News, 12-13/3/01
hyt...@my-deja.com
* Watchdog demands Vietnam dissident's release
HANOI, March 12 (AFP) - Rights watchdog Reporters Sans Frontieres called on
Vietnam's communist authorities to free a prominent dissident placed under
renewed house arrest last month in a statement received here Monday.
The watchdog's general secretary, Robert Menard, wrote to Public Security
Minister Le Minh Huong on Friday to demand an end to the restrictions against
61-year-old biologist Ha Si Phu, the statement said.
Phu, who was only released from an earlier house arrest order in January in the
face of international pressure, had known "only five weeks of freedom" in the
past four years, the watchdog said.
"The harassment of Vietnamese journalists and dissidents is in contradiction
with the international commitments made by the country, especially the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by Vietnam in
September 1982."
Police in the southern highland resort town of Dalat placed Phu and former
municipal council deputy chairman Mai Thai Linh under house arrest on February 8
for "making contact with reactionaries living abroad to sabotage Vietnam," the
official media here reported.
Phu forms part of a circle of dissident intellectuals in the town who have been
jailed or placed under house arrest for criticising the government in recent
years.
He spent four months in prison in 1996 after being arrested for "revealing state
secrets."
* Syringe Wielding Muggers Terrorize City
HANOI (Reuters, 13/3/01) - Muggers in Vietnam's southern Ho Chi Minh City have
been threatening to jab people with what they say are HIV (news - web
sites)-infected hypodermic needles to persuade them to part with money and
jewelry, state-run media reported on Tuesday.
The Lao Dong (Labor) newspaper said incidents had been reported in passenger
buses, bus stations, parks and markets in the southern business hub.
In the latest incident, on Sunday, five female students were confronted by two
men with syringes in park. The men said the syringes contained ``AIDS (news -
web sites)-infected blood'' and demanded necklaces and money, the paper said.
A Ho Chi Minh City-based police officer said a task force had been set up to
deal with the problem, but declined to provide further details.
Vietnam had recorded 29,042 HIV-carriers by mid January, including 4,779 with
AIDS, but actual numbers infected are thought to be far higher.
* Vietnam slams attempts to hinder trade pact with US
HANOI, March 13 (AFP) - Vietnam on Tuesday slammed attempts to hinder
ratification of the trade pact between Vietnam and the United States amid
mounting criticism of Hanoi's human rights record.
"The bilateral trade agreement between Vietnam and the United States can not be
affected by actions of some people who deliberately sabotage relations between
the two countries", a foreign ministry spokesperson said in a statement.
The pact was a combined effort that "meets the interests" of the two nations,
added the spokesperson, following an article published on March 9 by the Asian
Wall Street Journal saying the trade pact could be jeopardized by religious
repression in the country.
The Vietnamese government did not restrict or repress religious activities, and
the right to believe in a religion was protected by law, the spokesperson said.
However, any moves to abuse these rights and use religion to disturb social
order and undermine national unity would be strictly punished.
US allegations of religious repression came after Vietnamese authorities issued
an order against dissident cleric Father Tadeus Nguyen Van Ly to punish him for
his submission to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.
US ambassador to Vietnam Pete Peterson on Friday stepped up his lobbying efforts
for the groundbreaking Hanoi-Washington trade deal, urging the administration of
President George W. Bush to send the pact to Congress for ratification.
But he warned the process of ratifying the accord in Congress would be "noisy"
as opponents of Vietnam's communist regime were sure to target its rights
record.
* Vietnam's communist leaders prepare for key party congress
HANOI, March 13 (AFP) - Vietnam's communist leaders opened week-long talks
Tuesday to prepare for a key party congress due to unleash a major leadership
reshuffle, officials said.
Some 170 members of the party's powerful central committee would "discuss the
direction of Vietnam's development in the next few years and changes within the
party leadership," a party official told AFP.
The meeting of the central committee could be prolonged because of strong
differences between factions over the crucial subject of replacing elder party
leaders, according to Western diplomats.
Vietnam's number one, conservative party chief Le Kha Phieu, is among those
believed to be targetted by the planned reshuffle, after coming under fire for
his lacklustre performance.
Diplomats and analysts believe he will be replaced at the upcoming five-yearly
party congress which will largely rubber-stamp the decisions made by this week's
plenum.
The party's three powerful advisors -- elder statesmen Do Muoi, Le Duc Anh and
Vo Van Kiet -- circulated a letter within the leadership last October accusing
Phieu of "a lack of ability in party and state management."
At its last meeting in January, the central committee also debated an upper-age
limit for senior officials which was widely seen as an attempt to give the
69-year-old party chief an honourable way out.
Phieu is due to give an "important speech" to the closed-door meeting, the party
official said without giving any further details.
The ninth party congress, initially due to be held at the end of March, "will be
held at the start of next month" and was delayed by slow preparations at the
local level, he added.
The central committee is also set to examine a report which will go before the
congress at which a third of the committee's members are set to be replaced.
The meeting opens a few weeks after violent demonstrations by thousands of
members of the country's ethnic minorities in the provinces of Gia Lai and Dac
Lac in the central highlands.
The two weeks of protests rocked Vietnam's main coffee-growing region earlier
this year and finally threw into stark relief the failings of Phieu's three
years in office.
The former army chief had been appointed to the country's top job to provide a
steadying hand after a similar wave of unrest swept the countryside in the midst
of the Asian financial crisis in 1997.
The party blames the rural violence on rampant corruption and abuses among party
cadres which have severely dented the party's prestige, particularly among its
traditional bedrock support, the peasantry.
