Backtracking Further

Just back from Melaka where I managed to catch up on some sleep. This might be a good time to wind up my comments on my Vietnam experience. I wanted to say something about the people we met there (specifically the Vietnamese themselves), and the people we didn't. Generally those we met were nice folk to come across. The locals on the boat were particularly pleasant, handling our party with courtesy & good humour throughout our stay. Similarly, Mai (I think that's how you spell it) our tour guide was a really good guy with an unaffected friendliness & warmth of disposition. The hotel staff were a model of courteous efficiency also, as were the various staffs in all the restaurants we ate at. Of course, I suppose with all the above being in the tourist industry, as it were, you might expect smiling faces. But people on the streets were also pretty easy to get along with. We didn't run into any unpleasant incidents in the 6 or so days we were there, and that's good going considering we had 16 lively adolescents with us.

Of those we never really got to meet (millions of course!) two groups stick in my mind. The first are the inhabitants of the floating village, or one of those villages at least, on Ha Long Bay. Mike took us to their museum. There we caught a glimpse of some of the younger villagers who were staffing the place. Funded by Unesco, the museum gives employment to a few villagers, who look extremely bored but stick to their posts manfully, and seeks to develop a sense of dignity & self-worth in the villagers in terms of its memorialising of life in a floating village. The problem is that it already feels as if the real message is that this way of life is coming to an end. It's much harder to catch fish now in the bay as pollution and the degradation of the mangrove forests is reducing numbers drastically. The solution, says the museum, is the development of aquaculture - the cultivation of fish farms. The problem is that over the long term this will create an even heavier burden environmentally in terms of the need for little fish to feed the big fish, at least that's how Mike, an extremely clear-sighted bloke, saw the situation. It was difficult to imagine the younger guys staying in the village(s), especially with the lure of jobs in tourism on various parts of the mainland of the bay. So something that's been there for hundreds of years is coming to an end and I was lucky to intrude upon it while it was still there, I suppose.

The other group I didn't really get to meet (never saw even one, actually) were the miners who'd created the slag heaps visible on the mainland of the bay. There was generally a kind of dustiness on the air and you saw quite a few individuals wearing some kind of face mask almost everywhere you went. The dust came from the heaps. Mike filled us in on the nature of the mining in the area on our last morning on the bay. We'd scaled some kind of hill and had a great view of the bay and its attendant slag heaps. Anyway, the mining is about as safe as it is in China and we (the developed nations) are the ultimate beneficiaries as the mines provide the energy we feed off. Which means the miners lead lives both miserable and dangerous and we benefit, even as we add to the problem of global warming. I suppose it might be useful to feel guilty if only one knew what might usefully be done about any of this.

More Backtracking

I didn't know what to expect from Hanoi (see pictures above) but what I got came as a surprise. The gods of capital certainly appear to be alive and well there despite the communist packaging. At times it seemed a bit like Bangkok, at times like Jakarta, at times like the low-rise areas of Kuala Lumpur, though I felt a greater underlying sense of order than in any of those cities. Not many apartment blocks but lots of tall (five or six storeys), thin, sometimes pointed, sometimes pagoda-ed buildings. Generally these were colorfully painted or decorated, but if the money had run out this might be simply the front with the sides &rear in bare concrete. I saw no beggars, though some of the street peddlers were a touch aggressive, and some slightly desperate. The businesses in the Old Quarter looked like they were making money for their owners though the staff occasionally gave the sense of being a bit tired of it all. One shopping centre to which our tour guide took us, Trang Tien Plaza, was as up-market and expensive as any of the malls in Singapore - a sign of things to come? The humorless security guard (plenty of those around) objected to anyone sitting on the steps on the way in.

Oddly enough, fridge magnets were hard to come by. A shortage of fridges in Vietnam?

We visited a pottery village called Bat Trang. It looks as if the Vietnamese are keen on grouping similar types of business in particular locations. The shops there seemed pretty similar though and you tended to see the same kind of pottery designs all over the place. It was all a bit bland, though the little art galleries around Hanoi did offer something like variety.

We also spent a surrealist morning filing past the waxy corpse of Ho Chi Minh, poor chap. (By all accounts he wanted to be cremated so I don't know what he would have made of his last resting place.) He is housed in a suitably gloomy mausoleum, surrounded by appropriately annoyed military types. They don't like you to put your hands in your pockets, talk, smile or generally act normally as you pay your respects to 'Uncle Ho'. I suppose some kind of personality cult is inevitable in this kind of society and this one was reasonably harmless. Once you leave the confines of the mausoleum there are some fairly cheerful gardens to visit with a rather fine presidential palace (French style, in yellow like so many of the bigger buildings in the city) and a couple of smaller houses in which the late president spent time during the wars against France & America. The souvenir stalls are a replica of those anywhere else in the world - except for the lack of fridge magnets, and the plethora of images of Uncle Ho.

