Vietel won the Haiti Telecom contract despite the quake. The thing they have in common: speak French as former fellow colonies. Lately, France tries to compensate for its colonial “sin” 200 years late.

Speaking of history. Madame Nhu (the title says it all) was overexerting her derivative power with bad PR comments (they can barbecue themselves all they want; nobody asked them to) about the burning monks. She once had been tutored by her soon-to-be husband presumably in French and in Dalat where the last King’s Imperial Villa was located.

A friend told me I should try to make it to Paris before dying.  Apparently, Paris is our new Rome and Mecca (it’s still among the top ten despite the recession). Even the hyper-savers in China couldn’t help spending an average of $1800 there for shopping at Capitalist temple. When Paris sizzles!

Since they arrived on tour bus, their schedules barely allowed for sitting down dinner. Just shop (although both the Chinese and the French love cuisine).

And if I can’t do it, a trip to my local supermarket will do. There, I get my French Roast coffee, and a baguette plus cheese (La Vache qui rit).

And on YouTube, I can just select French songs e.g. Francoise Hardy‘s. Those singers, in tailored suits, sang with utter confidence and vulnerability:

“Mal, je suis mal…” or, “Il fait de soleil, je pense a toi.”

As a Vietnamese of origin, I was wired from birth to love French songs. No way around it. It’s a good start for my schooling, in French, at early age. The principle of Ecole L’Aurore and her brother lingered on in post-colonial times, much like those souped-up Detroit automobiles still be around in Cuba.

Frere Jacque, dormez vous? I didn’t know I was homesick, until one day, I happened to listen to Adieu Sois Heureuse by Art Sullivan. It not only brought me back in time, but to a place where dreams entertained yet unrealized, and friendships, half-baked, left wanting.

French is the best language for nostalgia. And where else better than in Vietnam where you can still find it embedded in every-day culture and etched in memories of exile.

Clarity begins at home

April 27th Newshour  featured Viet entrepreneurs coming back to Vietnam :

a. to set up shop

b. start an NGO and

c. work  for the Clinton’s Initiatives.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june10/vietnam_04-27.html

We found in it our own Victor Luu (Software), Andrew Lam (writer), a coffee-house artist and an NGO dedicate.

The piece provided balanced perspectives  to the extent that there is a conspicuous absence of  white folks.

It’s as if Spike Lee were filming Denzel Washington in South Central during the LA riot.

You can change “China” for every “Vietnam” word that appears, and the segment still holds (except for the historical film about 1975) i.e. poverty reduction, rural and urban uneven development pace etc…

Victor was careful to stay out of politics. He runs a tight shop in HCMC which has just been through the ripple effect of this Recession.

Point taken: lots of brain gain (including PhD trained from the former Soviet bloc).

The other point made in a Hanoi interview was that the younger generation Viet Kieu are now discovering more of Vietnam (thanks to reunification) than their parents, who had stayed mostly in and around Saigon during the war.

The final episode addressed women trafficking prevention: don’t speak to strangers.

Clarity begins at home.

Andrew Lam, however, noticed a “spiritual” vacuum, which according to him, did help Vietnam withstand successive invasions by the Chinese, the French and the Americans.

He forgot to mention that there had competed forces trying to fill that vacuum, especially since the time of Vietnam joining WTO.

(see my other blog on “Luxury brand beachhead Vietnam”).

The vacuum, or social-economic gap, is widened as more students graduated without a job.

Vietnam is heading right for a trap (Middle-Income Trap), with mismatched talent-opportunity pairing.

Its advantage: young workforce. To lift the economy, that gap of job market and consumer market needs to be bridged.

Then we will see another Singapore or Taiwan right here in Vietnam.

PBS I am sure has more stories than it could fit in one hour: Goldman Sachs testimonies in Congress, Financial regulation proposal, Greece pulling the Dow down,

Catholic church crisis and apology etc..

So I am grateful to see an under-covered story like this one get air time. Someday, maybe the Nguyen foundation will underwrite a small part of the Newshour, just like the Carnegie Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation etc.. You’ll never know. Clarity begins right here at home, in this case, the United States, our home away from home.

 

Sound of Saigon

Young population. Lots of noise and headsets. Night clubs and bars open every single night of  the week.  And let’s not forget those Karaoke stores, coffee shops and sidewalk beer stalls. Certainly not Sound of Silence here.

My morning starts with greetings from those neighbor’s roosters. From there on, it will only get louder: bike’s traffic (very few electric bikes), horn-blowing at each turn, people belling on the phone and at people on the other end, CD vendors on wheels with au-par-leur “we-buy-scrap medals…”, bullhorns broadcast a circus act in town etc…..The day finally ends with the peddling sound of a in-call massage vendor.

The emergency responders here drive like a maniac, Buses would swing from the far left to cut through bikes to stop on the right side of the street. Street sweepers would sweep the dust to the side (like their Mexican counterparts in the US who uses grass blowers) just to have it blown right back out by bikes approached illegally on  a one-way street.

