Home away from home

A month in England is now gone, and I can't say that I am missing Saigon. Don't get me wrong, guaranteed sunshine and warm temperatures, cheap restaurants and bars, of course they are missed. But that is missing the lifestyle, not Saigon. Saigon to me is being stuck in a traffic jam in a shirt and tie at 7.30am already hot under the collar. It's reading reports of failing infrastructure, suffering, incompetent governance and corruption. It's witnessing in front of your very eyes the misery and inconvenience caused by the aforementioned list (I'm grateful to have missed the floods the other week of which I have heard horror stories). Saigon has a 'boy who cried wolf' problem for me, no matter what you read about 'improvements'...it is hard to believe. Yes, after three and a half years, I am a Saigon skeptic. It's appeal as a tourist is undeniable (Connections) and I will espouse them to anyone. It's livability is in serious decline, mainly due to traffic conditions and air quality.

It is unlikely Chi will convince me that it is worth living in the city again. I'll be off to stay in the burbs just outside Disneyland rather than in it (this is an analogy I just can't get out of my head..).

That was completely off topic, what I really wanted to post about was the effortless glide that Chi has made into life in England. Her cooking has taken my household by storm, we even have a special chopstick compartment in the knives and forks drawer now. Chi has already whipped up a couple of batches of spring rolls (with homemade fish sauce), a huge pot of bo kho, a mango salad followed by pho and a banana cake.

It's a terrible pic but you get the idea, Chi preparing her Vietnamese feast for my family on mum's birthday.

In all its glory - yes that is Buoi in the salad, available form the 'Asian foods' shop at the top of the road.

Here she is enjoying a picnic on the hill above Swanage, a part of Dorset's jurassic coast we are lucky to live by. The girl from the city was blown away by the view on what was a perfect summer's day.

Yesterday was a trip to London to see Manchester United vs Portsmouth in the FA Community Shield, along with 85,000 English football supporters.

Baby was treated to a deafening 90 minutes, kicking mum nice and hard to say 'What the hell is going on out there!'.

Ultimately however I think Chi was most impressed by the police and their horses....

Connections Vietnam new website

Dear Readers,

Connections Vietnam has relaunched its website -- still at the same address...www.connectionsvietnam.com.

Yes, despite Chi and myself being out of the country right now, Connections is still going strong on the ground in Saigon. Let's call it a long distance relationship.

Although a lot of people commented on how they liked the previous site, I was increasingly frustrated by its lack of flexibility and interactiveness. The new site is powered by wordpress and gives me the freedom and dynamic style I was looking for...cool plugins to display pictures and commentable blog style posts along with static pages. Hopefully this site will enable a lot more interaction with potential customers coming to Saigon enabling them to get a much better feel of what we do before they sign up for a Cook, Meet, Dine or Learn experience. Also, our previous customers can also interact and contribute to the site.

Take a look, see what you think, any feedback would be appreciated!

Reunited!

This was the moment it all happened...

Chi's brother, Jean-Baptiste, wasn't shy or awkward at this emotional moment, rather dignified and mature. He held Chi as she greeted him. I am in the background, choking on the local pollution or something. Not sure. After the meeting it was five days of French style hospitality with Chi's brother's large family, meeting various Aunts and Uncles, culminating in an 18 person luncheon at the family home. We ate sumptuously, we (or at least I) drank copiously, with lunch blending into dinner, after meal spirits blending into aperitifs. We spent three nights in a chalet overlooking Geneva and Mount Blanc. A far cry from the dusty highways and manic streets of Saigon.

We even managed to sneak in a trip to Switzerland to wander around Lake Geneva and gawp at ridiculously expensive watches, suits and cars.

Thanks to the local knowledge of our hosts, Chi was smuggled into this exclusive corner of Europe over the border via a back road, no visa. Despite our attempts to attract the attention of the Swiss gendarmes , she returned to France successfully.

Previously, we had enjoyed several enjoyable but expensive nights in Paris.

In the Louvre, here's what you face if you want to get close to the Mona Lisa.

Chi's story

When my wife's brother was born, she was only nine years old. During the birth, Chi's mother had some complications (what exactly I can't gather) and her brain was starved of oxygen for a short time. Her recovery was long, spending a month in the HCMC woman's hospital before being moved to District 5's Cho Ray. Eventually she recovered to today being able to function normally, but was left partially sighted. After the time of birth, she was obviously unable to take care of the baby boy Dai, and her sister helped her through the first year. Chi's aunt took care of the baby, whilst Chi lived with another aunt. At weekends, Chi would visit her baby brother and her mother. Chi's father who was responsible for the 24 hour care of her mother seemed to be overwhelmed by his duties and the situation, turning instead to drinking and gambling. It wasn't much later after Chi's mother regained her health that she pressed through with a divorce. Previously, she had been the main breadwinner in the family, whilst her husband was just a waiter. It was her inability to work due to her eyesight and the lack of support from her husband which made a very difficult decision become real. Here is Dai at one year old with his mother.

