JACK BERNARD'S TRAVELS

We live one mile from the United States Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City. The new Consulate was built on the ground where the US Embassy stood thirty-five years ago, and on this day thirty-five years ago NVA troops were pouring into the city and US helicopters were running a last desperate shuttle between the Embassy grounds and ships of the Seventh Fleet carrying US citizens and loyal Vietnamese nationals away to safety. It was the end of the “American War,” the end of a divided Vietnam, and the beginning of the Vietnamese diaspora – the displacement and dispersal of more than 2 million Vietnamese across the world.

After the war the US embargoed Vietnam and the victorious North Vietnamese confiscated all the private property in South Vietnam and built “re-education” camps to enlighten its newly unified countrymen in the South. I’ve met people whose family members spent 7 years in re-education camps. There is still friction between the North and South over the camps, and South Vietnamese that didn’t escape in the last days of the war resorted to desperate escape strategies on overloaded, unseaworthy vessels or arduous treks across borders to find refuge.

Vietnam today is modernizing at a remarkable rate. There is an emerging middle class and some have established great wealth, but for more than 15 years after the war the country was desperate and impoverished. The change began in 1989 when the government made the decision to accept private investment and allow a flow of market products and services. Today Vietnam’s economy is thriving even though there are still large pockets of poverty.

April 30 is Vietnam’s Fourth of July – Liberation Day. It’s huge – parades, fireworks, political posturing, red and yellow banners on every tree and the red Vietnamese flag with the big yellow star flying from every house, including ours. It’s a four day holiday that includes May Day. Thirty five years after the fall of Saigon the old Embassy buildings are gone. Fifteen years ago the US and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam resumed diplomatic relations. Vietnam returned the property where the US Embassy stood and a new Consulate was erected. We went to a lawn party there recently and the Consul General addressed the mixed group of global citizens in perfect Vietnamese.

But tonight we decided to have our own party. We went to a new Mexican restaurant where we drank Margaritas with chips and salsa and got an early start on Cinco de Mayo. After all, Liberation Day isn’t really our holiday.

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Sunday’s Vietnam News headline boasts that “Ho Chi Minh City has ambitious plans to become a major Asian economic centre, with a projected population of 30 million by 2050.” The city is laboring under the weight of its current 8 million inhabitants. Can it find a way to manage the exponential kind of growth the paper projects?

The city’s existing infrastructure can’t deal with its present demands. The streets are groaning under the pressure of 4 million motorbikes and the growing number of automobiles. Twenty years ago these streets were full of bicycles and cyclos. Twenty years from now there will be fewer motorbikes and more cars. How will the city accommodate the change? Somehow the authorities will have to figure it out because they’re coming. Get ready. China is the paradigm for dealing with this kind of change. Seattle’s boots will be in the sucking mud 40 years from now and they will still be debating freeways vs. tunnels long after the people have arrived. A centrally controlled economy “can” be much more efficient. It might be riddled with corruption but if the decision is made to build something, it will get done.

Vietnam, as I have said repeatedly, is an amazing place. It’s messy, orderly, dirty, clean, primitive, sophisticated, fast, slow, energetic, and lazy. It’s a complete paradox. Every week we walk or drive past a building that has been gutted or razed and will soon be full of new shops. Every week a construction fence comes down to reveal a new office tower with Armani and Versace filling the retail space. Next door the people are squatting on small stools, eating pho and washing their dishes in a bucket on the sidewalk. It’s all about contrasts.

The photo above is of the building that dominates the Saigon skyline these days. It’s the Bitexco Tower, a 68 story office building under construction and scheduled to open in October. The story behind it is pure modern Vietnam. The owner is one of the richest men in the country, but he grew up in a very poor province in the north. He’s made a fortune since the country became a free market economy. This building is not a shrewd business venture. It’s all about pride – personal and national. The 68 stories will be almost twice the height of the next tallest building in Saigon. And, its shape is inspired by a lotus flower. The foundation is oval in shape, so there isn’t a straight line or a right angle in the entire building. The exterior is all glass and every custom cut piece of it is different in size and curvature, because it expands in volume from the base to the 48th floor and then contracts for the next 20 to give it the lotus shape. Did I mention the heli-pad on the 50th floor, probably not because there are no private helicopters allowed in Vietnam.

Mr Hoi, the owner, doesn’t care about cost, efficiency, “green” construction, or anything but building the dominant, signature, skyscraper landmark in Ho Chi Minh City. This building is every architect’s dream – where the owner says you know my vision, now go create it. Whatever it costs is fine with me.

This is modern Vietnam.

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11 days on the road in Vietnam – From Saigon to Danang to Hanoi to Can Tho and back to Saigon. Four different places, four different climates, four different cuisines, four different architectures.

Danang is always a nice change from the madness of Saigon’s noise and dirt and swarming motorbikes. It has wide streets, reasonable traffic, soft warm breezes off the South China Sea, earthy food I can’t begin to describe, and a mish-mash of architectural styles from Five-Star resorts, to galvanized tin lean-to’s. China Beach is becoming the Vietnamese Riviera as a dozen new mega-resorts open or get set to open in the next couple of years. But Danang, Vietnam’s third largest city, is still wrapped in a pretty plain wrapper. It’s all about business and education – pretty no-nonsense.

