It seems that all sports are approved of here in modern Vietnam. But some sports are more approved of than others. As I write this, in an Orwellian frame of mind, I can hear the thwack of tennis serves and volleys, punctuated by the occasional “Troi oi!” from the Ton Duc Thang Tennis Club below my window, while recalling a recent conversation on the topic of ‘progress’ through sport.
One afternoon at ‘The Ministry’, a young Vietnamese Recruit told me that her father made her play golf every Sunday. She is a slight girl with a thin frame and a kind of nervous energy and impatience which seems common to teenagers like her. She said that she “hated golf” and “doesn’t really understand why [her] father makes [her] play it”. She went on to explain that her father “felt it was good for [her] to learn this sport”, for two reasons. The first was that golf “was a way of networking and meeting the right kind of people” and the second, was that the alternative of playing tennis would only interfere with her piano-playing prowess as there was surely more of a risk of wrist injury with tennis.
Having grown up close to the Home of Golf, in the Socialist Republic of Scotland, I can only sympathise with this Recruit, Comrades. Much of my childhood was spent traipsing round the courses at North Berwick and Gullane trying, as my father would say, to “knock the skin off” a golf ball, furtively replace divets and hack my way through the coastal rough while others played through. Within one or two short years in this environment of ‘Pringle’-clad enthusiasm and rounds of golf straight after school- only to return home to debriefing and more golf on TV, I began to hate the sport too.
The geography of Scotland at least lends itself to the creation of natural-looking golf courses with minor modification required. Yet, the exclusivity of access to these great land areas, which were usually located right where one would have wanted to be walking and freely enjoying the coast, used to rankle me. This and the obvious snobbery attached to the game, perpetuated by club membership waiting-lists, extortionate green fees, pastel clothing and booklets on ‘etiquette’. There was simply no getting away from golf either, even as a non player. My classmates would relish the arrival of the Opens at Muirfield as they could earn a lucrative income from caddying. They would then be able to trade stories about the eccentricities of ‘their’ professional golfer from abroad and compare the extravagant tips they received. Our parents who may not have been actual ‘ members’ would still aspire to socialise in the various golf club’s bars and restaurants. Adaptation of local firms and businesses who produced everything from turf and fertilisers to tacky golf-club mitts and tartan caps clearly saw them sustain profits in this industry of golf.
During the summer season, sleepy towns along the East Lothian coast experience invasions of coaches carrying pastel-clad ‘golf-tourists’ from abroad. Back in the day they were mainly from America, as the great distance to Scotland, it’s expensive hotels and perceived high cost of living at the time, prevented all but the super-rich visitors from Asian nations.
Now, as then, the Americans still come to Scotland, just as they come to Vietnam today; ready to be nostalgic. Many of them want to find out about their ancestors in the ‘Old Country’ and discover the roots of their family going back as far in time as the Highland Clearances 300 years ago. The medium of golf allows for them to legitimise their visit to Bonnie Scotland and form a kind of ‘basis’ for this nostalgia which I am talking about.
What of Vietnam then? Can this surrogate sport really instill nostalgia in visitors returning to this country? After all, it is only a mere 30- 50 years ago since Vietnamese families were separated and displaced mainly to Australia and America but to other golf-playing countries all over the globe too. Could golf in Vietnam help provide the impetus for returning to ‘The Old Country’ for the Viet Kieu? Would golf enable the returning Australian and American war veterans to further legitimise their return to Vietnam in peacetime? Is a Japanese or Korean investor more likely to clinch that deal if they know they can play golf in modern Vietnam while keeping an eye on their project’s progress? Perhaps to find answers to these questions, we should look back at the origins of golf in Vietnam. This excerpt from “VIETNAM: Golf helps drive economic modernisation” by Amy Kazmin, Financial Times August 1st, 2005 takes us onto the green under parr:
‘When Hanoi opened its door to global capitalism in 1988, the Communist party frowned on golf as an irrelevant bourgeois indulgence. Today, the Communist elite has bestowed its full blessing on the game as both symbol, and tool, of Vietnam’s economic modernisation. “Golf is a very effective instrument for bringing people together,” says Pham Sanh Chau, deputy director of the government’s Institute for International Relations and general secretary of the semi-official Hanoi Golf Club, established to boost the game.
Vietnam’s first nine-hole course was built during the French colonial era in the hill station of Dalat to amuse Emperor Bao Dai. That legacy tainted golf in the eyes of Hanoi’s revolutionaries.
After 1975, the Dalat course was abandoned to weeds, used only by young lovers for secret trysts. In the early 1990s, Asian investors were grudgingly permitted to build several new fairways, although golf remained ideologically suspect.
“It was regarded as a luxury game,” says Mr Chau. “People felt very hesitant and guilty if they were caught playing golf like if they were caught playing tennis.” ‘
Comrades, my own family history testifies to this early arrival of golf in Vietnam. We Scots have always made good travelers and ambassadors to the world and it should come as no surprise that the first Saigon Golf Club was established in the early 1930’s by a bunch of guys from Fife during the French Colonial era. My father who, to his credit never forced me to play golf, has provided me with these early archive images of his grandfather in Saigon photographed here with his work and golf colleagues at the first Saigon Golf Club:
My Great Grandfather ( CKL) is second row back and third from the left.
These men and women, driven by their own nostalgia for home reconstructed a lifestyle, through activities such as golf in the context of investing in Vietnam just as we can see happening today in the current expatriate communities. Perhaps golf has come full cycle in it’s popularity stakes? Already you cannot avoid the game of tennis in Ho Chi Minh City – a game whose social presence has been amply provided for within the cities labyrinthine nooks and crannies. There are little tennis clubs squeezed alongside busy highways, down cul-de-sacs and between residential blocks.
As Amy Kazmin’s prophetic vision for golf in Vietnam foretold, the tell tale signs in Ho Chi Minh City are already there for us to see. The emerging golf equipment shops and specialist golf clothing shops continue to pop- up all over the city. Although less noticeable to the city dweller but nonetheless significant too are the great numbers of golf tourists from other Asian nations using HCMC as a staging post. Their feet hardly touch the ground as they are sped to destinations in Vung Tau, out at Long Thanh or at the newly recognised city of Phan Thiet. Incognito, they are ushered from air-conditioned hotel lobbies and whisked off with their equipment in minibuses with tinted windows - from one luxury experience to another.
CKL, my Great Grandfather, 1st on the left
Comrades, you must also be aware that the real ‘teeing off’ of golf in modern Vietnam is taking place before our very eyes in Da Nang , where recently Indochina Land and Vietcombank signed (on 15 September 2009) an agreement for a US$39 million loan to fund development of the Hyatt Regency Da Nang Resort and Spa. With an already existing ‘Montgomerie Links‘ and two further ‘Greg Norman Courses‘, Da Nang is experiencing Dubai -like development. It is being billed as “Da Nang City of Dreams” by some travel websites as the snowball effect for investment in the area gains momentum. Worryingly some of these websites designed to attract the kind of golf tourists we witness here in HCMC to this newly anointed Vietnamese home of golf use photographs, which, by their very inappropriateness of context, cross a boundary between encouraging golf -tourism and sex-tourism. After all, what relevance do photographs of little Thuy in her bikini have to do with the calibre of the resort being advertised or the quality of golf on offer? This is an attitude which is sometimes reflected in the content of Vietnam’s leading golf magazine: ‘Vietnam Golf’ which seems also determined to titillate golf enthusiasts in more ways than expected.
We digress Comrades. What we should be asking ourselves is: “why Da Nang in particular?” What is it apart from that beach which should make this destination so special for this kind of golf mad investment? The Property Report, an online Singapore property magazine, states that it is for these reasons:
Fastest Growing GDP in Vietnam (13.3% in 2007)
Gateway to 1,450 km East-West Economic Corridor
Best Infrastructure –bridges and roads
Strong growth of Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese manufacturing companies in the 5 industrial zones.
