What a load of nonsense.
The poor girl, Le Nguyen Quynh Anh, sang on Vietnam's got talent and quite rightly got told she could not continue in the competition. I don't need to be a judge to know that her voice is hardly inspiring. So at the end of her performance her mother comes onto the stage to protest her daughter's brilliance. I know it's an Asian thing, just as prevelant here in Vietnam as in China and Korea, the 'tiger mother' syndrome. But can we please just love our children for who they are? Is that such a complex thing to understand? Can't these parents see what they are doing to the mental health of their children?
Obviously not, as Quynh Anh's mother, on top of totally humiliating her daughter on national television, decided to write to the party to complain too! Now the family are complaining of being treated unfairly by the television network, of being made to look stupid.
Your first mistake was going on stage to say your daughter was good when she isn't. That DID make you look stupid. Not much work for the editors there. Your second mistake was to then continue your protests publicly and at a governmental level. Now you look even more stupid, because you won't let it go, and your detachment from reality takes the breath away. This probably led to the paradoy on VTV3.
Yes, TV shows should not edit programs to make people out to be stupid, but this is the nature of the beast - don't put yourself in that position in the first place and it won't happen. They don't make the talented ones out to be crazy do they? Take the hint. Love your kids, but don't build them up their whole lives on false promise because one day that matchstick castle will come tumbling down.
The finger pointing has to stop!
Feb 29, 2012
Feb 28, 2012
Expensive Football Pitch
A row of three houses being constructed by the park in Phu My Hung...huge, palatial places recently built. I take issue with some of the architectural features but this one in shot has nice terraces. The second you can see being constructed in the background.
And here it is finished - looks Spanish to me:
Amusingly for me someone has set up a pointless, posh little football pitch on the plot in-between these mansions. That's the most expensive football pitch in Vietnam, probably worth more than 1/4 million dollars! Presumably someone rich, maybe one of the owners of these houses, has done it 'because they can' and to take the piss out of everyone passing by. It's working!
And here it is finished - looks Spanish to me:
Amusingly for me someone has set up a pointless, posh little football pitch on the plot in-between these mansions. That's the most expensive football pitch in Vietnam, probably worth more than 1/4 million dollars! Presumably someone rich, maybe one of the owners of these houses, has done it 'because they can' and to take the piss out of everyone passing by. It's working!
Feb 22, 2012
9 things I wouldn't miss if I left Vietnam
1) Motorbike drivers who spit
A rare but horrifying experience. For a split second I thought I was going to be drenched by a wayward greenie as a gentleman decided to unleash his saliva-bomb roadside instead of in the traditional kerbside direction. With no time to react properly I just had to brace and wait for impact - face, shirt, hand? Thankfully my morning surprise splattered the front of the motorbike. Very rare, but not the first time. The most disgusting, unthoughtful thing you can do on a motorbike apart from crashing into someone, driving whilst drunk, driving down a one way street the wrong way, constantly blowing your horn or street racing in the middle of the night through residential areas.
2) Expats who feel the need to declare the beginning/end of the rainy season or who are surprised by rain in the dry season
Listen, I'm from England where we talk about the weather in every second conversation (because by that time it's probably gotten worse), however this one aspect of weather conversation I dread. Expats here act like Apache native Americans. A cloudless day at the end of October and they clasp their hands together and look solemnly at the horizon. "Mmm, wind changing. Rain finished now. Big dry come". Then, a week later, it pisses down for 4 days solid. There is no glory from predicting the end/beginning of the dry/wet season. It won't seal your non-existent reputation as a guru of Mekong weather-forecasting, you won't be seen as a denizen of the region with an intimate connection to this mystical land. You'll just look stupid, because 98% of the time you'll be wrong.
Also, people who are amazed by rain in December or January. Or EVEN February Yes, it happens. Get over it. Yes, it rained all night and this morning. So?
3) Having this conversation
A) So how long have you been here?
Me) About 7 years
A) Oh! So you can speak Vietnamese?
Me) Not really. A little. Enough to get by. Order a beer, directions, family stuff, the Catholic Church and its attitude to communist rule and property ownership....haha. Not the last one.
