Factories: A Few Thoughts

This blog will be short seeing as I'm exhausted and have a ton to do this week. Hopefully if I have time later I will come back to it.

This week we went to two factories, a Yamaha motorbike factory and a textile factory. As I was watching the workers at the textile factories i was sitting there thinking "I wonder what kind of people they are?" I mean the whole environment is very devoid of personality. There were easily 300 workers in the room sitting in rows of sewing machines. Other then the fact that each of these workers sewed a particular seam they could have been mixed up and nobody would notice. I know each of these workers has a story, but with the short amount of time we had I couldn’t really get to know anybody.

Much to my surprise I got to have long conversations with several factory workers the next day. At HAD’s 10 year anniversary I asked about 25 different deaf people what their jobs were. The tally: 1 tra da seller, 1 haircutter, 1 nail salon worker and 22 garment factory workers. I guess it’s an easy job for deaf people to get; it doesn’t require being fluent in Vietnamese and the factory managers all admitted they needed more workers. What was interesting though is that for the deaf it also seemed to be linked to a sense of community. There was a group of 8 deaf people around 50 years old who all worked in the same garment factory and seemed to be really close friends. There was another group of factory workers from outside of Hanoi. All of them were in their mid twenties and worked in the same factory and were part of the same deaf club. At least two of them were married to another factory worker. I guess working in the factories is one of the few places where you can work side by side a number of friends all day. Even if your hands are busy so you can’t talk, being surrounded by other deaf people is probably a comforting feeling.

Anyways I will write more later but for now I need to sleep. Goodnight.

Joma: A Slice of America

To satisfy a recent craving for American breakfast food Emily and I made our way to Joma, a lovely café that Gerard introduced me to. Ironically it's just around the corner from Lenin park off the 2 bus line. The instant you step inside you begin to question weather or not you are in Vietnam any more. Everything from the style of the menu (blackboards with hand drawn chalk images), to the merchandise for sale, to the comfy chairs and lighting says café from somewhere in California. The menu has classic items: American style coffee (yummmmmmmm mochas), breakfast burritos, carrot cake, pumpkin pie, salads… you name it. Truly different from the practice of Vietnamese restaurants serving only one or two dishes. Probably requires a god deal more storage space and refrigeration capabilities to keep up such a diverse menu; and probably more wasteful because of it.

Menu

Pies! Carrot Cake! Pumpkin Pie! OMG!

The café was populated by a good number of foreigners reading newspapers or typing furiously on their computers. Even the waiters spoke beautiful English, giving the illusion that you weren't in Vietnam. The only hint that we were in Vietnam was that the prices were lower. 64.000đ/$3.20 for my oat covered French-toast with mangoes, 32.000đ/$1.70 for my half of the eggs and bacon breakfast I split with Emily and 40.000đ/$2.00 for my large mocha (136.000đ/ $6.80) is a far cry from the $20+ I would have to pay for the same breakfast in the states. And of course no tip or tax. Of course this one break from American reality was cheerfully accepted by all of the customers.

American Style Cafe Merchandise

On one hand it was nice. I needed a little slice of home after being in Vietnam for 2 months. And I actually managed to get a bunch of reading done while we were there because the atmosphere was so quiet and relaxing. On the other hand it was a little weird. It felt like a fantasy version of America transplanted into Vietnam complete with lower prices. There was nothing -- and I mean nothing -- to remind me that we were in Vietnam. IT really made me think about just how much culture can be created and manipulated. Enough so that with a careful eye to detail you can create a little plot of America in Vietnam. I do think though that I will offer to take some of my HANU buddies there if they are interested. I think it would be cool for them to see a little slice of the world I come from.

One last note: on the way back from Joma we hoped on one of the new 02 busses. The bus was clearly manufactured by an American company as the warning labels were written in English and were exactly the same as the ones on the busses in San Diego. (I kind of wonder what good they do seeing as most people here can’t read English). Course the bus trip was still distinctly Vietnamese. The bus driver almost hit someone on a motorbike and spent the rest of the drive honking louder then usual and stopping for even less time to allow people to leap onto the moving bus. Nice to know I was back in Vietnam.

Vietnamese Healthcare System

I apologize for my blog being posted late this week… perhaps the content of the blog will explain.

After having a lingering cold for a week I was hit by some kind of infection this Tuesday. The lymph node in my throat started to swell painfully and within a few hours I had spiked a 102 fever. Fun times. Luckily the wonderful Chi Moc took me to the doctors where I got medicine and an interesting window into the differences between the Vietnamese and American Healthcare systems. I’ve mainly recovered although I still have fairly limited energy. Good thing I’m not going to Sepa this weekend.

