Genetically modified languages

Okay, so I was eavesdropping. But you really can’t blame me. The two young Vietnamese women sitting at the table behind me were twenty-something, fashionably dressed, presumably unmarried, and apparently employees at a local office. They nattered on loudly, unconcerned by my presence. We were the only people in the room, and after several minutes I gave up my fruitless efforts to read a book as I waited for my dinner, and instead indulged my inner snoop. Truth be told, their conversation was pretty dull: who’d done what to whom at the office, who was getting married, where and what to study, where to go shopping for this and that.

What was remarkable was the amount of English that littered their conversation. It seemed impossible for them to speak more than three sentences without inserting at least one English phrase. “Chị sẫn sàng settle down rồi.” “Cái đó rất là fix.” “Cậu ấy rất passive.” “Cái background của em ấy là gì?” “Chị ấy hơi hơi pessimistic.” “Phải có skill, chứ!” “Có lẽ em sẽ làm freelance.” “Lương của em sẽ performance based.” “Như vậy scale sẽ rất cao.” “Lớp em đang học boring lắm!” “Trường này rất nổi tiếng về teaching method.” “Em chưa give up.” This represents about half the phrases I managed to scribble on my serviette in the ten minutes before my food arrived.

Most of these are words for which there is an easy Vietnamese equivalent. This isn’t the case with an earlier generation of loan words. When I first arrived in Vietnam, I was happy to discover that the vocabulary for car and motorbike parts was largely borrowed from the French language I’d spent a good chunk of my adolescence studying. No surprise there: the Vietnamese language didn’t have much use for the word “bu gi” (spark plug) before the French showed up and brought the damn things with them. But why use pessimistic when you can use bi quan? Why use boring when you can use chán?

Nor is this the sort of use of the English language that causes me so much amusement when my longsuffering Japanese wife uses words she knows as “English” but that have been adapted to particular (and often peculiarly) Japanese usages. “Salaryman” is a well-known example: the words are at their base English but the meaning entirely Japanese. Or to quote a recent conversation with my wife, Arata: “Massa thinks Tomoyuki is cherryboy.” Me: “What’s cherryboy, honey?” Arata: “But it’s an English word.” Me: “Yes and no, honey. Could you explain how Japanese people use it?” Sadly, though, had I engaged in a conversation with the two young women behind me, it would have given rise to no such linguistic follies. “Give up” pretty much means exactly what you think it means, whether it’s used in America or in Vietnam.

Yes, these two young women were making a self-conscious display of their education, their sophistication, and their class. It’s worth noting that we were in a foreign restaurant (Japanese, if you must know), and their use of language was as much a marker of class as their choice of food. So you could just dismiss it as affectation, perhaps combined with an attempt to show off for the foreigner at the next table. But these women are not alone, and in fact they’re not even unusual: they may be at one end of the spectrum, but even at the other end of that spectrum I hear words like “OK” and “funny” creeping their way into common usage. Languages are constantly changing and evolving, I know. But sometimes I can’t help thinking that the speed and the direction of change in the Vietnamese language today makes the process look less like evolution and more like genetic engineering.

Got development?

There probably aren’t many people who would disagree with the notion that I come from a “developed” country (Canada) and that I live in a “developing” country (Vietnam). That’s certainly the consensus from the Vietnamese I meet in an ordinary day: when they find out where I’m from, they inevitably nod sagely and say “Yes, Canada. It’s a developed country.” I should note my underlying suspicion that their response would be the same even if I answered “East Belugastan,” but that’s neither here nor there. The underlying assumption is that the two nations (Canada - or even East Belugastan - and Vietnam) are fundamentally different, that one has somehow reached the end point of “development” (if not “history”) while the other one has a long way to go. But I’m not so sure, and my doubt stems from an epiphany I had while vacationing on an island in the gulf of Thailand.

I’ve been going to the same beach on Koh Phangan for almost ten years now. It’s a pretty idyllic place, really: a lovely little cove inside a National Park, difficult to access except by the daily water taxi, electricity for only a few hours in the evening when the bungalow operators turn on their generators so guests don’t have to eat their dinner in the dark. So there I was one morning, looking out over the Gulf of Thailand, sipping my cup of instant coffee. My eyes wandered over the Tetrapack of UHT milk provided for those of us who aren’t fond of undiluted instant coffee, and I noticed with a start that it was another quality product from the Foremost Friesland corporation. The same corporation that eventually purchased and then shut down the dairy cooperative that used to be one of the central features of the economy of my home town of Vernon, BC, Canada.

Vernon was a pretty idyllic place to grow up, really. It’s in the middle of British Columbia, at the center of three lakes (Kalamalka, Okanagan, and Swan), and ringed by mountains that include the 3000-meter Silver Star, where the Canadian National Cross Country Ski Team often trains. The region is blessed with a mild climate and ideally suited to agriculture such a fruit growing, apiaries, and dairies. When I was growing up, the local economy was still dominated by three cooperative institutions: the North Okanagan Creamery Association for the dairies, the Vernon Fruit Union for the fruit growers like my dad (we had an apple orchard), and the Vernon and District Credit Union founded by folks like my dad who refused to deal with the corporate banks from “back East.” These cooperative institutions functioned to ensure that credit, inputs, and expertise were available to all their members, and to make sure that farmers got a fair price for their produce. The Fruit Union even had the best and the cheapest grocery store in town, where my mom would go every Saturday morning to stock up on food for the week. I know I’m idealizing it a little, but all in all, it seemed to function pretty well.

But the neo-liberal revolution would take care of that. The wave of “structural reforms” that began in the 1970s did away with many of the laws that had made the cooperatives possible. At the same time, barriers that had limited international currency flows were eased, then erased, subjecting the local economy to unprecedented levels of direct foreign investment by both corporations and individuals. By the early 1980s the Fruit Union had closed its doors, too, a victim of a combination of international competition and lack of access to the radically altered systems of food distribution that had come to dominate the market. As for the Creamery Association, it was dismantled and its assets eventually purchased and stripped by the Foremost-Friesland Corporation.

Of course, there were gains as well as losses. We got our first shopping mall in the early 1980s, followed quickly by McDonalds, Burger King, and all the usual American chains and franchises. Strip malls spread along all the major arteries. With farming now unprofitable, orchards were transformed into luxury housing developments for an influx of foreigners (Germans, mainly) keen to retire or purchase second homes in what was, it had to be said, an area of spectacular natural beauty. Land prices skyrocketed, impoverishing those with lower incomes. Those areas that weren’t “developed” as housing were “developed” as golf courses. Both were environmental disasters in a semi-arid climate with limited water resources. Nor did anyone notice that the increased pollution from all the new developments was turning the shining emerald and sapphire hues of Kalamalka Lake – the name means “lake of many colors” – a sadly pedestrian blue. Today, the place where I spent the first 18 years of my life is only vaguely recognizable to me.

