Virtual-Doug

You Gotta Read . . .

I am heavily, deeply, seriously prejudiced.

My prejudice is that I love just about anything that has to do with Việt Nam,  but sometimes you run into something that is above the rest – and something others can share.

My friend and former teaching colleague Duong Lam Anh contributed to a new book.  Lam Anh is an exceptional writer.  Though his native tongue is Vietnamese, he writes in English and Vietnamese.  Take a look at his blog and read many of his insights into his own culture.  (I link to his blog - look to the left.)

I would have loved the book even if Lam Anh were the only contributor I knew, but I also found pieces by my friend James Sullivan.  James, his wife Thuy, and their two children live in Huê six months a year and we were honored to be invited to their home on occasion.  Jim's book "Over the Moat:  Love Among the Ruins of Imperial Vietnam" is also a must-read  Another contributor is Steve Jackson who authored the blog “Our Man in Hanoi”  when I lived in Huê.  Steve and I swapped many an email.  Another contributor is Dana Sachs, author of "House on Dream Street".     Finally, there is even a piece about my very good friend Mr. Cu.  Michael Burr describes Cu’s talent – and the Mandarin Café.

Pick it up at Amazon – you want this book:  "To Vietnam With Love:  A Travel Guide for the Connoisseur."

Not Your Veteran’s Vietnam

Next month, the Mystery Guest Blogger and I will be in Memphis for a reunion of men who served with Company C, 2nd Battalion 5th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division in Vietnam.  The reunion organizer has asked us to make a presentation to the men and their wives.  We’ll call it “Traveling in Viet Nam:  Not Your Husband’s Vietnam.”

These people can count – they know the last American troops left in March 1973 (over 35 years ago) and the war itself ended in 1975.  What they don’t know is what the country is like today.

Most of them probably know Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City – but don’t know it is called both names with regularity.  The police won’t come knocking if you call it Saigon rather than HCMC.  Most know the country is ruled by the Communist Party, but don’t know today’s Viet Nam is wildly entrepreneurial and capitalistic.  Most know there must be automobiles in Viet Nam by now, but don’t know that Toyota, Ford, and Honda all have manufacturing facilities in Viet Nam.

This post will be a mini-preview of our presentation – some of the ways that today’s Viet Nam is not the Vietnam of the 1960s and 70s.

The automobile is now common throughout the country.  In Saigon, there are a lot of very wealthy Vietnamese, such as this gentleman getting into his BMW.  This is one of the main streets in downtown Saigon – notice the area is well tended.  Street cleaners are at work most of the day, not just at night.

(As always, click on the photo – you’ll see a larger version.)

Of course, if you have money, you must show it off with the things you can buy.   Some veterans will remember the infamous Tu Do Street, home to cheap bars and other (ahem) “institutions. “  Today it is called Dong Khoi Street, and this is where you can do a little shopping at Gucci.  If you don’t find what you want, the Louis Vuitton store might have it.  The Mercedes in this photo had just pulled away from the Calvin Klein store I was standing in front of.  If all that shopping wears you out, you can stop for a quiet bite to eat at the Caravelle Hotel.  The tourist walking by is looking at two Vietnamese women – and these women are not tourists.  I doubt if I could afford a cup of coffee in there, though the bar on the top floor offers a great view of the city.

Walking a few blocks down Dong Khoi brings you to the dock area on the Saigon River.  Did I say cruise ships?  They are no longer unusual in Saigon, Danang, or Haiphong.  Viet Nam’s tourism industry is booming, helped along by the fact that it is a close “exotic” place for Australians and a warm place in the winter for Europeans.  With virtually no violent crime, and little property crime (the occasional pickpocket is about as bad as it gets), it is a safe and secure destination.  When the MGB and I first came back to Viet Nam in 2002, Saigon was cheap – but no longer.   The rest of Viet Nam is still reasonable, but not the two big cities.

Tom wanted me to show the hydrofoils – boats like this travel to the wonderful coastal city of Vung Tau.   (I’m sorry I couldn’t get a shot of a boat at speed showing it up on its wings, but the weather was bad.)  A round trip costs about $20.  With the tide, the outbound trip is 1 ½ hours long, and the return takes about 2 hours.  It’s comfortable – and air conditioned.  The hydrofoil brings you into a gorgeous terminal building - complete with KFC restaurant.  Vung Tau has some foreign visitors, but it is primarily a weekend escape for Vietnamese city dwellers.

