JACK BERNARD'S TRAVELS

Posted by jdbernard743

· September 25, 2009

Back in Danang

Memories are short. I’m sitting at the airport where I landed 40 years ago during the Vietnam War. This morning I walked the beautiful promenade reminiscent of Nice that runs along the river. It’s wide, flowing, geometrically tiled, and lined with palm trees. It’s not Nice; the river is not the blue Mediterranean and the building across the street is not the Hotel Negresco, but it is a beautiful space in country that is in need of them.

I couldn’t help but think of the changes. America was at war here. We believed that if Vietnam fell to the communist North that Asia would cave in, China would take over, and the dominos would fall. We were wrong. We were wrong about the Vietnamese and wrong about China. Now both are our friends and trading partners. It was a civil war not a world wide conspiracy to bring down America. Vietnam is thriving now. It’s the most energetic place I’ve ever been. I was in China in April and the energy and activity level here is categorically different. This country is on the move.

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Categories : Saigon Diary, Uncategorized

Posted by jdbernard743

· September 24, 2009

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A Day of Contrasts

In 1969 as a junior Pan Am co-pilot I ferried US troops in and out of the Marine airbase at Danang. They were on their way to or from R & R (Rest and Recuperation) holidays during the Vietnam War. Today I rode into Danang on Vietnam Airlines and seated next to me was a family of four from Florida on their way to hang out on China Beach for a few days.

I am traveling to attend a staff meeting and talk about our work in Vietnam including some mitigation of the devastation wrought by Agent Orange/dioxin. The Florida family is taking a year off to travel around the world before their kids push back because they are don’t want to leave their friends.

After checking into a modern hotel on the street bordering the river I met another East Meets West staffer at a Danang coffee house. The purpose of our meeting was to have him brief me on the work we are doing with disabled people in three provinces including a number of third generation birth defects caused by AO. Where does that end? The work EMW does with the disabled isn’t limited to casualties of AO. The beneficiaries can also be accident victims, hearing and visually impaired, mentally ill or other forms of disability. The young man I met with is a real star, living away from his wife and two kids except on weekends, traveling between programs and provinces, supervising a staff of 10, and delivering services to a population largely hidden in Vietnam.

Following our meeting I walked along the river until I came to a trendy indoor/outdoor restaurant. The bait was a stunning young woman in a short, tight silk dress and 4” stilletos. Her beautiful face could have graced the cover of any of the top fashion magazines. I bit. She seated me on the veranda looking out at the river and her. I ordered a beer and some fried rice and was served by three rather homely but refreshingly innocent young girls who wanted to try their English out on me. They smiled constantly and didn’t miss an opportunity to try out their new language skills. Meanwhile, the bait was doing her best to charm a table full of drunks who were ruining everyone’s dinner by trying to outshout each other. The real charm this evening was provided by the three homely teenagers whose eager innocence won the day. I finished my beer and walked back to the hotel as it started to rain. It was a day of contrasts.

Categories : Saigon Diary, Uncategorized

Posted by jdbernard743

· September 22, 2009

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It’s Equinox Time

I’m a great one for fresh starts and new beginnings. The autumnal equinox is today and marks a new beginning. So,it’s a great day to signal the transition to our new life in Saigon. We are finally starting to find our feet here in Saigon. We’re not locals yet. We’re not living “on the economy”, but we are getting our sea legs. We moved into our apartment on Friday. On Saturday we filled two shopping carts at the local supermarket where some gnarly dude piled all the booty into some big plastic crates and delivered it all to our door on his motorbike. We went to the ex-pat’s favorite gourmet store and bought French ham, olives, cheese, crackers, mayonaisse, and dijon. We found a wine shop in our neighborhood with inexpensive Chilean wine and bought 8 bottles, a corkscrew and 4 wine glasses. Marilynn bought a lifetime supply of cleaning stuff and we hired a very competent and attractive cleaning woman who scrubs our tile floor on her knees, washes and irons our clothes, shops for incidentals and buys flowers for our living room. I think we can get used to it, even if it is completely different from the life we have known until now.

