Virtual-Doug

Time to Go Home

It’s time to go home.  I need a haircut.  I’m tired of living out of a suitcase.

As much as I love being in Hue, some things wear thin after awhile.  Because we Americans have so much electronic “stuff”, we always want more electrical outlets.  We always bring along our 220 volt multiple outlets and still have to swap different devices to be recharged.  Think camera batteries, laptops, mobile phones, AA batteries.  Recharging batteries is complicated by the fact that electricity is disconnected when you leave your hotel room.

We’ve been riding around Hue on Trang’s motorbike.  It’s kinda kewl to be using her bike.  I am reminded of Trang every time I use the key – she put her key on a pony tail ornament and used it as a key ring.  It’s been a little threatening to my masculinity to be seen with such a key ring.  Thanx for the use of your moto, Trang.

And, we rode out to visit her family on the moto.  Trang’s village is north of Hue – about 15 kilometers – and her brother and sister came to show us the way.  It really was a most pleasant afternoon – nothing fancy, just nice conversation with nice people.  This was the Mystery Guest Blogger’s first visit to Trang’s home.  The ladies of the house prepared some great food and of course, the hospitality was wonderful.  Thanx to Tuan for going along as translator.

Speaking of Tuan, we celebrated with him when he found he was accepted to the doctoral program in environmental science at the University of Texas-San Antonio.  He is also a budding photographer.   We went out to the Thanh Toan bridge a few days ago because we both wanted to experiment with a post-processing technique.

Once again, it’s time to leave.  Yes, it will be nice to sleep in my own bed and to see my cat again – but shall also miss my second home.

Where’s the Student with the Answer? (by the Mystery Guest Blogger)

When we taught the English majors at the College of Foreign Language at Hue University, I enjoyed challenging the students.  My freshmen Speaking students, all 151 of them, were not used to asking questions in class.  If you question the teacher, the teacher might be made to look at fault as if you had not been properly taught, so it isn’t done.  Students also were definitely not used to speaking their mind in class and then being challenged to think deeper.

In each of the 3 classes, we talked about the prosperity beginning to come to Viet Nam.  Many of these young people were likely to be the first in their family to go to college, and had dreams of succeeding on a ‘western’ scale.  This dream is within the reach of all of them.  They graduated in 2008, and the ones I have tracked have jobs befitting their education as professional translators and educators.

During our year and a half in Hue starting the spring of 2005, and on our annual trips back, we have seen increasing evidence of disposable income among Vietnamese.  Disposable income is a sure sign of prosperity to me.  Fewer and fewer adults are riding bicycles; this is transportation largely for school children now.  A large proportion of shops and restaurants are enclosed in glass, instead of grates and shutters, to accommodate the air conditioning.   Cell phones are so common even the sic lo drivers, generally the lowest economic level on the traffic scene, have them.  Gives them an edge to get to the gazillion unloading tourist busses quickest.  You don’t even have to hunt for an ATM anymore, and all the hotels and many, many cafés have WiFi.  Expensive long distance calls to relatives in the states have been replaced by Skype calls on the internet, and it is not unusual for families to have a home computer and DSL.

Back in the day, the topic I threw at each of my students for English discussion was “When Hue becomes so affluent that every family owns a car (much nodding of heads and self satisfied smiling), where will they park them?”

Well, it is happening.  The increasing presence of the private auto is being felt in Hue.  Four years ago, the only cars seemed to be taxis and the occasional government car.  It is not uncommon now to see a car waiting at the curb for a passenger.  I am told cars are being parked in suitably large first floors of homes (you have to know the architecture to realize how well this really works), and city Vietnamese, so used to locking their gate to enclose motorbikes and bicycles, are modifying those gates to allow the family car.

I can’t prove there have been more private cars on the street this month, following me on my bicycle, honk…honk…honking their presence to me.  But there have been.

And I have counted three times this month, a car parked at the curbs of eating establishments while passengers, presumably, are inside eating.  One day a pair of business men pulled up to Phuong Nam while I enjoyed my lunch, asking where they should put the car.  The proprietress told them to put it down the street a little ways, in front of the bicycles and motorbikes, but definitely not right in front of the restaurant.

 Can meters lining the streets and high rise parking decks be far behind?  I never thought to ask my students.

Bucket Ruffles Redux (by the Mystery Guest Blogger)

I have not seen a single bucket ruffle in HCMC or in Hue during our month in Viet Nam.  Trendiness in fashion proves to be universal.

Wandering with Cu

Friends.

Friends are for doing things together.  Phan Cu is my friend and we love doing photography together.  We finally found a day when I had no work planned and there was  nice weather, so we threw a leg over our motorbikes and headed out to the countryside to see what we could find.

(Be sure to click on each photo - you'll see a larger version of the photo.)

Actually, I was riding Trang’s motorbike.  She bought it when she worked in Saigon and gave it to her family to use when she went to America to study.  It was nice knowing I was using her moto.  If the poor machine could talk, it was probably wondering why it had to carry a huge overweight western man rather than the svelte young Vietnamese woman it used to carry.

