The Economy

Today we had a final review session for all the major topics that we've covered in Vietnamese history. Yesterday I wrote that there was remarkably little mention of the Iraq War during our class, but today we ended with a thourough discussion of the similarities as well as the many differences. It was a lively conversation and it demonstrated how Vietnamese history has shaped our class' perception of modern American policy.

The final component of the class was a paper on some aspect of Vietnamese society or history. Through our six weeks in Vietnam we were supposed to gather diverse impressions on a topic and consolidate them into an informal paper at the end of the course. My topic was the modern Vietnamese economy and the challenges it faces. It's not a formal, academic paper that cites books and articles, but a compilation of the things I've come to learn about the Vietnamese economy. In that sense, it's similar to a blog, so I've decided to post it. I apologize for its length and seriousness but I was too lazy to post anything else.

*****

In 1945, Taiwan, Korea and Malaysia were as poor as any other part of the Far East, but today they’re considered wealthy countries. By adopting market oriented policies early on, these countries became labeled the “Asian Tigers”. Vietnam, by comparison, still has a per capita nominal GDP under $1,000. Only in recent years has Vietnam begun to break out of bleak rural poverty. It is one of Vietnam’s many historical tragedies that today’s rapid growth did not begin many years ago. But Vietnam’s past is a history of lost opportunities. Today, the government is making up for lost time and works feverishly to promote economic development. Reaching First World standards of living within the next generation is the overarching goal of Vietnamese society, and many expect that transformation to take place. They should be proud of the gains that have been made in recent years but also conscious that there are vast hurdles to overcome before Vietnam can rightfully be called and Asian Tiger.

In the mid-1980s, the “social thermostat” readjusted, as Neil Jameison would put it. The country had been reunified for ten years, but the government, under the control of aging revolutionaries such as Le Duan, failed to achieve the expected socialist economic miracle. The government had boldly pushed forward with the construction of an economy based on subsidies, commune production and price-setting predicting growth of 15% each year. Not surprisingly, this didn’t come to pass—the Vietnamese remained desperately poor, indeed, hungry in many provinces. As the old revolutionary generation ceded control to a new moderate generation, change became possible and Vietnam began dismantling its socialist economy, a process that continues to this day.

As early as 1981 the government began allowing farm de-collectivization and an increase in food prices to stimulate food production, which was well below subsistence levels at the time. This was a cautious experiment with market forces and there would be many to come. In the mid-1980s, the Party abandoned the Stalinist strategy of promoting heavy industry in favor of policies that encouraged light industry and exports. The leadership decided that instead of wasting resources to build inefficient factories, Vietnam should only produce goods that it is good at making. It is simple logic, but this important acknowledgement formed the theoretical framework for the stunning growth in wealth over the past two decades.

In 1986, the government introduced a series of laws permitting foreigners to operate companies in Vietnam. This was the first in a series of measures that have broken down the barriers to foreign investment. Another major element of the market reforms was the revolution in rural production. In 1988 the state sharply reduced levies on farmers and in the early 1990s, farmers were granted long term rights to their individual plots of land.[4] No longer afraid that their land would be suddenly appropriated from them, farmers began to invest in their farms. Moreover, they were free to keep and sell more of what they produced, so, naturally, they produced more. Property rights and market forces created a miracle. While famine has long been a regular feature of Vietnamese life, wide scale food shortages are unthinkable today.

In addition to reducing restrictions on the economic activity of its own people, Vietnam has reduced its barriers to international trade. In the mid-1990s, Vietnam normalized relations with the United States and entered ASEAN and other regional market groups. Vietnam was accepted into the WTO in 2006. However there are still minor barriers to trade, such as American resistance to Vietnamese catfish imports.Despite these remaining barriers to trade, Vietnam’s bilateral trade levels have risen from $5bn in 1990 to over $90bn today, representing a twenty-fold increase in as many years.

Through this two decade reform progress, not only has hunger been eliminated, but poverty rates have been reduced to 15%, down from over 60% in 1990. The market reforms have allowed millions of Vietnamese to rise out of abject poverty and enter the middle class. Anyone familiar with Vietnam as recently as the 1990s remarks how far the country has come. Simple things like windowed storefronts were nearly unheard of in the mid-1990s. Motorbikes were rare, cars were reserved for a small elite. Bicycles were the primary mode of transportation. Today, Vietnamese roads are packed with armies of motorbikes and a healthy number of automobiles, including a few luxury models. The roads are just one of innumerable indicators of growing prosperity in Vietnam.

The market reforms provided the groundwork for Vietnam’s economic renaissance. But no country can raise itself out of agrarian poverty alone. Vietnam’s progress is largely a product of foreign markets and international investors, a few of whom I was fortunate enough to meet this summer. While over two thirds of Vietnamese people still work in agriculture, the backbone of the modern boom is industry. Vietnam is not a natural industrial country because it doesn’t have indigenous sources of raw materials, as in China, Japan or the United States. Nevertheless, manufacturers consider Vietnam a promising production center because wages are so low that they offset the cost of importing raw materials. Much of Vietnam’s growth has been made possible by the fact that it is extremely low on the international economic pecking order. Whereas many Mexican manufacturing jobs have moved to the cheaper Chinese market, many firms that once produced shoes, textiles and cheap electronics in China are now choosing to open factories in Vietnam. Perhaps one day low end manufacturing jobs in Vietnam will move to even cheaper labor markets in Africa or elsewhere.

Although millions of “Made in China” labels are being replaced by “Made in Vietnam” markings, cheap industry is only one element of Vietnam’s economic transformation. The country is working overtime to develop its IT and electronics industries. The government is pumping money into improving communications and National Assemblywoman Ton nu thi Ninh accredits the explosive rise in internet usage to these investments. When Chuck Searcy applied for an internet account in 1995, he became one of the first twenty internet users in Vietnam. Today there are millions of internet users. Internet use has surpassed Thailand and the Philippines and the prevalence of cheap internet cafes filled with young children is a real indication that Vietnam is becoming a wired country.

Vietnamese officials have displayed an impressive determination to wire their country. The trouble is that very few Communist Party cadres are experts in modern technology. Luckily, they are extremely receptive to outside advice and investment in technological development. Rahul Desai, a Tokyo-based Indian-American businessman, spoke favorably of Vietnamese progress in IT. American and Japanese investors, he recalled, worked with extremely open-minded Vietnamese officials to build a first rate stock exchange, banking network and other financial machinery. Rahul is convinced that the Vietnamese financial system has surpassed Japan’s in efficiency and technology. In this sense, Asia’s newest Tiger is leading Japan, the biggest Tiger of them all.