Proactive investment policies and strategic location
Home of China Beach (1 of the top 6 most luxurious beaches in the world –Forbes Magazine 2005)
And it goes on to explain in the language of Corpspeak:
“Both developers also feel that golf has to be an essential component of their projects and are each developing adjacent courses. ‘History has proven that golf is a mandatory component to the success of a large scale resort destination,’ Piro says. ‘The development of the Montgomerie Links Vietnam golf course is essential to our overall vision and development plan in Danang and we remain very supportive of VinaCapital’s 27-hole Greg Norman designed golf course. The existence of these well branded, internationally designed golf courses gives Danang the necessary tourism infrastructure to start to attract a new wave of affluent visitors which will ultimately drive demand for all resort related products in the area.’ “
In a continuing present day family association with Vietnam, (I am the fourth generation of Scots to live and work here), the Missus and I can testify to this developmental period in Da Nang. The Missus and I have begun to furnish the homes of these Da Nang investors as Professional Buyers cum Interior Designers. Our little business, which as yet has no name, has become a word of mouth success, whereby foreign investors are trusting us to spend their money in sourcing contemporary furniture, fittings and decor in HCMC for their newly acquired luxury apartments. All the while our trips back and forth to install these items, enable us to see the cultural and social impact of suddenly imposing this kind top-end luxury, whether it be in the guise of imported leather sofas or golf resorts and casino complexes.
If it is not that difficult to spot the social disparities which golf creates in the Home of Golf itself – the Socialist Republic of Scotland, imagine then what it must feel like from the viewpoint of a coracle- boat fishing community on China Beach in Da Nang, Vietnam?
CKL, my Great Grandfather, back row, third from the left.
New employment is visible down the fairway – for it has been so approved. Very soon in the not too distant future there will be no more captaining of that coracle boat but instead it will be replaced with the manning of a pristine electric golf cart as it hums between the sprinklers on the greens. . . .But isn’t this just history repeating itself, Comrades- or am I being nostalgic?
Anyone for . . .er, Golf? . . . Fore!
One of my earlier photoshop efforts, using a shot taken at dawn on China Beach, Da Nang
After 4 years and 3 months of riding all kinds of motorbikes in Vietnam, in all weathers and under all conditions, I finally got my Vietnamese motorbike driving licence, Comrades. I am just back from the Ho Chi Minh City Ministry of Transport’s Motorbike Test Centre, having completed one of the most bizarre rituals pertaining to driving proficiency on the roads I have yet to encounter. In the Socialist Republic of Scotland I have been used to the sight of posses of ‘Gortex’ or leather-clad bikers, their luminous safety vests glowing in the dreich afternoon, as they wobble amidst the rush hour traffic, nervously following their driving instructor like a flock of ducklings. (There is a ‘Compulsory Basic Training’ Certificate, a Theory test and 2 Module Tests involved in acquiring a full motorbike licence in the UK). This evening-class ritual could go on for several weeks until the dreaded test day itself would come around. Then, our new bikers would be expected to take a journey through the city’s traffic, an examiner following and watching them all the while. Of course, as part of this testing process, there is an element where someone steps out in front of them suddenly, so that the driver can perform an emergency stop correctly. A manoeuvre which fills some test-candidates with dread. If they had but spent even 1 week here in Ho Chi Minh City, then they would have had daily opportunity to practice this very manoeuvre in very real situations. This is something which happens more than once to me every time I commute to ‘The Ministry’, I am thinking. Then there’s the part of the test where the examiner asks you to perform a ‘u’- turn in a confined space, without touching a foot to the ground. Again, seen as a difficult part of the test. Phew! Just take a wee trip around waterlogged District 1 HCMC of an afternoon and such manouvres will become second nature. I’m beginning to think there might just be a gap in the market here for: Motorbike Driving Test Preparation Holidays in Vietnam. A bit like those advertised golf tours, only a lot less glamorous.
So what of the motorbike test here then? What qualifies someone to ride on two wheels here in Vietnam? I don’t know if in your own countries you have ever been stopped or (heaven forbid) arrested by the traffic police before and been suspected of being drunk in charge of a vehicle, Comrades? Doubtless you must be aware of some of the procedures used when police confront a suspect. Arms out to one side, place one fingertip on your nose and walk toe-to-heel in a straight line, without wobbling. Or some such variation which provides the answer to the question: ‘lets see if you can still keep your balance- or not?’ Well, here in Vietnam it does seem that the emphasis for passing the motorbike test is all about balance and control at very slow speeds. It does feel a teeny bit like that suspect drunk-driver test, by it’s nature. To be fair, there are some similarities to the UK’s Module 1 Motorbike test too.
Suffice to say, that if you are going to go through the process of getting an A1 Vietnamese driving licence for a motorbike, Comrades- don’t expect the test process to prepare you for any of the following driving skills:
Overtaking and pulling out: - mirror- signal – lifesaver-look-over-the-shoulder - manouvre. As opposed to check the make-up and adjust the sunglasses and dust mask.
Using the gears: -to slow you down – to accelerate out of trouble. (Yes, there are more than two). As opposed to stamping on the back brake and making the clutch scream.
Correct braking: – that wee handle on the right, first – not that pedal thing at your feet. As opposed to fishtailing it all over the place.
Maybe all of this is covered by the Theory Section of the test, which we foreign Comrades don’t have to complete? It is assumed that since we are already holders of driving licences from our native countries that we will know all of that theory-stuff anyway, right? Besides the three skills mentioned above, what kind of test situation could possibly prepare us for:
Riding axel-deep in murky water
Mounting the pavement during rush hour and doing a slalom between pedestrians, food stalls and parked vehicles.
Having a chat on the mobile while transporting that fridge across town.
‘Off-roading it’ while you are still on what passes as the road, by applying the kind of 4×4 driving principles that people pay good money to learn about by choice in other countries.
Taking more than one passenger across town while trying to share a poncho in a rainstorm.
Making left turns which involve incredibly shallow angles of trajectory, resulting in you driving against oncoming traffic for most of the way. . .or – just plain driving down the street the wrong way.
Using your flapping hands as indicators when it is just too noisy and crowded to be noticed.
Riding through a crowded marketplace on a Saturday morning.
Pushing and heaving your dead weight of a ‘Honda’ out of / in to the cramped regimented lines which the Parking-Nazi has created.
Dealing with the ‘Boys in Beige’. “Why have you stopped me?”, “Because we can”. ” What’s this? a pair of greens – that’ll do nicely Anh!”
Here then, is what you actually have to do when you reach the Lai Xe. I should mention that it is a kind of a test just getting to the test centre in the first place. My test-time said 12.30pm , so I duly arrived 10 minutes beforehand to witness a scene of pandemonium. So many people, so many motorbikes weaving in and out of painted lines and criss crossing a courtyard the size of a couple of tennis courts, no sign of any queue or reception area or any other place to check in. Eventually I am able to find out that everyone is simply ‘practising’ and that when it comes to test-time our names will be called out. Watching ‘the practising’ it reminded me of those very first visits to the Murrayfield Ice Rink as learner- skater. There was no quarter for someone who fumbled and slid onto their bum or skated too slow -you had to be mobile fast. Even though it was considered rude to skate counter clockwise or to deviate from the flow of other skaters, that didn’t seem to bother most learners who doggedly persisted in skating against the flow with their arms flailing or crossing dangerously the paths of more experienced skaters. The participants at this test centre showed a similar disregard for turn -taking and etiquette, as if reluctant to share the facilities with others who were using them. Mass nervousness prevailed.
The very first manoeuvre you must perform for the panel of examiners, who sit court-side for the duration is the ‘Figure-of-Eight’. And it is really recommended that you practise this, as there are tight turns involved and it is surprisingly tricky to stay within the narrow painted track provided. Obviously, one musn’t put a foot down. I think the added pressure to performing this manoeuvre comes from the fact that from a standing start, on an unfamiliar, aged, test-centre motorbike, in front of a throng of onlookers, you are expected to execute this flawless two wheeled-ballet. After that, it’s piss easy. Ride up a straight channel, marked-out by kerbstone walls, weave in and out of some cones, ride over a rumble strip and you’re all done.
An A1 licence qualifies you to ride a motorbike in Vietnam with an engine size up to 150cc. Below is a summary of a very useful and recent ‘The Word, HCMC’ magazine article, by Sarah Johnson which helped me go through the steps to getting my licence:
“In a recent crackdown by traffic police in Vietnam, if you are caught without a licence you run the risk of having your bike comfiscated for up to a month and as the Australian Embassy website points out, penalties for driving unlicensed and casuing an accident whether you are at fault or not can be up to ten years imprisonment and if that accident is fatal, twenty years. Actual penalties are determined by the police and courts. getting a driving licence removes these potential sticky situations.