Way back in the ‘70s, Vung Tau was a place where no battles were fought.  Obviously, there were no agreements signed, but the Communist forces left Americans alone, and the Americans used Vung Tau as an R&R facility.  One of the more notorious haunts was the Palace Hotel, shown in this old photo taken by a vet.  I doubt seriously if it’s the same building, but the Palace is still in business, albeit in a more wholesome manner.

Vung Tau is one of the cleanest cities I’ve seen in Viet Nam.  It has a laid back atmosphere, lacks the noise of Saigon, and the facilities are top shelf. Surrounded by the sea on three sides, the ocean breezes keep it cool.

I don’t want anyone to think Viet Nam has no problems, or that all Vietnamese drive expensive imported automobiles.  Furthermore, I know Saigon is not the “real Viet Nam.”

But, it’s not the veteran’s Vietnam either.

Last Pix of Việt Nam

Yeah, I know – I’ve been back from Việt Nam for the best part of a month, but there are still a few things I’d like to share from the trip.  These are photos that I particularly liked, but they just didn’t seem to fit into any of the stories I posted.  My solution?  I’ll write a little mini-story about each otherwise unused photos.

Out in the countryside near Huê is a small Catholic village.  My friend Cu showed it to me – and he said he’d only found it recently.  You could tell the village had had a rough time of it after 1975.  I saw what was once a church school, now abandoned and forlorn, as well as a partially built building I’ll guess was meant to be a rectory.  Both buildings were in semi-ruins.  With the opening up of Việt Nam since 1986, so has there been more religious freedom.  Today the church building itself is in good repair – and the villagers practice their faith.  This was taken on a Wednesday afternoon at five o’clock.  The church bells rang, and people gathered for prayer.  This shot was not posed – the boy was just part of the group of people in prayer.

I was wandering around the famous (or in my case, infamous) Dong Ba market with Cu one day.  (It’s infamous to me because it is so crowded – and I don’t do well in crowds.) It is the very large central market in Huê, and we were looking for obligatory “market shots.”  Cu started talking with this lady and something he said just cracked her up.  Her laugh was infectious.

(Just a side thought – do you suppose this lady would still be happy if she had a payment due on her new BMW and had to fill the tank at today’s prices just to get to the market twice a day?

I’m just sayin’.)

It was at the very beginning of the rice harvest in central Việt Nam when I was there in April.  I’m here to tell you folks  – this is hard, back-breaking work.  But I found one family that seemed to joke around with each other a lot.  In this case, the smile is not for me or the camera – the smile was for another member of the family who was standing behind me holding two fingers over my head.  I guess this proves the old premise that the mere presence of a photographer changes the scene, whether we are trying to take candid shots or not.

One of my assignments took me into the countryside to a preschool.  As the old saying goes, you can’t go wrong taking pictures of kids or puppies.  In this case, the problem was trying to stay clear of a mass of giggling, finger-poking, squirming kids in order to take any photos. While most of the boys were trying to put a fingerprint on my lens, this little girl stayed off to one side – just watching to see what would happen with the big foreigner and his giant camera.

The Mystery Guest Blogger and I are off to New Mexico tomorrow.   When we get to Albuquerque, we’ll pick up two grandkids, and spend the next two weeks with them.  The two Florida kids will see mountains like they’ve never seen before, Native American villages, picnic atop a ski resort – and do what we hope will be a bunch of fun things.

Off We Go

See the old guy in the middle of the photo?  He’s a long-retired Episcopal priest.

What does he have to do with me?

He is a model for me.  You see, Father Bob and his wife spent many years in Belize.  They organized a seminary, founded new churches, and generally, did a lot of people a lot of good. 

Back in 2002, the MGB and I were getting ready to return to Việt Nam for the first time since the war.  We were going for two weeks – that’s all.  Prior to our departure, Father Bob filled in for our regular priest.  The sermon that Sunday was a simple story – the story of a businessman and his wife in their fifties who made a two week trip to Belize.  After mixing concrete and working hard on some projects Fr. Bob needed done, the couple went home, took early retirement, sold their expensive apartment in New York City, and moved to Belize.  Today, the man pastors the three churches he founded.

Okay – cool story, but I also had the feeling it was directed at me.  After the service, I made a beeline for Fr. Bob.  In the belief that the story was somehow meant to give me a hint, I said “If you think for one minute that I will live in Vietnam, you’re crazy!”

