Vietnam – Red Branch Chronicles

Islands in the Sun

I love islands and island life, possibly because I was born on the far flung western isle (Ireland) or maybe because my childhood was suffused with island adventure tales – Enid Blyton’s Famous Five’s escapades on Kirrin Island (and the slightly more mature Adventure series – The River of Adventure, the Mountain of Adventure and, inevitably, the Island of Adventure with Philip, Jack and his parrot Kiki, Dinah and little Lucy-Ann) – and followed up with R.L. Stephenson’s Treasure Island and R.M. Ballantyne’s The Coral Island (which was the first book to ever make me cry when Bloody Bill, the pirate, died!).

Then again, perhaps it was the magic of flying on a two engine Fokker Friendship prop plane from Dublin airport to The Isle of Man with my parents for another childhood holiday. One time we flew from Collinstown, later to become Dublin International, and once, more exciting, left at midnight from one of the city’s quays on a ship that seemed to loom immense in the glare of lights. Magical gardens and bridges where a fairy toll is ‘demanded’, cats with no tails and a unique ‘Q-Celtic’ Manx language – sadly now extinct, the last native speaker having died in the mid seventies – Manx was related to Scottish Gaelic and Irish as opposed to the ‘P-Celtic languages of Welsh, Cornish and Breton. I still remember the buzz and roar of the annual TT motorbike races around the island and the excitement it generated.

On the other hand, it may have been the summer picnics to Dalkey Island² (the closest

island to where I lived in Dublin as a child) which seemed to require such advance planning on the part of my parents. The No. 8 bus from the heart of the city would go past our house on the corner of the Monkstown Road and on through Dun Laoghaire, Sandy Cove and eventually the terminus at Dalkey and from there the walk, lumbered down with tartan rugs, picnic baskets, flasks of hot tea, buckets and spades, to the harbour at Coliemore from where my father would bargain with brawny men to row us across to the uninhabited island of Dalkey Island* crowned with a Napoleonic era Martello tower. Uninhabited except for a few goats, a Martello tower, a freshwater spring and a ruined church. Family picnics, diving off the small, whitewashed rocks where the rowing boat left us off and picking up fresh mackerel for dinner on the homeward trip.

Whatever it was, it seems that those most magical times have extended into my adult life and have all been centred on islands. Simple man, simple dreams³, I suppose. By horoscope, I fall under Cancer – a water sign – and in the Chinese zodiac I am a (water) snake and despite having enjoyed myself in mountainous regions worldwide – The Himalayays in Nepal, the Andes in Peru, the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia, the Pyrenees on the Spanish-French border, I feel my strength and vitality are at their peak when I am close to water, especially salt water!

With so many thousands of islands in Indonesia I have explored so few, Bali ages ago and more recently, the Gilli Islands off Lombok – an easy four hour direct flight from Perth here in West Australia and then a 90 minutes taxi ride to the port at Bangsal from where the public boats set out for the islands. Bali is a subtle blend of festive Hinduism and local traditions, Denpasar and Kuta being over commercialised but it is still easy to escape to central Ubud and the black sand beaches along the north shore at Singha Raja. Everybody seemed talented – whether it was in dance or performance, wood and stone carving, music or hospitality and fluent in so many ways. I had to buy extra bags in Bali to accomodate all the carvings and knick knacks I acquired the first few times there. I recently came across a few thousand rupiah from that time and when I produced them in Lombok last week, people laughed in incredulity at my crumpled bills. They have been out of date for almost forty years! I headed off initially to Trawangan, the party island, with plenty of bars and loud music and the furthest out from Lombok but after two nights of drinking cheap cocktails – two for the price of one – made with local spirits – I had a vicious headache and decided to try the delights of Menos, the middle or the ‘Robinson Crusoe’ island, the smallest and the quietest the three. Beautiful, semi unspoilt islands – no cars or motorbikes only bicycles and little pony and trap carts and a sunrise on one side and a sunset on the other side of the island. Three days on Menos and, with my time running out, I spent the last three nights on Air, the island closest to Lombok itself. All three islands were unique in their own way and were small enough to stroll around in less than two hours and all offered scuba training and day and night dives and probably excellent value if that is the kind of thing you like. I’m a bit different – I just wanted clear, deep water and that’s where the islands fell down for me as, for a hundred metres or so around all three islands, the water was shallow and while appearing to be sandy, was, in fact, made up of dead and broken white coral shards which made getting into and out of the water difficult and painful. Coral cuts tend to fester easily and reef shoes – which, of course I didn’t have – would be an absolute necessity. As it was, the water was so shallow that trying to swim overarm out to deeper water my finger tips brushed the broken coral with each stroke. Not ideal unless you want to lounge by the swimming pools most of the resorts provided.

A relatively new ‘discovery’ for me, Lombok is the large island next to Bali and, in theory, should be just as beautiful. Certainly a fantastic ride from the airport skirting the capital and rushing past small villages and up over a jungle clad mountain with monkeys on the roadside, attracted by heaps of durian on sale, glimpses of the coast as we head down to the port. I am sure there are gorgeous beaches there too but I was set on new island horizons, the three small islands off the north west of Lombok.

Samosir, on the other hand, was almost an island, in the middle of Lake Toba, near Medan in Sumatra, practically the far end of the Indonesian archipelago from Lombok. My son fell, fully clothed, off the dock once we arrived and I had to jump in after him. That’s all I can really remember except for some really ratty accomodation.