In contrast to the silliness above, the War Museum achieved a real sense of dignity. I think I expected to see some marks of destruction on the city that Nixon threatened to bomb back to the stone age in my teenage years, but the museum was the only place I saw in which there was any kind of acknowledgement of that insanity. All things American appeared to be in high regard, though it was rather jolly to be in an Asian city with not a single MacDonald's in sight. The Vietnamese, I was told several times, have decided to put the past behind them. Sometimes you see signs of hope for our benighted species, and it generally comes from the least likely places.

The city, by the way, has the nickname City of Motorcycles. I suppose this sounds better in Vietnamese. Helmets are mandatory so nobody wears them. The casualty rate on the roads is frighteningly high. Mike, one of the guys on the EcoBoat, told me that it's not actually an offence to knock someone down when you're drunk as the fact you are drunk means you couldn't help it. The noise from car & motorcycle horns is intense, constant, unremitting, unavoidable: nightmusic of a kind.

Backtracking

Ha Long Bay (see pictures above) is a remarkably beautiful place. Enormous outcrops of limestone, known as karsks, I believe, everywhere emerge from the sea. There seem to be hundreds of them. In the three days we were on the bay, in the EcoBoat, they became our familiar companions so you almost forgot how stupendous they were. Almost.

The area is touristy, very. There are always a lot of boats on the bay, but the guys running our boat knew the waters well and were able to escape the well-worn routes. When we went kayaking we were quite alone, and similarly in the second cave we visited, though the first was a tourist hot spot. Of course, our mangrove planting took place in an annex to nowhere, with our team having trekked over a kind of mud trail to get to a coastal area at low tide. One problem with planting in the mud is that it's not wise to stand still for too long, otherwise at least one leg will sink into the mud and once it's sucked in getting free is quite a struggle.

We slept (sixteen students & two teachers) on a covered deck of the boat, on simple mattresses. It was too hot to consider any form of blankets. In the mornings we'd usually find one of the local ladies in a small boat alongside selling all sorts of snacks & drinks. We did our part to fuel the local economy. We had two primitive toilets-cum-showers to share with the crew, with a couple more taps on deck where you could also wash, so getting clean was a struggle. Having said that, everyone cooperated so we were able to make the situation work.

On two evenings we watched videos related to environmental issues - an episode of the BBC's Blue Planet about polluting the sea, and the Al Gore film, An Inconvenient Truth. Consideration of what our species is doing to this world was more than a little depressing. I think one or two of the students also felt a bit that way. The simple hopelessness of a beach clean-up we attempted (styrofoam being the number one culprit) was a particularly poignant reminder of how we're drowning in our packaging. Still, somehow what was beautiful had survived. For now.

Out Of Nam

The first time you visit a country is generally an overwhelming experience with so much that's new to take in. My first visit to Vietnam held to the pattern, leaving me with too much to make sense of to do justice to the experience this late at night. I'll try and record something of value in the next few days, though with a wedding at Melaka to attend this weekend my efforts will be fitful at best.

One thing I am pleased about is the sheer amount of physical activity I managed to get through in our six days. Even in Hanoi, the easy part of the trip, I got to the fitness centre in the hotel a couple of times. At Ha Long Bay I survived the rigours of mangrove planting (not for the faint hearted), a game of beach football, two pretty steep climbs, a couple of hours of kayaking and at least one fairly long swim from beach to boat. I couldn't have done all that three years ago, that's for sure.

Surviving, Just

When the going gets tough my instinct is to disappear, but at the moment simply getting through the day is as tough as it gets so there's no avoiding having to deal with it. Why do we create jobs that require more than 24 hours of work in a day?

It doesn't simplify matters that I also need to get things sorted out for Vietnam, basically by tomorrow night. Fortunately Noi is taking control of that so I'm just following her lead. I'm now pretty much kitted out.

A Day in the Life - So Far

Woke for the swubuh prayer but went back to bed after completing it and slept until 9.15. Got up again, only to remember Chelsea's victory last night in the cup final. At least it didn't go to penalties which is the worst way of all to lose. Felt a bit depressed but then considered what a great season United had all told. Such are the benefits of a sense of proportion.

After showering, read the Sunday Times (the Singapore version thereof.) Possibly the world's worst newspaper. The Life section (now, I think, called lifestyle - ugh) increasingly reads like some particularly crass magazine for women. Only the cartoon section is worth anything, with Get Fuzzy, as always, the highlight of the whole thing.

Listened to Dylan's Planet Waves whilst reading, followed by The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, but didn't listen closely enough to do the material justice. I'm growing increasingly convinced that music actively listened to is a beast of a completely different nature than music as wallpaper (or, worse still, lifestyle.) Once I finished reading the paper I reread a couple of the short plays we're doing as part of our next show, which has now found its name: Made in the Middle Kingdom. Ta da!

