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Published: July 25th 2005
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Hong Kong (gotta love these fashion mags!)
Picked up this Korean magazine just by the sheer boldness of its cover. It's got great taste for naming itself after me. Notice the slightly loony smile on myself. This trip to Vietnam was a present for my mother and me. I had always promised my mother that we would go back to her homeland to see the places she'd described and wanted me to experience firsthand.
Staring into the Vietnamese bathroom, I didn't expect this to be one of them.
I had arrived at Ho Chi Minh earlier, midnight, rumpled, sleepy, and cheered at by a huge crowd gathered outside the sidelines of the arrivals gate, expectantly waiting for family and friends. Ahead, by the sidelines were my extended family: uncle-in-law, aunt, and cousin. Their hired driver tucked our luggage into his minivan and off we went, into the night, to Bien Hoa, the family home of my uncle. By the way, we're all Viet Khieu, or native lingo for Overseas Vietnamese.
So, here I am, staring from the hallway at this bathroom, washcloth and Pjs in hand.
I should count my blessings that there wasn't an asian toilet here.
Lesson 1: Most city-dwelling Vietnamese have an Asian-Western mishmash of bathroom styles. Lucky I was today, there was the porcelain toilet. Then there was the removable showerhead mounted to the wall. The drain hole near the
Out for Dinner
Great egg-noodle cafe-restaurant.
Serves decent egg-noodle wonton soup. toilet. The bucket. And the garbage can, brimming with water, in case the city shuts down the water supply for rationing. That was the Vietnamese part. Most bathrooms don't include bathtubs or shower stalls so occupants literally take a shower in the middle of their bathroom. Hmmmm. And then there was that tub of stagnant water there too. Don't even think about the mildew problem.
My thought at this precise moment: I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, toto.
Resolved from this experience,
My new motto in Vietnam from then on:
Do as the Romans do.
Of course, me looking like a “Roman”, with a family who are “Roman”, who speak “Roman” -- I'm not bitching about this bathroom situation. This is Vietnam, we're talking about here. Not the Hamptons. So, consider this
commentary.
Bien Hoa The first day in Bien Hoa I spent learning about the town. It's an industrial suburb of HCMC where a lot of multinational factories and bottling plants, like Coca-cola, are found. Adjusting to the city wasn't so hard, in some parts, Bien Hoa could just be a poor ghetto in Miami with its paint-peeled buildings and broken sidewalks.
Eating breakfast at a cafe, I got to encounter the first sign of real poverty. The streetkids and the elderly. Those who are lucky get to pan for money by selling stuff. They always figure out that my family's Viet Khieu (VK). The bottled waters were a dead giveaway.
Most locals ignore them totally but my family couldn't, who could? It's not like back home where you can just walk into a restaurant and leave the beggar outside. Here, it's up-close-and-personal with the lotto kid staring at you, hot, tired, but with no where else to go when it's 10 a.m and they should be in school. You hand over 2,000d, wave away the lotto ticket, and hope that their day gets better because you've helped out. Then, you realize, there's thousands like the one you just helped. And I start to wonder how different my life could have been if I was born here with a similar fate.
At my uncle's house, we are always greeted by servants. Mind you, my uncle's family are not wealthy but they do well for themselves, they own a whole-sale food business and do a sidebusiness of renting out cars and drivers to escort tourists. In this house, I met a boy servant, about 15, who was taken in by the family after his mother couldn't financially support themselves after his father was committed to an asylum. For room and board, he helps my uncle's family with business and domestic tasks, is given a small allowance, and treated somewhat affectionately by family members. Comparing him to my cousin, who's the same age, I coudn't help but remark on the ENORMOUS disparity of their fates. In Vietnam, household workers are cheap, this particular home I stay at has a 20-year-old housekeeper whose tinier then I am. She's earning money to send back to her family in the countryside. I'm realizing how lucky I've been to be born in the U.S.
Shopping: What Tourists (and VKs) Must Watch Out For Bien Hoa's marketplace holds a note of caution for visitors to most outdoor city markets.
Always watch out for motobikes.
With nearly no restrictions, people riding motobikes whizz around, on the streets, on sidewalks, and even into marketplaces. So while you're inspecting the wares, just make sure you don't get runned over while walking along the main stalls. I'll have other advice to post about shopping since it seems other travel blogs don't comment on this important aspect of traveling
Shopping tip: Having a small calculator along is extremely helpful when trying to figure out the conversation rate. If you don't have one, a rough estimate is to convert your product's price by 15,000d. So, if you're eyeing a nice blouse for 100,000d (100,000/15,000 = $6.68USD, or about $7).
Sidenote: I've managed to find bubble tea in the HCMC area! Bubble tea in Vietnam! That's a first. Imagine 1 serving being served in a plastic coffee cup. Very decent, the tapioca pearls were cooked just right, firm and sweet - my tea was sweetened black tea, hold the milk. The cost? About 8,000d or 50cents US. Awesome.
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Vivian
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Cool!
I'm sooo glad that you had a chance to visit Vietnam! And you're right, those of us who were born in the U.S are very fortunate.