So, on to all my favourite islands and how to rank them – by cost? (Rottnest island off Perth in WA is hideously overpriced); by beauty? (most S. E. Asian islands); by ease / difficulty of access? (although that has changed with airports springing up everywhere); by people? (all of them!). A listing in no particular order and with distinct memories of times past and present.

Lamai Koh Samui — Lamai Beach, Koh Samui

Ahh, Asia, every other island paled into significance once I came across Koh Samui, Koh Phangan, Koh Tao and Koh Samet. Those tropical paradises, first visited in 1981, originally by slow, flat-bottomed overnight ferry from Dongson to Koh Samui before a pickup truck ride to Chaweng or Lamai or Bo Phut beaches still represent earthly paradise to me. Back in the early 80’s, I’d pay something like a nightly 30 Baht for a beach-side hut on stilts and have banana pancakes for breakfast, Tom Yam soup for lunch and barbecued fish

for dinner, all washed down with icy Singha beer in cold frosted glasses and Mehkong whisky and soda water. Beautiful sandy beaches, relaxing beach massages and a gentle shelving beach so that you could run and dive straight into crystal clear waters. Now you can fly from most places into Ko Samui airport – one of the most appealing airports I have ever been in. Prices of course have gone up since my first visit and many beach side resorts also offer that abomination – a swimming pool! Koh Phangan was, I think, the ‘party’ island north of Koh Samui – the originator of the full moon parties? Koh Tao consisted of three tiny rocky islands connected by sand banks at low tide. I swam around the largest island once. There used to be just a handful of beach huts and a restaurant; now I believe it is packed but it must still be beautiful. All I remember of poor old Koh Samet are mosquitoes and ants!

I lived in Malaysia for three years and evocative names in Penang like Batu Fennenghi and Jalan Chulia where I bought my first ever SLR camera still stir me but it was off the east coast of northern Trengganu that the real tropical paradises of Perhentian and Redang lay. Deserted, at the time and used only by local fishermen for its fresh water supply – hence the name ‘Perhenti’ / Stop, in Malay. I used to hire a local fishing boat from Kuala Besut, where I lived for three years and would make almost weekly trips (on a friday) to the island and come back to the kuala, sun-burnt, salt bleached and dehydrated to revive myself with large bottle of cold Anchor beer, served from metal tea pots into heavy ceramic cups in the only Chinese cafe in the kampong. I camped on the island for nearly a week once while trying to study for my Graduate Record Examination into an American university, thinking I would have no distractions! Even further out than the Perhentian islands lay Redang. it was once used as a detention centre for Boat people in the aftermath of the Vietnam war. I much preferred the Perhentians where I swam with sting rays, turtles and small (leg-long) sharks in waters no deeper than three or four metres. Gorgeous!

A fast ‘coffin boat’ from Brunei Darussalam would bring me to Labuan, a duty free island off the coast of Malaysian Sabah in Borneo – an absolute haven away from alcohol-free, strictly Islamic, Brunei. I used to treat myself and stay in the golf course hotel. Alternatively, I’d go over with some friends in their boat, depart Brunei legally, arrive in Labuan, stock up with up to 50 cases of beer (ballast, we used to call it) and return to Brunei illegally after dark when the customs had closed, off load the beer on a deserted beach where other friends were waiting and then report to Brunei customs the following morning, claiming the Evinrude engines had been giving us trouble and we had only just arrived! Another world, another time!

And then, of course, there is Hong Kong and with this view from my rooftop, what more could anyone ask?

Lamma island, just off the bottom of HK’s

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA — Fish farms off Sok Kwu Wan, Lamma, HK

southern bottom, was such a laid-back spot off frenetic Hong Kong. ‘Draw-string pants, mismatched socks and guitar music’ I once heard someone describe the lifestyle there compared to HK’s bankers. One ferry from HK Central would arrive at Sok Kwu Wan on the north east side of the island with its fish-farms and quayside restaurants. I used to walk from there to the other side of the island with its ATM, bars and more seafood restaurants and a different ferry from Yung Shue Wan back to HK.

Lantau Island had the big Buddha (the biggest, seated, outdoor, bronze Buddha in the world,) as well as a great South African barbecue beachside restaurant with jugs of Margaritas. Cheung Chow, One of Hong Kong’s favourite suicide spots for some bizarre reason. Punters would rent a small chalet, close the doors and windows and light a charcoal barbecue and suffocate themselves.

Phu Quoc, off the most south westerly tip of Vietnam, looks closer to Cambodia and was fairly unspoilt and quiet when I was there about 20 years ago. So much so that the ‘resort’ I was staying in offered to sell itself to me after a night’s drinking with the owner! I choose what I would like to eat the following day from an ‘oral menu’ and he would make a trip to the local market just for me! The island boasted of its famed peppercorns and fish sauce which, locals zealously informed me, could not be brought on board an airplane lest the bottle break and its pungency imperil all on board!

Singapore was definitely my first ever S. E. Asian island! Gaping, like some yokel from the sticks, I went shopping along Orchard Road and bought my first – and only – portable typewriter – an Olivetti – there back in 1981. Do those things still exist? The incredible humidity in the air – like walking into the bathroom after somehow had a long, very hot shower with the door and windows closed and the coolness of the Long Bar, in the Raffles Hotel, surrendering to Singapore slings, was a blessed relief after the turmoil of shopping!

