I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish

It’s with a heavy heart that I leave Vietnam. I really only have good things to say about the place and its people. While I was in the airport I thought about my whole experience. I had set goals for myself such as volunteer at a microfinance NGO, find a job, learn some Vietnamese, and make Vietnamese friends and I think I have accomplished what I wanted to accomplish.

My original motivation to return to Southeast Asia was to get involved and better understand microfinance. Vietnam was a poor choice considering how limited the microfinance industry is by the government. MACDI, the NGO I volunteered at, is a good NGO and is involved in some very interesting and positive things. My problem was that I came at a bad time and didn’t have that much to offer them. I ended up wasting a lot of time there and I used to fill my time by researching microfinance. My opinion of microfinance has moved from fanciful preconceived notions grounded in idealism to a sophomoric understanding based on idle research. Microfinance is not the game-changer I envisioned it to be. It does of course have the potential to help a lot of people but nations are not built by small, high interest loans.

I found my job at Language Link quite easily. Everything was smooth and stress-free for the most part. However, teaching English ain’t really my thing. I can do the job and I think some of my students liked me but it’s not a job I would want to do for much longer. The money’s good but that’s about all I can say about it. The most important thing about Language Link for me was being able to meet and make friends with local staff. I met a lot of very nice Vietnamese ladies and I really appreciate the friendships I made. It’s probably the nicest work environment I’ve worked in. I will always have a soft spot for the ladies of Language Link. I also met many lovely Western people at Language and around Hanoi. I definitely made some friends that I will be in touch with for the long term.

I think at the end of the day I just don’t really enjoy teaching because I don’t have a lot to teach. Teaching makes me feel disingenuous. Studying Vietnamese was much more interesting and I think I made some real progress in Vietnamese. Tiếng Việt rất khó nhưng tôi thích học về tiếng Việt và vân hóa của Việt Nam. Tôi nghĩ người Việt Nam rất thận thiện. Nếu tôi không có bạn gai ở Mỹ thì chắc chắn tôi muốn sóng ở Việt Nam. Ở Mỹ tôi định đọc xong Truyện Kiều trong tiếng Việt. Có lẽ tôi không thể làm vậy nhnưg I will try. Truyện Kiều khônh những bunồ mà còn thú vị nhưng tôi không thích kết thúc của Truyện Kiều. Tôi nghĩ Truyện Kiều nên có kết thúc không có hâu. Đây hay hơn.

 Khi tôi đã học tiếng Việt thì tôi dụng một quyển sách nhưng tôi quên ở nhà của bạn tôi. Tôi đã tức giận lắm vì tôi đã viết nhiều về ngữ pháp và Truyện Kiều nhưng có lẽ đây tốt hơn. Tôi phải học về điều mới.

Trong thời gian của tôi ở Việt Nam, tôi đã gặp nhiều người Việt Nam. Tôi đã dạy tiếng Anh và tiếng Nhạt cho các bạn tôi và bạn tôi đã giúp đỡ tôi với tiệng Việt. Tôi rắt vui vì tôi gặp nhiều ngươi Việt Nam thận tiện. Xin lõi vì tôi không phải là giáo viên tốt. I do really appreciate all the help all of you gave me.  

From time to time I think back about Cambodia and how pleasant that country was. Phnom Penh is a lively and fun place. I enjoyed my time there. Cambodia left an impression on me similar to the feeling I get when I awake from a good dream and that lingering pleasant feeling hangs over me but I can’t really remember why it was a good dream.

It is difficult for me to give an objective analysis of Vietnam since I grew emotionally attached to the country but objectivity really is a fallacy outside of the indisputable, such as 2+2=4. I don’t believe humans can separate their emotional identity and relationship with the world around them from individual rationality. Someone could try to quantify how they feel about a country like Vietnam. I could work out the pros and cons, pleasant and unpleasant experiences and portray this data with cheesy bar graphs but I think that kind of representation is meant to deceive investors and those interested in taking out a mortgage. You can’t adequately describe anything without using your heart. There could be something to be said about how Confucius’ terminology lacked a distinction between “heart” and “mind” and what that implies (that’s kind of stretch and is probably attributable to the difficulty of translating archaic Chinese into English but I thought it was a cute example). The idea Plato had of a transcendent rationality always floating above us is pretty ridiculous. He can go screw himself. All in all what I’m trying to say is that I love Vietnam and almost all the aspects of it but my opinion is of course biased because of my personal relationships and experiences. I can’t really explain why it is such a good place but I think if you read through other stuff I’ve written than you can get a better idea for some of the specifics.