The first thing Cu and I found was a village celebrating cúng đât – a ceremony conducted in homes, by villages, and in businesses - praying to the Father of the Land asking for good fortune.  It is held on any day during the lunar month of February.  By the time we arrived, the older men had finished praying in the local pagoda and were enjoying a morning feast.   Cu warmed up the audience for me by taking a few shots and telling the men that the big westerner was okay.  If you are wondering about the clothing, it is called an ao dai (pronounced ow yie).  More famous is the ao dai for women, but men also wear ao dai on formal occasions.  I once attended a Christmas Eve mass at a Catholic church and the elders wore ao dai.  Only older men wear them, and they are either dark blue or black with white pants as seen in this photo, or dark blue with medallions as seen in this photo of the man with a wonderfully long beard.  We shared laughs as he pointed at me, then at his own beard – and encouraged me to grow a beard as long as his.  I am always intrigued by meetings like this – I speak no Vietnamese and he spoke no English, yet we communicated wonderfully.  A smile and genuine laughter work wonders.

Though it was late morning when we left the pagoda, the village market was still humming.   Marketplace shots in Asia can be cliché photos, yet it is also true that the marketplace is a central part of village life.  Most of the wares are not produced by the sellers – they get up very early in the morning, travel to Hue to the big Dong Ba market, then buy what they need to sell back in their village.

Further down the path, we came upon four girls – I’ll guess they were in their early teens.  Like girls everywhere, they get the giggles at the slightest provocation.  In this case, I was the provocation.  They giggled and tried to speak English, but spent more time giggling than talking.  Cu thought the whole episode funny, but managed to translate my request for the pose I wanted.  Notice the t-shirt.  You see girls wear shirts with cute western sayings on them quite often, but the kids have no idea what the sayings mean.

Next door, Grandma was preparing lunch.  She didn’t seem thrilled by my presence at first – maybe she mistrusted my intentions with the four girls – but pointing at the camera and framing a shot, I got a smile from her.  Looking at her own picture in the LCD of my camera brought a laugh.

Shy smiles are what I got from this eleven year old girl.  She and her single mother live in a one room concrete block house built next to a putrid canal.  Her mother has no husband, no land to plant vegetables, and no education – just a skill to make conical hats.  These are not sold to tourists because she lives too far away from them and has no motorbike to get in to Hue to sell them.  Mother and daughter sell their hats in the local market – they make two hats a day and make 20,000 dong – a little over a dollar a day.  Somehow, the money is found to put the girl in school.  An education will be her only way out of abject poverty.

When Cu and I go out shooting, we always take photos of traditional Viet Nam – images of an exotic land on the other side of the world that Americans expect to see.  Cu is interested in selling photos to tourists as well as documenting a way of life that is quickly disappearing.  Of course, I take the same kind of photos – but such photos do not accurately portray Viet Nam.  It is a country of very rapid change.  This photo of my bearded friend and his grandson show that change – tradition standing next to modernity.

Two old men out wandering around with cameras – a good way for friends to spend time.  Fun day.

Bouncing Around Nam Dong

The regular Gentle Reader knows where the city of Hue is located, but maybe not Nam Dong.  Hue is the capitol of Thua Thien Hue Province (think state), and Nam Dong is a district (think county) within Thua Thien Hue Province.  Nam Dong is in the mountains, and many (most?) of the residents are not ethnic Vietnamese but Katu, a small ethnic minority group.  It is a place of striking beauty – steep mountains and gurgling streams and lush foliage and winding roads.

(Be sure to click on the photos so you can see a larger version.)

It is also a place of poverty, especially in the small remote villages.  The Katu are only a few generations away from being wanderers.  They once practiced slash and burn agriculture, but are now encouraged by the government to settle down and farm in a more sustainable manner.  To the government’s credit, it has built a lot of new infrastructure in the mountains: roads, schools, mobile phone systems – and electricity into very remote places.  There are even new irrigation channels built into many of the valley fields.  In every village I visited, I had four or five pegs on my mobile phone.

The economy is developing – this machine squeezes sugar cane, making a sweet liquid concoction called nuoc mia.  I don’t know where the money came from to buy the machine, but I saw it operated in a rustic “restaurant” in a very poor village.  Obviously, the Katu have some discretionary income if they can afford this little luxury.   But, there is obviously a ways to go – I saw very few automobiles on the road, many of the motorbikes were cheap Chinese clones, and I saw water buffalo carts too.

I visited a lot of schools in Nam Dong – from preschool to junior high.  The student nurses I was shadowing did a lot of public health “classes” in schools, and most of the safe water system sites were in schools.  As our bus approached the junior high school, I realized this visit would have a “rock star” feel to it as the kids lined the railings of the school and cheered wildly for the student nurses as they walked through the courtyard.   The nursing students – both American and Vietnamese – wanted children to learn the importance of good hygiene.  After the kids had the sanitation class, they had a “practical exercise” and came forward to wash their hands in a basin provided by the student nurses.  Do I hear a collective “Awwwww!” out there?