Phieu has been accused of not having paid enough attention to the problem, and
was even accused of cronyism in several official appointments in his home
province.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Phan Van Khai has made it clear he wants to leave the
public stage, and has tried to step down at least twice in the past few years.
Party officials will be trying to convince him to stay on or accept other
government responsibilities.
* Lorenz-Smeenge Foundation Helps Under-Privileged Children Face the Future With
Smiles
JACKSONVILLE, Fla., March 13 /PRNewswire/ -- On March 14, 2001, 16 volunteer
specialists will board a plane to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on a mission to
change lives. The hands of these skilled surgeons will touch the faces of many
children, and the lessons learned will reach an entire community. Barry
Steinberg, M.D., D.D.S., Ph.D., F.A.C.S., is the medical director of the
Lorenz-Smeenge Foundation for Pediatric Disorders -- the organization that makes
this much needed mission possible. The Lorenz-Smeenge Foundation is a
not-for-profit organization established to enhance the health and well being of
disadvantaged children with facial disorders.
For nearly a decade, Dr. Steinberg and his team of volunteers have traveled to
this distant country to help children that otherwise would have nowhere to turn.
Many of the kids they treat are victims of land mines and other dangerous
post-war trappings that lurk in the countryside. But performing life-changing
surgery is only part of their job during the two weeks they spend in Ho Chi Minh
City; the ultimate goal of the group is to teach Vietnamese doctors how to
operate effectively on children with facial disorders and then move on to
another country in need of this education.
Upon arriving to Vietnam, the Lorenz-Smeenge volunteers rest from the trip and
then begin examining their first patients. Thousands of people seeking treatment
will travel great distances for the chance to be treated by Dr. Steinberg and
his crew. Because of the overwhelming response, in the days prior to their
arrival, Vietnamese doctors must choose 100 of the most severe cases and arrange
for those children to be examined. The volunteers are then forced to pick 60 to
70 of those 100 to undergo treatment. The remaining children will wait with the
hope that their doctor will gain the knowledge necessary to care for them too.
The next ten days are spent in surgery at a facial center that once served as a
morgue for the U.S. military. The group brings the equipment they need to
perform the operations and leaves a good bit of it behind for the native doctors
to use on their patients.
Without a doubt, the trip to Vietnam changes the lives of many people. The
children are not only healthier, they feel good about themselves -- a feeling
many have never experienced. Parents are grateful to the doctors because their
children look and feel better -- many hopeful that their families may be
accepted back into the tribes that cast them out. The Lorenz-Smeenge volunteers
are so touched by the mission that they beg to go back year after year.
The Lorenz-Smeenge Foundation for Pediatric Disorders was started by The Lorenz
Center at Shands Hospital in Jacksonville, Fla., and Jacksonville Jaguars
all-time leading sacker, Joel Smeenge. The Lorenz Center provides life-improving
care and treatment for children with facial disorders. Shands Jacksonville, the
urban campus of the University of Florida School of Medicine, has dedicated
numerous resources to The Lorenz Center, which assists in the management of
pediatric trauma, pediatric pathology, congenital defects and oral surgery.
For more information about the Lorenz-Smeenge Foundation, please contact Lyn
Briggs at the Dalton Agency, 904-398-5222.
* Dot-Com Vietnam : The communist government is nurturing Internet entrepreneurs
to catch the wave
SF Chronicle, 13/3/01 _ Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam --The steel railings and
concrete walls of the Saigon Software Park give Truong Dinh Street, an avenue
lined with trees and airy French colonial villas,
an institutional look.
But the scene at Realtimedia on the fourth floor of this monolithic office
building is anything but institutional.
Tran Van Tuan, the new firm's 29-year-old owner, puffs on a cigarette while
listening to heavy metal music. Nearby, a dozen computer programmers sip coffee
while creating Web sites and software programs for clients in Vietnam,
California, Ireland, Denmark and elsewhere.
"We work with the Internet because we love it," said Tran. "And we have a
flexible work environment."
Fortunately for Tran, Vietnam's communist government has finally embraced the
Internet. When the Web first surfaced in Vietnam three years ago, many party
cadres worried it would threaten their ability to control public information and
protect national security. Police closed down Internet cafes and carted off
computers.
But now the state envisions high technology as an economic boon that will create
employment, and it is willing to give young entrepreneurs like Tran a chance to
nurture dreams of Silicon Valley-style fortunes.
Last July, the government inaugurated its $1.8 million Saigon Software Park
building with 25 high-tech companies. In December, officials announced several
measures to encourage software development, including tax breaks and the
introduction of e-commerce and wireless application protocol (WAP), which
permits Internet connection without a computer.
In January, the state announced the "Ho Chi Minh Road of the 21st Century"
program, which aims to have 1.6 million Internet users online by 2005.
Currently, there are only 113,000 users in a nation of 78 million inhabitants,
according to the General Department of Posts and Telecommunications.
INTERNET CAFES BOOMING
But Internet cafes are booming and Vo Viet Thanh, the mayor of Ho Chi Minh City,
just finished another high-tech park with 30 companies called Quang Trung
Software City. The complex will also include restaurants and nearby dormitories
for workers.
Some observers say the key to the formation of these start-ups is the
"enterprise law" introduced last year that makes it easier to obtain a business
license. As a result, 12,000 new companies have been created.
"Red tape was really choking private enterprise here," said Frederick Burke,
a lawyer for the international law firm Baker & McKenzie who has an office in Ho
Chi Minh City. "The enterprise law helped stimulate new businesses that don't
require much capital, like Internet cafes."