Just as when I left Manila last year and spent about a week in Seoul to recover, I am going to let the friendliness and charm of the Philippines nurse me back to health.  

The War in Vietnam

As my time in Vietnam is coming to a close I feel strangled by sadness, happiness, and a sense of accomplishment. My sadness comes from leaving a country which I have grown a strong affection for. I feel happy for being able to reunite with Kristine and begin to the next stage of my life. My sense of accomplishment comes from my progress with the Vietnamese language and making numerous friends here both Vietnamese and Western.

The topic of the war in Vietnam was one that up until this point I have hesitated to mention because of the sensitivity of the issue. Before I came to Vietnam I expected to be confronted with bitterness and hostility from the people of this country who suffered greatly because of an unjust war. While I was studying Canada some of my Canadian friends used to tell me that when I’m abroad I should pretend to be Canadian because of Canada’s supposedly spotless foreign policy record. I think it is a bit much for Canadians to act like Canada is the beacon of peace and friendliness opposed to the bullying of the United States. I do give Canadians credit however for avoiding getting involved in the tragic wars in Vietnam and Iraq and they have led a relatively benign foreign policy in recent history.

Aside from being American I inherited three other citizenships from my parents’ European background so I could legitimately say that I am French, English or Swiss. I was born in America and I was raised in America. I owe most of what I have to the United States. I would never think of being ashamed of where I come from. I love America as my home but that doesn’t mean I agree with all of the policies the American government has undertaken throughout the years. It would be cowardly and disingenuous for me to pretend to be something I’m not just to avoid an awkward conversation.

It took me a long time to broach the subject of the war with the Vietnamese people I know. It was a subject that I didn’t try to avoid but I didn’t try to instigate any debates with local people. I quickly discovered that the bitterness and resentment that I expected to encounter just wasn’t here. I’m sure there are plenty of Vietnamese people that hate the United States but anti-Americanism is not fuming from the hot sidewalks.

One day I went with a Vietnamese friend of mine to her grandparents’ house. Her grandfather was a decorated veteran of what he called the American War. I didn’t have a good opportunity to really discuss with him because of the massive language barrier but I conveyed that I was American to him. He then pulled out his tobacco pipe and we shared a smoke which is a Vietnamese welcoming custom among men. This situation reminded me of a time when I was in Japan and having dinner with a Japanese friend of mine’s family in her hometown of Hiroshima. Her parents, aunt, cousins, and most importantly her grandmother were all there. At one point during the dinner her grandmother was trying to explain something to me that I just couldn’t understand. After some confusion her aunt came to my rescue and told me that she was trying to explain to me that when she was a child she witnessed the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. I immediately regretted this rescue as the entire family went silent and turned to me to say something. My Japanese at that point was quite poor but I don’t think even now I would know how to respond. I humbly said that it is very sad and unfortunate that she had to witness that. At no point did I feel an urge to apologize but I tried to convey my sympathy. Her family was pleased that I said something and quickly changed the subject to something more lighthearted. Her grandmother ended giving me and my Canadian friend a nice bottle of sake and some nice ornamental chopsticks. The whole experience was important for me.

As I did then, I still feel no desire to apologize to Vietnamese people for what happened during the war. The war, like the atomic bomb took place far before I was born and I have of course have no responsibility but the real reason why I wouldn’t apologize is that it feels completely disingenuous. I don’t think anybody here is waiting for an apology from me and it would mean nothing anyway. I don’t want to and cannot speak for all American people. We can discuss the war as equals and share sympathy and hopefully empathy.

I have made friends here with some younger Vietnamese guys and one guy I know is an officer in the military here. He’s a friendly guy and his English is good enough that we could discuss things like politics and history (my vocabulary in Vietnamese isn’t good enough to have an actual serious conversation). As with almost all Vietnamese people I’ve encountered he expressed his antipathy for China. This is a pretty neutral subject since I don’t have a lot good things to say about the current Chinese government and I can understand the grievances Vietnamese people have with the Chinese. I do frequently end up defending the Chinese however since I think we should be able to reconcile a violent history alongside a currently aggressive government with the fact Chinese people are people too. The average Chinese person wants the same thing that we all want.

I liked discussing with this guy because I could voice my honest opinion about the war. As people who know me in America, I am not a defender of the war and America’s involvement. I think you would be hard-pressed to find Americans who still think that that war made sense. My friend and I discussed the politics of the Cold War and that Vietnam was the unfortunate victim of those times. Vietnam which had been fighting almost a thousand years to become independent became an ideological battleground turning Vietnamese people against each other.