I did an MA in the State University at Stony Brook, half-way out on the north shore of Long Island, a long spit of land reaching out into the Atlantic from New York City and did my drinking in places like Setauket and Port Jefferson and my swimming in the creek on the northside and in the Atlantic on the south side.

I worked one summer on the island of Sylt, the jewel of the ‘German Riviera’! I was ‘ein nacht portier’ at Hotel Ursula in the main town of Westerland. Long, windswept sandy beaches where elderly people played volley ball in the nude and where I was eventually fired when it was discovered that I didn’t really speak any German but it took nearly three weeks before that was discovered!

The Île de Noirmoutier is not really an island as it is connected to the French mainland by a causeway flooded daily by the incoming – and fast – tide. Famous for its new potatoes, I remember it for lazy afternoons drinking white wine with a touch of Cassis with old friends.

Slow, laid back, very patchy wi-fi, Cuba offered differently aged Habana rums(apparently Bacardi sided with the Batista government forces against Castro and so signed their death warrant on the island) in generous mojito cocktails. Music in the bars at night – and everywhere – extravagantly old American cars lovingly tended (or rusted out heaps beyond repair), fat women squeezed into tight lycra and old men and women smoking cigars the size of a baby’s arm.

From Puno in Peru I went out to the amazing floating islands made of bundled reeds on Lake Titicaca, part of the border between Peru and Bolivia.

Trampoline-like under foot, the reeds were used for their shelters as well as their boats.

Half an hour by fast ferry off Fremantle in West Australia, Rottnest island is clearly visible from the mainland and like the Gilli Islands, there is no motorised transport – just bicycles and beautiful beaches, fresh octopus and, the island specific, quokkas (a type of small, short tailed wallaby). While beautiful and charming, the island is, in my opinion, mega expensive for what it offers..

Hainan island is China’s most southerly port and submarine base and I stayed in the same hotel where the Miss World beauty contest was once held in the southern city of Sanya. Parts of the beaches were cordoned off by the military, as I discovered when I ignored shouted warnings strolling along a sandy beach. Only the clunk-clunk of a pump-action shot-gun being cocked brought me to my senses.

Macau casinos held no

attraction for me but Portuguese food and wine certainly did in the area around the old harbour as well as crumbly old ‘Fawlty Towers’ type hotels. I’d return to HK laden with chorizo, olive oil, tinned anchovies and bottles of a slightly sparkling white wine.

Almost directly opposite the Chinese mainland city of Xiamen is Penghu County, a drab island claimed by Taiwan and reached by a three hour ferry trip from Xiamen itself. One of the most heavily shelled / bombed places after 1949 when the Nationalists retreated. The main culinary delight seemed to be oyster omelettes!

Next up, after the Thai Islands mentioned above must be Puerta Galera in The Philippines. A half day bus trip out of Metro Manila down to Batangas and then a ferry over to Puerto Galera on the island of Mindoro. Fantastic! I stayed at the end of a rocky promontory with a floating bar a 100 metres away. Cold San Miguel beer cheaper than a coffee or a coke, mellow Tanduay rum, tiny, bitter little calamansi limes, green skin, bright orange inside with slippery pips, friendly people and crystal clear, deep water – perfect.

In late December, the sun rose around twelve noon in Reykjavik, Iceland and set again at about four pm. Ideal in some ways – use your imagination – the hotel in the small town of Hverageròi where I ended up for some reason, was overheated and I pushed the window open to let some air in and the window froze open overnight, as did the lens of my camera later that day. Amazing to come across hot houses growing bananas and tropic plants benefitting from underground thermal power.

So, a retrospecive look at islands sparked by my recent trips to the Gilli Islands, Indonesia.

¹Islands in the Sun – Harry Belafonte

https://www.last.fm/music/Harry+Belafonte/_/Island+In+The+Sun

² Dalkey Island Photos – Niki McGrath

³ Simple man, simple dreams – Linda Ronstadt‘s Asylum album released in September, 1977.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLk90r2sJMc

Lunar New Year of the Dog and Dog Days

Friday 16 February marks the 2018 Lunar New Year of the Dog, heralding spring. However, where I am right now the end of summer is approaching with autumn just down the road. I suppose that the Year of the Dog is related to the Dog Star, Sirius – so named as it appears to follow at the heels of the hunter, Orion. Dog days are also reputed to be the hottest period of the year.

I used to think the 12 Zodiac animals of the Lunar New Year matched with the Western horoscope of the dozen star-signs and I knew what I was in both systems – a snake and a crab respectively. A few years ago, when I lived in Vietnam, I realised that each animal had an aspect attached to it. I felt absurdly smug when I realised I was a water snake, having an affinity with that element, as opposed to, for example, fire, wood, metal or an air snake. And just as the 12 animals of the Zodiac follow each other in set order, so too does each aspect as they cycle through one or other of the five elements: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth

It is often referred to as Chinese New Year, which must rankle with non-Chinese people who also observe the Lunar New Year, much like, perhaps, people in South American countries resent citizens of the USA claiming themselves to be American.

Despite having lived in Hong Kong for a full cycle of the Zodiac, I only encountered the frustration and delays as a massive migration of people took place and never really experienced the almost frantic excitement in the build up to the start of the festival that I encountered when I lived in Vietnam.

Tết Nguyên Đán to give it its full name in Vietnamese, like the Christian Easter, is a movable feast, usually falling around the end of January and before the middle of February.