Sound of Saigon. Simon and Garfunkel  “in restless dream I walk alone”.

Yet one thing is clear: the barber shops are busy with people who need to clear out their ear wax.  In the US, with the aging boomer population, it is predicted that audiologists will be in high demand. Here, the same would hold true, even for a much younger post-war gen. The DJ’s for sure will need this medical service.

I on more than one occasion asked the waiter to turn down the volume.

He couldn’t hear or understand my request.

At least the sound I used to hear (choppers and gun shots) are long gone.

Peace-time Saigon, with Hotel Caravelle and Rex no longer filled with Western journalists covering the war.  Now, they’ re just local businessmen hang-outs.

District 1 still holds its charm, but many satellite districts have sprung up to accommodate urban migrants.  I was hoping for some peace and quiet in South Saigon. And it’s true that the Highland Coffee in South Saigon close at mid night, Unlike District 1 clubs which have just begun to take on some life (party) at that hour.

I heard about a sandwich stall which only opens at mid-night and closes at 2AM.

Why bother working hard during the hot day when you can take in just as much income with less efforts?

Wonder if she participated in Earth Hour last night? If not, at least, by the time she starts selling her first sandwich, she can say, it’s already another day in Saigon.  And people shout from their bikes: “I want 2 special orders”, all for $1.50.

Then when I hear the sound of the massage vendor, I know it’s time to call it a night. It’s hard not to eat out at night, because it’s a quite a scene full of   sight,  scent and sound of Saigon. In restless dream I join others, under the neon gods that they made.

 

cyclo in the time of google

By now, you can still see a few weather-beaten cyclos around albeit restricted to tourist quarters.

I still remember the sound of horse carriage in the streets of  old Saigon.

My kid will be lucky if she knows what a cyclo is.

She knows Google though.

Paperless and painless search. Now with semantic search.

My profile, age in particular, triggers online ads on retirement funds.

Each day, we clear out trash in our home office and online.

Meanwhile, cyclo guys paddle along, knowing that their trade is joining the ranks of old scribes, horse shoe makers and Kodak shops. And the cinema is about to close its curtain. My uncle’s cinema is now a storage.

I came back fully related to the character in Cinema Paradiso,  with nostalgia.

The underlining theme is still there: where is that old blind film projectionist/mentor ? Mine is a guitarist who has recently been out of work.

We both need a gig. Maybe it will work out for him since he has upgraded his play list on an Ipad. But not for the cyclo guy.

Perhaps the best they can hope for are a few passengers per day, hauling bulky merchandise. Cyclo and modern supermarkets don’t go well together. Instead, it is now relegated to being a ride to a colonial past: white folks and colored coolies, on a leisurely ride along smoke-filled streets packed with motorcycles made in China. Future shock has moved on to its Third Stage (Muscle, machine and Mind), from cyclo to moto-cycle and onto Google. People are making money by a click of the mouse, and not by paddling those three-wheelers, using 21st-century skill set and not primitive strands of muscle.

No turning back, or you will turn into salt. Gosh, I miss the sound of horse carriage at Ben Thanh market. I miss being skinny , vulnerable and trusting. Faith that can move mountain. That some day, I will see face to face, although meantime, only through a mirror darkly.

Wisdom comes from mistakes, not missed opportunities.

I’d rather tried and failed than failed to try.

Tell that to the cyclo guy, who ordered two glasses of sugar-cane juice, while I could barely gulp down one. All I did was googling, while he was cycling. Muscle man in the age of Machine.

 

rollin, rollin on the (Saigon) river

Working for the man, every night and day… big wheel keeps on turnin,

River boat dining provides another view of Saigon Water front.

Hotel Majestic, Sheraton and Sun Wah guests look at you (dining on the river boat), while you look at them.

Tourists are still coming in drove and enjoying a night out.

From the gang-plank, I can see the unlit barge along side (and small speed boat, not Somalian though). Years ago, those barges carried human cargo. Mass of humanity, helplessly clung to the hope of a new tomorrow out there in the open seas. The “mini-mass” are trickling back. First as tourists, in cognito and blended in with Asian and Westerner counterparts.

Slowly, the feel of the place gets more at home: high-end hair salon and spa,

organized tours and menu in dollars.

District 7 now has  Lotte Mall, Parkson Mall and Crescent Mall. The view from those District 7  shopping centers and supermarkets in South Saigon could trick you into thinking you were somewhere else but Vietnam.

Construction crew heck away. English classes plow away. And of course supermarket registers chuck chink on. Reminds me of a childhood poem Au Marche, with glistening fish (reflecting the sun in open air market).

The Rock and rollers are getting older by the day, pony tail or not. But “you’re  still the one, I want” and of course, Proud Mary.

Rollin, rollin, rollin on the river. Tina Turner once said, despite her nth time performing that number, she has a way to deliver it differently each time.