In one of my teenage classes I assigned an essay about the history of Vietnamese-Russian relations. I was interested in seeing what they would write. They didn’t write much about Russia but instead wrote mainly about the war. I think a lot of people assume that people over here are all brainwashed by anti-American propaganda but the essays I read impressed me. 14 year old Vietnamese students could write sophisticated essays in English about the containment strategy the United States had during the Cold War and the fear of the domino effect that would occur if Vietnam became a communist state. It made me think that when I was in high school I believe we only spent one day on the Vietnam War. The history we learned that one day wasn’t white washed but I can’t say we were pushed to really think about the war.

I remember meeting an American guy in Cambodia who served in the war and he was annoyed that Vietnamese people think that the war was between Vietnam and the USA when actually the Vietnamese were primarily fighting each other. I do agree with him that after World War 2 there was by no means a unanimous consensus among the Vietnamese for what direction they wanted their country to go. I am no historian and there are myriad books detailing this part of history but the impression I got was that independence was the first priority. The ideology of the independent government was still up in the air. The division of Vietnam was really a deal brokered between the USA, France, China, and the USSR. The Vietnamese did not have much say in this. I think that as more and more US troops and US money came into the South to bolster the government, the government’s lost more and more legitimacy. When you combine the ineffective and corrupt government of South Vietnam with the heavy-handed tactics of the US military it is easy to see how Vietnamese people could become disillusioned with what the US government was trying to accomplish. A military cannot construct a sustainable society. It is disheartening to me that a lot of the American politicians from the Vietnam War generation seem content to make the same mistakes in Afghanistan.

I also had the privilege of meeting a young woman that works for Vietnamese television. She is interested in bringing stories of victims of Agent Orange to light. Agent Orange is some nasty stuff and millions of people were affected by it. People are still affected by it today since once it is in your system it permanently alters your genes so it could cause your children to genetic deformities. I see people that seem to have deformities associated with Agent Orange on a somewhat regular basis. There also numerous US soldiers that were exposed to it and are still living with the harm it did to them. It is kind of absurd that the companies the manufacture this stuff still insist that there isn’t enough evidence to conclude that it is harmful to human beings. This didn’t stop the US government from discreetly compensating the American victims of it.

War is terrible and always will be. We can debate the reasons and situational circumstances for why wars start but there is no debate about the damage they cause. I understand that there are wars of necessity but we can still recognize the tragedy. I believe the war in Vietnam was a mistake and I think Lyndon Johnson was irresponsible or worse a coward for letting the things escalate the way they did. That being said, I don’t really like the government Vietnam has today. The government has to take strong steps to root out corruption and loosen its restrictions of freedom of expression. I think Ho Chi Minh was a great man and it is really unfortunate that we will never know what he would have done if he would have governed a unified Vietnam. Because of the war over a million of Vietnamese were needlessly killed alongside tens of thousands of Americans. We also shouldn’t forget the thousands of Laotian and Cambodian people that were killed. There also millions of other lives that have been permanently damaged, Vietnamese and American, both emotionally and physically. There is a reason why so many of the homeless people in the United States were veterans in the Vietnam War.

At the end of the day I feel like we have to reconcile this past with the bright future. The Vietnamese people I know are not interested in dwelling in the past. They are interested in blazing a new path for their country. When we look to the future we have to remember the past even if it is painful. We cannot overcome the mistakes of the past through voluntary amnesia. This reminds of a conversation I had recently with another Vietnamese guy I know. He told me:

“Vietnamese people will never forget about the war.” I replied to him:

“Anh nghỉ người Việt Nam không nên quen về chiến tranh Hoa Kỳ và Ngươi Mỹ cũng không quen về chiến tranh Hoa Kỳ.”

“I think that Vietnamese shouldn’t forget about the war and Americans also shouldn’t forget about it.”

The Tale of Kieu and Vietnamese Society

My mom has just returned to America after visiting me here in Vietnam. It was really good to see her and I’m glad I was able to show her how I’m living here. We went to Ha Long Bay which was very beautiful. I introduced her to most of my friends here, both Western and Vietnamese. We definitely ate well. My mom being here reminded me that I am only in Vietnam for another 2 weeks or so. Recently I have been meditating and reading about Vietnamese culture and history. I have been devoting a significant amount of time at reading the Tale of Kieu (the most famous piece of Vietnamese literature).