However, with Tet being such an important holiday, it is essential to approach it with suitable reverence and intense preparation. Much like a western Christmas when shops start to gear up for the festive season as soon as Hallowe’en is over, so too do Tet preparations begin in earnest not only in shops and businesses but also in every home in the country. Shops fill up with gaudy decorations, usually some variation of the phrase Chuc Mung Nam Moi, ideally wrought in fine gold on a red velvet background – red and yellow being the principle lucky colours for an auspicious start to the New Year – but of course all variations on that theme, provided the colours are maintained, is acceptable.

The Kitchen God – and every household has one – must be propiated with gifts and offering because it is he, and he alone, who will report back to the Celestial Jade Emperor on the family’s efforts over the previous year and it is the Jade Emperor who will decide the future prosperity of each household.

Once the home has been thoroughly cleaned, paying special attention to the kitchen, then it must be suitable decorated. Red and yellow flowers will predominate although orange marigolds may be included. Yellow forsythia branches must adorn the home while peach and cheery blossom trees are especially popular. Kumquat trees laden with small fruit are also popular, symbolizing fecundity and abundance, something everyone aspires to in the New Year.

The largest, voluntary, world-wide migration of people take place prior to the Lunar New year as millions of Chinese and other Asian people return to their home birthplaces, similar, dare I suggest, to the mass gatherings for the Haj which followers of Islam feel it is incumbent on them to perform at least once in their lifetime.

Part of the excitement in the build-up to Tet, of course is preparing to receive long-absent family members and to scrupulously clean the home before Tet, as once the holiday begins, no cleaning may be done lest one inadvertently sweeps or throw away the good luck one is due on account of the preparations you and your family have made.

Imagine, if you can, having your birthday, Christmas, Easter, Wedding, Anniversary, Valentine’s Day, Buddha’s Birthday, St. Patrick’s day and all other major belief systems’ days of veneration all rolled into one glorious holidays where everything can be devoted to a glorious extravaganza of eating, drinking and gambling. Add to that, of course, the annual rollover of age in that at the beginning of Tet, every single person becomes a year older, so in fact, it is your birthday so what is there not to celebrate?

It’s bit different where I live now – although I am going to a Lunar New Year buffet. Unlike China and Vietnam whereat least 10 work free days is de rigeur, here in Australia it is just another day at the office although the Asian communities here of course plan their celebrations and lion dances, but for the ordinary Aussie, it is no big deal.

So, tomorrow, Friday 16 February is the first day of Tet and is considered the most important as the first visitor to the family home will set the luck for the coming year and is reserved for the nuclear family focused on the paternal side of the family. Children dressed in their new finery, bow to their parents and offer traditional greeting – Sống lâu trăm tuổi (Long life of 100 years) and formally receive a red packet – a small red envelope, decorated with traditional wishes, containing assorted bank notes while friends wish each other Tiền vô như nước (May money flow in like water).

The second day of Tet is then reserved for the maternal side of the family and for respected friends and acquaintances.

Anyway, this is first year of the Earth Dog since the last Earth Dog back in1958. Communicative, serious, and responsible in work, it seems, according to the characteristics assigned to that Zodiac. Hmm … as opposed to an Intelligent, hardworking, and sincere Fire Dog or the conservative, desirable, cautious, and always ready to help Metal Dog or the sincere, reliable, considerate, understanding, and patient Wood Dog or finally the brave and self-centered, even seemingly selfish, well-versed in dealing with financial issues Water Dog! Wow! Hard to choose among them all. Why can’t they all be combined in one?

The Year of Earth Dog also means that we will not see another one until 2078!

Inspired, enthused and curious about the frequency of dog in current English, I present the following words that are badly written or expressed – Doggerel!

If you are bored see if you can match up the dictionary definition with the numbered and italicised phrases in the following. Answers some time later, if anyone is interested. Happy New Lunar Year of the Dog!

Doggerel

He felt his commanding officer had discarded him as someone worthless ¹ and it really ranked. Who did they think they were to treat him like this, giving him menial tasks to do, as if he were a junior in some boring office ^.2.

He ground out the butt of his cigarette ^3. under his heel and replaced his fatigues and military I.D.^4. with a soutane and a clerical collar ⁵ before slipping his knife into a side pocket.

Despite the full heat of the last days of summer ⁶, he broke into a gentle trot⁷. This was a chance to redeem himself. Up until recently, his time in the unit had been less than happy, problems and unfair treatment ^8. seemed to follow him wherever he went ⁹.

Worn out ¹⁰, he felt his luck had deteriorated ¹¹ and this was just another period of inactivity or decline ¹². He took out the small shabby notebook, the corners worn and battered with use ^13. and looked at the directions and notes he had been given, knowing full well he had no chance ^14. of making her change her mind ¹⁵.

A sharp bend ¹⁶. in the road ahead revealed the villa on the hillside and he knew he would have to emphasize how delighted he was ¹⁷ when he met the selfish ^18. occupant there if he was to overcome her suspicions.

The old lady was wearing ridiculously smart and ostentatious clothes ¹⁹but it was obvious that her health had deteriorated ²⁰. Her skin was lined and wrinkled, soft and doughy but her eyes remained sharp, as did her long nails. She lay back, weak and exhausted as if from influenza or gastroenteritis²¹.

He’d be disgraced and more than probably dropped from favour ^22. if he didn’t complete this mission. This was the last and least pleasing part ^23. of something he had to do but it was necessary if he was to regain favour.

