"I don't have to be scared of the States anymore"

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First off, I am beyond elated to be able to call Barack Obama our President-elect!

I'm a bit of a dork about politics so we hightailed it from the wonderful Laos countryside to an urban area in hopes of finding CNN or BBC coverage of the election returns. This was a great idea in theory, but we forgot that Socialist governments occasionally block certain television content...like American news.

We arrived in Hanoi around 8pm last night and spent a solid hour running around trying to find an inexpensive hotel room with a television. While we failed miserably at that, we did experience amazing Vietnamese kindness.

We met a very helpful local at the airport who not only split a taxi into town with us, but directed us to a hotel she thought would work and gave us a list of restaurants to try.

The hotel she recommended didn't have cable in the rooms, but the hotel staffer was kind enough to call around until he found a place that did. We walked there and went through several rooms (and even more televisions toted by the incredibly helpful staff) before we found one that had fairly clear signals from an all-Asia and an Australian news network. We accepted the room without even bothering to ask the price. Fortunately, it was only $12!

The coverage last night was very interesting. The Asian network focused very heavily on Obama's childhood in Indonesia and McCain's time in Vietnam, while the Australian one broadcast coverage from Kenya, including a ceremony involving a chicken sacrifice for Obama. I seriously doubt that ran in the U.S.!

I awoke this morning at about 6AM (6PM ET) to begin watching the returns. The coverage was amusing at first ("Well, it looks like he may take New Mexico, but nobody cares because there's not enough electoral votes"), but quickly became very frustrating as they continued to show stock footage of the Obama Girl and other YouTube hits rather than covering the Senate and House races. We set out to find REAL television.

An hour later, we returned completely defeated and watched the remainder of the terrible coverage, which promptly cut out precisely when California's polls closed. Clearly the concession and acceptance speeches were far less worthy of broadcasting than the terrible Australian soap which replaced them.

We spent the remainder of the day exploring Hanoi with huge grins on our faces. We decided it would be a bit crass to visit the Hanoi Hilton (Hoa Lo Prison, where McCain was imprisoned) and relive his physical grief on the same day he was politically defeated, so we'll have to return there another day.

Everyone we have spoken to here has been ecstatic about the results. My favorite quote (the title of this post) came from a young guy from Belgium we met tonight. It's a really nice change to hear people speaking positively about American politics.

Time to start trying to finagle inauguration party tickets!

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Comments

[Dawn Jellison]

Hurray!
Hi Kelly, Isn't it wonderful? All my European and Canadian friends are overjoyed for us - we can hold our heads up high again - "Proud to be an American!". Peace and love!

[Jessie]

Vietnam!
For some reason I don't think I realized you were going to Vietnam. Either that or it never crossed my mind that my dad would be able to give you all kinds of insider info on where to hang out and what to see and what is worth missing. He's been there probably 8 times or so and goes for at least a month at a time. He has lots of friends there and a few ex-girlfriends! Enjoy!