Hoi An

Shelly and I have just arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, where we are staying at the famous Rex Hotel. More on that later.

After my excellent Sunday in Hanoi, I spent the rest of my non-working time sound asleep, trying to shake the nasty stomach bacteria I picked up somewhere along the way. (It have been the ice in the lime juice. It could have been the ice in my drink at dinner. It could have been the salad at breakfast. None of those seem particularly likely as they were all at fairly upscale places, but I don't know where else it would have come from. I'm not particularly careful about what I eat when I travel to places like Vietnam, and that's sometimes to my detriment.) It was intense but short-lived, and after sleeping, avoiding the heat and eating bananas, white rice and 7-Up for two days, I arrived in Hoi An for a long weekend with Shelly in pretty good shape.

Hoi An is a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its historic buildings and old houses, and is also well-known for its dozens of tailors and its proximity to China Beach. You might remember the TV show of the same name.


Hoi An is in central Vietnam, not far from Da Nang, which is actually where we flew to to get to Hoi An. The city has only 75,000 people in it, so it's definitely a different pace than Hanoi or HCMC. Shelly shot some great pictures on a bike ride around town and the surrounding countryside.






One of the highlights of our trip to Hoi An was an afternoon at the Red Bridge Cooking School, which is a relaxing 25-minute boat ride outside of town. The chef taught us how to make rice paper, spring rolls, warm squid salad and some great chili eggplant.


At Shelly's urging, I sat in the front row, with her belief that students who sit in the front row get better grades than those who sit in the back. (There might be some truth to that. She got much better grades than I did in college and grad school. Guess where each of us sat?) The chef taught us how to make food decorations, too -- Vietnamese fans out of cucumbers and roses out of tomato peels. It didn't do me much good to sit in the front row.


Shelly, on the other hand, did a great job:


We spent a fair amount of time at the beach, where we hung out at the creatively-named "Restaurant No. 3."

Hanoi

I haven't been to Hanoi since 1995 and, like the rest of the country, the city has changed a lot, but in different ways than Ho Chi Minh, where I stopped last summer on my way back from Cambodia. In HCMC, the city center has really been built up. In Hanoi, much of the city center remains as I remember it, with a few tall buildings thrown in, but the outskirts have been developed. I took the early flight to Hanoi so I could spend the afternoon playing tourist.

While it was hotter in Hanoi than in Hong Kong, it's a much more pleasant place to walk, especially when you're in the old part of the city. Whether you're walking on a broad boulevard or in a narrow street, there are loads of trees shading the sidewalks. There was a very pleasant breeze on Sunday, too, which made the 38 degree heat (100+F) very tolerable.

I started my tour walking around Hanoi's old quarter, where shops are still frequently clustered by what they sell -- a group of fabric stores are on Fabric Street, while rice stores are on Rice Street, for example (with those street names in Vietnamese, of course). Although the street hasn't been renamed, there are also about a dozen laptop stores on the same street, all of which look pretty much like this:


One thing Hanoi doesn't have many of -- at least that I found -- is supermarkets. It does, however, have loads of small shops selling groceries and other goods:


While HCMC's cathedral is more famous, I've always like St. Joseph's Cathedral in Hanoi. It looks positively medieval.


After my walk around the old quarter, I headed for more recent history in a park completely dedicated to Ho Chi Minh. My hot walk took me past Hanoi's citadel, with its iconic flag tower and, across the street, what must be one of only a few statues of Lenin still standing anywhere in the world:



I stopped across from ol' Vladimir Ilyich at the Highlands Coffee shop and had an icy lime juice to cool off. It disappeared so quickly that I had another. I might have one every day that I'm in Vietnam.

A few blocks further on was Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum. I didn't stop in to visit because you have to be there quite early in the morning to get in, and you have to be wearing pants and -- did I mention? -- it was quite hot. Plus, I saw Ho in 1995, and I can't imagine he's changed much in the past 12 years. He apparently visits Russia each year for, um, some touch-up work.


