Old habits die hard. Old opinions are hard to change. Old patterns are hard to break. They are even more difficult when they are embedded in the culture and part of a political mindset. They may be based on painful experience, but they are often maintained when conditions change and stand in the way of progress. When this happens it prevents us from moving on or from providing aid and relief to others There are many examples; Cuban-Americans can’t let go of their pain and hatred of Castro’s Cuba. Israelis continue to build settlements on the West Bank when it is clear that it will prevent a negotiated solution to their mutual problem. And – Vietnamese-Americans have such distrust of the communist government in their homeland that their distrust prevents them from helping other Vietnamese and Vietnamese-Americans when there is an opportunity. New generations tend to inherit the attitudes and opinions of their parent generations.
Sometimes these opinions and behaviors are difficult to understand. Evolution and global warming are the best examples I know of. Both are supported by the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence, but some groups refuse to accept their truth. Agent Orange is another example where the science is not in question but political opinion and hard feelings have limited the US government and Vietnamese-American groups from accepting them and dealing directly with the consequences.
The facts are these: between 1961 and 1971 the United States sprayed 77 million gallons of defoliants, including 11 million gallons of Agent Orange over the forests of Vietnam. Agent Orange is an herbicidal defoliant and by itself is not toxic, but dioxin, a by-product of the manufacturing process is the most toxic chemical ever developed. Not only is it a carcinogen; it is also a terratogen a fat soluble chemical that causes chromosomal damage and birth defects that are passed from generation to generation. The US Veterans Administration recognizes 19 diseases (mostly cancers) that are Agent Orange “related” and those veterans affected are now eligible for care and compensation.
Vietnamese populations, both American and those in Vietnam continue to be affected by the deadly chemical. The current generation, the third since the war, shows continuing evidence of birth defects and latent cancers. As many as 4 million Vietnamese are still affected and no one has calculated the number of overseas Vietnamese with lingering symptoms. East Meets West is working with the Ford Foundation to determine the best practices in dealing with the consequences and allocating funds to treat the survivors. Large segments of both populations are affected. Agent Orange is no longer a political issue. Denying the problem is not helpful. Both governments are working on solutions to the last remaining issue standing in the way of full normalization of relations between the two countries. Those affected can be helped. Let’s embrace the solution not the past.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Monday, November 30, 2009
The Space Time Continuum
Progress is a difficult word to get a handle on. What is it exactly? How do we measure it? What timeframes are appropriate for evaluating it? Is it linear? Is it always a positive thing? We’ve obviously made a lot of it in some fields - from mainframes to iPhones in computing, from the Model A to the Prius in automobiles; from segregated schools to the election of an African American President. Sometimes progress astonishes us. In just 53 years the US moved from a society that recognized separate-but-equal as a legal construct to a government led by someone who might have been barred from voting in some jurisdictions at the beginning of the period.
But social or political progress is a seesawing proposition. It is definitely not linear. Science is different. We can see it happen. Its progress is linear but not always positive. The atomic bomb and Agent Orange are products of science but so are the polio vaccine and heart transplants.
Nowhere in my lifetime is progress more personal and tangible than in aviation. The world recognizes the Wright brothers’ flight at Kitty Hawk on December 17, 1903 as the first of its kind. It was 120 feet from start to finish at an altitude of 10 feet. I was born exactly thirty-four years after that first flight, the same year that Amelia Earhart missed tiny Howland Island in the South Pacific and was lost at sea on her historic attempt to circumnavigate the globe. 22 years after Earhart disappeared I received a lapel pin from the Chance Vought Company for flying their Marine Corps fighter 1000 miles per hour just off the coast of California. 10 years after that Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. From Kitty Hawk to the moon in 66 years.
Last night I saw Amelia, the film biography of Amelia Earhart. She was a celebrity and a pioneer. People were awestruck by the woman and her accomplishments – the first woman to solo the Atlantic, first to fly from Hawaii to the US mainland, and the first to attempt an equatorial circumnavigation of the earth. Those pioneering days seem so distant – but her last flight occurred in my lifetime and now I commute between Seattle and Saigon in less than a day. Even Amelia would be surprised at that kind of progress.
But social or political progress is a seesawing proposition. It is definitely not linear. Science is different. We can see it happen. Its progress is linear but not always positive. The atomic bomb and Agent Orange are products of science but so are the polio vaccine and heart transplants.
Nowhere in my lifetime is progress more personal and tangible than in aviation. The world recognizes the Wright brothers’ flight at Kitty Hawk on December 17, 1903 as the first of its kind. It was 120 feet from start to finish at an altitude of 10 feet. I was born exactly thirty-four years after that first flight, the same year that Amelia Earhart missed tiny Howland Island in the South Pacific and was lost at sea on her historic attempt to circumnavigate the globe. 22 years after Earhart disappeared I received a lapel pin from the Chance Vought Company for flying their Marine Corps fighter 1000 miles per hour just off the coast of California. 10 years after that Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. From Kitty Hawk to the moon in 66 years.
Last night I saw Amelia, the film biography of Amelia Earhart. She was a celebrity and a pioneer. People were awestruck by the woman and her accomplishments – the first woman to solo the Atlantic, first to fly from Hawaii to the US mainland, and the first to attempt an equatorial circumnavigation of the earth. Those pioneering days seem so distant – but her last flight occurred in my lifetime and now I commute between Seattle and Saigon in less than a day. Even Amelia would be surprised at that kind of progress.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Shock and More Shock
I'm in all kinds of shock since I got back to Seattle a week ago. Weather shock - 50F instead of 90F. Clutter shock - aware of all the stuff that fills our condo as opposed to the spareness of our apartment in Saigon. Food shock - the amount of fat on or in everything and the portion sizes offered. Shopping shock - noticing the number of shiny new shopping bags people are carrying out of downtown stores. If consumer confidence is down in the US I can't see it. Traffic shock - how aggressive and unforgiving drivers are and how fast they go compared to the slow zen-like movement on the streets of Saigon. And, culture shock - how few people make eye contact or say hello in contrast with the friendliness of the people on the streets of Saigon.
It's natural to look for differences. We're moving between a Third World country and the most developed country in the world. But although the contrast is stark it doesn't always favor the developed state. The day I arrived home is the day the crazy Army psychiatrist killed 13 of his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, and yesterday's headlines in Seattle were about a rich eye surgeon who tried to have his partners murdered because he was unhappy with the million dollar split when they decided to change the business model.
Traffic is a nightmare in Saigon and the sidewalks are broken and filled with parked motorbikes that force you to walk in the street. But, I feel safe any time of day or night on the streets of Saigon. I can't say the same about Seattle.
It's natural to look for differences. We're moving between a Third World country and the most developed country in the world. But although the contrast is stark it doesn't always favor the developed state. The day I arrived home is the day the crazy Army psychiatrist killed 13 of his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, and yesterday's headlines in Seattle were about a rich eye surgeon who tried to have his partners murdered because he was unhappy with the million dollar split when they decided to change the business model.
Traffic is a nightmare in Saigon and the sidewalks are broken and filled with parked motorbikes that force you to walk in the street. But, I feel safe any time of day or night on the streets of Saigon. I can't say the same about Seattle.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
It's Not Your Mother's Supermarket
Ben Thanh Market, in the heart of the heart of downtown, is the best known of the public markets in Saigon. It is a must-have-total-immersion experience for everyone from the family shopper to the high end tour group. The market is enclosed in one gigantic structure and covers one square block. I’m not sure what the roof construction is, but the last time Marilynn and I were there it was raining so hard outside that there was a heavy mist inside.
The market catches your eye immediately as you approach. The outer stalls facing the street are the flower sellers – dozens of them. If you enter from the north you are immediately thrown back to the ageless, timeless, markets of the world and an dizzying array of sights, sounds, and smells. The ladies in their conical hats squat beside basins of live eels, octopus, crabs and flopping mackerel. Behind them are the fruit and vegetable vendors with their tables full of carefully arranged produce. Everyone walking through stops to take a picture of the art. The color, the geometry, the orderliness stop the eye and hold it.
The meat, sausage, and poultry are displayed more like they are in a European market – behind glass but in cases open to the air. It’s hard to recognize any of the cuts. They’re different than what we’re used to seeing. When you order chicken in a restaurant it often comes in chunks and looks like the butcher took a bandsaw to the whole bird and cut it into bite sized pieces.
Deeper in the market, food vendors, all with a few seats at narrow counters offer pho, noodles, rice, etc for the breakfast, lunch and dinner crowd. There is plenty to choose from but it isn’t easy to know what they are selling. It’s best to scout out the counters and see what the customers are eating and then point. Is it safe to eat? Probably, if it’s cooked, but the Vietnamese tummy is conditioned and able to cope with whatever travels along with the fruits and vegetables. Ours is not; so the basic rule is don’t eat unpeeled fruit or fresh salads. The exception to the rule is that the better restaurants and those that cater to the expat and tourist trade take extra care and wash their produce with a special product that ensures its safety.
After eating you can shop till you drop, because everything beyond the food vendors is for sale – fabric, watches, clothing, household goods, sweets, art. It’s all there, and, everything that’s for sale has to be bargained for. I’m not very good at it, but my rule of thumb if I want something is to ask the price and then counter-offer with half. If they snap it up I turn away and find another vendor and offer less. There are dozens of vendors with the same products. At least you’ve found a ballpark figure to work with.
Ben Thanh Market has some name brand knockoffs – handbags, watches, clothes, etc, but the better ones are down the street in a newer building called Saigon Square and the same goods that are for sale there are available across the street in a stall for half of that price and with less mystery in the bargaining. We bought Marilynn a “Chanel” leather bag at Ben Thanh for $25 and I bought a “Prada” shoulder bag at a stall for $9. The quality is there if you have time to dig, but it’s harder for the tourist hurrying to catch up with the group or not miss the bus. Your negotiating posture is always better if you have time or don’t really care if you take the particular item home. There’s always next time or another market.
The market catches your eye immediately as you approach. The outer stalls facing the street are the flower sellers – dozens of them. If you enter from the north you are immediately thrown back to the ageless, timeless, markets of the world and an dizzying array of sights, sounds, and smells. The ladies in their conical hats squat beside basins of live eels, octopus, crabs and flopping mackerel. Behind them are the fruit and vegetable vendors with their tables full of carefully arranged produce. Everyone walking through stops to take a picture of the art. The color, the geometry, the orderliness stop the eye and hold it.
The meat, sausage, and poultry are displayed more like they are in a European market – behind glass but in cases open to the air. It’s hard to recognize any of the cuts. They’re different than what we’re used to seeing. When you order chicken in a restaurant it often comes in chunks and looks like the butcher took a bandsaw to the whole bird and cut it into bite sized pieces.
Deeper in the market, food vendors, all with a few seats at narrow counters offer pho, noodles, rice, etc for the breakfast, lunch and dinner crowd. There is plenty to choose from but it isn’t easy to know what they are selling. It’s best to scout out the counters and see what the customers are eating and then point. Is it safe to eat? Probably, if it’s cooked, but the Vietnamese tummy is conditioned and able to cope with whatever travels along with the fruits and vegetables. Ours is not; so the basic rule is don’t eat unpeeled fruit or fresh salads. The exception to the rule is that the better restaurants and those that cater to the expat and tourist trade take extra care and wash their produce with a special product that ensures its safety.
After eating you can shop till you drop, because everything beyond the food vendors is for sale – fabric, watches, clothing, household goods, sweets, art. It’s all there, and, everything that’s for sale has to be bargained for. I’m not very good at it, but my rule of thumb if I want something is to ask the price and then counter-offer with half. If they snap it up I turn away and find another vendor and offer less. There are dozens of vendors with the same products. At least you’ve found a ballpark figure to work with.
Ben Thanh Market has some name brand knockoffs – handbags, watches, clothes, etc, but the better ones are down the street in a newer building called Saigon Square and the same goods that are for sale there are available across the street in a stall for half of that price and with less mystery in the bargaining. We bought Marilynn a “Chanel” leather bag at Ben Thanh for $25 and I bought a “Prada” shoulder bag at a stall for $9. The quality is there if you have time to dig, but it’s harder for the tourist hurrying to catch up with the group or not miss the bus. Your negotiating posture is always better if you have time or don’t really care if you take the particular item home. There’s always next time or another market.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
An Phu and District 7
In the 1960’s and ‘70s I spent some time in Beirut. It was the financial center of the Middle East. The French were there. The Brits were there. The Americans were there. And the sheiks of the Middle East used it as an escape from the rigid rules of their own kingdoms.
Beirut was mostly about oil. There was none there, but it was where it was traded and where the revenue was exchanged for goods and services. One company dominated the Middle East in those days – Aramco – the Arabian American Oil Company. It operated exclusively in Saudi Arabia, and Aramco compounds, the small cities where the employees lived, were modern, complete, walled, and self sustaining cities within the boundaries of Saudia. Nice houses and apartments, supermarkets, swimming pools, movie theaters, and clubs. You could live in an Aramco compound for years and never see how ordinary Saudi citizens lived.
I was reminded of the Aramco compounds this week. My personal Saigon is the downtown core, Districts 1 and 3, where I work, eat, drink coffee, and workout, but the city is much bigger than these two neighborhoods. Most of my needs are met here, but not all foreigners – expats – feel that way. There are two other districts, 2 and 7, where the majority of the expats have chosen to live. On Friday I went to visit a new acquaintance, a German architect who has been working in Saigon for 10 years. Axel Korn, lives and works in District 7. He lived in District 1 for a couple of years, but moved to 7 because that’s where his office and most of his work is located.