The Tale of Kieu is a long epic poem (~3,000 lines). I have finished reading an English translation and I have worked with some of my Vietnamese friends to decipher some of the Vietnamese. I plan on continuing to work on this until I leave. As important pieces of literature go, the Tale of Kieu is not so old. It was written in the early 19^th century by a man named Nguyen Du. It is actually based on an older Chinese story but he rewrote and revamped the poetry. He also adjusted it to fit a Vietnamese context even if the story is actually set in China.

The Tale of Kieu has a very sad story. It’s about a young woman (Kieu) who is exceptionally beautiful and talented but has a terrible life. In the very beginning she meets her true love but while he is away she is forced to sell herself into prostitution because of a large debt her father supposedly owes to this unscrupulous man. The debt did not actually exist but she still had to sacrifice herself out of filial piety. After that she has numerous trials. She is coerced to marry a few other guys and basically oscillates between relative happiness to prostitution to economic depravity. She accurately describes herself as a flower aimlessly floating down a river. The story has a pretty improbable and I would say rather unconvincing happy ending.

I extracted two main themes of the story. 1. Beauty and talent can be a curse. In the prologue there’s this passage: Trời xanh quen thói má hồng đánh ghen. In English this passage’s meaning goes something like: Even Heaven is jealous of those with beauty. Kieu has such a hard life precisely because of her extraordinary beauty and artistic talent. I see this as a critique on the common desire among people to be beautiful, attractive, special in some way, etc. and also critical of those who live their lives envying those other beautiful or famous people. I see this as a very wise point to make and relevant to today’s society. 2. Nguyen Du also offers a subtle critique of the rigid Confucian society and culture. When Kieu is forced to sacrifice her youth for the sake of her father, her father is devastated and insists that she save herself. He even threatens to kill himself if she leaves. She however cannot do that because of filial piety (hieu) and her moral debt (on) to her parents. Vietnam like other Confucian societies has a strong culture surrounding the family. I believe the Vietnamese put a bit more emphasis on worshipping their ancestors than say the Japanese. Every Vietnamese house will have a small shrine to their family ancestors and people will regularly pray and give offerings. Children are taught that they owe absolutely everything to their parents and so families rarely split up if they don’t have to. There are of course more “modern” or Western ideas of family entering the psyche of some urban Vietnamese but I would say a vast majority of Vietnamese people still hold this part of the culture dear to their heart. In the context of Kieu her father realizes that it is crazy to sell her daughter to dangerous men while she is so young and has so much to live for. If he let himself be taken instead of Kieu then it would bring an immense amount of shame onto them and could have even completely destroyed the family altogether. Kieu is the martyr because the rigidity of the Confucian system’s focus on maintaining harmony within the hierarchy of the family. In the Confucian perspective a family cannot function without a father at the head.

The Tale of Kieu is known by all Vietnamese people and every student has to study at least a bit of it. I get the feeling that some Vietnamese people like to look at as a metaphorical narrative for their own history. Vietnam’s history has basically been a struggle for independence from foreign aggressors. The Chinese dominated them for nearly a thousand years. They were followed by the French, Japanese, French again and finally the United States. Vietnam being a small country surrounded by more powerful neighbors and thrown into the geopolitics of the Cold War era probably did seem like a flower floating aimlessly downstream; lacking the agency to control their own destiny. I also believe that the protagonist being a woman is important. Since Vietnam is a Confucian country like China, Korea, and Japan, it is a patriarchal society. Women generally have less access to higher level jobs and are taken less seriously but I feel like this is a reoccurring phenomenon around the globe. Women have only won somewhat equal rights recently around the world. In Asia, Southeast Asia seems to me to be one of the few areas of the world where the societies were somewhat matriarchal and women enjoyed more rights. I feel like this trend has rubbed off a bit in Vietnam and I think women in Vietnam are in a better position in terms of social mobility and respect than their contemporaries in Japan or Korea. But that is just my vague and generalized opinion based on observations.

I recommend that people read the Tale of Kieu and learn about Vietnamese culture. Vietnam is a small country but has a distinct culture and voice which should be taken seriously.

