Indeed, goodbye, Việt Nam. As you read this, we are on the way back home, sad in leaving friends again, yet eager to sleep in our own bed again.
Thank you, people of Hûe. As always, you welcomed us with warm hearts. We will be back – we just don’t know when.
(Click on the photo to see the full sized version.)
Anyone who travels to Asia is obligated to take the usual market photos – you know the photos - the ones with the smiling old lady and some sort of exotic foods on display.
And you can take those photos in Hûe too. In addition to the giant Dong Ba market (where these were taken) there are numerous neighborhood markets throughout the city. Of course, seeing helmets on the ladies looks a bit strange, but that is just another sign of the times. This scene is a fairly typical one each day. Refrigeration at home is getting more common as the middle class grows, but most women still go to market daily whether they have a refrigerator or not.. Of course you can find exotic foods too – these are dragon
fruit. It is very common and very delicious. The inside is a white meat flecked with small black seeds. The exterior is not as formidable as it looks – the waxy skin is easily cut with a kitchen knife. Oh yeah – that’s plain ol’ watermelon in the background.
These fruits are exotic too – the navel oranges are name brand Sunkist from California and the apples are Red Delicious from Washington State. The United States is Việt Nam’s 11th largest trading partner and it is not uncommon to find American products here.
If it’s important for you to take pictures of exotic Asian market places, you’d better call your travel
agency and book your flight. In the cities, markets like this are cropping up fast. In a few more years, city dwellers will be going to newer, more modern markets and the open farmer’s markets will exist only in the countryside where tour buses 
seldom go. The Thuan Thanh market is three stories high, completely air conditioned, and has scanners at the check out counters. The bottom floor has groceries, the middle floor clothing and non-food items, and the top floor furniture and home furnishings. The grocery section has a nice produce area right near the refrigerated section. The frozen foods are at the end of the aisle.
An easy ride up the escalator takes you to the section where you can buy a new food processor or electric
toothbrush. Markets like these may be new to Hûe, but huge megamarkets such as Metro or Big C have been in Saigon and Hanoi (and more recently
in Danang) for years. Another large store – larger than the Thuan Thanh store – is due to open next to the traditional Dong Ba market next fall.
Now, I just have to learn to say “Good morning, Ma’am – would you like a cart?” in Vietnamese.
Shops all over Hûe sell helmets for everyone. Though he didn’t buy it, our friend Robert found one he liked.
In the last blog posting about high-fashion in Hûe, Tuan requested a pic of Virtual Doug in a bucket
ruffle. Since I don’t know anybody who has one, I had to buy one. 40,000 VND I’m assured by my friends I got a good price. I do know where to shop in Hûe.
At the helmet shop I discovered that the young lady at the end of the last story is NOT sporting an enclosed ruffle, but a helmet constructed with a ruffle and covering self contained, black rubber chin strap and all. Pretty clever, no?
And now I have also discovered Doug looks pretty good in a bucket ruffle, don’t you think?
The Perfume River bisects the city of Hûe. Though often romanticized, the river is also home to some of the worst grinding poverty in Central Việt Nam. The river people live and work on their boats. This makes it difficult to send their children to school, leading to a cycle of illiteracy. When docked, some boats are able to pirate electricity,
but most of the time, life on the small craft is primitive at best. Some of river people operate bulk carriers bringing construction gravel downstream from the pits, while others gather fresh water mussels. Still others operate “dragon boats” taking tourists to see the tombs of the kings or the pagodas.
The smaller boats are used as taxis to go ashore for food shopping or other errands. Oftentimes, these 
are used for fishing. Notice too the construction of these small boats. They are made from aluminum with wooden rails added. Lightweight and durable, they are a great example of “swords into plowshares” as they were once ½ of an external fuel tank
from an American jet fighter plane. They can even be used to herd flightless ducklings
from their feeding area on the river bank to a floating cage attached to the larger boat.
Being born and raised on the water, the kids develop their boat skills at an early age. It is not uncommon to see a small child left alone in a boat while Mom goes ashore to the market. He won’t return a smile, much less move from his perch.
The future is very uncertain for the river people. Because their bodily waste and garbage go directly into the water, the river downstream from the city is an environmental disaster. There have been previous 
attempts to close down the sampan villages, but without education and job training, the efforts were for naught. Though tourists love to see the boats, the time has come for their cycle of poverty to end and the river to be cleaned up. We can only hope this little girl’s future is a good one.
Despite what I have written, all is not well in Việt Nam. Any developing country has its difficulties, and my former student Trâm showed this one to me.