You have to cross the river from downtown to get to District 7 and then drive through an area of rundown tin-roofed structures and plant nurseries. All over Saigon businesses selling the same products group together, but seeing the nurseries could have been a clue about what was to come. Just beyond the nurseries you start to see the high rises of District 7. Drive 5 minutes further and you think you might be in Florida. Palm trees line wide boulevards. A promenade winds along the river. Shopping malls, supermarkets, KFC, they're all there along with the international schools, there must be 10 of them, where the expats send their kids. If I had school age kids I would probably live in District 7 too, but only for the proximity to the schools. It’s not Saigon. We toured one of Axel’s multi-use building complexes. It’s gorgeous with retail on the first two levels, apartments, gyms, three swimming pools and a rooftop terrace with a garden view of the city. But it's not Saigon to me.
On Saturday I visited the other expat area, An Phu, in District 2. My destination was a travel writing workshop, and the venue was a riverside café in the BP compound (British Petroleum – there’s the oil connection again). The compound is lovely. It’s walled and gated with tree lined streets and speed bumps. The houses are hidden behind other walls and the gates have signs that say Beware of Dog or No Solicitors. The Boathouse Café is modern, upscale and open to the view and river breezes. There are outside tables under the trees and you can watch the freighter traffic on its way to the Port of Saigon. It’s a great setting. I had a seared tuna salad with arugula and cherry tomatoes that was delicious. An Phu is not a small Florida city like District 7, but neither An Phu nor District 7 is Saigon for me. There are many sides to the city and they all make it what it is. I still choose the smells, sights, and sounds of the downtown core and Cholon in District 5. They are the real Saigon to me. I'm a newcomer though and I might change my mind.
Beirut was mostly about oil. There was none there, but it was where it was traded and where the revenue was exchanged for goods and services. One company dominated the Middle East in those days – Aramco – the Arabian American Oil Company. It operated exclusively in Saudi Arabia, and Aramco compounds, the small cities where the employees lived, were modern, complete, walled, and self sustaining cities within the boundaries of Saudia. Nice houses and apartments, supermarkets, swimming pools, movie theaters, and clubs. You could live in an Aramco compound for years and never see how ordinary Saudi citizens lived.
I was reminded of the Aramco compounds this week. My personal Saigon is the downtown core, Districts 1 and 3, where I work, eat, drink coffee, and workout, but the city is much bigger than these two neighborhoods. Most of my needs are met here, but not all foreigners – expats – feel that way. There are two other districts, 2 and 7, where the majority of the expats have chosen to live. On Friday I went to visit a new acquaintance, a German architect who has been working in Saigon for 10 years. Axel Korn, lives and works in District 7. He lived in District 1 for a couple of years, but moved to 7 because that’s where his office and most of his work is located.
You have to cross the river from downtown to get to District 7 and then drive through an area of rundown tin-roofed structures and plant nurseries. All over Saigon businesses selling the same products group together, but seeing the nurseries could have been a clue about what was to come. Just beyond the nurseries you start to see the high rises of District 7. Drive 5 minutes further and you think you might be in Florida. Palm trees line wide boulevards. A promenade winds along the river. Shopping malls, supermarkets, KFC, they're all there along with the international schools, there must be 10 of them, where the expats send their kids. If I had school age kids I would probably live in District 7 too, but only for the proximity to the schools. It’s not Saigon. We toured one of Axel’s multi-use building complexes. It’s gorgeous with retail on the first two levels, apartments, gyms, three swimming pools and a rooftop terrace with a garden view of the city. But it's not Saigon to me.
On Saturday I visited the other expat area, An Phu, in District 2. My destination was a travel writing workshop, and the venue was a riverside café in the BP compound (British Petroleum – there’s the oil connection again). The compound is lovely. It’s walled and gated with tree lined streets and speed bumps. The houses are hidden behind other walls and the gates have signs that say Beware of Dog or No Solicitors. The Boathouse Café is modern, upscale and open to the view and river breezes. There are outside tables under the trees and you can watch the freighter traffic on its way to the Port of Saigon. It’s a great setting. I had a seared tuna salad with arugula and cherry tomatoes that was delicious. An Phu is not a small Florida city like District 7, but neither An Phu nor District 7 is Saigon for me. There are many sides to the city and they all make it what it is. I still choose the smells, sights, and sounds of the downtown core and Cholon in District 5. They are the real Saigon to me. I'm a newcomer though and I might change my mind.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
The Zen of Traffic
I’ve been here two months now and I’ve just had an epiphany about Saigon traffic. There are three simple rules: Go Slow. Do No Harm. Don’t Hit Anyone.
There are other “guidelines” such as automobiles stay to the left of the flow and everything else, bikes, cyclos, motorbikes and pushcarts keeps to the right. There are also traffic lights, but they are for the most part advisory. These are the two structural guidelines that help ensure that rules #2 and #3 are achieved.
There is one and only one safety device - the horn. Both taxis and motorbikes use them constantly, but they too are advisory - "I'm behind you, please ease over to the side." And, your area of concern as a driver is always in front of you. Most vehicles have mirrors, but it's dangerous to look back. Your job is to avoid running into someone ahead of you. If you look in the mirror you will.
In Vietnam motorbikes go anywhere and everywhere that it is possible to squeeze in – between cars, to the left of the cars if there’s a space, on the sidewalk if there’s not and the wrong way on a one-way street if that’s where they need to go. Bicycles roll along in the middle of it all. At first I thought they would stay to the far right, but that was faulty Western thinking. They ride right down the center of the motorbike side. That’s possible because of Rule #1: no one goes fast. Even when the road looks open, which it seldom is, no one dares to go fast. There is always someone entering the road from the sidewalk or an alley or a side street. Almost all motorbike parking is in organized clusters on the sidewalk, and there’s only one way to get into traffic and that’s off the curb.
Cars obey the “go slow” rule diligently. They can do serious harm if anything goes amiss. So they go slow. Most of the cars are taxis and I haven’t been in one yet that had an automatic transmission. I don’t get that at all. In a world where everything operates in slow motion and forward progress is often inches at a time, why don’t the cars have automatic transmissions? I’ve asked the question of lots of people and no one seems to know. The best guess is that cars with manual transmissions are cheaper. I’m not buying it, but it could be true. Cars are very expensive – there’s a serious tax levied on any car that’s sold in Vietnam. Still, taxis rarely get out of first or second gear and often they stall because the driver is in the wrong gear and it lugs down. I can’t believe that an automatic transmission wouldn’t save money in the long run with all the transmission and clutch repair on the manuals.
Anyway, cars go slowly and because they travel on the left when they need to turn right they do a very slow maneuver through the motorbikes and everyone makes room or weaves around as the taxi eases across. Not only do they make this seemingly impossible maneuver in a sea of motorbikes, but they also think nothing of making a U-turn. In the US if someone tried that he would end up in the slammer or the hospital.
But that brings up the most interesting thing about Saigon traffic: road rage is unheard of. I don’t know if it is the Buddhist influence or something more basic in the make up of the people, but millions of people travel the roads every day and I have never seen anyone scowl or shake a fist at anyone else no matter how egregious the offense. It is very Zen-like to be in the flow.
Nothing is perfect; I’ve seen motorbikes down in the street, but to me it’s a miracle that there isn’t a pile up at every corner. Next time I’ll tell you about crossing the street… It's best characterized as risk management.
There are other “guidelines” such as automobiles stay to the left of the flow and everything else, bikes, cyclos, motorbikes and pushcarts keeps to the right. There are also traffic lights, but they are for the most part advisory. These are the two structural guidelines that help ensure that rules #2 and #3 are achieved.
There is one and only one safety device - the horn. Both taxis and motorbikes use them constantly, but they too are advisory - "I'm behind you, please ease over to the side." And, your area of concern as a driver is always in front of you. Most vehicles have mirrors, but it's dangerous to look back. Your job is to avoid running into someone ahead of you. If you look in the mirror you will.
In Vietnam motorbikes go anywhere and everywhere that it is possible to squeeze in – between cars, to the left of the cars if there’s a space, on the sidewalk if there’s not and the wrong way on a one-way street if that’s where they need to go. Bicycles roll along in the middle of it all. At first I thought they would stay to the far right, but that was faulty Western thinking. They ride right down the center of the motorbike side. That’s possible because of Rule #1: no one goes fast. Even when the road looks open, which it seldom is, no one dares to go fast. There is always someone entering the road from the sidewalk or an alley or a side street. Almost all motorbike parking is in organized clusters on the sidewalk, and there’s only one way to get into traffic and that’s off the curb.
Cars obey the “go slow” rule diligently. They can do serious harm if anything goes amiss. So they go slow. Most of the cars are taxis and I haven’t been in one yet that had an automatic transmission. I don’t get that at all. In a world where everything operates in slow motion and forward progress is often inches at a time, why don’t the cars have automatic transmissions? I’ve asked the question of lots of people and no one seems to know. The best guess is that cars with manual transmissions are cheaper. I’m not buying it, but it could be true. Cars are very expensive – there’s a serious tax levied on any car that’s sold in Vietnam. Still, taxis rarely get out of first or second gear and often they stall because the driver is in the wrong gear and it lugs down. I can’t believe that an automatic transmission wouldn’t save money in the long run with all the transmission and clutch repair on the manuals.
Anyway, cars go slowly and because they travel on the left when they need to turn right they do a very slow maneuver through the motorbikes and everyone makes room or weaves around as the taxi eases across. Not only do they make this seemingly impossible maneuver in a sea of motorbikes, but they also think nothing of making a U-turn. In the US if someone tried that he would end up in the slammer or the hospital.
But that brings up the most interesting thing about Saigon traffic: road rage is unheard of. I don’t know if it is the Buddhist influence or something more basic in the make up of the people, but millions of people travel the roads every day and I have never seen anyone scowl or shake a fist at anyone else no matter how egregious the offense. It is very Zen-like to be in the flow.
Nothing is perfect; I’ve seen motorbikes down in the street, but to me it’s a miracle that there isn’t a pile up at every corner. Next time I’ll tell you about crossing the street… It's best characterized as risk management.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Flying Solo
I’ve spent a lot of my adult life traveling and more often than not it has been solo. Sometimes that was by choice and sometimes it came with the job. When I was 25 I spent 6 months wandering around Europe with my guitar and for 19 years, as a Pan Am pilot, I was on my own for dinner in strange locations at least half of every month. I learned how to do things on my own early and that probably made it seem normal even if it wasn’t.
Over the years I’ve gotten a lot of questions about how to deal with so much solo time and how to think about eating out as a solitary traveler in a strange new place. Those questions seem a little odd to me, but that may be because I’ve done a lot of it. I learned to like the quiet time that lets me savor new places, new tastes and people watching without the distraction of other voices and other eyes. I do like traveling with Marilynn because her eyes are seeing foreign places for the first time, and it adds a layer of newness to places I’ve already seen. But I still like going it alone too.
Saigon is a new place for me, and I love the newness. For the first month, while Marilynn was here, we explored it together. She’s gone now, and I’m flying solo again. As an inveterate list maker I'm working on a list of all the new (to me) Saigon restaurants. I started on September 5th, and there are 31 Saigon and 3 Danang restaurants on the list now.
There are times after a long work week when I’d rather veg out on the couch with a beer, a few pieces of cheese, and some olives than haul my ass out to dinner. But today was relaxing and tonight I tried a stylish new place called Sandals that I've walked by a dozen times. It’s in the heart of town, just behind the Opera House. If it was on Venice Blvd in Santa Monica the place would have had a line around the block, but I walked right in and got a great table on the 3rd level where the street-side is open to the air and lined with containers planted with bamboo like a tropical screen. The menu is simple, which I like. I picked the 3 course set menu – a delicious tropical fruit and grilled prawn salad, a Greek souvlaki with pita bread, and a dessert of star fruit, melon, kiwi, and coconut ice cream. I had two beers and finished with an espresso and the total bill was $20.
And did I tell you that the service was terrific and included a visit by the owner, Louie, and an absolutely gorgeous Filipino hostess named Lani? Eating alone is not always a hardship - but sometimes it can be a little lonely. Take along a book or a paper and you won't feel so conspicuous.
Over the years I’ve gotten a lot of questions about how to deal with so much solo time and how to think about eating out as a solitary traveler in a strange new place. Those questions seem a little odd to me, but that may be because I’ve done a lot of it. I learned to like the quiet time that lets me savor new places, new tastes and people watching without the distraction of other voices and other eyes. I do like traveling with Marilynn because her eyes are seeing foreign places for the first time, and it adds a layer of newness to places I’ve already seen. But I still like going it alone too.
Saigon is a new place for me, and I love the newness. For the first month, while Marilynn was here, we explored it together. She’s gone now, and I’m flying solo again. As an inveterate list maker I'm working on a list of all the new (to me) Saigon restaurants. I started on September 5th, and there are 31 Saigon and 3 Danang restaurants on the list now.
There are times after a long work week when I’d rather veg out on the couch with a beer, a few pieces of cheese, and some olives than haul my ass out to dinner. But today was relaxing and tonight I tried a stylish new place called Sandals that I've walked by a dozen times. It’s in the heart of town, just behind the Opera House. If it was on Venice Blvd in Santa Monica the place would have had a line around the block, but I walked right in and got a great table on the 3rd level where the street-side is open to the air and lined with containers planted with bamboo like a tropical screen. The menu is simple, which I like. I picked the 3 course set menu – a delicious tropical fruit and grilled prawn salad, a Greek souvlaki with pita bread, and a dessert of star fruit, melon, kiwi, and coconut ice cream. I had two beers and finished with an espresso and the total bill was $20.
And did I tell you that the service was terrific and included a visit by the owner, Louie, and an absolutely gorgeous Filipino hostess named Lani? Eating alone is not always a hardship - but sometimes it can be a little lonely. Take along a book or a paper and you won't feel so conspicuous.
Try to imagine what it was like...