Vietnamese Food

I thought I would write a bit about Vietnamese cuisine. I have some pictures to contribute to these descriptions which will help you get an idea of what I’m talking about. I was surprised with Vietnamese food and I realized how little I knew about it before I came here. The food here is definitely distinct from other parts of the world. I really like it. I think it’s really good and really cheap if you eat where the locals eat. One reoccurring ingredient I see is fish sauce or nước mắm. At first, I thought the stuff was disgusting. I had a brief bout of food poisoning about a month and a half ago and during that period if even smelled fish sauce I would get nauseous. Now I've learned to like it. It has a very strong smell which can be off-putting but it tastes alright. It can be a nice complement. There is also a more notorious sauce here called mắm tôm. It is notorious because foreigners are supposed to hate it for its exceptionally strong odor. In my experience more Vietnamese people actually dislike it than they like to admit. Mắm tôm is a sauce made from fermented shrimp and if you do eat it you will smell like it for a while. The main staples of Vietnamese cuisine are bún (these are thin white noodles), phở (these noodles are flatter and thicker than bun and they are the noodles you will find in most of the soups here), and cơm which is just normal white rice. Almost everything you eat here will come with one of these three. Vietnamese people also eat a decent amount of bread (called bánh mì). You can always find a nice baguette nearby. This is definitely a legacy of the French.

This first dish is called chả cá. It is a specialty of Hanoi. It is a dish meant to be enjoyed with friends. I was invited to eat this by a lady I do language exchange with and her friend. Basically, it is a fish fry up. There are hearty chunks of nice fish, I didn’t encounter many bones, and fish stomachs. I really like the fish stomach but I am one to be partial to intestines and innards in general. It is nicely seasoned and they bring plenty of vegetables and herbs that you add to it as you go. You have fish sauce and/or mắm tôm on the side to dip the fish or stomachs in. It was definitely a nice meal.

This dish is called hủ tiếu and I believe it is from southern Vietnam. I have only seen a few places in Hanoi that have it. This style is called hủ tiếu khô which is different from other kinds of soups because the broth comes in separate bowl. You can eat the noodles and meat with as much broth as you like. It comes with an assortment of grilled pork, kind of dumplings, shrimp, and things that I have no idea about. The broth was kind of sweet (I hear adding a bit of sugar to broth is a very southern Vietnamese thing to do) and very nice. I really like it and it is only $1.50 for a meal.

These next two are what most people think of when they think of Vietnamese food: phở. There are two main varieties of phỏ:  phỏ gà (Chicken phở) and phở bò (Beef pho). This one is a phở gà and I don’t eat it as much as I do phở bò. Phở gà is usually cheaper than its beef counterpart. There is an important distinction between chicken phởs. The normal phở gà will usually have pieces of chicken skin and other parts of the chicken in it which some people may not enjoy. I think it’s OK as long as there is a decent amount of actual chicken meat. The one in the picture was pretty good. If you see phở gà ta then you know that it is chicken to the Western standards (strictly breast and thigh meat).

I really like beef phở. There is wide variety of small and large restaurants serving phở across Hanoi and it is never obvious if you are going to get a good bowl. From my experience avoid the restaurant Phở 24 and the touristy “Food Street”. Both of those places charge at least double the normal price and are not even half as good as other places. Generally if you find phở on the street and locals are eating it then it is good. The broth is very important and I have found some good places which only charge a dollar for a big bowl with plenty of meat. You can order the beef to be cooked before it is put in the broth (phở bò chín) or you can order (I like it this way) the beef to be put in raw and then it is cooked in the broth (phở bò tái). In my experience the beef has been good quality. The one thing that I honestly have never seen over here which I expected to is the tendons and tripe in phở like you buy in Vietnamese restaurants in the States. Don’t ask me why. Also, phở is generally a breakfast food and is especially nice if it is cold morning up in Hanoi during the winter.

The street BBQs are great (called nướng). They may seem unsanitary but they are a great way to hang out and eat with your friends. They very much like Korean BBQs except you are sitting pretty much on the sidewalk and using a charcoal grill instead of gas. There’s really not much to say aside from you can get all sorts of different meats and seafood to grill along with buttered bread and vegetables. It’s not the cheapest meal but it is very nice. I usually eat BBQ while taking shots of Vodka Hanoi. I’m not sure if this is part of the local culture or if just something my friend who’s been here a long time just likes to do.

This next dish may look like rice but it is actually a bit different. It’s called xôi (pronounced soy). It is glutinous rice and is much more filling than normal rice. It is a common breakfast food. Even a small bowl with a bit of grilled meat and vegetables is enough to sustain me until lunch.