Distracting her with some debased form of Latin he vaguely remembered from his school days, he slipped the knife from his pocket in a fluid, easy motion and …

A. Dog days ^	K. dog-in-the-manger
B, in the doghouse	L. dog leg
C. dogsbody	M. dog’s life
D. dog end ^	N. dressed up like the dog’s dinner
E. dog eared	O. gone to the dogs
F. dog tired	P. like a dog with two tails
G. dog trot	Q. a dog’s chance
H. dog tags	R. throw to the dogs
I. dog collar	S. teach an old dog new tricks
J. dog’s disease	T. Dog Latin

^ Two distinct meanings!

OH! Almost forgot – It’s a dog’s life can refer to a life of ease and luxury as in these pampered mutts

Tết Nguyên Đán

Having moaned a bit about culture shock I experienced when I fist moved to Vietnam (and me, an old Asian hand!) I thought I might attempt to redress the balance by posting this, which I wrote not long after the previous posting.

Approaching the end of my first four months here in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, I have to say that the city, despite the myriad annoyances mentioned previously, is steadily growing upon me. The noise has almost faded into the distance, the money with its awesome coda of zeros rarely phases me now while the delights of the new and stylish restaurants set in uber cool settings complement the more traditional Vietnamese restaurants set so pleasantly along the riverside near where we live. Transport problems fade away with a 24-hour taxi rank at the end of our quiet street and some of the arcaneness of the language seems to be dissipating. Gainful employment still hovers on the periphery but, like the traffic laws here, remains just as a suggestion rather than something to be kow-towed to.

Tet has just ended and while I have been in Vietnam many times for Tet over the previous 15 years or so, this has been the first time I have been here for the warm-up to Tet, the actual period itself and the final run-down back to normalcy – or what passes for normalcy here in Saigon. Tet, or to give it its full name, Tết Nguyên Đán, is the start of the Lunar New Year and the herald of the Spring season and, like the Christian Easter, is a movable feast, usually falling around the end of January and before the middle of February.

Unlike many countries in the region, and indeed worldwide, Vietnam is particularly parsimonious with its gazetted, public holidays. Christmas Day for example, widely recognized in many countries, is totally ignored here with children attending school and people going to work as on any other normal day. Other public holidays amount to a stingy one-day off for special, usually historical, events in Vietnam’s fairly recent history. Labour Day (May 1), although it is called International Worker’s day here is, of course, de rigeur for every so-called communist country and then of course there is Liberation / Reunification day (April 30) when the North Vietnamese tanks crashed through the wrought iron gates of the Presidential Palace here in (then) Saigon and American Hueys lumbered from rooftops away to waiting ships in the Gulf and then there is National Day when Ho Chi Minh (the man, not the city) declared its rather premature independence from colonial forces (September 02 1945) but all these one day skimpy holidays pale into insignificance when compared to Tet.

Imagine, if you can, having your birthday, Christmas, Easter, Wedding Anniversary, Valentine’s Day, Buddha’s Birthday and St. Patrick’s day all rolled into one glorious holidays where everything, and I mean everything, closes down everywhere from a miserly minimum of one day to a glorious extravaganza of an eating and drinking and gambling fortnight. Add to that, of course, the annual roll-over of age in that at the beginning of Tet, every single person in the country becomes a year older, so in fact, it is your birthday so what is there not to celebrate?

However, with Tet being such an important holiday, it is essential to approach it with suitable reverence and intense preparation. Much like a western Christmas when shops start to gear up for the festive season as soon as Hallowe’en is over, so too do Tet preparations begin in earnest not only in shops and businesses but also in every home in the country. Shops fill up with gaudy decorations, usually some variation of the phrase Chuc Mung Nam Moi, ideally wrought in fine gold on a red velvet background – red and yellow being the principle lucky colours for an auspicious start to the New Year – but of course all variations on that theme, provided the colours are maintained, is acceptable.

Similar to the Chinese New Year when the largest world-wide migration of people take place, it is incumbent on Vietnamese to return to their home birthplace for Tet. Woe betide the Western tourist who tries to travel in Vietnam during this period as every form of transport will have been fully booked up and then overloaded. A 16 seat mini-bus will manage to accommodate up to 30 people along with luggage and bales of unidentifiable goods wrapped around and around with duct tape, baskets of live chickens and neatly trussed pigs. Part of the excitement in the build-up to Tet, of course is preparing to receive long absent family members and to scrupulously clean the home before Tet, as once the holiday begins, no cleaning may be done lest one inadvertently sweeps or throw away the good luck one is due on account of the preparations you and your family have made.

The Kitchen God – and every household has one – must be propiated with gifts and offering because it is he, and he alone, who will report back to the celestial Jade Emperor on the family’s efforts over the previous year and it is the Jade Emperor who will decide the future prosperity of each household. Of course as all shops and markets will be closed during Tet, it is of prime importance to stock up on all basic food items – rice, oil, noodles, preserved fruit and vegetables, as well as all the essential items, minced pork and mung bean tucked inside a solid wodge of sticky rice wrapped up in a thick layer of banana leaves and then boiled over an open wood fire in huge pots closely resembling oil drums, usually out in the street before the house for hours, often over night with family members taking the responsibility to sit up tending the fire and telling tales of Tets past – after all, what would Christmas or Thanksgiving be like without the turkey and the spiced ham and tales of Scrooge?