A trade pact signed by former President Bill Clinton in November has aided
Vietnam's fledgling high-tech industry. U.S. companies such as Oracle Corp. and
San Francisco's MeetChina.com have formed partnerships with local companies.
MeetChina.com and FTP, the Vietnamese Internet service provider, are creating
Vietnam's second business-to-business Web site. Mekong Sources launched the
nation's first B2B online site during Clinton's visit.
NOTORIOUS SECURITY PROGRAM
To be sure, the government has not loosened many rigid business regulations that
dampen growth, and censorship exists on Web links Hanoi finds objectionable,
such as pornography and anti-government sites created by Vietnamese abroad. The
Internet is monitored by a notoriously slow security program, or "firewall,"
that can cause some computers to crash.
Moreover, Internet access is offered by just four licensed providers -- the
leader is the state-owned Vietnam Data Communication Company -- that charge
exorbitant prices. Foreign software firms, for example, pay about $2,500 a month
for an Internet connection.
And with only nine computers for every 1,000 Vietnamese and few telephone lines
countrywide, Vietnam is limited by its poor infrastructure.
Yet Ho Chi Minh City is fast becoming a popular spot for foreign firms that want
to contract out such operations as software programming, Web site development
and graphic design.
'EMBRACING THE WEB'
"There is an embracing of the Web that wasn't here five years ago," said David
Appleton, who employs a staff of 30 at his Silk Road Systems, a software company
he launched two years ago.
Other foreign-owned companies have followed a similar path. "I see the potential
of this place," said Steve Paris, general director of Sutrix Media, an Internet
and software development firm with offices in Switzerland and Singapore. "When I
first came to Vietnam I saw the technical aptitude of the Vietnamese and their
enthusiasm."
Local entrepreneurs like Tran are excited about the announcement that Saigon
Software Park will soon be given a direct satellite connection. If that happens,
it would be the first step in relaxing control over the Internet and the first
Vietnamese operation to have such access.
Tran studied law but chose to pursue his childhood computer hobby instead. Seed
money came from friends since it was nearly impossible to get a government loan,
he said. In 1998, he even tried to open an Internet cafe.
"I applied once and they told me to wait. I waited forever," he said.
Tran, who has about 50 clients from Vietnam, the United States, Europe and
Australia, hopes his company can continue to grow.
"I want a staff of 500," he said.
* Vietnam Communists meet amid leadership debate
BBC, 13/3/01 - The Central Committee of Vietnam's ruling Communist party has
begun a meeting to prepare for the national party congress due to be held in the
coming months.
Correspondents say the Committee session is expected to focus on political and
economic development plans and on leadership issues.
Earlier this year a senior party official said there should be an upper age
limit for party leaders, but Vietnam's Foreign Ministry has rejected speculation
that the seventy-year-old party head, Le Kha Phieu, is under pressure to step
down.
Reports from Vietnam say there are major disagreements among party leaders on
the issue, and no immediate decisions are expected from the committee meeting.
* This drugs war is just like Vietnam
The United States is bogged down in an unwinnable contest
Special report: George Bush's America
Matthew Engel Tuesday March 13, 2001 The Guardian
The United States is staging a new offensive in the drugs war, most forcefully
on the public relations front. In Bolivia, we are assured, the production of
coca - the plant which is the basis of cocaine - has almost been eradicated
after a three-year US-backed campaign.
In Colombia, an aerial spraying campaign in the coca-growing heartland of
western Putamayo has reportedly destroyed thousands of acres of crops. Colombian
officials are describing the operation as "a resounding success". Two senators
have just returned, praising the Colombian military's financial probity and
commitment to human rights - a combination of remarks that just happens to send
my personal Geiger counter, which records bullshit quotient in news reports,
completely off the clock.
The word "Vietnam" still haunts policy-making in Washington, and President Bush
has refused to sink further manpower into Colombia. But if you take the drugs
war as a whole, the similarities are overwhelming. With the very best of
intentions, Washington has committed vast quantities of resources to an
unwinnable contest against a far more committed, hydra-headed enemy. And as in
Vietnam, many of those resources seem devoted to kidding themselves, visiting
senators and the public about operational successes.
A lot of the participants were stoned out of their brains in Vietnam too. But
that war got stopped because the sons of America's suburbs started being killed
and wounded in large numbers. In this war, those suffering most directly are the
disempowered and voiceless: South American peasants; low-grade suppliers who get
caught and jailed; addicts who end up being driven further into dependency.
It is a low-level conflict that suits pretty well everyone else: politicians who
like to pretend they are taking action; recipients of their largesse who make
fat livings out of the funding; the titans of the recreational drug industry who
make vast and almost risk-free profits; and most of their customers, who have
enjoyed a plentiful supply for decades.
Almost every action in this war has the reverse effect to what was intended.
Donnie Marshall, of the US drug enforcement administration, admitted to Congress
last week that the strikes against coca meant that Colombia has suspended
attacks on poppy plantations, so its heroin exports have increased. Cocaine use
has been dropping in the US, as the nasty effects of crack have become better
known; heroin increase, however, has doubled in five years.
The Guardian reported last month that the planes were indeed successfully
spraying coca crops; they were also spraying fruit trees, maize plants and
schoolchildren, who were suffering from rashes, headaches and vomiting. The
promised aid to the peasants had of course not arrived. A Washington Post
reporter noted a week ago that on almost every farm hit by the herbicide, young
coca plants were now in evidence. In Bolivia, where victory is being proclaimed,
less than half the families (a UN estimate) have received assistance in planting
alternative crops and most of these crops are failing. It makes British farm
policy looks sensible.