This is called bún đậu and is really quite simple. It is the bún noodles but they are cut up into cubes to make them easier to pick up with chop sticks and deep fried tofu. The purple sauce is the mắm tôm I was talking about before. I think this is a very nice and light lunch. Like most Vietnamese foods they bring you assorted herbs, lettuce, and bean sprouts to eat with it. While I was eating this particular bún đậu I was sitting next a Vietnamese guy I didn't know but we talked a bit and he was friendly guy. He ended up paying for my lunch altogether. I get treated to a lot of meals over here. Vietnamese people really do have a nice culture about paying for their friends, and even people they don’t know, food.

This is known as bánh mì sốt vang. The bánh mì is just normal French style bread. You can buy this practically everywhere and you can get good baguette sandwiches with egg vegetables and some Vietnamese style pate. Bánh mì sốt vang however is a bit different. The bowl is full of a nice meaty broth and hearty chunks of stewed beef. This particular one was kind of greasy but I really like this dish. You dip the bread into the broth and scoop up the meat or you can just eat the meat with a spoon.

This is what is called cơm rang which means fried rice. You can get fried rice with beef and vegetables or seafood or all kinds of other things. I think that fried rice is really just fried rice and I don’t think there is anything very distinctive about Vietnamese fried rice and fried rice I've had in other Asian countries. It is nice to order some of this when you are chilling and drinking beer with some friends. I generally don’t eat this in restaurants since it is so easy to make at home.

This bowl of soup, that many of you might think is phở, is called bún mộc. There are two major kinds of soup here and the difference lies in the kind of noodle. Basically bún noodles are thinner and phở noodles are wider but they are pretty much the same thing. (On a side note, there are also miến noodles which are made from something called cassava. They are see-through and I don’t have any pictures because I eat it very rarely.) Bún mộc is a meatball soup. I think it’s good. It’s quite simple but with some hot sauce it can be real good.

This interesting food is called bánh cuốn. I like it a lot and I was a bit intimidated at first to eat it. It is made on a pan that looks like a crepe maker. They use a white mixture (I assume flour and egg and some other stuff) and pour it out on the pan until it cooks into a thin white pancake. They then wrap it into a dumpling type food with various ingredients. Honestly, I have no idea what they put inside those things. I think there’s some kind of beans and meat. They also put some dried pork flakes on top which is nice. You’re supposed to dip in some fish sauce as you eat it. 

I saved the best for last: bún chả. This is a Hanoi specialty and a staple. There are bún chả restaurants practically everywhere. The noodles on the side are the bún noodles and you eat those alongside the bowl of grilled pork. The grilled pork is inside a bowl of a very nice broth which is made from vinegar, fish sauce, some sugar, and some other stuff. A usual side dish with bún chả is nem rán (fried spring rolls). The spring rolls are real good and can come with pork or crab meat. Bún chả is definitely a lunch time food and when I’m out looking for food I can always smell a bún chả place not too far away. This bún chả was interesting because the meat was wrapped in a leaf before it was grilled. 

Overall I rate Vietnamese cuisine very highly. There are a multitude of things I didn’t talk about; mainly because I don’t have pictures of them and this blog is already quite long. I also like how everything I mentioned can be bought for $1-$5 J

Withdrawal Symptoms

It was with a heavy heart that I confessed to the secretary and photocopy lady at my work that I plan on leaving Vietnam in May. Telling my boss was easy. I hardly know him but telling the Vietnamese staff was far more difficult. I invested a lot of effort into learning Vietnamese and getting to know the local staff at the company I work at. The secretary and photocopy lady are the ones that I am closest with and our discussion got pretty emotional. The photocopy lady doesn’t speak any English so I had to speak only Vietnamese and a bit of English to get my point across. I also wanted to speak Vietnamese so my boss and other coworkers wouldn’t overhear what we were talking about. It was a sad conversation and affected me strongly.  Even though I’m not leaving for another month I feel like it is just around the corner. Of course I am looking forward to reuniting with Kristine and starting our life together. I’ve dreamed about this for months now but I have grown emotionally attached to Vietnam and the withdrawal will be painful. I feel like I’m already saying goodbye and it depresses me.

Some people think I’m foolish for leaving so early. Financially it would make a lot of sense for me to stay and work for another six months or so. I could come home with a tidy treasure but that is one thing I cannot do. I have followed my heart when I made all of my major decisions. I decided to go study in Hawaii on a whim. I just wanted something new. I had originally gone to university to study biology or some kind of science but I developed a strong interest in Asia under the tutelage of Professor Michael Aung-Twin. I took his class on South and Southeast Asian history and it inspired me. Michael Aung-Twin is a very a nice guy from Myanmar and a great teacher. However, he is one of the few major sympathizers of the military junta ruling over Myanmar which makes me question his ethics. I originally had wanted to study Vietnamese but I got confused over the schedule and enrolled too late. I then decided that Chinese would be too difficult so I chose Japanese. From that point on my interest was in Japan and all of its culture and history.