Kumquat trees laden with small fruit are also popular, symbolizing fecundity and abundance, something everyone aspires to in the New Year. Everyone makes that special effort to pay off all debts while new clothes and shoes are required for everyone, especially children. Everyone participates, much as they do here in driving in appallingly crowded situations by being mannerly and considerate to everyone else. Losing your temper in the bustling crowds in the teeming markets would be a very grave loss of face resulting in untold misfortune for the coming year, while at the same time, happily and willingly paying that bit extra for just about any service of goods will ensure that the Jade Emperor will look upon you with benignity, as well as helping all those others to afford the extravagance that the season demands.

The first day of Tet is probably the most important as the first visitor to the family home will set the luck for the coming year. Shortly after midnight on New Year’s Eve, – and usually by prior arrangement – an appropriate visitor – i.e. someone relatively prosperous, jolly and charming, bearing gifts of flowers, food and alcohol – should arrive and be boisterously welcomed, thus ensuring good luck to the host or hostess for the coming year. Be aware, not every visitor is welcome or suitable and expect the door to remain firmly shut if you are perceived to be from the wrong side of the tracks. I rather smartly slipped outside my own front door just before midnight, waited the appropriate time and then gave the beady-eyed one a near heart attack by banging and hammering on the front door. She opened it with great trepidation to find me beaming and lurching under the weight of a assorted potted plants in the appropriate colours, US dollar bills spilling out of every pocket, a bottle of wine gripped precariously under my oxter and my pockets stuffed with savoury snacks. Seeing as the apartment is in my wife’s name, I felt that I should be the first visitor to cross the threshold, ensuring an abundance of good luck for the New Year, although it was only her steadying hand that prevented me from shattering the bottle of Shiraz on the tiled floor as I attempted to unburden myself.

Having survived that hurdle, New Year’s Day is reserved for the nuclear family focused on the paternal side of the family. Children dressed in their new finery, bow to their parents and offer traditional greeting – Sống lâu trăm tuổi (Long life of 100 years) and formally receive a red packet – a small red envelope, decorated with traditional wishes, containing assorted bank notes (Vietnamese notes range from the very lowly 500 dong (approximately Euro 0..02 cents) to the rather lordly 500,000 (Euro 18.06 cents) while friends wish each other Tiền vô như nước (May money flow in like water).

The second day of Tet is then reserved for the maternal side of the family and for respected friends and acquaintances and it was then that we made our way to the beady-eyed one’s mother house to present our best wishes. Almost bankrupted by the excessive taxi fare for the 15 minute journey, we arrived bearing gifts of flowers, fruit, sticky rice packages and, of course, red packets. Not just for children, the custom appears to give them to everyone who is a) unmarried and b) younger than the giver. In my case, that seems to be just about everyone, including the grinning and obsequiously bobbing doormen / custodians / guards and gate-keepers at our apartment. And then, naturally, there were the Beady-eyed one’s nephews and nieces, shyly bowing to me as I sat in state on a hard wooden settle, wishing me the Buddha knows what in their whispered Vietnamese as I handed out bulging red packets. I had no idea how much money was in them as the beady-eyed one had merely presented me with a bundle of ready stuffed red packets and instructed me to hand them out. Judging from the gasps of astonishment and incredulous glances my way, not to mention the never ending line of unctuous supplicants bowing before me, it was enough to pay for a handsome university education overseas along with a Masserati for daily transport.

Shortly after Tet, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung hailed ministries, branches and localities for their efforts to ensure a happy and safe Lunar New Year festival for people of all strata, although at the same time asking them to pay more attention to traffic issue, and reprimanded several localities where firecrackers were still set off during the festival despite the ban. On a more positive note, he urged everyone to take drastic measure to remove difficulties facing businesses, control inflation, solve bad debts, keep the prices of essential goods stable, and speed up agricultural production. In implementing the instruction of the President and the Prime Minister, New Year gifts worth a total of nearly 394 billion Vietnamese dong had been handed over to nearly 1.9 million people who have rendered services to the nation, while 24,000 tonnes of rice were sent to 15 provinces to help needy people. Besides, local authorities nationwide granted presents worth more than 807 billion Vietnamese dong to families, which are beneficiaries of social welfare.

However, in a number of localities, traffic jams still happened. In many tourist sites and spring festivals, visitors still ignored regulations on hygiene and safety. During the 9-day holiday, 681 criminal cases occurred nationwide, 314 people died and 387 other injured in 373 traffic accidents.

From Local English Language newspapers at the time.

Culture Shock

I mentioned ages ago that one of the reasons for this blog thingy was cyber-space shock that I thought I was experiencing – not that I put it that elegantly, of course – which was a major driving factor for me to get involved with this blog thingy. Recently, that got me thinking about culture shock and where and how I had first encountered it. I think the first time I ever really experienced it was when I arrived in New York in 1977 and expected it to be similar to the worlds I had left behind in Europe. I remember reading somewhere (Alvin Toffler – Future Shock?) that Culture Shock can be amieleroated after about nine months and that used to hearten me, much like beating Google Maps time estimate for walking from A to B does for me now.

Anyway, jump forward to about 2013. I had, at that stage, lived and worked in different parts of S. E. Asia for more than twenty years, but, despite having visited and travelled in Vietnam several times over the few years, I had never actually lived there until I got serious and signed a lease on an apartment in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).