Pop down to 63, Ly Tu Trong Street in District 1. pick up an application form and fill it out with your personal details. You will be asked to have the form verified by your embassy and you will need to provide photocopies of your visa page and passport photo page as well as six 2cm x3cm passport-style photos. Go along to your consulate and explain that you need proof of your signature for a Vietnamese driver’s licence. At the bottom of the form, you are required to sign. Don’t sign it until you’re in front of the relevant person at the consulate.
When you’ve got all the required bits ‘n’ pieces assembled, go back to 63 Ly Tu Trong Streetand hand them in. They will ask you to go for a health check. You wll also be asked to have an eyesight test. This happens on site. Take the proof of good health back to the counter and you will be given the time and place of your driving test.
If you already possess a driving licence from your home country then things are a lot easier. You will need to get it translated at 47 Le Duan in District 1. Take the original along with two photocopies, go to the appropriate counter and come back three days later to pick up a translated document. If you don’t have a driver’s licence from your home country, things get a whole lot more complicated. you will be required to take a theory test in Vietnamese. The test comprises of 100 questions and there are various tricks to taking it which you can discover when you go for three two-hour study sessions on a Sunday.
On the day of the test remember to bring along your original passport and driver’s licence. Don’t be surprised if you are asked to fill in another form with personal details which is then taken to the examiners, who sit in front of where the people take the test. Your name goes into a pile and you’ll be called when it is your turn.”
Thanks to Sarah Johnson writing for ‘The Word, HCMC’ magazine in their June issue 2009
What does all of this cost?
VND 500,000 at the consulate / embassy for having the form stamped. (Price varies according to country).
VND30,000 for the health check
VND70,000 for the fee for the licence
VND 40,000 to have your home licene translated.
Happy motorbiking, Comrades! 
Comrades, my doorstep discovery in the last posting made me reflect upon how we fine citizens of Ho Chi Minh City deliberately use alcohol -the greatest of all the available drugs to modify our behaviour and undergo what can only be described as a transformation process. At ‘The Ministry’, where I am employed – alcohol and its consumption is considered to be the most evil of the social evils and the issue is handled with extreme prejudice. Our pious General Secretary has strictly forbidden it’s presence on Ministry premises and would have us immediately deported should we as much as turn up with a whiff of booze on our breath. “The demon drink” he says, will corrupt the younger party members and lead the fresh-faced recruits astray. You can imagine then the scale of the piss-up which ensues when Ministers, Party officials and members of the Politburo cut loose in Saigon when comes round to Friday night again.
I make no apologies for my background, Comrades. I am your bog-standard Scots male who would rather crawl into a bottle before opening up to you on any kind of emotional level and my favourite novel really is Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde”. Yours truly has stood silently drinking through funeral wakes, brought on the David Brent dance routine at weddings, been convinced that I am indeed God’s gift to women, shared my erudite wit and deeply felt philosophies regardless of audience or purpose, verged on death by embarrassment and succeeded in using my drinking implement as a weapon. Just like any other man from Scotland who understands the phrase “a glass of : ‘what the fuck are you looking at?’” I am no stranger to the transformative effects of a bevvy. The art of drinking excessively was respectfully learned in the Middle East during that job that The Party won’t let me talk about. Then I was forced to reassess that dubious claim when working for ‘The Ministry of Borscht’ in Ukraine, where there are really only are two rules: 1) Never go out drinking with Ukranians 2) Read the first rule again. Thus it has continued in a pathetic litany of alcohol abuse on into a life here in Vietnam. However, Comrades, let me tell you, that this is the only place in the world where I may have been actually poisoned by the stuff, and it didn’t involve pickled poisonous creatures either (read the latest article on the specter of fake alcohol in the current issue of ‘The Word’ Magazine HCMC for more on this hazard). It is also the only place in the world where I have experienced men literally drink themselves to death.
Mario Vargas Llosa in his novel “Death in the Andes” describes beautifully the mysterious, inexorable pull towards the teat of that beast which is alcohol, through his evil barman character Dionisio. For those whose bovine compliance to the siren call of the boozer is an automatic one, Llosa has nailed it in one metaphorical image:
‘Animals are happier than you and me, Corporal, sir.” Dionisio laughed and became a bear again. “They live, eat, sleep and fuck. They don’t think, they don’t have worries like us, and that’s our misfortune. He’s paying a visit to his animal now, just see if he isn’t happy.’
Transformation, shamanistic experience and the transcendental effects of being under the influence are all embodied in Llosa’s image of ‘visiting your animal’. I must try this Comrades, “I’m off to visit my animal, my dear – don’t wait up for me!” or “I won’t be into work today, I had a visit from my animal last night”. “Sorry I was visting my animal, I really didn’t mean to do that. . . You like animals, don’t you?”
How then do we find out what our animal is, Comrades? If snake wine restores your mojo and brings out the hidden Hugh Heffner in you, what’s to be said about other types of booze? Could we assign an animal to each of the types of alcohol even if the creature’s presence were not physically within the bottle? If we did, Comrades then the list would probably look like this:
VODKA – The Horse. Contrary to popular iconography, vodka is in a fact a Horse, not a Bear (unless it is VN Vodka, then it is a Macaque Monkey with a fast metabolism and no social skills). You can ride Horse on into the night with abandon -a breeze upon your face and Horse’s fetlocks blowing. All the while Horse’s hooves pound out a rhythm to house music. This arrangement works particularly well when teamed up with a red Bull. Horse will transmit an infectious sociability and directness to you in your evening together. However be aware Horse is notoriously unpredictable and willful. Horse may steer you stubbornly in another direction if not confidently handled. There is also a danger that Horse may also buck and kick-out when alarmed or threatened and may even dismount you, leaving you on the street with no fags and not quite enough Dong for a ‘xe om’ home.
GIN – The Hippopotamus. Hippo appears to be a solid, somewhat dubiously sophisticated option. Hippo has a gentle giant’s strength. You can be in hippo’s company very pleasantly for much of an evening, however there will come a point in that evening where the conversation will become maudlin and hippo will start to drag you down. Before you know it, you too will be wallowing with this massive bore, trapped in a mud hole for two, listening to this fat, negative bastard- pissing, whining and complaining about how bad life is. Before long the whole evening has turned to arse, and you are standing miserably alone on Hai Ba Trung in the rain again. That’s usually when the tears start.
MALT WHISKY – The Stag. Once you join Stag on those rolling, misty, purple-heathered moors, you and Stag will bond like reunited friends. The conversation will come easily and the two of you will pick up exactly where you left off. There are no uneasy silences with Stag and the kind of respect and authority that Stag enjoys when gracefully making a passage through the shafts of sunlight in the forest, can only be described as regal. You and Stag will wade in private trout streams and sit by a fireside together, even though it is actually 30 degrees centigrade outside with high humidity and the Saigon evening traffic is noisy and smelly – you won’t notice a thing when you graze with Stag. One side effect of hanging out with Stag is that you may start getting delusions of grandeur and get a bit ‘up yourself’. You may for example, fantasize about appearing on the pages of “Asia Life” with Stag and yourself looking brooding and cool together in a venue like Cepage or Xu. You may also initiate all that air-kissing bollocks and insist on hugging people when greeting them. But because you want Stag’s company all to yourself, you will not invite them to join you. When it comes to the end of the evening you will see Stag retreat slowly and disappear into the mist like an apparition. You will probably be left with the bill as Stag is tight bastard.
WHISKY – The Sea-lion. With Sea-lion you must expect a degree of formation behaviour during your sessions together. Like a pair of syncronised swimmers your mood will be playful but directed. A great deal of mimicking takes place between you and Sea-lion. You may find yourself later into your evening performing that rather annoying habit of ‘bar-slapping’. A phenomenon usually associated with men of a certain age who hang out in bars such as M52 or Voodoo -where you and Sea-lion can manipulate the playlist so that you can continue slapping the bar to the beat of your favourite Bryan Adams, U2 or Depeche Mode tracks. There’s no getting away with it – being with Sea-lion is immense fun! You may even be tempted to perform a few cheeky tricks ranging from tossing peanuts into your mouth, flipping the bar mats into the air and catching them or perhaps making a half grope- half slap motion for the ass of that bar girl you’ve been eyeing all up night. You and Sea-lion will entertain together and nobody will be more entertained by you than yourselves. On the downside you will be a whole lot more susceptible to the whims of others when with Sea-lion you may find yourself being easily influenced to say. . .try some of that dried squid from the guy with the bike on Bui Vien outside GO2 bar.
