PRINTER-FRIENDLY FORMAT

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[July, 1999]

is ten years old and sells such things around Dong Khoi in District 1, Saigon. Her father is 38 and drives a car sometimes and drives a cyclo and her mother also sold inexpensive goods on the streets. Ha is a bright young girl, nice and full of pride. She pushed us to buy something and we talked with her for a short while. Like others who sell postcards, newspapers and the like on the street, Ha warns us repeatedly to watch out for our money because there are a lot of thieves looking for foreign tourists. I didn't want to purchase anything she had so I offered to giver her 2000 dong just for the conversation, she warns me again when I pull out my money to keep it hidden because there are many thieves preying on foreign tourists in the area. She points to a poor, young girl walking nearby with a plastic bag and says, "She's one of them." This sort of advice was common, but unusual for both Karen and I because we typically feel safer traveling abroad than we do at home. Ha refuses my small donation saying that she can't eat with 2000 dong. A week or so later, we came across Ha again. She had sold some postcards to some tourists for 5000 dong and was busy putting her money in a little locked tin box which she had hidden in the bottom of the display box she carried her merchandise in. She smiled and talked with us for a while. I mistakenly, I now believe, thought it would have been obviously dishonest to purchase something from her she knew I didn’t want. I offered to buy her some food when I found that she hadn't eaten yet, but must have said something that hurt her pride because she refused to enter the restaurant to claim her meal. Now I think I should have just purchased something from her that I could have given to someone back home. She would have saved face and I could have helped her out in a very small way.

If you ever visit Saigon and come across Ha selling her things, please learn from my lesson. Maybe buy something from her, she doesn't sell anything expensive and tell her John and Karen said "hi." She won't remember us from the thousands of tourists she's seen, but I'll bet that some how she'll get the message.

[CYCLO, HO CHI MINH CITY]

drivers harangue for business because I'm an obvious tourist. They don't understand "no", a shake of the head from side to side, yet they know how to ask you if you'd like to hire them for an hour to see the area's sites. One technique is to pull up directly in your path so you have to step around them. Sometimes they even follow you down the road for a block should you change your mind. Still they are easy to dismiss. I prefer to walk, taking in the sites slowly or to take a taxi or motorbike if going for longer distances.

We heard differing views about whether or not life is improving in Vietnam from some people we talked to. A Canadian businessman who claimed to have been doing business in Vietnam for ten years, said that he had seen no change in the social economic condition there though the government's attitude towards business practices had improved. He said that there remained a deep level of corruption that kept the wealth of the Vietnamese in a few, connected hands. A young Vietnamese man, Duong, working for the government controlled tourist firm in Northern Vietnam pointed out some changes to me. He explained that corruption has decreased because Vietnam has become more democratic. People are less afraid to point out corrupt officials than before and so corruption is less easy to get away with. Before 1986, he said, "There was not enough rice, now we export rice. Before, only the rich could own motorbikes, but not almost anyone can get one. There are some 500,000 motorbikes in Hanoi. A second Vietnamese man, Le Minh Tung, from Hanoi said life was not improving. He pointed that it can take five years to save the $2000-$2500 needed for a motorbike and that a high-paid official makes about $50 per month. By contrast, Duong pointed out that he needs to earn about $200 per month to make ends meet while in Hanoi so that he can also go to university. He said that even junior government officials with degrees only earn about $20 per month, but if you visit their houses you will see that they are lacking nothing. In contemporary Vietnam, access to goods and privileges are worth more than the salary you earn. Access even to government jobs though, is limited to party members and connections. Duong also offered that the government is now mostly communist in name only, enterprise is the order of the day.

[THE UNCLE HO LOOK, HO CHI MINH CITY]

Ideology aside, Ho Chi Minh is still venerated, perhaps increasingly as the father of post-colonial Vietnam rather than father of communist Vietnam. In Ho Chi Minh City, in front of the French designed former house of parliament, now referred to as the Opera House, there is an impressive statue of a seated Ho Chi Minh on top of a block of rock that serves to raise the statue. I jumped up onto this stand to sit for a picture with the venerable Uncle Ho only to hear a Vietnamese woman, undoubtedly a plainclothes public security officer, yell at me to get down. Her demeanor was not cajoling but authoritative as she strode quickly over to me from the bench she had been sitting at several feet away.

was raised in the countryside, but had been living in Hanoi for about five years when we met him. His parents still live in the country with his sister and his brother, now regrettably that the Russian economy is performing so poorly. He said you can learn English in the countryside. He said that Russian was the foreign language of choice until about 1970, then Chinese was popular until Vietnam invaded Cambodia and China retaliated by invading Vietnam in 1979 (China, Duong thought, always wanted to take over Vietnam, either by subtly conquering it culturally or through military force). Now English, the language of international commerce is king though French is still taught. Duong's fortunate enough to have lived in both the country and the city so he is able to evaluate the benefits of each rationally. He is enticed to city life by the economic opportunity, but thinks he will retire in the country. His parents visited him while he was attending school and were bothered by the fact that he constantly had appointments to fulfill, and didn't have enough time to spend doing nothing in particular with them. Farmers intermingle with the citizens of Hanoi more than they do in Ho Chi Minh City. There are two rice crops that many farmers stay in the countryside for, but then they are free to spend the rest of the year in the city trying to earn more money or attending better quality schools after registering with police.