Only a generation ago, it was illegal for Vietnamese people to hold foreign currency. Now, Vietnam’s state-of-the-art financial system is successfully funneling billions of dollars of foreign investment into the fast growing economy. The booming stock exchange is growing rapidly as Vietnam’s state-run companies become publicly listed. Over 700 state companies are currently in the process of going public. Through these IPOs, stagnant companies are attracting the foreign capital to radically expand their operations. It has transformed Vietnamese business. TFP, an obscure Vietnamese company not long ago, is now considered “the Vietnamese Microsoft.” This summer, TFP partnered with a consortium of Japanese investors to create an investment fund in Vietnam. The fund currently has $100m but its capital could soon grow to $1bn as more foreigners pump money into investment funds. Major western banks are also entering the Vietnamese market. Not far behind a stature of Ho Chi Minh in Saigon, there’s a new CitiGroup tower. JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank and many other financial giants can now be found in Hanoi and Saigon, where they handle private equity, mergers and IPOs. They’ve even began to offer financial services to High Net-Worth individuals.

The HSBC Tower behind Saigon's Ho Chi Minh statue

Thanks to the efforts of the pragmatic government leadership, the investment climate in Vietnam is one of the most open in the region. Vietnam is able to compete against major emerging markets such as China and India for big ticket investments. After a thorough search that included all three countries, Intel committed to building a $1bn plant in Vietnam. It’s the biggest American investment in Vietnam to date, but it may soon be surpassed by investments by GE, which is in the process of committing major resources to Vietnam. Microsoft may follow suit. If the original Asian Tigers built their economies on tech exports, then the United States is building Vietnam some big claws.

The United States is by no means the most important investor in Vietnam. It ranks well behind Japan, China, Taiwan and other Asian nations, although these official tallies obscure the reality because many “Asian” companies are actually branches of American owned companies. If these branch companies, such as the Singapore-based offshoot of Coca Cola are considered American, the United States becomes the second or third biggest investor in Vietnam. The Japanese have come to Vietnam in droves and their most notable investments are in infrastructure, such as the tunnel between Da Nang and Hue. More recently, Japan has paid lip service to helping Vietnam build a modern Hanoi-Saigon highway as well as a massive technology center. The Chinese, by contrast, are known for building large, smoke-billowing industrial factories.

New construction zone in Da Nang

Another face of the economic boom is the preponderance of retail expansion. Vietnamese imports exceed exports by a modest margin and the imported consumer goods can be seen all over the country, from Johnnie Walker scotch to German cars to Nokia phones. Domestic and regional companies have made multiple brands of food and drink available to grocery shoppers, whose parents would have had to stand in ration lines to buy a bit of rice and fish oil. The vast majority of Vietnamese food and consumer goods are still sold in small “mom and pop” shops, but retail chains are rapidly appearing. Nevertheless, there’s great potential for retail consolidation in Vietnam, as well as opportunities for foreign restaurant chains to expand into Vietnam, which still, to the horror of some, does not have McDonalds.

Grand Opening of a Saigon electronics outlet

The breathtaking rate of economic expansion may be attracting excess investment. James Kim, a Korean-American investment broker runs a firm that helps Americans find investment in Vietnam, even if they have no idea what they want to do with their money. James usually finds a suitable investment opportunity, but he says that there are vast numbers of Americans who want “in” to Vietnam because they hear it’s “hot”. In my opinion, the hordes of ill-informed Western investors should make one wary of an investment bubble.

A possible investment bubble is most conspicuous in the property market. Vietnamese businessmen tend to invest in property projects because they can produce short term returns on modest levels of capital. This investment is readily visible in the high rise construction sites and building cranes seen in Hanoi and Saigon. The trouble is that they are being built in uninhabited farmland on the end of the city, in the hope that urban growth will quickly reach the area and make raise demand for housing and offices. But nobody can accurately predict how a city will grow, so these developments are highly speculative stabs-in-the-dark.

High rise construction on the ouskirts of Hanoi

Property speculation is perhaps most intense along the coast. Vietnam has beaches that hold up to any resort area in the world. I believe that China Beach will one day look like Cozumel and that Nha Trang could get as many visitors as Phuket. Rahul thinks it could do even better, claiming that Vietnam’s beaches will become an Asian St. Tropez with seven star resorts. Whichever prediction comes to pass, Vietnam’s beaches have a lot of development ahead of them. But that still shouldn’t justify the property speculation in these areas. In some costal areas, small beach condos that sold for under $200,000 are fetching $1m today. That would be a steal in California or Florida, but Vietnam is still a poor country with 2,000 miles of underdeveloped coastline. Those prices may not be sustainable in the long run.

One of many pristine, under-developed beach in Central Vietnam.

The (questionable) speculative bubble in Vietnamese investment is only one of the long term threats to continued growth in Vietnam. Low cost manufacturing and export agriculture has rapidly pulled tens of millions out of poverty. But in order for Vietnam to become a middle class nation, it needs to expand its IT, R & D, financial and business sectors.

The number one complaint of American investors in Vietnam is that the human capital of their Vietnamese employees is too low. Without competent foremen, the new Intel plant will be held back, and without English speaking, modern executives, Vietnamese companies will have difficulty competing internationally. In order to advance in “New Economy” sectors, Vietnam needs to produce high caliber computer technicians, scientists and business professionals. At the moment, the Vietnamese higher education system is woefully inadequate for the task. Although an evaluation of Vietnamese education is beyond the scope of this paper, I will suffice to say that the many Vietnamese university students who I’ve talked with have expressed frustration with the quality of educational training in Vietnam, for which they hold the government responsible. Nearly all intend to or dream of studying abroad.

Nevertheless, progress is being made in some areas. The Hanoi National University Economics Department is working with American institutions, including Princeton University, to develop a modern business school, or a close approximation thereof. This is just one example where Vietnamese university administrators are seeking a crash course in the West about how to train professionals at modern standards.

According to an informal consensus gathered from a diverse group of officials, the biggest challenge to the Vietnamese economy is to promote continued growth without causing intense inequality and all the problems associated with it. One of the first things that struck me about Hanoi was that there are no obvious slums. In most developing countries, millions of poor farmers settle in ramshackle developments outside of the industrializing cities. These slums can become seething centers of crime and social instability, neither of which the cautious Communist Party is keen on promoting. The Vietnamese government recognizes that urban slums will develop in Vietnam if the cities grow rich and the countryside stays poor. Accordingly, one of the major objectives of the government is to bring jobs and prosperity to the countryside. Through a combination of subsidies and incentives, Vietnam is working to attract factories away from the traditional industrial centers of Hanoi-Haiphong and Saigon. The goal, described by Madame Ninh, is to bring jobs to the rural workers, so that the rural workers don’t bring slums to the cities.