There are tiny scraps of evidence that the US is starting to wake up to its
folly. In its Hollywoodish kind of way, the successful film Traffic has at least
made the subject topical. A new administration, in which an urge to cut costs is
vying with a dictatorial nature, is showing the odd smidgin of interest.
The New York-based Drug Policy Foundation says that 500,000 Americans are now
behind bars on drugs charges, compared with 50,000 in 1980. (Of course, most are
black so what the heck?) The drugs war cost the US more than $40bn last year,
according to the foundation: "Yet illegal drugs are cheaper, purer and more
readily available than ever before." Footling with the supply chain of this
brilliantly successful free market, with occasional prissy lectures to children,
has solved absolutely nothing.
In Britain, the debate is still bogged down on the minor question of legalising
cannabis. We desperately need someone to understand the bigger picture: that
legalising, controlling, restricting, taxing and de-glamourising recreational
drugs offers massive prizes by breaking the power of the cartels and gangs,
emptying the jails and - if handled properly - cutting usage as well.
The crimes of about 70% of Britain's prisoners are in some way related to drugs.
There's no chance of sense from the present government, petrified of both the
White House and the Daily Mail. There's even less hope from Hague and Widdecombe
(the Smith Square cartel). Miss Widdecombe is even now probably working on plans
to outlaw sex and rock 'n' roll as well. But is it remotely possible that a
chastened post-election Conservative party, searching for a big idea, might
actually hit upon a good one?
* A U.N. Paradox: Some on Rights Panel Are Accused of Wrongs
NITED NATIONS, (NYT, 12/3/01) — The United Nations Human Rights Commission, the
focal point of debate among nations on a range of political and civil liberties,
is growing steadily less free and tolerant in its membership, human rights
groups say.
The 53-member commission, elected from and by the United Nations' 189 member
governments, begins its annual six-week session next Monday in Geneva. It will
be the first opportunity for the Bush administration to speak out on major
international human rights issues, including on how to deal with China, which
usually avoids criticism by mustering enough support to keep its record off the
commission's agenda.
As the meeting nears, several rights groups are warning that with each passing
year, the makeup of the commission, whose members are elected for staggered
three-year terms, becomes more problematic.
On Wednesday, Human Rights Watch plans to hold a a news conference in Geneva
where it will question commission members' attitudes toward rights practices.
Last week, U.N. Watch, a small group based in Geneva, compared the list of
current commission members with the annual "freedom index" compiled by Freedom
House, a New York group that monitors civil and political rights. It found that
about half the commission's member governments were in the lower half of the
index, which ranks countries on a scale of 1.1 for the freest, to 7.7 for the
most repressive.
Five members of the commission — Cuba, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Vietnam —
have 7.7 ratings. Only four commission countries — the United States, Canada,
Norway and Portugal — get a 1.1 ranking by Freedom House, closely followed by 14
nations that are mostly from Europe, plus Japan, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Mauritius
and South Africa.
The commission censures governments for failing to abide by international rights
agreements, sends out monitors and exerts a powerful control over access to an
international platform to report on claims of abuses. A number of commission
members bar human rights monitors from visiting their countries.
* Statoil to sell share in big Vietnam gas project
(REUTERS-LONDON)- Norway's state oil company Statoil said on Friday it would
pull out of the US$1.5 billion Nam Con Son offshore gas project in Vietnam, with
plans to sell off its 13.33% stake.
The announcement comes just days after the foreign consortium operating Nam Con
Son formally launched the project which will tap natural gas from the Lan Tay
and Lan bo fields in southern Vietnam. "We have notified our partners in the
project and the Vietnamese authorities that we are considering selling our
operations in the country," Statoil public affairs manager Kristofer Hetland
told Reuters. He was confirming a report in industry newspaper Upstream.
"Several companies have expressed interest in taking over Statoil's share in the
Nam Con Son project," he said.
Hetland declined to give details but industry sources said two companies which
were likely to show interest in Statoil's stake could be U.S. Conoco and Unocal
Corp., both of which are active in Vietnam. Hetland also declined to specify the
value of Statoil's share of the reserves although Upstream cited an independent
estimate of more than US$ 100 million.
The sale will effectively bring to an end Statoil's operations in the Far East,
leaving only a trading office in Singapore. Last week it agreed to sell its
Malacca refinery in Malaysia to Petronas and Conoco. " Statoil's upstream
strategy entails strengthening our group's position in countries where we may
become a core operator and Vietnam is not such a country," Hetland said.
"We intend to concentrate on our operations in Venezuela, West Africa, Northwest
Europe and the Caspian basin." Besides Statoil, Nam Con Son groups BP with a
26.67% stake overall, India's ONGC Videsh with 45% and PetroVietnam with 15%.
The consortium estimates Nam Con Son has reserves of 59 billion cubic meters,
with first gas likely to be pumped in 2002.
* *WashPost: Return to Vietnam Family finds joy on its journey back to war-torn
homeland
12/3/01 - The two-day journey from Washington to Hanoi, with stops in Los
Angeles and Taipei, has left every passenger but 73-year-old Pham Van Tu looking
ragged and rumpled. His stiff formality apparently does not allow for slouching,
not even on overnight plane trips. He arrives without a wrinkle in his suit or a
mark on his stiff black dress hat; he has said barely a word during the entire
trip.
BUT IN THE BOYHOOD HOME he once shared with his 81-year-old brother, who still
lives here, Mr. Pham seems a different man. Animated, lively, effusive with his
smiles. Mr. Pham left Hanoi 46 years ago, moving to Saigon soon after the
country was divided, leaving the North in communist hands. In Saigon, now Ho Chi
Minh City, he worked in the protocol office of the U.S. Embassy. In 1975, when
the Americans fled, Mr. Pham and his family went with them, living in a refugee
camp before settling in a St. Louis suburb. T hroughout the decades of war, he
could not even write or phone his family in the North. In those 46 years, he has
visited only once before, in 1994.