Next to the mausoleum is the an area where you can tour Ho's old house and the palace where he lived as president. You can also get a glimpse of several of Ho's cars, which are parked neatly in Ho's garage:


And even better, the exit took me past the back side of the mausoleum, where Ho's cleaners were hard at work polishing the building. I think this will be a long, long job:


I walked back to my hotel via the Temple of Literature and stopped for dinner at a place that's popular on the tourist track because of its combination of good food and its training program to turn street kids into hospitality workers. My last stop after dinner was the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" prison. Most of it has been turned into condo towers, but the developers also created a small museum, which didn't exist in 1995, so while progress has marched on, the city has managed to keep a small piece of history, too. The museum was closed by the time I got there, so I hope to get back during business hours this week if I can squeeze it in.

Back to Vietnam

I'm heading to Vietnam on Sunday to research a chapter in an upcoming book my employer publishes. It's nothing terribly exciting -- it's a legal directory, after all -- but I am always happy for a reason to visit Vietnam. I'll be working in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, with a long weekend holiday with Shelly in Hoi An in the middle of the trip.

It's Been 10 Years Since the Hong Kong Handover

Last week -- July 1, to be exact -- was the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong's handover from the UK to China. It resulted in a nice day of holiday for us, and an interesting walk around a pro-Beijing rally. Here's the news brief I wrote for the magazine I write for, with some of our photos below:

***

Hong Kong
City marks handover’s 10th anniversary

With the People’s Liberation Army parachuting into Happy Valley and fireworks over Victoria Harbour spelling out “Chinese people”, Chinese president Hu Jintao warned Hong Kong residents on the 10th anniversary of the city’s return from Britain that “two systems” cannot be separated from “one country”.

Invoking the name of Deng Xiaoping, who ruled the Communist Party of China until his death in 1997 and negotiated for Hong Kong’s return to China, Hu said that “‘one country’ is the prerequisite of ‘two systems’. ‘One country’ and ‘two systems’ cannot be separated from each other. Still less should they be set against each other.”

Hu’s words of caution reflect China’s concern that a majority of Hong Kong residents don’t identify themselves as being part of mainland China. A June 2007 survey by the University of Hong Kong said that 55% of respondents identify themselves as “Hong Kong citizens” or “Chinese Hong Kong citizens”. Banners at a pro-Beijing event at the Happy Valley Race Course carried messages of China-Hong Kong unity in both Chinese and English.

A pro-democracy march attracted an estimated 23,000 people, though rally organizers claimed a much higher turnout. While many Hong Kong residents have expressed lingering concerns about the lack of democracy – Hong Kong’s chief executive is elected by an 800-member election committee which is largely pro-Beijing – Chinese officials pointed to the march as evidence that Hong Kong’s freedoms have been maintained.

Unlike 1997, British diplomats had no official role in the weekend’s festivities, and consular officials were seated with other members of the diplomatic corps. Foreign secretary David Miliband said, in a printed statement, that his country hopes that “the UK and Hong Kong will further develop [an] already close partnership”.

***

The pro-Beijing rally was held just a five minute walk from our house, and we managed to see the tail end of it -- including the banner at the top of this post -- though not, regrettably, the PLA parachute team. The entertainment included traditional dragon dancers and not-so-traditional marching bands.



I also managed to get my hands on a couple of the flags used at the rally. Aren't I adorable?

Toilet Paper

Posted by Shelly

Toilet paper has regional characteristics – In Hong Kong the toilet paper is all 3-ply and each roll is individually wrapped in plastic. In this land of tiny apartments it is surprising to see that the standard pack size is ten rolls.

Before coming to Hong Kong, I had never considered the sanitation level of my toilet paper. I guess it was something I always took for granted.


Many brands of toilet paper advertise “100% virgin pulp” and “450°C Steam Treatment". Vir Joy also goes as far as print on the packaging what are their acceptable levels of yeast, mold, coliform, staph and pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Vir Joy also advertises that it is “Possibly the ‘Best Deal’ in Town”. With such great advertising, you can see why it is has become our toilet paper of choice.

Junk Mail

Digging through the pile of paper and detritus that is my desk, I came upon this envelope I brought back from Washington just for blogging purposes. (When was I in Washington? Oh, waaay back in December. I've just been waiting for the perfect occasion.)