Through an arrangement with a friend, Dai was adopted by a French family. Here they are, in HCMC, visiting Chi's house. Right is Chi's mother, left her Aunt who cared for Dai through the first year.

Chi's mother insisted that no money was involved, the only condition was that the families stay in touch, which they have done without fail over the years, sending photos, letters, cards and emails. The pain of such a decision was tempered by the knowledge that Dai was being bought up in a happy family, getting a good education and enjoying all the things he wouldn't have had in Vietnam.

Meanwhile, Chi and her mother lived together. Chi revealed to me only yesterday that her mother had seriously considered a similar fate for her, but in the end decided against it. By Grade 6, Chi was shopping at the market and preparing basic meals for herself and her mother. By the middle of Grade 8, she was working at the Saigon Horse Racing track selling tickets at weekends.

Over in France Jean-Baptiste (Dai) was continuing his growth and education.

First day at school...

Today Jean-B is a strapping 15 years old and doing well at school. Chi is so immensely proud she is fit to burst.

A week today, Chi and I will fly to Paris. After three nights wandering the streets and savouring the atmosphere we will catch a train three hours south east to the town of Besancon. Here Chi will be reunited with her brother for the first time since he left Vietnam as a one year old baby. Discussion of this event is already banned in our house for fear of the waterworks starting. It will be an emotional few days for us when we drive to stay in Gex, the hometown of JB and family, up in the mountains of the Jura region just a few kilometers from Geneva.

For Chi especially, I hope this is the start of a great relationship with her brother and his wonderful family -- the heartbreak she feels from what happened will I hope in some way be forgotten as they meet for the first time as adults. . The events 15 years ago shaped Chi's entire life and personality -- and all she wants most of all is a happy family. It's something she has missed out on for so long.

Typical Day

The weekend is over, a weekend which involved a long and emotional school closing ceremony. A weekend which preceded a long and emotional 5 days at school, where many goodbyes to students and fellow teachers were shared in the form of cards, gifts, photos, emails and probably to be broken promises. Sharing the same building with around 250 people for ten months straight can be an intense experience, and it’s amazing how well you can get to know each and every one of those people. That’s what teaching is, an intense experience which you commit yourself to, all or nothing, physically and emotionally draining but incredibly rewarding and meaningful. And when it is over, you look back and think WOW. I survived. So as the day started on Monday it was a surreal, brilliant natural high to be on the first day of summer holidays. Recharge time. Yet I still find myself in the middle of this city, with its citizens. Still two more weeks before leaving Vietnam, and plenty of organising to do, not to mention business stuff and organising a huge piss up before I leave. My day was extraordinarily typical to such an extent that if I hadn’t have been so god damn ecstatic then I may not be sat here so amused.

03:00 – Power cut. Fan whirs to a halt and I have an hour of mopping sweat from my chest before passing out.

06:20 – Awakened with a startle and then a groan of realisation. The guys who do that mental drumming with dragon dancing, they practice on the other side of the canal, just outside our apartments. Just a combination of bass drum, cymbal and other percussion being slammed, smacked and bashed as hard as possible in something resembling a rhythm. But it’s 6.20. They do that for an hour.

07:30 – Pour out my bowl of cereal and observe the ants come streaming out of it. Damn it! Left the box on the fridge again. The only ant proof place in the apartment is deep inside the refrigerator.

09:00 – Yoga. Morning class with Japanese housewives. Get a damn good sweat on and feel great for the rest of the day.

11:00 – Get a haircut. Have a weird conversation with the hairdresser (as usual) where I just smile and nod at whatever he says even though I understand about 25% of what he is saying. Nice bloke.

11:30 – Go shopping at the supermarket in tax plaza.

12:00 – At home watching the repeat of the 4^th round of the US open.

14:30 – Head to the bank. Here I have to transfer money to my account in the UK. I’ve already been sent away once to retrieve my labour contract. Now I am armed with the evidence – contract, pay stubs, red invoices, passport etc. A nice lady is trying to help me but bless her she is so scared of not getting the paperwork right. She asks me for a document (needs to be stamped – by who, doesn’t matter, but a stamp means it is real) that shows I was paid in cash. I cringe, and say I have more then enough here. Chi starts to lose patience. The nice woman takes the details to a guy in a white shirt at a desk two feet behind her, I’d say branch deputy manager. He seems to OK it after 5 minutes with her umming and aaarrring over my contract. By this point I have told Chi to calm down and let me deal with them. This simple piece of personal business is as usual turning into a catastrophe.