Let’s summarize the elements here: agricultural economy with collective institutions; collective institutions are dismantled, their assets privatized, and eventually sold to multinational corporations; increased foreign direct investment flows bring McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, property developments, and golf courses; the poor get poorer, and the environment is degraded. Sound familiar? True, Vernon has yet to get its 77-storey skyscraper, and Hanoi has yet to get its ski resort. Nor has the Canadian Communist Party ever played a leading role in much of anything. But if we put aside these divergences, and a roughly ten-year head-start, it sure looks to me like these stories of development were written by the same author. Especially when you remember that in Vietnam, Foremost Friesland brands itself as Dutch Lady. Whether I’m in Canada, Vietnam, or even Koh Phangan Thailand, I just can’t help noticing that the development in my morning cup of coffee tastes exactly the same.

Why I don't work for CNN

http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/business/2010/06/08/stevens.dnt.vietnam.growth.cnn?iref=allsearch

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/social.media/06/24/vietnam.cyberwall/index.html?iref=allsearch

CNN correspondent Andrew Stevens recently contributed two pieces from Ho Chi Minh City that encapsulate neatly the contradictions inherent in the neo-liberal paradigm (not the mention the idiocy of corporate mass media). The first is a celebratory look at the Vietnamese economy, peppered with references to 7% annual growth, 30% lower labor costs than China, and a quote from a German factory owner who, when asked what sort of downsides there were to operating in Vietnam replies “I haven’t found any yet.” A seasoned investigative reporter, Steven digs deeper (i.e. steps outside the factory doors) and identifies what is apparently the only weakness in what is otherwise a paradise of political stability and cheap labor: a creaking transportation infrastructure. On the whole, though, Steven and the fund managers he interviews (gosh, I’m sure they’ve got no interest in touting Vietnam as a destination for investment) come off sounding like shills for the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning. The piece ends with a shot of apparently docile Vietnamese workers, all in identical lime green factory t-shirts, lined up to punch their timesheets (and, we hope, eventually get their 30% smaller salaries).

The second piece shows, as it were, the dark side of the workers’ paradise: oh no, the Vietnamese state places limits on freedom of expression! Steven interviews Nguyễn Ngọc Như Quỳnh (you should hear poor Steven try to pronounce that one), a blogger who has faced arrest and other forms of harassment when she published blogs critical of China and apparent Vietnamese concessions to its powerful neighbor. Chị Quỳnh, who, viewers are told, evaded police surveillance to be interviewed, is moved to tears as she makes an impassioned plea for freedom of expression. The camera cuts to Steven, his expression grim, but obviously moved. What viewer could fail to be touched by chị Quỳnh’s plight?

This is in no way meant to disparage chị Quỳnh or the dozens like her who have suffered for their willingness to criticize the Party-State. It is, however, to suggest that lauding Vietnam as an investor’s paradise while simultaneously criticizing an authoritarian state is just a smidge disingenuous. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that political stability and a cheap and pliable labor force come at the cost of certain limitations on freedom of expression, association, and organization. But these are dots that Steven doesn’t feel comfortable connecting. So a State that limits freedom of expression and religion becomes the subject of hard-hitting, if clichéd journalism, while a State that has effectively outlawed strikes and fails to enforce its own already lax labor and environmental laws is lauded as the “one” in any investor’s “China plus one” strategy. A handful of middle-class bloggers like chị Quỳnh are given a name and a voice, while millions of Vietnamese workers and farmers struggling to support their families on a few dollars a day remained unnamed and unheard, little more than a backdrop for stories of 7% growth. And we smugly criticize the Vietnamese Party-State for harassing courageous freedom fighters while we marvel at the low price of our latest consumer product. Made in Vietnam, of course.

Những chương trình “nâng cao” học bằng tiếng Anh có phải là giải pháp cho những vấn đề giáo dục đại học?

Trong vòng 10 năm vừa qua, nhiều trường đại học đã thành lập những chương trình học bằng tiếng Anh, và tư cuối năm 2005 Bộ GDĐT đã đẩy mạnh việc này bằng các chương trình “nâng cao” hợp tác với các trường ĐH ở nước ngoài. Chỉ nói riêng ở Hà Nội, theo tôi được biết, các ĐH Hà Nội, Khoa học Tự nhiên, Kinh tế Quốc dân, Bách Khoa, Nông nghiệp, Thủy Lợi, Giao thông Vận tải, Ngoại thương, và Kiến trúc đã có những khoa và chương trình học hoàn toàn bằng tiếng Anh. Người ta nghĩ rằng học bằng tiếng nước ngoài là cách hiệu quả nhất để có giáo trình mới, phương pháp giảng dạy mới, và tạo rá một thế hệ SV mới, giỏi cả chuyên môn và tiếng Anh nữa. Thế nhưng câu hỏi đặt ra là, kết quả của các chương trình này thực sự là gì?

Vấn đề 1. Các giáo viên được chọn vì giỏi tiếng Anh không phải vì giỏi chuyên môn. Tôi vừa mới gặp một chủ nhiệm Khoa Quốc tế học giỏi tiếng Anh, rất nhiệt tình và có tinh thần trách nghiệm, đã có bằng tiến sĩ… văn học Anh. Ngoài những trường hợp như vậy, đa số GV đang giảng dạy cho những chương trình nâng cao chỉ có bằng thạc sĩ, bao gồm nhiều bằng MBA hay thạc sĩ có thể lấy sau chỉ một hay hai năm học ở nước ngoài. Tôi biết vì tôi đã có bằng thạc sĩ như vậy: dù nó là của một ĐH rất có tiếng tăm (ĐH Cambridge tại Anh), nhưng tôi biết rằng sau khi tốt nghiệp rồi, tôi không thể giảng dạy cho ai cả. Ý tôi muốn nói là để có thể giảng dạy tốt, chuyên môn và bằng tiến sĩ là quan trọng hơn tiếng Anh.

Vấn đề 2: Mặc dù một GV nào đó rất giỏi về tiếng Anh, nhưng GV này sẽ luôn có thể giảng dạy sâu sắc hơn bằng tiếng bản xứ. Tôi có một người bạn, đã học tiến sĩ Nhân học tại Úc về. Cô ấy là một trong những bạn người Viêt giỏi nhất tiếng Anh của tôi: cực giỏi luôn. Cách đây mấy năm, tôi mời cô ấy dạy các học trò người Mỹ tham gia chương trình tôi đang phụ trách tại Hà Nội. Nhưng sau một học kỳ, cô ngừng việc, giải thích lý do là cô không thể hài lòng với khả năng giải thích, thảo luân, để SV Mỹ có thể thực sự hiểu ý của cô. Bây giờ, cô ấy đang tham gia giảng dạy cho các SV cao học người Việt, và bằng tiếng Việt. Cô ấy cảm thấy thích thú truyền đạt hơn và học sinh cũng học một cách thích thú. Tôi rất tiếc cô ấy không giảng dạy nữa cho các học trò của tôi, nhưng tôi tôn trọng quyết định của cô. Và nếu cô ấy, mặc dù rất giỏi tiếng Anh nhưng vẫn ngại dạy bằng tiếng Anh, thì các GV khác thì sao?

Vấn đề 3: Vì nhiều GV chưa có chuyên môn, chưa giỏi tiếng Anh, nên phương pháp giảng dạy bi ảnh hưởng nhiều. Đôi khi, nhiều lớp học dùng giáo trình rất tùy tiện, đã hết đát ở nước ngoài, và không thường xuyên cập nhật các tài liệu mới nhất từ các nền giáo dục tiên tiến trên thế giới. Và bởi cả GV và SV đều thiếu khả năng tiếng Anh, dó đó trong lớp các GV phụ thuộc nhiều vào Powerpoint và các SV chỉ chép lại. Như vậy, giáo trình và phương pháp giảng dạy mới lại rất giống… phương pháp cũ.

Vấn đề 4: Quan trọng nhất là khả năng tiếng Anh của các SV. Lúc nào tôi vào một lớp học nâng cao giảng dạy, tôi biết ngay rằng mặc dù tôi nói chậm, phát âm rất chuẩn, và dùng từ vựng đơn giản hơn bình thường, chỉ có một phần ba SV theo được. Một phần ba hiểu một nửa, còn lại... Và nếu các SV đã khó hiểu lời của thầy, thì ai sẽ có đủ khả năng và tự tin để hỏi thầy, tham gia vào các thảo luận trong lớp, và ứng dụng những kiến thức học được vào thực tế cuộc sống? Chúng ta cũng phải công nhận rằng các SV giỏi và khá sẽ có thể đạt điểm cao chính là bởi họ giỏi tiếng Anh, không phải bởi họ giỏi chuyên môn. Trong thực tế, kết quả tốt nhất có thể có được từ những chương trình này là một những SV rất rất bình thường: không chỉ bình thường về tiếng Anh và chuyên môn, mà đôi khi về tiếng Việt nữa.

Tôi không muốn nói rằng SV Việt Nam không nên học tiếng nước ngoài. Khi tôi học đại học, tôi rất vui mừng có cơ họi học ba thứ tiếng Pháp, Đức, và Tây Ban Nha, và các SV Việt Nam cũng nên học tiếng nước ngoài: càng nhiều càng tốt. Ai có tài về ngôn ngữ hay định theo một nghề nghiệp mà tiếng nước ngoài là cần thiết, thì nên học nhiều hơn để đạt được trính độ nâng cao. Nhưng các chuyên môn nên học bằng tiếng Việt. Các GV sẽ có thể giảng dạy tốt hơn, các SV sẽ có thể học tốt hơn. Nếu chúng ta thực sự muốn tạo ra một thể hệ SV mới, giỏi về chuyên môn và sãn sàng xây dựng đất nước ta, thì tiếng ta hơn tiếng Tây.

Tôi xin chân thành cảm ơn bạn Phạm Quỳnh Phương và bạn Phạm Thị Phương Liên vì sự giúp đỡ và những đóng góp xác đáng cho bài viết này.

Why is the Vietnamese translation of The Communist Manifesto so boring?

Last semester, a friend of mine invited me to give a lecture on the Industrial Revolution in her class on “World Civilizations,” at Hanoi University’s Faculty of International Studies. I’m not sure if she knew what she or her students were in for. In addition to questioning how she was teaching “World Civilizations” as a story of the ineluctable and natural rise of the “West,” and deconstructing the conventional depiction of the Industrial Revolution as flowing from the combination of technology and free markets (i.e. why the “West” is so great and everyone else sucks), I also had her students read that great theorist of the Industrial Revolution, Karl Marx. Blame my twisted sense of humor, but I do find it curious that Vietnamese university students, who’ve spent hundreds of hours learning about Marxism and Scientific Socialism, have almost never read anything written by Marx himself. So I chose some excerpts from the Communist Manifesto, printed them in both English and Vietnamese, and gave them to the students (both versions available from www.marxists.org).

This was the first time I’d read a translation of Marx in Vietnamese, and I was struck by how bland it was. Granted, the English version wasn’t written by Marx himself, but it was translated with the help of Engels, so I have to assume it captures the flavor of Marx’s original German. And for me, at least, that flavor is pretty damn good, combining powerful images with incisive critique in prose that verges on poetry. I mean, how can you not be struck by something like “All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.” But compare it with the Vietnamese. “Tất cả những quan hệ xã hội cứng đờ và hoen rỉ, với cả tràng những quan niệm và tư tưởng vốn được tôn sùng từ nghìn năm đi kèm những quan hệ ấy, đều đang tiêu tan; những quan hệ xã hội thay thế những quan hệ đó chưa kịp cứng lại thì đã già cỗi ngay. Tất cả những gì mang tính đẳng cấp và trí tuệ đều tiêu tan như mây khói; tất cả những gì là thiêng liêng đều bị ô uế, và rốt cuộc, mỗi người đều buộc phải nhìn những điều kiện sinh hoạt của họ và những quan hệ giữa họ với nhau bằng con mắt tỉnh táo.” Call me crazy, but I don’t hear the music anymore.

It’s not just me: the students agreed that while the Vietnamese version was ho-hum, the English version was, well, surprisingly cool, and surprisingly relevant to their own experience of “Development.” Why is this? Is it really impossible to translate the meaning and the poetry at the same time? Or does somebody out there want to put Vietnamese to sleep before they can begin to understand the power of Marx’s ideas? I don’t know, but I can only conclude that the first generation of Vietnamese Communists was reading their Marx in French, German, or Russian. Because if they were reading it in Vietnamese, they would have dozed right through the Revolution.

I heart Bangkok’s metro system!

Okay, so maybe it only covers a small part of the sprawling city, and maybe it does little to alleviate the notorious traffic jams, but I heart Bangkok’s metro system. Where else can you get such a seamless advertising experience? It’s not the fact that virtually all the vertical space in the stations and cars is covered with billboards. No, that’s become such a part of life that only a Martian would think it even the slightest bit remarkable. Nor is it the flatscreen TVs sprinkled throughout the platforms playing an endlessly looped series of advertisements. Or the fact that the same advertising program is playing on giant screen TVs that are actually outside the platform, directly opposite the space where waiting commuters are required to queue. It’s not even that once you finally get in the car, six more flatscreen TVs are playing the same program. No, what distinguishes Bangkok from sadly amateurish efforts in places like Tokyo or Seoul, is the way all of the spaces of Bangkok’s metro system, from the platform to the car, are equipped with Bose speaker systems so that the advertisements are not just visual, but also aural. Perhaps it’s just a generous effort to make sure even Bangkok’s sight-challenged commuters can participate equally in our consumer lifestyle, but the result is that there’s really no way to take the metro in Bangkok without being subjected to a continuous stream of advertising. Nothing, that is, short of closing your eyes, putting your fingers in your ears, and screaming over and over again “It’s NOT 1984, it’s NOT 1984.” But that would be silly. On several levels.

McAsian cuisine

I hereby give the world notice that I am trademarking the terms “McAsian cuisine” and “McAsian food.” Hell, I'll just take all of "McAsia" and "McAsian" for good measure. Anyone, anywhere who uses that term from now on has to pay me a glass of bia hơi each time they use it. Except if you’re in Somalia. I suspect not even Walt Disney's trademark department could enforce this in Somalia.

