Xin chou...

I really can't get a grasp of this city .…never seen anything like it..….but this picture of the wires on the telephone pole really says everything you need to know to understand about life in Hanoi. The next sign for Pho-To-Copy is another example… they both 'get the job done’, they function or get the point across.

As I said before, the people here are incredibly warm, lots of smiling and exuding a general happiness as much as anywhere. I’m trying to be observant and not judgmental (if at all possible), but it’s like they strive to achieve mediocrity and sameness. No real desire to achieve excellence and just a ‘go with the flow’ people live here.

           
            Just some observations:

This first picture of the zillions of wires on the flagpole.…........... I’d guess that half the wires are dead and haven’t worked in years…. Something needs to be wired, just string another one on the flagpole…no need to deal with the ones that don’t work. The people just don’t seem to mind much or even have a strong desire to get ahead or move up in wealth. Both guys and girls just scoot around town on their motorbikes and so what if your family of three all ride to work on one motorbike…it gets them from point A to point B and it’s a functional way to get to where you are going….period.

The next picture… ............The Pho-To-Copy sign gets the point across even tho to me it seems to be a ridiculous way to break up the word ‘photo’, but it gets the job done.

Unless there is a true need to make something ‘work’, there is no reason to use effort to improve, make things prettier, or cleaner, more appealing or easier….things seem to either function or not function… there seems to be no degrees of how well. 


Dust and dirt is over everything outside, and inside for that matter.............… But who cares, if it’s clean, it doesn’t make the road or sidewalk function any better. It’s not dirty with garbage or anything like that….never see homeless on the street…but just can’t find hand sanitizer, can’t find a car wash or anything similar… cleaner doesn’t make any better it seems.

Funny story & again so typical……..........   When watching an English movie, the dubbing is terrible because one person dubs all 5 voices, and doesn’t even try to change the tone of his voice. So Clint Eastwood would sound just like Jodie Foster if they were in the same scene, and they both would sound like the kid in the scene. All that is important is that people know the words each person is saying. Having 5 different people dub voices wouldn’t make the words any different, so why do it? I have never seen a society with so little desire to make things ‘new or improved’…if it works the way it is, then just leave it…

There is almost no selection as to restaurants, stores and such . ….........…Forget finding an Italian restaurant, or American food or Japanese… it all seems to be just Vietnamese food, tho this is one area where they seek and achieve excellence. All the stores seem the same… they are tiny store fronts with some Coca Cola cans in the small front glass case, some toiletries next to it, maybe some detergent and a few candy bars. For every ‘different’ specialty type store, there must be 25 of these types.

No need to put in traffic lights…..........…  because people are doing fine crossing the street just the way it is…why put the effort into making it easier. It is really nothing like I have ever experienced in all my previous trips to third world countries.

My point is it is enough for these people to just live with basic functionality…because the bigger, the cleaner, the newer and the more comfortable has little importance to these people from what I can see. Bigger, cleaner  & more comfortable doesn’t get them to work or a friend’s house any faster or better ..… and the rules of the game that they play as to what is important is just to get to where they are going because that is where their fun/pleasure/shopping is. It’s all about functionality here, zero pretention. I can’t really say it’s any or that much worse…because the nicer and bigger and more comfortable that we have can lead to a different set of problems.


About Friday’s work placement…..

      I just love being at Peace Village with these kids and the teachers, but this is where mediocrity and little desire to strive for excellence really hits home in a sad way. These kids are extremely low functioning, tho to look at the pictures I posted the other day, they seem smiling and alert and pretty ‘with it’. But only 2 of the 10 in my class can even talk, and the smiling never seems to have much connection to events going on. The down syndrome kids seem heads and shoulders above the others as to awareness, tho it may appear just the opposite . 

Again, here is the sad story where you just want to shake someone and yell ‘Wake up, wake up’. But it’s the administrators, the teachers and the aids you want to shake! They most often just sit around chatting with each other and only spring into action if one of the kids is doing something bad or dangerous. Not the slightest attempt to teach or improve… well nearly zero. Like the other things I spoke about in the beginning, they have just accepted that this is the way it is. 

But some of these kids have been very reachable… and I’ve seen that in just the few days I’ve been there. Vu, a down syndrome kid just sits at the table like the others and occasionally drools but does little else. But I got him to mimic my hand clapping and even got him to do a poor pattycake with me…but he did it and with practice, could do it much better… AND he was laughing and smiling. The teachers just looked on, almost with the look of ‘wow, I didn’t know he could do that’ . And the high fiver kid, Minh, went outside and he and I kicked around the soccer ball, and he was surprisingly exceptional…not even just good. He had the skills, very coordinated as to heading the ball, doing tricks with both feet with the ball and such. Skillwise, he could easily play with kids of his age in a league…that is if he understood the rules and was able to follow them....oh, and if someone thought to do it. I’m serious, he would be on a skill level in the middle of the pack for any team he played on with kids of his age. But the kids never really go outside much, and no one at the school has tried to improve something he can do. It's not that they don’t want to help & improve his skills or lot, they just have no idea how to begin or perhaps see any reason necessary to. My guess is they think ‘Well, he’s not hurting or bothering anyone, so why is it necessary'.... and not doing it for a malicious or uncaring reason at all.

     And nearly every kid in the class has a story that could be told in a similar fashion .


 This weekend is planning to be a quiet one. Many of the volunteers are here for only a short 2 weeks, so they are traveling for the weekend to see places. Ryan, a real nice guy, and I have stayed behind and the following weekend, I have arranged for my ‘big’ trip to the must-see Ha Long Bay for a 3 day cruise on a junk ship and then an overnite sleeper train to Sapa, a beautiful mountainous region about 7 hrs. away from Hanoi. Actually, today I was hoping to take a short 1 hr. bus to see the Truc Lam Tay Thien Zen Monastery.  
 
Well that’s it for now, over & out!