It's been a few days since setting foot in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam after six hours of karaoke music video (thankfully, muted) aboard a bus from Cambodia. The border stop was pretty painless, though, as the organizer herded us along ("hurry up"), I sniffed a cultural shift from the Khmer people's Bob Marley-esque approach to surmounting life's tragedy to something a little more go-getter. And, indeed, these are a willful people, their historians will have you know.
A trip to the War Remnants Museum not only condemns the U.S. for the atrocities it pictures but offers a wry smile in the face of the dummies that believed they could defeat a people who have proven themselves so many times against opponents, the Chinese, Mongols and French among them. Despite the pride and resilience of the people, the wrong done here stings. The most disturbing of all exhibits here was the one which documented the effects of Agent Orange on war survivors - and their children. The chemical led to countless stillborn babies and many more children who would see their limbs shrivel to nubs within the first two years of their lives. A tragic legacy of disfigurement.
On a brighter note, now Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, is nothing short of thriving. Arriving on the tail end of Tet, the New year celebration, I saw the city in its last days of holiday decor: yellow flowers, often in hanging balls of string lights, and red banners / lanterns. As in Cambodia, motorbikes are everywhere. It's true, here, drivers will obey a few traffic lights (unheard of in Phnom Penh), but that's not to say that sidewalks are off-limits in times of heavy traffic nor that crossing the street isn't still akin, for us newcomers, to cliff-jumping. The market here (Ben Thanh) is a mecca of smelly, tasty treats, including jerky galore, jackfruit, pho, nuts and coffee. You can also find a plethora of clothes and cloth for clothing, electronic equipment, save-yourself-from-pollution (previously SARS) masks, and many other must haves. For the heavier of pocket, there are designer stores and sky-scraping hotels a stone's throw away. Burberry. Armani.
The people I've actually had the chance to chat with are bright-eyed, energetic and kind. Upon recognizing me as an English speaker, one man in the market struck up a chat to try out his English. His brother's in Houston (This took a long time for me to decipher with his accent. The difficulty interpreting accents, he says, is a particularly American one.) and his niece sends him U.S. driver's license information and exams to test his reading comprehension. He wondered about the difference between expressways and highways and what it meant "to pig out." If I stay in Ho Chi Minh, rather than going to Hanoi, we may meet up and exchange help learning each other's language.
Other very warm Vietnamese include my hotel receptionists and the organizer from Language Corps, Hien, a beautiful, chic young woman, who met me and a few other teachers for lunch today. Hien encourages me to stay in her city. Upon her request, a few of us are headed to see a band tonight out in District 4. There doesn't seem to be a lot of live theatre, according to Hien, but there is definitely a great deal of live music.
Further highlights of my time here so far include a fun, touristy trip to the Mekong delta, on which a woman rowed me and a few others through a narrow canopy-covered channel to a small coconut candy factory, where we all stuffed ourselves with the rich treats, banana wine and honey tea. We got to ride bicycles (mine was from the stone age), hold a python, and hear locals sing a few traditional songs about love.
Within the city, it's been fun walking around sidewalks, often filled with people eating pho at tiny little plastic tables with stools that look best fit for toddlers. I suppose the stools are easy to stack, must be cheap and are sufficient for the lean ladies and gents of Vietnam. I've chosen on more than one occasion to take my big American frame to a western style chair at the riverside. Great view, great coffee, and an opportunity to read my book - about the country and why corruption is the inevitable child of rigid ideological systems - in peace, amid the whine of muzak remakes of The White Album.
Vietnamese language classes begin tomorrow. Until then, I'll try and get some pictures uploaded.
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