Marked some Theory of Knowledge stuff & prepared my record book for the week ahead, breaking off for a while to drink the hot sweet tea (prepared by my hot, sweet wife) and eat hash browns for breakfast. Normally I'd eat cereal but we got the hash things in thinking that the girls might be staying over, a plan that fell through.

Listened to The Pogues's Rum, Sodomy & the Lash whilst continuing to mark. Broke off when our neighbour, Noraini, visited. She and her family are moving out today. Noi was watching proceedings from the back balcony & giving me a running commentary on what Noraini's kids were doing, who was loading the van, and the like. By the time Noraini took her leave there were floods of tears from both Noi and herself. I was reminded of a line from Death of a Salesman, spoken by Willie's wife, Linda, that my sixth form English teacher, Jack Connolly - great guy, wonderful teacher - told me years ago was a great truth: Life is a taking leave. (I hope I've got that right.) Anyway, true, and painful, it is.

Temporarily finished doing school stuff around 2.30 pm and took Noi to Geylang Market to shop for the spices & mutton she needs to take to Melaka the weekend after next to cook for the weddings of a younger brother & sister. She will be cooking for 1000 people! There was a lot to carry and we needed the help of a young Bangladeshi helper to get it all to the car. (Typically generous, Noi paid him double the going rate suggested by the stall holder. He deserved it. The afternoon was unreasonably, unremittingly hot and tiring.) Before loading up we had tea & vadai, the latter being red hot and soft and delicious from having just been fried.

Now we're back home, with me writing this and still marking in between paragraphs. We're off to Woodlands this evening to play Happy Families with the girls, Noi having found a set of the playing cards at a shopping centre yesterday. No doubt Fuad and I will miserably recall the misfortune of last night's game, but I don't mind Chelsea winning too much. I have a bit of a soft spot for Mourinho. After all, a man who calls his dog Gullit can't be all bad.

Enlightenment

I read Hesse's Siddhartha again on Friday and this morning as today I needed to teach it to the small group of scholars I've been helping out for their competition, for which they fly off on Wednesday. It always feels a bit odd to say you are teaching any text in Literature - after all, in what sense is a text teachable? But in the case of Siddhartha I got that odd and happy sense that the text was teaching me. The best lit lessons always feel that way. It helps to be inspired by searching questions also. I was almost convinced by one or two of my answers.

The Construction of Light

Generally I get to work around 6.40 and work in the staffroom until we go out for flag-raising at 7.25. This morning I broke the routine as I needed to pop across to the office at 6.55 to write an announcement that had slipped my mind when I arrived. As I walked across the open space where we do flag-raising the light had a quality I've sometimes (though not that frequently) noticed before, usually around that time of the morning. For five minutes or so there was a heavy kind of yellowness which seemed to glow on everything, making the world more vivid, more actual somehow. The floor particularly seemed to be lit from the inside. Nothing in the sky seemed to account for this phenomenon, though I suppose it must have been connected with the rising sun. My body told me to expect a storm. The heaviness of the light suggested something was on its way. But nothing arrived. By the time I came out of the office, mission accomplished, the world was disappointingly ordinary again.

Good Morning Vietnam

This time next week I should be in Vietnam with most of my class, if things go as planned. It's quite an opportunity. We'll be planting mangroves around Ha Long Bay as part of a project conducted on an EcoBoat, trying to establish a healthy mangrove habitat around the bay. Also we'll have some time to spend in Hanoi.

In my teenage years Hanoi meant blanket bombing by B52s. Some things have changed hugely for the better. But was all that suffering worth it? History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake. I might be misquoting Mr Dedalus, but Joyce, as usual, is uncannily correct when it comes to the big stuff.

Better plant than rant.

Vocally Speaking

It was touch & go as to whether my voice would last the day. That was worrying, to say the least; a voiceless teacher is not exactly effective. I'm pleased to say it did last out and, I think, is in a slightly better state now than it was at this time yesterday.

Listened to Bob Dylan's Shot of Love this evening, for the first time in quite a while. Vocally I think he was on pretty good form on a generally underrated album. This version has The Groom's Still Waiting At The Altar on it, which makes for a much stronger set all round somehow. Oddly I always enjoy Property of Jesus which nearly all the critics hate, but Bob in a name-calling mood is always a bracing experience, even when you're not exactly on his side. I suspect that if his targets had been acceptable to his liberal fans (instead of actually being said fans) the track would have been hailed as a classic in musical terms.

Why is it that guys singing in the same band end up sounding like each other? It's taken me years to realise that the Edge sings on Seconds (off War) rather than Bono, and I rarely have a clue who is actually taking the main vocal on any Pink Floyd track (except for the Syd Barrett stuff, of course.) I rest my case with Daltrey & Townshend. Oh, and Jagger & Richards - who were most definitely not the property of Jesus.