Central Vietnam: Reflections on the Highlands

This trip to Central Vietnam was a truly amazing experience, but for very different reasons then I expected. Perhaps one of the best examples of the way the trip surprised me was my visit to the minority village:

Walk to the village

 The walk into Ko Tu Village was one of the most beautiful experiences ever. After two hours of hiking through farmland over a dam, and past beautiful stilt-houses I could barley contain my sense of excitement. This was heightened by the enthusiastic cheers of the school children when they saw our group walking in. As we approached the beautiful communal house where were going to stay a huge feeling of relief washed across me. I felt like unlike Mai Chau this time I would really experience village life... not a canned tourist version but real village life.

Communal Hose

Yet when I left Ko Tu Village I felt a strange sense of disappointment. I felt like I hadn’t learned much about the actual way people lived in the village. The normal language barrier was intensified because not all of the villagers knew Vietnamese, while feelings of shyness, and intrusion seemed to cause many of my UC friends to freeze up and not ask questions. I felt so frustrated and wished once again that I knew some Vietnamese so that I could bypass the other UC students and just ask questions, regardless of weather or not it felt like intruding. But when I did meet the English speaking guide I was too nervous to ask questions, and felt like I didn’t even have enough knowledge to know how to begin asking questions. I feel like much of this dynamic was left over from our class discussion about the impacts of tourism on minority villages, and I have to question whether that discussion was really productive or simply served to prevent us from truly learning and experiencing things for ourselves. Due to these various issues I left the village not knowing what an average woman did during her day, not knowing anything about village power dynamics, not feeling like I could picture living there.

This perception of not learning colored my view of the experience until I sat down to brainstorm about the trip and suddenly rediscovered the vast wealth of knowledge and questions I gained from those two days we spent in the central highlands. Suddenly it hit me what a truly amazing experience this was. While I still can’t understand what village life is really like, I got a brief snapshot of the political social and economic issues effecting the central highlands that really entice me to learn more about this unique area. Once again Vietnam has shown me that when I go in trying to learn one thing, I invariably come out learning something else. It’s important to truly appreciate the things I wind up learning rather then lamenting the things I thought I’d learn but didn’t.

 I’ll use the rest of this blog post to muse over some of the specific things I learned and the many questions I have.

Logging:

"King" style house

One of the truly interesting experiences in the Highlands was witnessing first hand the effects of illegal logging. I experienced logging in five snapshots which, taken together, help explain the many complicated aspects of the logging industry in Central Vietnam; 1) Clear cut hillsides. 2) Logging trucks rolling past government offices and military outposts in broad daylight. 3)New minority houses being built out of bricks because it’s illegal for them to cut down old growth trees. 4) The minority guide explaining that when villagers wanted to build a new stilt house all they had to do was sell the hardwood beams and they would have more then enough money to build a new house (of course with lesser quality materials).5)Tanks rolling into the minority villages at 7:30 in the morning (no way to hide new stilt houses from the government).

Traditional style house

Logging Truck

While the government enforcement of logging is clearly corrupt and possibly motivated by ethnic tensions it does make sense from an economic standpoint. By allowing illegal logging but preventing the minority groups from harvesting logs for traditional ways of life the government is able to maximize it’s revenue. It can get bribes and kickbacks from the loggers for ignoring the many logging trucks rumbling by while simultaneously extracting fines from any villagers who decided to build hew houses with hard wood. Truly a lucrative situation for the government.

Cash 

Crops/Water Usage:

With the encroachment of King people into the central highlands has come the practice of raising cash crops to make a living. All along the bus ride there were fields of sugarcane, rice, rubber etc. The problem with this type of agriculture is that it is extremely water intensive, something that the central highland doesn’t have much of. Thus the water table has been dropping steadily. While it’s easy to write this off as a “King” problem my experience walking to the village showed that ethnic minority groups were contributing to the problem as well. Along the road to the village there were many traditional small crops but there were also large fields of cash crops owned by minority farmers. One minority house even had a tractor to harvest the cash crops faster. Meanwhile the well in the village was nearly empty… enough so that they had to wait several hours before they could gather enough water to flush the toilets for us tourists (which also calls into question why they built the toilets in the first place). In essence what I’m saying is that the ethnic minority villages faced the same economic pressures to modernize as the king people, despite seeing the very direct consequences of modernization. 