For this reason she justified the recent project that would baffle economists. The government worked with Total, a French oil giant, to build the Dung Quoc oil refinery. Total wanted to build the plant near Saigon, because the sources of oil are located off Vietnam’s southern coast. The government leadership, however, intervened and insisted that the refinery be built in a less developed area of Central Vietnam. This location greatly added to the transportation costs of the Vietnamese crude oil, but the government hopes the Dung Quoc refinery will bring jobs to a poor region.

Madame Ninh is optimistic about the government’s efforts to bring jobs to the countryside, but the statistics are sobering. The province of Hanoi, with 3.1m people has received over $10bn in foreign investment, or around $3,000 of investment per head. By contrast, a mere $255m has been invested in Nghe An province, which has a population equal to Hanoi. This forty-fold difference in investment levels between the two provinces is a sign that inequality is likely to grow, with harmful side effects.

Containing excess investment, improving human capital, and stemming inequality are major challenges in the way of further prosperity in Vietnam. Each will require calculated, long term policies to overcome. But Vietnam is a country that has defeated the most powerful states in history. Its recent economic progress is no less impressive than its military record. A nation of collective farms and Stalinist economics now has one of the most advanced stock exchanges in Asia. A land of periodic famine now exports food of all varieties. Compared to the achievements of its past, the challenges of the future look minor.

The "I-Word"

This course is about an American war, conceived with the best of intentions, escalated on false pretenses, fought against a headstrong people, and lost because we failed to transmit our values to another society.

If that sounds familiar, it’s for good reason—it very accurately describes the circumstances of the Iraq War. Just a generation later, we’ve become mired in a conflict that has followed the same trajectory as the Vietnam War. I can’t overstate how many times I’ve sat in class and had a “sound familiar?” moment…

Kennedy considered withdrawing aid to President Ngo Nguyen Diem but feared being labeled “soft on Communism” before the 1964 election.

Democratic senators consider opposing the war in 2003 but prefer to avoid being labeled “soft on Terror” before the 2004 election.

An American destroyer was “attacked” in the Gulf of Tonkin. Investigations later revealed that the incident was little more than a hoax.

Administration officials present damning evidence that Saddam Hussein is secretly developing WMDs. Post-invasion searches failed to turn up any such weapons.

A major American offensive swept the Plain of Reeds to clear out Viet Cong forces. The Communists were forced to flee the area. They returned the next year.

Coalition forces mount a massive strike on the insurgent stronghold of Falluja, suffering dozens of casualties. The city is subdued but the insurgents move to Anbar province and intensify hostility there.

President Johnson raised troop levels on General Westmoreland’s suggestion that increased military presence would put the Communists on the defensive.

President Bush raises troop levels because General Petraeus believes that a surge will allow us to flush out the insurgency.

American diplomats implored President Thieu to liberalize his government and implement wide ranging reforms that were supported by his people.

Secretary Rice presses President Maliki to reach a political settlement with Sunni leaders and form a coalition government with broad support.

In the wake of the My Lai massacre, the American people became disillusioned with their country’s moral character.

In the wake of the Abu Gharib scandal, the world lost faith in American moral standards.

President Nixon announced to the American people that the war is being “Vietnamized”.

Under increasing criticism over his handling of the Iraq War, President Bush declared that “as the Iraqis stand up, we’ll down.”

In an effort to siphon off the Viet Cong supply networks in Laos and Cambodia, Nixon and Kissinger plan secret campaigns in those countries.

Observing that many insurgents arrive via Syria and that a significant amount of arms are channeled through Iran, Bush administration hawks consider bombing both countries.

The parallels are endless. Yet it’s surprising how little the topic of Iraq comes up in class. We come upon a haunting similarity, skip a beat and then move on. There is little direct mention of the topic. Partly, it’s because Desaix, as an acknowledged liberal, is careful not to force conclusions upon his students. And there are some thoughtful students in the class who are uncomfortable with gratuitous criticism of the Iraq war.

I’m in the middle of the spectrum. I protested the war before it even began because I thought it was a disastrous idea. I’m like the small group of Americans who saw through the Tonkin Incident and feared sending American troops to Vietnam. Now that we’re in Iraq, however, I’m even more afraid of what would happen if we pulled out. In that sense I’m like someone who insisted that we hang on in Vietnam because the collapse of South Vietnam would all of Asia to fall to the communists.

The other students may feel that exploring parallels between Vietnam and Iraq is tacky. By comparing our noble efforts in Iraq to the worst fiasco in American history, we sound defeatist and unpatriotic. The Iraq War may be worth ending so that we can bring the troops home, but there is something callous about evoking the hopelessness and trauma of Vietnam.

Still other students, myself included, can’t help feeling that bringing up Vietnam is a cheap shot against Iraq. Certainly, there are ample parallels, but there are even more differences. The actors, motivations, circumstances, ideologies and geopolitics are significantly different, enough so to make blanket comparisons between the two wars sound naïve and ignorant. And then there are the moments, which comes every so often as we study Vietnam, where we conclude victory would have been possible, had the Americans and South Vietnamese changed their course. Maybe Iraq is just waiting to turn some corner and things will turn out ok after all. There’s a strong desire to pretend that this conflict is different, that it’s not quite like the Vietnam story. But there are no history books to tell us how Iraq ends.

And so Iraq is rarely brought up, but it lingers over the course as the “I-Word”, mocking us as we go along.

Women

Vietnam is a poor country--$800 per capita—with many elements of traditional society intact. Given all that, it was rather surprising how liberated Vietnamese women are.

In many developing countries it would be unusual to find a woman driving a vehicle. Not so in Vietnam. Women can be seen everywhere zipping around on motorbikes and I even had a female taxi driver once, something you wouldn’t find in most liberal western cities. Men invariably drive when there are multiple people on a motorbike, but there does not appear to be any popular mistrust of female driving abilities. For instance, I told my Vietnamese classmate Dzung the joke that we used at Finnegan’s quiz night…
Why couldn’t Helen Keller drive?
Because she’s a woman.
Although I explained who Helen Keller is, he didn’t get the humor.

Some of the women making the morning commute are on their way to high level jobs. During this trip we’ve had the fortune of meeting some impressive professional women. In June we heard a lecture by Ambassador Ton nu thi Ninh, the Vice Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee of the National Assembly. She spoke for an hour and a half in elegant, French-accented English, effortlessly convincing us of the good intentions of the Communist Party and skillfully dodging tough questions. More recently, we received an address by Madame Nguyen Thi Binh, a proud octogenarian who headed the Viet Cong’s delegation to the Paris Peace Talks and later served as Vietnam’s Vice President. As far as I know she’s the most distinguished Vietnamese female since the legendary Trung Sisters, Vietnamese Joan of Arc figures who expelled the Chinese in 43 A.D.

