The World is Flat (at least in Saigon)

The world is flat. The world is small. The world is at our fingertips. We have real-time face to face Skype conversations across the oceans. We "chat" with friends in Europe, Asia and the Americas on a daily basis. We follow the news on the European debt crisis and the air quality in Beijing and we know that all of these things affect us personally.

In Saigon Gucci competes with Pho 24 for our attention. Christian Louboutin sells $700 shoes next door to a counter that sells Rolex knockoffs for under $100. Almost anywhere in the world we can find a more or less homogeneous urban scene. Countries retain their traditions and cultures and on the street the scene can look very indigenous but at the top of the economic ladder, in the center of the largest cities, things start to look very familiar. Brands are global. Half of the world is wearing Nike shoes and baseball caps. Coke and Pepsi are the beverages of choice. Kids in Saigon dream of having their birthday parties at KFC, and there are half a dozen glitzy Vietnamese magazines devoted to fashion and the high life with "golf" in their titles.

I understand the Vietnamese yearning to succeed. They're hard after it. They're out early and work late. They save. They invest in their children. They want the stuff that signifies they've made it but if they can't have it they're willing to sacrifice so that their children can. The grand bargain in Vietnam is that if the parents sacrifice for the children the children will take care of them later. There is no Social Security system in Vietnam. The family is their retirement plan.

The world is indeed small and flat and Vietnamese graduates are competing with Western graduates for jobs on both sides of the ocean. Vietnam is still a developing country and the education system is woefully inadequate. Still, many Western colleges and universities are building satellite branches in Saigon and Hanoi. They recognize the Vietnamese thirst for education and their drive to succeed and prosper.

Many of us regret the Vietnamese rush to emulate the West. Beautiful French colonial buildings are demolished to make way for steel and glass high rises. There is no great affection for the French or their buildings but the demolition is a bargain with the devil. What goes up in its place is a soulless 21st century architecture that has no respect for the past, the culture, or history of the place. When the Berlin Wall came down and the East was opened up, the city of Berlin was careful to maintain and restore many of the rundown old buildings while encouraging new architecture and a mixture of styles. In Saigon and Hanoi it's all about cost per square meter. It's all about money.

The world is flat, but a horizon without features isn't very interesting.

America in Decline

I often describe myself a short term pessimist and long term optimist. I try to think positively about people and the world. I've been traveling almost constantly since 1965 and I've seen a lot of changes in the places I've lived and visited. I've come to think that airports are metaphors for their countries.

Last Wednesday I took the red-eye from Saigon to Seoul, had an 11 hour layover in the airport and then continued on to Seattle. It was midnight when we left Saigon but the Illy espresso bar was open. The cafe was stylishly modern and the clientele a mix of Asian, European, and American types. It could have been anywhere. It's that way in most international airports these days. I can remember when Tan Son Nhat airport was a couple of one story wooden buildings. Now it's all glass and marble high rise with luxury brand boutiques and world cuisine. It's 36 years since the Vietnam War ended and the victorious communist north has fallen in line with the rest of the capitalist consumer world. I wonder what Uncle Ho would think?

In the last year I have been in a dozen airports - Saigon, Hanoi, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Siem Reap, Pnom Penh, Johannesburg, Capetown, Doha, Seoul, San Francisco, and Seattle - maybe more. If airports are any indication America is a third world country. It is embarrassing. The buildings are rundown, the baggage systems are slow and inconvenient, signage is confusing, there are few moving walkways, distances to gates are long, escalators are narrow, elevators are hard to find, and information services nowhere to be found. On top of that baggage carts are small, poorly designed, cost $4, and can't be taken to most of the areas in the airport whereas carts in other countries are sturdy, free, and can actually be used to get your luggage to the taxi stand or curb. Foreigners arriving in America don't understand. The cart dispensers require dollars or a credit card, the instructions are all in English, and there is no place to get either money or change. It's embarrassing.

In the Seattle airport the baggage carousels are so poorly designed that the bags have to be lifted up and out of a revolving tray. I watched a half dozen women try to get their bags over the lip of the carousel last week only to lose their grip and watch their bags continue around again. Most modern baggage delivery systems are flat so that the bags can slide off the belt - but not in the US.

If you want to see the best in airports you should visit Seoul. It's beautiful, it's functional and it's designed to meet traveler's needs. In the transit area, if you're connecting to another flight, there is a hotel. There are free showers, lounge chairs that let you rest (sleep) comfortably, a massage service, airline lounges that only charge $20 bucks, plus all the usual luxury brand and world food choices. The boarding lounges are large and recognize that jumbo jets carry lots of passengers that need to be accommodated before and after the flight. The chairs in the lounges are cushioned and flat, so that passengers can stretch out if it's uncrowded. I've never understood it but US airports are designed as if there is a security concern if people want to sleep so the chairs are designed to be uncomfortable for more than a short rest and don't allow one to lie down comfortably.

There's a lot to be said for building from the ground up. It was easier to rebuild in Europe after the war because it was from the ground up. And, it is easier to build a new airport than to remodel an existing one, but when the light rail systems in Seattle and New York were built recently neither one connected conveniently to the center of the airport. In Seattle the light rail passengers disembark and have to walk with their luggage through the parking garage to get to the actual airport building. Now really.

As I watch the ridiculous Republican candidate debates and hear them all talk about how America is the greatest country in the world I wonder how many of them know the truth. America is actually in decline. Our airports are just a metaphor for the decline. Our roads and bridges are falling apart, our train system is bankrupt and in shambles, our cities are crime ridden, the NY subway system is 100 years old, and there are homeless people in parking lots and doorways all over the country. Let's stop fooling ourselves; America is in decline and if we want to reverse the trend we need to bite the bullet, acknowledge the cost, pay the taxes and start to fix things. Just do it.

Kaci's Birthday

Almost two years ago Marilynn and I chose an espresso place in the heart of Saigon for our morning lattes. We walk the two and a half blocks from the Hotel Rex gym, where we start the day, and we arrive right at 7am when they open the doors. Gloria Jean's is an Australian chain and it's hard for a Seattlite to say but I think they make the best tasting lattes on the planet. They are rich, thick, and very strong without being bitter. Tasty and long lasting.

But, the coffee is not the point here. Over the past two years we have made a number of new friends at Gloria Jean's. The 7am crowd is very loyal and it took several months to break down the barriers but eventually we nodded and smiled and said hello often enough that we were able to start some conversations. The crowd is very eclectic and has changed a little over time: there's Mike who does micro-loans and venture investing for Dragon Capital, Andrew, the vice provost at RMIT an Australian technology university, Nga, a Vietnamese business owner and single mom to 3 children, David, a San Francisco lawyer who splits his time between the Bay Area and HCMC, and Kaci, an ambitious, attractive, and very smart 28 year old who is starting an Executive MBA program at RMIT in January. Then there is the sidewalk newspaper vendor who saves us the Sat-Sun International Herald Tribune, the motorbike taxi guy right outside the front door who can't keep his finger out of his nose, and the neighborhood sidewalk restaurant just across the alley. They are all part of our morning.

But, last week Kaci invited us (and Nga)to her 28th birthday party on Monday night at the Renaissance Riverside Hotel. It was a formal sit-down dim sum dinner for 20. Marilynn and I were the only non-Asian faces in the group and most of the other guests had known Kaci for years. It was very flattering to be invited and it was a good party even though it had to be moved from poolside to inside because of the never-ending monsoon rains.

Kaci's friends are on the move. They are the ambitious, upwardly mobile, college educated, English speaking cohort who want to be part of the global community - whether they stay in Vietnam or move elsewhere. There were more women than men in the group and almost everyone was late 20's or early 30's and single. There were journalists, PR people, bankers, executive assistants, interior designers, business development people and Mr. Tri, Kaci's American educated mentor and English teacher as well as head of external relations for the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee. But that's another story.

One notable difference between the Far East and the US is that age is not limiting in the formation of friendships. Almost all of our friends in Saigon are the same age as our children. I suppose it has something to do with the Confucian influence on the Asian side, but even our expat friends are much younger than we are. It feels good and natural to have these friendships despite the obvious age differences. Next week we are going out with Nga and her children, whom we have not met. It's been a real privilege getting to know these people.

Saigon's Moveable Feast

It's been raining here the last two mornings. Normally, mornings are clear and the rain comes later. But these two mornings have highlighted a Saigon phenomenon. Rain or shine, morning in Saigon has a unique feature; it's the breakfast cart brigade. These are the portable aluminum and glass carts on wheels that set up on sidewalks all over town. There must be 10 between my apartment and my office, a mere two and a half blocks.

The parade starts about 3 or 4am when they leave their overnight storage spots. Most of the carts are pushed by the women who operate them. It looks especially dreary in the rain, but they do it wet or dry. Once they get their spot the carts remain stationary for a few hours. Some of them make morning deliveries. Some of the goods are carried on foot (like those carried by this woman), but most of the activity involves rolling stock.
I don't know where they keep the carts when they're not in use. It's got to be somewhere in their very small living spaces, but it's hard to imagine. Some are very large. Some are small. Some have fire in the hole. You see the pots hanging from a passenger's shoulder bar on a motorbike spitting flames and sparks. Some are shiny bright, some are dented and creased from long wear. The vendors themselves often sit on the sidewalk beside the cart waiting for customers. Some sell fresh fruit. Some sell banh mi, the Vietnamese baguette sandwiches. Some sell soft drinks. Some sell pho or noodles. Some sell things that can't be described.



This is free market capitalism at its most basic.

Everyone is in the game. They're out early, in the dark, rolling their carts down the street. It's cars, motorbikes, food carts, buses and bicycles. They all share the road. Then they have to set up their space. It's very territorial. The carts are positioned on the sidewalk. It's not easy to set up the more complicated carts. There are little plastic stools for the clientele. The cart surface has to be free for work space. There has to be enough sidewalk free of motorbikes for customers to congregate, and they can't be so close to the street that traffic can't get by. But, some customers stay on their motorbikes and order take away. Horns are blaring. Orders are shouted. Dishes are washed in plastic buckets and reused, but there is no running water. Vietnamese immune systems are bullet proof, but it's a big Petri dish for Westerners.

From 6 - 9am the streets are teeming with people picking up take out, sitting down with friends, slurping Pho, sipping tea, drinking Caphe Sua Da the iced coffee drink with condensed milk, eating noodles or some kind of breakfast cracker. And then it's done - about 9 everyone packs up and rolls away. I've never actually seen the dismantling and dispersal. It happens while I'm at work but by the time I leave for lunch all the small vendors are gone - presumably to their day jobs. That part is still a mystery to me.

Life Reports

This morning David Brooks of the New York Times asked his readers over 70 for a gift. He asked them/us to send him brief "life reports" on our lives so far, an evaluation of what we did well, of what we did not so well and what we learned along the way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/opinion/brooks-the-life-report.html.

He plans to write a couple columns around Thanksgiving using the "gifts" that show up. I thought about it all morning and couldn't resist the challenge. Here's mine:

"Dear David:

My wife and I were drinking lattes in a Saigon coffeehouse when we read your column requesting brief life reports from people over 70. My first question was how could I possibly write a brief report on 74 years of careening around the globe? The answer is I can’t but I’m willing to take a crack at it.

All in all I feel very satisfied with my life. I would like to have made a bigger difference in the lives I’ve touched, but I’ve come to accept that positive change comes in small increments like compound interest over the long term. It’s never a straight line and there are often serious setbacks, but in the big picture sense I see myself as a long term optimist but a short term pessimist. For the past 2 ½ years I’ve been working in Saigon for East Meets West Foundation, a humanitarian aid NGO that is working to improve the lives of disadvantaged people in SE Asia. This is on the heels of a jagged career path that included being a Marine Corps fighter pilot, lawyer, Pan Am pilot, restaurant owner, lawyer again, non-profit manager and now development director at EMW. My parents would likely have said I can’t hold on to a job, but I’ve loved the path that took me from Seattle to Quantico, Pensacola, Orange County, Berkeley, Los Angeles, New York, St. Tropez, San Francisco, Berlin, Miami, Sun Valley, Salt Lake City and back to Seattle before taking on this job in Saigon. Some of the changes and places were volitional and some were dictated by health, furlough, or other circumstances, but, as I’ve told my children, “keep your eyes and ears open; you never know where the next opportunity is going to come from.”

Family has always been important to me, but my choices have created some chaos. I had a brief marriage when I was still a child myself and then I was married for 25 years to a smart and talented artist who was a good mother to our kids but my restlessness did us in too. I love and am proud of my kids, but our relationships have been strained at times and I’ve come to believe that you can never truly know or understand either your parents or your children. You just love them and hope that in their hearts they know it. 13 years ago I reconnected with a childhood friend, we married, and now she is sharing this adventurous life. We’re both in our 70’s and know that life is fragile and can’t be guaranteed. We’re both still healthy and try to live as fully as possible with good friends, family, adventure bike travel, good books, good food, and some good works thrown in.

Faith is a tough one. I flirted with evangelical Christianity in college, Buddhism in mid-life and the smells and bells of the Episcopal church later on. Fundamentalism is spoiling the stew for everyone now, but I will continue to observe the faith as an Episcopalian because it’s in the mainstream of my Western heritage. If I were Eastern or Middle Eastern I might honor the mystery in another way. It might sound wishy-washy but I think it’s important to acknowledge and honor the mystery and as someone from the West this seems the best way for me.

Self-knowledge? I can’t say for sure, but I think I know myself better now than I did when my wife and I met at age 10. I’ve always been pretty independent and not been guided by other people’s needs, desires or expectations. I’ve experienced joy, caused pain, shared the wealth, stayed engaged and been very, very, lucky. I have never given much thought to retirement. I’m wrapping up my full time work in Saigon and next year I will only spend one or two months in Vietnam. I’m excited to have time to devote to other interests, but I don’t think of it as retirement. I’m sure I’ll be actively engaged on a number of fronts. 2 ½ years ago a friend of mine in DC told me “Jack, you’ve found the secret to a fulfilling retirement – another good job.” That’s my story.

This is our picture taken in April.

Sidebar: We wanted to meet you at the Sun Valley Writer’s Conference in August. We were volunteers at the Pavilion and excited to hear your presentation. We bought your book, but I’m not much for standing in lines and you were swamped when you finished. We’re died in the wool liberals but read your column religiously. We think you must be the last real conservative in America. It must be lonely.

Regards,

Jack"

Shouldn't You Be In School?

This girl is selling coconuts on the street near the Opera House in downtown Saigon. My guess is that she is 12 or 13. She's there every day. I see kids like her all over town. Some are working in street cafes. Some are selling lottery tickets. Some are hawking postcards. Some want to shine my flip-flops. Some want me to buy Chiclets. The question that always comes to mind is "Why aren't you in school?" The reason is simple; her family needs whatever she can make to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads.

East Meets West has a scholarship program designed to help keep kids like her stay in school. SPELL (Scholarship Program to Enhance Literacy and Learning) is providing scholarships for more than 4500 students from the most impoverished families in Vietnam. These scholarships are incredible. Once the student is selected for the program, he or she is guaranteed a scholarship from the 6th grade through high school that includes tuition, fees, books, uniforms, mandatory tutoring, and a bicycle. No, education is not free in Vietnam. It costs roughly $150 a year to cover the cost of these items - minus the bicycle - and poor families simply can't afford it. The reason SPELL starts in the 6th grade is that there isn't much dropout in the lower grades, but at about age 11 or 12 the kids are big enough to help the family by contributing their labor. SPELL aims to help the families keep the kids in school where, if they hang in and graduate, there is a chance for a better life.
I pass this little guy, his sister or his mother every morning at 8 on my way to the office. They take turns working this cart, selling overripe bananas. I've never seen anyone buy anything from them but they are there every day. I wonder why he, too, isn't in school but the answer is clear - his family needs his labor just to get by.

A friend of mine started the SPELL program in 2005. He was on a walking tour of Vietnam and he kept seeing kids like these and asking his guide why they weren't in school. The guide told him their families couldn't afford it. He asked how much it would cost and the guide told him $35/year. On the spot he said he wanted to underwrite 1000 kids. It turned out to be a little more complicated and a little more expensive, but there were a lot of after-market additions like tutoring and bicycles. Nevertheless, the program was born at that moment. The first group of scholarship recipients graduates this year and a new program, SPELL Goes to College is in the works.

A dollar goes a long way in Vietnam, and 4500 students are going to get a chance at a better life because of it.

What's with the Hoodie? It's 90 degrees!!

Southern Vietnam has two seasons - hot and dry and hot and wet. We are supposed to be moving to the dry season in October but no one has told the gods and they are still punishing us with rain. Nevertheless, wet or dry, I like hot. It takes little adjustments sometimes, but I like it a lot more than being cold. Yesterday I played tennis at noon in 90/90 conditions (90 degrees and 90% humidity). I drank two bottles of Revive and a quart of water but the tennis was OK and it got me out from behind the computer screen.

The south is always hot but there are some temperature control strategies here that leave me bewildered. In 2007 riding my bike from Dalat to Nha Trang I passed a woman wearing a puffy pink quilted ski parka crossing the road in front of me. I nearly crashed the bike turning around to check her out. What's the deal? It's over 90F and she has on a down parka zipped to the neck. I still have the picture etched in my memory and the why of it lingering in my RAM.

It's still a mystery, but now that I've lived here awhile I realize she is just an extreme version of something I see every day. Vietnamese women are prized for their light skin and fine features. These qualities make them targets for trafficking in other parts of Asia where skin tones are darker and features coarser. The culture values these two physical characteristics. Vietnamese women are truly among the world's most beautiful. But, one of the first things you notice about the traffic here, after you get over the volume, chaos, and sound is that every woman on every motorbike is wearing a face mask. My assumption was that they were just smarter than the men and wanted protection from the auto emissions. I'm sure that has something to do with it, but then I noticed something else. A significant number of these women are totally covered. It's not just their faces that are covered but any and all skin is hidden from the sun. No skin is visible. In the morning and evening commuter traffic many of these women wear long gloves that cover to the shoulder and stockings of the same ugly cream colored nylon that cover their feet and ankles.

The final element in the great Vietnamese cover-up is the hoodie. Hard to figure but, yes, they wear heavy cotton sweatshirts with hoods. Not only do they wear sweatshirts in 90F, but they are zipped to the neck with the hoods up and a helmet on top. Not a square millimeter of skin is exposed. I guess the hood protects the neck from getting any sun, but man does it look hot. It's a very good lesson in cultural anthropology. I think of the Swedes and other northerners who travel great distances to take their clothes off and face the sun. I think of the Muslim cultures who have ritualized cover up strategies and added a religious component to their violation. The Vietnamese are somewhere in the middle. I'm just having trouble with the hoodie. How about SPF 50?

A Cautionary Tale

I've written about motorbikes before. There are 6,000,000 of them in Saigon. They are everywhere - on the street, on the sidewalk, in the lobbies of buildings, and on the ground floor of most houses. Not just some motorbikes, millions of them. You are conscious, every minute, of their presence. Right now I'm in my apartment but the sound of motorbikes passing is in the room with me. They are noisy, quiet, dirty, clean, sleek, clunky, fast and slow. They are used for personal transport, pizza delivery, FedEx and DHL, taxi service, family transport (up to 5 on one bike), furniture delivery (I've seen 10 twin bed mattresses weaving down the street at 6am), livestock delivery (trussed inverted pigs or 30 dead chickens hanging by their scrawny necks), police patrols, mail, grocery, fast-food, flower, and window glass delivery. Almost any function is and can be performed by motorbike - including larceny and battery.

Traffic is chaotic. Bikes drive on both sides of the road and on the sidewalk wherever there is an opening. They swerve between cars and turn in front of them. I've seen them run red lights at full speed across blind corners early in the morning. There is some order to it, but it's difficult to discern exactly how it works. Sometimes it doesn't and sometimes there are tragic consequences. Last week a friend of a friend's 6 year old daughter was killed in Hanoi when a taxi rear-ended the mother and two daughters on their way home from school. The mother may lose her foot. The taxi driver made a run for it but was stopped by a couple of other cars at the next traffic light. More often than not they get away and leave the motorbike driver lying in the street. It's the law of the jungle.

The more common crime, on the increase in Saigon, is purse or computer snatching. It's not new. When we moved here we were warned to be careful and always carry a purse or computer on the building side when walking or with the strap across your body on a motorbike. I don't know if it is the global recession or something else but purse snatching is on the rise now and sometimes it too has awful consequences. It usually works this way: two men on a bike spot a woman walking or riding with a purse hanging from her shoulder. They will pass slowly to case the job and then do a U-turn and make their run. The second guy on the bike grabs the purse or in some cases cuts the strap and they're off. It doesn't take much imagination to see the consequences. The best outcome is a clean snatch and run. The worst is that the victim is pulled off the bike and dragged down the street.

Our friend, Kaci (many Vietnamese working with foreigners take Western names to make it easier for us to remember) had her purse snatched a couple of years ago. She was riding on the back of a xe-om, a motorbike taxi, when it happened. Her bag was strapped across her body and the thieves didn't make a clean job of it. Kaci was thrown off the bike and dragged a ways until the thieves could free the bag. She was knocked unconscious and bleeding from a head injury. The xe-om driver stopped and went back to help. Eventually, he got her into a taxi, left his own bike and took her to the hospital - still unconscious. She had no ID because her purse was gone and no one knew who she was or who to call. She might have died because her brain was swelling, but doctors administered drugs immediately that kept the swelling down. The xe-om driver stayed with her until 8am the following morning when she recovered consciousness. By some miracle she was able to remember her mother's phone number although most of her short term memory was gone. She doesn't remember anything about the accident. She ended up with 8 stiches in her scalp and was kept in the hospital for a month until she recovered her memory. In the end she had to quit her job as a sales rep for Remy Martin because it was unsafe for her to drink alcohol (part of her job) following the accident. She's fine now and has a new job, but it might have ended like the 6 year old girl in Hanoi.

We have another friend who was walking and whose handbag strap was cut. This time the thieves didn't get it because she was holding on tight. A Vietnamese-American friend of mine lost his MacBook Pro the second day he was in town. Same modus - two guys on a bike, quick turnaround, snatch and run. My friend speaks fluent Vietnamese and went to the police station to file a report. He didn't imagine that they would get the computer back for him but he needed the report for his insurance company. They asked him to fill out the report and come back the next day to pick up a copy. He did, but the next day they "couldn't remember" him filling out the report. They asked him to fill out another one. In the end their message was "You're a rich American. You deserved to lose it. You should have known better." He never got the report he needed from them, but one of the guys in his office has a friend in the police department who happily provided one.

Holidays are the worst time for petty crime. At Tet, lunar new year, Vietnamese need to take a gifts to their families. If they don't have the means they might just snatch a purse. Be cautious. Be aware. And, don't expect the police to help. But for the right price you can get almost anything even help from the police...

The Lure of the Exotic

ex·ot·ic   [ig-zot-ik] adjective

1. of foreign origin or character; not native; introduced from abroad, but not fully naturalized or acclimatized: exotic foods; exotic plants.

2. strikingly unusual or strange in effect or appearance: an exotic hairstyle.

3. of a uniquely new or experimental nature: exotic weapons.

4. of, pertaining to, or involving stripteasing: the exotic clubs where strippers are featured.


Webster is too clinical for me. Exotic has danger implicit. It has romance. The air is heavy and moist. There is a little mold forming under things. You feel different. The air is charged. The mind is altered. And, yes, it is not native.

I feel alive in Saigon. The danger here is not the danger of the past. No more war. No more malaria. Now the danger is more about motorbikes than mortars. But, grown men find it difficult to leave the curb. It becomes an act of faith. Step off the curb. Walk slowly and steadily - no quick or jerky movements. Watch the traffic but don't fixate on any one motorbike. Step up on the opposite curb and Voila...

The romance is palpable too. Think Catherine Deneuve in Indochine, Jane March in The Lover (above), or Do Thi Ha Yen, the girl who plays Phuong to Michael Caine's Fowler in the film adaptation of The Quiet American. It's hot. It's tropical. It's juicy. It's sensual. The Vietnamese women are among the most beautiful and stylish in the world.