Of course, a photographer always looks good when shooting kids or animals.  It’s hard to take a bad photo when you have subjects like this little girl.

And – I even found some pretty good bun bo Hue (beef noodle soup, spicy Hue style) up there in the mountains.  Nam Dong was quite different from the Viet Nam I have known since 2002. Every time I come to visit this country, I learn something new – and being in Nam Dong was a chance to learn something delightfully new.

A Vietnamese Rockwell - More (by the Mystery Guest Blogger)

This is my favorite picture of the Mandarin café at it’s current location.  It is my “Norman Rockwell” of Viet Nam.

A Vietnamese Rockwell (by the Mystery Guest Blogger)

We go through our lives not seeing.  Our daily lives are two dimensional and flat.  Each ordinary day the same, no edge, nothing to distinguish one day from another.  Frequently, these typical days are not recorded in memory, in photographs, they are so much alike, unmemorable.

What we remember is the unusual, the out of the ordinary days and hours.  Special events and treats, tragic times, those days with sharpness, they stick out.  They catch and make a memory.

We take pictures of picnics, births, graduations, events that will never happen again, so we will remember.  Pictures in print, pictures in memory.  But none of the usual things.

I remember the specialness of having a whole box of nearly-new crayons at the end of one school year, but I don’t remember what I did with them, or what I planned to do with them.  I baby-sat many hours for three younger brothers, but cannot recall a single detail of it.  It was all the same, I suppose.

Norman Rockwell, the American illustrator, documented the details of everyday American life for us.  Playing, going to school, mealtime.  He knew the importance of these repetitive, common place events, and he recorded them for us for all time.

This morning, as I watched Thanh’s family and staff prepare the table of food in front of the restaurant for a Vietnamese Lunar Festival, I saw so many commonplace and familiar things.  The excitement of hurrying ---- set up the tables, level them off, bring the food, not enough tables --- add more, bring more food.  The intensity of making the food special --- perfectly chosen, deliciously prepared, attractively arranged.  It was all very familiar, and very unfamiliar at the same time.

We have found it to be true that you cannot fully understand your own culture unless you compare it with another.  You also cannot know your own life, your own experiences, until you compare it with another.  In this way, you come to know your own life, your own culture, intimately.

Happy lunar holiday!

Health Care in Viet Nam (Part II)

Think Appalachia in the United States.  Small remote villages, little economic opportunity, scattered resources, and a sense that the people are not part of the rest of the country.  That describes mountainous areas in both countries.   In Viet Nam, another issue is added:  many of the residents in the mountains are not ethnically Vietnamese.  They are called “ethnic minorities” by the Kinh people (Vietnamese) and were once called “Montagnards” by American soldiers.    They are only a small percentage of the population, yet there are fifty seven identifiably different groups.  In the area southwest of Hue live the Katu.  That’s where I am as I write this.

If you are Katu and get sick, you go to your village clinic.  There is a doctor on duty four days a week and a midwife on duty all the time.  The clinic is equipped to provide basic care, but sends patients to the larger district hospital for more serious cases.  Normal births are handled at the clinic.  After being screened by the nurse or doctor, you are placed in the “emergency room” for a more complete examination and diagnosis.  The family stays right with the patient – notice there are two people in the far bed.  One is the sick wife and the other is her husband.  As you can see, there are no privacy laws.

The American student nurses paired up with two Vietnamese student nurses and went to work.  In one bed was a woman who complained of severe chills and high fever.  If you guessed malaria, you are correct.  Malaria is not a problem in most places in Viet Nam – only in these remote areas.  (If you travel to Viet Nam, you needn’t take antimalarial drugs.)  She was sent on to the larger district hospital in Khe Tre.

On the other side of the room was a 77 year old man with a very severe cough.  His son had brought him to the clinic, quite concerned for his father.  The nurses prodded and thumped and listened – and even asked if he smoked.  Almost all Katu smoke a pipe – even the women.  The more experienced Vietnamese doctor took one look and realized the old man had tuberculosis.  Though he was sent on to the hospital, I am sure the old man will go home to die with his family around him.

On this day, there were more patients than usual because a government family planning team was visiting the clinic.  Viet Nam has a very high birth rate among the poor and the government is trying to lower it.   One of the strategies is to have women have an IUD contraceptive device implanted as most men refuse to use a condom.  The team brought along a portable sonogram and used it to see if the IUD has been correctly inserted.  Notice the pattern on the woman’s pants – it is indicative that she is Katu.

Scabies is a scourge, but controllable.  This itchy and uncomfortable skin condition results from tiny mites that get into the skin.  Often, patients are cured, only to go home and sleep in the same bed with other members of the family with scabies – and get reinfected.   Dr. Nguyen Thi Anh Phuong passes out medicine to cure the problem after she led an impromptu public health class in the cure and prevention of the disease.

I’ve also been working with some community health efforts and a safe water project.  More on those later.