I was going to a wedding – and I was going to get dressed up. In fact, I was not only part of the wedding, but I knew folks would be looking at the big American in his ào dài. (say ow yie) I figured a haircut was in order.
So, I asked Mr. Cu to take me to his hớt tóc (barbershop.) As always, Cu had his camera.
Barbershops are not necessarily in a business part of town. This one is in a neighborhood, at the end of an alley and is part of the barber’s house. Nice place for the local kids to get a glimpse of the stranger.
I keep my hair fairly short – and I asked for my hair to be cut short – but when I saw the first bit of hair come off my head, I realized the barber had a different idea of “short” than I did. But one of the things about a haircut is that it grows back. I can deal with short.
To answer some questions before they are asked: No, I did not ask him to clean my ears, though he had the requisite little brushes to do that. No, I didn’t get a “massage”, meaning the beating around the shoulders and neck that suffices to be a massage. No, I didn’t have to engage in the usual barbershop chatter – the man had never heard of football.
If one were to read most of the posts on this blog, one would think we are here in Việt Nam to just see the sights, go to a wedding, eat good food and ride a motorbike.
That may be true for me, but not for Cindy. She has work to do, though she will be the first to tell you that it is not work for her – it is a labor of love.
Since 2006, Cindy has been teaching a course in English medical terminology to the medical professionals of Huế. In the world of medicine, as in the world of business, aviation and many other fields, English is the standard. Research reports are written in English. When Vietnamese physicians go to conferences in Singapore or Japan, the language will be English. Visiting specialists will use English to converse with their Vietnamese colleagues. A group of Cindy’s current students will be going to Finland to study – and they will use English. And it just won’t do for a doctor or nurse to point to her left arm and say “This bone right here.” She needs to know the correct medical term for it.
These are motivated students. They already have passable general English skills, but now they need to add correct medical terms and names of procedures to their vocabulary. For a non-medical person, the entire class is gibberish, but to a medical professional’s ears, they are just learning the English term for words they already use in their practice of medicine and nursing. These two members of the nursing faculty are preparing themselves for overseas training.
For this class, Cindy’s students have new textbooks, all donated by the generous members of St. Peter & St. Paul Episcopal Church in Mission, Texas. The books will be a resource for them long after Cindy has returned home. Of course, such a gift creates a good relationship between the peoples of America and Việt Nam. It also continues to grow the work of MEDRIX, an excellent Seattle area group that has been doing health education work in central Việt Nam since the mid-1990s. These books will be well-thumbed during the next few years.
And it is a joy to watch my wife teach. It is a joy to watch because teaching is such an obvious joy to her. She loves working with these students – and her devotion to their learning is felt by the students. Questions are asked and answers given and the questions are not always just about English terminology. They may be about a procedure or condition the students would like more information about. As with any good teacher, if Cindy doesn’t know the answer, she will tell the inquirer that she will have an answer by the next class meeting.
One last photo for all you nurses out there. In Cindy’s classroom was a bust of Florence Nightingale. While seeming a bit strange to see in this Asian country, it was also nice to know that the spirit of caring for others transcends cultures. Love, not English, is the true international language.
I love to ride on two wheels. In the US, I ride a scooter – no, not a little putt putt like Audrey Hepburn rode around Rome with. Mine is a road-going 400cc Suzuki , and I’ve written some stories about my rides on it.
In Việt Nam, people ride for a different reason. Whereas most bikes in the US are ridden for recreation, the bike is used for regular daily transportation in Việt Nam. And riding is done differently too – very differently.
But first -to my riding friends in the US who are all saying “Hey – what’s with the shorts, t-shirt and sandals?” They never see me on my scoot unless I am fully swathed with protective clothing – mesh pants and jacket, gloves, boots and full helmet.
(Be sure to click the photos to see a larger version.)
I admit that to some degree, I have to say that it’s easier to just go with the flow – nobody wears protective gear here. But there are some other reasons, not the least of which is speed. You seldom go very fast here. In the videos below, it looks like I am going fast, but actually, I am only going 20 miles per hour – 25 at the most. Obviously, one can still get hurt at 25 mph, but the road rash would be significantly less than it would be at 70mph in the US. With heat in Việt Nam, it would just be too much hassle to take in on and off just to go to the next block for coffee, then again to go to the store and still again at the market.
The scooters and motorbikes in Việt Nam seldom leave town – the vast majority of the riding is done going to work, to the market, running errands or to meet friends. People ride around town in the rain and at night. When one does ride outside of town, it is not for fun either – it is because you have an errand. I few days ago, I rode down to Lăng Cô to see Trang. It took me about two hours, riding comfortably at 30-40 mph and stopping to take photos. Route One is the major north-south artery of the country. In and around Huế, it is a four lane road, but it narrows down to two lanes just south of Phú Bài, where Huế ‘s airport is located. As expected, the road carries heavy trucks, inter-city busses and cars, but it also carries motorbikes and even bicycles.
While the road is in good condition (an improvement from even a few years ago), the variety of vehicles make things “interesting.” I might have to pass an old lady on a bicycle while being passed by a large truck. And not all passing is done on the left either. Most traffic laws are just suggestions here. A bus might cross the center line to pass a truck even though there are motorbikes in the oncoming lane. The bus driver knows the motorbikes will get out of the way. Notice that there is enough room on the shoulder for a motorbike – barely enough room. Going through small villages, the local residents have built market places right on the road. Now you have heavy truck traffic barreling through local motorbike traffic and people walking across the road – with children thrown in to the mix. Is it dangerous? You bet it is – and Việt Nam’s traffic accident death rate is one of the highest in the world.
But the two-wheeled rider boogies along. Việt Nam is upgrading from the motorbike (similar to a motorcycle with manual transmission) to the scooter (which the Vietnamese refer to as a motorbike even though it has a step-through design and an automatic transmission.) Helmets were required beginning in 2008 and that is enforced by the traffic police. Laws against carrying more than two people were enacted, but it is not uncommon to see a family of three on a moto.
A few days later, Cindy and I rode north of north of Huế to spend some time with Trang and her family. They live in a small village off the highway. I’d forgotten the way from the main road to their home, so one of Trang’s brothers rode out to meet us and lead the way. This is a different kind of scootering – you don’t need an off-road bike, but the pathway is narrow and bumpy. My speed was about 15 mph – maybe a little slower in the narrowest places.
(My laptop lacks the horsepower to edit video – this is right out of the camera.)
And riding through the city is different, mainly because of the traffic rules – or lack of rules. At the beginning of the video you will see I make a left turn and ride on the left side of the road for a bit. That scares the hell out of an American rider, but is standard practice here. You just hug the curb until a hole opens in traffic, then slide on over to the ride side. Not a big deal. Notice too that before I make a right turn, there is a van with the right turn signal flashing, but the driver is not in the right lane. Also normal. Traffic is crazy in Việt Nam until you get used to it.
And remember, American riders – this is all much slower than what you are used to. The largest machine that can be bought and ridden with a regular license is 150cc, and most bikes are 110 or 125cc. Anything over 150cc requires a special license.
And oh yeah – the reverse of licenses is true in Việt Nam – one gets his motorbike license first; the auto driving license is the special license you get later.
Yes – Việt Nam is in the throes of dramatic change. Yes – if you want to see “the Real Việt Nam”, you had better hurry up. Yes – the old ways are disappearing, but less so in the countryside than in the two large cities of Hà Nội and Sài Gòn. The typical village marketplace is still exotic to western eyes – enough so that care must be taken not to fall into the trap if thinking no changes have come to the villages. Many homes have high speed Internet connections and all the market ladies use a cell phone, but the market is indeed a throwback to older days.
So read this, then check back and reread Ten Years After and look at the pictures of the Vincom Center.
Few village homes have a refrigerator, so going to market is done twice a day to be sure food is fresh. This is a great way for the ladies to get the latest news (and gossip) as well as buy the ingredients for the next meal. Most of the villagers have a small plot of land devoted to growing food – the market is where you go to buy what you don’t grow. The vegetables this lady is buying were harvested only hours before they were bought – much fresher than in an American supermarket – or in a Vietnamese supermarket.
(As always, be sure to click on the photos to see a full size version.)
The same is true of meat – most of it is very fresh. These chickens were pecking in the yard only a short time before. If you want chickens that are even fresher, you can often buy them alive and slaughter them yourself. The Vietnamese diet uses meat as a flavoring agent rather than as the main part of the dish. In other words, the Vietnamese do not sit down to a steak dinner, but rather have bits of meat added to a soup or other dish. Chicken, pork and fish are all local.
Notice I say “Most of the meat is very fresh.” The possible exception might be beef. While there are cows in the countryside, they are not as common as chickens or pigs. Việt Nam does not have large grazing areas as we have in the US. Often the beef will come from another nearby village. For that reason, beef is usually the most expensive source of protein. In this case, the lady was charging 190,000 Vietnamese đông per kilo. That would be almost ten dollars for a kilo. Since a half kilo is a little over a pound, you can see why the average Vietnamese dinner does not have a lot of beef – it is expensive. Vietnamese beef is not the best. If the Carl’s Jr hamburger joint in the Vincom Center wants top notch burgers, the beef will most likely come from Australia.
The market is a busy place when it’s open, but it is not open all day. After the morning session, each vendor needs to go home to do her own domestic chores, then return to buy and sell again in the afternoon. Each person returns to her own small stall – everybody knows where different products are sold and where each person’s stall is located. Notice the bananas on the right – we are in the produce section. Each vender only sells one product or a small number of similar products – she may sell four or five different vegetables, while another lady sells cooking oil and still another sells different kinds of fish.
Of course, cooking requires cutlery. These knives are not fancy, but they work and they are inexpensive. I was told these were not made locally, but rather came from the Hà Nội area. I doubt they keep a keen edge very long, which probably explains why I saw the meat vendors use a sharpening steel rod frequently.
As I wander these rural village markets, I always see little old ladies, usually squatting by the side, trying to sell some pitifully small quantity of something. They no longer have to vigor to be able to do their own gardening, so they sell something that requires little care to grow, such as the three small squashes this lady has. She is eighty six years old, yet still comes to market. Being careful of her dignity, my friend Mr. Cu slipped a few đông in her hand. Her expression didn’t change - her mind may not have been able to comprehend the charity extended to her. I noticed she was clean and her clothing well mended, so her family is caring for her as they try to give her some feeling of worth by bringing her to the market, knowing the village women will watch over her.
I know the Vincom Center in Sài Gòn is an indication of economic growth and progress, but I also know you will never see a little old lady trying to sell her squash inside the posh shopping mall.
And, in the manner of old folks, we say that it seems like only yesterday since we returned to Việt Nam for the first time since the war. As I write this, I am sitting in the domestic terminal of Tân Sơn Nhất airport, gazing across the tarmac at the old aircraft revetments left by the Americans, I recall the anxiety and fear Cindy and I both felt in 2002. Now, returning to Việt Nam is akin to slipping on an old pair of shoes. The only anxiety we have now is having to wait until we see our friends and former students.
We spent two days in Sài Gòn. It gave us a chance to see friends who live there. Mel has lived in Sài Gòn for seven years and makes the occasional trip back to the US. He speaks Vietnamese and is more comfortable in Sài Gòn than in San Francisco. Thanx for the breakfast, Mel – and for helping us find SIM cards for our phones.
Dinner was at the home of Hanh and her baby – or more exactly, her in-law’s home. Her husband Phu was sent off to the US by his employer for six months, but technology means they can stay connected. It least he will be able to see Nho taking her first steps, even if it is only by Skype.
(Be sure to click on each photo to see a larger version.)
The second day’s breakfast was with Thanh, another of our former students. She earned her Master’s degree in America and returned home last year. Was it really seven years ago you were my student, Thanh?
All of which focuses me back on today’s Việt Nam. Since the publication of “Same River, Different Water”, my focus has been on Vietnam the War. Most veterans think the book is another war book – and I have a hard time getting them to understand that it is about today’s Việt Nam. Once they understand this book is different, most veterans have a very hard time coming to terms with the idea that their memories have no relation to the country of today. With the constant swapping of emails and Facebook postings, the veterans are focused on the war. For me, this going back and forth between the war and the Việt Nam of today is very difficult.
Each trip back to Việt Nam brings more evidence of the rapid changes in the country. The span between a veteran’s memories and the reality of today’s Việt Nam keeps widening.
As an example, can any veteran tell me where this photo was taken?
“Doug – that doesn’t look like any ambush site I ever saw.” “Doug – is that place air conditioned?” “Where the hell did you take that picture, Doug? Japan? It sure as hell isn’t The Nam.”
But, of course, it is in Sài Gòn, across the street from the stately old Notre Dame Catholic Cathedral. It is the Vincom Center, a tall office and apartment complex with six floors of premium retail spaces that are at street level and below. Why below ground? It’s in anticipation of the subway system being planned with the help of Japan.
I can’t say that I am a Versache kind of guy. Besides not having the money to buy clothes there, the place is just not my style. I also wondered if any Vietnamese would shop there.
I found the answer was “Yes.” The same guy who I saw get out of his chauffeured Lexus earlier in the day has the money to shop in exclusive stores. Thanh was with us and I asked her if she hoped to be able to shop in this very high end shopping center. I was surprised, knowing she is just starting out, to find out that she might shop at Vincom Center now – it would be a place where she could find cosmetics and other luxury items of high quality. Or she might shop for a few fancy clothes for her own child in the future – or buy kid’s clothes for a friend’s baby. As I said earlier, I still grapple with how fast this country is growing.
On the bottom level – what will someday be subway station level – is the food court. Want some Korean barbeque? Cream puffs? How about some pasta? Yes, you can get the usual Vietnamese foods, such as phở (found at the ubiquitous Phở 24 restaurant chain) and you might want some ice cream.
How about a hamburger? Not a problem.
And I will answer your next question – no, McDonald’s has not come to Việt Nam yet, though Starbucks just opened a store. Pizza Hut is all over the place and Kentucky Fried Chicken is booming.
But there is one thing that is very distinctly Vietnamese about the Vincom Center. Yes, there is underground parking, just like you find at many big-city malls in the US, but the vehicles parked at Vincom are different. With the taxes on automobiles in Việt Nam at 150% of the selling price, most folks get around on a motorbike.
I Wonder where they will park all the cars when I come back in another ten years.
I’ve been living with the thing for almost two years - there were times when it came close to overwhelming my life.
Well - that may be a little too much hype, but still, it was a lot of work.
I am speaking of my first (and last) book - “Same River, Different Water: A Veteran’s Journey from Vietnam to Việt Nam”. It is finally at the publishers. I am waiting for the copy editor’s feedback - I suspect there will be a lot of rewriting to do - and that will take time - but at least I can see the end of this thing.
Thanksgiving saw three Vietnamese in our home - and it has become the norm to have Vietnamese share and learn about this wonderful American traditional celebration of excess in food and football. But this year, we had a couple join us whom we had never met. Being our age, the husband was a Vietnam vet. He enjoyed being around the Vietnamese, but he could not imagine himself going back to the place where he had created so many bad memories.
I’ve had that reaction from veterans so many times since we returned in 2006 that I expect it - and whats more, I understand it. Knowing why they are mistrustful of a place that had such a negative impact on their lives is the prime reason why I deal with the topic early in the book - in the first few paragraphs of Chapter One.
Trying to decide what stories to tell and what not to tell has been one of the more difficult decisions while writing the book. I wanted to concentrate on describing today’s Việt Nam, but as my editor kept reminding me, the only association Americans have with the country is the war - there would be no connection otherwise. But I also did not want to write another “My Year in The Nam” book either - there are a lot of those out there, and most of them written better than anything I could write. I had to figure out how to combine my two views - my time in the country when there was a war going on compared to the very different country it is today.
And that took time - a lot more time than I had anticipated it would take when I first started writing the thing two years ago.
Here’s one of the 123 photos in the book - part of the skyline of today’s Saigon.
Appearances can be very deceiving. Who would think this ebullient and very attractive Vietnamese young woman would have a constitution of iron?
Oanh (similar to saying the name Juan in Spanish) went to Đại Học Sư Phạm Huế, the College of Education at the University of Huế. In Việt Nam, the teacher’s colleges take the best and brightest - only a medical school requires higher entrance scores. Because the tuition is waived at Sư Phạm, Oanh incurred an obligation to teach after graduation. She was assigned to Nam Đông, a remote mountainous area west of Huế inhabited mostly by minority hill people. It is a long way from Huế. Her mother and 12 year old brother live in Huế. Her mother is not that old, but has no education and survives by selling small sundries from her home.