Status Symbols:

            Our guide talked about some of the ways things like rice wine and water buffalos served as status symbols in traditional village life. Fermented jugs of rice wine showed that you could afford to turn the rice into alcohol for a party rather then eating it. This got me thinking about modern status symbols in the minority villages. Have the jugs of rice wine been replaced by the tvs and satellite dishes that were in almost every house. Is the motorbike seen as a status symbol or a necessity? How quickly do things switch from being a status symbol to a necessity?

Farming Techniques:

            In all of the villages we went to there were chickens everywhere. I got to wondering what the ownership system for chickens was. Did each family keep a flock? If so how did they prevent neighbors from stealing some of their chickens? Did the chickens tend to wander freely or would they always return to the same house for food/shelter? Were eggs collected? How closely was breeding monitored/was it monitored at all? Must say I’ve never thought so much about chickens in my life. I have similar questions about rice farming, winter-melons etc. but I’ll not list them all because I don’t have many answers.

Hanoi: 1000 Years

Probably the most interesting thing I did this week was go to the kick off celebration of Hanoi’s 1000 year anniversary. The event was put on by a large number of youth groups including many local youth unions. The tow themes appeared to be the environment and anything to do with the number 1000. I woke up at 6:15 in the morning and arrived at the festivities in time to see 1000 people perform a martial arts drill. I then met up with the group of volunteers to pick up trash and watched more of the festivities. My favorite were the inline skaters performing tricks (one of which was wearing a tee shirt with the American flag at the 100 year anniversary of Hanoi—go figure). While waiting the head of the youth union I was waiting with taught me a song about a crow.

            After nearly two hours of waiting we all donned gloves and trash bags and headed to the park to collect garbage. I was super excited because the entire time I’ve been in Hanoi I’ve wanted to pick up some of the numerous piles of trash that litter the streets. My excitement was added to by the Vietnamese girls asking me “do you ever do volunteer work in the states?” and telling me about some of the volunteer projects they do. Soon all 25 of us were happily picking up trash---for 15 minutes. I couldn’t believe it at first when they said we were done, but when people started asking me if I was tired from all our hard work it started to sink in that we really were done… so much for my dreams of cleaning up Hanoi. I went back to the larger festivities and looked around. All of the booths were run by students and most were selling things to fundraise, however it wasn’t clear what they were fundraising for. There were only one or two booths that actually had boards explaining what they did. There was also a big gigantic blood donation tent and dancing in the streets. However my favorite part was the 1000 pinwheels for the environment. They were attached to a big board by stickers… and everyone threw the sticker paper on the ground. Fun way to honor the environment. Overall it was a very interesting experience…

Linh’s village

I apologize in advance but I will eventually be posting three blog entries this week because I did so many different things this holiday weekend and I really want to remember all of them.

The first place I went this weekend was Linh’s Village. It was probably the favorite part of my weekend. It was a little odd having tons of people point and stare at me Linh told me that in the whole time she lived there she had never seen a foreigner there so I guess it makes sense. The village was beautiful. The open air market made the market near campus look like a tiny hole in the wall. People carried live chickens home for dinner and fish swam in tanks waiting for somebody to pick them. There were tons of vegetables… including one that Linh said she hadn’t seen before (her mom does the shopping, not her). The temple was also beautiful; by far the largest I have seen in Vietnam so far. I guess there is more room for temples outside of the city. I was fascinated by how many things took place at the temple. Linh pointed out several painted lines in one of the temple courtyards where children practiced sports and held competitions in the summer.

At one point a monk showed us into the communal living quarters for the monks in the temple. There was a beautiful garden filled with grapefruits and other fruits. Eventually we reached the temple wall where we could see the surrounding countryside. It was amazing how much change the village had seen in such a short period. There were several large factories nearby that Linh said had been built in the last 5 years. There was a brand new road that cut through sever farmer’s plots of land… I wonder how much they were (or weren’t) compensated for that land.

I was also interested to see how close the graves were to the fields. There were literally morning glories (the food not the flower) growing right on top of some of the graves. Guess they make good fertilizer. Oh… another random thought about food. I had never realized just how much stuff lives in flooded fields. The morning glory field looked like it was shivering because so many frogs kept on breaking the surface of the water.