4) Righteous expats who think Vietnam's shit doesn't stink
From virulent, widespread corruption to cockroach infestations to Tan Son Nhat, there's a lot to not like about Vietnam. Some expats willingly ignore all of it to create a land of shimmering tropical waters, merry bustling markets and smiling girls in Ao Dais. The expat who says 'well you know where the airport is' - that old chestnut - has no more right to be here just because their rose tinted glasses are still on. It is ok, you know, to live here and also have some complaints*. Hell, we all do it at home. In fact our entire lives are often based around moaning. Perhaps that's what it is, personalities clashing. But please, expat who constantly defends Vietnam, my wife and every Vietnamese person I've ever known has bad things to say about the place (roads, governance, pollution etc), so just stop. It's not a downer on Vietnam, it's a fact of life, wherever you are, society is messed up (in capitals). Some of the stories I hear about what people do to each other for money in this country, including their own close family, are more shocking than a Japanese game show involving testicles, ice and a set of weights.
(* if you are a gentleman in his 60s who is having numerous unsuccessful relationships with the working girls of this town, have suffered robbery by prostitutes late at night when drunk, or think that every Vietnamese is out to rip you off but you live on Bui Vien and/or are a backpacker, and this is the source of your complaints, you know where the airport is don't you?)
5) People who press the up AND down button at the lift
This may or may not happen in other countries of the world, I would like to think that most civilizations apart from those still uncontactable in the Amazon basin have a basic grasp of how lifts work. Press down and you will end up going down. Up, you will be going...yes, up. Pressing both does not make the lift arrive any quicker, and almost always ends up in a wasted journey for someone. I suggest a polite notice explaining this.
6) Shit Photographs/Photographers
Probably the bain of South East Asia, 'freelancers'. All you need is a posh camera, a college course and a website and hey presto - you're shooting family albums in An Phu. (Hey, I'm a teacher, I get enough stereotyping so I can take it out on another profession ok?). I've always thought Saigon and Vietnam in general is a photographers dream, which makes it all the more unforgivable to be crap at it yet call yourself professional.
7) A population that doesn't know how to turn left
I never took a 'cycling proficiency test' but its a popular course in the UK - popular for paranoid and overbearing parents to bore their children with learning the rudimentary basics of cycling on the street. In the course they teach you how to turn against the traffic....hover in the middle of the road letting traffic pass on both sides of you - and stick your your arm out. In Vietnam, turning against the traffic is the opposite. We've all been belting it along and then seen someone on the outside slow down, pull over even more to the outside and then look for all intent and purposes like they are going to swing right across the road in front of you. The front wheel wobble and glance over the shoulder usually follows. Even better is the people who sit in the right hand lane at traffic lights and then proceed to turn left. Perhaps aligning the bike prior to stopping at the light would have been advisable? No, too easy.
8) The experts
After three months, everyone's an expert. Be it holiday locations, the best restaurants, the best hotels, traditions, history, culture. They think they know it all. What they actually have is an in-depth knowledge of the overpriced, pretentious venues that an absolute tiny majority of the population (themselves and their friends) can afford to frequent. Also, let's not even mention objectivity. Some restaurants/locations seem to be engrained in expat folklore and retain legendary status despite only serving mountains of fried crap and insanely expensive wine. The same goes for holiday locations. 'Oh yeah, xxxxxx is amazing'. If you can ignore the 50,000 Russian tourists. I learnt long ago to just stay out of these conversation and only respond reluctantly if it's based on 'Jon's been here a while, ask him'. Then I'll shrug my shoulders and mumble something about Mui Ne.
9) Pseudo-intellectual conversations about Vietnam
A lesson to be learned in Vietnam, especially when passing 'social commentary' is summed up by saying 'the greatest wisdom is knowing you know nothing at all'. Reading this there will be Vietnam/Saigon based expats whose deluded minds are screaming 'I know plenty about Vietnam's customs and society!', therefore denying the truth even to themselves because they can't give up the thrill of telling a newbie in a bar 'what the traffic is like at TET' or 'that you'll get ripped off at the market'. Just leave it. Unless you are phd of Vietnamese history, society and culture at Vietnam National University, speak fluent Vietnamese, have spent 20 odd years in the field and have accepted Vietnamese citizenship, just leave it. Having a girlfriend and visiting the in-laws for TET doesn't count.