But now he settles back in his brother's house, stretches out his legs and says,
"I feel now I'm home. To me, everything in this house tells a story." But there
are four of us on this trip. We each bring our own lens, through which we see
the country.
For Mr. Pham's youngest daughter, 32-year-old Cam Tu, this is a foreign land. A
thoroughly Americanized computer help-line manager in St. Louis, Cam Tu was only
7 when her family left Saigon. She has almost no memories of ever living there.
She dresses stylishly and has no trace of an accent. On her first walk down a
Hanoi street, she expresses shock at the open-air markets typical in Asia, where
women are cutting hunks of meat and swatting flies. "They're using the same
cutting board and knife for meat and for vegetables," she says, frowning. As we
finish our walk she concludes, "I am so lucky."
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Her brother, Tony, 36, was 11 when his family left, telling him they were going
to the beach for vacation. On his first trip back, at age 30, he rushed from the
airport to his boyhood home in Saigon, where other relatives now live, and asked
if they had kept his toys. During that trip, Tony, a New York City Internet
design architect, fell in love with the homeland he hadn't been aware he still
cared about. He's been returning at least once a year since 1994.
I am here to observe the homecoming of these three. But I have come of age
during an era defined by the Vietnam War, and as I plan my first trip to this
small nation on the other side of the world, I'm surprised by how many towns and
hamlets are familiar. Places where my high school friends fought, in a war my
college friends protested. Places where boys my age died; deaths I watched on
the nightly news.
To me, Vietnam was a war. Now, I will see it as a country. As a great travel
destination. And as a place where every piece of furniture in a little house
means something to an old man who expects that this will be his last visit home.
PHAM'S LAST VISIT
About a million Vietnamese Americans live in the United States, including 50,000
in the Washington area.
Although most immigrants leave home these days expecting to return at least for
visits, most Vietnamese Americans came as refugees, and leaving their homeland
represented a final break. When the United States normalized relations with
Vietnam in 1994, however, they began flooding home. A small minority refuses to
legitimize the Vietnamese government by visiting. But for most Vietnamese
Americans, going home is an almost sacred goal.
This trip was to be the last for Tony's father, who retired from his job in a
bank, and his mother, Duc Pham, a retired seamstress. But in October, Duc Pham
suddenly fell ill. Her last wish, from her St. Louis hospital bed, was that Tony
accompany his father home one more time. And bring Cam Tu, she said. Cam Tu
should see her homeland and know her relatives.
It is very important for his children to come, Mr. Pham says a few days after
arriving. "Soon I and my brother will be gone. The children must be the ones to
hold our family together."
The decades of separation, and a civil war in which one brother's country was
bombed and the other worked for the government delivering the bombs, were not
enough to divide Mr. Pham and his only brother.
Aside from a trip to his ancestral village, Mr. Pham does not intend to budge
from the house during this three-week trip. Tony and Cam Tu will see the sights
in Hanoi, and visit Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City. But not him.
"I just want to be with my brother," says Mr. Pham. "Everything I remember
outside our home is either changed, or it is gone."
FAMILY INTRODUCTIONS
Every half-mile or so, on the way to Mr. Pham's brother's house, we pass
roadside markets filled with the trees and flowers every home must have at Tet,
the Vietnamese Lunar New Year.
"Look," I keep saying, amazed at the bicyclists and motorcycle riders who are
managing to transport trees lush with orange kumquats or cherry blossoms on the
back of their bikes, sometimes with a couple of family members holding on, too.
"Look at that," says Cam Tu, pointing to two bicyclists riding side by side,
hauling a piano between them.
The van stops at the entrance to a tiny alleyway off Pho Hue Street. We walk to
the narrow, three-story row house where Mr. Pham's brother lives with his wife
and the families of his three sons, each of whom has two children.
Tony greets each of the 20 or so relatives by name and hugs them; his father is
beaming. Cam Tu smiles politely. Mr. Pham takes great pains to include me in the
introductions: "This is so and so, the husband of the eldest daughter of my
wife's youngest sister." I concentrate on remembering the name of his brother,
Pham Van Lac, a frail, gentle man who greets us wearing a white shirt, tie and
dark suit. Mr. Pham has brought him a bottle of Geritol.
Pham Van Lac's wife, Pham Thi Nhai, has followed the old-fashioned tradition of
blackening her teeth with betel nut juice to prevent decay. She walks doubled
over, her back bent by decades of carrying baskets on each end of a long pole,
selling goods in the streets from age 10 to age 70.
We crowd onto two long benches facing one other, and on an ornately carved
platform that is seating space by day, a king-size bed by night. Mr. Pham points
to a china closet inlaid with mother of pearl, positioned so you can see it from
the street through the front door, which is almost always left open. He says he
can tell many stories about the cabinet. I ask for one.
"When the French bombed Hanoi, we took that cabinet to our ancestral village,
dug a big hole and buried it," he says. "It was the most valuable thing we
owned. We felt if we lost everything else, we could dig it up and sell it for
food."
When American B-52 bombers began pounding the city, long after Mr. Pham had
left, his brother again took the china closet to the village and buried it. It
returned to the living room in 1975, when the American bombers left.
Asked if he'd ever consider selling it for any price, Pham Van Lac replies, "Not
unless there is not one grain of rice to eat for many days."
Tony and his father will stay here with the extended family, but I sense Cam Tu
would appreciate an invitation to share my room at the Duc Loi, a pleasant,
$30-a-night hotel a block away. She enthusiastically agrees.
FESTIVE HANOI
Early that evening, the streets of downtown Hanoi - a short cab ride from the
family's home - are jammed with well-dressed families celebrating Tet, lovers
strolling the moonlit path around Sword Lake, groups of teens. Street vendors
are selling glow sticks, noisemakers, carved pineapples on sticks, grilled meat.
A show that is simultaneously telecast on giant screens has drawn crowds to the
stage in front of the Opera House, which is next to the Hanoi Hilton. It's a
real Hilton, not the ironically named jail for prisoners of war. (A small
section of the prison, which held Sen. John McCain among others, remains
standing a few blocks away. Most of the site is now filled with classy shops and
condos.)
The show is glitzy, upscale, with fog machines and colored spotlights. The acts
are eclectic: break dancers, traditional folk dancers in conical hats,
rollerblade dancers in skimpy costumes, a European aerial acrobat.
One of the many first-rate art galleries is still open. I yearn for the
beautiful works on the wall, which range in price from a few hundred dollars to
a few thousand. But I am content, and thrilled, with the matted originals
stacked on a table, going for $3 to $10 each.
A feast has been prepared when we return to the house a couple of hours later,
and everyone is in high spirits. Two dozen of us squeeze into the front room.
One at a time, the grandchildren and children of Pham Van Lac approach their
elders, making speeches as they present gifts. The adults take turns handing out
red and gold envelopes with money inside. The room is filled with laughter as
the envelopes are distributed. Tony says he remembers being so excited as a
child that he couldn't sleep for days before Tet.
I, too, am given brightly decorated envelopes. One man, related to the family
somehow by marriage, stands before me and gives a formal address before handing
me his envelope. Although I don't understand the words, they are so clearly
heartfelt that tears come to my eyes. I later find out he's given me the
equivalent of $5, or 10 percent of his monthly pension.
At midnight, fireworks displays set off at five different locations around the
city begin exploding. The government has banned traditional firecrackers, which
the family explains are wasteful and impede traffic.
But the atmosphere of joyful hilarity is about to change. A relative announces
that she will sing in honor of Mr. Pham's wife. Cam Tu translates: "She says
that although my mom's not here, she can feel her spirit in the room."
During the song, everyone cries - even the teens who have met Mr. Pham's wife
only once, six years ago. The family takes turns holding Mr. Pham, who is
weeping. It feels like a funeral, a substitute for the real thing that took
place so far away.
BEARING GIFTS
At midnight, the city is alight with candles and incense set on altars outside
each Buddhist home. Our party is still going when Cam Tu and I leave at about 2
a.m. Four hours later, I'm drawn to my hotel window by the sounds of frantically
squealing pigs. A bicyclist is transporting about six pigs, alive and dead, on a
contraption rigged to the front of his bike.
I head for the city center, where I walk for miles, and where the locals
repeatedly wish me a Happy New Year.
Although most Western visitors are from Europe, English is the most common
second language here.
A temple that sits in the center of Sword Lake, connected to land by a wooden
bridge painted red, is filled with families lighting incense in honor of their
ancestors. This part of the city is being redeveloped, but many grand old French
colonial buildings remain.
I end up at the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum complex. There, in a glass enclosure of a
massive square building, lies the open casket of the leader of a resistance
movement that first fought the French, and later, the Americans. Ho Chi Minh
looks as good as the day he died in 1969, but with a slightly waxy, Madame
Tussaud-like pallor. The mausoleum complex includes a museum, lovely walkways,
shops, musicians playing classical Vietnamese instruments and the home on stilts
where Ho Chi Minh lived next to a pond so crowded with fish you could scoop
dinner into your hands, were that allowed.
Back at the Pham home, guests bearing presents of cakes, candies and wine stream
in and out. Four young women, two sets of sisters who attend college and live
together in this house, have prepared yet another feast.
"These girls are very good students and good children. They obey their parents.
No arguments, no complaints," Mr. Pham tells me. I wonder if he is comparing
them unfavorably with his own children. Then he continues.
"My brother's sons and their families all live in this house. It's tradition. I
tried to do that in America, but it doesn't work. They marry, and they want
their own home. That is why I am all alone. That is why I am lonely."
One of the visitors is Mr. Pham's brother-in-law, Pham Van Hop, a warm,
intelligent man who speaks English and Russian and tells me he has visited
Russia and Berlin. As a high party official, he was very close to Ho Chi Minh,
Mr. Pham says. His brother-in-law shakes his head modestly.
I've been told of this English speaker, whom I immediately think of as Uncle
Hop, and have brought him a present: a copy of "Shrapnel in the Heart," a book
about what visitors to D.C. have left at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Saying he has cataracts, he asks me to read a passage. The book opens to a
letter written by Sgt. Frederick Garten, who attached the wedding ring of a Viet
Cong fighter killed in 1968. "I wish I knew more about him," the letter says. "I
have carried this ring for 18 years and it's time for me to lay it down. This
boy is not my enemy any longer."
Uncle Hop touches my shoulder. "It was always about governments," he says.
"Never people."
Tony begins looking up a phone number on his state-of-the-art personal digital
assistant; family members surround him for what becomes a demonstration. With
the timing of a professional comedian, Uncle Hop reaches in his shirt pocket,
too, and offers to show his tiny address book. Even Tony joins the explosion of
laughter.
Mr. Pham later tells me that the minute the war ended, his brother and Uncle Hop
rushed to Saigon to look for him and his family.