TEQUILA- The Chimpanzee. A night on the town with Chimp is a highly unpredictable one. Chimp and you will enjoy using tools for your drinking. Since you both have opposable thumbs this is going to be an important distinction from visiting the other animals. Chimp likes to participate in rituals which involve mutual licking, lime squeezing and hollering before tipping back the shots. You will experience a good deal of loud expulsions of air accompanied by a teeth-baring grimace, and a shaking of the head. You may even find yourself as the evening wears on in the company of Chimp developing a kind of tourrettes syndrome. The moment you find yourself climbing upon bar furniture or raising your arms above your head to dance when there really is no call for it, it’s probably a time to say goodbye to your socially inept companion Chimp. Another warning sign would be when you begin to steal someone’s hat, scarf, glasses etc. and attempt to wear them inappropriately. Chimp needs to learn to be more under control sometimes and often acts like a twat. Incessantly showing any of your body parts below the neck to strangers surely must cross anyone’s line. On the way home it is highly likely you will pucker-up to present a sloppy kiss to some unsuspecting Saigon resident such as the security girl outside La Habana.
RUM -The Parrot. An evening with Parrot will have you bar-hopping all over the toon. You and parrot will hear the news, sports scores and gossip in Phattys bar and then as soon as you get to Sheridan’s find yourselves repeating it verbatim with loud authority and so on throughout the evening. Parrot will have you gliding between the small groups of drinkers and nodding and cocking your head on one side as you listen to what they have to say. As you and Parrot shuffle back and forth along the length of the bar- your colourful display, vibrant personality and loud outbursts will attract female attention. This is where your rudimentary grip on Tieng Viet stands you in good stead as you spend what seems like a long time listening intently and repeating how to say something to the lovely girls as they correct your crap Vietnamese- all the while bobbing your head like you get what’s going on. On a night when the music’s good you and Parrot will sway and rock on your bar stools to the rhythm- breaking out sporadically into impromptu karaoke. This is not always appreciated by other punters and occasionally Parrot’s loudmouth can get on peoples tits, Parrot has a reputation for being a loud bastard and tends to fall prey to drinkers visiting their Hyena or their Bear. As you fly on home to your perch you wish to yourself that someone else would just pull that sheet over your head for a change.
This is by no means an extensive menagerie Comrades, and I hear you saying already “what about the ‘Bear‘ and ‘Hyena’?”. Well, suffice to say- they are the manifestations of joining with Macaque Monkey + Hippo or Macaque Monkey + Sea-lion . . .or any other such variation with the above which are likely to make your quest to the animal realm and the consequences of that mystery journey less than pleasant. My darts team (don’t worry it is in fact a Ministry-approved sport / hobby) ran into one such example just the other week. A hapless Mess of a fellow who had visited more than one animal of an evening. Not only did his naked aggression offend and intimidate- it dragged down the evening for everyone concerned, as a result of his growling and roaring. A scary reminder for those of us who understand the tone of evenings in dodgy housing estate pubs across the length and breadth of the UK. I think a wee visit to the Vet may be in order for this one. . .
Slainte, Comrades!
“siempre encontrara chamba.” (“With people sucking booze the world over, there will always be someone to hustle.”) from “Death in the Andes” by Mario Vargas Llosa
Just before Vietnam’s National Day at the beginning of this month, our neighbour decided to do make some uniquely Vietnamese home brew in the hem lane outside of our house. Our neighbour’s activities have always peeked our curiosity, as most things which take place in front of our house range from the mildly odd to the distinctly surreal. Women urinating, tethered chickens protesting, dogs being barbecued on bricks, small fires being lit for ancestors, nits and white hairs being removed from patient heads, impromptu badminton tournaments, opera singing, children’s bicycle races and pomelo-peel-installation art, to name but a few.
On this occasion they had drafted the help of some local ‘expert’ to perform the task of making a snake wine. This innocuous looking character seemed to have been a purveyor of fine venomous snakes, snake charmer / handler, vivisector, taxidermist and brewer all in one. A young man in his late twenties, one wonders how he came about this knowledge base and these quirky skills in the context of early 21st century urban life. The missus had nearly jumped out of her skin when she first spied the cobra rearing up in the kitchen doorway of their house across the way. We had missed the bit where Snakey Boy had gutted the writhing cobra by slitting its belly vertically and removing its innards only to replace them with a chopstick spine to make it erect and lifelike once again. The same fate had befallen six other members of the snake family who now lay like a pile of discarded colourful belts in a plastic washing up bowl on the ground. Laid at our feet were plastic bags of dried up herbs, what looked like wood chips but may have slices of dried roots, a dead black bird and a leathery, wizened animal’s penis. All of this was spread out in the narrow alley between our houses alongside a plastic jerrycan of clear fluid and a gallon sized glass jar. It was like preparing to watch an episode of “MythBusters”.
Snake wine and its variations comes in two varieties- steeped and mixed. Steeped where large poisonous snakes are placed into a glass jar of rice wine, along with a mixed array of other optional creatures such as scorpions, turtles, birds, spiders even sea horses. The jar, reminiscent of a prop from a “Slip Knot” concert or an item from Marilyn Manson’s dressing table, is then left to steep for anything from 3 months to 500 years. The expectation being that the longer time the ingredients have to ferment together the more the snake’s venom is absorbed by, dissolved and neutralised by the ethanol. The ‘wine’ is then presumably served up only when you are already really really pissed, have no more booze to hand because the shops are closed, need to counteract the effects of narcotics or actually sincerely believe that you will get laid soon after imbibing.
Then there’s Mixed snake wine which provides evidence that the concept for the movie “Jackass” first emerged a long time ago in this South East Asia region and not as one may have been led to believe – in North America. Once you have wrestled with a highly venomous and enraged cobra and succeeded in slitting its body from throat to tail, without ending up laid out on the floor in the death throes of anaphylactic shock, foaming at the mouth. Its simply a matter of dribbling it’s blood (or if you prefer it’s bile) into a wee glass of rice wine or Hanoi vodka before knocking it back immediately to impress your friends. How they will laugh and applaud your daredevil feat! Why not then promptly follow this by swallowing the snakes still-beating heart to really bring out the beast in you?
Omnivorous Vietnamese believe that a little tipple of snake wine will do wonders for your hair loss, farsightedness, lumbago, cramps, fatigue but most of all your libido. In the days before Viagra and research into the causes of infertility and impotence this must have offered some kind of hope. Nowadays these exaggerated claims seem anything but likely. Yet this bizarre beverage can be found on sale just about everywhere here. It’s continuing presence as an item in tourist shops is understandable. We can well imagine, particularly you fellow fans of Australia’s satirical film “The Castle”, how such an item may be prized as a souvenir – “this is going straight to the pool room” . You would be lucky of course if were to it ever reach your pool room without first being confiscated by customs. In many countries it is illegal to import snake wine due it to containing an endangered species which has been killed for it’s production. The food and drink equivalent of the ‘ vampire-fruit’- bat, iridescent butterly or outsized spider souvenir encased in cotton wool and cheaply framed, as a memento of your exotic trip in Asia. To find snake wine being made domestically in a residential area was a kind of surprise to me because as it revealed that this ‘traditional remedy’ endures and continues to be consumed by locals in the arena of everyday life.
The bowl of pho that is the internet, turns up a surprising amount on the subject of snake wine or ’snake whiskey’ as it sometimes described. There are even a mail-order sites for those of us Comrades who are not lucky enough to live in Vietnam or another country which celebrates this peculiar tradition. At “Thailand Unique” you can place an order for your ‘Real Cobra and Scorpion Whisky’ (from Vietnam). “Fun Tim” has presented a staggering archive of images which documents the sheer varieties of these kind of snake wines, collected from Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and China. As to where in all of these countries did the concept of snake wine first originate ? I am still no clearer, Comrades. Vietnam is billed as the home of snake wine but other literature on the subject says that perhaps it came out of China from the Cantonese culture.
Does this pickled poisonous creature ‘remedy’ work for both men and women alike? I wonder. Maybe it is an urban myth, like the one which tells us that a wee bit of “Viagra” works as well for women as it does for disfunctional men? Comrades, I would be interested to know how one would broach this with your prospective partner, once that specimen jar of nasties has been unveiled. “Honey, I thought we’d try some of this snake – scorpion- dead bird – seahorse wine tonight. . .” said with a twinkle in the eye.
The season of rain is upon us once more, good citizens of Ho chi Minh City! Once again, I am living daily in that “Travis” song. My commute to the Ministry, Comrades has again reverted to a logistical exercise involving precise timing, deployment of specialist kit and careful navigation. Despite living close to the Vietnamese Naval Barracks, working next door to the Naval Training College and renting my house from an officer in the Navy – you couldn’t really say that I was any sort of sailor. However it has become abundantly clear over the years here that my life as a landlubber isn’t going to get me to work in the pristinely-uniformed state that the Ministry would prefer me in when performing my duties. If you have lived here for any sort of time between the months of August to December, you will understand that to travel through the streets of Ho Chi Minh City is to witness the boundary between road and waterway being blurred. It rains and it rains and then it rains some more, drains overflow, the sewers back up and excess rainwater has nowhere else to go. Then of course there is the weirdness of the tidal water to add to the equation, which monthly rises menacingly from the spongy earth and swirls an unspeakable mix of fluids around the streets and low-lying areas. If you are really unlucky and there is a new or a full moon- you get the dreaded and aptly named ‘King Tide’. A once monthly occurance which renders the streets into canal -ways even without the rainfall. Motorbiking in this is not for the faint -hearted. The slimy waters of Nguyen Huu Canh street have taken many a victim during these post storm episodes. A motorised stew of humanity inches along, sputtering, paddling and cursing whilst cutting a path through a ghastly broth of general runoff, building site waste water and human waste. Ugh! We’ve all been there; playing that game on a wobbling, drunken, moped -up to the axels in kak……You’re not going to put your foot down….you’re not going to put your foot down, you’re not going to…the bike is wobbling as you slow down… what are slowing down for ? Get the f*#k outta the way! Why are we slowing down? ..you’re not going to…There goes the balance! You’re not going… Bugger and shite! Your feet are in it!….. First one, then the other! Socks and trouser legs are like clamy dressings …….nasty. You spend the rest of the day, looking like a right twat, with squidgy shoes, a mouldy niff about you and those damp two-tone trouser legs.
After four years of nearly contracting trenchfoot on such journeys, I have employed a fleet of no less than 3 pairs of shoes as a first measure of defence (one to wear while driving- which gets wet on the way to work, one dry pair which remains in dock at work and one pair (that has dried out from yesterday’s voyage) to go back wearing (not forgetting to give passage home to the morning’s slightly less sodden pair )-which by the morning will be dry enough to start all over again). Meanwhile my desk drawer at work gives harbour to clean dry socks and “Good Morning” towels. I have absolutely no problem with looking like a lost fisherman; wader -like waterproof over- trousers and brightly coloured kagoul done up to the neck, when I bike it to work. Yes, I am that eccentric in 36 c degrees of heat and full sun, gunning it over An Phu bridge in the mornings. You may well point, laugh and comment on how anyone could stand wearing all of that gear in this heat is beyond you , but I can assure you Comrades it is entirely necessary. Because I know, I just know, that sure as submarines are submarines, the final leg of my commute will be turned into some sort of motocross experience. As the tradtional An Phu tidewaters ebb and flow into the narrow streets and provide for me a dramatic water-fording finale not 800metres from my final destination.
The bow wave created from my motorbike is most impressive, it has to be said. And this pleasing by-product of driving in deep water has enabled me to continue to behave badly in that boy racer vein and soak the f*#ckers who give you all that fishtailing-it while over taking you bullshit. Usually, the “might is right” law of HCMC streets/waterways, means that the humble two wheeled vessels are the ones which will be deluged in a wake of greasy water thrown up by larger passing vessels with more wheels. Bastards!
On my route to work
It’s good seamanship that’s called for here Comrades! I’m not talking Russel Crowe in “Master and Commander”, but I am referring to some basic knowledge of what’s happening to the tides and the weather and a good understanding of what the lie of the land/ seabed is, before it is obscured by black waters. Kind of like the opposite to the fear of running aground (you only need to drive into a hidden hole beneath the water once to know what I am talking about). You too may set a course through downtown HCMC without driving into a swampy bottle neck with 1000 other hapless waterlogged motorbikes. This one-man ship of fools then has never been the smartest sailor on the deck, and it is only very recently Comrades, after a conversation with another sailor/biker at my mechanic’s that I realised it may just be possible to make some headway in predicting these tides and flooding episodes.
Tides and tidal forces it seems are entirely governed by the sun and the moon, the moon being the main tide generating body. If the study of this really floats your boat, then the page for Vietnam’s Maritime and Social Network – VinaMaso has a great deal of information on the physics of this and much more on explaining tide levels and tidal currents to the layperson. As far as being able to distinguish whether the moon you are spotting in the sky above the Gotham City-esque ‘Manor’ building is ‘waxing gibbous’ or ‘waning half’, then the not -surprisingly titled My Forecast page is a good place to begin. Here you can find timings for the tides effecting Ho Chi Minh City expressed as tables, along with current condition and special reports and weather forecasts expressed as maps. Then there is the impressive sounding and equally impressive looking page for flood warnings in Vietnam- The National Centre for Hydro- Meteorological Forecasting (NCHMF). A web page which blinks and pulses like the dials of a submarine’s dashboard, and comes up with reams of figures and data which in all honesty is quite hard to translate into a simple answer to the question “is it going to flood on my journey to work this week?”.
Flooding and storms when they happen here, can be very alarming for the newcomer to our fair city and in my short inglorious history living here I have pushed barefoot, trousers rolled up, my wretched other mode of transport – the Vespa (now decommissioned) through more floodwater than I would care to remember. Being soaked to the skin and miserable has become an unavoidable certainty it seems. The single most important thing I would recommend you to always to have about your person’s this rainy season Comrades, is the humble ziplock bag. . .
Now you may be a cynical reader who has never visited Vietnam or Ho Chi Minh City, and is asking yourself how bad can this flooding he talks of really be? This video footage shot two years ago during rainy season may give you some idea of the scale of the problems the city is facing.
Phew! Conditions like this continue to be seen and in my opinion, as an HCMC resident, seem to be getting steadily worse. Comrades, if you are a reader of the Ministry endorsed ‘Word HCMC’ magazine you will have perhaps read a recent article on page 10 of August’s issue entitled “Underwater”. As one of the 10 cities worldwide most at risk from climate change, our dear tan pho HCMC has been predicted to be underwater in around an alarming 40 years time. Or so the recent papers on climate change have revealed. Ho Long Phi of Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology presented his: “Climate Changes & Urban Flooding in Ho Chi Minh City” at the Third International conference on Climate and Water in Helsinki during September, 2007 and it looks as if his findings were on the right track. Perhaps this is the reason why Vietnam’s Navy is investing in 6 Kilo- Class attack submarines to be purchased second-hand (to the tune 0f $1.8 billion USD) from the Russians? It seems as if the recent Ministry of Noodles posting ‘Visa Geezer’ had correctly taken the Vietnamese -international-relations temperature after all and was correct in the assumptions that all is not hunky-dory with Vietnam’s neighbours -specifically China. Now, whether this purchase of serious naval hardware is because of the doom and gloom scenario of a nation soon to be underwater within my lifetime, or due to a forthcoming scrap over the Spratly and Paracel Islands we shall perhaps never get to really know. Suffice to say we’ll just have to see what the tide brings in.