Japanese language proved to be one of my most difficult endeavors but I believe that I have largely conquered it. I’m by no means fluent as a native speaker but I can tutor people in Japanese, teach it in a class, and carry on a conversation. Japanese language and my study of all things Asia really opened my mind to this part of the world. I had planned on teaching English in Japan for a year but was denied a nice job due to some run-ins I had with the Pittsburgh police. At that point I made a commitment never to let some stupid mistake ruin the rest of my life. At this point my record is clear and I intend to keep it that way. I lackadaisically chose to go to the Philippines and volunteer at a Japanese NGO. The Philippines had its ups and downs for me but it was an experience that shaped who I am today and I regret nothing.

Coming to Vietnam had been my plan since January last year. I met Kristine over the summer but I decided to stick to my plan. As difficult as this long-distance has been I’m glad I made this decision. I’ve made a lot of effort to learn the language here and understand the local culture. One of my motivations for studying Vietnamese comes from a family friend back in Pittsburgh. He was a retired school teacher that had been terribly ill and had been unable to get out of bed for years. He was basically on life support but he devoted his time to learning foreign languages from all over the world. Unfortunately, he passed away shortly before I came here. The last language he studied was Vietnamese. His widow gave me the textbook he used to learn the language and I promised her that I would do my best to learn it as homage to him. I’ve learned a lot about Vietnam and myself in my short time here. Vietnam went through one of the more terrible and unnecessary wars in recent history but you could almost not even realize it coming here. The scars of war and bitter resentment I expected to encounter just aren’t here. Vietnamese people have been genuinely friendly with me. This is something I was not prepared for. I have made so many good friends here; both Vietnamese and Western. It’s really going to be hard to say goodbye. After Vietnam I will be entering the toil that is working in the United States and entering graduate school. It would be a lie to say that I am not anxious about the next stage of my life but knowing that I will be with the woman I love gives me strength. 

Microfinance in Vietnam and My Failure

I have decided to quit my volunteering post at MACDI. My real problem was that I just didn’t have enough work to do. I don’t think they’ll miss me. I always have a sense of disappointment when I quit something; be it karate or volunteering. I must have failed somewhere but that’s not really important at this point. I’m going to fill up a lot of this newfound free time with meeting with more Vietnamese people to do language exchanges. The language exchanges are probably the most interesting thing I’ve done here. I really value the time I spend talking to Vietnamese people and learning their language. I also really like teaching Japanese; a lot more than teaching English. For me the English language is not a subject of study. It’s just how I communicate. I have been unable to dissect it in my head in the same way that I’ve done with Japanese and Vietnamese.

So, microfinance… Microfinance in Vietnam is very different from other parts of the world. More than three quarters of the microfinance activity here is done by public sector. It is very difficult to open and operate a private microfinance institution. There are steep capital requirements which most startup companies can’t afford and there are many other regulations they have to adhere to. The government-run microfinance institutions also charge a subsidized interest rate that is far lower than the market rate. This makes it very difficult for the private microfinance industry. The conventional wisdom among economist is that private businesses function more efficiently than state run enterprises. In a lot of ways I see their point. As we are seeing now in Europe, governments can be very irresponsible with their finances. Aside from the mismanagement there is also the problem of corruption. Vietnam, like most Southeast Asian countries, has major problems with corruption. The government really just puts itself in the way of businesses and private citizens to extract more money. I think it has been the major issue holding the Philippines back from developing economically as we all want it to. Vietnam has the same stubborn problem of corruption with the government and police. There is a lot to be said about corruption and I think it is a very important issue to debate. One thing that is for sure is that it is not a cultural thing. This is a fact of life and part of the human condition.

So what are the upsides of the Vietnamese microfinance system? Well the average people do spend considerably less on interest than their contemporaries in other parts of the world. Mr. Yunus’s goal was to help impoverished people improve their own lives without just receiving hand-outs. If poor Vietnamese can get access to cheap microloans from their government than I don’t see anything wrong with that. There have been plenty of examples of market failures and microfinance done wrong; like what happened in Andhra Pradesh. Really the mission of microfinance is to help poor people; not make them poorer. Has the Vietnamese microfinance program had success in last two decades? In the beginning of the 1990s almost half of Vietnamese people were living in poverty. Now that number is around 12%. That is some major improvement but I don’t think the microfinance program was the game changer that was the turning point in Vietnamese history. Vietnam has developed off the backs of hard working people and new private business opportunities that government decided to tolerate. I’m sure plenty of Vietnamese have bettered their lives due to the fact they had access to affordable credit but I think having a job or an education opportunity is more valuable than being able to borrow $100 with cheap interest.

The government of Vietnam has all the same problems that governments face. There is mismanagement, corruption, nepotism, etc. At the same time, their track record recently is quite good so you have to give credit where credit is due. I do believe that the microfinance institutions will probably have long term financial sustainability issues and the government will have to be gradually pushed out. The government should of course still be involved with regulating the industry. It’s important that there’s oversight but the distinction between hindering and effective regulation is very hard to draw.

Vietnam still has major problems with poverty, especially with the ethnic minorities. The recent development of Vietnam has not benefited all people in Vietnam equally; far from it. These are serious issues and I’m sure the government will take some action. Whether or not it will be the right course of action is anybody’s guess but I’m sure the Vietnamese people will weather the storm like they have the last hundred years. 

In Lenin's Shadow

On my journey back home every night from my evening class I walk past the robust statue of Lenin in Ba Dinh district. It is located in the aptly named Lenin Square. It’s probably the only place in the world that Lenin is surrounded by palm trees. During the day there are tourists milling around to visit Uncle Ho along with the other sightseeing points of interest in this historical neighborhood of Hanoi. At night however, the scene is dominated by the Vietnamese youth. Every time I walk past I see something different. I’ve seen young people break dancing and middle aged ladies aerobic classes. I’ve seen football (soccer) games and skateboarders doing their thing. The one thing you can’t say is that Hanoi is not lively at night. A common complaint among expats and party seeking travelers is that Hanoi’s nightlife is subpar compared to Ho Chi Minh City. This is true if you are only looking for clubs open all night and cheap bars catering to Westerners. Perhaps they are looking in the wrong places. This is the essential difference between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Ho Chi Minh City accommodates foreign people. Hanoi forces you to accommodate to it. This is of course a massive generalization but I think it is one that fits in this context.

Vietnam emerged from the fury of the war with a government that was bent on transforming Vietnamese society into an agrarian utopia. They followed the example of Stalin and Mao and the results are up for debate. Their US imposed isolation from the international economy subjected the Vietnamese to a harsh economic reality. The Vietnamese government has been pragmatic however; unlike the North Koreans. During the 1980s Vietnam began opening its doors to foreign investment and the tides of globalization. It is still up for debate whether the government really rescinded its control over the national economy but what is clear is that Vietnam has been a success story ever since. Bill Clinton (who is Vietnam’s favorite US president according to the people I’ve met) removed the embargo and thus aided the rapid economic development that Vietnam has been experiencing. There are still some very difficult issues surrounding Vietnam’s current success such as the growing disparity between the rich and poor; the urban and rural. The government is apparently taking steps to rectify this situation but we will see how they react in the years to come. The Vietnamese government is not the most transparent and their decision making seems to happen behind closed doors.

The conventional term to refer to current Vietnamese society is “soft communism”. I think this characterization is adequate but it does not illuminate the entirety of this transformative phase that Vietnam is in.

Vietnam has painfully torn from its traditional roots and jettisoned into the global politics by French colonialism. There was initial resistance which was crushed by the French military. By the beginning of the 20^th century the French had consolidated power across Indochine and this was a period of intellectual ferment in Vietnam. There were conservatives advocating a boycott of foreign values and there were forward thinkers trying to incorporate aspects of Western society into the society of Vietnam. Most intellectuals fell in between. Ho Chi Minh is a product of this period. Ho Chi Minh was a visionary for his country and although Vietnamese people still debate (behind closed doors) his political legacy he is a great hero of the nation.

Vietnam today is being transformed yet again as it was in the early 1900s. I believe this is a turning point in the history of Vietnam. I’m not sure but I think that people in my age group ad younger make up the majority of the population. There are intellectuals debating the future path of Vietnam. There are the opportunists trying to make a profit on the economic boom. And there are just normal people trying to make a living in these interesting times. Vietnam is changing in fascinating ways and the vitality here is unquestionable. It is anybody’s guess how it will look in a decade or two but I’m sure there will still be the youth expressing themselves in Lenin’s shadow.