No, I wouldn't miss those pseudo-intellectual conversations about Vietnam either.
A rare but horrifying experience. For a split second I thought I was going to be drenched by a wayward greenie as a gentleman decided to unleash his saliva-bomb roadside instead of in the traditional kerbside direction. With no time to react properly I just had to brace and wait for impact - face, shirt, hand? Thankfully my morning surprise splattered the front of the motorbike. Very rare, but not the first time. The most disgusting, unthoughtful thing you can do on a motorbike apart from crashing into someone, driving whilst drunk, driving down a one way street the wrong way, constantly blowing your horn or street racing in the middle of the night through residential areas.
2) Expats who feel the need to declare the beginning/end of the rainy season or who are surprised by rain in the dry season
Listen, I'm from England where we talk about the weather in every second conversation (because by that time it's probably gotten worse), however this one aspect of weather conversation I dread. Expats here act like Apache native Americans. A cloudless day at the end of October and they clasp their hands together and look solemnly at the horizon. "Mmm, wind changing. Rain finished now. Big dry come". Then, a week later, it pisses down for 4 days solid. There is no glory from predicting the end/beginning of the dry/wet season. It won't seal your non-existent reputation as a guru of Mekong weather-forecasting, you won't be seen as a denizen of the region with an intimate connection to this mystical land. You'll just look stupid, because 98% of the time you'll be wrong.
Also, people who are amazed by rain in December or January. Or EVEN February Yes, it happens. Get over it. Yes, it rained all night and this morning. So?
3) Having this conversation
A) So how long have you been here?
Me) About 7 years
A) Oh! So you can speak Vietnamese?
Me) Not really. A little. Enough to get by. Order a beer, directions, family stuff, the Catholic Church and its attitude to communist rule and property ownership....haha. Not the last one.
4) Righteous expats who think Vietnam's shit doesn't stink
From virulent, widespread corruption to cockroach infestations to Tan Son Nhat, there's a lot to not like about Vietnam. Some expats willingly ignore all of it to create a land of shimmering tropical waters, merry bustling markets and smiling girls in Ao Dais. The expat who says 'well you know where the airport is' - that old chestnut - has no more right to be here just because their rose tinted glasses are still on. It is ok, you know, to live here and also have some complaints*. Hell, we all do it at home. In fact our entire lives are often based around moaning. Perhaps that's what it is, personalities clashing. But please, expat who constantly defends Vietnam, my wife and every Vietnamese person I've ever known has bad things to say about the place (roads, governance, pollution etc), so just stop. It's not a downer on Vietnam, it's a fact of life, wherever you are, society is messed up (in capitals). Some of the stories I hear about what people do to each other for money in this country, including their own close family, are more shocking than a Japanese game show involving testicles, ice and a set of weights.
(* if you are a gentleman in his 60s who is having numerous unsuccessful relationships with the working girls of this town, have suffered robbery by prostitutes late at night when drunk, or think that every Vietnamese is out to rip you off but you live on Bui Vien and/or are a backpacker, and this is the source of your complaints, you know where the airport is don't you?)
5) People who press the up AND down button at the lift
This may or may not happen in other countries of the world, I would like to think that most civilizations apart from those still uncontactable in the Amazon basin have a basic grasp of how lifts work. Press down and you will end up going down. Up, you will be going...yes, up. Pressing both does not make the lift arrive any quicker, and almost always ends up in a wasted journey for someone. I suggest a polite notice explaining this.
6) Shit Photographs/Photographers
Probably the bain of South East Asia, 'freelancers'. All you need is a posh camera, a college course and a website and hey presto - you're shooting family albums in An Phu. (Hey, I'm a teacher, I get enough stereotyping so I can take it out on another profession ok?). I've always thought Saigon and Vietnam in general is a photographers dream, which makes it all the more unforgivable to be crap at it yet call yourself professional.