When I went to Washington in December for the foreign service test, I stayed with my old friend Cliff. By "old" I refer to both his age and the amount of time I've known him. He's lived in his cool old northwest Washington row house for 50 years, and is an incredible source of Washington history. He used to watch President Truman take walks on his lunch hour. The empty lot next to his house was seized by the State Department during the Iranian hostage crisis back in, what, 1979? He's seen a lot, and I always enjoy spending my time in Washington with him.

After their kids grew up and moved out, Cliff and his wife started renting rooms in their home to students, interns and, mostly, scientists who were in town for four or six months. I first lived with him in 1990, shortly after graduating from college when I spent five months in a Capitol Hill internship. (I met him through a friend of a friend of my father, when Dad was spending plenty of his time in Washington as president of a trade association.) I lived with him again a decade later, when I moved from Guam back to the mainland and worked at a different DC trade association.

Imagine my surprise when I saw Cliff at dinner and he handed me an envelope.

"You got some mail today," he said.

I thought that Shelly had been really proactive and had sent me a good luck note or something, so the reality was quite a let down.


"You still get mail here all the time," Cliff said. "If it looks important, I forward it. But most of it, I just throw away."

I get mail there all the time. I haven't lived there in more than five years, which makes me wonder how much junk mail is showing up at our house in Maryland right now, where I have lived within in the past 20 months.

To make matters worse, Discover knows where I am. Now if I could only persuade them to send my bill to Washington, where Cliff could throw it away.

Construction Across the Street

Remember this from my March 29 post?


Well, by the middle of this week, the construction project across the street was nearly finished, and we currently have a lovely mountain view, which we have never really had before. We can see the buses running up and down the road, especially at night when their lights are on.


When we looked out the window today, even the first floor was gone, leaving only piles of rubble behind.


From the looks of things, the building behind the rubble is next to go. It's hard to tell from this photo, but the windows have been removed and the flats are all empty. I'm guessing that means that in six months or so, we'll be losing our mountain view as something bigger than either of the two previous buildings goes up on the combined site.

Missing Manila

Shelly is in the Philippines this week, and I'm wishing -- at least briefly -- that I was unemployed again. If I weren't working, I probably would have tagged along on this trip and taken advantage of Shelly's paid-for hotel room.

I miss Manila even more because, when I spoke with Shelly this evening, I found out that Kyle at Italianni's was trying to set a place for "Sir" and that everyone at Shelly's old job site had been asking about me. It would have been nice to get back to see friends.

More impressive is that when Shelly walked into the spa she had visited about once a month for a year, they greeted her by name, despite the fact that she hadn't been there in eight months.

Our old neighborhood has changed, too, with the big construction projects taking place on either side of our house both completed. I would even be able to sleep past 7:15 a.m. now that the construction has finished!

A Vegetable

I suppose this sign at our local ParknShop supermarket is technically correct...


(For anyone who actually follows that link and wants to know how much stuff costs in Hong Kong, divide the Hong Kong dollar prices by 8, and you'll be pretty close to the US dollar price.)

Come on Down!

Through the magic of the Internet, I managed this past weekend to watch Bob Barker’s last “The Price is Right!” episode. I hadn’t watched TPIR for years, but had good memories of watching the show when I was a kid. It was the highlight of a sick day.

A number of things caught my attention while watching the show.

* Bob Barker was born in 1923, which makes him 83 years old. He looks really good for 83.

* Bob is amazingly popular with people who are in their early 20s. All but one of the contestants on his last show looked like they were in college – which they probably were, considering that one of the contestants said he had camped out for five days to get on the show.

* The set doesn’t seem to have changed much since I was a kid. It’s still all reddish and orangish with some decidedly low-tech sets.

* It was fun. Not so much fun that I would watch it every day, but fun all the same.

The other thing I noticed is that while I may have been good at pricing at one point, I have been overseas for too long to do it well anymore. Now if there were a Hong Kong version …

Welcome to the Blog, Shelly!

She hardly made a big deal about it in her debut on the big blog, but I wanted to welcome Shelly aboard. I think she is worried that I will never blog again. I might have said something like that to her, but it was mostly because I was in the middle of an extremely busy week at work. (In fact, I still have two stories to write this week, and then my schedule will ease up considerably for a couple of weeks.)