It’s 8 o'clock on Friday night. It’s raining and blowing so hard I can barely see across the street and there's no interval between the lightning flashes and the earth shaking thunder. I’m safe inside my apartment but trying to imagine what it might have been like for a 19 year old grunt 50 miles south of Danang in 1968?
This isn't a creative writing exercise - I met that 19 year old boy today. He dropped out of school at 16 and his father put him right to work on the family farm, but he saw the writing on the wall and volunteered for the draft. Less than a year later he was on the ground near My Tam with an M-16 in his hands. That was 41 years ago.
He’s 60 years old now and the first returning Vietnam vet I’ve met since I took this job in Saigon. It’s not his first trip back; that was in 1998 and he’s been back 4 times since then. At first he came with a group called Vietnam Veterans Restoration Project. He signed on with a group of vets like himself to revisit the place that had interrupted their lives and changed them forever. And the VVRP project put them to work building homes and doing other manual labor projects in order to help heal the wounds of war – their own and those of the Vietnamese people they were working with. But after a couple of visits with the VVRP group he found his own project – helping fund and build a simple boarding facility for orphans at a Catholic school near My Tam.
He told me the story of attending Mass, during the war, in a parish church near where he was posted. He and his buddy were the only non-Vietnamese in the congregation. The only thing he remembers clearly is that the Vietnamese worshipers were staring at the barrel of the .45 showing under his fatigue jacket. It was his precaution that morning - just in case there was a VC sniper in the rafters of the church. He hasn’t forgotten.
He talked non-stop for 2 hours about how he left Vietnam on a stretcher after a landmine exploded under his vehicle, and how he left the farm to take a factory job because the family didn’t have enough money to modernize the dairy operation, and how he couldn’t understand why his wife left him when he was never unfaithful to her and took extra jobs on the weekend to provide for her and their three kids. That was 20 years ago, but he’s still confused about it and tells the story as if it happened yesterday.
His name is Jim. He's just an ordinary guy, a truck driver and factory worker from Iowa. But, since 1998 he has donated $10,000 to his school project. Tonight he’s sleeping in a $20 hotel in Saigon waiting to get up to Danang tomorrow to see if he can move his project along. I hope he can. I’m not judging him, but he doesn’t seem to have much else going on in his life and this is a really good thing to do. I’m not sure if he’ll be successful. There have been some legal and land use problems plaguing his project for the last couple of years. When I left him after lunch he was trying to figure out the Vietnamese money he had in his pocket. He was having trouble with the conversion - dropping the last three zeros and dividing by 18. When I put him in a cab I crossed my fingers that the cab driver wouldn’t take advantage of him. He’s a really sweet guy who’s doing everything he can to make things right for some wrongs that happened 40 years ago.
This isn't a creative writing exercise - I met that 19 year old boy today. He dropped out of school at 16 and his father put him right to work on the family farm, but he saw the writing on the wall and volunteered for the draft. Less than a year later he was on the ground near My Tam with an M-16 in his hands. That was 41 years ago.
He’s 60 years old now and the first returning Vietnam vet I’ve met since I took this job in Saigon. It’s not his first trip back; that was in 1998 and he’s been back 4 times since then. At first he came with a group called Vietnam Veterans Restoration Project. He signed on with a group of vets like himself to revisit the place that had interrupted their lives and changed them forever. And the VVRP project put them to work building homes and doing other manual labor projects in order to help heal the wounds of war – their own and those of the Vietnamese people they were working with. But after a couple of visits with the VVRP group he found his own project – helping fund and build a simple boarding facility for orphans at a Catholic school near My Tam.
He told me the story of attending Mass, during the war, in a parish church near where he was posted. He and his buddy were the only non-Vietnamese in the congregation. The only thing he remembers clearly is that the Vietnamese worshipers were staring at the barrel of the .45 showing under his fatigue jacket. It was his precaution that morning - just in case there was a VC sniper in the rafters of the church. He hasn’t forgotten.
He talked non-stop for 2 hours about how he left Vietnam on a stretcher after a landmine exploded under his vehicle, and how he left the farm to take a factory job because the family didn’t have enough money to modernize the dairy operation, and how he couldn’t understand why his wife left him when he was never unfaithful to her and took extra jobs on the weekend to provide for her and their three kids. That was 20 years ago, but he’s still confused about it and tells the story as if it happened yesterday.
His name is Jim. He's just an ordinary guy, a truck driver and factory worker from Iowa. But, since 1998 he has donated $10,000 to his school project. Tonight he’s sleeping in a $20 hotel in Saigon waiting to get up to Danang tomorrow to see if he can move his project along. I hope he can. I’m not judging him, but he doesn’t seem to have much else going on in his life and this is a really good thing to do. I’m not sure if he’ll be successful. There have been some legal and land use problems plaguing his project for the last couple of years. When I left him after lunch he was trying to figure out the Vietnamese money he had in his pocket. He was having trouble with the conversion - dropping the last three zeros and dividing by 18. When I put him in a cab I crossed my fingers that the cab driver wouldn’t take advantage of him. He’s a really sweet guy who’s doing everything he can to make things right for some wrongs that happened 40 years ago.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
38 Babies; All Under 2 Kilograms...
Walking into the Saigon Maternity Hospital, or any other hospital in Saigon, is not like entering any hospital I've ever been to. There is no clear signage leading to the admissions or entry area. There are hundreds of people milling about and the doorways and stairways leading in and out are crowded with people standing, sitting, or drifting around. Enter anywhere and you’ll find the corridors lined with people sitting where they can, on chairs or on the floor. Families come to the hospital to be with their sick or injured family members. They come and they stay.
The maternity hospital, as you might imagine, is a place of great joy and some anguish and apprehension. The joy is self evident – healthy babies and their mothers experiencing the first hours and days of their new lives together. But I was there to visit the neo-natal unit where the joy of new birth is mixed with apprehension. Prematurely born babies are often born without fully developed lungs and consequently aren’t able to absorb the oxygen they desperately need. East Meets West has a program called Breath of Life that delivers the technology needed to help these babies get to the point where they can breathe on their own. We helped developed a CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) machine that delivers oxygen under pressure to these undeveloped lungs. We didn’t invent it, we just figured out how to build one that is inexpensive and can be manufactured and maintained in a Third World country. That's the key; you don't want something complicated that has to be sent back to Germany if it goes kaput. I went to the maternity hospital to see our equipment in action.
Saigon Maternity is not Swedish Hospital. The neo-natal ward I visited was a room about 12’x12’ and there were 38 newborn babies, some 2 to a crib, all under 2 Kilos in that space – and there were several wards just like it on the same floor. Not all the babies were using the CPAP machines, but all were in some sort of distress. Some were under the lights of phototherapy machines, also donated by EMW, that deliver light of a certain wavelength to combat jaundice, also often associated with premature births. The hospital isn’t pretty. Dr. Xuan, the doctor in charge, doesn’t even have a desk, much less an office. He’s too busy. And the life saving machines look like something in the gadget section of the Goodwill. They are dented and the paint is chipped, but they are doing the job – they are saving babies lives that might otherwise be lost.
The next time you or your baby go to the hospital be grateful. Be grateful for the care you get, but also be grateful that there are people like Dr. Xuan and hospitals like Saigon Maternity doing their work under much tougher conditions than your US hospital.
The maternity hospital, as you might imagine, is a place of great joy and some anguish and apprehension. The joy is self evident – healthy babies and their mothers experiencing the first hours and days of their new lives together. But I was there to visit the neo-natal unit where the joy of new birth is mixed with apprehension. Prematurely born babies are often born without fully developed lungs and consequently aren’t able to absorb the oxygen they desperately need. East Meets West has a program called Breath of Life that delivers the technology needed to help these babies get to the point where they can breathe on their own. We helped developed a CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) machine that delivers oxygen under pressure to these undeveloped lungs. We didn’t invent it, we just figured out how to build one that is inexpensive and can be manufactured and maintained in a Third World country. That's the key; you don't want something complicated that has to be sent back to Germany if it goes kaput. I went to the maternity hospital to see our equipment in action.
Saigon Maternity is not Swedish Hospital. The neo-natal ward I visited was a room about 12’x12’ and there were 38 newborn babies, some 2 to a crib, all under 2 Kilos in that space – and there were several wards just like it on the same floor. Not all the babies were using the CPAP machines, but all were in some sort of distress. Some were under the lights of phototherapy machines, also donated by EMW, that deliver light of a certain wavelength to combat jaundice, also often associated with premature births. The hospital isn’t pretty. Dr. Xuan, the doctor in charge, doesn’t even have a desk, much less an office. He’s too busy. And the life saving machines look like something in the gadget section of the Goodwill. They are dented and the paint is chipped, but they are doing the job – they are saving babies lives that might otherwise be lost.
The next time you or your baby go to the hospital be grateful. Be grateful for the care you get, but also be grateful that there are people like Dr. Xuan and hospitals like Saigon Maternity doing their work under much tougher conditions than your US hospital.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
A Coffee Culture without Starbucks
It’s Sunday morning and I’m hanging out, sipping my latte, and reading the International Herald Tribune at one of the Gloria Jean’s Coffee outlets in Saigon. The scene is familiar if you’re a coffee buff. There are some small tables and there are groupings of other more comfortable chairs in the corners of this fresh, modern space. There is floor to ceiling glass on two sides of the place so customers can watch the traffic outside, and there are three welcoming baristas behind the counter.
And… the lattes are world class with an artistic fern design etched into the perfect foam on top. It’s reminiscent of Monorail, Senso Unico or Vivace in Seattle.
Coffee and coffee culture are important in Vietnam, especially in Saigon. Vietnam grows a lot of its own coffee, and some shops specify that the coffee served there is Vietnamese grown. The local drink is interesting too; it’s made by the cup and filtered through a stainless filter. It’s concentrated like espresso and it’s mixed with condensed milk and then poured over ice. It’s delicious and sweet, but don’t drink it in the evening or you won’t get to sleep.
I’m new to Saigon, so I don’t know how long the current coffee culture has been ascendant. I think it’s relatively recent, because Gloria Jean’s, Highlands Coffee, The Coffee Bean, and Illy, the Italian brand, all have new modern spaces and wi-fi. Espresso is served in most of the bakeries and café’s as well as the coffee outlets and most have pretty good French baked goods as well. The local Vietnamese brand is Trung Nguyen Coffee. Their places look like they’ve been around a little longer than the competition and their outlets look a little more on the shabby chic side – but the coffee there is very good too.
What’s really great is that there isn’t a Starbucks in sight. In the interest of full disclosure I have to say that I don’t like Starbucks. It’s not the company really, it’s the founder, Howard Schultz. Starbucks is a Seattle company, but Howard never was or ever will be a Seattleite. Scratch the surface there and you’ll find a New Yorker tried and true. Give him his due, he made Seattle and coffee synonymous. He built a tiny tea and coffee emporium into a world brand and mega-company. But, he never really adopted the city where he found his opportunity. He clashed with and sued his neighbors over a remodel of his house, he bought the local NBA team and promised to build a winner, but when the going got tough he secretly sold the team to an out of town syndicate and pocketed the cash. I favor the local brand where loyalty is more than the bottom line.
My heart stopped briefly yesterday when I saw a Starbucks logo in a shop at the end of my street. No, no, I said, but on closer inspection it was the authentic logo but the shop was a frozen yoghurt place and they had two bags of Starbucks for retail sale. Still, it gets your attention.
And… the lattes are world class with an artistic fern design etched into the perfect foam on top. It’s reminiscent of Monorail, Senso Unico or Vivace in Seattle.
Coffee and coffee culture are important in Vietnam, especially in Saigon. Vietnam grows a lot of its own coffee, and some shops specify that the coffee served there is Vietnamese grown. The local drink is interesting too; it’s made by the cup and filtered through a stainless filter. It’s concentrated like espresso and it’s mixed with condensed milk and then poured over ice. It’s delicious and sweet, but don’t drink it in the evening or you won’t get to sleep.
I’m new to Saigon, so I don’t know how long the current coffee culture has been ascendant. I think it’s relatively recent, because Gloria Jean’s, Highlands Coffee, The Coffee Bean, and Illy, the Italian brand, all have new modern spaces and wi-fi. Espresso is served in most of the bakeries and café’s as well as the coffee outlets and most have pretty good French baked goods as well. The local Vietnamese brand is Trung Nguyen Coffee. Their places look like they’ve been around a little longer than the competition and their outlets look a little more on the shabby chic side – but the coffee there is very good too.
What’s really great is that there isn’t a Starbucks in sight. In the interest of full disclosure I have to say that I don’t like Starbucks. It’s not the company really, it’s the founder, Howard Schultz. Starbucks is a Seattle company, but Howard never was or ever will be a Seattleite. Scratch the surface there and you’ll find a New Yorker tried and true. Give him his due, he made Seattle and coffee synonymous. He built a tiny tea and coffee emporium into a world brand and mega-company. But, he never really adopted the city where he found his opportunity. He clashed with and sued his neighbors over a remodel of his house, he bought the local NBA team and promised to build a winner, but when the going got tough he secretly sold the team to an out of town syndicate and pocketed the cash. I favor the local brand where loyalty is more than the bottom line.
My heart stopped briefly yesterday when I saw a Starbucks logo in a shop at the end of my street. No, no, I said, but on closer inspection it was the authentic logo but the shop was a frozen yoghurt place and they had two bags of Starbucks for retail sale. Still, it gets your attention.
Living Globally
If there was any doubt in my mind that we live in an interconnected global society, today would have expelled it. I woke up at 6am and turned on KPLU-FM, my local NPR station at home in Seattle. Here, it is streamed live and I get it via the website. At 6am here it is 4pm in Seattle, so I get All Things Considered in the morning and Morning Edition at night. Upside down but I’m a day ahead of Seattle time wise.
At 8 o’clock I walked to my favorite neighborhood bakery, Tous Les Jours. They make great baguettes and croissants. It’s hard to tell you’re not in France as you tear the croissant apart and the buttery flakes stick to your fingers. But, it’s not France. There are many things French in Saigon. After all, the French were here for 100+ years. But the kicker is that Tous Les Jours is owned by Koreans and many of the staff are Korean-Vietnamese. I got my croissant and a very good latte and went upstairs to a pleasant open space where the other patrons were enjoying their pastries and working on their laptops. Most places in Saigon have free wi-fi, so every place is a work place.
When I finished breakfast I walked downtown and bought an International Herald Tribune from a street vendor. Last week I bought the IHT in a bookstore, but I discovered that the street vendor outside the bookstore will sell it for half of what I paid inside. Of course, you have to negotiate, but I’m learning how to do that and it’s all done with a smile.
I took the Trib over to the Rex Hotel fitness club and sat by the pool for an hour. The club could be anywhere in the world. It has the most up to date machines, wall mounted plasma TV’s tuned to CNN, and lots of mirrors. The pool is outside on the roof and ringed with cushy chaise lounges. If you want lunch or a drink there are several staff members to help you.
After the workout I walked across the street to a French day spa and had a sports massage and then walked home. I worked for couple of hours in the afternoon and then called Marilynn on Skype. Who could ever have imagined calling continent to continent 20 years ago on a hand held phone for no charge? It’s Dick Tracy’s wrist-radio on steroids.
Dinner was at The Sushi Bar, a very traditional and jumpin’ place on Le Thanh Ton Street where I had an Asahi beer and fresh yellowtail sashimi flown in from Japan. I finished the day by stopping by M52, a bar where two Scots were playing darts, the Acoustic Bar in District 3, where Blue Man Group was hammering away on their drums on a wall sized video screen, and Serenata, a delightful garden café next door where three young chamber players alternately entertained with Vietnamese, American, and French singers.
If you want to twist your mind, just remember that this is a communist country. Weren’t we locked in a deadly battle with them for control of the planet? Going global has gone viral. We’re all in the soup together.
At 8 o’clock I walked to my favorite neighborhood bakery, Tous Les Jours. They make great baguettes and croissants. It’s hard to tell you’re not in France as you tear the croissant apart and the buttery flakes stick to your fingers. But, it’s not France. There are many things French in Saigon. After all, the French were here for 100+ years. But the kicker is that Tous Les Jours is owned by Koreans and many of the staff are Korean-Vietnamese. I got my croissant and a very good latte and went upstairs to a pleasant open space where the other patrons were enjoying their pastries and working on their laptops. Most places in Saigon have free wi-fi, so every place is a work place.
When I finished breakfast I walked downtown and bought an International Herald Tribune from a street vendor. Last week I bought the IHT in a bookstore, but I discovered that the street vendor outside the bookstore will sell it for half of what I paid inside. Of course, you have to negotiate, but I’m learning how to do that and it’s all done with a smile.
I took the Trib over to the Rex Hotel fitness club and sat by the pool for an hour. The club could be anywhere in the world. It has the most up to date machines, wall mounted plasma TV’s tuned to CNN, and lots of mirrors. The pool is outside on the roof and ringed with cushy chaise lounges. If you want lunch or a drink there are several staff members to help you.
After the workout I walked across the street to a French day spa and had a sports massage and then walked home. I worked for couple of hours in the afternoon and then called Marilynn on Skype. Who could ever have imagined calling continent to continent 20 years ago on a hand held phone for no charge? It’s Dick Tracy’s wrist-radio on steroids.
Dinner was at The Sushi Bar, a very traditional and jumpin’ place on Le Thanh Ton Street where I had an Asahi beer and fresh yellowtail sashimi flown in from Japan. I finished the day by stopping by M52, a bar where two Scots were playing darts, the Acoustic Bar in District 3, where Blue Man Group was hammering away on their drums on a wall sized video screen, and Serenata, a delightful garden café next door where three young chamber players alternately entertained with Vietnamese, American, and French singers.
If you want to twist your mind, just remember that this is a communist country. Weren’t we locked in a deadly battle with them for control of the planet? Going global has gone viral. We’re all in the soup together.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Networking: Saigon Style
The expatriate community is pretty tight all over the world. We are the foreigners, usually westerners, who work in countries other than our own. You can be an Expat in the Europe but it's really in Third World countries that the name sticks and has meaning.
When your skin color or size makes you an object of curiosity you know you're not in Kansas. What seems to happen then is that you bond with the other Expats because you're all in the same boat. Last night we were literally in the same boat - a 3 hour cruise on the Saigon River hosted by EuroCham, the European Chamber of Commerce.
There is a lot of networking and there are a lot of networking events in Saigon. There are also a number of Chambers of Commerce. There is AmCham, the Americans, CanCham, AusCham, EuroCham - you get the idea. And, the Chambers all host networking events at least once a month. So there is plenty of opportunity to meet and mingle with other Expats. In an American city a formally described "networking event" would have a contrived, forced air about it. Real men and women don't go to networking events to meet people and make meaningful connections. But, here they do.
Last night about 40 of us boarded a double decker Chinese junk with dark polished wood surfaces and salons open to the outside air. It was a beautiful night, but it was preceded by 2 hours of hard rain so our timing was good. As we entered the lower salon we were greeted by servers offering special mango cocktails and trays of small appetizers. After we got underway the cocktails were replaced with beer and wine and a beautiful small buffet was laid out.
In the middle of the evening one of the servers approached me and asked if I would like a massage. I tried not to look surprised and after I recovered my composure I said yes and was led to the stern where a woman had set up a chair and was giving 10 minute shoulder and head massages. Now this is my idea of networking. As I returned to the salon a magician was setting up to do a short show of card and coin tricks. I rolled my eyes at first, but the guy was really good.
I had never seen Saigon from the river. At night it's quite beautiful, and I did meet a handful of interesting people that I will follow up with. This is networking Saigon style.
When your skin color or size makes you an object of curiosity you know you're not in Kansas. What seems to happen then is that you bond with the other Expats because you're all in the same boat. Last night we were literally in the same boat - a 3 hour cruise on the Saigon River hosted by EuroCham, the European Chamber of Commerce.
There is a lot of networking and there are a lot of networking events in Saigon. There are also a number of Chambers of Commerce. There is AmCham, the Americans, CanCham, AusCham, EuroCham - you get the idea. And, the Chambers all host networking events at least once a month. So there is plenty of opportunity to meet and mingle with other Expats. In an American city a formally described "networking event" would have a contrived, forced air about it. Real men and women don't go to networking events to meet people and make meaningful connections. But, here they do.
Last night about 40 of us boarded a double decker Chinese junk with dark polished wood surfaces and salons open to the outside air. It was a beautiful night, but it was preceded by 2 hours of hard rain so our timing was good. As we entered the lower salon we were greeted by servers offering special mango cocktails and trays of small appetizers. After we got underway the cocktails were replaced with beer and wine and a beautiful small buffet was laid out.
In the middle of the evening one of the servers approached me and asked if I would like a massage. I tried not to look surprised and after I recovered my composure I said yes and was led to the stern where a woman had set up a chair and was giving 10 minute shoulder and head massages. Now this is my idea of networking. As I returned to the salon a magician was setting up to do a short show of card and coin tricks. I rolled my eyes at first, but the guy was really good.
I had never seen Saigon from the river. At night it's quite beautiful, and I did meet a handful of interesting people that I will follow up with. This is networking Saigon style.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
The Skyline Tells a Story
America was wrong about Vietnam in 1965. Now, no one seriously disputes the idea that the "American War" was a battle for independence. It was a civil war, but at the time American leadership was obsessed with the idea that the dominos would fall and all of Asia would be dominated by Mao and the Chinese dragon. Didn't anyone know how much the Vietnamese disliked and distrusted the Chinese? They had been rivals for a thousand years (or was it two thousand?).
But this post isn’t about the war – exactly. It’s about the skyline of Saigon. As I was sipping my beer last night I looked out at the tall buildings dominating the skyline. The four tallest buildings, emblazoned with logos, were Dai-Ichi Life, the Caravelle Hotel, the Sheraton Hotel, and SUNWAH Tower – a Japanese insurer, a French luxury hotel, an American hotel chain, and a diversified conglomerate based in Hong Kong. I couldn’t help but wonder what Ho Chi Minh would think if he could see the city that bears his name?
The Vietnamese fought and won wars against the Japanese, the Chinese, the French, and the Americans, and now the Saigon skyline is dominated by companies from each of these four countries. It’s not about who won or lost; it’s about the tragedy and irony for Saigon and all of Vietnam in 2009. I can’t judge whether today’s Vietnamese think the price they paid was worth it. I think they probably believe it was. 60% of today’s population was born after the end of the war. It’s history for them. I can say that it was not worth the lives and price the American people paid in that war or the damage they caused to this country.
Now Vietnam has its independence and it’s finding its footing in the world. The country is on a roll. It is definitely on its way, but the irony is that its former enemies are leading the charge. Make no mistake, there is a lot of talent and entrepreneurial drive in Vietnam, but the Dai-Ichis, Caravelles, Sheratons, and SunWahs had a head start. They didn’t have to invent and reinvent themselves after 30+ years of civil war.
But this post isn’t about the war – exactly. It’s about the skyline of Saigon. As I was sipping my beer last night I looked out at the tall buildings dominating the skyline. The four tallest buildings, emblazoned with logos, were Dai-Ichi Life, the Caravelle Hotel, the Sheraton Hotel, and SUNWAH Tower – a Japanese insurer, a French luxury hotel, an American hotel chain, and a diversified conglomerate based in Hong Kong. I couldn’t help but wonder what Ho Chi Minh would think if he could see the city that bears his name?
The Vietnamese fought and won wars against the Japanese, the Chinese, the French, and the Americans, and now the Saigon skyline is dominated by companies from each of these four countries. It’s not about who won or lost; it’s about the tragedy and irony for Saigon and all of Vietnam in 2009. I can’t judge whether today’s Vietnamese think the price they paid was worth it. I think they probably believe it was. 60% of today’s population was born after the end of the war. It’s history for them. I can say that it was not worth the lives and price the American people paid in that war or the damage they caused to this country.
Now Vietnam has its independence and it’s finding its footing in the world. The country is on a roll. It is definitely on its way, but the irony is that its former enemies are leading the charge. Make no mistake, there is a lot of talent and entrepreneurial drive in Vietnam, but the Dai-Ichis, Caravelles, Sheratons, and SunWahs had a head start. They didn’t have to invent and reinvent themselves after 30+ years of civil war.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
They Are the Same the World Over
It doesn’t seem to matter where you are; a small group of drunks can poison the atmosphere of a place for everyone. Whether it’s a bar on San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley, an Upper East Side hangout in New York, a Berlin kneipe, or the Rooftop Bar in Saigon the effect is the same; it turns a good time in a good place into a tooth grinding disappointment. At the moment my pick for the most obnoxious group of drunks in the world goes to Vietnamese businessmen. That’s because I’ve had two spoiled evening meals in less than a week because of them.
I like the Rooftop Bar at the Hotel Rex in Saigon. It’s an old hotel and the open air bar is a little dated. It’s not the glitzy Caravelle or the brand new Sheraton. It has a well worn feel and it’s notorious for being the place the army brass went to drink and watch the fireworks during the “American War.” There's a canvas canopy covering the center tables in case of rain but the edge is ringed with tall tables and high stools where you can look out over the hedge at the traffic on the divided boulevard below.
For the second time this week my evening was spoiled by a table of 8 or 10 grown men in white shirts standing across the table from each other trying to shout each other down. It’s not as if you can ignore 10 grown men shouting at the top of their lungs. I didn’t. I finished my beer and left, but I left a gorgeous cool evening in great surroundings because I couldn’t stand the doltish behavior of grown men who should know better. I've seen the same thing in all of the places I mentioned but there is something especially annoying about the behavior when it starts to become the norm in a place. This was my third similar experience in less than a month. I'm not perfect. I committed the same sin a few times years ago, but I wasn't a grown man in business attire. Still, it does serve as a reminder that we can all do better.
I like the Rooftop Bar at the Hotel Rex in Saigon. It’s an old hotel and the open air bar is a little dated. It’s not the glitzy Caravelle or the brand new Sheraton. It has a well worn feel and it’s notorious for being the place the army brass went to drink and watch the fireworks during the “American War.” There's a canvas canopy covering the center tables in case of rain but the edge is ringed with tall tables and high stools where you can look out over the hedge at the traffic on the divided boulevard below.
For the second time this week my evening was spoiled by a table of 8 or 10 grown men in white shirts standing across the table from each other trying to shout each other down. It’s not as if you can ignore 10 grown men shouting at the top of their lungs. I didn’t. I finished my beer and left, but I left a gorgeous cool evening in great surroundings because I couldn’t stand the doltish behavior of grown men who should know better. I've seen the same thing in all of the places I mentioned but there is something especially annoying about the behavior when it starts to become the norm in a place. This was my third similar experience in less than a month. I'm not perfect. I committed the same sin a few times years ago, but I wasn't a grown man in business attire. Still, it does serve as a reminder that we can all do better.
Friday, October 9, 2009
A Hard Dirt Floor and a Table with a Light
Less than 15 years ago East Meets West was a shoestring operation doing humanitarian aid work in Vietnam. Now it is the largest NGO operating in Vietnam. It has expanded into Laos, Cambodia, and East Timor. It has built or renovated over 300 schools. It has built a state of the art medical center in the ancient capital of Hue, a pediatric hospital in Hanoi, and expanded the capacity of several other medical centers. It has developed simple technologies that are saving countless premature babies annually. It offers scholarships to over 5000 impoverished school children and supports their education from the 3rd grade through high school and even provides bicycles if the distance to school is greater than average.