Seriously, I know that the second you read the header, you went “SNAP!” You knew exactly what I meant, even though you’d never thought about it that way. It’s that strangely generic “Asian” food that has populated food courts and airport waiting areas from Singapore to Seattle and is now even making its way into places like – the horror, the horror – the American Midwest. It’s a cuisine that takes a couple typical dishes from every country in Asia, dumbs them down and sweetens them up, and if at all possible, deep fries them for good measure. You’ve got your “Cantonese” fried rice, your “Singapore” fried noodles, some “Vietnamese” spring rolls, a Pad “Thai”… Just top it off with some shockingly bad sushi, and your McAsian menu is complete.

Now that the term is out there, it’s going to be pretty much impossible not to use it. “Hey, wanna go grab some McAsian food?” “What do you feel like tonight? – How about McAsian?” “I know this great little place that serves the best McAsian in the whole Tristate area.” Just remember, each time, that’s one more glass of bia hơi for me. And who knows, I just might have to order some real Vietnamese food to go along with all that bia hơi.

Have we killed the áo dài?

I should start this by pointing out that I’m as aware as the next human about the invented nature of “tradition” in general and “traditional dress” in particular. I know of the áo dài’s questionably “Vietnamese” roots (looks kinda Khmer now that you mention it), its recent invention (at best a bare 200 years, but really only since the 1920s), and above all how national costumes of any sort tend to promote the objectification if not commodification of women. But all that aside, the áo dài has undeniably become a symbol of Vietnam, ranking up in the top three along with the nón lá and phở. I mean, what else do we have? Honking horns?

Truth be told, there are a lot worse national symbols. If we allow ourselves to put political correctness to one side for just a moment, I think we all can admit that a woman wearing a well-tailored áo dài can be strikingly beautiful. To compare, a young woman in Korea’s national costume, the hanbok, to my mind at least, looks vaguely comical and more than a little uncomfortable. A young woman in an áo dài, on the other hand, looks graceful, demure, and sexy all at the same time. Throw in a Huế accent and she’s pretty much irresistible.

Which is why it saddened me to hear that one of my Vietnamese students had advised her American classmates not to have áo dài made before returning home. As the student explained it, in Vietnam today, áo dài are worn almost exclusively by woman in the service industry, Vietnam Airlines flight attendants, wait staff in certain “traditional” restaurants, and hotel receptionists being prime examples. As a result, the áo dài had taken on certain negative class connotations: essentially it was the uniform of working women. Not quite factory overalls, but close.

While for foreigners and overseas Vietnamese the áo dài remains a beautiful, fashionable, and uniquely Vietnamese style of dress, for at least one young Vietnamese woman, it has taken on a very different set of meanings. In our haste to create a “brand identity” – for Vietnam as much as for Vietnam airlines – have we killed the áo dài?

why is there so much meat in my phở?

Before I go any further, I should point out that the comments that follow apply only to real Hà Nội phở, not Sài Gòn phở, and especially not that strange hybrid stuff they sell at Phở 24. Anyway, given that I've been eating phở in Hà Nội now for almost ten years now, I think we can assume I know what I'm doing. I know where to get good phở bò, phở gà, the gristliest sốt vang, the softest quẩy (and we all know that's not easy in Hà Nội).

One of the things I learned early on was the precise ratio of meat to noodle necessary so that there was enough meat for each mouthful, but never too much left over at the end. But for the last few months, no matter which of my favorite local shops I go to, there's always meat left in the bottom of the bowl. There it sits, bereft of noodles, only a few slivers of spring onion to keep it company.

This intrigues me. We all know that inflation has been hitting Vietnam hard over the last two years, and the rising price of phở has been one of the clearest indicators. But at the same time, it would seem that consumer expectations are rising too, and that phở shops are competing on perceived value. Particularly given that I've been noticing increased amounts of meat in my phở over the last six months while the price has remained constant, I'm wondering if this isn't in some sense the local equivalent of the McDonald's Super Value Menu: increased "value" to keep customers coming back despite the economic downturn. If I were an economist, I'm guessing I could find something extremely profound in all of this. But as it is, I guess I'll just keep ending up with leftover meat in the bottom of my bowl of phở every morning.

encapsulation

For me one of the most insidious aspects of "Development" is what I'll call encapsulation, or the creation of barriers to human contact. Of course, this process is most advanced in that most advanced of all nations, the US. Gated "communities" of people who spend their days "telecommuting" to work, leaving their home briefly to drive their SUV to get money at a drive-through bank, then food at a drive-through restaurant, before finally returning to their cosy cocoon to watch the latest film to arrive from Netflix. I exaggerate, of course, but not by much.

One of the things I've always loved about Vietnam is the way my day is filled with human contact. Granted, it's not always a positive experience, but it is real and it is human, and that for me far outweighs the occasional frustration at the market or an overpriced xe ôm ride. But I can feel it changing. And perhaps one of the reasons I dislike cars so much is the way they promote this process of encapsulation. Motorbikes (and even more, cycling or walking) have always struck me as a particularly human form of transportation. You make eye contact with the people around you, and a left turn involves a complex but almost instantaneous process of negotiation with the oncoming riders. Above all, though, you're a part of your environment, open to the possibilities inherent in the crowd of people eating tiết canh on Hai Bà Trưng street, the smell of nước phở simmering on Lò Đúc, or of the hoa sữa trees on Nguyễn Du.

A car is different. It is a capsule, inhabited by isolated individuals with no connection to the world around them and even less responsibility. You see this very clearly in the love of blacked-out windows, or conversely in the sense of shock we experience when we encounter a convertible sports car with the top down, and realize that cars in fact contain real humans who occasionally make eye contact or even smile at the people around them.

But convertibles are the exception that proves the blacked-out rule. The other evening as I walked out for a plate of cơm rang, I watched a new BMW 5-series creep along Nguyễn Bình Khiêm street, both driver and passenger (presumably husband and wife) engrossed in separate conversations on their iPhones, oblivious not just to the minor traffic jam they were creating, but also to each other. Call me lạc hậu (it's okay, everyone does), but I still prefer the motorbike to the car, the real to the virtual, talking to the person next to me rather than someone on the other side of town. But then again, maybe it's just that BMW 5-series owners are particularly boring. Here's to enjoying real life and real people wherever and whenever we can.

Quan điểm thứ ba của một người Canada về cải cách giáo dục ở bậc đại học tại Việt Nam

Vấn đề giáo dục ở bậc đại học là một vấn đề đang rất bức xúc ở Việt Nam. Ai cũng cho rằng hệ thống giáo dục đại học ở VN đang có những khủng hoảng rất trầm trọng. Tháng 9 vừa rồi có một báo cáo của một nhóm liên kết các học giả VN và Hoa Kỳ (trên trang web: http://vietnam.usembassy.gov/uploads/images/COz3gq9l6NejWPOswskCFg/EduTaskForceReport-Sep09.pdf), và một giảng viên người Mỹ đã có một bài phản hổi rất hay (trên trang web: http://www.math.washington.edu/~koblitz/vnhigheredE.pdf). Rất có thể các bạn đọc đã cảm thấy nhàm chán về vấn đề này. Nhưng nếu các bạn vẫn còn một chút quan tâm và nhiệt huyết về vấn đề này thì xin hãy đọc tiếp bài viết này của tôi.