Another really interesting thing we did at Linh’s Village was interview Linh’s father and her neighbor about their jobs. Linh’s father works as a mechanical repairman fixing things like rice cookers fans and TV’s. While the jod sounds simple it was clear he was incredibly skilled. He had to study at a University in Ho Chi Minh city to learn his craft. I watched him pull out tons of complicated parts tangled together in boxes and explain from memory what each one did. Even though I couldn’t understand Vietnamese it was clear that he was incredibly proud of his job. He kept on putting his hand over his heart while he was talking and there was a certain gleam in his eyes that made it clear that he truly loved his profession. I’ll be interested to learn exactly why he loved his job so much once the interview is translated.

New Development Space: KĐTM Đền Lừ

Last friday my project group mapped out the new development area around KĐTM Đền Lừ. Quite frankly the experience was depressing and made me think about development in a new way. While I've read alot about the negative consequences of development before, walking through this "neighborhood" allowed me to experience it first hand, and I was actually fairly surprised by what I saw. 

• empty streets (but not cleaner)
• luxury cars
• lack of goods
• spread out
• abundance of parks in the non apartment residential area

It wasn't the sort of carbon copy suburbia that you would see in the US where every house is the same. Rather this area consisted of run down high rise apartments, empty streets, a lake with no benches, a giant sports center and a gradual transition into single family houses and finally more traditional space. The area immediately around the apartments was the most depressing to me. I would love to know the stories of how people wound up in those apartments... but they felt like totally dehumanizing places. They were incredibly tall with no elevators and steep ramps to bring your motorbikes up to your room.

While some goods were available near the such as trà đá and bia hoi, they lacked the vibrant social aspect of the city. At three in the afternoon they were completely empty... I think most residents were out to work.


The area near the lake and sports center was interesting to me. On one hand the lake was beautiful and was the one of the only place where we saw lots of people hanging out. On the other hand it was not designed to encourage relaxation. There were no benches (one entrepreneurial food vendor had brought out plastic chairs but you had to buy something to sit), no places to put boats into the lake and no wide open areas to play on. There was a gigantic sports center on one side of the lake, but it was completely empty while boys played soccer in the roundabout right outside its gate.

The non apartment residential area was probably the place I liked most of the places we went. In many ways it reminded me of where I live back home. It was a housing district where each of the houses was individual, much like my neighborhood. There were plenty of trees, and several really nice parks. There was an elementary school and vocational school hidden among the maze of streets. The streets were fairly large and inhabited by a fair number of cars. By reminding me of home it  forced me to reconsider what I value in a living space. I've always liked the peace and quiet of purely residential areas, but compared to the life of Teng Sung this area felt dead. It annoyed me that I had to walk  20 minutes to get to a street where I could buy necessities, while at home I think nothing of having to drive to the store. It made me realize that even the sides of development I cherish come with real trade offs. The peace and quiet of a residential neighborhood with parks are only obtained with the loss of street life and a reliance on cars.

Finally after nearly 2 hours of walking we arrived at a real Hanoi street complete with goats being slaughtered, shoe shining and yummy xôi xéo. Yet even on this street we couldn't find all of the things on the list that we had found so easily in the traditional neighborhood. I really don't think I would like living in this area very much. I think It would be quite depressing, especially knowing that so many wonderful places exist in Hanoi.

Han Thuyen/Hang Chuoi: The Neighborhood

On saturday we mapped the neighborhood around Han Thuyen and Hang Chuoi streets. Within the four blocks we mapped we were able to find everything on the list Gerard gave us as well as many other things. A few words that came to mind when walking through the neighborhood were:

• Beautiful
• Relatively green
• Calm(er), but still lively

There were many things I liked about this neighborhood. First there was the fact that you could conduct most things you needed to do on a daily basis in such a small area. There were two fruit and vegetable markets, many pho places, places to fix your motorbike, a school, a doctors office, shops selling all sorts of things, two temples and a park. If there wasn't an actual shop for something it was still provided. There was a place where keys were cut on the sidewalk and every other week someone came by to sharpen knives.  Back home I have to drive to get good quality fresh produce, drive to get my knifes sharpened, walk 15-20 minutes to get to a park, etc. etc. Here most everything could be done by walking less then 5 minutes.

Kid Climbing in the Elementary School Gate

Another thing I really liked about the neighborhood was how much character it had. A full block of Trang Bat was completely devoted to the sale of birds, bird cages etc. In the neighborhood there was a cat cafe (see photo below) and a cool dried flower shop. Each of the houses were different and had cool plants covering them. The neighborhood was close to the big theater in Hanoi and the independent movie theater where we watched Mai's America.