Madame Binh with Desaix

The Trung Sisters liberate Vietnam

These two women are products of the French-educated elite. But modern Vietnam is also producing impressive females. I’ve butted heads with Van, a serious, outspoken international trade student who intends to go into finance. I’ve also gotten to know Hoa, a well-liked girl with impeccable English who’s off to study at Johns Hopkins this fall. When she returns she intends to open a school and then enter the government, probably the foreign ministry. Desaix thinks she could become the foreign minister one day.

Beyond the well educated elite, Vietnamese women are proving adept entrepreneurs in the current economic boom. Pinky and Moon, two sisters who own the bar of the same name, have built a small nightlife empire that includes two bars, a restaurant and the Lighthouse Club, one of Hanoi’s largest nightclubs. They employ at least 30 people, most of them men. Their gender doesn’t hurt them in this business. Indeed, by courting European boyfriends they’ve secured reliable lines of capital.

Pinky and Moon at the Pinky Moon

Pinky and Moon are not rare exceptions—there are lots of female entrepreneurs all over the country. On our trip to Central Vietnam, two of our restaurants and one of our hotels was owned by a woman who was in the process of expanding her business.

On a lower level, female participation in business is even more prevalent. A great number of shops are run by females and over half of all street peddlers are hard working women. In the covered city markets, no less than one hundred percent of the booths are owned and run by women. In Vietnam, I’ve told dozens of women that I don’t want to buy a shirt, but I’ve never had to tell a man that.

Shopkeepers in the Hue

The presence of Vietnamese women in large, medium and small business is impressive, and it has traditional roots. According to Neil Jamieson, rural Vietnamese men did the majority of the farm work while Vietnamese women were expected to go into the village and sell extra produce and small handmade crafts. In this traditional division of labor, it was the women who became the petit bourgeoisie of rural society and they controlled the purse strings of their families.

Nevertheless, Vietnam is not a feminist paradise, even after decades of gender-neutral Communist ideology. Vicki, a Vietnamese-American girl who I talked with at the Dragonfly, was critical of the social order. I told her that I was impressed that every merchant in the indoor markets was female but she dismissed my enthusiasm. “Sure they’re all women,” she said, “but that’s because small shop keepers are considered lowly.”

It’s an important point—in Vietnam all trash collectors are women as well. Women are found in all sorts of difficult, undesirable jobs. In fact, the legal female retirement age is lower than that of men. Why, a classmate asked an official. “Because women work harder,” he answered, without a hint of humor.

A hard working woman in Hanoi

Women are not entirely liberated socially. Although they’re never required to have a male chaperone, all unmarried women have curfews. They’re shockingly rigid by American standards. Hoa, the twenty three year old future Foreign Minister, disappears from Dragonfly at 11pm, without fail. During high school, she would have been home at 10. These curfews will stay in effect until the woman marries. As 11pm approaches at the Dragonfly, Elias invariably offers to marry Hoa so that she can stay out later, but she politely declines.

Marriage is very often forced on young Vietnamese women. Tu, a stunning student at Hanoi National University, has been dating her boyfriend for eight months. Her boyfriend is extremely jealous, forcing her to stay at home until he comes to take her out. His parents have exerted intense pressure on Tu to marry their son, and Tu had tacitly accepted her fate, unable to imagine an alternative. They set a date for the wedding. Her friend Dung, who reads a book version of Sex in the City to improve his English, told her that she's not ready to make that kind of commitment, that there are other options out there. But it was the arrival of the Americans that made the difference. We showed up with our permissive attitudes toward dating and Tu had a small renaissance. With the support of her family she made the bold decision to stand up to her boyfriend and his family. The wedding has been postponed indefinitely. She goes out without his permission. Now she thinks dreams of career opportunities and studying abroad instead of impending marriage. Her liberal, middle class friends are happy that she made the transition. But how many Vietnamese women are that fortunate?

Red Tape Follow-Up

For anyone following my tense predicament with the Vietnamese visa authorities, described in "Red Tape", I'm pleased to announce that I indeed recieved my extended visa on Thursday, which made my wonderful trip to Saigon possible.

On Tuesday, I had been frantic that I wouldn't get my passport and visa back in time for the flight to Saigon and I desperately begged the administrative assistant, Mr. Vinh, to do whatever it takes to get it back in time. I was greatly relieved when Mr. Vinh brought out my passport on Thursday. It had a small sticker reading $10--the official visa extention fee that I was happy to pay. "But," Mr. Vinh added sheepishly, "there was a special 200,000 dong [$13] fee that you need to cover."

I happily forked over this modest fee, the first, and probably not the last bribe I'll have to pay in my time.

Saigon

It's a miracle that we even made it to Saigon. We had all been out at Finnigans the night before, finally winning quiz night, to our astonishment. We took the $100 prize money, thinking that we'd come into some real wealth. But they failed to inform us that quiz night winners are expected to buy pitchers for all the other teams. So we didn't really win much of anything, save the immense satisfaction of finally beating all the Wankers.

Needless to say, none of us were pleased to be woken up at 6:30, and a few of my companions seriously considered sacrificing the trip in return for six more hours of sleep. But with a little prodding, we all made it out of the Bao Khanh.

We landed in Saigon and drove through the city to the Happy Inn Hotel. Saigon's streets are wider than Hanoi's but there are almost no trees. Instead, chaotic webs of black power lines line the roads. Saigon is also more commercial. The buildings are plastered with endless advertisement for Japanese electronics, and there are far more new towers housing banks or five star hotels. Nevertheless, I didn't sense that the average person is much wealthier than their Hanoi cousins.

Pyramids of lychee berries on the sidewalk

By the way, I've decided to call the city Saigon, rather than the official Ho Chi Minh City. I found that most of the locals refer to their city as Saigon, rather than HCMC, which is a mouthful. Saigon was the scene of some of the most traumatic events in American history, and as an American, it feels appropriate to call it Saigon. Plus, Saigon just sounds cooler.

After checking in, we set out to see the sights. We at a quick lunch at Loteria, a fast food burger chain that's much more common in Saigon than in Hanoi, and then arrived at a huge traffic circle beside an indoor market. We watched Adam insist to the wily saleswomen that they in fact didn't have any shirts that would fit him and we got on our way, dodging book sellers and lightermen to reach a glimmering square with a Louis Vuitton shop and a French opera house.

