On the Naming of Cities

Saigon. Ho Chi Minh City. Saigon. Without intending to, I kept reverting to the pre-1975 name for Vietnam's largest city. By the end of the week, I figured to heck with it, gave in, and just called it Saigon.

In the last few years renaming cities has become quite the trend -particularly in Asia. India has been changing the names of it’s cities faster than my teenage daughter cycles through outfits on a Sunday morning before church. Bombay is now Mumbai. Calcutta is now Kolkata. Madras is Chennai.

On one hand, I get that people and people groups should be able to control the terms by which they are referred. If they want to be servers instead of waiters, it seems a little silly to me, but I can roll with that. Flight attendants, not stewardess. Got it.

But on the other hand, historically we haven’t insisted that people refer to places using the local language. No English speaker refers to it as Deutschland. It’s Germany. No one in English spells and pronounces it Nippon. It’s Japan. Poland, not Polska -at least in English. And everybody seems to be okay with that.

So please forgive me while I continue to refer to your country as Ivory Coast, not Côte d'Ivoire. I mean you no slight, it’s just that I don’t speak French and when I try to affect a French accent I sound more ridiculous than Steve Martin playing Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther remakes.

Nobody seems to get their undies in a bunch when Croatians refer to it as Sjedinjene Američke Države. Or Italians call it Stati Uniti d'America. Or the Chinese Meilijian Hezhongguo.

I am sure that Beijing is closer to the way it’s pronounced in Mandarin, but I don’t speak Mandarin. So would it be outrageous if I called it by the name by which it was known to English speakers for almost two centuries: Peking?

But changing Saigon to Ho Chi Minh City Minh was not simply an attempt to change the way outsiders spell and pronounce the name of their city. That change was overtly political. More on par with changing St. Petersburg to Leningrad for ideological reasons. And we see how well that change stuck. After several decades as an attempted tribute to one of the twentieth centuries more ruthless ideologues, the people of Russia decided that they preferred the much more traditional, longstanding name. So back to St. Petersburg it is.

So when I refer to it as Saigon, don’t think of me as several years behind the curve; think of me as several decades ahead of schedule.

Besides that wildly successful musical of a few years ago just wouldn’t have the same ring to it if it was known as Miss Ho Chi Minh City.

Crossing the Street in Saigon

You're better off just not looking.

Seriously.

In Saigon, there are 99 motorbikes/ scooters for every car. Most intersections do not have traffic lights. It’s every man, women, and child for him or herself. But somehow it works. Because the immense amount of traffic is made up of the relatively more nimble motorcycles, traffic has a much more organic, shape-shifting feel to it.

If you stand on the corner and wait for an opening in traffic, you might be there for a long time. Instead, you should just go ahead and step off the curb in faith and steadily start walking to the other side of the street. Trust me, the motorcycles would really rather not hit you. It puts a real crimp in their day. They will adjust to accommodate you. As long as your actions are predictable. Once you start crossing, don’t stop. And absolutely under no circumstances should you back up. As long as you keep walking at a steady pace, you’ll be fine.

Keep your eyes on the far curb; it’s better if you don’t look at the motorcycles coming at you. If you’re looking at the drivers then they’re trying to guess what you’re thinking. They’re the experts here.

It’s scary having dozens and dozens of motorbikes rushing at you and whizzing past you, but they will avoid you.

You’ll be fine. Just take a deep breath and go.

Saying a little prayer before you step off the curb isn’t a bad idea either.

Jack

Note: surprisingly, this whole system actually works pretty well. But that’s not to say there aren’t accidents like this one. Happily, moments after I managed to snap this picture, both riders got up and rode off.

Get on the Bus

I must confess, I've been harboring a bad attitude.

When it comes to travel, I have had a bug in my bonnet about those group tours where a guide takes you and forty other tourists around on a coach bus to see all the sights of Rome or Dusseldorf at a breakneck speed. The guide invariably wears a windbraker with the company logo on it, waves a pennant on a stick, and carries a megaphone.

No thank you. Not for me. I'd rather be seen on the subway during rush hour with no pants on.

Like I said, I have been harboring a bad attitude.

But then I went to Vietnam for ten days.

Before school let out, I talked to several of my colleagues. They each gave me several great suggestions, but they all agreed on two things: sign up for a two-day trek into the mountains near Sapa and do an overnight trip on a tour boat in Halong Bay.