Today I visited one of the elementary schools where EMW provides scholarships to poor students. It was a modern, for this part of the world, school with attentive students and teachers. There are 800 students in the school, but only 34 of them are in the SPELL program. Students are selected by a local organization when they are in the third grade. The criteria is simple: are they from the bottom 10% of impoverished families and therefore likely to drop out of school because they cannot cover the low cost of fees, uniforms, supplies, etc. A local organization identifies the candidates and then East Meets West re-checks the criteria and visits the families. If selected, EMW provides the student with a scholarship until he or she graduates from high school as well as tutoring to make up for any lack of preparedness.
After we visited the school we went to the home of one 4th grade SPELL student, a beautiful boy with flawless copper skin and a SPELL baseball cap. The home was a simple one room hut where he lives with his mother, father, two grandmothers, and three siblings. The hut has a hard dirt floor and a corrugated tin roof but there is a table in the corner where he sits to do his homework. I met his mother and grandmothers. All of them were smiling and welcoming and obviously grateful for the help their son was getting with his education. When we left the boy jumped on the back of the local official’s motorbike for the ride back to school and we drove to Hue to look at the hospital. How can you not love this work?
Today I visited one of the elementary schools where EMW provides scholarships to poor students. It was a modern, for this part of the world, school with attentive students and teachers. There are 800 students in the school, but only 34 of them are in the SPELL program. Students are selected by a local organization when they are in the third grade. The criteria is simple: are they from the bottom 10% of impoverished families and therefore likely to drop out of school because they cannot cover the low cost of fees, uniforms, supplies, etc. A local organization identifies the candidates and then East Meets West re-checks the criteria and visits the families. If selected, EMW provides the student with a scholarship until he or she graduates from high school as well as tutoring to make up for any lack of preparedness.
After we visited the school we went to the home of one 4th grade SPELL student, a beautiful boy with flawless copper skin and a SPELL baseball cap. The home was a simple one room hut where he lives with his mother, father, two grandmothers, and three siblings. The hut has a hard dirt floor and a corrugated tin roof but there is a table in the corner where he sits to do his homework. I met his mother and grandmothers. All of them were smiling and welcoming and obviously grateful for the help their son was getting with his education. When we left the boy jumped on the back of the local official’s motorbike for the ride back to school and we drove to Hue to look at the hospital. How can you not love this work?
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Danang Redux
I’m back in Danang this week. It’s different and so am I. Typhoon Ketsana blew through here a week ago and uprooted trees, tore off roofs, beached seagoing tankers, and flooded the countryside. I visited the Village of Hope orphanage today. It’s been funded by East Meets West since 1993. There are 150 kids from impoverished families living there. 34 of them are hearing and speech impaired. It breaks your heart and buoys you up at the same time. I visited classroom after classroom where I was greeted by smiles and the sign for "Hi". They were engaged in their work but very curious about the white face and shaved head looking in on them. Mr. Jack, that's me, wrote his name on the blackboard for them and they, in turn, wrote their names on the board for me. They all giggled when I butchered the Vietnamese pronunciations. The storm that hit Danang uprooted two huge trees at the school but the buildings and the kids were spared.
Tonight I returned to the same restaurant I wrote about two weeks ago. But, for me, tonight’s visit was of a different order. The bait was still parading in her tight silk dress and 4 inch heels, but that’s all she is – tight dress and heels. There is a second echelon there represented by two very good looking young women in the uncommonly beautiful national dress called the ao dai. You’ve seen it – silk trousers with an over-dress that is almost floor length with a tight bodice and flowing panels slit on the sides to just above the hips. The outfit is gorgeous and the girls who wear them are almost universally thin. The two ao dai clad women in the restaurant are mostly decorative, like the bait, but attentive. The real attraction however are three young girls in what looks like school girl uniforms – white untucked blouses with big red bows, loose fitting knee length red skirts, and Keds, yes, Keds.
These three girls, who look like teenagers to me, are the workhorses of the restaurant. They take orders, pour beer, deliver meals and ask if you’re happy. One of them approached me tonight to ask if I could explain an English word she didn’t understand. The word was "visualize". I told her it meant to see something in your mind, to picture it in your mind’s eye, to imagine what it would look like. She nodded and it left me wondering what she might visualize. It probably isn’t what an American teenager would visualize. Later, the cutest of the three came over to say that the two ao dai girls and the three schoolgirl waitresses wondered if I was lonely or sad because I always came to the restaurant alone. I told her that I was a little sad because my girlfriend left Vietnam this morning to go back to the States but other than that I was quite happy. She smiled and said that she was glad and that she wished me to be happy. Now how’s does that stack up against a twinkie in a short dress and you-know-what-pumps?
Tonight I returned to the same restaurant I wrote about two weeks ago. But, for me, tonight’s visit was of a different order. The bait was still parading in her tight silk dress and 4 inch heels, but that’s all she is – tight dress and heels. There is a second echelon there represented by two very good looking young women in the uncommonly beautiful national dress called the ao dai. You’ve seen it – silk trousers with an over-dress that is almost floor length with a tight bodice and flowing panels slit on the sides to just above the hips. The outfit is gorgeous and the girls who wear them are almost universally thin. The two ao dai clad women in the restaurant are mostly decorative, like the bait, but attentive. The real attraction however are three young girls in what looks like school girl uniforms – white untucked blouses with big red bows, loose fitting knee length red skirts, and Keds, yes, Keds.
These three girls, who look like teenagers to me, are the workhorses of the restaurant. They take orders, pour beer, deliver meals and ask if you’re happy. One of them approached me tonight to ask if I could explain an English word she didn’t understand. The word was "visualize". I told her it meant to see something in your mind, to picture it in your mind’s eye, to imagine what it would look like. She nodded and it left me wondering what she might visualize. It probably isn’t what an American teenager would visualize. Later, the cutest of the three came over to say that the two ao dai girls and the three schoolgirl waitresses wondered if I was lonely or sad because I always came to the restaurant alone. I told her that I was a little sad because my girlfriend left Vietnam this morning to go back to the States but other than that I was quite happy. She smiled and said that she was glad and that she wished me to be happy. Now how’s does that stack up against a twinkie in a short dress and you-know-what-pumps?
Saturday, October 3, 2009
What a Week!
It started last Saturday with a meandering walk along the promenade in Danang on a clear soft morning, and it ended last night in downtown Saigon thronged by huge crowds celebrating the Moon Festival. In between, I managed to lose two debit cards - my lifeline in a country that doesn't live on credit or the extension of it - while at the same time the center of the country was being ravaged by a typhoon.
My personal anguish was over the debit cards. I made the discovery on Friday night as we were going out for a quiet drink and dinner, and it ruined the evening. I really felt sorry for myself and got snarky with Marilynn in the extreme. What started out to be a relaxed night out for the two of us, turned into a nightmare of anxiety and self hatred. How could I lose two debit cards at different times in just two days?
Just when I was feeling truly sorry for myself it all came into perspective. This week the blue sky in Danang turned ugly as the Ketsana Typhoon hit central Vietnam and took down almost everything in its path leaving that part of the country under water and without power. This is not an area where building codes address things like the 100 year flood or construction is ever much more than some piled bricks and a galvanized tin roof. Over 100 people died during the storm, and a school for ethnic minority kids in Kon Tum province built by East Meets West was cut off by a raging river where there was once a trickle of a stream. Those kids and their teachers are still marooned. They had enough food to hold out for a couple of days, but we are going to have to mount some kind of rescue mission to get them connected to the world again.
I'm very proud of the people of EMW this week. Everyone has a very full plate, but once the storm passed Danang and long before the power went back on they were mounting a full scale disaster relief effort and letting everything else go to the back burner. People and businesses are pitching in with money, food, and strong backs to deal with the devastation. My co-worker, Van Ly, canvassed everyone in her Rolodex to see if she could find help - and she did. The effort is ongoing. It will be a long time before the region recovers. Many of the people here are subsistence farmers in the rice growing areas and live day to day. The rice paddies are out of business with the flooding and the farmers have nothing to fall back on. It's a true tragedy.
Life goes on and while the center of the country deals with Ketsana thousands of people crowded downtown Saigon last night to celebrate the Moon Festival, a mid-autumn celebration for children. With one of the highest birthrates in the world Vietnam is teeming with kids and they were all downtown last night sporting balloons and sandwiched between their parents on motorbikes - sometimes 5 to a bike. It was noisy, chaotic, fun and friendly. It was really just an amped up version of Saigon daily life.
My personal anguish was over the debit cards. I made the discovery on Friday night as we were going out for a quiet drink and dinner, and it ruined the evening. I really felt sorry for myself and got snarky with Marilynn in the extreme. What started out to be a relaxed night out for the two of us, turned into a nightmare of anxiety and self hatred. How could I lose two debit cards at different times in just two days?
Just when I was feeling truly sorry for myself it all came into perspective. This week the blue sky in Danang turned ugly as the Ketsana Typhoon hit central Vietnam and took down almost everything in its path leaving that part of the country under water and without power. This is not an area where building codes address things like the 100 year flood or construction is ever much more than some piled bricks and a galvanized tin roof. Over 100 people died during the storm, and a school for ethnic minority kids in Kon Tum province built by East Meets West was cut off by a raging river where there was once a trickle of a stream. Those kids and their teachers are still marooned. They had enough food to hold out for a couple of days, but we are going to have to mount some kind of rescue mission to get them connected to the world again.
I'm very proud of the people of EMW this week. Everyone has a very full plate, but once the storm passed Danang and long before the power went back on they were mounting a full scale disaster relief effort and letting everything else go to the back burner. People and businesses are pitching in with money, food, and strong backs to deal with the devastation. My co-worker, Van Ly, canvassed everyone in her Rolodex to see if she could find help - and she did. The effort is ongoing. It will be a long time before the region recovers. Many of the people here are subsistence farmers in the rice growing areas and live day to day. The rice paddies are out of business with the flooding and the farmers have nothing to fall back on. It's a true tragedy.
Life goes on and while the center of the country deals with Ketsana thousands of people crowded downtown Saigon last night to celebrate the Moon Festival, a mid-autumn celebration for children. With one of the highest birthrates in the world Vietnam is teeming with kids and they were all downtown last night sporting balloons and sandwiched between their parents on motorbikes - sometimes 5 to a bike. It was noisy, chaotic, fun and friendly. It was really just an amped up version of Saigon daily life.
Saturday, September 26, 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.
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.
Friday, September 25, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Humble Pie
When my son, Brent, was 8 years old we drove our VW bus from
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
I love my job; I’m working for an International NGO that is helping
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
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.
Monday, September 14, 2009
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.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
The Hunt Is Over
Just when you think nothing will happen - something does. We had resigned ourselves to the idea that we wouldn't find an apartment anytime soon and were ready to hunker down in the hotel for a few more weeks. But, when it happens it usually happens fast and this was no exception. You have to be ready to jump on it or you'll lose it.
On Friday we went out to look at four more places. Number 1 was in a small building just outside the downtown area. Up to this point everything we had seen was in a high rise building, so this was definitely different. The entrance was simple, an open ground floor like most Vietnamese houses, but the stairs leading up were polished granite and the elevator was shiny brushed stainless. It was a good start. The broker, a French ex-pat, was showing it to a young French couple at the same time, so we were all moving around in the space checking things out. I couldn't gage their interest, but they were taking pictures and talking quietly as they moved through the place. I liked it immediately, and I hadn't felt that way about any of the 10 we had already looked at. Marilynn, on the other hand, freaked out and stopped looking as soon as she discovered that there was only one window in the whole place. It was an interesting dynamic in the car as we went off to look at the next three apartments.
Number 2 was a real dog - it looked and felt like a high rise cellblock - all concrete (with mold and mildew), no decoration, and locked sliding gates covering the unoccupied unit doors. We didn't even go in to the available apartment. It was too depressing. We stopped at Number 3, didn't even step inside the building, and agreed with the broker to skip Number 4. By the time we got back to the hotel, Marilynn had reconsidered Number 1 and we decided to move on it. I thought the French couple might have tied it up, but they hadn't and we set up an appointment with the landlord on Saturday.
Vietnamese houses, and this is basically a house that has been converted to apartments, are tall and narrow with common walls. There are 5 units in the building, all occupied by ex-pats - 2 French, 1 Dutch, and 1 Mexican. Our unit is on the second floor and has 3 common walls, so the only natural light is in the room fronting the street. It's a bedroom with an en suite bath. The rest of the house is all behind that bedroom. There's a living room/dining room that is open to the kitchen and behind the kitchen is the second bedroom. A second bathroom adjoins the bedroom, and that works well for us since if we have guests the two bedroom/baths are on opposite ends of the house.
It's not perfect, but it meets our non-negotiables - built to Western standards, a reasonable and equal distance from work and the downtown core, basic furniture with built-in wardrobe closets, and 24 hour security. Once she looked at the apartment without the one window block, Marilynn saw that it was going to be fine. I think we can put some lipstick on it and she is already thinking about where to begin.
We signed the lease at 3pm yesterday and were looking out from the colonial-style rooftop bar of the old Caravelle Hotel at 7 celebrating the end of phase one of our life in Saigon.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Apartment Hunting
It's never fun - apartment hunting. But, when you don't know the city, don't know the language, can't walk around because it's either too hot or a torrential rainstorm and where hardly anyone except Gucci takes credit cards you get the picture on the rising stress levels. Add to that the fact that Marilynn has a little case of Uncle Ho's revenge and the picture gets even clearer. That's our situation in Saigon. We have two extraordinary co-workers doing everything they can to help us find something, but it's not easy.