Further down the avenue, we came across a statue of Ho Chi Minh tenderly holding a child, in front of an impressive municipality building that's now eclipsed by a new HSBC tower. In general, I've found that major French buildings are well maintained in Vietnam. Instead of letting the relics of colonialism crumble, the government keeps them in mint condition, although this may have something to do with France, which gave a whopping $13 million to repair the Hanoi Opera House. In Saigon, we may have seen this money in action when we came across a team of painters repainting a French building. They used long, flexible bamboo ladders to rope themselves up to the higher windows.

Tim, Adam, Me, Mark, Duane, DJ E.J. Hicks

We moved on to the Reunification Palace, the modern name for the behemoth that formerly served as the headquarters of the French and then South Vietnamese regimes. The facade was a standard, unappealing 1960s lattice grill, but the interior was strange and eerie. It's an undefined mixture between a museum and a government convention center. Sections were roped off because some conference was in session, while other wings were left open for tourists to navigate their way around vacuous, unmarked corridors.

In the basement, there were concrete command bunkers with a few sample maps and American-made communications equipment casually left around to stimulate what it would have been like in the tense war era. The upper floors were much more luxurious. Marble reception rooms were filled with stylish couches and post-modern paintings. The building was a monument to 1960s and 1970s hedonism. On the rooftop, next to the helipads, there was a wooden performance stage, which must have once been crowded with jazz bands. I could picture the place in past evenings, crawling with corrupt generals, white-gloved wives and friendly American diplomats.

On April 30, 1975, the party ended. Communist forces stormed the building, capturing the South Vietnamese leadership and ending three decades of war. From the rooftop, I had a nice view of the gate which Communist tanks knocked down as they overran the compound. Tank 390, the first through the gate, was on display not far from the momentous scene.

That evening we took a cab out to a French restaurant, but were dismayed to find that we couldn't have eaten there without a reservation. That mistake cost us almost two hours and a lot of angst. We drove to another restaurant listed in the guidebook, but it simply didn't exist. Frustrated, we walked around a traffic circle that was in the middle of a bustling set of cafes. The cafes were huge, lively places, many seating at least 500 people, all Vietnamese. We went around to each and asked to look at the menus, but astonishingly, they didn't sell food. We looked at the tables, and only saw drinks. It was scandalous. What type of mega-cafe doesn't serve food?! In despair, we ordered a taxi to the one place in Saigon we knew for sure would have food--an Italian restaurant that we'd walked by earlier when we were near the Opera House.

By the time we were done it was almost 11 and we decided to go to Vietnam's most famous nightclub. We pulled up to Apocalypse Now and were eyed by several unfriendly security guards. Inside, people were sitting at densely packed tables sipping cocktails. There were groups of Chinese businessmen, Vietnamese socialites and solitary Westerners, but not a single Western female. Swimming around these islands of men, were hundreds of done-up Vietnamese women. It was immediately clear that this place was a massive front for prostitution. We left before too long and went to bed early.

The next morning we were taken to a tourist bus rendezvous and forced to wait for our bus to the Cu Chi Tunnels. As we stood on the sidewalk, we noticed a guy in a nearby bar dancing wildly with two Vietnamese girls. It was almost nine in the morning, and this guy was rounding out his evening. I started taking pictures and the guy came out to talk to us, or, in his mind, party with us. He posed with Tim for a while and then introduced himself as Keith, whipping out a business card for a sports bar...

Kieth Halterman; Director; The Office and Boardroom

He told us to come to The Office that evening and hang out with him. Since his night was obviously much more interesting than ours had been, we considered it. He took off with his companions. An attractive woman started peeling off Kieth's friend's shirt in the middle of the street. We later found out that she was a transvestite.

After a bumpy van ride into the countryside, we arrived at the Cu Chi Tunnels complex and were led by an old, jovial guide who had fought in the South Vietnamese Army. He showed us around the grounds, the site of an elaborate defense network that defied American and South Vietnamese forces for years. At varying points along the trail, there were exhibits to show visitors the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the Viet Cong. One hut displayed a dozen types of ferocious booby traps. Another showed Viet Cong manequin models making land mines out of unexploded American bombs.

Other exhibits were more hands on. In the middle of a clearing, there was a shoebox sized hole in the ground representing the entrance to one of the many underground tunnels. It was barely big enough for me to squeeze in. Further on, there was an actual stretch of tunnel, and with great difficulty we were able to crawl through the narrow, pitch black passageways. I was happy to get out after five minutes and did not envy the soldiers who spent weeks in there as bombs shook the ground above them.

As we made our way through the displays, the distant pop of automatic weapons grew louder until we reached a break stop, where the violent blasts were strong enough to make me jump. We'd reached the firing range, where tourists pay money to shoot period weapons. At $1.30 per bullet, I was not about to try it out, but several of us got to shoot automatic machine guns, AK-47's and M16's. I was incredibly struck with how loud the guns were. I've fired high caliber rifles, shotguns and pistols, but always with earmuffs. And I've shot an AK-47 without earmuffs, but the bullets were very small, so it wasn't too loud. These guns all used very large cartridges and the blasts were so violent that I could feel the destruction from a few feet away. Each time I forgot to cover my ears, I regretted it. I can't imagine what it would be like to be on a modern battlefield with hundreds of these fearsome things go off at once, especially if many were pointed at me.

Having acquired a more intimate sense of what the Vietnam War might have been like, we went back to Saigon and I decided to take a solitary walk down to the river. The walk to the river took me through a casual residential neighborhood with wide streets. I stopped at an Internet cafe and paid six cents for the privilege. Later, I spotted a young girl reclining in front of a shop, writing a text message.

After a few blocks, I reached the edge of the minor river that is the traditional southern border of Saigon. It was less than beautiful, because the entire river district was one long, construction sight. On the other side, there were tiny restaurants and shops among piles of trash and old produce. The entire area smelt like old fish.

Understandably, the neighborhood was not a tourist destination, so I drew some attention. One group of old men invited me to take a sip from their red bucket. It was a cold mix of ice blocks, soda water and something else. I passed by a group of women practicing some sort of traditional medicine and they were happy to chat with me. One women sat with small glass cups stuck on her back so that she looked like like the dressing mirror in an actor's studio. The woman behind her yanked off the glasses one by one, leaving purple welts, and then warmed the cups with a small torch before sticking them back the other's back. The patient told me that she was feeling sick and that this would help. I don't see how.

I rounded the bend where the small river empties into the larger river which forms Saigon's eastern waterfront. The area became a dreary business district with few pedestrians. Restored French hotels were sandwiched between hideous Communist buildings, which seemed to be all but empty.