Back to work again. . . .Enjoy
If you have been following this blog, then you’ll know that I have made some perhaps rather unkind remarks about the nature of lifestyles in the U.K. Reflection on the need for us U.K. citizens to express ourselves (“I just gotta be ME!”) and then in an attempt to do this- ending up being virtually the same as each other, has been discussed. Status anxiety dictates that we cannot stray too far from our positions as temporary residents in the Court of Style. That is of course if we ever gain entry to the Court in the first place! I recall an incident when I was much younger when my parents would still be buying my clothes for me. Rather than experience the shame and humiliation of wearing humble unbranded trainers in the arena of 5- a -side football game with far cooler “Nike” wearing mates, my friend and I put “Tippex” correction fluid to work, in order to paint in that coveted “Swoosh” upon our training shoes. Modification, you see Comrades, is a way of faking status. Let’s be honest, if you have recently had a tattoo done you must have been thinking to yourself, even for a small part of the process: “This is gonna make me look like a real badass“. You. . . and thousands of others who have sought to ’set themselves apart’ in a burgeoning, ‘underclass’ of pierced, tattooed teachers, accountants, estate agents, sales reps, librarians, clerks, bank employees, housewives and so on. I think you are beginning to get my drift (if you’ll excuse the pun), Comrades.
Nowhere does modification better of course than in Asia. My recent trip to the Ministries in Singapore and Malaysia has presented me with a smoergaasbord of automobile modification ( that’s American for doing-up your car) which has given me cause to write once again about the curious habits of Comrades over the water. I have often weighed up this dilemma – you have a perfectly good vehicle, which offers scope for real performance on the road. Yes, it may have just rolled off the production line recently, and yes, it may not be in quite the colour scheme you’d really like, as there wasn’t perhaps enough of a choice. It’s true that there is nothing structurally or mechanically wrong with it and it’s true that, with care and through proper servicing, maintenance and repairs it will perhaps even improve in its performance as well as providing reliability and safety as your motoring…..Why then, would you want it to look like an ocean trench mini-sub and have it propelled by rocket technology? Actually, that does sound rather good doesn’t it? The key here Comrades, in this classically Singaporean flavoured example, is that you begin with a performance car and then you modify it so that it then exceeds itself. My kind of modifications are the ones which enhance brake horsepower, torque and acceleration. A steroid -swallowing, body builder’s approach to car modification, if you wish. These are the kinds of thing you can read about extensively in the pages of Singaporean publication “Hot Stuff” should you be of that species of petrol-head. You mean there’s more than one species of petrol head? I hear you say. Yes my, Comrades there is. In this next species, I recall my vainglorious colleague once more, who purchased the same model of motorbike as me here in Vietnam. Instead of thoroughly checking it out -M.O.T style, he insisted that it had to be delivered to him with cosmetic modifications which would later render him in the role of ‘James Bond Villan’ when he sat in the saddle. It had, in other words, ‘to look the part’ (certain areas re-coloured, stickers removed / added for effect). Clearly it’s performance was (and remains, I am happy to say as he eats my exhaust fumes) -secondary.
Ah vanity! It is precisely this kind of thinking which drives a whole subculture of young men in Singapore and Malaysia to completely festoon their vehicles and apply near ridiculous extremes of modification. A cosmetic styling which derives itself from a variety of sources ranging from the circus sideshow, aeronautics, the tattoo parlor, science fiction, Hong Kong cinema, MTV, Japanese comics and electronic goods stores. For these men, there is no limit, it seems, to how you may cosmetically adapt and modify a vehicle. They are of course the ‘Ah Bengs’. They represent a group of car modifiers who haven’t necessarily begun with a performance car yet have sought to make it exceed itself cosmetically. The kind of guys ‘go-faster-stripes’ were invented for.
It has to be pointed out that is still possible to qualify as an Ah Beng with a performance car modified for excessive performance and cosmetics at the same time. This rarer breed, it is fair to say, would be confined more to Singapore unless spotted at one of Johor Baru’s many exclusive Ah Beng car boutiques where I took these shots of Singaporean rides being polished to within an inch of their lives.
Having first been treated to a ‘Snow Wash’ the vehicles appear to be polished with what looks like my Dad’s old “Black and Decker” drill with a chamois on a disc attached to it. This particular street in JB throbs to sound of unmuffled exhausts and the rhythms of bass from tint-darkened cockpits. It represents the last stopping off point before crossing the causeway back to Singapore after a weekend’s abusing Malaysian traffic laws. Here Ah Beng can refuel cheaply, have some guys swarm his car to make it look super-clean inside and out and buy pirated DVD movies while eating crab and sinking a cold one. Sweet!
Social disparity is a cruel thing, I know, I live in Ho Chi Mean City. So it is no surprise that the Malaysian counterpart Ah Beng’s cosmetically
modify the very essence out of their “Proton”, “Perodua”, or that other manufacturer of unspeakably bad cars which I can’t even be bothered to remember. Malaysia, you see in order to protect it’s car industry has punitively high taxes for importing cars from other countries and as a result the price of second hand cars – particularly the dead sitters for modification (“Honda” ‘Prelude’/'Stream’ , “Mitsubishi” ‘Colt’ /’Lancer’, “Subaru” ‘Impreza’ etc.) remains extremely high. Our poor ‘Ah Beng’ from Malaysia has to find a way to make his “Proton” ‘Satria’ look ‘the shit’ before he can be taken seriously as a boy racer. What to do? It’s a cruel world when you are taking on their Singaporean counterparts as they burn up the highway to Malacca, KL and Penang in their minted Japanese or European rides. If you have ever driven in Malaysia you will understand that an alarming number of hot-headed malaysian males (and a startling number of females) will spend the rest of their lives trying to overtake you again should you so much as push into a traffic queue ahead of them or inadvertently overtake them in the first instance. Heaven forbid you should drive faster than them in their box-shaped “Perodua” ‘Kenari’! I think it was the ‘Kenari’ or was it the equally irritating ‘Kancil’ that was commented on as being the car most likely to be seen reversing down the motorway in Malaysia?
Jeremy Clarkson has done enough damage already in his slagging off the Malaysian car industry, and I don’t need the grief by following in his footsteps and stating the bleeding obvious. Suffice to say that if your only options were a “Proton ‘Saga’” or a “Perodua ‘Kancil’” then you would probably modify them as well, Comrades! The spirit of “Optimus Prime” and the “Autobots” 
would doubtless be with you. I fear that your modifications would be of the cosmetic kind because to implement the other kind- then you might just as well hang the expense and buy a second hand Japanese car to begin with. Then of course if you are keen on blue LED lights, “Pink Panther’s” suctioned onto the windscreen(s) a dash populated by plastic and soft toys, window stickers for every bloody thing, fake alloy covers for your tiny wheels and a spoiler from the ‘Batmobile’, you could really make your ride quintessentially Malaysian.
The nagging thought that I have at the moment is what would it be like if most Vietnamese could afford motorcars? And: how would they embrace the spirit of modification to compensate for the disparities in performance and style when they had them? It is definitely in the post for Vietnam, as only yesterday I spotted what passes as an ‘Ah Beng Car’ parked up in the Rua Xe / Car wash place next to my motorobike mechanics workshop on Nguyen Huu Canh street. This example doesn’t even give away it’s original manufacturer (I think it started out as a “Honda”) it is so heavily modified, yet it embraces that bad boy-racer spirit nicely, I think you’ll agree. Oh yes Ah Beng is coming Comrades, just you wait and see! Just as the era of big engined motorcycles has started here in Saigon- so there is slow drift towards the street cars that we know and love from our passionate petrol-headed Comrades over the water.
The phrase : ‘if you liked school – you’ll love work’ has been doing laps in my bowl of pho recently. Its not just that it is also the title of a collection of short stories from novelist Irvine Welsh. In whose half nelson grip I have remained for most of my holiday while reading his latest novel “Crime”, but a reminder of the exquisite agony that only other people can provide and how this continues throughout life in all contexts. The playground, the classroom, the family and the workplace – yes, especially the workplace. An evolving model for relating to others which continues to extend like a grueling flowchart before us. Surely so it must be the case for international relations too. That give and take between neighbouring countries – that political game of foreign-relations-table-tennis that ensures a veneer (at the very least) of ‘co operation’ and continuity. I am musing over this merely because, it did seem a little odd today at Customs and Immigration, as I made my way back to the bosom of The Ministry. I just wasn’t feeling the love from my Comrades in Immigration. . . Thing’s were a little, shall we say – tense. If not for the flurry of misinformation regarding exactly which bit of paper the two masked men required who stood flanking a bottleneck which proved to be the cursory H1N1 checkpoint. It looked as if we were in for the usual: raggedly lines of people – the inordinately long wait, plenty of time for that cattle herd feeling to build- the wordless android exchange, done in slow motion, very laid back, a casual stamp – you’re in. All the while allowing for a reversal to the joys outlined earlier in “Switch off your cultural quirks before takeoff” to play out.
