Entrepreneurship is alive and well in Saigon

Saigon is a city that has seen its fair share of change.  At one time part of Cambodia, taken over by Vietnam, France and central to the battle of North vs South and America, its residents have to be used to change.

That's something that I found inspiring while left to wander the streets, coffee shops, parks and embassies while Kat was working at the orphanage.  The entrepreneurial spirit is certainly alive in this town.

Footpath salad

The three main stories I want to share where from a food tour, a simple bookshop and a group of enthusiastic first-year English students at the Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City.

Local Motion
Tim and Steph promised that we could go with them on a local food tour, Vietnam style - on the back of a motorbike.  With Mum in town, being wined and dined by every colleague every night, she was keen to experience some street food Vietnam-style "as long as it is safe!"

Mum, staying safe with Bom

Local Motion are an amazing group of people, who came to pick us up from Mum's hotel, all 5 of them, dressed in black shirts with bright traffic light colours.  Ridiculously, less than 6 months ago, this same group took my brother Tim and his girlfriend Sal on a tour.  With Mum jumping on the back of Bom's bike, we joked that all we needed was Dad and they would have met our whole family.

Feeling comfortable the entire time (except for a brief mis-step where Kat's driver took a wrong turn) we enjoyed 4 meals at amazingly different locations.  Salad on the footpath by the park, ostrich, crocodile and squid barbecued on a roofing tile, Vietnamese pancakes at a street stall and coffee or ice-cream in an exquisitely up-market venue we were truly satisfied.  We traveled more of Ho Chi Minh City in 4 hours than we had throughout the entire day, and we were fit to bursting. 

Kat tries to avoid spitting oil and flames while Steph is hankering for some ostrich

Mai and her crew spoke fantastic English, to the point that we were arguing over the meaning of "splitting hairs", we loved being in their company and I can't think of a more welcoming or clever way to be introduced to Vietnam. 



It was so good to have a unique night out, not only with Tim & Steph in their adopted home, but with Mum visiting Saigon at the same time as us was like a free ticket to a show you didn't know you wanted to go to!

 






BOA Bookshop - The Book of Awesome
During a more-delightful-than-expected visit to a doctor, I was flipping through a magazine and found an article about a unique English bookstore in downtown Saigon.  Annoyed that I didn't get to finish it, I had to wait after my appointment for the lady who had since picked up the magazine to leave, so that I could finish reading it.  In all, I spent more than an hour hanging around the clinic.  One of the secretaries came up to me and said, "you know we are finished?  You can go now".  I actually wonder how long she had waited before coming up to say that.

To get anywhere by taxi or xe om in Vietnam, you need the address written down.  Don't even begin to believe that you might have a handle on how to pronounce Vietnamese words, let alone be able to explain them to your driver.  With the address copied from the article in order to show to random strangers should I become lost, I marched off immediately in the wrong direction, eager to find it before heading home.

Apparently they had started up simply as a box of books.  They left it out on the street, for anyone to drop off or pick up a book.  Like a communal library.  Until someone stole them all, but that's another story.

The Book of Awesome Bookstore is behind a restaurant, up two flights of stairs and down a blank hallway with encouraging signs telling you "...almost there..." on the way.  From the street, there is a half fallen down cardboard sign with "BOA bookshop" hanging in the window that you can see only if you are looking for it, and I certainly recommend you do.  The store was neat and tidy, with someone napping on the makeshift bunk above the door and another woman working behind the cash register.  As I was dripping with sweat from the walk and the stairs, she immediately turned on the fan and took my bag, while inquiring about what I was looking for.  Bizarrely, of the first two books she recommended, I had read one and Kat the other in the last 2 months ("Speaker for the Dead" and "The Giver" if you are interested). The story behind how they've started up this shop and the enthusiasm with which they run it were inspiring.  If you live in or are visiting Saigon and need a new book, check out BOA, they have new and used and will even do trades.

The English Club

While Kat was exploring the unknown: doing strange versions of the chicken dance, creating innovative new games to teach English and singing with the children at the orphanage, I was trying to find a productive way to spend my time besides drinking coffee and arranging visas.

Kat asked her colleague, Gene, a physio at the orphanage, about volunteering opportunities. He suggested that I could easily hang out at the university across the road and speak English with the students, who he said were always enthusiastic about learning, particular with a "real" English-speaker. He was actually able to rattle off some statistics about how much more successful university graduates can be if they have a good command of English.

As it happened, after sharing a lunch with Kat nearby the orphanage one day, a group approached us asking if they could talk to us for a little while.  Unknown to us, we had stumbled upon the Technical University's English club!  This was a committed group of students (many of whom majoring in English) who get together to study and speak English. I met up with them as many days as possible, we talked about politics, religion, how to meet women, local and Australian customs and travel.  Hanna, one of the women in attendance actually had the best advice in the relationships department, but I'm not sure how many of the guys took the advice to heart.
  