Trâm (say drum, like a soft T) is a junior in college. Bright and ambitious, she is taking a more serious look at life than she did as a freshman when I was her teacher. Though busy with her studies, she spends a major chunk of her time working as a volunteer at a nearby vocational training center for the handicapped. It has become her passion – her calling. After sharing coffee, she took me to the center.
And, I was blown away. The Center is a Vietnamese charity – the government is not involved – run by local Hûe people who want to help their community. Most of the students are brought in from the countryside where there are no support facilities for the handicapped and their families. They may be mentally retarded, physically impaired, deaf, or have lost a limb. The goal is to teach all who are able to learn, a skill that will allow them to be self-sufficient. Some, obviously, will never be able to live on their own, but they will be able to live a life of dignity and productivity at the Center.
This is a training and production center. Students produce goods that are then sold to resellers under
contract. The products are diverse. One classroom is dedicated to the production of small electrical items, such as the horn mechanisms for motorbikes or circuit 
boards for scientific instruments. Some are for export, while others are sold for Vietnamese consumption. Students in this program may be in wheelchairs or have lost a limb, but they must have full mental capabilities and have the ability to do close intricate work. As the economy of Việt Nam continues to expand, more jobs in electronics assembly will open up.
Sewing is taught in the next room. As I wandered through the classroom, I noticed a girl sewing on
paper. The explanation? She is new, and it is cheaper for her to make mistakes on old newspapers than to give her cloth. I was also to discover that not every student is “handicapped” by the usual definitions. This gentleman has no other 
“handicap” other than he is older with no job skills. He is sewing together scrubs – the uniforms worn by medical personnel.
In anther room, Trâm (on the right) and Hong (a staff member) show off a baby toy
produced by students being trained in wood work. Such a simple and inexpensive toy
is a great gift to for poor parents to buy for their child, but the skills learned in making such simple items will eventually allow the student to create more complex items, such as formal furniture. This young man’s ability to chisel shapes will lead
to the skill of being able to create intricate decorative carvings on the base of a finely made
coffee table.
Every part of the Center exudes competency, orderliness, and cleanliness. The staff teaches more than job skills – the students are learning life skills. The girl’s dormitory is crowded (32 girls live in this one room.) but everything is in its place, the floor swept, and clothes hung out neatly because there are no closets or storage racks.
But the fact that the dorm rooms are crowded demonstrates the Center’s biggest need. They need more space. They bought the land immediately behind the Center and plan to build new dormitory space on
it. Building costs will be a bit higher than normal simply because a lot of fill dirt will have to be brought in as the Center is in a flood-prone part of Hûe. Though inflation
changes the numbers quickly, current estimates are in the $25,000
range.
I was treated with deep courtesy and respect during my visit. I had a brief exit conversation with the Director, Mr. Trần Văn Thành, and I had to remind him that I am not a well-heeled businessman who can offer money.
I can, however, offer to help make the Center better known – and to encourage others to help. Here is Hr. Thanh’s email address if you would like to donate (I have disguised it so he doesn’t get more spam) ttdndtvl.hue at vnn.vn. You can transfer funds through Xoom.
Are you reading this, men of C 2/5?
The cities of Việt Nam are booming – coming apart at the seams – but 70% of the population stills lives in rural areas. This is a different Việt Nam than seen in the cities. The nation is long past the time when people lived in deep poverty and were starving. Today, most countryside folk live in concrete houses, have a motorbike and television set, and send their kids to school. Nonetheless, the farmer’s life is a hard one.
To describe the Vietnamese countryside would fill a couple of encyclopedias. I just want to give the Gentle Reader a small glimpse of it – nothing more. This is the countryside of flat rice fields and rivers. I’ll save the mountain areas for another day.
To no one’s surprise, rice is the staple food. It is approaching harvest time in central Việt Nam, an area that normally has two harvests a year. In another few weeks, the grains of rice will be golden and the stalks bent with the weight of new rice.
Wet rice agriculture is labor intensive and requires large amounts of water. In order to move the water
from the river to the fields, gasoline powered pumps move it around a system of irrigation ditches and canals.
Here and there in the fields are grave sites, most of them for entire families. These are Christian (Catholic) tombs, but most are Buddhist. Notice that the earth has been built up so the bodies are buried above the water line.
The cultivated flat lands are laced with small rivers and streams. Of course, there are a lot of boats, but
there are a lot of bridges too. In the past, such rural bridges were made of bamboo (sometimes called monkey bridges), but those are all but gone now. This bridge is due to be replaced soon by a newer one that will be better able to withstand flooding.