"They were so happy to learn we'd gone to America," Mr. Pham says.
Uncle Hop turns to me and confides, "We were furious."
HAWAII IN VIETNAM
The Southern drawl of an American pilot comes over the speaker system, welcoming
us on board Vietnam Air for our flight to Da Nang.
Tony, Cam Tu and I, now accompanied by a Washington Post photographer, are
heading to a first-rate resort along the China Sea - what American soldiers on
R&R called China Beach.
The Fujami Resort, designed by an Australian architect and financed by a Hong
Kong businessman, is a glorious blend of East and West. Marble, tiles and highly
glossed wood grace the lobby and the rooms, each of which has a balcony
overlooking the sea or one of the resort's swimming pools. Published rates
beginning at $140 represent many months of an average Vietnamese salary, but
compared with resorts of similar quality in the United States, it's quite
reasonable.
The water of the China Sea in late January is warm enough for swimming. A row of
shops along the beach features native crafts and silk clothing. Farther down the
beach, locals catch and cook fresh seafood. Round fishing boats bob in the
water, in the shadow of starkly chiseled My Khe Mountain.
I run into Cam Tu in the lobby. She is glowing, for the first time since I've
met her.
"It's Hawaii," she exclaims.
We enjoy the resort for the remainder of the day and dine at a seafood
restaurant in a converted ship docked in downtown Da Nang. The next day, the
photographer and I hire a driver to take us about 10 miles to the Marble
Mountains.
The mountains, named for the red, white and blue-green marble they yield,
overlook the white beach, palm-shaded peninsula of Lang Co. Steps are carved
into the mountains, steps that meander past temples, caves, grottoes. At the
top, monks tell fortunes and vendors sell coconut juice.
At the bottom of the mountain, stores sell expertly carved marble, from jewelry
to huge marble lions. A life-size statue of Ho Chi Minh can be bought and
shipped to the United States for $2,000. A pair of horses is $2,500 - before
bargaining.
Our driver delivers us to the outskirts of the ancient port city of Hoi An,
which is highly lauded as a tourist spot. Since cars are banned from much of the
carefully restored city, we hire two pedicab drivers and stop in a building with
a "Tourist Bureau" sign.
Perhaps our mistake is identifying ourselves as being with the media. We'd
gotten only a couple blocks when a man from the office zooms in front of our
pedicabs with his motorbike and spends an hour haranguing us with such
statements as, "You Americans think you can do anything you want." He finally
allows us to leave, we pay for our pedicab ride, and tip each driver the
equivalent of $5. As we get in our taxi, one holds the bills out toward us with
both hands, bows and kisses the money.
'IT WAS MY ROOTS'
Two days later, back in Hanoi, Cam Tu calls a friend in St. Louis to find out
who won the Super Bowl. The friend asks Cam Tu about jet lag and what time she's
getting up.
"It depends. Sometimes the horns of motorcycles wake us at 7. When there are
squealing pigs, we get up at 5," she says.
We are up just after dawn this morning, to get an early start for our trip to
the ancestral village where the Pham family still has relatives.
An hour later, the van holding 34 family members turns down a dirt road between
rice paddies and stops at a grove of trees. The family, led by the eldest
members, walks down a quiet tree-lined path to family grave sites built between
the rice paddies and ponds filled with ducks.
They bring roses and incense to place on the two dozen white graves built, as in
New Orleans, above ground. Two empty grave sites at the end are reserved for Mr.
Pham's brother and sister-in-law, who sits in front of the grave of her mother,
praying, rocking and weeping.
Mr. Pham spends the most time at the grave of his only sister, who died just
weeks before his 1994 visit. We then return to the van and drive another mile or
so. An uncle is waiting at the village gates. He shouts and waves, and rushes
ahead on foot to announce our arrival.
Another feast has been prepared for us inside the painted cement home. Rice
stalks used as fuel for cooking are neatly piled just outside the door, where
chickens peck for food.
The village of Chu En My in Ha Tay province is famous for its mother-of-pearl
inlay. A small furniture factory is closed for Tet, but after lunch we visit the
home of more distant relatives to buy wooden inlaid boxes, frames, trays and
pictures of the Virgin Mary. This is one of the many villages largely converted
to Catholicism during French colonial times.
The family is apparently happy with the sales: A teenager is sent out to buy
everyone cans of Coke, a major expense.
This village of rice farmers and wood carvers was repeatedly bombed between 1954
and 1975. Their church -members are proud of once having a priest granted
sainthood - was destroyed by the French. It was rebuilt, then destroyed again by
Americans.
But once again, using bamboo scaffolding and their bare hands, the villagers
rebuilt a three-story church with high spires. The altar and stations of the
cross are made of their best wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The Phams from
America helped financially.
Tony stares up at the church spires and says a cousin his age told him that when
he was a boy, he grew so depressed by war that he stood outside in the
churchyard during bombings, praying to be killed.
Tony hadn't thought much about those cousins while growing up in suburban St.
Louis, where his family members were the only Asians. On first arriving in the
United States, he spent hours hiding in his closet, crying. But within a year or
so, he was not Tuan any more, he was Tony.
"I had no feelings about being Vietnamese until I came [to Vietnam] in 1994," he
says. "But when I arrived, I immediately realized what it was I had felt was
missing in my life. It was my roots."
DETAILS: VIETNAM
Last month, the U.S. State Department warned Americans of ethnic protests in the
Central Highlands area of Vietnam, which disrupted flights and hotel service.