One of the most striking differences was the way medical privacy was handled. Chi Moc was allowed to come with me into all of the various places we went (much to my relief) with no questions asked. She was allowed to read my paperwork and know what prescriptions I was receiving. In the US I have to sign paperwork allowing my own parents to view my medical record because I’m over 18… even though they are the ones paying. It was a relief to not have to worry about such ridiculously strict rules, although I suppose if I was there for an STD or something I would have felt differently. I was also often in the same room as other patients. The waiting room in the private clinic we went to was also used for medical procedures like clearing people’s sinuses with pressurized air (which I got to see). In the US all of the procedures are done in separate rooms so that nobody knows what your at the doctors for.

Another interesting difference was that we went directly to a doctor that specialized in ear nose and throat medicine. In fact the entire hospital specialized in those three things. In the US you always go to see a primary care physician who then sends you to a specialist if something needs further testing. It was kind of nice to skip the primary care physician and go straight to where I needed to be. However I can imagine cases where you could think one thing was wrong and go to the wrong doctor who would give an improper diagnosis because they only specialize in one thing. It also leaves a lot more guesswork to the patient. Chi Moc spent a significant amount of time trying to figure out what was wrong with me so that she could take me to the right doctor.

However the most striking difference was the cost of the healthcare and the way it was paid for. Everything was paid for in cash up front. Pictures of the inside of my ear nose and throat, a cell culture from my throat and three prescription drugs came to… 850,000 vnd or $42.50. While Chi Moc was busy being shocked at how expensive the price was, I was floored by how cheep it was. Chi Moc said she had rarely paid more then 200,000 for a doctors visit ($10). For me I’ve never gotten into a doctor’s office for that little money. Furthermore that was probably some of the most through healthcare I could have received. In the states they probably would have shined a flashlight down my throat, prescribed me antibiotics and been done with it. And it would have cost me WAY more. The medications alone probably would have cost that much. And I would have had to deal with a total insurance headache afterwards. Of course to really understand what the cost of medical care is here I would need to know how that compares to an average person’s income. Certainly something I want to learn more about.

Rice Harvesting

This weekend was one of my favorite weekends in Vietnam so far. On sunday we went to a village about a 45minute drive outside of Hanoi to harvest rice. While I was sad about missing the HAD meeting and nervous for how much work harvesting rice would be I was super excited. It turned out to be an even more amazing experience then I had imagined. The field was supposed to be dry but recent rains had made it semi flooded. While many people complained about the mud and I was intially freaked out by the thought of all the creatures living in there, I quickly grew to love the way you could sort of glide through the mud with little effort. Soon we were all 6 inches deep in mud attempting to cut rice plants with little blades. At first i was a little unclear on the concept and spent alot of time and energy sawing at the rice stalks. It didn't help that the first patch I tried to cut was blown over by the wind so I couldn't distinguish individual rice plants.

I eventually figured things out and and got into a rhythem: thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack, thunk. I would grab the rice plants upside down about a foot up from the base and give one quick thwack with the sickle. After four thwacks my hand would be full of rice and i would set the stocks on a pile either on the side of the paddy or on top of some of the already cut area. I managed to clear a whole corner of the field by myself -- a truly satisfying experience. After we finished cutting the rice we had to haul it to the side of the paddy and then cary it on shoulder hoists to the mechanical thresher. Then we spent a considerable amount of time collecting the rice that was left in the field. It was amazing to see how inefficient we had been--there was leftover rice everywhere and a considerable amount had been destroyed by being stamped into the mud. I also started to understand those old parables from the bible where poor people would gleen grain from the fields. I don't think there is a similar occupation in vietnam because if you do it right the method of rice harvesting is actually incredibly efficient.

After harvesting we had an amazing meal (the nem which I helped make tasted particularly delicious :P ). Then we went out and interviewed people in the village. It was amazing how much of what was said about job diversification in the article was true. One store keeper we talked to said that she and her husband worked in the fields as well as owning a shop. One of her sons worked as a driver and the other son worked in a factory. Very much representative of a household trying to spread out risk through job diversification. One interesting thing I saw while in the village was several women at the temple who had black teeth and bright red lips. Irene was telling me that this is an older fashioned beauty practice.

Overall I had a great time rice harvesting. However I'm sure I would feel differently if it was my main occupation. I am still waiting to see just how little money my labour would have earned me... I'm suspecting not enough to compensate for the damage it does to your back and your skin. Probably not enough to really cover much other then food.