the world for more than it simply is

It seems that the poverty situation of Sapa is steadily improving due to the growing tourism industry, which widely caters to Westerners. However, the culture is quickly changing into something completely new.

A few days after the Sapa trip, I was informed during a guest lecture that the role of women in this society has greatly changed over the course of a few years’ time. No longer married at the age of fourteen, many women of the Hmong ethnic minority now work outside the home typically serving as tour guides. Being native to the region, they are better able to provide comprehensive descriptions of this amazing landscape, which serves as home to many of Vietnam’s better-known ethnic minority populations–Thai, Tay, Zhao, and Hmong–than their Kinh (standard fare Vietnamese) counterparts. Interestingly, the women in these areas speak better English than Vietnamese.

The question I am struggling with is whether or not tourism is beneficial to the lives of the ethnic minorities living in Sapa. There are both positives and negatives to consider. This will take some time.

Below are some pictures which may be better suited to describe what my words cannot.

I have just returned from a forty-one hour stint in Kuala Lumpur. The underlying purpose of this trip was to obtain my Vietnam student visa from the embassy there–shopping, food, and site-seeing were of course the extra bonuses. Kuala Lumpur was a complete change of pace from Ha Noi; the city’s level of visible economic development more closely resembles a blend between Singapore and Bangkok with Islamic influences. Hac and I arrived in the city in the early hours of Monday morning. Upon exiting the airport, we were actually excited to see an adjacent McDonald’s. My midnight snack: a strange concoction called the Country Chicken Burger, which frankly was mediocre.

While in KL, we stayed at the Radius International Hotel. Our accommodating structure was a behemoth in relation to the nearby Arab town, where local street vendors had set up daytime shop to sell food and drink items in celebration of Ramadan. After my midnight snack on arrival night, we took an airport taxi into the city. The driver, a friendly fellow named Amir who also lives in the vehicle which is his source of employment, discussed with us the joys of Chinese prostitutes on the hour-long ride into town. It is the case that the sex industry is illegal, but is referred to causally in conversation. In fact, one taxi driver today, who I did not catch the name of, explained that his favorite prostitutes were Malays. He also explained that mid-range and upper-range prostitutes were tested weekly for STD’s, and warned against visiting the prostitutes on the lower-range: Indonesian and Taiwanese women. It is a sad situation that sex trafficking and prostitution is becoming so common in Southeast Asia.

On the first morning, I awoke early to go visit the infamous Petronas towers. Being Monday, the towers’ connecting sky-bridge was not open to the public. After an hour’s wait on the second day’s morning, I was finally on that very sky-bridge. The views were still amazing despite the thick haze which clouds the city’s air. This smoke, according to one resident, comes around once a year when Indonesia sets its forests ablaze as an inexpensive means of clearing land for agriculture. The Pacific trade winds, as I will refer to them, carries this pollution north into Malaysia where it stagnates and pollutes the air. Not only does this smog cloud one’s view of the city, it also blessed me with eye irritation and an itchy throat. The first day continued with the Vietnam embassy, a few hours of consumerism in KL’s many shopping plazas, some delicious siew pau, a lunch of roast duck over rice, a snack at Fatman Steamboat, and concluded with a visit to Chinatown’s night market.

The next landmark we visited on the second day after Petronas was Menera, KL’s telecommunications tower which provides a three hundred sixty degree overlook of the hazy city. Though forewarned by the ticketing personnel that it was in fact smoggy, Hac and I opted to pay the entrance fee to board the elevator to the observation deck anyway. In a way, this was to make up for the failure to go up in the CN tower the summer prior to the recent. Despite the greyness of it all, I am glad that I am able to say that I did go up the Menera, if ever asked.

 
Before departing for the airport, we decided to go to Chinatown one more time to search for dim-sum. Unfortunately after locating a restaurant by the name of Ho Yook…, we found ourselves dim-sum-less as the proprietor of the place stated that these delicacies were breakfast foods and we had missed it. However, we had the rare opportunity to savor two types of leftover dim-sum, which tasted exactly as it sounds. Lunch before departure was fried pan noodles with beef, along with some more siew pau for the road.

Hatred. I usually consider this emotion to be a waste of time, but alas it lingers within thoughts and is reflected in action. For these unintentional actions, I apologize to those unjustly affected by my hatred not only today, but also over the course of time past. The reason for my daily disdain grows and will probably continue to. However, by little measure will this have much of an impact on my abroad experience. Perhaps by the time it is to part ways, amends will take place. Better to understand than to make war eh?

Digressing from the initial topic, I would like to make mention of a friend here in Ha Noi who got the short end of the stick from sketchy business deals which caused her to lose a substantial amount of capital. The system works differently here–verbal agreements rather than contracts, payment after rather than before services. Working this system, her business partners screwed her out of her investment it seems. My sympathy goes out to her. My advice: to never give up, and to rebuild and relearn when needed.

On a lighter note, one of my language teachers contributed the idea that the flavor of foods improves as one heads southward. This might true in my case, as I am more accustomed to the cuisine of South Viet Nam. Mono-sodium glutamate can only take you so far.