It might be easier with a cushy corporate overseas housing allowance, but we're working for an NGO (non-governmental organization/a non-profit) doing humanitarian aid work and money is tight. We're on a budget, and the Vietnamese landlords know what the market will bear. We'd be concerned if our children had to live in the places we've looked at, and the going rate is still $1000/mo and up. Our needs are clear, a clean, air-conditioned, two bedroom place that has some measure of security. That means a high rise, and they're all pretty much the same. The ones available to ex-pats like us are furnished with tacky, beat up furniture, and smell like a swamp because in this climate if they aren't lived they start to sweat and smell the minute the A/C is turned off.
So far, we've looked at 10 different places. Location has become the mantra. We're never going to find a place we'd really like to live. We know that. But, if we can be within a 10 minute cab ride from the office we can make some concessions. Tomorrow is another day and we have 2 more to look at.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
I Don't Know How It Works...But It Does.
Finding your way around Saigon can be a real challenge, but we're actually starting to make some progress. Well... sort of. I'm beginning to recognize some streets and even a few street names, but our world is expanding, like the universe, very slowly. Saigon is not easy to grok. Streets are jammed with motorbikes, and it's hard to pay attention to orienteering and orientation when motorbikes swarm like a school of minnows around your taxi. I imagine that seen from above it would look like a diagram of Bernoulli's Principle. The swarm flows fluidly, like water, finding the path of least resistance. It is absolutely riveting to watch from inside the cocoon of a taxi and try to figure out how it works. Stoplights are only advisory, and cars drive on the left with bikes on the right - except when the car needs to make a right turn and nudges into the swarm to negotiate the maneuver. Even U-turns are handled as if they were a normal. One of the secrets is that nobody is moving very fast. In fact, cars move more slowly than the motorbikes. Add rain and it's a rainbow of plastic ponchos moving in unison. I still haven't figured out how it works... but it does.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Here's What 2,000,000 Will Get You
The numbers are a little unsettling: a latte at The Coffee Bean will set you back 50,000, a three mile taxi ride 65,000, and a romantic dinner for two in a French garden restaurant a whopping 435,000. Those numbers are Vietnamese Dong, the local currency, and they translate this way - $2.75 for the latte (the coffee culture has hit Saigon like a hammer and there isn't a Starbucks in sight), $3.50 to part the sea of motorbikes in an new metered Toyota (bargain if there ever was one), and $35 for two steak and frites dinners followed by a pommes d'terre tart and all washed down with a liter of house red. The zeros will only confuse you, so you drop them and divide by 18 to convert to dollars. Saigon seems like a bargain if you're on a dollar payroll, but it takes awhile to get comfortable with all those zeros.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Now I Remember
Ten hours in the air from Seattle to Tokyo. Only six and half more to Saigon. I have to say, the flight couldn't have gone better; good service at check in, a shiny A330 freshly washed on the outside and clean on the inside, a welcoming cabin crew, decent food, and on time at both ends. I like Northwest Airlines. Too bad they merged with Delta. The evil empire eats them up, but for now they still have some pride.
The good flight and service notwithstanding, now I remember why I hated flying those long overwater flights out of SFO and JFK. As a crew member I was fidgety after 2 or 3 hours and we still had 7 or 8 to go. As soon as I could I transfered to Berlin and I loved it; six take-offs and landings a day and home in your own bed almost every night. I confess that when I thought about an airline job I was seduced by the exotic places and the prestige of Pan Am. I'm not sorry in the least that it was the only airline I applied to, but I had one hour fighter pilot's ass and I had no idea how miserable it would be to sit in the cockpit for 8+ hours.
This entry got interrupted after I tried and failed to get it posted in Tokyo...
The Tokyo layover was almost three hours, and before we left Seattle we bought day passes for the Delta Sky Club lounge. I have to say, I'm glad we did. It was well worth the $50. It's such a different world from the one outside in the boarding area. Chairs are comfortable. There are tables for computers, a selection of small snacks, and whatever you want to drink. I had a couple of pieces of shrimp sushi and a beer and Marilynn had some fruit. It's a real oasis when you feel like Sisyphus pushing the rock around. We actually felt rested when we blasted off for Saigon.
We arrived at Tan Son Nhat airport about midnight on the 2nd, having crossed the International Dateline somewhere along the way. I remember Tan Son Nhat from when I flew in and out with Pan Am during the war. And, when we were here for our bike trip in 2007 it hadn't changed a lot from that time. Now it's bright and full of white marble and high ceilings. It's bustling and modern and reflects the new Vietnam.
Coming out of customs we were met by the amazing young woman, Van Ly, I'm going to be working with at East Meets West. It was so nice to see a welcoming cheerful face at the end of the 24 hour odyssey/ordeal. She whisked us out of the brand new terminal and into a cab heading for the hotel. Ten hours later we were having lunch with Van and Thu Hang the other pillar of the EMW staff here. What a day... and night.
Now it's 5 days later; we hit the ground running and we've been jammin' ever since.
Monday, August 31, 2009
A Rose By Any Other Name Would Smell As Sweet
But, how about skunk cabbage...
I love words. And, I love to write. I would rather write a letter or email than talk on the phone. Some people, like President Obama, are masters of the spoken word and quick to respond with a full grasp of the facts and the words that convey them. I'm not one of them; I like to have time to think through my response. I enjoy my friends and I like to talk to them, but for things of substance I like the written word.
But - as much as I love words and a well constructed letter, I sometimes completely miss the mindset and nuance that a reader might ascribe to them. I've been called to task twice in the last two weeks for my choice of words or the way they were delivered. It has made me acutely aware of the power and multiple meanings that some words carry and how they are strung together.
Marilynn took umbrage the other day when I blogged that "she works slowly and thoughtfully..." To her, the connotation was negative. "Slowly" was the objectionable word. When I said that I worked "quickly" it made her feel like she was being set up as a drudge. I deemed "thoughtfully" the operative word in the sentence, but she focused on "slowly". She wanted me to change it to "methodically." I said "Write your own blog if you don't it." Not a very thoughtful response probably. It was all lighthearted fun for us, although she still wanted me to change it.
The other instance of umbrage was not so lighthearted. I wrote a comment to a "friend" on Facebook that I intended as a joking rebuke for his long silence. I hadn't heard from him for a long time, so I told him that if he wanted me to support a cause he was involved in he needed to ask me directly i.e. call or email me and make the request. He did not like my "comment" and told me it was snide and unwelcome. I tried to apologize, but it was not accepted and I am now "hidden" on his Facebook page. Was it the choice of words or something smoldering between us? I don't know. I feel awful for the misunderstanding. I guess I'll have to work a little more slowly and thoughtfully in the future.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
My Grandmother was a Murphy
I first learned about the family's law, "Murphy's Law", when I was in flight training in Pensacola. It's a good one to keep in mind when you're traveling at 300 knots per hour 50' above the ground. Little things can cause big problems.
The law is also time sensitive. It always seems to kick in when time is of the essence, and it serves as a reminder that no matter how well we plan and prepare - shit happens. Marilynn and I are four days from lift-off to Vietnam. Not a lot of time to dally. She has work. I have work. We're leaving our condo and trying to anticipate all the things we need to do before we leave. We have to pack for an extended stay in Vietnam. Blah, blah, blah.
So, it was a little upsetting to discover my wallet missing when we arrived in Oakland on Wednesday. Drivers licence, 4 credit cards, and 2 health insurance cards - that's all. Nevermind that I didn't have picture ID for the trip back to Seattle on Thursday or a credit card to pay for the stay in the Bay Area. What I really didn't have was TIME to deal with it.
It was challenging. But, good karma kicked in. I called Alaska Airlines and reported the loss. I got a really nice young guy who empathized and who promised to call me back when he had some news. Surprise of surprises, he called back about an hour later to tell me they had found my wallet near the departure gate and it would be waiting for me when I got back in Thursday. It was a sketchy hour or two, but I was a happy camper when I got the news.
Everything worked out in the Bay Area. Marilynn paid for everything. We had one other moderately anxious moment when the wallet wasn't at Alaska's lost and found counter in Seattle. It had been sent to another off-airport facility and I had to wait until today to pick it up. Small price.
But, here's the kicker: Marilynn needed to do some quick shoe shopping for the trip, so we stopped downtown on our way home. Guess what? This morning she couldn't find her iPhone. You guessed it; gonzo. There are a lot of things to be said for good karma and a tech savvy assistant. Her assistant located the phone somehow, don't ask me how, within a 4 block area in the Nordstrom/Eileen Fisher grid. Then she sent a text message to the phone that would appear on the display when it was turned on. Amazing. I was on my way downtown when I got a call from the manager at Eileen Fisher telling me she had the phone. Incroyable!!
Karma vs. Murphy. Karma won this one.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Time Management
I think I'm a very organized person - lines in the rug from the vacuum, jackets and shirts evenly spaced in the closet (maybe even by color), car washed, bookcase and CD's by category, etc. You get the idea. But as organized as I think I am I realize now that I never really know the state of my personal and family affairs until I get ready to make a big move. I'm always surprised too; because although I think everything in my life is nice and tidy I really do have to make sure that my financial house is in order? I can't just walk out the door and know that everything is going to take care of itself. How am I going to pay the bills when I'm away for months at a time? Are those three or four bank accounts all necessary or can I streamline things with one or two? If I pay my bills automatically, will they all come at one time even if my paycheck comes twice a month? Can I see all of my obligations online? Try it, you'll see what I mean. The experience is a metaphor for all the loose ends we learn to live with.
With less than a week until we leave for Saigon we are learning the importance of time management and civility. There is only so much time and there are X number of things to get done. It would be easier if there weren't two people involved. M and I work very differently. I work quickly and throw away everything I don't use regularly. She works slowly and thoughtfully and saves everything she thinks she might need sometime in the future even if she hasn't used or looked at in five years. My method seems impulsive and capricious to her and her method seems sluggish and inefficient to me. What we have learned from all of our travels and travails is that tolerance and civility will get us through to the end.
We'll see how it goes in exactly one week.
Friday, August 21, 2009
So Many Good People
Years ago a friend of mine told me there are really only 600 important people in the world and if I live long enough I will discover that I know them all. It was hyperbole, of course, but I'm beginning to believe it's true. I've lived long enough to discover that my network of friends overlaps with other networks to an amazing degree and these networks are full of amazing and world changing people.
This morning I met with Jerilyn Brusseau, the founder of PeaceTrees Vietnam. Jerilyn's brother, Daniel Cheney, died when his helicopter was shot down in the Vietnam war. In 1995 Jerilyn founded PeaceTrees as a gesture of reconciliation between the people of America and the people of Vietnam. The organization has concentrated on the clearance of landmines and unexploded ordinance in Quang Tri province and the planting of trees on the cleared land.
Jerilyn and I are about the same age and our lives and friendships intersect in many ways. She's one of the 600 important people I'm supposed to know, and even though we don't know each other well we are clearly on the same path. In our relatively short meeting today we shared names and resources that will help us support each other's work on behalf of the people of Vietnam. PeaceTrees' Executive Director, Blair Burroughs, pitched in as well and I think we're well on our way to a new partnership and a collaborative sharing of human and other resources.
There are so many good people doing so many good things in the world. Sometimes it's hard to remember this simple truth.
This morning I met with Jerilyn Brusseau, the founder of PeaceTrees Vietnam. Jerilyn's brother, Daniel Cheney, died when his helicopter was shot down in the Vietnam war. In 1995 Jerilyn founded PeaceTrees as a gesture of reconciliation between the people of America and the people of Vietnam. The organization has concentrated on the clearance of landmines and unexploded ordinance in Quang Tri province and the planting of trees on the cleared land.
Jerilyn and I are about the same age and our lives and friendships intersect in many ways. She's one of the 600 important people I'm supposed to know, and even though we don't know each other well we are clearly on the same path. In our relatively short meeting today we shared names and resources that will help us support each other's work on behalf of the people of Vietnam. PeaceTrees' Executive Director, Blair Burroughs, pitched in as well and I think we're well on our way to a new partnership and a collaborative sharing of human and other resources.
There are so many good people doing so many good things in the world. Sometimes it's hard to remember this simple truth.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Get Out of Town and Live in the Moment
Every summer, until this one, Marilynn and I have spent most weekends riding our bikes and camping in the San Juan Islands. It's a relatively short drive to Anacortes where we park the car and walk our bikes on the ferry. Our favorite island is Lopez. It's rural. There's very little traffic and the drivers always wave as they pass by. The "village" is folksy, not trendy, and there's a great bakery, Holly B's, and a terrific espresso place called Isabel's.
This year our jobs have kept us on a short tether, but after working two weeks straight we managed to clear our schedules yesterday so that we could hook up with some friends from Portland who are camping on the island. We couldn't quite do an overnight but we made a long day trip out of it. It's amazing what effect a day away in a beautiful place can have.
The weather was perfect. The ferry ride was relaxing and riding up the hill from the ferry landing it felt like we had entered the Magic Kingdom. It was sensational to get away and ride through farmland and then along the water's edge. Freshly mown hay and saltwater smells. We met up with our friends in the village and caught up on each other's lives over some delicious sandwiches from Vita's Deli.
After lunch we rode around the island. Marilynn hates the big hill leading up past Woodmen Hall, the old Grange building, but we did it and then rode past the little island church and cemetery. It was all relaxation - except for the hill.