This was supposed to be a twentieth anniversary trip for my wife and me, but with Julie back in The States tending to family business, that wasn't happening. With less than a three weeks notice, my kid brother Nate stepped up to the plate. There was going to be a whole lot less cuddling, but a whole lot more backpacking.

Nate and I decided to do Vietnam on the cheap. We stayed in various backpacker hotels which cost us anywhere from six to ten dollars per person per night. It was at one of these backbacker hotels that we signed up for both of our side tours.

There were no retirees with their overpriced cameras, but there was a shuttle bus and a guide. No megaphone, thank Heaven.

As I climbed onto the bus and surveyed our fellow passengers, I thought to myself "What losers. Don't they have any better way to explore Vietnam than to take a cookie-cuttie tour?"

But I could not have been more wrong.

At the end of our ten-day trip, Nate and I agreed that these two tours were the highlight of our trip. First, we got to experience some amazing landscapes and encounter some indigenous cultures that we never would have been able to experience on our own.

Second, our fellow travelers -rather than being the stodgy, risk-adverse people that I had imagined them to be- were all very cool. The were mostly backpackers and disproportionately young people in their twenties. We met three American women who just finished their undergrad, a couple from Estonia, and a family of four from Denmark. Getting to know them was a highlight of the trip. Even though each of these side trips lasted less than 48 hours, when it came time to part ways I felt like a kid at the end of summer camp saying goodbye to his newest bestest friends.

I've had to swallow my pride and take back every bad word I have ever uttered about group tours. I am afraid that this means that one day in the not-so-distant future, I will be mounting an airconditioned coach bus with a bunch of the other retirees from the assisted living compound and heading to Branson Missouri to see Engelbert Humperdinck live in concert.

But when I do, I'll be packing my denture cream, Metamucil, and Reader's Digest in a backpack. Preferable an old beat up one with some dirt on it.

On the plane ride back to Hong Kong, Nate and I figured out that we'd met and had extended conversations with people from over 14 different countries: Ireland, China, Brazil, Spain, France, Mexico. Everyone of them seemed to have a fascinating back story.

Below are four of those stories.

-Jack

Note: if while backpacking through Southeastern Asia, you bumped into any young couples from Europe, just go ahead and assume they are not married. They probably aren't. (Does anybody in Europe get married anymore?)

Its a Nice Place to Visit, but . . .

Nate and I met this man and his family in Hanoi when he asked me to snap a picture of him and his family. Nate and I only chatted with them for a few minutes, but we were absolutely transfixed by their life story.
At the age of nineteen, he fled Vietnam. It was the late 1970s and the Vietnam War was over; but under the new regime, things in Vietnam were going from bad to worse. Vietnamese people were fleeing in droves. This man escaped to Thailand where he met his future wife in a refugee camp.

Eventually, they married and immigrated to The States where they still live today. They put each other through school. He earned two master's degrees and holds a managerial position with Intel. She became a dentist and has her own practice. They have two children. It was over a decade before either one of them managed to return to Vietnam for a visit. They have since made several trips back.

I asked them if -now that things were improving in Vietnam- they ever thought about moving back to Vietnam?

They sheepishy smiled and then shook their heads.

No, they enjoy bringing their kids back to visit, but would never move back.

-Jack

Taste and See

I must be getting old. I've noticed that I have started to keep track of the anniversary of a lot of things in my life. I guess I am thinking that if I can keep close tabs on what Time is up to, then Time won’t be able to cheat and fast forward like she has a habit of doing lately.

Monday, the 5^th was the eleventh-month anniversary of our arrival in Hong Kong.

Last week Wednesday, June 30 was the twenty-and-a-half year anniversary of my marriage to Julie. I know it was the twenty-and-a-half year anniversary of our marriage because, last Wednesday, June 30 also happened to be my 44 birthday. Yup, its true, I got married on my half birthday. Julie claims that I spent our entire wedding day going around telling people, “Today’s my half birthday. Today’s my half birthday.” I think that she may be exaggerating. Just a little.

Today, July 7, is the one-year anniversary of my burn accident. In an attempt to get the house and yard ready for our departure, I was burning brush in the back yard. Due to human error (me being that human), I had two gallons of gasoline blow up fifteen feet from me. The explosion was so powerful, it rattled the windows of all the stores and houses within a quarter mile of our place.