I guess Saigon is like that song. You got to discover it anew, each time.

And who said you can’t swim in the same river twice. I just did, floating in the same river on two completely different vessels and traversing in opposite direction. Same river. that carries the process called Revietnamization.

 

Luxury brands beach-heading VN

It started with Gucci and LV. More will be coming to test the warers, from McDonald to KFC , from Starbucks to Burger King.   Everybody is into location, location, location. I look at the city as if it were a big fairground, where interested parties are staking out their prime real estate. Flag and flip.

Both AE and Abercrombie are selling well among the youth segment (XS size).

And Hollister also (if they only knew what cow country the place was in No Cal).

Floating dinners on the Saigon River facing an Japanese alley.

In the backpacker’s section,  Lonely Planet guides are sold and read like bibles: “don’t drink from tab water”, “make sure you visit the Cu Chi Tunnel” etc..

And “The Sorrow of War” by Bao Ninh, available as cigarettes sold in open boxes.

Westerners love Vietnam. It presents a challenge to their categorical living: Vietnam doesn’t fit neatly into their frame of reference. Now with Gucci and LV facing Hotel Caravelle, and Sheraton/Hyatt, with beggars and lottery peddlers lounging out front, the scene begs for an asterisk (*) in an otherwise neatly classified tour. I saw a tourist almost tripped over an uneven pavement.

You want to tour Vietnam, you ‘d better drop your preconception and expectation. Tourists can ride cyclo tour or Cu Chi tour, peddling and crawling around, but  you will come away never forgetting those indelible smiles:, crooked teeth but definitely no Mona Lisa‘s . Post-war hardship has given birth to an insatiable demands for goods.  Luxury brands are welcome! And coming they are.

Maslow and Vietnam

Tocqueville saw in America a country full of contradictions.

He could say the same with Vietnam: people are moving up the Maslow scale, but some want to leap-frog security step i.e. basic needs to self-esteem need.

Nouveau riches switch companions like Hollywood celebs. Forbes or Swiss bank lists almost 200 Millionaires (USD).

Everything is bought in cash. The money machines are counting them non-stop (Zimbabwe-like inflation) .

Dizzying pace.

Traffic weave in and out, as if choreographed by an invisible and illogical conductor;  yet there have been fewer accidents than you might think.

Westerners are seen running a red light like everyone else.  We call that adjustment. When in Rome, do like a Roman.

People here are more aware of health issues than in years past.

My cholesterol result is available in a few hours.  If it’s good, then two eggs please.

I can now move to the next step in the Maslow scale: security.

Love and self-esteem can wait. They have been there since the beginning of time. A man’s glory reflects in the beauty of his woman, and vice versa.

I will leave those to the drama department. For self-actualization, we already got Bill Gates and Bill Clinton.  I have my level to attain to: staying here and surviving here. Traffic during peak hour draws out the best in us, gladiator-like. No wonder young men wear black. It’s their body signal to the world: “don’t mess with me”.

Meanwhile, young Americans are also wearing black, but for an entirely different reason: they are into vampires.  Twilight stuff. A stage of neither living nor dead. Here, it’s very clear to me that people want to get somewhere, preferably up, regardless how many bikes are in their way.

 

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.

 

early imprints

I ordered my breakfast instinctively. And it’s 8 in the morning in Vietnam.

Already I feel the heat and humidity. Through the Australian school yard, I saw teachers in ao-dai. Could have been the ghost of my mom’s past.

Children are obviously better fed these days. And they have gone on to game 3.0 (playing less at internet cafe, but at home as broadband penetration has been on the rise).

There is less space between motorcycles, because the city was originally built as a French colonial city for a 10th of today’s size.

No one walks anymore, and certainly not in the heat of mid-day.

The game players keep the game designers employed.

The office workers keep the shopkeepers’

children fed. A family-operated coffee shop opens all day all night.

Three shifts in one. Blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the earth.

But not earth. They chose cities, and not any city. It has to be Ho Chi Minh City. A few office towers got fully booked the day they let the tenants move in. Broadband was connected.  Zoom zoom.

If it weren’t for the absence of the double-decker, I would mis-take it for Hong Kong. Prepare to lose some weight here. And most importantly, stay alert when crossing the streets. My survival instinct kicks in, and not just because of the tropical storms.  I used to live here, schooled here and had my first love here. Except, we used to have more elbow room in traffic. It’s good that we wear helmet, glasses and mask.

It saves us from the embarrassment of  being stared at up close.

It’s awkward as well in Florida with the Lexus and BMW’s revving at the intersection.

But then it’s good that we found ourselves side by side as fellow travellers on our journey to work or home. Home is where someone is waiting for you.

It’s not a place geographically speaking. It’s your comfort zone. 1st place.

No more facade. Or acting up. Costume off. Hair down. And you are addressed by your rank in the extended family. Uncle Thang, good to see u.