This time however the Immigration Department Comrades must have had their proverbial butts kicked. Such a picture of studied efficiency, that it was audibly remarked upon in hushed and bemused murmurs around about in the lines of waiting travelers. In addition it seemed as if someone in their Ministry had sent them all on a training course. Comrades: “You will learn to make eye contact, you will study the documents before you and relate them to the information on your screens – in particular you will pay close attention to that bit that says ‘Purpose of Entry- Exit’
My man was straight off the bat with: “Cannot! – It is finished already!” When spying that my Temporary Residence Card expires on 31st August. As I pointed out that I still had around two weeks left before it did actually expire, eyes narrowed above the paper mask and all kinds of fuss was made about the probability of a me getting a work permit, since I had ticked ‘employment’, in that bit regarding ‘Purpose of Entry.. ” You can …new eh?”,”you stamp again?”. I was a nodding dog. He then proceeded to criticise me over the quality of my handwriting as he confirmed my ridiculously complex address “this is a ‘B’ yes not an ‘8′ ..ah! tut tut ‘B’ eh? .. yes? This no good”, he proceeds to correct it and overwrite by way of demonstration. “Le Thanh Ton eh?” and finally with a flourish of his pen in my passport “I give you two week only”, followed by a derisory toss of the document in my direction and I am processed.
Comrade Yoda there did seem unusually fretful regarding the whole extension to my employment thing, I found myself thinking. Something which in recent years when I am standing there with a just -about-expired visa in my passport returning for another serving of ‘The Ministry of Noodles’ has never happened before. Swine flu aside what is all the fuss about? Work permits and Visas are available at my local grocery shop (see earlier posting,“A bridge under the ground”). . .. aren’t they? Not so it seems, my Comrades. Those days of traveling here as a backpacker, lying in bed late and scratching your arse in a Pham Ngu Lau bedsit while genning up on how to teach English, then staying forever, are over. Thuy Junior at “Thuy’s Grocery Shop” confirms this. He tells a friend that there has been a crackdown on issuing visas by the government at the moment. It is taking more time and the process, for him as a mediator in procuring visas and extensions to visas for long term resident foreigners has become more protracted. Work permits and gaining them have now become an issue. Allegedly employers of expatriate workers from China, Korea and Taiwan have had the finger pointed at them, for being lax in providing proper work permits for their employees. The government have had enough and in tune with their awkward foreign relations to nations such as China have decided on a crackdown. As a result all foreigners here for anything else other than that first holiday visit are being scrutnised in what seems like a classic knee jerk reaction to events around that foreign relations ping pong table. Let’s hope that ‘The Ministry’ still want me in their employ and that the ‘Visa Geezer’ has done his stuff over the break, or I may be posting from exile in a couple of weeks.
For those who live and work in Vietnam and who don’t have a ‘Visa Geezer’ at their disposal, just where would you start to get hold of a new work permit in order to obtain an extension / new visa for continuing to stay here? Here are two leads in this to help clarify this paperchase: The Ministry of Planning and Investment and these pages from Travel Budget Asia. com and Orient Expat – Vietnam. And for obtaining a Vietnam Visa or Temporary Residence Card online.
Incidentally, just how does Vietnam rate then in that “Super Top Trumps Cards”, World Nation’s Pack? How can we get a clearer picture of who those other people are that cause our Vietnam unpleasant agonies? One place to start is this page at Answers.com which offers a potted history of Vietnam’s relations with other world nations since before Doi Moi.
Looking forward to updating your further on this topic . In the meantime I intend to raise one in recognition and praise of the ‘Visa Geezer’ at ‘The Ministry’ here as I lay the napkin upon the lap in readiness for another course at the table of employment here. . .
Where I come from, back in the Socialist Republic of Fine Cuisine- Scotland; when something is disgusting we are never shy about expressing our distaste: “tha’s pure bogging tha’ is. It makes ye wan’ tae boke”. And so it is when we first encounter that much maligned of tropical fruits – the humble, fly-encircled, durian. This heavy, coarsely- spiked football is a chemical weapon of the jungle which ingratiates itself with your nose well before you get a visual. The aroma of what can only be described as cat’s piss pervades the air for a radius of 20-30 metres surrounding it. It is little wonder then that when I picked up my hire car at Kuching Airport, that added to the end of the “Hertz” ‘Terms & Conditions’ page there is a clause which states:
“Prohibited Odours
All items and goods discharging unpleasant odours are strictly forbidden from being carried in the vehicle (e.g. Durians, salted fish etc.) The renter will be liable to reimburse Hertz on demand for all costs of eliminating such odours, including servicing of the whole air conditioner system and loss of rental days to Hertz.”
Whoa! That’s some heavy duty consequences being spelt out there for the hapless trafficker of durians. However odd this may seem to the durian uninitiated, it is symptomatic of a national paranoia about the fruit here in Malaysia and also in Singapore. There are signs picturing the outlaw fruit (usually depicted as a motif of a pair of testicles in a circle with a line through them) just about everywhere. And I mean everywhere – on buses, trains, taxi cabs, in airports, clinics, departments stores, art galleries, cinemas and as my wife and I discovered when we went to register our marriage in Malaysia …..in the Registrars Office for Births, Deaths and Marriages. Holy shit! Is this fruit really that offensive? Just who considers bringing their Durians with them to the art gallery anyway?
This has been my received learning which has provided a discriminatory background to my first tasting of the durian. Actually, my second but I don’t count the first as the miniscule morsel I swallowed whole as a bet some years ago in response to all that chatter about how ‘foreigners’ couldn’t possibly stand eating durians didn’t really count as ‘eating’. Back in Vietnam, fermented fish sauce (the ghastly purple stuff) is treated with similar accord. In Malaysia and Singapore it is as if the durian fruit has gained the status of a class ‘C’ drug. People – usually groups of young women, chuckle and snigger behind a hand over their mouths, after announcing that: “we are going to eat durian”. Young men proudly declare their intention to eat durian as if they are about to score something for the weekend. It must be up there in the taboo stakes with that jungle aphrodisiac root, Tongkat Ali- so often seen for sale along Jalan Gambir in Kuching. “Tonight’s the night, darling – I’ve had my Durian!”, “Lock up your daughters – I‘m king of the [durian] jungle, baby”, “I’ve got balls like durians….and a breath like Rohypnol”. Joking apart -what I have really heard said here in Kuching, Sarawak is: “Come on, I’ve got my Durian Face on”, by way of invitation to come and eat the fruit.
“Well, Comrade Kret, did you get your Durian Face on? What does durian taste like anyway?” You are probably asking. A while back when I worked for the “The Ministry of Borsch” in Ukraine, I was pushing my cart, in a glassy eyed state, around a 24hr “Tipo” supermarket, looking for a snack to soak up the night’s vodka intake. I had often seen Ukrainian citizens eating this product called “Kalimar” as they sat in one of the many squares of Kyiv, freezing their arses off and clutching their bottles of “Slavutich” or “Oblomov” beer. This stringy “Kalimar” stuff turned out to be dried up laces of squid coated in both salt and sugar. It looked and smelled like it had been scraped off the harbour wall where a seagull had regurgitated it some days earlier. But apparently it was the perfect accompaniment to a glass of beer. It took real courage to lower a piece of said parched squid into my mouth and masticate it cautiously. However, when I had, it was an experience akin to having my first “Guiness”- I’m not quite sure that I like it but I’m gonna have some more anyway! That, my Comrades, is what eating durian is like.
Once the spiked crust is forced open splitting like some grotesquely mutated horse chestnut- the fetid innards are exposed, looking like the decomposing vital organs of some long-dead beast. My sister in law had bought not one but fourteen of these abominations back to the house for us to eat. They are in season now, you see. The pong in the air was carve-able. Who was the first person to consider eating this? I kept wondering to myself – and what could have possibly prompted them to? You didn’t see Tom Hanks debasing himself like this in that movie “Castaway”. Talking to volleyball is one thing…. but eating this muck?
It was necessary to eat our durian in the kitchen with the back-yard door open. We squatted on the tiled floor, haloed by flies and sucked the grey-green goo off of our fingers to expose the hard seed that lay within the core of that dread matter. The flesh had an unpleasant squidgy texture with a slight fibrousness about it as it clung to our teeth and fingertips. The smell diminished from full on cat’s piss- to over fermented fruit wine. The taste was sweetly custard like and vinegary all at once. I kept thinking there were notes of champagne as well. There was a bitter –sweet aftertaste a bit like fig gone wrong, accompanied later by a not unpleasant warming of the throat. Apparently, the Chinese drink salt water after eating lots of the fruit to ease this sensation in the throat. Again I am left wondering who was the first…?
Later as we took our road trip through the dense rainforests of Sarawak, where you can, with a practiced eye spot a durian tree towering majestically among the abundant growth, Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” spilled from the rental car’s stereo. I couldn’t help but smile at that Sarawak alternative to the song: “Durian Face”. Lyrics on a postcard please to: The Ministry of Noodles . . . . .Still “outsation” in Borneo, for now.
Singapore soothes us with the balm of an air conditioned breeze from a shopping mall entrance. A headily perfumed breeze laced with the aromas of cinnamon pastries, musky perfumes, and sizzling satay. Tiny mirrored fragments wink at us from expansive highly polished tiled floors. Traffic ebbs and flows politely while crowds line up at crossings and lights and signs indicate procedure. People stride about, crisply and cleanly dressed for the office. They wear identity tags about them and purposefully go about their business. Walkways flow effortlessly by waterways and the city breathes through the trees planted along it’s streets and stretches and yawns in its planted borders and park areas. This manicured, ordered environment is good for the soul if you have spent too long negotiating your way along the poorly maintained, noisy and dirty streets of Ho Chi Minh City. Surely Singapore must be the kind of utopia one can only dream about? It is a dream which many Vietnamese young people readily aspire to – Dick Whittington-style. It is not just bright-light-syndrome but ‘take-flight-syndrome’ which seems to drive many young Vietnamese across the water to Singapore to make their fortunes. Yet there is seamier side to Singapore, which like in all good fairytales exists within the story as a veiled warning to the unwary.
Several events have caused me to be reminded about Vietnam since being here in Singers, Comrades. The first of which, occurred in Singapore Art Museum. Now, I don’t know much about Art, but I know what I like if you’ll excuse the cliché. So when I came across an exhibition hall devoted solely to a review of recent performance art from an event entitled: “Ket Noi” (meaning Connection) in June this year. You can imagine the inner monologue, given my frame of mind. “Who actually funds this nonsense?”, being the main question rattling around my head. Despite this open minded, insightfully analytic, approach to what lay before me- curiosity took hold of me on noticing the Vietnamese title and the list of unknown (to me) Vietnamese names appearing on the featured artists list (click link above for full list). In one video, a Vietnamese woman sat on the ground outside what looked like a civic building in Singapore, cutting up pork meat into small pieces and placing them gently into glass cubes. Once 25 of these cubes were filled to capacity they were gently placed upon an ascending escalator. A performance about “not fitting in”, of “being a square peg in a round hole”? Or perhaps a statement about human trafficking or the sex industry?
In another, a Vietnamese man withholds a lot water in his cheeks, the pressure of which becomes too much and eventually (after what seems like a long time when watching a video), allows it to burst forth “cathartically” in a jet as he paces the gallery. Now let’s not get into a discussion about the merits of this art form just yet, Comrades. What I want you to recognize here are two things:
- Contemporary art is alive and well in Singapore, but virtually non existent in Vietnam*. Young Vietnamese artists have been invited to join the ranks of Singaporean contemporary bright lights in a context where they can truly express themselves. (I can honestly say that I have seen more Vietnamese contemporary art, in Singapore, than in Vietnam itself). It seems that the business of pushing boundaries requires the physical crossing of boundaries for these artists to be noticed. How many more Vietnamese artists are ready to follow this breadcrumb trail into the unknown?
- Vietnamese artists such as those featured in Ket Noi, a performance art weekend, are more likely to be funded by benefactors from outside of their home country in a land not so far away, making their activities as flourishing artists precarious and driven by the need for an external patron. Patrons who are not necessarily to be found at home and for whom wealth has shrunk the world. The question is, with so many Dick Whittington’s -are there enough benevolent patrons to go around?
As if to somehow answer my questions on the same day as the gallery visit, I am sifting through the bowl of khaui tieaw and I come across an announcement on ‘The Online Citizen’. On 19 July 2009, the Singapore government awarded 11 Vietnamese students with full undergraduate scholarships totalling $1.24million USD – about $113.000 USD each. Thanh Nien News said that: “the students were selected on academic merit, leadership qualities and their potential to contribute to community development” They are to attend major universities in Singapore on four year degree programs including Singapore’s Nanyang Technical University. These students represent the latest group to be awarded such a scholarship. There have been155 awarded so far. . . since the 1998 ASEAN summit in Hanoi. A golden egg rate of around 14 students (not necessarily arts students) per year over the last 11 years.
The next reminder of Vietnam took place during a drive through Geylang district heading down Joo Chiat. In places the road has become flanked with brightly lit Vietnamese restaurants and the streets are populated by a cast of Saigon bar girls. It is early evening and not yet dark and many of these Vietnamese women are preparing for their long night ahead with dinner street-side before going to work in the many night spots of this red light district. Prostitution in Singapore is legalized and carefully regulated but various prostitution -related activities are not. Licensed brothels operate in designated areas where mandatory health checks are required by the government. Prostitutes come from all over the South East Asia region. The health check which declares them to be free of Aids and STD’s and gives them a clean bill of health as a kind of qualifying certificate to work within the industry. This certificate needs to be sustained via further check ups every month. In reality, Vietnamese young women may miss out on this step and either come to Singapore to work illegally (in non designated outlets such as massage parlors and bars) for the duration of their visit visa. They arrive in some cases with the help of a Fairy Godmother “agent” who “loans $1,000 to each girl for passing through immigration at the airport in Singapore to legalize their visit for tourism purposes. An interest of $200 is collected on this loan. The women who can not repay the VND22.5 million within 30 days, have interest on this added to the loan amount, binding them even more tightly to the extortionists.” (source: ‘Thanh Nien News’). Truly a poison apple being proffered. Amidst all of this colourful Geylang parade I spot an advert in Mandarin and English for a “Bridal Brokerage for Brides from Vietnam”. Is this buying brides any more than an urban myth?
Apparently one is able to literally purchase a Vietnamese girl in Singapore as you may for example buy an item of jewelry. The going rate for a bride from Vietnam as the documentary video below suggests is $10,000 Singapore Dollars ($6,700 USD).
The pathos and resignation of the two girls featured in this documentary makes you wonder eventually what sort of pressure they may have been under to leave Vietnam in the first place, despite what is said by them. Was it self induced as a result of personal poverty? Perhaps a lack of opportunities for education and employment? Was a family figure, rather like a wicked stepmother, responsible for this decision on their behalf? Was it part of a wider strategy for the individual (or the family) to reach out for a more financially secure future? Presumably at least one family member could find security from this arrangement? An interesting discussion which arose during the film was the age of husband which the girls may prefer. It was agreed that 40years plus would be ideal and that a 60years old Rumpelstiltskin was just too old. Surely a man in his forties, with a history of employment, savings and disposal income, ought to be worth climbing the beanstalk to Singapore for?
Comrades, despite the polarity of these two sample groups of Vietnamese people making their epic journies to a land faraway, there are uncomfortable similarities in what factors are driving them on their quests in the first place. Perhaps the underlying message here which breaks the spell is: if looks too good to be true…it usually is.
* There is much to be said in defence of Ho Chi Minh City’s contemporary art scene for the work of such organisations as ‘Galerie Qyunh‘ and ‘A little blah blah’ but that will have to wait for a future blog posting.