I had first- and second-degree burns over twenty percent of my body. I was in the hospital for 13 days –three of them in the intensive care unit.

All this less than three weeks before I was supposed to be moving my family to Hong Kong. It had been an ongoing desire of ours to live and work overseas as a family. It had taken months and months of work to pull this opportunity together. And now laying in a hospital bed at the Loyal University burn center, I was watching all those dreams disintegrate.

I wasn’t going anywhere soon. Ten days after my accident, the pain was still so excruciating that it was taking me three to four minutes to sit up and swing my legs over the edge of my bed. It wasn’t until day twelve that the doctors were able to confirm that I wasn't going to need any skin grafts.

But God is good. He was faithful to his promise. Less than a month after my accident, my family and I were on a plane for Hong Kong. Granted, we were a week and a half late, but we were on our way.

I was and am thankful that I wasn’t hurt worse than I was; that my eyes and lungs weren’t burnt. I am thankful for a loving wife who sang me to sleep on the nights when the excessive amounts of morphine weren't enough. I'm thankful for all the family and friends who helped out with our daughters. I am thankful for a school who was willing to hold my position until I could show up.

I am thankful that my body has made a fully recovery -other than some scars on my arm, back, and shoulders.

But like my mother said, scars are like tattoos; they just come with better stories.

Jack

Picture: Day twelve after my accident and the day before my release from the hospital. It was also the first day we allowed the girls to come to the hospital to see their dad. God bless my wife who had the where-with-all to snap a picture.

Bruno

This is Bruno. He's Italian, but he hasn't lived in Italy for a number of years. He lives in Guangzhou province in southern China. He left Italy to escape the cycle that he claims captures so many young Italian men: Go to university in Italy, get a low-paying, dead-end job such as waitering, live with your mother until you are thirty and you finally decide to get married.

Bruno speaks Italian, English, Spanish, and Chinese. My brother Nate and I met him on a two-day, overnight boat cruise on Halong Bay in northern Vietnam.

While living in China, Bruno started an export business in which he exports a Chinese-made weatherproofing product. He is doing quite well for himself.

I asked him how his former neighbors and friends respond to him and the life he has built for himself when he occassionally returns to Italy. He said they envy his freedom, autonomy, and success; but at the same time they recognize that they could never do what he has done.

Why? I asked.

Food.

Food? I repeated.

Even if they want to leave, he explained, most young Italian men can't stray far from home for long. When abroad, they spend half of their time looking for decent Italian cuisine and when they find it, they spend the rest of their time complaining about how in-authentic it is.

Bruno was being completely serious.

Nate first got to know Bruno when he sat next to him for three-hours on the shuttle bus that was taking us to Halong Bay. Realizing that Nate was single, Bruno took it upon himself to school Nate on the art of getting and keeping a Chinese girlfriend.

Because it is a cross-cultural relationship, it can draw upon the best -and worst, depending on your perspective- aspects of Chinese and Western dating practices. For example, as the male in the relationship, you will have tremendous freedom. Your Chinese girlfriend will probably not nag you about going out for drinks with the boys several nights a week. In fact, she probably won't nag you about anything at all.

But your Chinese girlfriend is also going to expect from you a monthly allowance for food, clothing, and rent. If someone in her family takes ill, you will be expected to help pay for part of the medical expenses.

In the five years he has been in China, Bruno has had several Chinese girlfriends. He is currently not in a relationship. His conclusion to Nate: it's almost more trouble than its worth.

Although, he did confess that there is no better way to learn Chinese that to get yourself a Chinese girlfriend.

-Jack

I was sitting at a table with some people from our tour group when Bruno found out that one of the women in our group rinsed her pasta with cold water after cooking it. He proceeded to explain to her the proper way to cook pasta. I excused myself to -as Bruno would say- to go make pee-pee. When I returned six minutes later, he was just finishing up his lecture on the proper way to cook pasta.