We had a good laugh.  Today, we still laugh about it because the rest is history.  We did, of course, live in Việt Nam.

It was only fitting that this gentle man send us off once more.  The folks from our church gathered around us, put hands on our shoulders, and asked for a blessing on us and our work.  We were sent out into the world to do the work God gave us to do.

You won’t be reading this until we are somewhere over the Pacific.  We’ll see you in Việt Nam.

Cell Phone Madness

Does that young lady driving the car next to you scare you a little bit?  We’ve all seen people eating burgers, putting on makeup, or talking on a mobile phone while driving.

How about talking on the mobile phone while riding a môto?   It was Sunday morning when I took this, therefore I doubt this gentleman was making a business call.  Maybe he was calling his girlfriend to meet him for coffee.  At least the traffic was fairly light on Lê Lọi Street, one of the main drags through Huê.

But not so with this young lady.  She was on another busy street and appeared to be paying no attention to the other riders around her.  I also wondered about the person on the other end of the conversation.  Between the noise made by the wind and the muffling of her mask, I would think she would be close to unintelligible.

This young man was on the same street going in the opposite direction.  He was riding very slowly, trying hard to be safe, yet he occasionally wobbled and almost knocked a young girl off her bicycle.  The saving grace of the Vietnamese using their mobile phones while driving is that the speeds are so slow.  Most of these riders were going about 30 kilometers per hour – about 18 mph.

Scary to think of what it will be like when they have freeways in Việt Nam, eh?

Hungry?

McDonald’s has not made it to Việt Nam - - yet.  KFC has arrived in Sài Gòn and Hà Nội, but there are no western fast food joints in the smaller cities, such as Huê.

Maybe you are like this young man – on his cell phone at 7 AM, and late for class at the university.  (Yes, classes start at 7).  He has his choice of many different foods served up by the street vendors.  Possibly he wants some bún bò Huê, a beef noodle soup , or maybe bún hen, a spicy noodle and mussel dish found only in Huê.  Across the street is a small sandwich shop on wheels.  This is nourishing food – and very cheap.  A dish of sticky rice will cost 3,000 Vietnamese đông– about 18 cents.  Most westerners shy away from street food, and that is a shame.  Its good stuff.

(Be sure to click on each photo to see a larger version.)

The characters change as the day progresses.  In the late afternoon, a new vendor peddles her corn-on-the-cob,  hot and fresh out of the boiling water.  She will stay in place well after dark or until her supply is sold.

The vendors do not make much money.  Most likely each will take home about $1.00 to $1.50 each day.  That is not quite as bad as it sounds as most likely, there is another source of income.  They provide good cheap food for the working men and women of Huê, as well as the students at the nearby teacher’s college.  These girls fuel up before taking a final exam at the end of the semester.

Hey – there are starving students in every culture.

Huê Weather and Traffic

Yuck!  I wish it were not, but the weather is totally normal in Huê, which is to say cold and misty, with occasional rain.  Though I have a rain cover for my camera equipment, the heavy overcast isn’t ideal for taking good pictures.  An old friend is back home for now, so I have been able to borrow his motorbike (and rain suit) for most of the time I’m here

But, its time to quit kvetching.

Dawn came in bleary, forecasting another day of mist and rain.   Việt Nam awakes early, and even at 6 AM, the streets are busy and noisy.  I had a full day scheduled of seeing old friends and former students.  An important part of the Vietnamese culture is the giving of small presents to friends after an absence.  The Mystery Guest Blogger and our former teammate Miss July sent along a lot of gifts, and I’m in the process of  giving them out.  It’s a nice duty.  But it has not been nice to see my friend Cu confined to his bed at home.  Despite quitting smoking, the headaches continue.  We’ve decided to just be two old men and sit around and gossip all day.

(Be sure to click on each photo to see a larger version.)

It was rush hour when I left his home, which is inside The Citadel.  Think of Huê as being two cities – the old city inside the eight-feet thick walls of the Citadel, and the new city, started by the French on the other side of the Perfume River.  As folks drove home from work, the streets were still damp from an earlier rain, which is why the lady has on her green rain suit.  The gate is one of eight into The Citadel, which can be thought of as a “gated community.”

As the economy of Việt Nam develops, more people can afford to buy motorbikes and automobiles.  Most bicycles are ridden by kids too young to ride a motorbike.  Notice the girl is bundled up against the cold.  It seems strange to think of 65 degrees as cold, but coupled with the very high humidity, the air feels raw.  She is riding by six large ceremonial cannon that once guarded kings, while the old royal flag tower looms behind her.