Trước hết tôi xin tự giới thiệu với các bạn, tôi là một học giả sử học người Canada, đã có bằng cử nhân của ĐH Victoria tại Canada, bằng thạc sĩ của ĐH Cambridge tại Vương Quốc Anh, và bằng tiến sĩ của ĐH California, Berkeley, tại Hoa Kỳ. Tôi đã là giảng viên tại ĐH Ohio (Mỹ), và đã và đang phụ trách một chương trình của ĐH California tại VN được bảy năm.

Trong công việc của mình, tôi đã có cơ hội hợp tác và làm việc với nhiều trường ĐH, học viện, và giảng viên tại VN. Và đặc biệt hơn, tôi đã giảng dạy nhiều SV người Việt trong một lớp học đặc biệt cho SV VN và SV Mỹ. Qua đó, tôi nhận thấy rằng các SV VN không hề thua kém các SV quốc tế. Hàng năm, trong lớp học của tôi, các SV VN hoàn toàn có thể cạnh tranh được với những SV Mỹ đến từ các trường ĐH nổi tiếng như ĐH California tại Berkeley, tại Los Angeles, v.v. Vậy nếu hệ thống giáo dục ĐH ở VN có thể đào tạo ra những SV thông minh, năng động, và có khả năng tư duy phản biện(critical thinking) như vậy, thì khủng hoảng ở đây thực sự là gì, và giải pháp cho nó có thể là gì?

Theo quan điểm của Đại sứ quán Hoa Kỳ, toàn bộ hệ thống giáo dục VN tại tất cả các bậc học đều rất kém, không có cách nào để cải thiện được từ bên trong. Chỉ có một cách duy nhất để giải quyết vấn đề này là thành lập một “American-Style University” (trường ĐH theo chuẩn Hoa Kỳ). Cái được gọi là “American-Style University” sẽ là “một kim chỉ nam cho những thay đổi tốt đẹp hơn, và là một hình mẫu để các trường ĐH VN học tập và noi theo.” (trang 13 của báo cáo của nhóm liên kết).

Nhưng liệu có phải như vậy không? Và những người viết nên báo cáo đó có dẫn chứng nào cho thấy rằng một “American-Style University” sẽ là một hình mẫu để cải cách hệ thống giáo dục ĐH tại VN hay không? Để chứng minh cho quan điểm của mình, họ đã dùng những trường ĐH: Middle East Technology Institute (Thổ Nhĩ Kỳ) và Indian Institute of Technology (Ấn Độ) làm ví dụ. Bây giờ tôi mới hiểu phải chăng vì vậy mà khi nghĩ đến những nền giáo dục tiến bộ trên thế giới, người ta nghĩ ngay đến Thổ Nhĩ Kỳ và Ấn Độ? Phải nói thẳng rằng một trường ĐH cao cấp nhỏ sẽ chỉ có một ảnh hưởng rất hạn chế lên toàn bộ nền giáo dục VN.

Thứ hai, có phải đất nước ta thật sự cần một trường ĐH nghiên cứu đạt chất lượng quốc tế (“world-class research university”)? Để thành lập và duy trì một trường ĐH nghiên cứu sẽ rất tốn kém. Một bằng chứng rất thuyết phục là trường ĐH nổi tiếng Harvard. Harvard chỉ là ĐH Harvard vì nó có rất nhiều tiền, không chỉ từ nguồn học phí cao mà quan trọng hơn là có lợi nhuận từ một quỹ đầu tư lớn nhất trên thế giới mà trường đó sở hữu (xem trên trang web: http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/diploma-mill/2009/01/27/losing-harvards-billions). Thử hỏi rằng, trường ĐH nghiên cứu này có thể có được một quỹ đầu tư có giá trị hơn 30 tỷ đôla không? Nếu không thì hàng năm chính phủ VN sẽ phải đầu tư một số lượng lớn tiền vào đó.

Thứ ba, đến khi tốt nghiệp, những nghiên cứu sinh của American-style university này sẽ làm gì và làm ở đâu? Lấy ví dụ của tập đoàn Intel (vì ai cũng lấy ví dụ này nhưng rất ít người sử dụng nó cho mục đích khách quan): tại VN, tập đoàn Intel chỉ có hai hoạt động chính là sản xuất và bán hàng, không có hoạt động nghiên cứu và phát triển. Và để làm việc tại Intel hay những tập đoàn đa quốc gia khác, trong thực tế thì bạn chỉ cần một chứng chỉ từ một trường cao đẳng hoặc một trong những cơ sở đào tạo nghề đang mọc ra như nấm. Thế thì việc thành lập một “world-class” “American-style” “research university” là một cách vô cùng tốn kém để đáp ứng một nhu cầu mà nền kinh tế VN trên thực tế không có. Và trong trường hợp nếu VN cần một số lượng nhỏ nghiên cứu sinh bậc cao thì cách đỡ tốn kém và hiệu quả hơn sẽ là cử họ đi đào tạo tại nước ngoài.

Thế phải hỏi American-style university này sẽ đáp ứng nhu cầu của những ai? Một là Mỹ. Hai “chuyên gia” Mỹ (không rõ hai ông ấy là chuyên gia về lĩnh vực gì) đã tư vấn nhóm liên kết các học giả VN và Hoa Kỳ, viết một cách rất “thẳng thắn,” “Việt Nam phải sẵn sàng trả”.” (trang 6 của báo cáo, trên trang web: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/innovations/asia/Documents/HigherEducationOverview112008.pdf ) Để thành lập ĐH này, Việt Nam phải vay tiền từ Ngân hàng thế giới (mà cũng chính là từ Mỹ) để trả lương cho các “chuyên gia” và giảng viên người Mỹ. Ý hay đấy! Và ngoài ví dụ này của “phép thuật tài chính kiểu Mỹ”, ĐH này sẽ là một cách rất hiệu quả để Mỹ có thể tăng tầm ảnh hưởng đối với giới lãnh đạo và chính trị Việt Nam. Mục đích này được biểu hiện rất rõ trong một báo cáo nội bộ của Đại sứ quán Hoa Kỳ tại Việt Nam viết năm 2008 (trên trang web: http://www.viet-studies.info/us_vn_education_memo.htm).

Nhưng một American-style university cũng đáp ứng được một phần nhu cầu chính trị của Việt Nam. Có một trường đại học đẳng cấp quốc tế sẽ là bằng chứng rất hùng hồn rằng Việt nam là một đất nước đang “phát triển.” Như vậy ngài chủ tịch nước ta sẽ không ngại gì khi ngồi ngang hàng với ngài chủ tịch quốc đảo Singapore. Nhưng theo tôi nghĩ, cách tốt nhất để phát triển một đất nước là bằng cách sử dụng các “công nghệ phù hợp” (appropriate technologies). Ví dụ, tôi có đủ điều kiện, có bằng lái xe ô tô nhưng tôi vẫn đi xe Honda Wave và cảm thấy rất thương những người đi các loại xe đắt tiền mà rất khó đỗ, rất dễ bị tắc đường và rất tốn xăng. Một chiếc xe Bentley hay 500 chiếc xe Wave? Thành lập một American-style university hay cải cách cả hệ thống đại học, cao đẳng? Đôi khi giá phải trả cho “đẳng cấp” là quá đắt, đặc biệt nếu công dân Việt Nam phải thanh toán.Và cũng có một lý do cụ thể hơn để thành lập ĐH này: VN đang bị nghiện các loại “project” (dự án). Không chỉ là người Mỹ sẽ có ích lợi từ dự án này mà cả mỗi một người Việt từ trên trở xuống, những người sẽ chịu trách nhiệm cho các mặt của dự án. Và mặt hay nhất của các “project” kiểu này là chúng sẽ không bao giờ đáp ứng mục tiêu. Chính vì vậy VN sẽ mãi có những đường cao tốc phải làm lại sau vài năm, những dự án giúp người thoát nghèo mà không cho thoát, và những dự án mới để giáo dục VN được thật sự là “world class”. Thế mà hãy cho thêm một project nữa đi!