The tropics are steamy. A drop of sweat on the upper lip. Dark patches under your arms. Orchids growing in vacant lots. Buildings mottled with mold and peeling paint. In a year or two underbrush becomes a canopy. Sometimes it feels like you're trying to breath underwater.

Why would anyone find this alluring? It's hot, noisy, smelly, uncomfortable, disease ridden and occasionally dangerous. But... it's truly exotic.

The Wall

In the 1970's and 80's I was living and working in Berlin. And occasionally in those years I would make a wrong turn while looking for an unfamiliar address and end up facing The Wall. It was always disarming. I was living an ordinary life - except that I couldn't walk, bike, or drive out of the city without running the East German gauntlet of checkpoints, blockades, and restricted rest stops. Life seemed normal enough - get the kids to school, go to work, shop at the local supermarket, hang out in trendy bars and cafes, and run in the Grunewald with the wild boars. That part was a little sketchy sometimes, but for the most part it seemed like a normal life. Then there was The Wall.

Right now I'm sitting in an American espresso bar across the street from the US Consulate in Saigon. I'm watching the traffic ebb and flow as 6 million motorbikes move people around in some sort of system that I still don't understand though I've been observing it for 2 1/2 years. Things look normal, but like The Wall in Berlin the Consulate is a reminder that everything here is not entirely normal. The Consulate sits on the same ground as the US Embassy did on April 30, 1975. That was the date of the fall of Saigon and the incredible panic and chaos as Americans and South Vietnamese struggled to exit as the NVA made its final assault and entered the city. I'm about a block from the site where the picture of the last helicopter lifting off the roof of a building with people hanging onto the skids (taken just after the one above).

The NVA stormed the Embassy grounds and destroyed most of what was there. By then the Americans and some of our loyal friends were safely aboard ships of the Seventh Fleet lying off the coast. I have friends here who have never seen family members since that day. I have one friend whose mother left him to go back and get another relative. The people at the airport put him on an airplane for Guam and the mother never made it. 17 years later, he got a call, routed through Canada (there was no contact between Vietnam and the US). It was his mother. Neither he nor his mother had any idea if the other was still alive until then. He was in college at San Jose State and his mother was running a tour business for the government. They are reunited now and he runs his mother's successful private tour business. Good story. But, not all of the stories are that good.

The Embassy grounds were repatriated in 1995 when Vietnam re-deeded the property to the US. The Consulate was rebuilt and diplomatic relations between the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the United States resumed. I attended a ceremony celebrating 15 years of those relations last year and listened to speeches by diplomats of both countries extoll the virtues and successes of this relationship. As someone in the State Department recently said of Iraq "mistakes were made." The diplomats here didn't say that. I did.

I feel privileged to be part of the reconciliation process, but I keep running into The Wall, whether it's in Berlin, Saigon or Jerusalem. Maybe someday I'll make a wrong turn in Baghdad and see The Wall.

Evil, Evil; Man Was Not Meant to Fly...

One of the low points of my Marine Corps years was a week of Winter Survival/Escape and Evasion Training in a gruesome place called Pickle Meadows. For half of the week we were in the wilderness hunting for food (mice and porcupines mostly, after the rabbits teased us to near madness) and trying to evade "aggressors" whose mission was to capture and place us in a simulated POW camp. It didn't matter if we managed to evade the dread aggressors - and my team did. In the end everyone was thrown into the POW camp.

In the camp the enemy couldn't really torture us, but it was hard to tell the difference at the time. The temperature was near zero degrees and we were forced to remain awake and on our feet for two days. The whole thing was supposed to give us an idea of what it would be like to be captured and endure extreme discomfort while refusing to answer an interrogators questions. The worst part was being jammed into a pine box about the size of a large golf bag for refusing to give the interrogator anything but name, rank, and serial number. At first it seemed bearable but that lasted about 5 minutes. Then it became the incredible shrinking box - a real-life Edgar Allen Poe torture device. Every bone pressed hard against the ever shrinking wooden box - forehead, elbows, knees, ankles, hips, knuckles, you name it, it hurt.

The current equivalent of the incredible shrinking box is an economy seat on a full airplane crossing the Pacific Ocean. It may not kill you but there are times it feels like it will. Sixteen hours in that seat is an eternity. The air is as dry as a popcorn fart and the seats are designed for dwarfs. The food is rarely edible, and service is never on the Nordstrom model. Asian airlines have seats designed for Asians. My last trip on Japan Airlines I sat side-saddle for six hours because with my butt against the back of the seat my knees still penetrated four inches into the seat in front of me. American carriers give a little more legroom and a lot less service. Forget Social Security and Medicare, if there is one entitlement program that needs adjustment it is the salary and benefits package for fat old flight attendants who snarl when asked for water and won't get out of their rest seats mid-flight because their contract ensures them a "rest period."

I may be sexist in this regard, but Asian airlines do know how to do it. On the flights from Seattle to Seoul and on to Saigon last week the Asiana flight attendants were young, alert, attentive, solicitous, and genuinely interested in satisfying needs. They weren't gorgeous but they were attractive and so similar in body type, hairstyle, makeup,and uniform accessories that it was difficult to tell them apart. And - they never ever stopped patrolling the aisles. I was squirming in my seat for fourteen of those hours and they never stopped smiling or asking if they could bring me something. They weren't serving Ambien or I would have opted in. During the ordeal I read the NY Times until it disintegrated in my hands, watched four movies, read parts of three books on my iPad, ate four meals, drank 6 glasses of wine, slept for several hours and we were still 800 miles from Saigon.

Until I learn to astrally project myself from one side of the Pacific to the other I'm pretty much stuck with air travel. I have no personal experience birthing a child, but I'm told that there is a sort of amnesia that takes over and the pain of childbirth fades so that the race can continue to reproduce. It must be similar for Pacific air travel. I have crossed the ocean 14 times in two and half years. I'll do it again in December but sometimes I think the great outdoors at Pickle Meadows was a lot more fun than I remember.

Why is America Looking East?

After 2+ years in Vietnam I'm convinced that America needs to stop looking east and start looking west. The world has changed but America's international orientation has not. We live in a global world where multinational companies control much of the world's wealth and where their tentacles extend out to all continents and regions. Vietnam is a good example. From the rooftop bar of the Rex Hotel the skyline is ablaze with international neon - Dai-ichi (Japan), Mercedes (Germany), Sunwah (China), Prudential (UK, yes UK), Sheraton (US), Samsung (Korea), Gucci (Italy), Shell (Dutch?) and others. 35 years after the "American War" it is difficult to tell who the victor was - if any.

I read the International Herald Tribune to get my news when I'm in Saigon and it does a fair job of covering the globe. It's when I come home to the US that I am stunned by the "old world" orientation. Every morning I comb the NY Times looking for articles on what's happening in Asia. There is some coverage, but overwhelmingly the news is Euro-centric. Greece, France, Portugal, Italy, Spain, even Russia. They are all in trouble along with the US. Maybe it's our preoccupation with bad news, but I'm convinced it's more about history and heritage than what is happening in the world today.

Our founders came from Europe and we have never stopped looking in that direction. It's where the great migration that settled the continent came from but Asia is where the world's future is developing. The colonial world is history. The US is history as the only political and economic superpower. The new world is all about China, India, and SE Asia. China currently owns 16% of our $14.1 trillion national debt, more than any other country, and up from 6% in 2000. The UK is the only European country that holds a significant amount amount of US treasuries and that amount is $333 billion - less than a quarter of China's holdings. If we don't have a good global strategy they will simply own us in a few years.

China and India are major players on the world's economic stage, and Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand are coming on fast. It's time to shift our focus and develop strategies for a global world. Rick Perry may think that Texas is the center of the universe, but I hope he knows where China is on the map because that's the direction they'll be coming from.

Writers and Readers

I’m not a scholar. I figured that out in the process of deciding not to go for a graduate degree in literature. I’m too restless. I don’t have the focus to dig into the life of a 19th century poet and come up with some new tidbit of information that could be the basis for a PhD thesis. I admire the people who become scholars, and their scholarship often helps the rest of us understand a complex idea or appreciate the contributions of a forgotten literary or historical figure. Nevertheless, I want to stay current in the world and challenge myself with new ideas. It’s what we all need to do as educated, responsible citizens.