I've spent the past week-plus editing thousands of words written by lawyers in India, China, Singapore and Korea. I know more about foreign investment in India than I thought I ever would. I've also managed to get out of the office a few times this past week for interviews for my own stories, as well as conducting a dozen or so interviews by phone with people from around Asia. I am looking forward to a slow down.

But it will only be a brief slow down, as I'm heading to Vietnam in about three weeks. I'll be there for a week and a half, though a long weekend of that will be holiday with Shelly in Danang. She's in Singapore now, and is heading to Manila later in the week, and we're also planning on a holiday in Indonesia in August, so we're looking at a busy summer.

That busy summer will probably involve quite a bit of volunteering at church, because the congregation today had shrunk from our normal 200 to about 40. The Church of All Nations is connected to the Hong Kong International School, so a lot of the members are connected to HKIS. As I learned this morning, HKIS teachers, students and expat wives desert Hong Kong in droves during the summer. Given that it hit 34 degrees (93F) in the city today, I can't say I blame them. Pastor Dale and his wife are in Oregon for their summer holiday, where they apparently get cold at night. Can you say jealous??

Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz, Oh what a Drip it is

Posted by Shelly

One negative symptom of summer in Hong Kong is leaking air conditioners. When I pay attention I can dodge the wet spots on the sidewalk,


but at least once a day I will still get hit with a big wet splat. Earlier this month, it was nice to see the this flyer posted in our apartment’s hallway reminding people that it is rude to let their aircon drip.


However, earlier this week it was not so nice to receive a personalized note in our mailbox informing us that we are part of the group of annoying drippers.


We have turned on the air-conditioners, crossed the street, counted up to the 7th floor and studied our apartment. We can’t see any water leaking from our units, but as we don’t want the government coming after us, we will be getting in touch with our landlord.

Fashion Trends

Posted by Shelly

When I lived in Tokyo in the 80s I was told that fashion starts in Tokyo and Paris and then works its way east and west. Fortunately some trends don’t make it across the Pacific (6 inch tall platform boots were a rage in Tokyo in the 90s). I have been watching the Asian fashion scene since arriving in Manila last year. In Manila, pink was the in color. Last winter in HK knee-high boots with long shorts were popular. If there was fringe on the boots it was even better. Now, the look of choice is thigh length shirts with a gathered hem (every time I see one I think of the velour shirt with an elastic waistband that I had in elementary school).


They also put gathered hems on skirts.


If you can trim the outfit with lace and an oversized handbag it is ideal. The final result is a very shapeless baggy look.

When I was in China two weeks ago, I casually commented to two Shanghaiese women that I liked Shanghai fashion (1950s inspired sleeveless sundresses with full skirts) better than HK fashion. I was a bit surprised with their quick reply – “Of course, and the women from Shanghai are more beautiful too.”

Chinglish

I recently went to an exhibit at the Hong Kong Museum of Art called "Chinglish." It was a particularly interesting exhibit for me because of the way it explored the use of language in a multi-cultural place like Hong Kong. Hopefully nothing in this post is terribly interesting to you, as the exhibit has already closed. I was there on its last weekend.

This was all modern art, and sometimes it was stretching the definition of "art." One exhibit was video of people in Japan (mostly Japanese, but also some foreigners) saying "I love you" in Cantonese. Some were very confident about their pronunciation, others much more shy. Another exhibit played audio of phone calls from Hong Kong to Japan and Korea, showing what happens when two non-native speakers of English talk to each other on the phone. Another exhibit involved video cameras and a big screen. You walked into view of the camera, and a bunch of computer-generated Chinese characters followed you around the room. I don't recall the point of this one, but it was pretty cool to watch kids try to outrun the characters.


A group of pottery exhibits illustrated the how often the word "man" or "men" shows up in English through a bunch of pottery figures of people. This one was called "Menopause."


My favorite exhibit was one which showed how words can have different meanings. The exhibit was actually a room, decorated with wallpaper which, from a distance, appeared to be a beautiful white and blue design similar to what you'd find on Chinese dishes.


But when you entered the room and looked at the wallpaper up close, you saw that it was anything but beautiful. If you're easily offended, you should kind of just skip past this next photo. In fact, I'll wrap this post up right here, so you can easily avoid it.