Saigon was a different world. Everything was strange and either ludicrous or just plain crazy. Traffic, for instance, was no doubt governed by laws, but what those were remained unfathomable to me. One-way streets, traffic lights and pedestrian crossings appeared to be mere suggestions without any serious compliance expected. Crossing any street was as fraught with as much excitement and danger as playing a computer game like Call of Duty (Black Ops) as “attackers” (motorbikes) can come at you from any direction and at any time without any warning whatsoever, but unlike computer games, you only have one life here, while lumbering buses and trucks made no allowance for either motorbikes or pedestrians. Pavements and sidewalks were fair game for motorbikes and the rule appeared to be that if you can stop your bike sideways on the pavement or in the middle of your living room, or even the road, why then, it was perfectly parked!

Recently the Saigonese police initiated one of their regular crackdowns but this certainly did not involve stopping bikes rushing through red lights or going the wrong way up a one-way street or driving on the pavement; instead, it seemed to be more of a crackdown on pedestrians in that if a pedestrian was involved in an accident, it must have been the pedestrian’s fault!. Similarly when driving at night, why run the risk of running your battery down when you can simply turn off your headlights at night and drive just as well in the dark.

Notwithstanding all that, the Beady-eyed one decided that we had better get into the spirit of things and rent our own personal motorbike and for reasons best know to others it was decided to rent a motorbike on the far side of the city to where we actually live. I made the rather tentative suggestion that we rent a scooter with automatic transmission – having spent at least a total time of less than one minute “practicing” on a Honda Airblade in Cambodia. This would, I felt, obviate the need to change cumbersome gears with the feet while attempting to maintain eyes forward, sideways and backwards and at the same time weave with the fluidity of a dust mote in a beam of sunlight, through the woof and weft of roundabout traffic. This suggestion was quickly rebuffed as it is a well-known motorbikes with automatic transmission are too powerful and have a tendency to “run away” with you if you twist the handlebar throttle too much! Instead we settled on a Honda 110cc with manual gears because then “you can start it up in 2^nd gear and it won’t run away on you”. All well and good and the one-eyed tout renting the bikes appeared to have no qualms about renting a bike to a pair such as us who blatantly had no knowledge of where to even put the ignition key or whether to use the left or the right foot for the necessary gear changes. A one-minute tutorial in (unexplained to me) Vietnamese and a 5 minute practice ride in, through and around the flower beds in a nearby public park sufficed and the keys were quickly handed over for another million dong or so.

The immediate problem that presented us was two-fold; neither the Beady-eyed one or myself felt sufficiently confident to give the other a back pillion ride and, even if we were, neither of us had the slightest of idea how to circumnavigate the city to get to our far-flung district. Bit of an impasse, until a malleable plastic 50,000 dong note was slipped to the assistant of the one-eyed man and he drove the Beady-eyed one home, using the bike as a XÊ HỐM ̣motrobike “taxi” or litterally “hug machine” as the passenger is often obliged to hug the driver to avoid being jolted off the back as the rider careens over kerbs, potholes and the occasional bricks casually tossed onto the road. I then spent the rest of the afternoon hunting for a bus which would go within reasonable distance of where we actually live. By the time I got back home, of course it was too dark to warrant venturing out onto the tangle of streets surrounding us so all we had to do was pay the gate-keeper where we live another small fortune in well used plastic bank notes to allow us to park the bike under his supercillious nose.

The next morning, after the apparent ritual of handing over another bunch of crumpled plastic bank notes to the new gatekeeper which allowed him to retrieve our bike from wherever his colleague had hidden it the previous night – we took it in turns – “remember to start the bike in 2nd gear” – to cruise cautiously up and down our local street, rented helmets with greasey, sweat-stained linings slipping down over our eyes, our arms extended stiffly on the handlbars, eyes flickering nervously down to our feet and then belatedly up to scan the street for the unwary chickens which patrol it haphazzardly, tentatively trying out the horn (an absolute must for any aspiring driver here) and the indicators and stalling the bike in our attempts to bring it to a graceful stop actually in front of the street cafe rather than on top of one of its small tables.

Suffice it to say, a week later, the bike remains safely parked in the basement bowels of our building while our helmets moulder in a cupboard, while, since our arrival at this address, the local taxi mafia have set up a permanent taxi-rank outside our front door.

Enough said about traffic and bikes, I feel, although there was some talk that we might return the bike and exchange it for an automatic one as, apparently, they are easier to drive! Hmm, said I, non-commitedly

Noise is a constant factor with everyone, motorbikes, buses trucks and an increasing number of private cars having carte blanche to blast their klaxon-like horns constantly, mingling with the incessant noise of daily life on the streets – people crouch on tiny stools over rickety tin tables, sucking down noodle soup at all hours of the days or night while small “cafes” simply appropriate the space before a closed shop or office and set up their stools and tables there. Along with eating on the street, there are all the concomitant activities that go with it – obviously, cooking over an open charcoal fire on the pavement is perfectly normal, as are washing the dishes in a tub of greasy lather while it is perfectly

acceptable to sprawl on the pillion seat of a motorbike with your bare feet propped on the handlebars while a foot massage or pedicure is administered. Why stop there, of course? The street is a perfect place for a barber to attach a chipped mirror to the railing and set up a barber’s chair, and while you are at it, you might as well bathe the naked children on the main street as well. Need a toilet, well there is a perfectly good tree that you can hug and pee away to your heart’s delight. Feel like a nap? Just stretch out on any semi level piece of ground and snooze away.