Every week end, Oanh would throw a leg over her motorbike and ride home to Huế. Besides helping her mother with a little extra money, she would also work as a waitress and travel desk clerk at the Mandarin Café. I asked her why she wanted the job doing menial work as a waitress when she was a university graduate. Her answer? She wanted to improve her English
Last October, Oanh and her boyfriend decided to get married and got the proper paperwork from the government. From what I understand about Vietnamese law, they are legally married. A few days after getting the license, but before having any kind of ceremony, her husband suffered an accident on his construction job and lost his right leg - above the knee. He gets $40 a month and has a poorly fitted artificial limb given to him by a charity.
Vietnamese custom dictates that if you break or lose part of a bone, you cannot have sex for one year. That means Oanh and her husband have never consummated their marriage. Since they have never had a formal ceremony, they must wait until this October when the year is up.
It has been a super hassle for Oanh to teach in Nam Đông, spend time with her husband who lives with his parents in Phu Bai, come in to Huế to care for mom and kid brother and work at the Mandarin. It would be a great help if she were able to transfer schools and get a teaching job in Huế . She would be close to Mom and only a ten minute motorbike ride from her husband.
But – she could not afford the “fees” she would have to pay the school officials to let her change jobs. She didn’t have the five to ten thousand dollars needed to grease the right palms.
Enter Mr. Cu. It seems he knows a certain woman who is in charge of education for Thừa Thiên - Huê Province. A few days ago, Cu was called to a meeting of the provincial education committee. It seems the Minister of Education and Training for all of Việt Nam was coming and he wanted to see one of the orphanages Cu helps.
At the meeting, Cu mentioned Oanh's predicament - - and voila, the change is made. No bribe - no paperwork - just done! The change was made right then.
The next day, I went to the Mandarin for breakfast – and I thought Oanh's face was going the break in half from the huge smile!
But that is typical – she is always smiling and says (in excellent English) “I try to always be happy.”
The heart of this trip - to bring Aí Nhân (say eye nyun) to America for graduate studies. Today was the The Big Meeting - the one where I tell her parents that Cindy and I will take good care of their daughter while she in the United States. Parting is difficult - Aí Nhân’s father has suffered from multiple strokes and has been unable to speak for three years.
The Vietnamese are family people, so the house was crowded with sisters and brothers-in-laws and children. And of course, such a gathering requires food - lots of it.
Trust me folks - this is just the first food that was served. The bowl closest to the camera is a beef and veggies dish, in the middle are shrimp (huge, too) and in the back, pork. To the right is a small bowl of salt, pepper and lemon juice that the shrimp is dipped in - what Cindy calls Vietnamese ketchup. What you don’t see are the bowls of rice, the fish, the vegetable soup with shrimp and more dishes I can’t recall. Of course, the “dessert” is lotus seeds in a sweet syrup. The entire meal is delicious - just way too much. Aí Nhân is next to me and her mother next. The gentleman in the right of the photo is one of her brothers-in-law.
Aí Nhân is the baby of the family - the last of the unmarried children but the first to leave Việt Nam for education. There were lots of questions about her studies, how and where she would live - and most important to her parents, how Cindy and I would look after her. I had the feeling that they were very happy I had come to get her rather than just putting her on an airplane and hoping she would be okay.
As I write this, it is Monday - and her new life begins Sunday. I’m hoping that when we arrive home next Monday at 2:50 PM, there will be a nice group of well-wishers at the airport to welcome her to her new home.
West of Sài Gòn lies Tây Ninh Province, which borders on Cambodia. Ah yes - we old guys from the 1st Cav remember it well - and anyone who was in the area remembers Núi Bà Đen - or as we Americans called it, the Black Virgin Mountain. It rose up out of the flat plains all by itself and could be seen easily from the big Tay Ninh base camp as well as numerous fire bases in the area. If you were up in a helicopter, you saw it.