7) A population that doesn't know how to turn left
I never took a 'cycling proficiency test' but its a popular course in the UK - popular for paranoid and overbearing parents to bore their children with learning the rudimentary basics of cycling on the street. In the course they teach you how to turn against the traffic....hover in the middle of the road letting traffic pass on both sides of you - and stick your your arm out. In Vietnam, turning against the traffic is the opposite. We've all been belting it along and then seen someone on the outside slow down, pull over even more to the outside and then look for all intent and purposes like they are going to swing right across the road in front of you. The front wheel wobble and glance over the shoulder usually follows. Even better is the people who sit in the right hand lane at traffic lights and then proceed to turn left. Perhaps aligning the bike prior to stopping at the light would have been advisable? No, too easy.
8) The experts
After three months, everyone's an expert. Be it holiday locations, the best restaurants, the best hotels, traditions, history, culture. They think they know it all. What they actually have is an in-depth knowledge of the overpriced, pretentious venues that an absolute tiny majority of the population (themselves and their friends) can afford to frequent. Also, let's not even mention objectivity. Some restaurants/locations seem to be engrained in expat folklore and retain legendary status despite only serving mountains of fried crap and insanely expensive wine. The same goes for holiday locations. 'Oh yeah, xxxxxx is amazing'. If you can ignore the 50,000 Russian tourists. I learnt long ago to just stay out of these conversation and only respond reluctantly if it's based on 'Jon's been here a while, ask him'. Then I'll shrug my shoulders and mumble something about Mui Ne.
9) Pseudo-intellectual conversations about Vietnam
A lesson to be learned in Vietnam, especially when passing 'social commentary' is summed up by saying 'the greatest wisdom is knowing you know nothing at all'. Reading this there will be Vietnam/Saigon based expats whose deluded minds are screaming 'I know plenty about Vietnam's customs and society!', therefore denying the truth even to themselves because they can't give up the thrill of telling a newbie in a bar 'what the traffic is like at TET' or 'that you'll get ripped off at the market'. Just leave it. Unless you are phd of Vietnamese history, society and culture at Vietnam National University, speak fluent Vietnamese, have spent 20 odd years in the field and have accepted Vietnamese citizenship, just leave it. Having a girlfriend and visiting the in-laws for TET doesn't count.
No, I wouldn't miss those pseudo-intellectual conversations about Vietnam either.
Jan 26, 2012
Action from the Saigon Heat -
Free tickets ahoy! Saigon Sports Academy have (somehow) set up Saigon's first professional basketball team which compete in the ABL and I went with a few friends last night to the game against Singapore Slingers at the Tan Binh Sports and Cultural Centre. A decent crowd saw the match, with atmosphere enhanced by a team of drummers pounding away throughout the game and providing drum rolls during free throw time. My first professional basketball game, and I learnt a lot of the rules I never quite understood before hand. What I can tell you is that there were a lot of missed baskets in the first half, and that's where the Heat lost it, the Slingers staying consistent in the last two quarters and hitting some nice 3 pointers. Undoubtedly, the smallest player on the court was the also the most talented. Here's the match report from the ABL website.
I think the highlight was a slam dunk from Slingers 11 Little which almost bought the basket and its frame crashing to the court - luckily, it teetered, found its balance, and rocked back onto the court. It was then decided that someone should sit on it to provide extra ballast. A Slingers player was also dealt a hefty blow to the face and on attempting to walk off the court collapsed onto a row of chairs. You know its not the NBA when the medical team is an aged looking Vietnamese man in a white coat. Eventually a very old looking stretcher appeared to withdraw the player, who later remerged to play in the fourth quarter - something that would give onlooking doctors a heart attack as he had suffered a head injury. It didn't stop him making some free throws though!