After a week in Danang, I flew to Hanoi which seems to me like several cities in one. I like the old part around Hoan Kiem Lake with its small pagoda where legend has it that Le Loi received the magical sword, from a golden turtle, that enabled him to defeat the Chinese and liberate Vietnam in the 15th century. I like the streets near Hoan Kiem that specialize in particular goods – Silk Street, Shoe Street, Handbag Street, Crafts Street, etc. But the weather in Hanoi is confused. It can be cool and humid at the same time, making you feel like you’re living under water. You don’t feel warm but your clothes are damp and clinging. The good news is you can get almost any cuisine you want to eat almost anytime. It may not be as international feeling as Saigon, but there are many more non-Asian faces on the street. The Hanoians think of themselves as the only true Vietnamese and they are very critical of other regions, dialects, climates, and cuisines. I don’t see it, but I’m not Vietnamese.

On day ten, I flew from Hanoi to Can Tho in the Mekong Delta and I felt as if I’d been let out of my cage. Can Tho is tropical – coconut palms, banana trees, wild orchids. It’s hot, but it’s summer hot like the beach, and there’s water everywhere. Can Tho is a modern city, but the surrounding area is rural, delta country with boats for transportation, and huts built out over the Mekong canals and tributaries. I can’t imagine how you navigate those canals, rivers, and backwaters. It’s a maze, but the people there are as warm and welcoming as the weather, and I was invited with a group to lunch after a ground-breaking ceremony at a school we are renovating. There were about 25 of us at a long table under a thatched room. I have no idea what I was eating, but most of it was tasty. The principal of the school was determined to fatten me up, so she kept putting mystery things in my rice bowl and the head of the People’s Committee kept filling my beer mug and toasting. It’s tough to say no to the People’s Committee in Vietnam, but just when you think this thing will go on forever everyone gets up and walks away. I didn’t see any signals, but it ended suddenly. Then it was a six hour drive back to Saigon, a shower, and beddy-bye. I was really glad to get home.

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For the last 40 years I have regarded The International Herald Tribune (IHT)as my paper of choice when traveling. If I could get a hard copy at home in the States I wouldn’t hesitate to subscribe. In 16-18 pages they pack in serious international news, arts, sports, and opinion. The paper has an interesting history but now it is a joint enterprise of the New York Times and the Washington Post, which probably doesn’t endear it to the American right wing although I see people of every stripe reading it in cafe’s around the world. It’s really the only game in town.

Here, in Saigon, I only buy the weekend edition of the IHT. I don’t have time to read the daily. I get lost in it and read it cover to cover, and there isn’t that much time in my day. I do need daily news however and I get it in various ways. There are two English-language papers published here, Vietnam News and The Saigon Times. I read both at the local espresso joint in the morning. They both reflect the government approved news, but they are indispensable in understanding the business side of this rapidly expanding economy. Like the IHT they include some arts and sports news, but they are pretty thin in those departments.

Another source for us, God bless the internet, is live streaming of NPR. During the week it’s hard to time the 14 hour difference to the West Coast, but on weekends I tune in to KPLU or KUOW at 6am Saigon time and catch All Things Considered as we’re getting up and eating breakfast. It helps keep us in touch with Seattle area news, as does the online edition of The Seattle Times which Marilynn checks out on a daily basis. I confess to being relatively uninterested in the Seattle “process” which consumes way too much time, but she fills me in if she thinks there is something I “need” to know.

We watch relatively little TV, because there is relatively little to watch but we usually tune into CNBC in the evening for an update on the world markets, and we catch the sound bites on CNN International at the gym in the morning. The truth is it is hard to get away from the news with newspapers at work and in the coffee shops, TV in our living room, online editions of every news source, live streaming of broadcast media, and blogs to give us opinion and advice on just about everything.

One thing I thought I would miss is magazines. We subscribe to half a dozen or more in the States. It’s funny but I don’t miss them at all. Here, in Saigon, there are two excellent English-language magazines – The Word and Asia Life. Both are well written and include serious journalism as well as extensive food and entertainment sections. At month’s end I can hardly wait for the next edition, and I find myself reading both of them cover to cover. Last month Asia Life devoted most of the issue to articles on climate change. Vietnam is especially vulnerable to changes in climate since a rise in the level could place 10% of the country under water. Most of the southern part of the country is at sea level already. Asia Life did an excellent job of reporting on the problem.

Many of us have a love-hate relationship with media, but I am keenly aware of my own need to stay connected to the world at large and to what is happening where I live. I just hope that in the changing world of media, where newspapers are disappearing and bloggers are exerting a big influence on opinion that we all can learn to sort and select the responsible voices from those that are not. And, in that regard living here has another advantage; I never have to hear the voices of Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly, even by accident.

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One way members of the ex-pat community stay in touch with each other and have an opportunity to meet new people is through a series of networking events. Some are privately organized; some are sponsored by the various Chambers of Commerce (AmCham, CanCham, EuroCham, AusCham).

Networking in a foreign country is different than it is in the US. Here, people actually circulate and talk to one another. In the US people tend to stand in small groups and talk to the people they already know. Here, everyone has a story, and it is always interesting to dig for it when you meet someone new.

I’ve been lucky enough to meet hundreds of people since moving here in September. In an earlier blog I mentioned that gender attitudes are sometimes highlighted in this environment. Eligible ex-pat women generally complain that the men have very little incentive to look for a serious relationship when there are so many beautiful women falling at their feet.

Two months ago I met a guy at one of the networking events and he drew me in for a few minutes before I broke the code. He was totally self absorbed and had a story that was too good to be true. Last night I saw him again. He’s one of the many men who come to Asia looking for quick and easy female companionship but can’t be straight about it. He’s created a myth about himself and he self-hypnotizes and spins it out continuously. Last night someone Googled him to see if anything would come up.

Check this out:

http://www.10k4awife.com/flashVersion/flash/mainTest2.html

Is this creepy or what? There are so many good people doing good things over here, but people like this guy give ex-pats a bad name.

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