Không. Ngoài những chuyên gia người Mỹ, không ai tin vào phép thuật cả. Ai cũng biết rằng để giải quyết các vấn đề giáo dục tại VN, phải cần nhiều thời gian và nỗ lực, và phải cần cải cách cả hệ thống giáo dục từ cấp một đến bậc ĐH. Từ ngày đầu một HS bước vào trường, HS này sẽ đối mặt với ba vấn đề rất lớn: một là vấn đề về nội dung không có tính thực tế của các môn học; hai là phương pháp dạy và học tập trung vào học gạo và mục đích chỉ là chuẩn bị cho các kỳ thi; ba là tệ tham nhũng trong giáo dục. Để giải quyết những vấn đề này, Bộ Giáo dục và Đào tạo phải cho phép các trường được tự do hơn về nội dung và phương pháp dạy và học, đồng thời phải kiểm soát chặt chẽ hơn tình trạng tham nhũng ở các trường. Và trên tất cả, để có kết quả giáo dục tốt, chúng ta cần những giáo viên giỏi và thực sự tâm huyết, đào tạo họ thực tốt, và có một chế độ đãi ngộ thích đáng. Nếu lương của giáo viên chưa đủ để đảm bảo cuộc sống của họ, thì làm sao nghề giáo có thể thu hút những người giỏi, năng động có khả năng đào tạo những tương lai của đất nước ta? Thầy nào trò đấy.

Để có một tương lai tốt đẹp hơn, Việt Nam cần có một cải cách từng bước và cẩn trọng đối với toàn bộ hệ thống giáo dục. Bộ Giáo dục và Đào tạo phải cho các trường tự do xây dựng nội dung và phương pháp, và chỉ nên tập trung vào việc đặt ra các tiêu chuẩn và kiểm soát cho các trường đạt được các tiểu chuẩn chung đó. Và thay vì đổ hàng trăm triệu đôla vào việc xây dựng một “American style university”, hãy dùng số tiền đó để phát triển một đội ngũ giáo viên VN tốt và giỏi. Đó là cách tốt nhất để mang lại một nền giáo dục chất lượng cho các thế hệ trẻ VN, và hướng tới một tương lai công bằng, phát triển, văn minh, dân chủ hơn.

Tôi xin chân thành cảm ơn bạn Phạm Thị Phương Liên vì sự giúp đỡ và những đóng góp xác đáng cho bài viết này.

a day without horns

I don't know about you, but I never use my horn. In the course of an average year, driving most days, I use my horn two or three times. Actually, that's not absolutely true. Sometimes, when someone behind me in traffic is using their horn in a particularly egregious manner, I let them pass me and then follow them, matching them honk for honk until one of us has to turn off (have you ever wondered who the asshole behind you was, honking exactly in time with you? Well, now you know). But aside from this particular circumstance, I really don't see the need for honking. It doesn't get me there any faster, or safer. And when I see people honking at pedestrians or nguoi ban hang rong, the gesture seems less futile than downright disrespectful. About the only explanation I have for it is that it's a uniquely Vietnamese form of self-expression. But are these really the kinds of expressions we want to make?

Hence, my proposal that the Hanoi People's Committee declare one day a month a "day without horns." It's not without precedent. In the runup to the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government had a variety of initiatives aimed at modifying everyday behavior. The eleventh of every month, for example, was "queuing day" (get it? the two "1"s look like two people standing in a line). So why not a "day without horns?" People might start to realize that honking or no honking, it really makes no difference in terms of speed or safety. But it does make a difference in terms of noise pollution and stress levels. And maybe we could find other ways to express ourselves. Like smiling and waving. Singing songs. Blowing kisses to fellow drivers. The possibilities are endless.

neoliberalism is alive and well... in Vietam

Okay, I've got to say it. With the possible exception of some policy wonks kept in the basement of the Project for the New American Century, Vietnamese students may well be some of the most unreconstructedly neo-liberal folks in the world.

In class last month during our discussion of urban development projects like "The Manor," I tried to point out the rather specious nature of the claim that they "solve" the problems of rapid urban change. If the problem of urbanization is that the rapidly increasing population of urban poor in places like Hanoi and Saigon does not have access to affordable housing and services, I argued, then it seems questionable whether expensive luxury high-rises can solve anything except the problem of where international capital can make rapid returns.

Happily, though, the Vietnamese students were not taken in by my argument. For them, the problem was less the lack of housing or services for the poor, and more the effect that the increasing population of poor people was having on the quality of life for the rich. Thus luxury developments like the Manor, by providing a spacious, clean, and safe (if sterile) living environment for those who could afford it, really were a solution. Moreover, one student continued, the urban poor really deserved their fate. They had, after all, moved to the city "by choice," and neither government nor society had a responsibility to ensure their access to anything at all. If they didn't like what they got, she added, they could move back to the countryside. Presuming, that is, that their land hadn't been "developed" into a golf course.

Not sure that she really meant what she seemed to be saying, I replied that various societies in history, and even some in the present day, felt that it was important to ensure that all their citizens enjoyed a certain minimum standard of life, often defined to include such things as decent housing, clean water and environment, education, public transportation, and health care. She was unmoved. That might be fine for the wacky Swedes, or even those bland Canadians, but not for Vietnamese. In this nation, people deserved what they got and got what they deserved.

I find this interesting. Is it just a temporary reaction to the perceived failure of socialist policies before đổi mới? Is it that the imported curricula that they study in HANU's Faculties of Management and International Studies carry with them a heavy dose of American-style individualism? Or is it coming from somewhere deeper, from indigenous notions of the individual and their fate? I really don't know. All I know is that the Vietnamese students in our joint class make their American peers look, well, almost communist by comparison. Go figure.

development's not all bad (maybe)

I was drinking beer via Skype with thầy Thư a few weeks ago, and he commented that my blog posts are painting a resolutely bleak picture of the course of development in Hanoi. This gave me pause. I like to consider myself a relatively optimistic person, not just able to see the glass of bia hơi as half full, but also able to rest contentedly in the knowledge that a full glass is but a shout of "bia em ơi!" away. So I set myself the challenge of finding an example of positive change in Hanoi in the last year.

This will probably come as a shock to no one, but my example revolves around bia hơi. Over the last four years or so, bia hơi's have been closing at an alarming rate. This sort of change is driven by the same skyrocketing land prices that are closing places like Cafe Lâm, combined with the aggressive enforcement of policies intended to eradicate street commerce. My sentimental favorite, the Việt Hà on Lý Thường Kiệt opposite the Melia closed long ago, followed by the Việt Hà on Tông Đản (moved to Hàng Bài and since closed at that location, too), and recently by the great old bia hơi Hà Nội Vân Hồ. For a while, it seemed all we were left with were the cavernous beer gardens along the lines of Hải Xồm. Perfectly fine, of course, but not exactly what I think of when I think of "real" bia hơi.

For "real" places like the bia tươi Heninger place at 60 Lý Thường Kiệt, which depend entirely on sidewalk seating, policies against street commerce were a virtual death sentence. For a few years there, I assumed it had closed entirely. But last summer, I happened to meet an old friend (Ricky, I wish you well wherever you are) who suggested that we celebrate our reacquaintance at the same location where we'd shared far too many beers back in the early 2000s. My first few sessions there last summer were still punctuated by impromptu street comedy. The informer would call, the servers would rush out, chairs, tables, and half-eaten plates of chả nhái would be whisked away, and bemused customers would be left standing on the sidewalk as the police arrived, grumbled, and eventually left empty-handed. But now, even this perfunctory attempt at enforcement has ended, and on any night of the week the tables and little plastic stools (we're talking old school here, no chairs allowed; and let's not even mention the toilet) flow out to occupy a good third of the block west of Quán Sứ. And this is not the only example: the Việt Hà on Hàm Long has retaken control of the street opposite the lovely Catholic church, there's a nice cluster of small sidewalk bia hơis down at the end of Hoa Mã... I could continue this list of revitalized bia hơis far longer than I should.

So while we've lost many of the real bia hơis forever, those that managed to survive the lean years of 2004-2007 now seem to have been able to renegotiate their right to carry on that great Hanoi tradition: selling beer on the sidewalk. The question remains, though: why this positive development? I tended to chalk it up to the inevitable waxing and waning that characterizes Vietnamese law enforcement: laws are made, for a time enforced, and then relaxed as ordinary people reassert their own notions of justice and equity. For my friend Thư, though, the answer was to be found in the current financial crisis, and a conscious government decision to relax the enforcement of laws that might restrict even further the ability of ordinary people to make a living in hard economic times. In the end, we differ primarily in our idea of where the impulse is coming from, I'm a little more bottom-up, he's a little more top-down. But the way I figure it, my analysis holds out a more hope that an improving economy won't necessarily bring the end of sidewalk bia hơi as we know it. Maybe I'm an optimist after all.

leading by example

There's an NGO based in an office on Tô Hiến Thành street (if you must know, it's next to the cafe where I usually have my morning coffee). The NGO is called "Vietnam: Promoting Energy Conservation in Small- and Medium-Scale Enterprises (PECSME for short). They provide training and financial support to businesses to promote energy efficiency, and are currently funding projects in ten provinces throughout the country. I happened to notice their project car the other day: a huge V-8 Land Cruiser. Yet another example of the peculiar way that repeated exhortations to "nói và làm" get translated into reality.

Signs of the times: RIP, Cafe Lâm

Okay, now I'm really sad. Ask a longtime Hà Nội resident, and they'll be able to tell you about Cafe Lâm at 74 Tô Hiến Thành (and not to be confused with the even more famous Cafe Lâm on Nguyễn Hữu Huân) . It is an institution on the order of Cafe Nhân, Cafe Quỳnh, Cafe Thọ, Cafe Giảng, and all the other lovely one-name cafes with original art on the often-mouldy walls, watermelon seed shells on the worn tile floors, and that uniquely Hanoian mix of old-school intelligentsia, new-school businessmen, students, taxi drivers and policemen, drinking their morning coffees and reading their morning papers. These places are part of Hà Nội's history, and as you get to know the owners, you'll learn which famous authors once got into a fight there, or which painting was a gift of a struggling artist long since made good. My own connection to Cafe Lâm is a little more recent: it is the cafe where my Ph.D. supervisor, Peter, and his wife, Cầm, courted each other back in the early days of Vietnam's re-engagement with the West (the owner still asks after you, Peter and Cầm). Add to that the fact that it was one of the few cafes I knew where sidewalk seating was still on the back-breaking tiny plastic stools, and it was pretty much guaranteed that I would stop by for a coffee every few weeks.

That's not an option any more. Cafe Lâm is gone, the space at 74 Tô Hiến Thành sold to investors who plan to build a mini-hotel. Whether Hà Nội really needs another mini-hotel is questionable, and it seems pretty clear that Tô Hiến Thành street, its spatial and infrastructural resources already stretched to their limits, cannot support the increased demands that even a "mini" hotel will make. Even more important, though, the end of Cafe Lâm also marks the destruction of another part of Hà Nội's built heritage.

Cafe Lâm is one part of a larger row house built during the early twentieth century. While it may not feature the unique design of the modernist-inspired villas and houses that were to follow, it is most definitely a genuine example of early French colonial architecture. After 1954, the use-rights (and now effective ownership) of larger properties was divided, and the building that stretched along half the block of Tô Hiến Thành was no exception. As today's investors in the hotel project have only been able to acquire the property at number 74, then that's what they'll "develop." So this concrete part of Hanoi's history will die a strange and slow death, cut in thirds by a six-story slice of architectural disaster. Is there not just a little irony in the that fact that while developers are creating ersatz "French-style" "new cities" in Hanoi's urban fringes, they're destroying real French architecture in its historic core?

Rest in Peace, Cafe Lâm.

Signs of the times: 96 Tuệ Tĩnh

I should preface this post with the observation that I've just consumed way too much rươu cao ngựa bạch (and that I've finally loaded a recent version of Vietnamese Unikey to my computer). But now we've got that out there, I want to relate what is for me the greatest and most preventablest tragedies of Hanoi today, besides the honking issue: the loss of central Hanoi's built heritage.

However problematic their colonial origins might be, few would argue that the houses, offices, and villas that were built during the French administration of Vietnam are a big part of what makes Hanoi special. Others might point to its lakes (mostly filled in now), the various varieties of bún, or that special "screw you and your mother too" attitude that can characterize interactions in this city. But for all but the most hardended advocate of "Development," the lovely old buildings sprinkled throughout Hổ Hoàn Kiếm and Hai Bà

Trưng districts are almost certainly a huge part of this city's charm. But not for long.

I live on Tuệ Tĩnh street, not far from Reunification park. Back in the (colonial) day, this area was populated by wealthy and/or influential Vietnamese, those who collaborated with the French regime or at least did an acceptable impression. And as powerful people are wont to do, they built nice houses to symbolize their power and their connection to the dominant architectural and political discourse of the time. More than fifty y

ears later, the area is still filled with the physical remains of this impulse. One of my favorite streets in the city is Triều Việt Vương, where a particular convergence of the local and the global has left us with fascinating vestiges of a hybrid Franco-Vietnamese modernism. In this context, perhaps the house at 96 Tuệ Tĩnh isn't particularly special. Yet its curves and its graceful detailing will always make it infinitely more pleasing than the six-storey glass and steel office building that will soon take its place. For that is what will happen. 98 Tuệ Tĩnh has already been sold, and as soon as the property rights of the owners of 98 Tuệ Tĩnh can be "acquired," then this building will disappear in a matter of weeks, if not days, and Hanoi will have lost another part of its built heritage. I can't help comparing this process to the sort of "development" that gutted Singapore's historical core. Yet where modern and utterly characterless Singapore was the result of conscious choices by a ruling elite committed to a certain vision of modernity, in Hanoi the same outcome will occur building by building as a thousand lovely old villas are replaced by a thousand identical and ultimately unsustainable office buildings. In some ways I prefer the Singapore version: at least there was a larger, if utterly wrongheaded vision at work. By contrast, Hanoi's lovely old buildings will be the victim a thousand cases of shortsighted greed and brided local officials. Yet whatever the vision (or lack thereof) at play, the end result will be the same: in another five years, Hanoi will have little to recommend it aside from its bún. And the honking, of course.