I had expected the Saigon waterfront to resemble Shanghai's Bund, a lively riverside commercial district built up by Europeans and Americans in the beginning of the century. But hardly anyone walked around the pathetic park that buttressed the brown water from the main road. The reason, undoubtedly, was that the opposite shore was not very appealing, consisting mostly of old rusted factories and bilboards.

I made my way back to the hotel through the busier heart of the city. Unlike the riverfront, it was crawling with tourists and busy shops. At one corner, security guards waved red wands to attract shoppers into a new electronics store. Special arrangement were made for the hundreds of motorbikes that showed up to the opening sale.

This time, we were prepared for dinner and made reservations at a small outdoor French restaurant, which was delicious. Beside us, a French women chatted with an old Vietnamese man in rapid French.

We decided to go find Keith at The Office, which turned out to be large and new-looking. We found Keith upstairs, fooling around with some of the bar girls. Amazingly, he remembered us and was happy to hang out. Over the course of about an hour he revealed that he was actually a high functioning person. Or was. He had had an extremely successful business career in New Zealand, owning magazines and other business. Three years ago, in what must have been a major mid-life crisis, he came to Saigon and opened three bars, of which The Office is one. He still lives in New Zealand with his wife of 25 years but spends a good deal of time in his new kingdom in Saigon. That night he was wearing a newsprint-motif shirt that was at least four sizes to small for him. He went around the whole night, dancing in place like someone who missed the glory days at the Whiskey-a-Gogo. Keith had been rolling Ecstasy nonstop for three days.

On Keith's suggestion, we all went to Lush, an awesome one-room club in the middle of the city. Huge murals of graphic art decorated the tall walks and they played international techno. We met a group of girls visiting from Toulouse, and hung out with them for much of the night. Unfortunately, their respective English abilities were inversely proportionate to their attractiveness.

We decided to leave Lush at about two and Keith came out after us babbling about some other place that didn't sound appealing. He had a fit when we decided not to go with him and he started off on foot toward the morning, moving in bizarre gyrations that only made sense to him. We ended the night at Q, a bar/club where it was difficult to hear the French girls jabber on about their travels.

The next early afternoon we went to the War Remnants Museum, which began with an amazing outdoor display of tanks, aircraft and various other heavy American weapons. Adam complained that Americans should be allowed to bring them back to the United States. Tim stared at the massive mobile Howitzer that had a range of 20 miles and wondered aloud, "How did we not win the war."

Inside, there were exhibits of gruesome atrocities commited by American troops. It was truly sickening what we, as the supposed guardian of freedom, did in an effort to "free" Vietnam. Nevertheless, I was disappointed, but not surprised by the narrow scope of the museum. There was no attention paid to the Viet Cong attrocities and mistakes. Nor was there any indication that the Americans were even targetting the Viet Cong in their horrendous bombings and security sweeps. One would have thought, leaving the exhibit, that the Americans came to Vietnam simply to exterminate the Vietnamese people.

But before we left, I noticed that we'd missed part of a part of the museum housed in two side buildings. I went in and found the walls covered with famous photos of American troops holed up in Khe Sanh or pinned down in villages. They effectively conveyed the pain of the American presence in Vietnam, the fact that both sides had suffered immensely.

It was as if a Holocaust museum had a devoted a wing to the plight of ordinary Nazis in the Second World War. It impressed me. All countries build museums dedicated to various national tragedies. But how many of these museums comment on the suffering of the enemies who brought about the terror? Well, I suppose if I've learned anything this summer it's that the Vietnamese are no ordinary people.

Teaching English

Since my last post about teaching English, I’ve become more enthusiastic about it. After the first session, I was not very into it because the kids I was teaching were just six or seven years old and the “lessons” were little more than pointing to pictures and asking them to yell out random words like, “Aaalligator!!!” or Eeeegloooo!!!” It was a tolerable two-hour ritual but as soon as I deviated from the simple lesson plan, they were completely lost.

First year students

Lately, though, I’ve been teaching nine and ten year old kids who know much more. I demonstrate the difference between “usually” and “sometimes”, instead of having to teach them the colors. The older kids give me something to work with and I take them through exercises, introducing new words and grammatical twists that stretch their English abilities.

From the beginning, I’ve always felt that as native-English speaker, it’s more worth-while for me to work with older kids who know some English already. The very young kids just go through simple memorization games and the Vietnamese teachers do a fine job of extending their short attention spans. When I work with these young kids, I’m an interesting novelty, but at the end of the class, they haven’t learned anything that they wouldn’t have picked up from their Vietnamese teacher.

With the older kids, I can truly make a difference because the Vietnamese teachers usually speak very basic English. It was often very difficult for me to ask them what lessons I should be doing. These teachers have no problem teaching their students what an alligator is, but they’re shaky on the finer points of English grammar. They know very few colloquial phrases.

The other American students don’t mind teaching the younger kids because they disagree with me that older kids benefit more. They point out that younger kids generally learn languages quickly and that it’s important to learn proper pronunciation early. These are valid points, but I still disagree.

Maybe my view is colored by my own experience learning Spanish. I had five years of Spanish lessons in elementary school, all taught by fluent Spanish-speakers. Yet by the time I was in sixth grade, I still didn’t know much beyond the colors and numbers. But when I got to seventh grade, the teacher began to systematically teach grammar and tenses. There were weekly vocabulary tests. By the end of middle school, I knew what I was doing and was prepared to become fluent by the end of high school. I wouldn’t have been any worse off if I’d started Spanish in seventh grade.

Because of this, I don’t put much stock in learning a language very early to “get ahead”. Young minds are good at internalizing new words, but they are not able to think abstractly or digest systematic lessons. For the same reason that we don’t teach algebra to seven-year-olds, we can’t teach them the future perfect tense.

It’s true that pronunciation is a major problem between Vietnamese and English. The small amount of Vietnamese that I know is almost entirely incomprehensible because the sounds are so alien. Likewise, the Vietnamese students have terrible pronunciation issues. Today I thought a group of students wanted to be called the “Sock” team, and I wrote down “Team Sock” on their side of the board. They laughed hysterically because they had actually tried to say “Shark” team. The teachers are usually unable to help them because their own accents are poor.

I think a native speaker can help older students more with pronunciation. Older children can rationalize. I can explain that “scissors” are pronounced “sizzers” because the “sc” in English is normally pronounced as an “s”. What little logic there is in the English language can be explained, and the older students can apply one example to many situations.

In the end, the instruction is only going to be valuable if the students are motivated. Millions of American students learn Spanish and other languages from competent teachers, but only a small minority attains proficiency, because Americans have little incentive to learn languages that they’ll hardly ever use. Vietnamese students, on the other hand, quickly realize that English is a major key to prosperity, as well as a window into the outside world. Like all children, they lose focus from time to time in class, but they’re not entirely checked out, like so many American students in Spanish classes.

