TADIOTO

Ha Noi’s warmed up a little in the past few days. Yesterday was sunny but by evening it was cold again.

Last night I sat outside at a restaurant, and this morning, my cold has returned. Friends from the news department at Viet Nam Television asked me to join them for a drink and dinner. We polished off four bottles of vodka between the five men. The two women didn’t drink.

It would have been worse if I’d joined another table. Nguyen Viet Ha, author of God’s Opportunity, was hosting a dinner at the same restaurant with the painters/art critics Luong Xuan Nhi, Le Thiet Cuong, and the sculptor Dinh Cong Dat. Also there was Bao Ninh, author of the famed Sorrow of War. I’ve never been in his company when we didn’t end up quite altered by alcohol.

I stuck with the TV crowd; we talked of jobs, marriage, Obama and McCain, Russian bikes and cars.

We talked travels, the My Lai massacre, the recent controversy involving members of the Catholic Church demanding land back from the government. It had been the site of some ancient Buddhist pagodas destroyed and taken by the French to built churches and offices, then confiscated by the Communist authorities. The conversations then drifted to the revealing dresses of news anchors, then to the national poetry festival, which just happened two days ago, and many read out some wonderful poems.

At some point, we noticed the full moon through the dried branches of a plummeria tree, and the journalists read more poems, some by the giant Tran Dan. Part of a movement of poets and writers banned and punished by the party for promoting critical, open and free literature in the 50s, he and others had been resurrected, almost rehabilitated. Some of his poems have been re-published, but apparently not allowed to be read at the festival. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tran_Dan

When we left the restaurant, it had gone past 1 a.m., and it was misty – it felt strange to be riding on my motorcycle, around the Hoan Kiem lake and through the deserted streets of the old quarters, with the wind so cold on my face, and the stomach burning, burning.

And so…

from the VIETNAM NEWS BRIEFS, February 19, 2008: The longest-ever cold snap in northern and central regions of Vietnam has caused damages of around VND400 billion ($25 million), the biggest figure of its kind so far, according to latest report of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development The cold killed nearly 52,000 cows and buffaloes, some 75% of them are buffalo calves. Total damage was estimated at VND180 billion ($11.25 million) The ministry estimated that the coldness cost the local plantation sector VND200 billion ($12.5 million), killed 146,150 hectares of paddies and 9,500 hectares of newly-cultivated paddies.

Copyright 2008 Vietnam News Briefs – Financial Times Information Limited – Asia Africa Intelligence Wire.