Small villages dot the countryside. There are homes to fishermen and farmers as well as some small shops. These two ladies show off a new grandson as if he were a trophy. Traditional Vietnamese families include all the generations. It is common for four generations to live in one house. Just as the grandmothers care for the young children, the children will care for the grandparents in their old age. Besides the small “corner store”
where people can buy some soap or piece of pork, craftsmen often have small shops in the villages. This gentleman builds front doors for new homes. He has some power tools such as a table saw and power drill, but much of the tongue and groove construction is done by hand.
The area in and around Hûe has a higher proportion of Catholics than in the rest of the country. Hûe had its first Vietnamese Catholic congregation in the late 1600s, and today about 10% of the population is considered Catholic. Small churches like this one stand at the edge of many villages.
A river is always close by. An older man, probably too old to work in the fields, squats on the river’s
edge and watches over a flock of flightless ducks. Close by is his son, and they are duck farmers. After the rice is harvested, these two will herd their ducks into the rice farmer’s field where the ducks will prepare the fields for the next crop by eating any 
remaining kernels of rice and depositing some fertilizer as they do so. The ducks are fattened in this way, then taken to market and sold.
If there is such a thing as “the real Việt Nam”, this is it. You won’t find it by looking through the windows of a tour bus, but is a place worth seeking.
(She has been absent from this blog for too long, but The MGB posts the following story for your enjoyment.)
There were rumors of it in November when we were here, and now it is official. You must wear a helmet when riding a motorbike in Viet Nam. Nearly everyone in Hûe is complying; we were surprised. Known as ‘rice cookers,’ helmets in this heat are really uncomfortable, and not at all stylish.
Men’s ‘brain buckets’ vary from soldier camouflage to construction worker. Yawn…. Our friend and Doug’s photography bud, Phan Cu, sports advertising on his, but it’s the same old helmet.
Chic Vietnamese women have given this ‘necessary evil’ their own stylish twist by adding a brim, or as we have been calling it, a ‘bucket ruffle.’ A random, three 
minute survey the other night over ca phe sin to’s indicated 5 out of every 30 Hûe women prefer a bucket ruffle to a plain helmet.
Purchased separately from the helmet and in a coordinating color, these have caused a public flurry, including questions concerning adequate peripheral vision.
Doug is concerned about the style which provides cloth in the hole of the ruffle which covers the entire helmet dome. Despite the wide, black rubber chin strap, he feels this style will lead the police to believe the disguised helmet is an ordinary hat, and 
girls will be pulled over right and left. Yeah, like cops detaining pretty girls for no reason ever happens!
But I’m all for fashion and function, and I definitely think these lovely accessories civilize motoring in Vi?t Nam. What do you think??
The little preschool is on a dirt road, set in a field of rice near the Perfume River. This is rural Vi?t Nam – out where almost everyone is a farmer. Preschools are not run by the Ministry of Education and 
Training – they are run by the villagers who get together (with some help from the provincial government) to provide the same kind of experience as kindergarten. There is a small kitchen for preparing a light meal for the kids, but there is only one classroom.
(Be sure to put your mouse over the photos and click – you’ll see a full sized picture that way.)
She is not a regular teacher trained at a su pham (teacher’s college), but rather a local lady who likes 
kids and has some background in early childhood pedagogy. Her job is to bring some social skills to the kids and introduce them to the basic stuff like colors and the alphabet. Gentle Readers may notice the poster behind the students and see there are three different triplets of Os and As and other vowels. The Vietnamese alphabet is similar to ours in that it uses Roman characters, but many vowels have special markings on them which change the pronunciation of the letter.
As soon as the big westerner and his camera showed up, total chaos reigned. The kids went wild trying to show off for the camera – in spite of my desires to get some shots of them in the classroom. Nor did the teacher seem inclined to channel the madness, though she did put them into a nice class pose – the kind of shot I did not want.
I had to learn how to be sneaky in order to get the shots I wanted. I noticed these three girls sharing a 
bag of snacks, but each time I aimed the lens at them, the pack quickly surrounded the three and I got nothing but multiple faces mugging for the camera and putting fingers on the lens. Therefore, I devised a miss-direction play. I pretended to be setting up a shot in one place, but really had my eye on the girls. When I saw a good shot, I quickly swung around to get them – and the pack couldn’t respond quickly enough.
Gap-toothed smiles were everywhere. The tooth fairy must have been very busy in this village recently.
