TADIOTO

A cold wind blew through Ha Noi - and the leaves were all on the sidewalks - what a beautiful scene.

It was leaves and leaves everywhere - around the old Thang Long citadel, I stopped my bike in spite of the young men in uniforms across the street.  They were guarding the Ministry of Defense and didn’t like me or anyone stopping there. But I wanted to take a photograph - alas, the camera battery didn’t cooperate. 

The other sad thing is Moto, my dog above. He loves going on walks around the Truc Bach lake near our house. But Boxers can’t handle extreme weather really well, and Moto can easily have inflammed lungs in this cold weather. 15 degrees Celsius.

It’s too cold to even sit for a coffee here.  Stay tuned for when Moto and I can get out again, and tell you what’s going on in this town.  Or what’s in the water other than the reflections of the Sofitel Plaza and nearby smaller buildings…

Price hikes in Viet Nam have hit consumers who lament about food costs up some 20% or so…. meanwhile:

VietNamNet Bridge 17 Feb 2008 - One doesn’t have to be an economic expert to notice the recent increase in living standards around the city.
….  It’s a tendency not difficult to spot. One just has to wander the streets of Ha Noi to see the crowds of young girls and boys sporting brand name clothing, driving expensive scooters such as Piaggio’s LX, Honda’s SH or PS.

 Photo courtesy Lê Hồng Thái

… Although he’s still dependent on his parent, Hoang Linh, an 18-year-old college student considers himself an addict of designer fashion. He doesn’t shy away from a high price tag when he sees something he wants. He even pawned his Honda’s SH scooter to get a D&G sweater, saying, “If I don’t buy it immediately, it may be sold out”.

 Photo courtesy Lê Hồng Thái

…Van Anh, a young girl and a regular customer of the Luxury Mall in Ha Noi, said she spends an average of US$1,000 whenever she goes shopping, hitting any of 30 brand-name boutiques, including D&G, Versace, Roberto Cavalli, Just Cavalli and Armani.
When she tires of her clothing and needs space in her wardrobe she sells her clothes on the website muare.vinahoo.com. Prada trousers were listed on the site for the “bargain” price of $600, and Just Cavalli can be yours for a “mere” $700.
Even at those prices, Anh gets dozens of responses from the website’s subscribers.
…Mai Chi, a young woman living in HCM City, is desperate for the $600 Prada trousers. “They’re too beautiful,” she said.
….Another subscriber, Mai Uyen, was selling a Louis Vuitton bag she bought just two days ago for $1,200 at the Louis Vuitton store in the Metropole Hotel, saying she already “fell in love with another designer bag.”
She said Viet Nam was becoming a shopping destination with world famous fashion names such as La Coste, Furla, Burberry, Escada, Louis Vuitton and Cartier opening stores in Ha Noi and HCM City.
…According to Ngo Quang Nam, manager of the Ha Noi-based Calvin Klein store, most of his customers are young people, spending an average of VND10 million ($620) for CK items.
…”From when the store opens its doors, the daily turnover can reach VND100 million ($6,200) – a promising sign for our company’s business,” he said.… “Although I’m fascinated by designer items, I can only go window shopping. I earn a little more than VND3 million (US$200) a month while a Burberry latest-model bag costs more than $2,000, ten times higher than my salary. For me, the price at these stores is out-of-reach,” said Thu Van, who works at a building on Ly Thai To Street, where she’s surrounded by designer stores.

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.

Boat people leave, vowing
never to come back.  Some die,
some make it rich in the world.
They return now self-possessed on flights
that cast small shadows on the glistening ocean
they once crossed with thirst. 
On the old boulevards in the old Saigon,
they taste again a tangy custard apple, and dread
the traffic noise.  They gaze at the sun-drenched faces,
wounded to no longer recognize their own—
the old home no longer home.

A while ago, I posted some translations of poems by Vu Thanh Son, a former Ha Noi police officer who’s abandoned the party and now lives in Brazil.

I continue to re-read him and keep coming back to the one opening line of one poem.  My friend Wayne Karlin said, “Stop right there,” when I read him that first line.  We were in a cafe, and the artist Bradford Edwards was there too. He too said, “Nothing else to say.” 

Here’s the line:  “This is not a place for agreements.” 

The poem is called Paradise.

Tell me: what did you do today? Did you have breakfast? Did you forget the laundry?

Photo: Joao Silva for The New York Times

Did you vote?

 Photo: Akhtar Soomro for The New York Times

Is that a smile in the eyes belonging to the covered faces?

Pakistan - how do you live in despair and vote and hope?

In Kenya, a man says: ”We came here with nothing, like cabbages thrown on the back of a truck.” William Ojiambo is a member of the Luo ethnic group who was driven out by Kikuyu gangs.

Tell me: do you feel like a cabbage thrown on the back of the truck?

And do you feel the ephoria?

Photo: Dimitar Dilkoff/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Do you know your independence?

Did you think of Baghdad?

 Photo: Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty Images

Tell me, what did you do today in this strange world? 

The cold weather here won’t stop.  It’s not too pleasant, but I don’t mind, really, reminding myself often that the Ha Noi summer humidity is infinitely less friendly.

A couple of days ago, I even defied the dreadful temperatures and took my motorcycle up to the mountains, a two-hour ride each way.  I was wearing long-johns, pj pants, and jeans.  I topped it off with a t-shirt, two turtle-necks and a sweater, plus a 12-pound leather jacket.  I had three scarves.

About an hour and a half into my trip, I stopped at the bottom of the mountain range, getting a cup of tea to warm my hands, and letting the engine cool off before snaking my way up to the top. 

The owners of the shop, people in their 30s, complimented me on how cool I looked, what a great bike I was riding,…

Then they asked, “Uncle, you must be in your 60s.  No one your age is so cool here.”

I was far from looking anything near “distinguished” with my bulging costume and a black wool hat under my green helmet.  But 60s?  I mean, I just turned 29 yesterday, and I remember it.

As I rode back, it was getting dark, and even colder, and with the scarves wrapped tightly around my chest, shoulders, neck, and half of my face, I couldn’t turn to see the shop.  I would have liked to stop again for another cup of tea, and simply tell the people they’ve got it all wrong, that I was approaching my 80s.

Tonight, an uncle came by. His parents had moved north deacades ago, and we’d never met.  This was our first meeting.  “Dear nephew,” he asked, “I’d guess you’re about 60.  Right?”

Do people here do this for fun? 

Life is cold. 

You have a vision. You build it. And it gets done. And naturally, you want to be in it.

But then, naturally, when the vision becomes reality, it’s already winter - the coldest year in North Viet Nam in 20 years.

Figures. Story of my life. 

It was around one a.m. in Ha Noi, and I was nostalgic.  I wanted a touch of San Francisco, you know, the old apartment, the old neighborhood, etc…,  and so was looking at photos of Fillmore Street.  I found this on the web, which I think belongs to Carlos & Ana Trevonio (?) of Barcelona, Spain:

Says a lot about race, class, health, wealth, gender, politics, standards of beauty, reality, poverty, Hillary….

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New year wisdom

February 10th, 2008 · 1 Comment

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