Whether it’s a subscribing to the NY Times or Vanity Fair, checking out Slate or The New Republic online, viewing a documentary film, attending a local theater production, reading a novel or skimming through a multi-volume work of narrative non-fiction I think it’s critical at any age to stay engaged.

Last week I was able to do something I have wanted to do for 16 years; I attended the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference in Idaho. Over the years the conference has grown from a small gathering of important writers and avid readers to a large gathering where writers and readers of every persuasion get together for four days to exchange ideas and review what’s current in the world of writing.

While the conference was in session President Obama was on vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, and during his vacation he visited a bookstore there. It was announced, at the conference, that the President bought three books – Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration (winner of this year’s National Critics Circle Award for non-fiction, David Grossman’s novel To the End of the Land (winner of the same award for fiction), and David Brooks’ recent best seller, The Social Animal: A Story of Love, Character, and Achievement. The announcement triggered a big ovation at the conference, since all three of the authors were present and featured during the week.

The SV Writers’ Conference is a special occasion experience – it’s expensive ($850) and it’s remote (rural Idaho). It is like the special occasion restaurant where one goes on birthdays or anniversaries. It’s always the favorite but too pricey to be a regular haunt. Still, the conference reminds us that books and writers are important. It might be next to impossible to attend the SVWC, but it is not impossible to participate in the literary life. The Weekend section of the Seattle Times listed 20 author readings at local bookstores this week in addition to an event at the Seattle Public Library. There is something for everyone, from children’s books to travel, from mystery to world events. You just have to be vigilant to find your event.

By the way, Katherine Stockett, the Southern Belle who wrote The Help, is an charming and irreverent hoot. She was also at the conference along with US Poet Laureate WS Merwin and Calvin Trillin of the New Yorker. It was a great lineup, but if you watch the paper I’ll bet you can see and hear all of them in the next year at one of your local places.

Is There a Case for Optimism?

Sometimes I think I’m dreaming… And, sometimes I imagine the nightmare on the flipside of my dream. In the dream I am a child of privilege – born healthy, of middle class white parents, in the middle of the 20th century in America. It’s all about timing and location. Too young to know the deprivation of the Great Depression. Too young to fight in WWII and Korea. Military service before Vietnam. Too old for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two public universities while they were still free, and now receiving full Social Security and Medicare just as it was promised. I can’t imagine a better dream but it’s not a dream it’s my reality.

So what’s the nightmare? In moments of existential angst I sometimes fear that I will be reincarnated as a Somali woman with three children, no food, no water, in a lawless barren landscape surrounded by the mercenary soldiers of some two-bit warlord who thinks humanitarian aid is a plot to take his puny little fiefdom away from him. That’s my nightmare, but it is reality for thousands of Somalis.

My reality is someone else’s dream and my nightmare is someone else’s awful reality. I try to be mindful that my existence on this planet is a gift. I didn’t do anything to make it happen and it’s clearly not fair when Somalis by some malevolent role of the dice are malnourished, sick, and persecuted. Last night while I was driving to the gym I heard the story of a father who walked 300 miles in 30 days with his three sick, malnourished children to reach help in a refugee camp in Kenya. I drive half a mile to buy milk for my morning latte.

What’s my point? It’s really a question; given the misery, greed, suffering, and outright evil in the world is it possible to stay optimistic about the future of civilization? It's not impossible for me in spite of what I know. But, can my Somali woman be optimistic about the chances that her children’s hunger and illness will be dealt with? Her whole being is focused on getting help for her children. It's not about her own well being. Maybe she can’t act otherwise. Just maybe, we, as humans, are hardwired to “believe” or not to give up even when the odds are terrible.

The recent past is full of examples that support a pessimistic view. You don’t have to look at the nuclear standoff of the Cold War or the current battle between Muslims and Christians to see the downside. In my lifetime the North Vietnamese tortured and killed their own countrymen when their loyalty was in question. Then, when they prevailed, they confiscated the property of their southern countrymen and imprisoned them in “re-education” camps for up to 10 years. But, they didn’t kill their spirit and optimism. Many of these "losers" left the camps and risked everything in rickety boats to start a new life – optimistic that there was a future for them somewhere. And, for many, there was.

In the disturbing book and movie Sarah’s Key, by Tatiana de Rosnay, we watch the French police herding Jews into trucks for the Germans. 76,000 French Jews were sent to the extermination camps by their own countrymen. The Danes and the Dutch refused to do it, but the French sent their own people to die in the camps. Where is the case for optimism; the French were not illiterate Africans fighting for their own survival. They were one of the most literate, developed, and sophisticated cultures on the planet at the time.

There are so many contemporary examples of countrymen tormenting and torturing each other – Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iran, Gaza, Cote d’Ivoire, Somalia, and the Republic of Congo. Can we be optimistic in a world that acts like this? I’ve always considered myself a short term pessimist and long term optimist. I don’t know why or what I have to be optimistic about. It might just be the child of privilege legacy. Still… I continue to have the nightmare. I guess there’s a little of Sisyphus in all of us. We just need to keep pushing the boulder up the hill in the hope that when we get to the top it will stay there.

Global Traveler, Global Citizen

I don’t know how or when I began to think of myself as a global citizen, but it was long before I had ever left North America. I was 27 when I hitched a ride on a C-130 carrying a Navy SEAL team to Italy. I was fresh out of law school and waiting for the results of the bar exam. I landed in Europe with one suitcase (no backpack) and a guitar. That was 46 years ago.

My parents were stay-at-home types whose idea of travel was a road trip to California or a day trip to Victoria on the Princess line. They were conservative and thrifty and when, at 18, I told them that I was planning a backpacking trip to Europe they threw cold water all over the idea. I needed an education and not a bohemian adventure. End of conversation. It took me 9 more years to get there – two years to finish college, 4 years for the Marine Corps, and 3 years of law school – but I finally got there and I haven’t stopped traveling since. I’ve never really used the education my parents were so concerned about but I honored their wishes. On the other hand, travel has shaped me more than anything except the Marine Corps. I think they have had equal weight in my development as an adult.

What does it mean to be a global citizen? I suppose there are as many definitions as there are people who identify with the label. I certainly don’t think that a strong national pride and identity prevents me from being a global citizen. In fact, participation in the politics and economy of my own country is one way to become a better global person. I’m not a flag waiver. I generally regard flag waivers as the opposite of true patriots. Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin don’t have the dimmest idea of how the world works. They’ve never been anywhere, although Sarah claims to be able to “see” Russia from her front porch or some such lunacy.

No, I think global citizens see the interconnectedness of things on a global scale. What happens in Athens or Berlin, Capetown or Mogadishu, Bogota or Rio, Ottawa or Vancouver has an affect on everyone else. If the stock market in the US tanks the markets tank worldwide. If the markets tank there is less money available to deal with natural and/or manmade disasters. For the last 30 years governments, state, national, and international have been abdicating their responsibilities to provide the planet with disaster relief and safety net solutions. These responsibilities are more and more being taken over by NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and non-profit groups. As a result we, as individuals, are becoming philanthropically exhausted. The earthquake and tsunami in Japan yielded significantly less donations to relief organizations than the tsunami that devastated Thailand and Indonesia in 2004. Donors are exhausted – donor fatigue is having an impact on our ability to respond to natural disaster. Africa is under enormous stress because of drought and political instability, but we are not responding or in some cases being prevented from responding.

I’m not a socialist, but I am willing to spend some of our national treasure to make the world a better place, and I’m also willing to spend a chunk of my own treasure, small as it is. As a global citizen I like to think that we can all be global humanists. I believe that the leaders of a country as fortunate and successful as ours should make a commitment to provide a safety net, a minimum level of care and support, for its citizens and by extension for the planet. We have the resources to provide universal health care for less than we currently spend. Beyond our own borders; if my government (and the governments of other developed countries) can commit billions and billions of dollars to topple the perceived threats of Salvador Allende, Ho Chi Minh or Saddam Hussein why is it so hard to commit to saving the lives of victims of drought or genocide in Darfur, Damascus, Somalia, Kosovo, Rwanda, or the Congo? It would be much less expensive than invading Iraq, Afghanistan, or Libya and probably do more to create a “coalition of the willing” to support our effort and build a positive force for good.

I’m proud to be an American although, at the moment, I’m a little embarrassed by our President and his Congress’ inability to make decisions for the good of the country. Our system is on lockdown and held hostage by people who fail to understand that we live in a global world that is totally interconnected. We have squandered our leadership position in the global society and body politic. Yes, it is global – the body politic – in spite of the isolationist politics of the Tea Party and the gutless wonders who are pandering to them. It’s amazing to me that these candidates for the highest office in the world have such limited vision and courage.

Spoiled and Privileged Children

I am appalled and embarrassed by what is happening in the Congress of the United States. I’ve felt this way for more than 10 years, but this past two weeks has been a crushing indictment of how self interest, personal ambition, ideology, and self delusion have taken precedence over the best interests of the people and nation our elected official are sworn to represent.

Governing America has never been a simple task. Democracy is messy but compromise is what has enabled it to deliver balanced solutions to complex problems for more than 200 years. The current “deciders” of our fate are acting like the spoiled and privileged children most of them probably are. They are throwing tantrums, locking themselves in their rooms and refusing to come out until they get their way. Meanwhile, the rest of us are hostages.

Our country has been in decline for more more than a generation. When the Berlin Wall came down we became the single remaining superpower, the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world. We were rich, envied and smug. Even though we were the most powerful nation in history there were cracks in the edifice. Our education system had been failing the country and its students since the 1960s. Dropout rates were astronomical and high school graduates unqualified for either work or higher education. Our university system was and is the envy of the world, but a quality education is now beyond the means of many Americans. More and more of our successful students are from other countries but unlike previous generations these graduates are going home to work rather than following the dream of success and achievement in America.

After 9/11 we had the world's support and sympathy, a budget surplus, and a clear path to prosperity. Since then we have squandered the first two, started two wars and let Wall Street greed drive us into the financial ditch.

I live and work in Vietnam where hard work, dreams, and sacrifice are the still the elements that lead to a better life. Parents sacrifice and suffer so that their children will have a chance at a better life. When I return to the US I see adult children living with and off their parents and complaining that they can’t find the “right” job while discussing whether Kim Kardashian has butt implants. Let’s get serious. America is becoming a second tier country. We don’t have universal healthcare even though we spend much more than any other country. We have crumbling roads and bridges, inferior mass transit, an overlooked and decrepit rail system. We are fighting two and a half undeclared, expensive wars – one of which was unnecessary and unwise and distracted us from finishing the other. So, what is going on in Congress? Why aren’t the two parties coming together to work out a solution? For some reason these spoiled and privileged children think that they can have it all without working hard or paying for it. I definitely want America to have and be the best of everything, and I think it can if we’re all willing to pay our fair share. With the country teetering on the edge of default and the disparity between rich and poor greater than any time in my lifetime, why is there any question about the responsibility of America’s richest people to pay their fair share to the country that enabled them to become rich. I just don’t get it. Trust me the people holding us hostage are not worried about their pay or retirement checks. They’ll be just fine.

What Immigration Policy?

I know the United States has immigration policies. That's the problem. There are policies that apply to Mexicans. There are policies that apply to Canadians. There are policies that apply to IT workers at Microsoft. There are policies that apply to young foreigners married to older US citizens. There are policies that apply to single women, and policies that apply to Iraqi interpreters.

Dominique Strass-Kahn didn't need a visa but the West African maid he allegedly raped surely did. I have a young friend in Saigon who was turned down for a visa even though she had been accepted to study at a US university, had the money and sponsorship needed, and had the support of her Vietnamese employer. Go figure.

As I listen to the debate I wonder how many of the people arguing so strenuously to tighten immigration and visa requirements have ever been on the other side of the equation? How many of those strident voices have personal experience filling out the forms for another country's visa? How many of them had to disclose details of their net worth? Did they have to produce a marriage certificate, bank statements, airline tickets, and the home addresses of relatives? Have any of them been denied a visa or immigrant status without an explanation? America is the land of entitlement. Americans would be outraged if they were denied a visa - especially if they were not told the reason - but I have Vietnamese friends who have fulfilled all the documentation requirements, described the purpose of their visit, shown the consular officer proof of assets and dates of travel, named a sponsoring organization, shown the intent to return to Vietnam and have then been denied a US visa without being given a reason for the denial.

Have we forgotten that the US is an immigrant nation? What happened to the sentiment memorialized in the Emma Lazarus poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty?

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Now we are building a fence to keep them out. What's with that?

The Insurance Child

No pictures please...

When Westerners spend time in Vietnam there is one subject that almost always comes up - older white males and young Vietnamese women. The streets are full of them. The combinations are limitless and they all generate reactions and speculation. Are these relationships different from other December-May relationships? What are they about? Some of them are about hope. Some are about sexual validation. Some are about romance. Some are depressing. Some seem perfectly normal. Some are disgusting. Some are funny. Some are about predatory sex. Some are sweet. Some go sour. Some are scandalous. Some are about not wanting to age. Some are hard to look at. Some are vets returning with nostalgia for another time. Some are just what you think they are. Some are simply inexplicable. Most of them are about money one way or another.

One of the best places in Saigon for people watching is the square at the top end of Dong Khoi Street where the Cathedral of Notre Dame stands as a reminder that the West has been involved with Vietnam and its people for centuries. Every Saturday and Sunday morning Marilynn and I sit across the square from the cathedral on the terrace of the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf Company and watch the human parade. There are brides having their wedding photos taken even though their weddings won't take place until weeks or months later. There are balloon vendors, shoe shine boys, lottery ticket sellers, models, and tourists all milling about. But,inevitably there will also be a number of old white guys with young Vietnamese women. Vietnamese women are exceptionally beautiful. Human traffickers prize them because of their light skin and fine features. It's not a mystery why men are drawn to them or why Western men come all the way to Vietnam to meet them.

When I see an overweight older white man with a tarty looking girl in short shorts I am repulsed, but I remind myself that I have good friends who are CEOs of multi-national companies that go home every night to their lovely and well educated Vietnamese wives. Sometimes I can set the sexual tourists aside in my mind and see the people I know in a different light even though many of them are still mysterious to me.

My friend, James, is a 55 year old businessman from Boston. He's well educated and successful. He seems very straight and normal but he was unmarried in Boston and I imagine that he had trouble attracting good looking, successful women who were his peers. Things changed for him in Vietnam. One night 6 years ago, as a tourist, he and a friend met a couple of Vietnamese girls in an elevator at the Caravelle Hotel. They invited the girls to sit with them in the Saigon - Saigon Bar even though the men didn't speak a word of Vietnamese and the girls did not speak English. A year later after a telephone relationship with an interpreter on the girl's end they were married. Now James is doing business consulting in Vietnam and they have a 3 year old child. The "insurance child." More about that later.

Another 62 year old friend moved to Vietnam after a successful career in telecommunications in Australia. Here he met and married a 28 year old Vietnamese banker. A year later they were the parents of twins - the insurance children. The stories are endless. A friend in Thailand, almost 60 and never married, is now happily married and has a 7 year old insurance child. Another friend, Chairman of one of the Big Five accounting firms, is married to a lovely and talented Vietnamese designer and they have two insurance children.

The insurance child is shorthand for a lifelong commitment. It seals the deal. It is almost a certainty that these women will have a child within a year or two of marriage. Vietnamese women are very smart, and when they talk about relationships they talk about being taken care of. It's all about the money. My 62 year old friend will be in his 80s when his girls graduate from high school. His wife will be in her 40s. When a Western man marries a Vietnamese woman he takes on a lot of responsibility. He gets the girl, but he also gets her family. That generally means he becomes financially responsible for them, all of them - parents, siblings, siblings children, grandparents - and they're not in the background. They are there, in the house, much of the time. As Zorba the Greek says, "the full catastrophe."

For the women the dance leading up to marriage can become a risk management challenge. Most Vietnamese women see the Western man as an insurance policy and they are fully invested in securing their future. But, sometimes it doesn't work out. There are thousands of beautiful girls in Vietnam and they are very available. A Western man can have as many servings as he wants. A particularly beautiful friend of ours has invested 5 years in a relationship with a semi-permanent expat CEO. He was married and she, like her counterparts worldwide, thought he would divorce the wife and marry her. He's got a great deal, but the plan hasn't worked out for her and now she's in her late 30s and other prospects are fading. She never got the insurance child.

