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September 28, 2008
Back to Cali
I am sitting on a Singapore Airlines flight over the pacific, thankful that this enlightened air carrier has the foresight to include a power outlet on the arm rest of each of its seats...The origin of my flight? San Diego - I made the trip from Vietnam back to California for my best friend's wedding earlier this week.
Here are some thoughts on my the whirlwind three-day trip:
The air in California is too clean - no motobikes and diesel trucks.
As soon as I walked out of the terminal, I felt that I had never left, and that my life in Vietnam was a dream.
In cosmopolitan Saigon, I am just another expat there to do business. In California, telling people that I live in Vietnam on a program called Princeton in Asia seems to interest (and baffle) people. Everyone wants to know about life in the mysterious, far away country.
I am fortunate to have supportive friends and family, and seeing them is what I miss the most about living abroad. 
Posted by mt_mrobinson at 11:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 22, 2008
Visiting "Nam" at Cu Chi
Crawling in the same tunnels that the Viet Cong used to fight the American and South Vietnamese forces was a sobering experience. The cramped space, stale air, and darkness was difficult to handle for the ten minutes that my friend Kevin and I spent navigating a 70 meter stretch of the underground city. During the war, soldiers and citizens alike spent years actually living here...
Below ground, I was able to imagine some of the hardship that supporters of the North faced during the war. Above ground, I entertained the nightmare of an American soldier in "Nam." As our tour guide smugly noted, GIs faced ambushes from VC soldiers popping out of holes in the ground, land mines powerful enough to stop tanks, and concealed traps where metal or bamboo spikes waited to pierce flesh. Patrolling the jungle must have been terrifying, which helps to explain the addiction and post traumatic stress that many veterans still suffer from. Wow...My life is easy.
Posted by mt_mrobinson at 11:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 21, 2008
The Colonel Has Arrived...
With his cadre of internationally trained managers and best practices in restaurant supply chain management from farm to plate, the Colonel will be a formidable opponent for the independently owned streetside Pho noodle cafes...
Seeing the familiar KFC branded facade shocked me as I drove to work on Monday morning. While its new location is at the end of the street where I live, and the construction site had been shrouded by a plastic tarp. My first reaction was disappointment and anger. Whether it is true or not, feeling like I live in an "authentic" Vietnamese neighborhood is a source of satisfaction for me. I resented the Colonel for bringing American food to my hood and its people.
However, I think that sentiment is unfair to the Colonel and to the people of my neighborhood. He is coming to Saigon for the same reason that I am - opportunity. I will continue to eat dinner at the noodle shop next door, but the locals should be free to enjoy some Fried chicken and mashed potatoes if they want to...
So far, KFC an Pizza Hut are is the only American fast food outlets I know of in Saigon. A quick Google search revealed that KFC aims to "increase our number of restaurants to 45 at the end of this year and 100 by 2010." Surprisingly, Ronald McDonald and the Starbucks Mermaid have not made it to Vietnam. The Korean fast food restaurant "Lotteria" seems to have the hamburger marked cornered, and local Vietnamese coffee shops including Highlands will be tough to compete against.
I think that the Colonel is here to stay, but so is "Quan An 17," the unbranded restaurant next door that serves tasty plates of barbequed pork, steamed veggies, and rice for about $1 dollar. I know where I am eating lunch tomorrow.
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September 13, 2008
Gone Fishing
Yesterday morning, I got an invitation that I had to accept - going fishing with Minh, my landlord, and his brother in law, Tien. In order to go, I had to cancel my Vietnamese lesson with Ha. However, I figured that she would approve because I would be speaking Vietnamese with Minh and Tien. I too rarely put myself in situations where communicating in English is not really an option...
I have never been on a proper fishing trip in the States, but I suspect that the Vietnamese version is quite similar. We spent the day sitting in a palm thatched bungalow in those little plastic chairs that are ubiquitous in Vietnam and remind Americans of elementary school. Instead of Budweiser, we drank sticky sweet wine distilled from bananas, and our grilled fish was served with chili infused soy sauce instead of tartar sauce.
The eldest of our group, Minh did all of the fishing. Here he is holding the catch that we ate for dinner.
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September 7, 2008
Laissez Faire Communism?
I can't figure out what to call Vietnam's economic system. It is certainly not communism in the sense of the equal sharing of wealth. In downtown Saigon, wealthy Vietnamese drive new Mercedes-Benz S550s and shop at the Louis Vuitton store on posh Dong Khoi street. At the same time, people in the countryside inhabit tin shacks and live a relatively simple life.
The juxtaposition of "Uncle Ho" and an ad for a company that serves the booming Vietnamese real estate industry symbolizes the coexistence of a communist political ideology and a capitalist economic reality...
Posted by mt_mrobinson at 10:12 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Vietnam's Favorite...Chili Sauce?
It is interesting to see how multinational companies try to capture the Vietnamese market. It seems like the successful ones manage to adapt their products to local tastes.
Lipton has done a good job at that - every cafe in town sells "Tra Lipton Da." The concoction is iced Lipton Tea with lemon juice and, like pretty much every cold drink here, heaps of sugar.
Heinz has taken a similar approach - using its recognizable brand name and bottle to sell chili sauce...
On another note, I got busted by the manager of Highlands Coffee for taking this photo, but it was worth it.
Posted by mt_mrobinson at 9:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack