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In Vietnam

1/30/2017

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What I have to say about Vietnam is not new, or profound, I'm sure. But I'll say it nevertheless. I admit I haven't followed events in Vietnam closely in recent years, but obviously communism has been abandoned in favor of capitalism. You can see that within two minutes of landing here. ​

Thanks to our relative purchasing power, Ross and I can enjoy some luxuries in Asia. For a few dollars, we can arrange for a driver to pick us up at the airport to take us to our hotel in Hanoi. It was a nice car, too, though I forget what make and model. As I settled into the backseat, I immediately recognized the song playing -- an instrumental muzak version of The Sounds of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel.  When that song was a hit, American soldiers were crawling though the jungle in Vietnam, and possibly the father of our driver belonged to the guerrilla forces they were trying to subdue. Now, in the blink of an eye, we Westerners and our tourist dollars are more than welcome. And our soundtrack is an anthem to youthful alienation, with a  pretentious little slap on capitalism thrown in: "and the people bowed and prayed, to the neon god they made."

Ross and I have spent a week in Hanoi and a week in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. We are both old enough to remember the Vietnam War -- and in my case, my parents were very active on the anti-war front. It's been amazing just to be in the country whose place names I heard so much during my childhood -- Hanoi, Dien Bien Phu, the Mekong Delta.  And we are here during Tet, the Chinese New Year, the time when the Communist North launched the Tet Offensive.
Right now, a lot of Facebook friends, and Hollywood celebrities, are tweeting and posting that they are feeling "terrified" of the Trump administration. Yeah, I get it -- extreme dismay, foreboding, chagrin, embarrassment, disbelief -- but "terror"? I've got some pictures that show what "terror" of an incoming government really looks like.

History records that the Viet Cong won the Vietnam War. They systematically culled the bourgeoisie and sent over a million people to re-education camps. They tortured and stole everything people had. Life was particularly horrible for the ethnic Chinese of Vietnam.
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This is what a re-education camp looks like.
Many refugees were taken in by the United States (over the strenuous objections of many politicians, including Joe Biden.)  ​
"I have been a communist all my life, but now I've seen the realities of Communism, and it is a failure — mismanagement, corruption, privilege, repression. My ideals are gone."  -- Dương Quỳnh Hoa, a founding member of the Viet Cong
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THIS is what being terrified looks like.
PictureTHIS is what being terrified looks like.
An unknown number of Vietnamese people risked their lives rather than endure life under the Communists.  An unknown number perished at sea. Others languished for years in refugee camps. They became known as the "boat people." We actually bought our first property in Kelowna from boat people. They were moving to Edmonton so their son could go to medical school. 

"In a May 1975 article in the New York Times, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) commented that "barmaids, prostitutes and criminals" should be screened out as "excludable categories." Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) "charged that the [Ford] Administration had not informed Congress adequately about the number of refugees" -- as if anyone actually knew during the chaotic evacuation. "I think the Vietnamese are better off in Vietnam," sniffed George McGovern [D- presidential candidate] in Newsweek."
It's probably most unwise of me to say anything about politics, since I have a newly-published book I want to sell, and the temper of the times is to boycott any purveyor of goods or services whose views you disagree with. My view is that we should all calm down, lay off the name-calling and thank our lucky stars that we haven't had to live through what the Chinese and the Vietnamese have lived through. 
PictureTet decoration adorned with corporate logos. Who won the war? Sony?
​Even in winter, it's pretty warm in Ho Chi Minh city, and most of us tourists are dressed casually. There are a lot of dreadlocked, backpacking hippie young folks. Typical tourist attire is shorts or frayed cut offs, sandals, t-shirts or tank tops. We certainly look like we eschew conspicuous consumption and materialism. I saw so many hippies in the streets it really took me back to the anti-war days, when we'd gather at the Unitarian church and sing "Where have all the flowers gone." At the time I never would have imagined that I might visit Vietnam myself one day!

Ross and I went to the Ho Chi Minh City museum. It's housed in a beautiful French colonial building and it hosts a few relics from the war. There is a big painted mural showing the residents of Saigon welcoming their liberators (What? No photos?)

​There are some incredibly pathetic-looking displays of the industrial manufactures of the collectivist era, prior to the reforms of the mid-eighties. This little display, seriously, is all that the museum can muster to show the glories of the years following liberation. For all the effort, and blood and toil and horror and misery.....

It's some comfort that capitalism won in the end, and I hope democracy will follow. The communist experiment in Vietnam lasted only about ten years -- Saigon fell in 1975, and the government opened the economy up in 1986 -- and for that, so much blood and treasure was wasted, and the capital and effort of so many people was thrown away.

​Just because a small cadre of believers had the overwhelming urge to enforce Communism on their fellow Vietnamese.
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Behold the amazing products of the collective factories!
PictureDetail of French colonial building in Ho Chi Minh City

​"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the [American] Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."

-- Daniel Webster, 
US diplomat, lawyer, orator, & politician (1782 - 1852)

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"Forgive me, my dear Fanny, as soon as you can, for my long silence"

1/26/2017

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Said the sly and conniving Mary Crawford to Fanny Price, and so I say to you, dear readers, forgive my long silence. Mary went on to say, "for you are so good, that I depend upon being treated better than I deserve."  

​And so say I to you, dear readers, thank you for treating me better than I deserve. And just as Mary broke her long silence because of self-interest, candour compels me to admit that I want to tell you something!

I have just published my debut novel, A Contrary Wind: a variation on Mansfield Park. More about that in a moment.

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So I am on vacation in Vietnam with my husband. Right now we're in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) and it's Tet, or New Year. The locals have closed most of their shops and restaurants and are enjoying family activities like strolling along Flower Street in their New Year finery and taking pictures. This is our first trip to Vietnam and we're enjoying the people. country and culture very much. 
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​To recap events with me since my last blog post, I spent five months in Canada from late spring to August, then I was able to return to China in September to resume my teaching job at Zibo Vocational Institute. This semester is my 7th (!) semester at ZBVI. Sorry that I didn't resume blogging through the summer or fall, but I was busy writing a 130,000 plus word novel during the summer and, during the fall, I was feeling exhausted most of the time. When I wasn't teaching class or preparing for class, I was sleeping. I think I caught a bug on my return to China. So a lot of what I could say about China these past few months would not be exactly positive. And yet I'm happy to be back, and glad to be with my Chinese friends and students again.

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Just like last year's winter vacation, unfortunately. I brought my end-of-semester cold-which-turned-into-bronchitis with me and Ross and I have spent a lot of time resting (coughing, hacking, wheezing) in our various hotel rooms and taking short excursions to see Hanoi, Hoi An and now, Saigon.  I don't want to complain; it is what it is. However, I have got to think that the winter pollution has played a part in the way we're feeling now. It was so bad for a few weeks in December, I hesitate to even show you a picture. This is the way it looked, walking to class. I tried wearing a mask, but they always made my glasses fog over and I couldn't see where I was going!

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But I've had something diverting to think about while resting in my hotel room, blowing my nose, and that was -- publishing my novel! Whilst walking the streets of Ho Chi Minh City, I am agreeably diverted by seeing signs that say "Fanny" and I can remind myself that I now have a book with my name on it, which has been a goal or dream or, rather, an expectation of mine, since I was seven years old!  It is now available on Amazon and through Smashwords. If you like Jane Austen, I think you'll like this. If you read Mansfield Park and didn't like the heroine Fanny Price, why not give my variation a try. She's got a little bit more of a backbone. ​Download the free sample for your Kindle reader or read it online. 

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Vacation travels

2/27/2016

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One morning during our month-long vacation last month, I was tidying up around our beach bungalow in a quiet Thai village while listening to my husband talking to a friend back in Canada over Skype. He was giving a blow-by-blow of our vacation to that point. First, he (my husband) put his back out and pinched a nerve just before we were to go on vacation. He had to bring a cane along so he could hobble through the airport. Over the following days, he gradually got better as we enjoyed the beauties of the city of Guilin and took a cruise on the Li River to see the famous karst mountains. Then, on our last day in Guilin, I came down with a mild fever.
We slogged on to Kunming, the city of Eternal Spring, and after a few days there, Ross caught what I had. Except that it settled in his lungs... 

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The Great Wall and the Summer Palace

1/16/2016

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The trip to the Great Wall is the highlight of a trip to China for most people. Our trip to the Great Wall was, frankly, a bit of a disappointment because it was a foggy day. We couldn't see the wall undulating over the hills to the far horizons, couldn't imagine mongol hordes sweeping down from the north, couldn't comprehend with our own eyes the vast scale of the thing. 

We took a cable car to get to the Wall. 

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    About the author:

    More about me here. My earlier posts (prior to June 2017) are about my time as a teacher of ESL in China,(just click on "China" in the menu below.) more recent posts focus on my writing, as well as Jane Austen and the long 18th century. Welcome!


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