The group really seemed to get something from hanging out, just as I did. I really enjoyed spending time with a group of committed individuals while getting to learn more about them, where they were from and about their country.

While I guess this doesn't really fit into the category of entrepreneurship, I found their commitment to learn striking, and that they recognised how important a good command of English could be in their future careers despite the obstacles that organisations and other students might put in their way. I just wish I had met them earlier.

Say Ohm!

Having been burnt from an experience with a nasty dodgy taxi driver, I was more than content to spend a few days hanging out in the relative safety of Tim and Steph's District 2.  Hiding from the heat of the day in coffee shops, catching up on world news and some less than important things (like the ongoing Australian government leadership controversy).

But eventually there would come a time when this little traveller would actually need to see more of Ho Chi Minh City than the cool sanctuary of air-conditioned western coffee shops and smell aromas other than Italian coffee beans.

Traffic in Vietnam probably has more than its fair share of dedicated blog posts, so I'll leave it at the fact that there are 90 million people in Vietnam, and most of them get about my motorbike.  The streets are full, loud and dangerous for riders and pedestrians alike.  Of course, as most people get about by motorbike, it stands to reason that it is also one of the most cost-effective ways to get about.

Kat, having previously experienced both enjoyable and heart-stopping rides on the back of motorcycles in Vietnam on her 2008 trip, usually opted for the relatively safe taxi option for the half-hour journey to volunteering each day.  Safe, as long as you never opened your eyes or looked at where the taxi drivers' eyes were focused (usually on a mobile phone) - on this day, I rode with her, to see the orphanage, and explore the area.  For the first time since arrival, I finally put together my cheat sheet of Vietnamese words (1-10, please, thankyou, sorry) and was determined that to get home, this day would be the one in which I would take a xe om (pronounced "say ohm") and to be honest, a Buddhist mantra is probably desirable if not required for this activity.

Finding xe om drivers is usually not an issue of how, but more an issue of saying "yes".  Probably thousands of men spends their days dozing atop their parked motorbikes on street corners, always with a second helmet, waiting for a customer to approach.  Thousands more hound you at every turn, "motorbike?", "taxi?", "where you going?".  However, in the heat of the day (between 10 & 2) most people are already where they are going, so I caught my prospective driver napping.

Still nervous from the dodgy taxi incident, but determined to bring some local language into play, I made a cautious approach.  My prospect was one of two men in their late forties hanging out of the corner.  The first excitement lay in determining the actual destination.  Having prepared for this moment like a university exam, I was persistently trying to tell them that I wanted to go to "Dinh Độc Lập", but without the capability of forming complex Vietnamese sounds correctly, it came out as "din dock lap", which I think is probably wrong.  Mainly wrong, because we could only get universal agreement when I said "Reunification Palace".

With that issue sorted, next came the price.  As anything worthwhile, some healthy negotiation is both expected and necessary (don't hop on without agreement first).  This also hit a snag.  Capable only of counting to 6 from the top of my head (after all, it was only university exam-like preparation), negotiating amounts in the range of 50-70 000 dong became all to much for me to handle.  To the great mirth of my two prospects, many hand gestures and waves and we concluded on a price of 60 000VND.  They managed to work out which of them would drive me through some non-verbal queue I never witnessed, and as they helped me on with a helmet, they asked "American?, New Zealand?, Australia?"  Receiving a solid nod and a thumbs up at confirming my nationality and therefore passing some obscure test, we were off, as I tentatively pondered the clause on the insurance policy stating "under no circumstances are you covered in the event of a motorcycle accident".

From what I had read, your local xe om driver is a key to unlocking the city.  They know the back roads you would never go down yourself and that taxis can't fit in.  They know every street and alleyway in the city, and even if they don't, have the local language skills to work it out.  My driver "Nam" was an utter professional, living up to this standard, but at the same time, I was completely comfortable at all times.  Never did he pull in front of a truck or bus or weave in and out of traffic, and always accelerated at a reasonable speed.  The only issue was that because he was so short, each time we slowed down, I almost broke my nose.

Nam says "OK thankyou", as he drives away

And so my first time on a xe om took me to a fairly interesting visit at the Reunification Palace. (Though I would have to say I enjoyed my time with Nam more, and I can't say that for most of the xe oms I have taken since!) I learnt about the significance of another more important entrance through the same gates, done by a number of North Vietnamese tanks on April 30, 1975.  Back then, it was known as the Presidential Palace.

Incredible video footage of this historic moment was taken by an Australian Neil Davis (1975), who reportedly stayed in Saigon because he hadn't yet picked up a safari suit he was having made.

If internet comments are anything to go by, this moment continues to be a source of national pride and disappointment, a happy/sad moment, all depending on your political and historical point of view.  For an insight into some near-sighted American AND Vietnamese patriotism, read the comment sections (some as recent as 3 months ago) on youtube of any of the Neil Davis footage of this moment.