Roadside Repair

There are 10,000,000 people living in Saigon and there are 5,000,000 motorbikes that get them where they want to go. There are no Mr. Goodwrench outlets or dealer repair shops in small shopping centers along the main thoroughfares, but the Vietnamese are nothing if not resourceful. This picture shows the Saigon solution. Every morning this guy hauls his toolbox and compressor somehow from someplace and sets up on the corner just down the street from our apartment. I don't know how he hauls his gear. I've looked around his "shop" for a trailer or wheels or some device that would help him move the stuff every day, but I don't see it. I know he doesn't just heft that compressor onto the back of his motorbike. It probably weighs close to 200lbs. Nevertheless, every morning he sets up shop and every evening he breaks it down and hauls it away.

These corner repair shops are scattered all over the city and this is where flat tires get topped up or patched, clogged fuel lines get cleared, and broken brake cables get replaced. There are small vendors and service providers on almost every sidewalk in Saigon. Most of them, whether they are serving snacks or selling sim cards for your mobile phone transport their "business" to their offices in a small aluminum and glass trolley/cart. And many of them are in position and doing business for only a couple of hours a day. My favorite breakfast cart shows up about 6:00am and is gone by 9:30. I think the couple that owns it must go to other jobs after they're through serving breakfast to the regulars. The woman next to them sells Coke and some other soft drinks and she's there until mid-afternoon. These folks know their clientele.

Saigon is a feast for all the senses and a real lesson in entrepreneurial activity.

Why Can't We Do It?

Over the weekend I visited a friend in Bangkok. It's exotic and interesting, but that isn't what I left there thinking about. My real take-away is about transportation. I have two primary points of reference for traffic - one is Seattle and the other is Saigon. Both are traffic nightmares; Bangkok is not.

Bangkok's population is officially listed as 9,100,000, about the same size as Saigon and five times the population of the whole of King County, Seattle's home. The streets of Bangkok are wide and traffic flows normally for a major metropolis. At rush hour things slow down but at other times they flow fairly smoothly. Saigon's 5,000,000 motorbikes make the traffic chaotic, unpredictable and sometimes outright dangerous. Motorbikes share the streets and sidewalks with bicycles, cars, pedestrians, cyclos, and pushcarts. There is some kind of protocol, but it's difficult to figure out. In Bangkok there are only a few bikes and motorbikes. What is the difference?

Here it is: Bangkok has a mass transportation system. That's the difference. The BTS Skytrain and the MRT Underground move huge numbers of people swiftly through the city in comfortable air-conditioned cars at reasonable prices. They also leave the streets free for automobile and bus traffic. Why is it that Thailand, ranked #30 in the world in GDP can move people more efficiently than #1 ranked United States? I don't know the answer, but I think we deserve one.

In 1953 Seattle built a double-decked elevated roadway through downtown, and in 1963 the Evergreen Point floating bridge was built to connect Seattle to the eastern suburbs. Now, 50 years later both of them are falling apart and need to be replaced and there is no mass transit anywhere (Light rail is a very short joke). Seattle is infamous for its "process." Everyone must be heard and heard and heard, but nothing gets done. Seattle has been arguing over both the viaduct and the bridge for more than 10 years. Finally, last year a "consensus" was arrived at and we decided to build a tunnel to replace the crumbling old elevated eyesore through downtown. It was a struggle but the tunnel won out and it was agreed that the solution would also create a beautiful San Francisco-like waterfront that would attract locals and tourists alike as well as move traffic efficiently. But, now the "process" is grinding us down again and someone has collected the required number of signatures to bring the matter to another vote on the ballot in 2011. For some reason it seems more important to stop doing things in Seattle than to do them.

Why can't we have a beautiful waterfront, a functional bridge system and, yes, a mass transit system too? If #30 can do it, why can't #1?

It Was A Big Weekend

Did you get invited to the wedding on Friday? It was a big day for the bride and groom, but we had a great time too. We weren't actually able to get to Westminster Abbey, but we did get to the Snap Cafe in District Two, Ho Chi Minh City. There are a enough British expats working here that the British Business Group Vietnam (BBGV) decided to celebrate the event locally. The Snap was a great choice - no clotted cream and scones but a big open space with a playground for the kids and lots of beer and popcorn.

Attendees were encouraged to dress for the wedding, but with 95F temperatures and a thatched roof hut for the venue there were only a few takers. There was one gent in a morning coat and a few women with large brimmed hats and hankies to mop their brows or dab their tears of joy. Most of us arrived before the TV coverage began and the atmosphere was very festive. There were two big screens (actually sheets hung from the posts and thatch) and bench seating. As opposed to the Abbey, this crowd was up and mingling and the kids were hanging from the monkey bars.

We settled down on a couch in the smaller of the two viewing venues and immediately made friends with the two women on the couch beside us. One of the women was a handsome black woman from Malaysia who came to Vietnam with her husband 20 years ago, divorced him and has been working ever since as a teacher in one of the independent schools. Her friend was a stylish upscale blond of a certain age who was born in North Borneo, raised in Hong Kong and educated in the UK. She's the "girlfriend" of a Frenchman who runs a venture capital firm. As Kate and Will drove to the Abbey and walked down the aisle we introduced ourselves and did running commentary on the crowd, the car, the horses, the dress, the uniforms, the royals, the foliage in the nave, and the voice of the bishop. In the process we learned that North Borneo lady's brother is a world class sailor who has just opened a sailing school in MuiNe and the Malaysian woman has strong opinions about the death of Princess Diana. The incredibly wonderful thing about being an expat in Saigon is that you meet an endless chain of interesting people and these two were no exception.

As I sat down to write about the wedding and our new friends I learned that a Special Forces team raided a compound in Pakistan and killed Osama Bin Laden. It was a very big weekend. I wonder if Donald Trump will find a way to "be extremely proud" of his role in either event or perhaps question the reality of them.

Rosie is a Goddess

This is Rosie. She is a goddess. She lives in a township,called Khayalitsha in Cape Town, South Africa. Khayalitsha is a legacy of the Group Areas Act passed by the white SA government in 1950. Khayalitsha itself was not established until after the abolition of the pass laws that required blacks to have permission to travel within the country. During that terrible time male laborers came to Johannesburg and Cape Town for work, and the townships were established to house them. Soweto, in Johannesburg, with 1.3 million residents is probably the most infamous of these slums. Khayalitscha is the largest one in Cape Town and home to roughly 500,000. With the end of the pass laws and apartheid women started coming to the townships and families grew up in them.

About 5 years ago Rosie decided to do something for the poorest of the poor kids in her township. She enlisted the help of friends and neighbors who brought her things like cereal and potatoes and she started a kitchen to help feed the kids. She's famous now. Everybody knows Rosie and the tiny room she calls Rosie's Diner. Every day she feeds 185 kids breakfast before they go to school and dinner when they come home. It's simple fare - porridge for breakfast and beans, potatoes or rice for dinner, but these kids who are AIDS orphans, abandoned or from poverty get the nutrition they need to carry on.

I met Rosie through Alan Petersen, a local guide who helps support Rosie's operation. Alan had us take a big sacks of potatoes and onions when we stopped by to see her. Alan has organized a group of independent guides to help Rosie keep things going. Rosie's reputation has spread and a couple of years ago Habitat for Humanity came and built a house for her. She, like many, is a single Mom and the house is really her dining room. Her old house burned down a few years ago and she is badly scarred from the fire, but she never stopped smiling and saying thank you the whole time we were with her.

She and her helpers cook in a tiny 6'x 6' kitchen off to the side of the house. It smelled great when we were there - onion and potatoes cooking in huge stainless pots. CNN has a project called CNN Heroes to celebrate selfless individuals who are making a difference in their communities. I'm going to do what I can to nominate Rosie in the next round of CNN Heroes. She truly deserves the title.

Which One Is The Real South Africa?