Back on the other side of the river, near my hotel, is an intersection I call Five Points, so called because of the same name for a five street intersection in a city where I used to live.  Its near the university and is clogged with young people.  Why the mask on the young lady?  She, like others, thinks the mask will block some of the air pollution.

Traffic is chaotic in Việt Nam.  A rapidly developing economy combined with an very young population makes it seem as though the streets are full of sixteen year olds.  Visitors are advised to ride bicycles for awhile before renting a motorbike.

But hey – its fun!

Coming Back Home

Something is missing.  I’m back in my beloved Việt Nam, and I feel like I’ve returned  home, yet its not really home without the Mystery Guest Blogger next to me.  I miss having her with me while I reunite with old friends.

The trip from deep south Texas to Ho Chi Minh City (still known as Sài Gòn to most Vietnamese) was the usual tedious boring trip, interspersed only with the normal irritations of international air travel.  The nut cracker sent along as a gift for our friend Thành was pulled out by security twice – both in Texas and again in Tokyo.  But, even though the plane arrived 2 ½ hours late at 2AM, there was my wonderful former student waiting for me with flowers in her hand.  It was delightful to see Trang, and to enjoy a long lunch and catch up with old times.  As often happens after graduation, her real education has begun.

I had one night to wander around Sài Gòn, which while not my favorite city, is still a neat place.  The People’s Committee House (City Hall)  was once an opulent French hotel, and today looks out upon a little park with a statute of Uncle Ho playing with children.

(Be sure to click on the photos to see larger versions.)

Readers of “The Quiet American” or viewers of the marvelous movie “Indochine” will recognize the old Continental Hotel, which housed international correspondents during two wars.  It is on Đông Khới Street, once  known as Tu Do Street back when it had many bars and massage parlors frequented by American GIs.  Under the French, it was known as Rue Catinet.  Today it is the center of high-end shopping in  Sài Gòn.

I stayed at the Rex Hotel as I have before.  The Rex is also an old landmark, and it housed senior American officers back in the 60s and 70s.  Atop the building is a rooftop bar.  My association with that bar goes way back to 1967, when as a young 2nd Lieutenant in a dirty field uniform decided to irritate the khaki-clad office workers by going into that bar and downing a beer.

I’m in Huê now, and just as expected the weather is cold and wet.  Its winter here, and the temperature is about 55 degrees F, its raining, and the humidity is 99%.  I’ve already connected with friends and former students, and its nice to be here.

I just wish the MGB were with me.

Việt Nam Needs You

I’m not sure I know why, but I’ve had quite a few inquiries from various people thinking about going to Việt Nam.  I’m not talking about tourists – I’m talking about people who have a deeper interest in the country, and want to do something productive there, or who want to get off the beaten tourist track and see the “real Việt Nam.”  For that reason, I have four different non-government organizations (NGOs) I have personally dealt with, have full faith and confidence in, and am proud to recommend if you want to go to Việt Nam.  All of these groups work in Central Việt Nam.

Think About the Children is the newest organization on this list.  Founder Tom Murray is a veteran whom I had the privilege to meet on his very first trip back to Việt Nam.  Like The Mystery Guest Blogger and I, he fell in love with the people and the country.  During my teaching time in Huê, one of my most enjoyable times was working with Tom to link up his students from the College of Charleston with six Vietnamese students of ours.  I was tickled to see two of my students on the History page of the TBTC web site helping to carry food into an orphanage in Huê.  Tom takes things personally.  During the recent typhoon in Huê, he heard that one of the Vietnamese students’ families had lost the roof of their house.  (Vi is pictured on the right end)  That put the energetic Tom to work.  In short order, he raised the $1,000 needed to replace the roof and had it wired to her.  Think About the Children also works with the Blue Dragon Foundation  to help kids who are trafficked and sent to the big cities to sell postcards to tourists – and kept in virtual slavery.  If you want to see Việt Nam – the real Việt Nam, and you want to see it with a vet, Tom is your man.  I will send you his email if you request it.