On the way back to the 5:45 ferry we stopped at Isabel's to tank up and we ran into two other friends who live on the island. By 9pm we were home, but it felt like we had been away for a week. Take a break every once in awhile and smell the flowers or the tideflats. It worked for us.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Countdown
It's only two weeks until we leave for our new gig in Saigon. Right now it's all about priorities and trying to get ready for a whole set of unknowns. I've moved before, and I've lived overseas before. But Southeast Asia is really different. I don't even know how to think about the language. I'm OK with most European languages (at least I can make myself understood), but the tonal languages of the Far East are a real challenge to my ear and tongue. Then there's the weather - hot and humid. What clothes are right for business? Probably not shorts and flip flops, but certainly not coats and ties. What should I pack? Then - I know I'm not going on vacation, but I love to play tennis and the guitar so I'm taking my tennis racket and guitar and feeling a little funny about showing up for a new job with all my toys. Anyway, the countdown is on, and in between now and then we have one more trip to Oakland to attend an East Meets West function. Life's a little jammy at the moment, but it's better than sitting around clipping coupons.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Do You Feel Safer?
Travel memory is very selective, at least mine is. I tend to let the stress and aggravations settle to the bottom and let the street scenes, people’s faces, and interesting landscapes rise to the top like heavy cream. That’s the way it should be; those are the main reasons we travel – at least when travel is elective. But traveling on business is another animal entirely. We do it because our jobs require it and it adds another level of stress. While the recreational traveler can get upset at a cancelled flight or making a wrong turn on the way to the airport it is more of an inconvenience than a serious problem. For the business traveler it usually means disrupted relationships, meeting cancellations, and stress on both ends.
I experienced a little of that yesterday. Like everyone I hate going to the airport these days. For a two hour flight to Oakland I had to be at the airport two hours before departure. And now that security precautions are so draconian there are almost always long, long lines at check-in and long, long lines to clear security. Business travelers have the drill down better than their vacationing counterparts – no checked bags, no liquids in their carry-on, no scissors or pocket knives, etc. So, we go directly to the head of the line and check in with our e-tickets. I don't like much about post-9/11 travel but this is one thing I do like. I don’t have to deal with an overworked, snarky agent who had a fight with her kids before work or who doesn’t like the look of my carry-on stuff. I just tap the screen, put in the confirmation code, print the boarding pass and Whammo I’m off to security. I probably saved myself 40 minutes and untold anxiety yesterday by being able to cut the line at check-in.
But, security is another matter. I’m as patriotic as the next guy, an ex-Marine whose son fought Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. But, I don’t get it. The climate of fear that provoked this mind-numbing cluster of “security” procedures is preventing us from either catching the bad guys or developing an efficient system of airline security. Anyone who has traveled to Europe or the Far East since 9/11 knows that check-in, passport control, and customs procedures are simple, thoughtful, efficient and effective. Does anyone think that rifling through my shaving kit is doing anything more than wasting two peoples' time? Do my shoes or anyone else’s really pose a threat to national security? Does treating every person entering the US (citizen or foreign visitor) like a criminal really make us safer? I don’t think so. I think it says a lot about the fact that even though we live in a global society a very vocal minority of Americans (including a sizeable number of legislators and bureaucrats) are still provincial rubes who think owning a gun is more important to their survival than extending a hand in friendship. "Homeland Security" at airports is a time consuming waste of resources and time. We can do it better. Let’s get on it. Be careful, be vigilant, be aware but get real. Our culture, productivity, standard of living and life expectancy are not what they used to be. In many ways we’re living on our laurels. We need to be better world citizens and stop putting the wagons in a circle to fend off the redskins. The airport travel mess is a symptom of the greater disease.
I experienced a little of that yesterday. Like everyone I hate going to the airport these days. For a two hour flight to Oakland I had to be at the airport two hours before departure. And now that security precautions are so draconian there are almost always long, long lines at check-in and long, long lines to clear security. Business travelers have the drill down better than their vacationing counterparts – no checked bags, no liquids in their carry-on, no scissors or pocket knives, etc. So, we go directly to the head of the line and check in with our e-tickets. I don't like much about post-9/11 travel but this is one thing I do like. I don’t have to deal with an overworked, snarky agent who had a fight with her kids before work or who doesn’t like the look of my carry-on stuff. I just tap the screen, put in the confirmation code, print the boarding pass and Whammo I’m off to security. I probably saved myself 40 minutes and untold anxiety yesterday by being able to cut the line at check-in.
But, security is another matter. I’m as patriotic as the next guy, an ex-Marine whose son fought Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. But, I don’t get it. The climate of fear that provoked this mind-numbing cluster of “security” procedures is preventing us from either catching the bad guys or developing an efficient system of airline security. Anyone who has traveled to Europe or the Far East since 9/11 knows that check-in, passport control, and customs procedures are simple, thoughtful, efficient and effective. Does anyone think that rifling through my shaving kit is doing anything more than wasting two peoples' time? Do my shoes or anyone else’s really pose a threat to national security? Does treating every person entering the US (citizen or foreign visitor) like a criminal really make us safer? I don’t think so. I think it says a lot about the fact that even though we live in a global society a very vocal minority of Americans (including a sizeable number of legislators and bureaucrats) are still provincial rubes who think owning a gun is more important to their survival than extending a hand in friendship. "Homeland Security" at airports is a time consuming waste of resources and time. We can do it better. Let’s get on it. Be careful, be vigilant, be aware but get real. Our culture, productivity, standard of living and life expectancy are not what they used to be. In many ways we’re living on our laurels. We need to be better world citizens and stop putting the wagons in a circle to fend off the redskins. The airport travel mess is a symptom of the greater disease.
Yes, this is a rant, but it's only a rant about a broken part of the system. A German friend chided me about being so negative about America. She loves America and the way Americans have welcomed and treated her. But, my gripe isn't about Americans it's about this airport security mess and the way it is painting us all with a bad brush. It makes it look like all of America is stupid and paranoid, and I don't think that's right. Is every decision maker scared to upset the lunatic right-wingers who think that if we build a fence it will keep out illegal immigrants? Check in with the guys who built the Berlin Wall. There are ways to make ourselves safer, but going through my shaving kit is not one of them.
Oh, by the way, on the way to my 10 o’clock appointment I got on the wrong BART train and went to San Francisco instead of downtown Oakland. Sometimes the pain of modern travel is self inflicted. It’s not always the other guy’s fault when things don’t go as planned.
Oh, by the way, on the way to my 10 o’clock appointment I got on the wrong BART train and went to San Francisco instead of downtown Oakland. Sometimes the pain of modern travel is self inflicted. It’s not always the other guy’s fault when things don’t go as planned.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Don't Miss What's Right in Front of You
Yesterday Marilynn and I went down to King County Public Health to get some shots for Vietnam. Do we need shots? I don't really know, but exotic places have exotic bugs so we got shot up - Hepatitis A and B, Thyphoid boosters, and Japanese Encephalitis - as recommended by the public health folks. $800+ when it was all done. You could go broke and drive yourself crazy trying to stay safe.
I've always liked to live close the ground when I travel - on foot or bike, eating street food or in small local places, and asking locals for recommendations. Still, I don't want to be crazy or do something stupid. You don't eat salad or unpeeled fruit and vegetables in Mexico, and the same holds true for the more exotic places. Sanitation in the Third World is never what it is at home, and your stomach probably isn't going to adapt on a vacation. It makes sense to control what you can control, but some things like mosquito and insect bites are more difficult to control. Just be sensible - lots of bug juice and mosquito netting when you're in the zone.
But we're not in the zone now, so after visiting King County Public Health we walked over to Monorail Espresso for a hit of caffeine. Monorail is the quintissential espresso stop in Seattle. It's a street side window in the architecturally unique Coliseum Theater building (now Banana Republic) on Pike Street. The neon sign above the window simply says "Caffeine," and you'd guess from the scene in front that the entire clientele was made up of tattoo covered bike messengers. But, it's not. Monorail's owner, Chuck Beek, knows almost everyone who stops by and "almost everyone" does stop by - at least the cognescenti. The Monorail space is tiny, just room for the friendly and attractive barista (sometimes two), the macchina, and a sink in back. Except for the open window, the rest of the window area is covered with pictures of customers, pictures of Chuck with custormers, Obama posters, and last year's countdown calendar to the end of W's term in the White House. Chuck gave up regular work after a brief stint as a flight attendant for Continental. So did his wife Susie, and in 1988 he opened one of Seattle's first espresso carts under the monorail built for the 1962 World's Fair. It prospered, and today it's still thriving in the permanent space on Pike.
I got to know Chuck like most people do - at the window. We struck up a conversation when I discovered that he rides his bike to work every day from his home on Bainbridge Island. Then I discovered that he and Susie like to vacation in Europe on their bikes and that sealed the deal. We started comparing European bike routes and best places to tour. Then in 2005 we ran into Chuck and Susie in the Amsterdam airport. They were on their way home from a tour of Switzerland and we were coming back from two weeks in Provence. Small world.
Yesterday, Laura the barista drew us a couple of ristretto shots, steamed some milk, and executed a perfect onion-like drawing with exquisite foam at the top of our lattes. Then we joined the bike messengers at one of the small sidewalk tables and watched the parade. It wasn't long until Buddy Foley, the Ladybug Man, came along to join us. Buddy is a legend in Seattle. He's an artist, a musician, a collector, a street person, and a walking history of the offbeat downtown scene. He sells ladybugs (100 for $5), plays keyboards, makes art, talks compulsively, and knows everyone. Yesterday he was sporting a Christine Gregoire Staff badge and lanyard. Christine is Governor of the State of Washington. Was Buddy really serving at a Gregoire event? Don't doubt it. Sometimes he seems like an escapee from the state hospital, and then you learn that whatever he said that seemed outrageous is true.
Marilynn had never met Buddy and it was fun to introduce her to some of the characters that were part of my downtown life for the last 10 years. I'll miss downtown Seattle, but downtown Saigon will be crazy interesting I'm sure. And, it's not as if we're leaving forever. We'll be back and I'm sure we'll see Chuck and Buddy and the two homeless guys that panhandle on the two sides of the Eileen Fisher store across from Nordstrom. That's been an interesting part of the downtown experience for me too. All over the core area homeless people have staked their claim to a corner or a place near some building, and every day they man the space and hold their paper cup or a box cover out to panhandle for spare change. The two guys at the Eileen Fisher store have become friends of sorts. I passed them every day. We always greeted each other and every once in awhile I put a buck or five in their cups. They're both very friendly and often they're too busy talking to someone to say hello or hold the cup out. I'd like to know their stories. Why are they there? They are actually more reliable and predictable than some employees. And when they aren't at their spots I wonder if something has happened to them. But, sure as anything, they're back in place the next day. I used to feel sorry for them, but now I see them differently. They may not have had a lot of choices in life, but I think these are choices they've made for themselves and they seem to be making it just fine. Not my style but just fine.
I've always liked to live close the ground when I travel - on foot or bike, eating street food or in small local places, and asking locals for recommendations. Still, I don't want to be crazy or do something stupid. You don't eat salad or unpeeled fruit and vegetables in Mexico, and the same holds true for the more exotic places. Sanitation in the Third World is never what it is at home, and your stomach probably isn't going to adapt on a vacation. It makes sense to control what you can control, but some things like mosquito and insect bites are more difficult to control. Just be sensible - lots of bug juice and mosquito netting when you're in the zone.
But we're not in the zone now, so after visiting King County Public Health we walked over to Monorail Espresso for a hit of caffeine. Monorail is the quintissential espresso stop in Seattle. It's a street side window in the architecturally unique Coliseum Theater building (now Banana Republic) on Pike Street. The neon sign above the window simply says "Caffeine," and you'd guess from the scene in front that the entire clientele was made up of tattoo covered bike messengers. But, it's not. Monorail's owner, Chuck Beek, knows almost everyone who stops by and "almost everyone" does stop by - at least the cognescenti. The Monorail space is tiny, just room for the friendly and attractive barista (sometimes two), the macchina, and a sink in back. Except for the open window, the rest of the window area is covered with pictures of customers, pictures of Chuck with custormers, Obama posters, and last year's countdown calendar to the end of W's term in the White House. Chuck gave up regular work after a brief stint as a flight attendant for Continental. So did his wife Susie, and in 1988 he opened one of Seattle's first espresso carts under the monorail built for the 1962 World's Fair. It prospered, and today it's still thriving in the permanent space on Pike.
I got to know Chuck like most people do - at the window. We struck up a conversation when I discovered that he rides his bike to work every day from his home on Bainbridge Island. Then I discovered that he and Susie like to vacation in Europe on their bikes and that sealed the deal. We started comparing European bike routes and best places to tour. Then in 2005 we ran into Chuck and Susie in the Amsterdam airport. They were on their way home from a tour of Switzerland and we were coming back from two weeks in Provence. Small world.
Yesterday, Laura the barista drew us a couple of ristretto shots, steamed some milk, and executed a perfect onion-like drawing with exquisite foam at the top of our lattes. Then we joined the bike messengers at one of the small sidewalk tables and watched the parade. It wasn't long until Buddy Foley, the Ladybug Man, came along to join us. Buddy is a legend in Seattle. He's an artist, a musician, a collector, a street person, and a walking history of the offbeat downtown scene. He sells ladybugs (100 for $5), plays keyboards, makes art, talks compulsively, and knows everyone. Yesterday he was sporting a Christine Gregoire Staff badge and lanyard. Christine is Governor of the State of Washington. Was Buddy really serving at a Gregoire event? Don't doubt it. Sometimes he seems like an escapee from the state hospital, and then you learn that whatever he said that seemed outrageous is true.