Shopping is another new experience. Supermarkets are few and far between and the ones that do cater to western tastes – i.e. selling such delicacies as Kiwi shoe polish, Cornflakes, baked beans in tomato sauce, long-life UHT milk imported from New Zealand and Australia, pasta and P.G. tips tea bags – are few and far between as well as being outrageously expensive. Instead, Vietnamese life centers around the market – usually a maze of narrow alleyways where fruit, veg, fish, meat and live poultry are haggled over down to the last cent. Don’t feel the need to have an actual stall? Fine, just spread a torn sheet of plastic on the muddy ground and pile your veg there. Want a nice pig’s tongue or a bucket of toads, or a basin of slippery eels? No problem, just scoop them up into the ubiquitous plastic shopping bag and slaughter away in the convenience of your own home.

Nothing pressing to do today? Well then, sprawl in a plastic garden chair and drink syrupy black coffee with ice, or, for a real taste buster, load up the glass – cups are rarely used – with sweetened, condensed milk, top up with Irel like coffee and then dilute the dregs with the complimentary glass of iced jasmine tea, flicking your cigarette butts (Craven A – pronounced CARavan A) at pedestrians’ feet as they stumble past on the cracked and uneven pavements between the parked and zooming motorbikes, while fending off the legion of crippled and maimed selling lottery tickets, sunglasses, feather dusters, zippo lighters and manicure kits from a sandwich board contraption they sling over their deformed shoulders.

However, it IS and experience and I am coping quite well, I think. For a start, I have enrolled in a Vietnamese language school and while I signed up for an elementary class with other would-be aspirants, so far I am the only student and have the undivided attention of a pretty, charming, superbly fluent and patient 24 year old teacher. I signed up for 35 hours at the monstrous price of 4,000, 000 dong (yep, 4 million!) and have already completed 12 hours, most of which has been spent grappling with the tonal aspect of the language as well as learning to write using the correct tonal signals along with the assorted diacritics that the Vietnamese alphabet of 29 letters uses. A “D” not surprisingly, is not, of course, pronounced “Duh” but instead sounds a bit like a “Yuh” while letters such as Ă, Â, Ê, Ô, Đ, Ư and Ơ still retain that aura of mystique. Add the tones then on top of those letters and it becomes even more baffling as in Ầ or Ẩ or Ẫ while a simple and important word like “wine” becomes unreconisable in RƯƠỤ – notice the all important dot under the final U!

However, having said all that, I have to admit to a rather modest surprise at how fast and well I am actually learning. My class is from 10:00 – 11:30 (but then again it might just be from 10:30 – 12:00 noon) three mornings a week so after the lesson I wander around and get lost and finally, in a sweating, red-faced, sodden mess, I attempt to squeeze my bum into a plastic chair clearly made for kindergarten kids and slurp coffee – (Cà phê) while mumbling such phrases as I believe I have mastered only to later discover that I have just told the waitress that “her mother is a beautiful grave”!.

Then the wearisome search for a bus home begins. Saigon is a maze of one way streets and while this is blithely ignored by motorbikes and small utility trucks powered by oily, smoke-belching ancient motorbike-like engines, buses here do tend to follow the standard traffic direction. So, getting off the bus and carefully noting the stop – all bus stops are conveniently identified with XÊ BỨYT stencilled in faded letters on the road itself – it is all to no avail as the street apparently is a one-way street and the return bus would not just simply chug along on a parallel street but perhaps take a more tortuous route several blocks away. My several attempts at asking directions in my newly fluent Vietnamese had one gentleman hawk a gob of spit at my feet while a rather prim lady blushed and pulled her paisley-patterned surgical-type mask firmly over her face and stalked off without a word.

On the subject of surgical masks! Apparently, it is not just the Beady-eyed one’s fastidiousness and it certainly it is not just the beach that can make a lady’s skin dark. It is, rather, the mundane situation of being anywhere outdoors between dawn and dusk. Here in Saigon, of course is the added problem of “the dust” which necessitates every sinlge female between the ages of 11teen and 90 wearing a plain or haute-couture designed face mask, much like the style favoured by bank-robbing cowboys. Those particularly concerned with the “whiteness” of their features will additionally opt for the more comprehensive cover of a gorget or wimple. Along with the face mask, covering everything from below the eyes, a floppy hat is also de rigeur. Add to that, elbow length evening style gloves, similar to those worn by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s and, finally, as a finishing touch, wear fish-belly grey knee length stockings with a convenient cleft between the big and first toe, all the more suitable for slipping your foot into the ineveitable thongs / flip-flops that many ladies here seem to favour.

And then it is the numbers (or lack of them sometimes) that put the heart sideways in me – I still can’t get used to dealing in millions for relatively simple purchases. The first time I ever came to Vietnam, back in 1996, you needed a plastic shopping bag to carry the cruddy paper bank notes around. Now, a semblance of sense exists and the notes are all the new shiny plastic bank notes, originating, I think, from Australia. The largest note is a 500,000 dong note, followed by a 200,000 and then a 100,000, and then down the scale at 50,000, 20,000, 10,000, and the rather lowly paper notes of 5,000 2,000, 1,000 and finally the rather pitiful 500 dong note (approx. $0.02 Australian or Euro cents !)

Despite the above, I really came to enjoy it less than four monts later.