MEDRIX.  Not all NGOs in Việt Nam are run by vets.  Bob and La Relle Catherman have an incredibly deep love of Việt Nam – especially in and around the Huê area.  La Relle is the medical person who works with the hospitals in the area.  She put the MGB to work last spring teaching English medical terminology to the physicians of Huê.  She also does a lot of work with health education.  Last spring, she supervised a group of American student nurses doing the public service portion of their degree program as they worked in the hospitals around Huê and in the A Lưới area (what vets remember as the A Shau Valley). Bob is “The Water Man.”  He has developed an inexpensive system to produce safe water and works with the College of Science and the People’s Committee of the province to install systems in schools. If you are a medical type or a technical type, MEDRIX needs you.  And you won’t find two finer people to work with the Bob and La Relle.

Vets With a Mission  is a group we can not only recommend – but have actually worked with.  Our first return to Việt Nam was in the summer of 2002, and we did it with this outstanding group headed by Chuck and Joette Ward.  A major part of their work is to reconcile the people of Việt Nam and the United States, as well as American vets to their experiences.  They do medical trips as well as trips working in conjunction with Habitat for Humanity.  If you are a vet, we can think of no better group to return with than VWAM - - because you will have the camaraderie of being with other vets.  They’ve been doing this a long time – since 1988 when Việt Nam was just beginning to open up.

Peace Trees International  If you want to see more of “The Real Việt Nam”, take a citizen diplomacy trip to Việt Nam with them.  My connection is through Mike Fey, a veteran and a dentist who makes frequent trips.  Peace Trees works in Quảng Tri Province, the site of the old DMZ and still one of the poorest provinces in the country.  Peace Trees does educational work, as well as environmental restoration and de-mining.  Yes, Quảng Tri is full of unexploded ordnance, and people are hurt to this day when a farmer’s plow hits an old artillery shell.

These are all excellent groups you can travel to Việt Nam with and do some good while you’re there.  Obviously, there are lots of other groups, but not all would be suitable as a means to travel to Việt Nam.  Việt Nam has hundreds of NGOs working throughout the country.  One such agency is the Blue Dragon Foundation, run by Australian Mike Brosowski in Hà Nội .  I never met Mike in person, but as a fellow expat blogger, we swapped many an email.  Blue Dragon Foundation and Think About the Children have begun cooperative programs in dealing with the problem of child trafficking in the rural areas around Huê.

But - - if you travel to Hà Nội , you are commanded to eat at KOTO (Know One Teach One), another Australian NGO that provides training in the restaurant and hospitality industry to street kids.  If you eat at KOTO, you will enjoy one of the best meals you’ve ever eaten, and you will have helped another kid learn both an employable skill and self-respect.  Their fund raiser is a Brit, and I’ve swapped many an email with him as he is the author of Our Man in Hanoi.

Travel to Việt Nam if you can – any of the above groups will serve you well.  Can’t go but would like to be involved?  Blue Dragon and KOTO would love your help.

And if you travel to Huê, then you must visit the unofficial hub of NGO activity there.  Go by my friend Cu's Mandarin Cafe for a bite to eat - and meet the other NGO workers in Central Việt Nam.  Tell him Doug sent you.

Thanh Toàn Bridge (Updated)

Most tourists call it “The Japanese Bridge,” but its not Japanese at all.  I suspect some call it that for its resemblance to the covered Japanese bridge in Hoi An. 

In fact, the original bridge was built in 1776 by a lady of the village who had the good fortune to marry a wealthy mandarin.  Taking pity on her former neighbors, Trân Thị Đạo built the bridge with her own money so they would not have to wade or ferry themselves across the small creek.  However, she also wanted a son, and building the bridge was part of her prayers.  Another local legend has it that she indeed had a son who fell deathly ill at the age of sixteen.  The illness was traced to the ghost of a young girl who had died before she married and had children, and being unfilled, her spirit fell in love with the young boy, inhabited his body and made him ill.  To this day, some local people make offerings to the girl at the small shrine in the middle of the bridge.  Regardless of which of the two stories you believe, it is recorded that her good deed brought great fortune to the village.  The King noticed her virtue, and in November 1776, proclaimed that from henceforth, the villagers were exempt from being drafted into either the army or doing forced labor for the government.

The bridge was severely damaged by typhoons in 1844 and 1904 and rebuilt each time, and restore in 1954 and again in 1971.  Today it’s a great place to sit on the benches that span the length of the bridge. enjoy some conversation, and watch Việt Nam go by.

The village used to be named Thanh Toàn, hence the name of the bridge.  The name was changed to Thủy Toàn some time ago, but near the edge of the village is a shrine dedicated to venerating Trân Thị Đạo - - the lady of the bridge.

(My thanks to Steve Boswell for the information about the bridge and its builder.)