Tank 843's significant arrival

Please keep off the grass

The War Remnants Museum, Ho Chi Minh City

Can't imagine what it would have been like to see these Hueys coming at you 

The War Remnants Museum exhibits the horrors of war in Vietnam's recent past with a message to never to forget the long lasting and devastating impact of war. The Vietnam War (as we refer to it) is known more locally as the American War, and really was a continuation of hostilities of the First Indochina War that the Northern Vietnamese saw as a colonial war, originally resisting French occupation and trying to reunify Vietnam as a communist state.

Kat spent a short amount of time in Ho Chi Minh in 2008 and the War Remnants Museum was the standout experience of her time. It is a powerful museum that exhibits some of the horror of the war and the continuing impacts it has on those involved. Most people know that as technology had improved, the horrors of this conflict was better documented than prior to this time. However, for us, nothing really compared to the photographs and stories shared in this museum. Two particular things stood out.  

From French photographer Huet

Requiem exhibit

On the top floor there was an exhibit called "Requiem" (Tim Page and Horst Faas brought it together and have a book of the same name, and we should credit the book itself here). This description from the exhibition itself puts it better than we could summarise:  

"....Between the height of the French Indochina War in the fifties and the fall of Phnom Penh and Saigon in 1975, 135 photographers from all sides of the conflict were recorded as missing or dead. This exhibition is a memorial to those men and women, and in many cases it includes the last photographs they took...."

Not just the last photographs they took, but ones they took moments before their own death, the words "last roll of film" give an extra definition to the full stop at the end of the caption.  

Capa stepped on a landmine after this "last frame"

This was truly a moving exhibit because it focused less on "we this..." and "we that..." but really just allowed you to see people and their experiences with a journalistic and artistic eye.

It's hard to pick a favourite (even the term doesn't fit), but some punched harder than others.  This image from Eddie Adams is of a South Vietnamese colonel threatening a Vietcong prisoner.  He would have only had seconds to take this photo, and didn't know until after it was developed what significance it had.  If you actually want to know what happened next, the photographer talks about it in this Youtube video.  

Eddie Adams' photograph of South Vietnamese colonel and a Vietcong prisoner

It has been a little harder to find online copies of North Vietnamese photographers.

Shadows of war (Dinh)

We don't want to diminish the other parts of the museum, for they too have a very significant and important message, and leave one feeling quite worn out, horrified, sick and generally disgusted that we as humans continue to do this to each other. An interesting element of the exhibitions was the use of language to show perspectives of history. In several places "American War" was used or "Vietnam War" (with apostrophes) to intimate how many view the atrocities that occurred here. It actually used to be called the "Museum of American War Crimes" among other names, which gives you an idea of the tone of the place.

Self-immolation as protest

The long-lasting impacts of Agent Orange

The other major element of the museum that stood out was the section dedicated to the horrific "Agent Orange".  Rob knew very little about the use of dioxin during the war or its devastating impact on land, crops and people generations later. Kat's knowledge was based on her last visit however the depth of information actually makes a second visit worthwhile. Dioxin can cause debilitating disability for millions of children and families, even now.  The vestiges of this insidious weapon are still felt in the Vietnamese (and to a smaller extent American) communities today, and there are still sites that have not been cleaned or treated since the anti-communist presence in the 70's. Particularly striking was the below letter to President Obama written in 2009 which shows how the devastating impact continues in second generation victims. This letter was exhibited after hundreds of photos of adults, children and babies affected by dioxin and asks if the President could spare some time trying to address this “forgotten problem”.

Letter from a second generation victim of Agent Orange to President Obama

Questions of accountability for actions of war and responsibility for the consequences loomed large during our visit. This article provides information on how 40 years post-war the U.S. has begun decontamination of the worst affected areas in Vietnam. This marks the countries first direct involvement in decontamination and is expected to take four years.

Parts of the exhibition showed the incredible skill that people with disabilities due to exposure to war chemicals have developed. For example, one story told of a man who could write with his feet. Seeing such stories and photos, especially those that involved children, Kat considered what impacts of war would she see when she began volunteering at an orphanage in the next few days.

The displays also made us think about what supports are there for victims of dioxin and how these differ between countries. For example, the article mentioned earlier compares the compensation which American veterans exposed to Agent Orange receive ($1,500 a month) to Vietnamese families with disabled children (just over $5 a month). Court cases and pleas to both the US government and chemical companies from Vietnamese victims have not been successful, whereas U.S. veterans' cases have. 

The direct and indirect effects of dioxin will continue to be felt by many Vietnamese now and in the future. It is obvious that a huge undertaking is needed to improve the lives of those with disability in Vietnam by providing better supports. Whilst the decontamination project is significant, if long overdue, it is only really part of the picture.