Marilynn had never met Buddy and it was fun to introduce her to some of the characters that were part of my downtown life for the last 10 years. I'll miss downtown Seattle, but downtown Saigon will be crazy interesting I'm sure. And, it's not as if we're leaving forever. We'll be back and I'm sure we'll see Chuck and Buddy and the two homeless guys that panhandle on the two sides of the Eileen Fisher store across from Nordstrom. That's been an interesting part of the downtown experience for me too. All over the core area homeless people have staked their claim to a corner or a place near some building, and every day they man the space and hold their paper cup or a box cover out to panhandle for spare change. The two guys at the Eileen Fisher store have become friends of sorts. I passed them every day. We always greeted each other and every once in awhile I put a buck or five in their cups. They're both very friendly and often they're too busy talking to someone to say hello or hold the cup out. I'd like to know their stories. Why are they there? They are actually more reliable and predictable than some employees. And when they aren't at their spots I wonder if something has happened to them. But, sure as anything, they're back in place the next day. I used to feel sorry for them, but now I see them differently. They may not have had a lot of choices in life, but I think these are choices they've made for themselves and they seem to be making it just fine. Not my style but just fine.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Welcome to the Organization
I woke up this morning to find my Inbox full of very gracious welcome messages. Earlier, John Anner, the Executive Director of East Meets West, had sent an email to staff introducing me as the new Development Director for Vietnam and welcoming me as the newest member of the EMW team. Immediately, I had 10 new welcome messages from other staff. Next week I'll get to meet the people in the Oakland headquarters face to face.
On Monday I had a long telephone conversation with Bob Greenwood of The Greenwood Company. Bob is the CEO of a consulting firm in San Francisco and the author of a recently concluded study of EMW's fundraising history, strategy, and plans. I read the study last week, but it was interesting to talk to the author directly. Like most non-profits EMW has done some things well, very well in some cases, but there is always room for improvement. The incredible expansion and growth over the last 6 years has left the organization understaffed and with little time to develop a plan that comprehensively addresses current and future needs. Hiring me is a first step in addressing those needs.
Since most of the organization's work takes place in Vietnam (Cambodia, Laos, and East Timor are part of an expansion strategy) it makes sense to have boots on the ground in the country where the work takes place. My job will be to find financial support for EMW projects in Vietnam, mostly from local and international companies doing business there. There has been limited success there in the past few years, but it needs to be ramped up. There is a large ex-patriot community in Ho Chi Minh City, and they will be my primary target group.
One of the most interesting things that Mr. Greenwood told me was a story about meeting with a senior US Consulate diplomat in HCMC. The official told him about young staffers coming to work in Vietnam and their ignorance and indifference to the cultural protocols. Respect and courtesy are baseline behaviors in any culture, but they may be more important in some. When I was there on my first trip I was always surprised when a stranger asked my age. At first I didn't know how to respond. The question would be considered rude in America. But in Vietnam it's important because there are different forms of address and respect dictated by a person's age. The same is true in business or government. A higher ranking business associate or government official expects a higher degree of respect and deference. The diplomat related a story about some young staffers who failed to rise when a senior VN official entered the room for a meeting. It offended the official and derailed the meeting. Greenwood stressed the importance of being especially polite, courteous, and respectful in any encounter with Vietnamese counterparts. It doesn't seem like an onerous task, does it.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
The Computer as Blessing and Curse
I always seem to be talking about change, but that's not unusual. Everyone is talking about change. Technology is driving the change, and most of us are just trying to hang on. Talking about it is the way we're learning to adapt to it. itAlmost everything we do in daily living is changing in remarkable ways and at remarkable speed.
When I started practicing law in Los Angeles I was a lowly associate in a big firm. A big firm in those days was 33 lawyers. That same firm, the last time I checked, had 520 lawyers. In those days even I, a lowly worm, had a secretary (an executive assistant in today's politically correct gender neutral parlance). I wrote what I had to write on a long yellow legal pad or filled in the blanks on a printed form used for filing motions. And, when I was done the secretary typed it out on an IBM Selectric, a primitive word processor that could at least store a document and re-type it. Now law firms (and other business entities) function differently. All but the senior partners work without a personal assistant. They draw from a pool of assistants when they need help, but for the most part they draft documents, compose letters, and communicate with clients on their own personal computers. Technology has cut out the middle man (or woman) including the personal secretary and the mailman.
It has also dramatically altered the way we make travel arrangements. It's still possible to make a reservation on the phone, but it costs more and usually takes more time. My guess is that it will cost even more and possibly take more time in the future. The future is online, but it has it's drawbacks... This morning I needed to make reservations for three round trip flights - two to East Meets West headquarters in Oakland and one from Seattle to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City these days) and return. The problem was that only one of them was a straight forward to and from situation. That was the first trip to Oakland - traveling alone. No problem.
The second trip to Oakland, with Marilynn, involved an Alaska Air companion ticket, and in order to get the discount code for the ticket I had to login to the Alaska website. But, although I had a frequent flier number and an Alaska Air Visa, I had never established an online account with them. It didn't take a lot of time, but it did take some and then I had to wait for a confirmation email that validated the transaction. Then I was able to go back to the website, login, and make the two reservations with the discount code. Slight irritation, but not really a problem - manageable.
The third trip, actually the third and fourth trips, are more complicated. This is where human to human contact can really make it easier. First, the login, followed by the reservation selection process. Seattle to HCMC is more complex than Seattle to Oakland. No airline flies non-stop, so there are a number of choices about when to depart and where to stop. I knew that Northwest/Delta offered the best fare for the dates and times we wanted to travel, because I researched fares yesterday on Orbitz and Travelocity. I also knew, from previous experience with Orbitz, that it is always better to cut out the middleman - there goes another middle person - and deal directly with the airline of choice. So far so good. Northwest on its own website was $100 cheaper than on Travelocity. But, there was a problem. Marilynn and I would be traveling to HCMC together but returning separately on different dates. You can't do two different reservations in one transaction online, so the process has to be repeated for each ticket.
First, I made my reservation (Seattle - Tokyo, Tokyo - HCMC), and then I went back to nwa.com to make Marilynn's. Login again, but this time I had to enroll Marilynn, because she has her own World Perks account. Enroll, wait, receive email confirmation, login again. It takes a little time - again. I repeat the process. I put in the flight cities, departure and return dates, etc. and check to ensure that I am booking her on the same flights that I have chosen for myself. Yup. Put in the credit card info, hit Purchase, and it's done. But not quite...
I purposely did not make seat selections, because I thought it would be impossible to coordinate online. I would, I thought, give them a call once we had confirmation numbers and ask that we be seated together outbound to HCMC. It didn't work that way. When the reservation confirmations arrived each one included seat assignments. I tried to solve the problem online, but a series of unsatisfying email form letter responses about how to make seat selections drove me to the phone. After sitting on hold for what seemed a long time a pleasant customer service agent came on and solved the problem. We are seated together to Saigon - at last.
These three or four transactions took almost 3 hours. I know that businesses and individuals are more productive now that we are able to work independently with the help of such extraordinary technology, but Oh my God did I wish for the old days when my secretary called the firm's travel agent and Shazzam the hard copy ticket showed up the next day by courier. I know we can't go back to the future, but look at the jobs we could create if we did.
It has also dramatically altered the way we make travel arrangements. It's still possible to make a reservation on the phone, but it costs more and usually takes more time. My guess is that it will cost even more and possibly take more time in the future. The future is online, but it has it's drawbacks... This morning I needed to make reservations for three round trip flights - two to East Meets West headquarters in Oakland and one from Seattle to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City these days) and return. The problem was that only one of them was a straight forward to and from situation. That was the first trip to Oakland - traveling alone. No problem.
The second trip to Oakland, with Marilynn, involved an Alaska Air companion ticket, and in order to get the discount code for the ticket I had to login to the Alaska website. But, although I had a frequent flier number and an Alaska Air Visa, I had never established an online account with them. It didn't take a lot of time, but it did take some and then I had to wait for a confirmation email that validated the transaction. Then I was able to go back to the website, login, and make the two reservations with the discount code. Slight irritation, but not really a problem - manageable.
The third trip, actually the third and fourth trips, are more complicated. This is where human to human contact can really make it easier. First, the login, followed by the reservation selection process. Seattle to HCMC is more complex than Seattle to Oakland. No airline flies non-stop, so there are a number of choices about when to depart and where to stop. I knew that Northwest/Delta offered the best fare for the dates and times we wanted to travel, because I researched fares yesterday on Orbitz and Travelocity. I also knew, from previous experience with Orbitz, that it is always better to cut out the middleman - there goes another middle person - and deal directly with the airline of choice. So far so good. Northwest on its own website was $100 cheaper than on Travelocity. But, there was a problem. Marilynn and I would be traveling to HCMC together but returning separately on different dates. You can't do two different reservations in one transaction online, so the process has to be repeated for each ticket.
First, I made my reservation (Seattle - Tokyo, Tokyo - HCMC), and then I went back to nwa.com to make Marilynn's. Login again, but this time I had to enroll Marilynn, because she has her own World Perks account. Enroll, wait, receive email confirmation, login again. It takes a little time - again. I repeat the process. I put in the flight cities, departure and return dates, etc. and check to ensure that I am booking her on the same flights that I have chosen for myself. Yup. Put in the credit card info, hit Purchase, and it's done. But not quite...
I purposely did not make seat selections, because I thought it would be impossible to coordinate online. I would, I thought, give them a call once we had confirmation numbers and ask that we be seated together outbound to HCMC. It didn't work that way. When the reservation confirmations arrived each one included seat assignments. I tried to solve the problem online, but a series of unsatisfying email form letter responses about how to make seat selections drove me to the phone. After sitting on hold for what seemed a long time a pleasant customer service agent came on and solved the problem. We are seated together to Saigon - at last.
These three or four transactions took almost 3 hours. I know that businesses and individuals are more productive now that we are able to work independently with the help of such extraordinary technology, but Oh my God did I wish for the old days when my secretary called the firm's travel agent and Shazzam the hard copy ticket showed up the next day by courier. I know we can't go back to the future, but look at the jobs we could create if we did.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Social Networking
I clearly remember sitting in a sidewalk cafe in Florence writing postcards to all my friends in the States. That was in 1965. I still write an occasional postcard when I think it's a particularly beautiful picture, but the world has changed incredibly since 1965. Now it's more likely that I will snap a picture with my iPhone add a short text message and email it on the spot to a friend in the United States or Europe. Instant communication is the norm now. That takes care of the touristy kind of correspondence that lets friends and family know that you're still alive and well in some far off place.
Until now I've been resisted other forms of social networking. Some will say I'm slow when it comes to commitment, but that's another story. I did join MySpace a couple of years ago because my grandchildren were on it and I could see (and hear) things they posted. My grandson, Larsen, is a talented rapper and I was able to hear him in action. Still, I never really got attached to MySpace and although I was a member I never posted a profile or picture. In the last couple of years Facebook, LinkedIn, and other sites have grown like mushrooms, but I still didn't buy in.
But - today - I caved in and joined Facebook, in spite of a National Public Radio feature last week that was entitled "Oh, my God, my parents are on Facebook." What about "Oh, my God my grandfather is on Facebook?" Actually, I think they'll approve as long as I don't get too hip, start sexting or acting like some depraved predator. It's a deal kids - nothing off the wall. After all, I don't want to be seen as some aged teen wannabe. What I really want is an up to date way to communicate with as many of my friends as possible, and the Facebook network is the way to do it right now.
I don't need to tweet on Twitter. My friends don't need to know that I'm stuck in Saigon's nightmarish traffic. They don't need to know that I'm watching CSI or the Dancing with the Stars. But, I would like to let them know the things I'm doing that might hold their interest for more than a minute or 140 characters.
Oh, by the way, I Skype too.
Monday, July 27, 2009
The adventure isn't always a rush
Getting ready to go on an new adventure can be tedious, stressful, frustrating, expensive, depressing, and downright unpleasant. I'm experiencing some of these emotions as we prepare to move, live, and work in Saigon. The visa process is a bit of a crapshoot. Vietnam is not a democracy, at least as we know it, and the process can, at its worst, be arbitrary and capricious. My new boss suggests we apply for a one year multiple entry visa but not to expect one for more than 6 months. The application requires a cover letter for business related visas that explains “purpose of travel, duration and moral and financial responsibilities.” John had never heard of such a letter requirement and "moral responsibilities" is a quagmire. I find myself getting irritated, and then I try to sit on the ugly American in me.
Life has always been easy for us. The US in essence ruled the world until recently and we have allowed ourselves to assume an air of entitlement. Of course, a Vietnamese wanting to visit or work in America would be expected to jump through a innumerable series of hoops and time delays. Why should it be different for us? We're spoiled because we have become accustomed to crossing borders without visas or even without passports until recently. The European Union has made it a smooth transition from country to country and Americans have been the beneficiaries of a soft immigration policy that gives most favored nation status to American citizens traveling in the EU. But, the world is changing. America has worn out its welcome in many parts of the world, and national pride has risen in emerging nations that are striving to establish boundaries and national credibility.
So, I'm writing a cover letter explaining my purpose, my sponsor, and my moral responsibility so I can live and work in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Never mind that my purpose is to help build the medical and educational infrastructure and/or deliver public health services to a portion of the Vietnamese population. I owe it to the people and the government of Vietnam to explain my purpose. So, I'll suck it up and jump through the hoops.
Life has always been easy for us. The US in essence ruled the world until recently and we have allowed ourselves to assume an air of entitlement. Of course, a Vietnamese wanting to visit or work in America would be expected to jump through a innumerable series of hoops and time delays. Why should it be different for us? We're spoiled because we have become accustomed to crossing borders without visas or even without passports until recently. The European Union has made it a smooth transition from country to country and Americans have been the beneficiaries of a soft immigration policy that gives most favored nation status to American citizens traveling in the EU. But, the world is changing. America has worn out its welcome in many parts of the world, and national pride has risen in emerging nations that are striving to establish boundaries and national credibility.
So, I'm writing a cover letter explaining my purpose, my sponsor, and my moral responsibility so I can live and work in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Never mind that my purpose is to help build the medical and educational infrastructure and/or deliver public health services to a portion of the Vietnamese population. I owe it to the people and the government of Vietnam to explain my purpose. So, I'll suck it up and jump through the hoops.
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