But I also acquired a new photography assistant. I had set my belt pack down so it would be easier for me to get up off the floor, but a few minutes later I noticed a very young lady slinging my
lenses and other do-dads over her shoulder.
She was cute, but not a very good assistant – she disappeared when the time came to clean the fingerprints and dust off the camera and lenses.
(I was on assignment when I took these photos for MEDRIX, a very fine non-profit organization based in Seattle. One of their major projects is to provide safe water to rural clinics and schools. MEDRIX has developed a very effective and inexpensive unit that kills bacteria in the water, is easy to maintain, and can be manufactured locally. If you would like to help MEDRIX, visit their web site and make a contribution.)
(You might want to read Part I first if you haven’t done so already.)
On a nearby residential street, a young girl – too young to ride a motorbike – glides homeward on her bicycle, mobile phone in hand while she texts a friend. I wonder if she is texting the bored clerk at the fruit stand. When the girl is old enough her skills will carry over to texting on a motorbike. Even in the chaotic traffic of Việt Nam, it is common to see people texting while riding their motorbike and chatting with a friend perched on the back. Mobile phones are the norm here. The service is excellent and much cheaper than in the U.S.
Though texting is very popular, even between adults, there are still times when talk is necessary. One 
day in the near future, the young bicyclist will be a mother like this one – talking on the mobile phone while bringing Junior home from an activity. If car-borne cell phone chatterers bug you in America, think of what traffic is like in Việt Nam with only two wheels under the talker. By the way – the wearing of helmets is now mandatory for motorbikers, but the law does not apply to kids yet as there is some concern that improperly fitting children’s helmets could cause more harm than good.
I wonder if this man got a call from his wife while he was on the way home from work – the “On-the-way-home-get-a-quart-of-milk-and-a-loaf-of-bread” kind of call. He seemed to know what he was doing as he was quite fussy and spent some time selecting exactly what he wanted.
Across the street, a young lady realizes she needs some cash and makes a quick stop at the ATM. When my wife and I arrived in Hûe in 2005, there was not an ATM in sight. Now these two-ton tellers are everywhere.
At many major intersections there are two bicycle tires tied together and set up as an informal sign telling the passers-by that bicycle repairs are available. Want a tire inflated? That will cost you 500 Vietnamese dong – about 3 cents. The fixit man will have a few simple tools with him – some adjustable wrenches to tighten a nut, a couple of screw drivers, and a pan of water to help him find the leak in the inner tube. As you can imagine, this is a hard way to make a living.
Finally, the night quiets down – at least in my part of town. There are fewer motorbikes, the store 
signs switch off, and the beer drinkers have gone home to their domestic doom. The street cleaner has finished her route and heads back to the pickup point with her cart of trash.
Good night, Hûe.
The sun sets at 6:30 or so and it’s dark by 7 PM. That gives me time to dawdle over a bowl of phỏ – the 
wonderful Vietnamese beef noodle soup. (Say “phuh.” That’s close enough for the locals to understand what you want.) I am totally convinced phỏ will be on the tables of heaven. One girl quickly dips some fresh bean sprouts in boiling water while another watches the rich broth poured into a bowl she will soon set in front of me. Properly nourished, I’m ready to walk.
(Be sure to click on the pictures – you’ll see a larger version.)
I love to wander the streets of Hûe at night. The people are outside because air conditioning has yet to keep everyone inside as happens in America. Internet cafés are everywhere (the cost of buying their 
own computer is still too high for most people) and the cafés are not air conditioned. Some “specialize” in games, and are full of noisy boys like this one. Others have computers outfitted with web cams and all the IM services. All of them are packed in the early evening – and the Internet often slows to a crawl.
It’s more than just safe to walk around at night – it is friendly. People may wonder why you are taking pictures of their ordinary activities, but they consistently smile and wave. If I were a drinking man, I wouldn’t have had to buy my own beer the entire night. An evening meal with one’s buddies, washed down with some of the local brew while watching the world go by is a common sight on the streets. These guys really wanted me to sit down with them, but laughed in male understanding when I told them my wife was waiting for me.
A nearby market area still had some businesses open. Professional women who work in the daytime 
are regular customers of this salon. Get a shampoo and a cut in the evening and be ready for the office the next morning. Again, the shop is not air conditioned, but on this night, there was a nice cool breeze coming in through the sliding glass front door.
The fruit stand next door was not busy. In fact, the bored clerk had little else to do but text message her friends while she waited for closing time. In the morning, the store will be teeming with women doing their daily shopping, but all is quiet for now.
To be continued.
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