I strongly believe that most of the kids in my classes will one day speak English, and I’ve enjoyed helping them get there—especially when they’re ready.

Red Tape

Getting a visa to Vietnam was like pulling teeth. Susan Bindig, on of the trip organizers, had to jump through all sorts of hoops to file fifteen visas at the New York Consulate. Through several months in the spring, there were endless rounds of Fed Ex-ing, revising, and redundant forms and fees before the visas finally arrived.

When I picked my visa up from her office in May, I noticed that it expired on July 15, half way through our trip. I asked if we would need to get an extension during the trip, and she said no. I figured that something was in the works and that we’d be given an additional visa in July. As July 15 approached, I started to wonder about the situation and brought it up with Desaix. It turned out that July 15 was a typo—everyone else’s expires on September 15.

As angry as I was that after months of wrangling with the consulate, they’d botched my visa, something had to be done about it. I’d prefer not to travel illegally in Communist Vietnam. And as much as I’m enjoying Vietnam, I’d like to be able to leave when the time comes.

So on Monday, Desaix and I took a cab to a plush government agency where Desaix had been told I could get a visa extension. Before we’d even passed through the gate, however, an official told us to go to another agency. The second agency was at the end of a long alleyway and was full of Vietnamese people, most of whom seemed to be there to update their national ID cards. They sat in plastic chairs waiting for their number to be called by white-shirted officials who were in no particular hurry. It was the Vietnamese DMV.

Desaix talked to a woman behind a glass window and after a bit of bureaucratic wrangling, she declared that the university authorities could take care of my visa. I was elated, thinking I’d go into a friendly university administrator’s office, get a simple stamp, and once again be a legal visitor to Vietnam.

The next morning I gave the passport to Mr. Vinh, who organizes the logistics of the course. He returned an hour later with a handful of complicated forms which I signed and then he disappeared again. As we were leaving class, I asked him when I’d get it back, expecting to have it by the next day. To my horror, he casually estimated that it would take a week. That’s too bad, I thought, it means that I’ll have to manage with my remaining cash, since I won’t be able to change any more travelers checks.

A WEEK!! Wait a minute! I’m flying to Ho Chi Minh City in three days! How am I supposed to get on an airplane without my passport!?! It suddenly dawned on me that this was a disaster. I need the passport back immediately or I need them to expedite the visa extention.

Desaix helped me out again by calling some university staff and expressing my predicament. He learned that I couldn’t get my passport back because it was already taken to the authorities and now that they knew that the visa is expired, they wouldn’t release it. So there was no choice but to go through the visa process. The challenge was to cut a week down to two days.

I thought of myself spending my last weekend lying in my hotel room and I got desperate. I frantically stammered, “Tell them I’m willing to pay any “fees” that they need. I’ll pay whatever it takes. WHATEVER it takes.”

People in the West constantly criticize people in the developing world for being corrupt, for giving and taking bribes. I’ve personally asked Vietnamese officials tough questions about corruption in their country. But here I was, in a desperate situation, and my immediate reaction was to throw money at the bureaucracy to make it go away.

Desaix told them to “feel free to pay any expediting fees that may be necessary” and by the late afternoon, we heard welcome news—the passport and renewed visa will be in my hands by Thursday, before my flight to Ho Chi Minh City. I still have no idea if some sort of bribe did the trick or if I was just lucky, but I wouldn’t be surprised if something shady went down.

Since I last wrote about corruption in “Politics”, my assessment of government corruption has changed. I had written that corruption was substantial but that the government was taking important steps to combat it. I’m now convinced that corruption is extremely widespread and that anti-corruption campaigns are mostly for show.

Part of this reassessment emerged through a briefing by an official at the U.S. Embassy, who painted a sobering picture of corruption in Vietnam. Corruption, he claimed, is present at every level of government and is likely to remain a formidable challenge for a long time because the system is self-perpetuating. Like most bureaucracies, the Communist government favors passiveness over initiative. Officials who maintain the status quo will slowly rise in the administration. Those who rock the boat are inevitably purged.

The Embassy official cited a recent example to illustrate this. For years, parents have been bribing exam authorities to boost their children’s test scores. But recently, a brave official stood up and publicly exposed the well known exam corruption. The Party was embarrassed but pretended that it was pleased by the official, who was promptly promoted. Many observers saw this as a sign that the government was serious about fighting corruption. But when the official tried to run for the National Assembly, the Communist Party vetted him and prohibited his candidacy. There was no room for an upstart whistle blower in the National Assembly.

Corruption is firmly engrained in Vietnamese government because of its scale. Because it is prevalent at all levels of government, everyone is complicit and has a stake in minimizing reform. The junior official won’t denounce a senior official for accepting a car from Chinese construction firm because the senior official knows all about the junior official’s special “expediting fees” at the immigration agency.

VIETNAM VO DICH!!

In the afternoon, a number of us visited the American Embassy, dressing up a bit and passing through fortress security to chat with Deputy Chief of Mission Aloisi.

The DCM gave some fresh insight on the situation in Vietnam and his profession. “Unlike so many people,” he remarked, “diplomats tend to see things in shades of grey rather than black and white. For instance, if your sole interest is human rights, then you probably consider Vietnam one of the worst places on earth. But if you’re an average Vietnamese person, you’re probably pleased with the vast improvement in personal freedom throughout the last ten or twenty years. An anti-abortion zealot may come to a country and make reproductive health their sole policy priority, while an industrial lobby doesn’t care much about what’s going on in the country so long as they’re buying our Boeings. We diplomats have to see things from all sides.”

The Marine sergeant returned our passports through a slit in a reinforced glass compartment and we left the embassy, which is guarded by well armed Vietnamese soldiers and blocked by two brown shipping containers. A few in the group had tickets to the Asian Cup match between Vietnam and Japan, and Mark, Zach and I got the idea to go over to My Dan stadium to try our luck at the box office.

As soon as the taxi dropped us off in the middle of a throng of excited Vietnamese fans streaming toward the brand new stadium, we realized that the box office wouldn’t be necessary because every other guy on the sidewalk was scalping tickets. We managed to get in for $9 by driving a tough bargain. The scalper shook our hands, smiled and told us to enjoy the game and to make sure to root for Vietnam.

We rushed past the gates, through a furiously beeping metal detector and into the roaring stadium. Just before we reached the seats, the crowd erupted. Vietnam was up 1-0 in the 8th minute.

