Little things about Vietnam keep recirculating through my mind lately: An elderly women carrying her grown son on her back in Ho Chi Minh city. He must have had Cerebral Palsy, he was very emaciated and clearly paralyzed, she smiled weakly at me as we passed in a taxi;
Tiny little children yelling "Hello!" to Mark and myself as we wandered along a river in Hue, in an area where not many tourist venture;
The "man of the house" at our homestay in Sapa keeping us up singing that Jack Wagner hit "nothing's gonna change my love for you...";
Watching some Caucasian women on the beach in Hoi An surrounded by vendors trying to sell them stuff they didn't want or need, and feeling very grateful to be in the no harassment zone provided by our hotel. Then looking towards the opposite end of the beach at the Victoria hotel's Elephant "Darling" giving guests rides up and down the beach.
Seeing so many limbless people making their livings by begging in the streets of Ho Chi Minh.
Vietnam was tough, but I'm glad we went. I saw a travel show today with a guy in Cambodia, the Cambodians on the show had the same flat affect I saw on people in Vietnam, maybe an expression that comes from living through so many horrible things lik War, Genocide and Poverty. They went to a temple and the man said he was going to pray for the same thing all Cambodians pray for: "peace and prosperity".
Singapore is nothing like it's nearby neighbors. It's more like the U.S. in many respects than those places, but not so long ago they weren't so different. The Singaporean people have worked amazingly hard to create this incredibly modern and safe city. The striking differences really make me wonder, what is the difference between a modern "1st world" city, and a "3rd world" place? The difference between Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, and Singapore makes some things easily identifiable in terms of what makes me feel more secure in a city, and makes a city seem more modern:
1. Construction site regulations and dust sheets to protect the surrounding areas from all of the dust created by the building site. There were no shields in Hanoi or much of Vietnam and the cities were dusty and overly polluted because of it (Ho Chi Minh seemed to be an exception).
2. Side walks should be kept open for pedestrians. In Vietnam, especially Hanoi, the sidewalks were primarily used to park motorbikes, forcing people to walk in the streets.
3. A central agency to regulate food sales, such as a board of health. No such entity appears to exist in Vietnam. In Singapore all food vendors are required to display their health/cleanliness rating, same as the U.S. and probably all other modern nations.
4. Clean water. This is crucial. How does a country provide clean drinking water for its populace? I don't know, but it's a requirement to be considered a modern metropolis (at least to me it is).
5. Child labour laws. We interacted with way too many very young kids out in the streets all over Vietnam selling things to help support their families. When do they play?
I'm sure more things like the preceding will occur to me later. It's just interesting to thing about these things, especially now that we live in a Country/City that's made the transition in the fairly recent past. What are the conditions necessary to become a modern city? I know some of these conditions would probably not be met by many places in the U.S.. It would make an interesting study. Can anyone tell I have my undergrad degree in Sociology? I love this stuff.