I think the highlight was a slam dunk from Slingers 11 Little which almost bought the basket and its frame crashing to the court - luckily, it teetered, found its balance, and rocked back onto the court. It was then decided that someone should sit on it to provide extra ballast. A Slingers player was also dealt a hefty blow to the face and on attempting to walk off the court collapsed onto a row of chairs. You know its not the NBA when the medical team is an aged looking Vietnamese man in a white coat. Eventually a very old looking stretcher appeared to withdraw the player, who later remerged to play in the fourth quarter - something that would give onlooking doctors a heart attack as he had suffered a head injury. It didn't stop him making some free throws though!
Jan 21, 2012
I wish I had a decent camera
Because I just watched another beautiful sunset. This is the best I could do with my Canon Powershot at full zoom...
Happy Lunar New Year to everyone in Vietnam! I'll have some TET pictures coming at the end of this week.
And other attempts which just consisted of leaving the camera on 'Auto' and zooming in and out taking as many pictures as possible whilst hoping they came out well. The sun set in about 30 seconds over the horizon so no time to mess around with exposure and all that.
Dec 15, 2011
Views from the Phu My Bridge
I drive over the bloody thing twice a day on my commute, and it's one of those things you take for granted; a sweeping vista stretching in one direction away to the south east where the Saigon River twists and empties into the Nha Be River. Cargo ships sail gently under the 150 meter high bridge leaving their lazy wakes in the dazzling early morning sunshine, occasionally the Vung Tau hydrofoil speeds by. From the other side, a view of Saigon's skyline from Phu My Hung to District Two. It's the best free view in the city. So as the sun was hanging low in the sky and the light dimming, I decided to pedal over the 2km bridge with my camera, as I had been meaning to for a long time.
The evidence of the industrial nature of the riverside is evident. There is warehousing, a large timber yard, a port and the Saigon Shipbuilding Industry Company.
Ship building in progress
Ship building in progress
Warehouse, timber yard and port
Timber yard, D7
The sky is huge and the landscape is flat, ships dot the horizon. There's not many places in Saigon that capture a sense of space and nature, a feeling of distance from the chaos.
View down the river
Sunset on the bridge
Heading back over the bridge from the other side, the view is of the river heading upstream, winding its way back through the city.
And the district one skyline.
District One skyline
So, grab your bike, take some snacks and head up to the bridge to enjoy the view with the locals at sunset. It's worth it.
The evidence of the industrial nature of the riverside is evident. There is warehousing, a large timber yard, a port and the Saigon Shipbuilding Industry Company.
Ship building in progress
Ship building in progress
Warehouse, timber yard and port
Timber yard, D7
The sky is huge and the landscape is flat, ships dot the horizon. There's not many places in Saigon that capture a sense of space and nature, a feeling of distance from the chaos.
View down the river
Sunset on the bridge
Heading back over the bridge from the other side, the view is of the river heading upstream, winding its way back through the city.
And the district one skyline.
District One skyline
So, grab your bike, take some snacks and head up to the bridge to enjoy the view with the locals at sunset. It's worth it.
Nov 30, 2011
My baby turns three
Don't they grow up quick! It seems crazy but my little baby girl is a three year old now. She grows more fabulous and loving every day I see her, with her mad curly hair, inquisitive eyes and her insatiable sense of adventure and fun. Growing maturity is something so thrilling to see before your own eyes - all that hard work is paying off. Louisa had a party at her nursery and some friends over in the evening, with mums and dads too.
The dads at the party
I realised what a select group of dads there were here at the party - on the far left a German Vietnam Airlines pilot, on the far right a Brazilian professional football player in the V league, right of me a friend who is finishing his Phd in Vietnamese History, left of me a guy who works in Kazakhstan in the oil industry a month on and a month off, and second right of me an old friend from Catalonia who works in Hotel/Property management. And then there's me, an I.T teacher. You don't need to tell me, I already know.
The dads at the party
I realised what a select group of dads there were here at the party - on the far left a German Vietnam Airlines pilot, on the far right a Brazilian professional football player in the V league, right of me a friend who is finishing his Phd in Vietnamese History, left of me a guy who works in Kazakhstan in the oil industry a month on and a month off, and second right of me an old friend from Catalonia who works in Hotel/Property management. And then there's me, an I.T teacher. You don't need to tell me, I already know.
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