South Africa is beautiful, ugly, friendly, dangerous, sophisticated, primitive, and very, very complicated. Yesterday we visited two black townships, the District Six Museum, the penguins on Boulders Beach and the Cape Point lighthouse at the southernmost point on the African continent.

We have met people who had to leave the country because of their activities under apartheid and people who think things were better then. We have met blacks, coloreds, and whites - distinctions that would be racist in the US but are convenient and acceptable labels here. We visited astonishingly beautiful wineries set in the fairytale landscapes of Stellenbosch and Franzhoek, and spent time with a former miner who makes gorgeous flowers out of discarded Coke cans. We have seen beautiful blonds carrying their yoga mats into an upscale yoga studio and looked down on the shacks of Khayalitsha where 50,000 blacks live in squalid galvanized tin huts (above). We ate in one of the world's best restaurants and took a bag of potatoes and onions to Rosie, a woman who feeds breakfast and dinner to 185 orphaned township children before and after school. We've seen lion and cheetah eating their kudu and young giraffe kills, and we've noticed that almost every middle class dwelling in Cape Town is like a fortress with locks and bars on all the doors and windows. Wherever we have gone - on the street, in the townships, at the wineries, or in the open markets - we have been greeted by friendly, welcoming, generous, and seemingly happy people. What is the real South Africa?

At this point I would say all these people, situations and conditions are the real South Africa. It's a fascinating place but dense and complicated. It's impossible to decode the mystery in two short weeks. With all that is happening in Africa today it wouldn't be surprising to see the country reach a tipping point in the not too distant future. Mandela is in his 90s, Tutu is 80. The current President has 5 wives and no one we've met thinks he represents the best of South Africa. It is a country tucked away as far from America as any in the world. It's been a privilege to spend time here. I wish it were easier and cheaper to get here. We would definitely do it again.

Everyone Has a Story

No one is here in Saigon by accident. Everyone has a story, and the most interesting question you can ask when you meet someone new is "How did you end up here?" Some of them came because they work for multinational companies and wanted to work in a more exotic part of the world. Some of us came to work for international organizations that are helping to rebuild the country's infrastructure and help the most disadvantaged people. Others have come back to the country they or their family left for political or survival reasons. Families left because they worked for Americans during the war and faced a future in re-education camps or on collective farms after the war. Some left because conditions were so hard and poverty so epidemic that it was better to chance it at sea in a rickety boat than stay in the family home. Some came as part of a travel adventure and decided to stay. Some have come back to see where they fought or where their family once lived. Some are just passing through. Everyone has a story.

Last week I met three new people - The first was John Riordan. My friend Brett Krause is the CEO of Citibank in Vietnam. I had lunch with Brett on Thursday and he told me that the man who shut down the Citi office and evacuated the employees as Saigon was falling to the NVA in 1975 was in town. After lunch he called and asked if I would like to meet him. He was looking for a good bowl of French onion soup and we agreed to meet at a local French cafe. For the next hour John recounted this harrowing story about the fall of Saigon, the mixed messages coming out of the Embassy, the coded telexes coming from NY, the midnight taxi rides and clandestine meetings, burning documents in a window well outside the bank's second floor office and the eventual evacuation of 105 of the bank's employees and their families aboard a chartered Pan Am jet. I can't do the story justice, but it is another example of an ordinary person who accomplished a heroic service under enormous pressure and gave a new life to his friends and employees. Many of the evacuees ended up in New Jersey working for Citbank in New York City.

The second person I met is Au Quang Hien. Hien was one of 10 brothers, the son's of a prosperous family in South Vietnam. At the end of the war, Hien's family home was confiscated and the family sent to a government farm/camp in Binh Duong. There was no food and 12 mouths to feed. He told us the story of sharing one egg with his 9 brothers. After some time they escaped the camp, and the 12 of them walked to the Delta village where his mother's family was located. They wanted to leave the country and eventually they received permission from the government to leave for Hong Kong because of a family member's connection there. From Hong Kong the family went to the UK where Hien and his brothers grew up and went to school. Hien revisited Vietnam sometime in the '90s and after a few years of working for a business in the UK he returned to Vietnam. He's now the GM of a multinational insurance company, married to a Vietnamese woman and has two beautiful children who are bilingual. He's made a life here and I'm sure he'll stay. The other brothers are also successful and scattered around the world - the Vietnamese diaspora.

I don't know the name of the third person. I met him because my friend, Marie Brandby, needed my help to reach him. Marie is a freelance journalist who is doing a stint as the Communications Director of Semester at Sea. The ship stopped here for 4 days over the weekend, and Marie wanted to pursue a lead she had on a story. She had a name and phone number but needed a translator. My friend and office manager, Nga, agreed to help and the call was made. I'll tell you the story when I get it from Marie, but the story is about a young boy and his sister. The boy is now 41 years old, his sister a year or two younger. They are survivors of the My Lai massacre. Yes there were some survivors and they remind us that these unfathomable atrocities are fresh enough to meet face to face. I actually looked them in the eye and shook their hands. The sister came to the interview with her 16 year old daughter who wants to be a flight attendant. Everyone has a story, but the stories you hear in Saigon can rip your heart out. A My Lai survivor with a flight attendant daughter. The Great Mandala - the wheel of life.

We All Have Days Like This...

It's been almost a month since my last post. We're back in Saigon and into our rituals again. Today we sat, as we always do on Sunday, on the terrace of the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf outlet across from the famous Notre Dame Cathedral watching the panorama. It's always a visual feast - upscale locals sipping lattes and fiddling with their smartphones, overweight German and American tourists in black socks and Birkenstocks, tall slim girls in sheath dresses with 6 inch heels looking as if they had just come off the runways of Paris, brides and grooms in rented tuxes and dresses being stylishly photographed in the square, hoards of shoe shine boys and lottery ticket sellers, old white guys with young Vietnamese girls, the whole menu of Sunday sights.

This is the leisurely side of the upscale expatriate life. But, there are many sides. If everything goes as planned, life is good. But there is always an underlying anxiety when you are living in a country where you don't speak the language fluently. If there is a problem you always seem to need the help of a local friend to explain and translate. Skilled professionals feel vulnerable, dependent, and helpless. A friend of mine had a meltdown last week when his motorbike wouldn't start. He's been here for 7 years with a good job as the vice-principal of an international school. He lives with a Vietnamese friend and gets along just fine until something goes wrong. In this case his bike quit in the basement of a hotel parking garage. He pushed it up two long ramps to get to the street and knew enough to find one of the motorbike repairmen that squat on corners throughout the city. Bad news. The repair guy couldn't fix it. So he left the bike and caught a taxi to a shop where he could rent a bike until his got fixed. Next problem. Rental bikes come without gas, so he pushed the rental a few blocks to the nearest gas station. Next problem. The seat wouldn't unlatch and give him access to the gas cap. Next problem. He tried to call the rental shop but the two numbers on the rental contract were out of service. At this point, he called his roommate who had to come pick him up and translate about all the mishaps with both the repairman and the rental guys. By now he's late for work and, even though he's been there 7 years he won't get paid for the day because even a few minutes late will cost him a day's pay. He loves it here, but the only thing he could say was "Why am I living in a place where I can't speak the language and am like a helpless child when things like this happen?" That same day, Marilynn's phone stopped working, her computer gave her fits, the kitchen stove malfunctioned, and our DVD player failed. We needed lots of help and third party intervention. Some days are better than others, but let it be noted that we have cell phones, computers, stoves and DVD players. The people around us live without hot water, electricity or enough food to sustain a normal life. The expat life is good but it has its challenges. Hold your breath and walk slowly and steadily across the street. Those thousands of motorbikes really will go around you.

Close to shopping, good parking, open air...

This is the neighborhood barber, just a few doors down from my apartment. He's very friendly and keeps signalling that he'd like to have my business - especially since I have a shaved head and he does a lot of close work with a straight razor. I've had to pass on the opportunity. It's a little out of my comfort zone given the fact that he has no hot or running water and uses the same razor and towel for all his customers. He does keep a jug close by, but I'm not sure if it's to take care of his thirst or to clean the blade between shaves. He seems to be busy, especially in the afternoon when his awning provides a little shade and relief from the searing Saigon heat. This is literally just another roadside attraction. Welcome to the neighborhood.