G.I. Jack

This is Jack. He was born in 1972. Jack's mother was a villager from central Vietnam and his father was an American G.I. serving in the Vietnam War. His father was of Puerto Rican and Hawaiian descent. Shortly after meeting Jack for the first and only time, Jack's dad returned to his army outfit and Jack never saw him again. His father may have been killed in the War or he may have finished his tour of duty and simply returned to his life in the States. Jack doesn't know. Jack is one of 30,000 Amer-asian kids fathered by American G.I.s during the Vietnam War.

My brother Nate and I met Jack while riding a local city bus just outside of Saigon. I turned around and spoke to him wanting to confirm that we were on the right bus. I was a little suprised when this guy answered in perfect English with a slight Texan drawl. Thus began our thirty-minute bus conversation.

Growing up in his Vietnamese village, Jack was the youngest of nine kids. His half-siblings along with the rest of the village, treated him poorly which really isn't suprising considering the Vietnamese had just finished a decade-long war with The States. Jack was routinely given the worst jobs to do around the house and in the village.

His mother died when Jack was still an adolescent. Shortly thereafter, he became aware of a U.S. govenment program that was bringing Ameri-asian kids to The States, applied, and was accepted. So at the age of fourteen, he moved to Texas where he attended a trade school, and eventually earned his highschool G.E.D. In his mid-twenties, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served four years.

Near the end of the bus ride, we asked Jack if wanted to join us for dinner. He said that he would love to bring us to one of his favorite local dinner spots. The staff all seemed to know Jack and shortly after we were seated, Jack started ordering for us.

I asked Jack if he found that living in Vietnam brought out a certain Vietnamese side of him, while being in The States brought out a Western side of him? He thought about this for a moment and then said "Nope." I believed him. Over the last two hours, I got the distinct impression that with Jack, what you saw, was what you got.

Jack had nothing but good things to say about The U.S. Undoubtably, his military service helped to form his outlook, but he feels that America is continuing to play a crucial and beneficiary role on the world stage.

Out of the Navy and back in Texas, Jack bought one house and then another and then another until he owned fourteen rental properties. Two years ago, he decided to move back to Vietnam to see what business opportunities might exist in a newly emerging Vietnam. Even though he speaks perfect Vietnamese, it has been slow going. Although Vietnam is opening up, the road to success is fraught with communist-era bureaucracy. And sadly, while Jack was back in Vietnam, the housing market in Texas bottomed out and Jack lost seven of his fourteen houses. He's optimistic though. His ultimate goal is own a shipping vessel or two.

I have no doubt that he will succeed.

Von

This is Von. She is in her mid-twenties and a recent graduate of Marlboro college in Vermont. She was born in Vietnam, but adopted by a family from the United States at the age of six. Once in the States, she quickly lost her Vietnamese language skills.

My brother Nate and I met Von and her friend on an overnight boat cruise on Halong Bay. With just fourteen of us on the boat, we were able to have exteneded conversations with almost everyone -including Von.

Von is an articulate, well-educated young woman. Her speech is peppered with talk of social justice, the International Monetary Fund, and imperialism. Von tends to see the world through a binary Marxist lens of oppressed/oppressor.

Conversations with Von inevitably turn to U.S. foreign policy. I can hold my own in a conversation about geo-politics, so I probed a little. Von summarized U.S. foreign policy over the last hundred years for me: The United States has been and is an international bully.

Von has spent several summers -including a college internship- back in Vietnam. So even though she grew up in The States, she has a network of friends and associates in place in Vietnam. Von had just moved to Vietnam a few weeks before we met her and she was traveling Vietnam with her friend before starting a new job at a non-governmental organization in August.

She plans to stay in Vietnam indefintely.

Earlier this year, needing to fill a few extra minutes at the end of one of my classes, I posed the following question to my students: Given the choice, would you rather leave Hong Kong and never be allowed to come back or stay in Hong and never be allowed to leave for the rest of your life. It generated some lively discussion among my students.

It was almost midnight and several us night-owls were sitting on the roof of the house boat as it slowly motored its way through the innumerable islands of Halong Bay. The conversation had been flowing freely until we had one of those inevitable lulls. So I posed my question changing the location to The States. (We had to change it to Italy for our new friend Bruno.) We went around the table and everyone thought it over and hesitantly gave his or her answer.

Until we came to Von.

She didn't hesitate.

"Leave the U.S. and never come back."

See You in 12 Days

I am out of Hong Kong for 12 days.

I will resume posting when I return.

Jack