She comes back and I’m in. That is until the papers get put onto the desk of a big fat guy in a blue shirt at another desk but right in the middle of the bank, I am presuming he is the manager (and white shirt at the next desk one day aspires to sit at the desk in the middle). I can tell he is a class A ***** just from looking at him. Seen it all before. He grabs the papers and starts making a fuss. He knows I’m watching him. It’s all for show. He tells the poor flustered woman that they can’t buy sterling today. She tells me. I tell her whilst tapping loudly on the perspex and pointing over at fatso ‘I want to speak to him’. He sees this and begins to look worried. She says he is trying to get sterling from other banks. Ahem. OK….so he plays around on the phone and after 5 minutes of pretending to phone people he grunts out ‘OK’ and gives her the thumbs up. He leans back thinking smugly ‘ha I weaseled out of that one well…’…seen The Office anyone?! As the green light is given a man next to me gives me the thumbs up and says bravo. A small victory for the people.

That’s only half the day and I am exhausted. Good night!

Allez Boo

Ahh, those of you who have haunted the streets of Pham Ngu Lao and De Tham, as most residents of HCMC have at some point, will recognise this corner. However, it is goodbye to Allez Boo which entertained pissed backpackers and English teachers for ten years. Although not a place I would go to often, it represented a multi-cultural part of the city in what is still a very homogeneous metropolis. Unfortunately, Highlands have the ability to gobble up any available street frontage in a frighteningly casual manner. There were rumours of the backpacker area being 'moved'. Perhaps the appearance of this new Starbucks, sorry I mean Highlands, is a subtle message that reads : no more tacky bamboo joints and street side drinking in this juicy piece of land that is so nicely located and has incredible potential for development if only all you bizarre foreigners with greasy hair and who keep all your possessions in a bag on your back would bugger off and find somewhere else to ferment and complain about being ripped off 30 pence by your motorbike taxi with other bizarre foreigners of a similar ilk.....(complaints about this sentence's validity can be sent here).

Economic Slide

Today I happened to catch the BBC World News Business program, and they had a short but worrying analysis from the studios of the Asia Business Report program, also on the BBC. The fact that inflation up to 25% is no secret, but the report stated this was only matched or beaten in Asia by Sri Lanka and Burma...The report also suggested that Vietnam is in serious danger of having to revalue the Dong by as much as 7,000 to the USD (taking it to 22/23,000 to $1) in order to stabalise the economy and this uncontrollable inflation (not now but sometime in the future).

Here is a link : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7431195.stm : Although I am not sure if it is the same report I saw, I can't actually get the vid to play from here!

All of a sudden, after years of posturing and confidence and bravado, the wheels are falling off. Banks are unwilling to sell $$$ and the tourist rate is up to 17,500. Stories of construction companies halting work are rife, with cost of materials now too high to make projects worth completing. Government money that was probably earmarked for much needed infrastructure projects around the country -- trains, bridges, roads -- may now need to be spent on funding vital imports. The situation is the same as in many countries such as India for example, where world oil prices are driving up fuel and food therefore raising the cost of living. In Malaysia the government recently announced it was halting all fuel subsidies, meaning price increases of 40%.

Life is getting tougher for millions of people across Vietnam right now, and possibly this is the time that the facade of development (in my opinion) in this country is exposed. A recent Thanh Nien report debated the validity of the poverty line - calculated at 16% living below the minimum average monthly income per capita of $16.1 in urban areas (http://www.thanhniennews.com/commentaries/?catid=11&newsid=38688). And that is for families. I fail to see how a family living with $17 a month is NOT living in poverty, the other problem as pointed out by TN is that the statistics were calculated for a set 5 year period beginning 2006 and ending in 2010, and not taking into account the rate of inflation! As wages in Vietnam are hardly tied to inflation, obviously the figures are misleading and the real poverty line is higher than 16%. TN constantly declares that foreign investors are not put off by the situation and continue to be attracted to Vietnam, but this has to be a major concern.

So, a spanner in the works of developing Vietnam. As the government tries to control inflation by curbing the growth rate, the hopes of a developed Vietnam may have to wait a few more years yet. 2020 was my magic year for a big improvement..but let's see what happens in the next couple of years. I am just thankful that I am able to earn a decent salary here and am not directly affected by supermarket/fuel price hikes. Others, ordinary Vietnamese, must well be feeling the pinch.