Cats at the Cat Cafe

However what struck me most was how green the area was. Unlike the part of Thang Xuan near the university, the streets in this neighborhood were lined with trees. Many houses had trees as well and there was a park and tenis courts within walking distance. I'm not generally a big fan of cities because there isn't enough greenery, so seeing so many plants really made me happy.

One of the houses with lots of greenery.

Overall I think if I were to live in Hanoi this neighborhood would be high on my list. It certainly seems like someplace I would be happy.  Of course, I would want to look at more neighborhoods first seeing as I have only been here for a few weeks and don't have a ton to compare it with.

The theater. 5 minute walk or less

Amazing bakery also very close to the neighborhood

Kem (ice cream) near the neighborhood!

Gig reading:

Adhesive Company Sales Representative

After flipping to a random page in Gig and reading a few interviews I was surprised how much I like this interview. To me being an adhesive sales representative sounded like one of the most boring jobs on the planet, but this interview really made me rethink that. Traci seemed so happy with her job… something I think not enough people are. I never realized how much time sales representatives have to spend building good relations with their customers. Playing underwater hockey doesn’t sound like anything I’d ever expect a sales rep to do. The other thing that really surprised me was just how many different things contain adhesive. When I read the title I was thinking that she sold adhesive squares or something, but it turned out that she supplied glues to tons of different companies.

I was also interested by the fact that she was one of the few women in her line of work. I guess it kind of makes sense that it is a male dominated job seeing as talking your clients drinking is part of the job, and its not as socially acceptable for women to drink. However the part about her boss giving her an incredibly hard time when she first started and making her get up extra early kind of disgusted me. It know that sort of discrimination happens in the work place, but it still really bothered me that she had to put up with it… and became friends with the guy afterwards. 

About me/goals:

Autobiography:

Hey everybody, here’s a little bit about myself. I was born in Berkeley California in 1990. My parents are from Wisconsin so all of my family lives back there and I visit them every year. I went to Harding Elementary school, Portola Middle school and El Cerrito High School. I played cello and Violin for several years and really loved it but had to quit in 7^th grade when my school lost funding for orchestra. In 8^th grade I joined the Piedmont Choirs which competes internationally. I went to international festivals in Vancouver Canada, China, Malaysia and Singapore. The things I saw on these tours and the people I met really made me fall in love with different cultures, particularly Asian cultures.

After high school I knew I wanted to study international issues so I chose Eleanor Roosevelt College in UC San Diego which focuses on international scholarship and history. I also decided to major in comparative political science so I could really go in depth into that aspect of other countries. Once at UCSD I had to pick a language to study and I chose American Sign Language because my elementary school had a number of students who spoke ASL and I always loved to watch it. After a few weeks I fell completely in love with ASL, deaf culture and Deaf rights… the language was so rich and beautiful that I knew I wanted to make it a bigger part of my life. I’m now head of the ASL club on campus, minoring in ASL and looking for jobs where I can put my skills to use. I’m really happy at UCSD and know that while I will be sad to leave Vietnam I will be happy to go back to all the wonderful people there that have made my last two years amazing.

Few other miscellaneous things about me: I have one younger brother named Brian who is going into his third year of high school. He’s a real sweetheart… despite being a 16 year old boy. I’m gonna miss him while I’m here. As far as hobbies go I like to unicycle, hike make pottery, write poetry and cook. My favorite color is green and I’m totally in love with turtles frogs and succulents. That’s about it. I look forward to getting to know all of you soon!

Goals for Vietnam:

1. Get to know the amazing HANU students and UC students. I really feel like I have a ton to learn from all of you and will be disappointed with myself if I don’t go home having had at least one good conversation with everyone.

2. Learn about Vietnamese culture history. I’m really interested and there is so much to learn.

3. Learn Vietnamese Sign Language and volunteer at an orphanage! This seemed like a total long shot before I came but it might actually be reality. Soooooooo cool!

4. Learn as much Vietnamese as possible. I’ve never really learned a spoken language before, so I’m afraid this could be quite the challenge. I took Spanish in high school, but all I can really do is say “Yo no hablo espanol.”

5. Travel! See an opera in Vietnam, explore the French district, visit a village where they make pottery, maybe visit a national park…

6. Learn how to cook some Vietnamese food!

7. Learn about the minority groups in northern Vietnam.

8. Challenge myself… learn to do things I normally wouldn’t do, think about things from different perspectives and hopefully come away from Vietnam a better person.

9. Have an amazing time :)