The agency encourages tourists to visit the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi (6 Ngoc Khanh
St., Dong Da, telephone 011-84-4-831-4590) or the U.S. Consulate in Ho Chi Minh
City (4 Le Duan St., District 1, 011-84-8- 822-9433) upon arrival to register
and obtain updated travel information. All travelers must obtain a $65 visa to
enter the country. The Embassy of Vietnam in D.C. (see below) can provide
details.
HANOI
GETTING THERE: I flew Malaysian Air to Taipei, and connected with a flight to
Hanoi on Vietnam Air. Round-trip fares for the 26-hour flight, including
connections, start at $1,200. Consolidators, such as Liberty Travel in
Alexandria, discount heavily. Alternatives include Air France via Paris.
WHERE TO STAY: Of the major, centrally located hotels, including the Hanoi
Hilton, Nikko Hanoi and Hanoi Daewoo, I recommend the Sofitel Metropole (15 Ngo
Quyen St., 800-763-4835, http://accor-hotel-vietnam.com/sofitel-metropolehanoi).
All are in the $100-plus range; the Metropole can be booked for $140 at
www.asiatraveltips.com. The De Syloia is a small boutique hotel starting at $50
a night (all can be booked at above agency).
The Duc Loi (291 Hue St.), a short cab ride to tourist spots, is one of a number
of family-owned hotels that is friendly and cheap, at $25 to $30 a night. E-mail
for reservations at duclo...@vol.vnn.vn. Budget travelers should consider the
centrally located Viet Phuong (123 Nguyen Thai Hoc St., telephone
011-84-4-843-0170 or fax 011-84-4-843-4745). With rooms starting at $25 a night,
even penny-pinchers can afford a suite.
WHERE TO EAT: The Hanoi Garden (36 Hang Manh) has great regional fare in a
renovated French colonial building, with outdoor seating. Entrees: $3-$10. Cafe
252 (252 Hang Bong St.) features French pastries, omelets and sandwiches.
Artists sometimes pay the owner in artwork, and the resulting collection is
impressive. Cha Ca (14 Cha Ca St.) is packed with locals and tourists in the
know, with entrees costing only a few dollars. The President's Garden (14 Tong
Dan St.) is in a lovely old mansion. It purports to be French, but strikes me as
continental. Entrees start at $12.
GETTING AROUND: Don't even think of driving. The only traffic rules are that
there are no rules. Cabs are cheap; the 45-minute ride from the airport is $10.
A car and driver all day: $40.
WHEN TO GO: Spring and fall are best, but Hanoi in late January was pleasantly
warm. While there is interesting activity before Tet, many restaurants and shops
close during and a few days after the holiday.
MUST NOT BE MISSED: Ha-Long Bay, about 100 miles from Hanoi, is a World Heritage
site with gorgeous scenery, limestone islands jutting from the sea, and caves
where local generals once hid weapons to fight Kubla Khan.
DA NANG
GETTING THERE: A one-hour flight from Hanoi costs $140 round trip.
WHERE TO STAY: The only world-class hotel is the Furama Resort (68 Ho Xuan Huong
St., 011-84-511-847-333, www.furamavietnam.com). Doubles start at $140 a night.
The next best beachfront hotel, the Tourane (My Khe Beach, Phuoc My Ward,
011-84-511-932666), starting at $25 a night, shares the same ocean view and
hosts many Europeans.
WHERE TO EAT: The Indochine Restaurant in the Furama has a pan-Asian menu, with
entrees starting at $12. The slightly cheaper Hoang Ngu (T18 Nguyen Van Troi
St.), which specializes in seafood, is on a ship docked in Da Nang Harbor.
INFORMATION: Vietnamese Embassy, 1233 20th St., Suite 400, 202-861-0737,
www.vietnamembassy-usa.org. Tour operators specializing in trips to Vietnam
include Collette Vacations (800-340-5158,
www.collettevacations.com), Djoser (877-356-7376,
www.djoserusa.com and Untours (888-868-6871,
www.untours.com), a budget alternative.
SHOPPING IN VIETNAM
Hanoi may not be the first city that leaps to mind as a shopper's paradise, but
that's exactly what I found it to be. With only a few hours here and there
devoted to shopping, I packed a big box with original art, wool area rugs,
framed pictures so delicately embroidered they appear to be oils from a foot
away, and laquered boxes inlaid with mother of pearl - without coming close to
my $400 duty-free allowance.
Hang Gai and Hang Bong streets are great for wandering around, with everything
from fine stores to windowless stalls with lots of fun handcrafted items. Among
their specialties:
Embroidery. Start at Tan My (66 Hang Gai), where the stylish, English-speaking
owner, Do Thanh Huong, sells exquisite embroidery work - on linen and pictures
displayed on the wall - made in her village. I bought two small original
pictures, framed, for $20 each, and a somewhat campy yet beautiful 12-by-14-inch
copy of van Gogh's "Starry, Starry Night" for $180.
Paintings. The North is experiencing an artistic renaissance recognized
internationally, and some original artwork has shot up in price, although $5
bargains are still available. The place to start: the Opera Gallery (24 Trang
Tien St.), near the Sofitel Metropole.
Clothing. Khai Silk (121 Nguyen Thai Hoc St.) has stylish, Western-style jackets
beginning at $45, skirts at $30 and shirts at $10.
Rugs. I bought three wool area rugs in modern designs for $30 each at the Woolen
Carpet Shop (24 Hang Bong St.). Fine, hand-knotted silk rugs are a steal: a
3-by-5-inch throw, which takes one worker four months to make, goes for $80.
Home furnishings. Check Lacquer (2 Hang Bong St.) for high-quality lacquerware,
and Dome Interiors and Vietstyle (10 and 5B Pho Yen The St.) for home
furnishings.