Vietnam

From allie's SE asia 2010

I’m coming to you from inside the Cu Chi tunnels near Saigon. Well, I’m actually back in Cambodia, but please pretend I’m blogging from the tunnel.

The Cu Chi tunnels are an immense network of small tunnels that the Vietcong used to stage guerilla operations. The guerillas hid in the tunnels by day and farmed at night. The tunnels also protected them from U.S. bombings. Near the tunnels, they set traps, such as this one:

From allie's SE asia 2010

The tunnels are incredibly narrow, so only small Vietnamese people and in many cases child soldiers (male or female) could go through them. Big, fat American “enemies” had trouble fitting in. I crouched and walked 20 yards in a tunnel that was expanded for tourists and I was hurting. Guerillas sometimes spent a week in the tunnels if there were a lot of bombings.

Despite the Vietnamese national pride in killing Americans and “kicking the Americans out” (as one of my Vietnamese friends said), the tunnels are also emblematic of the impression Vietnam gave me. Vietnamese people are nationalistic and proud of their history, but just as the tunnels were expanded for tourists, Vietnam is opening up to the world and inviting people to visit.

I encountered Vietnam’s welcoming of foreigners in many forms: people eager to practice their English, street vendors smiling and laughing when we tried Vietnamese food, nationalistic exhibitions that promote peace and cooperation and young, trendy people telling me what they think about Vietnam’s future and interaction with the rest of the world.

Of course, I do not have the intimate view of Vietnam that I have of Cambodia. In Cambodia, I live and work with the rural people who make up most of the population. In Vietnam, I was mainly exposed to the urban elite as a tourist. So the people I met in Vietnam are probably more progressive than the majority of the population that inhabits the countryside.

I went through Vietnam with Allie, a friend from America. We took a boat down the Mekong River from Cambodia to Chau Doc, a fishing village with a population of about 100,000.

View from the Mekong River:

From allie's SE asia 2010

At the market in Chau Doc:

From allie's SE asia 2010

Our first meal had to be Pho, a Vietnamese noodle soup with beef. The beef is raw and cooks in the soup. We got the Pho from a family-run food cart that had a nice crowd. (When eating street food, always follow the crowds; if people keep going there, they must not be getting sick.) The vendors barely spoke any English, but were delighted as they watched us try the food. The father saw that I liked spicy food and kept trying to get me to eat bigger and bigger peppers.



Then we went for a walk around the park by the water. The park was bustling with women power-walking, children taking karate classes and couples eating food from the various carts and watching their children play. Coming from rural Cambodia, I was happy to see children play in clean areas, sometimes with toys, as opposed to in the dirt, perhaps with garbage.

Allie was blown away when a group of school children surrounded us and started bombarding us with questions in English. At first, we thought this was a trick to rob the foreigners. But, the children genuinely wanted to practice their English and they were too cute for us not to oblige.

Later, another man came up to practice his English and invited us to visit the school where he works. This is common in the Cambodian countryside (when I ride my bike, people frequently pull up next to me on their motos to practice English and I’ve been invited to too many English schools), but I was not expecting it in Vietnam. A student even came up to me at a park in Saigon to practice his English.

After Chau Doc, we made our way to Phu Quoc, a beautiful island, and just relaxed by the beach.

The quiet beach at Phu Quoc:

From allie's SE asia 2010

Then we flew to Saigon. Allie and I saw the War Remnants Museum and a nationalist exhibition in front of the opera house. Both contained propaganda about the Vietnam War, but ended with optimism about the future: Vietnam opening up to the world and cooperating with other countries, even America.

After Allie left, I spent a few more days in Saigon. I did the Cu Chi Tunnel tour with a tour group. Then, I spent the last two days in Vietnam with Tony, a friend I made through couchsurfing.com.

Couchsurfing.com is an amazing project. Briefly, it’s a social-networking site designed so people can share experiences and cultures. You mainly use it to meet people when you travel and perhaps for a place to stay. There are various mechanisms that make it safe to use, like being able to recommend other people. For example, when I was looking for people to meet in Saigon, I saw that a lot of people had recommended Tony, a native of Saigon, and wrote about their positive experiences with him.

So, I met Tony for dinner on Friday. He took me to a nice restaurant where we had a hot pot, which was a soup where we cook the meat, seafood and vegetables at the table. We talked a lot about our travel experiences since he works in tourism. We also talked about our lives and made a lot of cultural comparisons, mostly about the standard differences between American and Asian culture. For example, Americans like to directly confront someone, but Asians will avoid confrontation and use a third party to communicate when there is a problem. My host-brothers sometimes come to me when someone else in a family has a problem with something I did. Tony also gave me some great recommendations for places to get breakfast and coffee the next morning.

Tony looking at the hot pot:

From allie's SE asia 2010

After following Tony's delicious recommendations, I met Tony again on Saturday. He took me to see some temples and markets. Then, we went to a café where we met up with some of his other friends. The group all spoke English well and wore trendy clothes and had iphones.

Here is us at the café:

From allie's SE asia 2010

I ended up spending most of the day with them. For dinner, they took me to a great seafood restaurant where many Vietnamese university students go. We had snails, shrimp and clams, among other foods.

Snail:

From allie's SE asia 2010

I also got to hear their thoughts about Vietnam and its future. Vietnam has experienced a lot of economic growth. Although ruled by the Communist Party, the ruling party is described by the economist as “ardently capitalist communists.” I got the sense Tony and his friends were happy that Vietnam was liberalizing. They were all interested in business and shopping and spoke positively of Vietnam interacting with China and other neighbors and being more open in the future.

View of Saigon:

From allie's SE asia 2010

Businesses are not fearful to work around attempts at control by the government. Internet providers block facebook.com at the behest of the government. However, Facebook still works in some places because, as Tony pointed out, you can just call the Internet provider and they will unblock it for you.

I look forward to coming back to Vietnam as it continues to open up to the world. I’m interested to see what kind of society emerges from the fusion of capitalism and Vietnamese nationalism. However, I hope most of the people and the food will stay the same.