This week we’re starting to have a real routine. The alarm goes off at 5:15am and there’s a taxi at the door at 5:45 to take us to the fitness center at the Rex Hotel. It’s a real extravagance but it feels great. The gym is well equipped. The locker rooms are clean, and the pool is on the rooftop and almost 25 meters long. We work out for an hour, shower, get dressed and cross two wide motorbike choked streets to get to one of two fabulous espresso places – the Paris Deli, which has unbelievably good croissants, or Highlands Coffee, the local Starbucks (owned by a Vietnamese-American from Walnut Creek CA). By 8 I’m in another taxi on my way work and Marilynn’s on her way back to the apartment to IM with her assistant who is working on the other side of the world. It’s a life that couldn’t have been imagined 25 years ago. But, here we are.

Categories : Saigon Diary, Uncategorized

Posted by jdbernard743

· September 18, 2009

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Humble Pie

When my son, Brent, was 8 years old we drove our VW bus from Paris to the Costa Brava in Spain. A friend of mine opened a bar on the beach in a sleepy little beach town that was becoming a hot destination for northern European beach rats. I was determined to have Brent embrace the foreign experience so I gave him some money to buy a Coke and told him how to ask for it in Spanish. He just looked at me and said, “What if they talk to me?”

I know just how he felt. It’s now 40 years later and I’m asking that same question – What if they talk to me? Here we are living and working in Saigon, Vietnam and terrified that someone will speak to us and find out just how ignorant we really are.

I love my job; I’m working for an International NGO that is helping Vietnam reclaim its legacy after shaking off 100 years of French colonial rule and the ravages of what the Vietnamese government calls the American War. But, here I am living and working in their country and unable to speak even a word of their language. It’s embarrassing, and I’m determined to make a dent in it soon. In the meantime I am totally dependent on the kindness of strangers.

I travel everywhere by taxi. This place is hot and humid and it rains like it will never end. No one walks. Fortunately there are lots and lots of taxis and they’re cheap. I’ve owned and ridden motor-scooters and motorcycles in the US but no way am I ready to try one here. It is motorbike mania… but I digress. I go by taxi, so every time I get ready to go somewhere I have to write down the address of my destination and hand it to the driver. And, sometimes but only sometimes, the driver will take advantage and take the scenic route that costs half again the normal rate. I’ve been here 3 weeks now and the navigational vertigo I felt at first is gone. I know the names of the major streets and recognize the businesses along the way. But… what if they talk to me?

It is quite humbling to be “of a certain age” and feel the vulnerability that a child feels because of his dependence on others. It’s probably worse, because children are of necessity trusting and dependent. We “masters of the universe” get a real lesson in these situations.

Categories : Saigon Diary, Uncategorized

Posted by jdbernard743

· September 14, 2009

· 1 Comment

We’re Gettin’ Down

Last night we had dinner with the East Meets West Foundation’s Country Director, her husband, and a friend of hers who manages contributions for a big multinational corporation. The friend is Vietnamese but very Western. She speaks and dresses like a Westerner, and she knows what’s trendy in the world. The Director says I should get to know her. She knows everything that’s hip in Saigon.

She proved it last night. She picked the place for dinner, and it was a local place whose name roughly translated is “broken pot.” That’s what they do there; they cook rice in a ceramic pot and when it’s ready they crack the pot, throw the shards into a bigger ceramic pot and toss the finished product across the room like a frisbee. The catcher on the other end tosses it in the air before plating it and taking it to the table. The end product is a saucer-like hunk of rice that is dry and crispy with a little browned crust. It’s what I call performance food – like throwing fish at Pike’s Place Market. It may be touristy, but it’s really fun and interesting.

The meal was as good as the performance – stuffed, fried squash blossoms, stir fried chunks of beef with sauteed onion and red pepper, soup, sauteed greens and finished off with mango and banana flambe. Everything was delicious.

After dinner “Rosemary,” as she is known to her Western friends, had us all jump in a cab and drive to a small little alley somewhere nearby. It was pouring rain when we got there, and we scampered down this darkish, dead-end alley until we arrived at the entrance to Serenata, a combination coffee house and bar. It was an amazing place. I felt like I was in a time warp – SE Asia in colonial times, Grahame Green’s Vietnam, Malraux’s beat, definitely some other time and place. It was an indoor/outdoor space- all open to the air – without walls although the central area was covered. In that central area they were playing live music. At first it was a Vietnamese woman singer backed by a trio of violin, piano, and classical guitar. She was followed by a man singing French pop chez Johnny Hallyday, and then the trio took over without the singer and played like the Julliard String Trio. I could have stayed forever. What a great introduction to the offbeat Saigon nightlife.

Categories : Saigon Diary, Uncategorized