It was an exciting game, although things went downhill for the Vietnamese. Japan is a World Cup team and clearly outplayed the red players. In the 30th minute, a Japanese forward headed in a beautiful cross and a few minutes later the Japanese kicked a free-kick into the top corner. In the second half they sunk two more goals.

From my experience with foreign soccer matches, I would have expected the crowd to become bitter and violent. But the Vietnamese were different. Even though this was a much anticipated, important game, there was little negativity. The crowd didn’t whistle or curse the referee when things didn’t go their way—even when the referee overlooked the tripping of a Vietnamese forward in the penalty box, the crowd let it go. They cheered wildly when Vietnam made a big play, but sat down in quiet acceptance when the Japanese scored. Rowdy guys tossed bags of water but it was done in jest, not bitterness, and everyone laughed when it happened, especially when it landed near one of the stern army soldiers who stood waiting for a riot that would never come. The crowd was mellow and happy, which I think matches the tempo of the country. A massive portrait of Ho Chi Minh watched over the game.

In general, the crowd expressed their support of their soccer team by chanting, “Viet Nam Clap Clap Clap!”, the equivalent of screaming “U! S! A!” at a hockey match. Occasionally, a section sang “Ole Ole”. In the second half, a massive flag was unfurled over the crowd and it was slowly passed around the entire stadium, engulfing our section for an exciting moment.

The game wound down and defeat became certain, but just as the crowd seemed ready to take off and go home, a fan would stand up and rally a cheer. A few times, the whole stadium rose up spontaneously, as if to tell the players, “You may not be doing well this game, but you’re our team and we’re proud of you.”

We streamed out of the stadium and took a taxi back to the Bao Khanh. After dinner, I was about to go into the hotel but I heard a faint buzz in the direction of the lake and decided to check it out.

It was a wild victory procession. Although Vietnam had lost badly against Japan, the United Arab Emirates had beaten Qatar, which allowed Vietnam to advance to the next round with just one win and one tie. Hoan Kiem Lake was a crimson red ring of frenzied celebration, as motor bikers pored in from all over the city to circle the lake and proclaim their love for Vietnam. Hundreds of bikers swung red and yellow flags, children piled on the roofs of cars and makeshift bands played from the balconies. People were hysterical, bringing traffic to a standstill as they stopped to dance in the street. I doubt this type of thing happens after elections.




For my part, I took lots of pictures and then joined the fray. I was still wearing my red headband from the game and as a rare foreigner, I was a convenient outlet of patriotic jubilation. Two youths enticed me to hop on the back of their motorbike, which was inching forward through the thick cloud of bikes and flags. I hopped off soon afterward when the speed picked up and stood on the sidewalk trying to rile people up. I probably won’t ever have an easier time inspiring people. All I had to do was extend my hand and every biker would cheer and slap it. The stream of bikers would chant “Viet Nam!” and I’d cause a sensation by yelling “Vo Dich”, which I’d learned meant “Victory!”

I stood among the frenzy for about half an hour, sharing a good victory with a good people.

Water Puppets

The last touristy thing I’d had left to do in Hanoi was to go to a water puppet show. The theatre is nearby, across the Hoan Kiem Lake and as we walked up to the box office, the street was packed with tourists trying to get tickets, standing around in the bright sun.

The theatre ended up being much bigger than I’d envisioned—about the size of an American movie theatre rather than a small salon. The stage was a green pond backed by an elaborate temple structure. On the left there was a platform for the traditional orchestra to play various scores.

The mostly foreign audience settled to a low hush as the puppet show was introduced in Vietnamese, English and French. The art of water puppetry, we were told, has been traced as far back to the 12th Century Hanoi court and is one of Vietnam’s “most precious traditional art forms”.

The musicians took the upper stage and began playing a lengthy piece. An older woman plucked away at a one stringed instrument that vibrated shrill psycadelic frequencies. Traditionally, only men played this instrument and unmarried women were forbidden to listen to it because it was assumed that they would be overcome by the beauty of the tunes and fall in love with the players. The other instruments aren’t known for their seductive powers, but they sounded fine to me. There was a long, narrow guitar instrument that was manipulated with flighty hand movements. The orchestra also abounded with various harps, clicking sticks and percussion instruments, to polish off the very busy, exotic sound. Two young women sang on top of the orchestra, with stammering nasal voices, which completed the traditional music.

After the first musical scores, wooden puppets popped out of a green mat screen and began to dance robotically around the water. There was no real plot since the only objective was to entertain nobles, or in this case, European tourists. The crowd chuckled at the petty antics of the human and animal puppets. A crowd of young children would have laughed uproariously.

The scenes had names like On a Buffalo with a Flute or Unicorns Play with a Ball, each more visually spectacular than the last. For a medieval art form, it was technically elaborate. Dragons spewed water and smoke and children hoped onto each others shoulders. In one scene, the king returned a sacred sword to a mystical giant turtle after defeating the Mongols in a famous battle.

After the Dance with the Four Holy Animals, the puppeteers emerged from behind the green screen and the audience packed into the lobby. I was shocked to find that the city had been caught in an thunderous rainstorm. The rain came down in thick pellets, covering the roads in inches of rain. An eight foot dive into a cab got me decently wet and the drive to the restaurant was like a scene from Jurassic Park.

We found the Highway 4 restaurant and climbed up a few stories of slippery stairs to get to the roof level tables. The rain pounded the tarp roof and the sky flickered with frantic heat lightning. The seating was on ground cushions and the six of us squeezed into the cramped spaces as the waiters brought elaborate menus.


Highway 4’s claim to fame is its exotic selection of traditional Vietnamese spirits. The drinks menu began with a few dozen straightforward Vietnamese brandies—apricot, mushroom, rice, etc, but the last few pages got interesting. For about 50 cents, the menu offered samples of liquor distilled from silkworms. Or geckos and starfish. Or black bees. I took the dive and ordered those three with my meal.

Oddly, the three shots tasted more less how you’d expect them to. The gecko shot was tangy and the silkworm had a bitter, musty taste that lingered. The bee liquor had a very obvious hint of honey and was the only one that was objectively enjoyable.

The food was no less wondrous and most of us tried to get something relatively unusual, although none of us took full advantage of the restaurant’s cornucopia of Asian delicacies. Mark ordered huge fried frog legs, which everyone enjoyed and Clelia received a delicious beef dish served in a flaming package of tin foil. Emily tried out the grey water buffalo meat and Susan enjoyed stuffed squid. Elias and I both felt the urge to eat crocodile, which turned out to be very tasty as well.

Vietnam has to be the only place where it's possible to eat or drink almost ten animals in one meal.

Clockwise from lower left: Crocodile, frog legs, strange assorted liquors, stuffed squid, water buffalo, beef