Food and Joy

There's not too much that I can say about The Manor that hasn't already been said. But that won't stop me from throwing out a few random observations. First, the rather surreal sign that announces your arrival at the fifth-floor food court of "The Manor's" shopping center, "The Garden." Yes, that's right, "Food &Joy."

The first thing I thought of when I saw the sign was "Arbeit macht Frei," the sign that hung above the Nazi concentration camps. Because just as work did not bring freedom to the camps' inmates, I don't get the feeling The Food at The Garden is going to be brining a lot of joy to anyone except perhaps the development's investors.

Doublespeak was the word George Orwell coined in the novel 1984 to describe the surreal language a future totalitarian state used in an attempt to turn reality on its head. And I'm certainly not the first to notice that a similar kind of doublespeak characterizes the modern art of marketing. But what fascinates me about Vietnam today is that the marketers of our ideal future are so blatant about it. Is it that the legacy of the command economy allows them to give up all pretense of subtlety, or that they're just bad at their jobs? I'm not sure. "Manors" that are essentially low-cost housing projects with a heavy (and ineffective) dose of security. "Gardens" that have no green space or places to sit and relax (and where the background music, I kid you not, is an endlessly looped muzak version of "I've got you under my skin."). Generic, deep-fried, ethnically essentialized "Food" that is "Joy." It's 1984, but with a soothing dose of consumerism and fatty food.

At the same time, though, what struck me about the Manor was how real life kept sneaking back in. At the first hint of uncontrolled space, you'd find tea stalls, where the real people who actually do all the work in The Manor, The Garden, and all its associated developments can get an inexpensive drink, a cigarette or a hit of thuoc lao, and some time to interact with other humans (not to mention a place to sit; in all the "parks" and green spaces of The Manor and The Garden, there is not a single chair or bench. Don't linger, and for god's sake don't chat: you've got consuming to do!).

Once you cross the demarcation zone that separates the two modes of existence, of course, the real Vietnamese world comes back with a vengeance: stalls selling pho, bun, mien, and all the other foods you need in a normal day; motorbike washers; haircutters; cafes; and thank god, a bia hoi. My question is whether the inmates of The Manor (are those guards keeping people out or keeping people in?) are so thoroughly indoctrinated that they don't realize how artificial and empty their little bubble is? Can they really exist on a continual diet of processed, pre-packaged food, supplemented with a daily dose of KFC to keep things balanced? Or do they sometimes sneak out when the guards aren't looking, and escape at least temporarily to the real world? Do they actually, dare I say it, resist this totalizing vision of an ideal existence?

Or was ol' Blue Eyes, and the managers of The Garden, right all along?

I've got you under my skin. I've got you deep in the heart of me.
So deep in my heart that you're really a part of me.
I've got you under my skin.
I'd tried so not to give in.
I said to myself: this affair never will go so well.
But why should I try to resist when, baby, I know so well...
I've got you under my skin.

Yup, we're screwed.

so what do you want to do with your life?

I actually had my undergraduate supervisor ask me something to that effect when I was in my first year of college. We never did really come up with an answer, beyond drinking a lot of Alexander Keith's and seeing which of my circle of friends could make out with the most girls by the end of the semester (I won, but 1. my circle of friends was pretty small, and 2. looking back it doesn't seem like quite the object of pride it once did). History, as we all know, tends to repeat itself, and so it's probably not surprising that I now find myself posing the same question to my own students. Except that unlike the Reverend Doctor Hankey (yes, that's really his name and those were really his titles), I'll limit the scope to the next four months, and endeavor to keep it on a somewhat less philosophical plane. So what am I going to do?

Stop smoking. It's done. See that, everybody?

Start studying Vietnamese again, and push my limits the same way I keep exhorting my students to do.

Meditate. I gotta do it.

Be more present for my students than I was last year. And I don't just mean at Dragonfly on Friday night.

Laugh. A lot.

And this last one might not happen, but I'll put it out there just in case: work one night per week in a bar. So if bar owner wants to hire a bartender with limited skills beyond opening a bottle of beer, but capable of being charming in English, French, and Vietnamese, just let me know. I'll work for peanuts. Literally.

Signs of the times: poof!

For most of the nine years or so that I've been in Vietnam, I've lived in the same district of Hanoi in Quan Hai Ba Trung on the edge of Thong Nhat Park. I've always loved this neighborhood, I suppose precisely because it is such a neighborhood. In fact, perhaps village is a better way to describe it: there's the chua, the den and the dinh, there's the informal market that takes over Tue Tinh in the morning, there's pretty much any kind of street food that I could possibly want within a three block radius, and there's any number of miniscule cafes where I can sit under a cay da, have my morning coffee, and read the paper. And as I make my little circuits during the day, there are all my neighbors to nod to, ask after their health, complain about the heat or the rain or both.

One of the things that has characterized my experience of this little village has a sense of stability. The same little shops, the same xe om drivers on their respective corners, the bicycle repair men and the fruit sellers, the pho ga on Tue Tinh, and the pho bo on Trieu Viet Vuong. Granted, there were changes from time to time: shop fronts have been spiffed up, there was the fleeting appearance of an upscale pho shop, and an entire block of Nguyen Binh Khiem has been appropriated so the Interior Ministry cadres can park their new cars (which given their official salaries I can only assume they must be paying off over the course of several hundred years). But for the most part, things hadn't changed much since I first came to my little village in 2001. That is, until the "poofs" started happening last year .

Poof! chi Thu and her little convenience store disappeared, the shop front taken over by a store selling overpriced Buddhist paraphenalia, and chi Thu and her family supposedly relocated to a Khu do thi moi. Poof! anh Cuong, my barber for years, gone, apparently to begin a new career as a taxi driver. Poof! chi Hang, my pharmacist, disappeared, and her neighbors don't know where she went. I could go on, but you get the idea.

I know it's anecdotal, but it seems pretty clear the rate of change in the fabric of Hanoi's urban core is increasing. Inflation, skyrocketing land prices, and changing expectations are all conspiring to turn my village into something different. Into something that's less of a village. I don't ask after the health of the employees in the shop that sells the Buddhist paraphenalia, and they don't ask after mine. And when the space that used to be chi Hang's little pharmacy finally becomes a multistory office building, I'm willing to bet the security guards won't even let me inside to ask after the health of anyone. And that makes me a little sad. My village isn't gone yet, but I can feel it going.