During the war, the Americans held the top of the mountain where we operated a radio relay facility, but the middle of the mountains (and the bottom too, at night) was controlled by the Communist forces. There were many fire fights on the big hill and heroes on both sides.
There being a distinct absence of black people in Việt Nam, I often wondered about the name. Legend has it that around the turn of the last century, during the time of French colonialism, there was a beautiful young peasant girl who fell in love. She and and her man decided to get married, but the nasty ol’ landowner wanted to add her to his stable of wives. Rather than submit to marriage with a man she didn’t love, she ran away to the mountain. When the landowner’s men pursued her, she dove off the mountain to her death. But nobody knew her name. As the legend grew, her moniker became that of a peasant girl who dressed in the black clothing of her social status. She was The Lady in Black, rather than The Black Lady.
The local people took the story to heart and the legend grew. She became a demi-goddess - someone who would accept the petitions of others. A small shrine was erected and people made the trek up the steep mountain.
Which brings us to today. The faithful still beseech the Lady for help, but the shrine is much bigger - and the faithful do not need to walk up the mountain.
They take the gondola up the mountain.
The bottom of the mountain today is a park - a nice place for Saigonese to bring the family, enjoy a picnic lunch on the grounds, put the kids on rides - little kiddie rides for the small ones and sliding rides for the bigger kids. Mom and Dad might enjoy the ride too, with a girlish scream from her and a protective squeeze from him. I was there on a summer mid-week day and the crowds weren’t bad, but I’m told the weekends bring out the hordes.
But the main attraction is still The Lady. The shrine is about ¾ of the way to the top. The gondola takes you to within 100 (or so) steps of the temple - a bit of a tough climb for some of the elderly people I saw. Once past the souvenir stand and the huge new bronze bell being erected, the temple on the outside shields the grotto where prayers are made. It is a small cave - supposedly where The Lady hid before her death. Shoes are removed, reverence is given and petitions made. One young couple with a little girl were asking The Lady for a little boy - a typical request in a country where the government limits the number of children to two.
But for you veterans reading this - you don’t care about shrines and kiddie rides. You want to know about your old fire base or LZ. For many of those old jungle outposts, you will need scuba gear to visit them today.
A number of years ago, a dam was built, creating Dầu Tiếng Lake. While providing irrigation water and some electricity to the area, it is also a popular recreational site. The best one can do is stand on the shore and say “Somewhere out there was my old firebase.”
For this trip, lets go south rather than north from Sài Gòn. Lets go to Bình Chánh, a place some of us remember well from 1967.
Back then, Bình Chánh was a bucolic farm village on Route 4, the main artery into the Mekong River delta area. The road had two lanes and was in terrible condition. We were well away from the city.
“Bucolic village?” Today Bình Chánh is part of Hồ Chí Minh City. ( By the way - nobody calls it Hồ Chí Minh City - locals still call it Sài Gòn. Hồ Chí Minh City has too many syllables.) To get there, just point yourself south out of the central area.
(Be sure to click on the photos to see the full size version.)
Think of Bình Chánh as a poorer suburb - an area of town that is less expensive than the central part of the city. Just off the main road are factories, many of them Taiwanese companies. Like Biên Hòa to the north, it has easy access to the deep water ports of Sài Gòn. (More about the port in stories titled The Tourists and Its Only Wrap and Roll.)
Traffic gets a little crowded once you get into Bình Chánh because the roadway narrows from six lanes to only four. But you know where you are - look at the sign on the bank.
I have some buddies from B 3/7 Infantry from way back then. (If you don’t know what that militaryese means, don’t worry about it.) Guys - this bank sits at the entrance road to the old fire base we operated out of in 1967.
I even found “Booby Trap Alley”, our nickname for a large dike used like a trail or small dirt road. Some of the readers of this post were badly wounded on Booby Trap Alley - but here it is today, still used for transportation.
So too I found where the school house had been. Of course, I use the term “school house” to refer to the company operating base that was a partially destroyed school building - children never used it while we were there. Today, a young man runs a prosperous exotic bird and fish store on the site of our old stompin’ grounds - and took great pleasure in showing off his wares.
Of course, if you want a quick work out before you go off to your job in the nearby factory, knock yourself out.
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