[WOMAN WEARING FARMER'S HAT, HANOI]

The desire for economic enrichment creates seemingly irrational incongruities in Vietnamese society. In a trendy disco in District 1 of Ho Chi Minh City, young Vietnamese dance awkwardly in circles consisting of groups of friends. A couple of young men dance together here, a couple of women dance together there, and a transvestite dances serially with a few friends. The young men outnumber the women 4 to 1. Men and women dance together by themselves and the women seem to avoid dancing in the direction of any particular man as if it's a taboo.

In the relatively cool evening at a park a few miles away, young lovers sit on park benches and motorbikes talking. A flood of motorbikes rolls past. A small group of male bystanders on foot, motorbike and with cyclo watch some commotion, but I don't stop long enough to see what it is. A man in his 40's approaches the bystanders from the direction of their attention and says something causing them to disburse. Then two women come running over to me. (I had left Karen at the apartment to see what life was like for a single traveler in Saigon). The first to reach me touches me slightly and asks, "Do you want?" While I'm saying, "No," the other woman rubs up against me from the other side, grabs my crotch with one hand, then puts her other hand in my pants' pocket where my wallet is. Just as her hand touches my wallet, I push her away while yelling at her.

A few blocks away about a week earlier, a couple of dozen fairly attractive women line a two-block section of the street where the flow of traffic is the heaviest. With few exceptions, the women are standing by themselves looking a little anxiously at the passing traffic making it rather clear that their sole purpose is not to while away their time. Those women who aren't by themselves are with other women like themselves. The women look to be in their late teens or early 20's are dressed casually, trendy, and most wear tight shirts, but this is not uncommon for women their age. The appearance is otherwise nondescript. It amazed me, perhaps only because I come from an affluent country and a fortunate background, to see such a contrast between this group of girls and their counterparts at the club. On further reflection, I realized that substantive difference between the two groups in a country where going to a nightclub is an unheard of expense for most people had to be economic wherewithal.

On Sunday evening, I walk along the same stretch of street where I had earlier seen girls lining the street to explore the scene further. There are only a couple of girls this evening. A young woman who had been standing by herself in the light of a bus stop notices me and walks over as I begin to pass. She looks to be in her early 20's. Grabbing my wrist, she opens her mouth to reveal that she is missing a couple of teeth as she says, "Come with me." I ask her, "Where?" and before she can respond, there is some commotion and the next thing I know, she's on the back of a motorbike with a group of some ten or so people on three or four motorbikes huddled down a side street. I continue walking down the street and an attractive young woman - with all her teeth - baring her legs up to the thighs and shirt cut short to reveal her flat stomach, says hello and looks at me. I say, "Hello" back to her but keep on walking so she says nothing further. I walk to a church to try unsuccessfully to take a picture of the traffic rush past an attractive post office and church built by the French colonials. Afterwards I return to this same stretch of pavement.

[WORKING GIRL AND GOVERNMENT BILLBOARD FOR AIDS, SAIGON]

The street is now very crowded with people, mostly young women like I had seen the previous evening. Individual girls walk up to me, some saying something in Vietnamese, some asking me if I "want". Some grab my hand seductively for added inducement. A young man on a motorcycle drives up with a girl who looks to be his girlfriend. The girl solicits business from me in a similar way. I look at her as I slow down and say something in English, but she doesn't understand. The guy tries to clarify by asking me if I want to "buy girl". He tells me that I can either take her to my hotel or he can get a hotel for me and the girl. He begins to negotiate for the girl. A pimp. The girl smiles an invitation to me all the while from the back seat of the motorbike. I approach a young woman with a nice figure and ask her how much. She starts to speak in Vietnamese. An older, fat man comes up and tells me "One time, one hour $20." There are no other white foreigners to be seen in the area, the customers generally seem to be young Vietnamese on motorbikes, but I can't really tell. The older, fat man begins conversing with a woman whose age and build suggests that she is his wife. They talk from several feet apart and a few other girls approach. Some ask me "Boom, boom?"; others signal with their hands: one hand shaped as if holding a banana while the other hand, palm down, slaps down on the opening made with the first hand a couple of times in rapid succession. I ask the older, fat guy where, and he tells me "Mini-hotel. Girl $20, hotel $15, I take you by motorbike." The young woman stands by silently. Compliantly. Another girl signals to me that she will charge $30 by holding out three fingers.

About a hundred yards down the street, a couple of government billboards, more clearly visible during the day since they are not lit up at night, promote safe sex in Vietnamese to fight against AIDS.

Children for Sale "In several communes, women are rushing to produce babies with the hope of selling them to foreigners," according to a report in the official Young People newspaper. Two Health and Justice officials have been arrested in connection with 350 children sold to foreigners over a three-year period for prices of up to US$5,000. Couples from the United States, Sweden and France have adopted from Vietnam for some time and a third of all foreign adoptions to France last year - 1,328 infants - were Vietnamese. [from the South China Morning Post, July 16, 1999]