So Farr's long-awaited visit to Indochina finally took place. He arrived late Friday night and took up residence in Stefan's dress shop along Hai Ba Trung.
He took to the difficulties of Southeast Asia - the traffic, the crowds, the constant demands for charity - with surprising equanimity, as if it were all local color. He was also agog over the low prices and took to photographing all of his meals.
The one thing neither of us could really take was the heat. After an hour or two of exploring we'd be forced to find an air-conditioned cafe and restore ourselves with a cold drink or two.
We did the usual tour things - War Museum, Reunification Palace, Cu Chi Tunnels. We also went in search of a tailored shirt that would meet his exacting standards (no luck( as well as cheap DVDs and various Vietnam trinkets (success). John was particularly taken with a shop selling old propaganda posters, urging the Vietnamese to raise more pigs and fight imperialism and so on.
Then, Angkor Wat, which are not any less magnificent for having seen them already. The usual swarms of postcard-hawkers were there, though they seem to have absorbed a great deal of information about the Obama family, which they used to gain our sympathy (and money).
It was all over before we knew it, and we each went our separate ways again. Until November.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Hai Ba Trung Pharma
After about 10 days in Vietnam I began to get worried that i wasn't getting enough calcium; I can't remember the last time I had a solid glass of milk and so I decided to head over to My Chau Pharmacy, which was recommended by Let's Go Vietnam.
You see, Stefan's shop (www.stylespy.vn) is located on Hai Ba Trung, the 'fashion street' of Ho Chi Minh City. It is lined with stores selling shoes, jeans, dresses, and every other f=piece of clothing you could wish for. For some reason, near his shop there is a small strip of pharmacies selling what I assume are dodgy generic medications.
Still, I felt confident enough to try for some basic vitamins and minerals. I waltzed into My Chau and gave the clerk a small slip of paper with 'calcium' written on it. In return, he gave me a very small packet containing four pills and demanded 500,000 dong (about $28). That seemed distinctly odd to me. I looked at the package and realized he had given me Cialis, not calcium.
Strong bones, indeed.
You see, Stefan's shop (www.stylespy.vn) is located on Hai Ba Trung, the 'fashion street' of Ho Chi Minh City. It is lined with stores selling shoes, jeans, dresses, and every other f=piece of clothing you could wish for. For some reason, near his shop there is a small strip of pharmacies selling what I assume are dodgy generic medications.
Still, I felt confident enough to try for some basic vitamins and minerals. I waltzed into My Chau and gave the clerk a small slip of paper with 'calcium' written on it. In return, he gave me a very small packet containing four pills and demanded 500,000 dong (about $28). That seemed distinctly odd to me. I looked at the package and realized he had given me Cialis, not calcium.
Strong bones, indeed.
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Huizhou; Between Limbo and Hell
So now that I've escaped the PRC and their internet filters, I can say a few words about my life in Huizhou.
Huizhou is what in China would be considered a small city (roughly 3.75 million people) in Guangdong Province, about a 90 minute drive from Hong Kong.
It is, according to Wikipedia, 'In the provincial economic development strategy, Huizhou is regarded as a site for a world-class petrochemical industry, as well as the hub for solidifying information technology, and expanding exports and trades'.
That about sums it up. The whole place is as bland and uninteresting as a foreign metropolis of almost 4 million can possibly be, dominated by Wal-Mart and KFC. Also, there are no toilets.
The students were nice, but I didn't have many teaching hours and most of my time was given over to looking at grad schools and reading every book in my possession, including:
- The Red and the Black
- The Beach
- Kiss Kiss (by Roald Dahl)
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
- The King of Torts. That's right, I read a John Grisham novel
Sometimes, the gods punish you by granting what you ask for. I was feeling a bit cramped in Saigon and wanted to get out. Now that I'm back, it's never looked like such a cosmopolitan and exciting place.
Huizhou is what in China would be considered a small city (roughly 3.75 million people) in Guangdong Province, about a 90 minute drive from Hong Kong.
It is, according to Wikipedia, 'In the provincial economic development strategy, Huizhou is regarded as a site for a world-class petrochemical industry, as well as the hub for solidifying information technology, and expanding exports and trades'.
That about sums it up. The whole place is as bland and uninteresting as a foreign metropolis of almost 4 million can possibly be, dominated by Wal-Mart and KFC. Also, there are no toilets.
The students were nice, but I didn't have many teaching hours and most of my time was given over to looking at grad schools and reading every book in my possession, including:
- The Red and the Black
- The Beach
- Kiss Kiss (by Roald Dahl)
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
- The King of Torts. That's right, I read a John Grisham novel
Sometimes, the gods punish you by granting what you ask for. I was feeling a bit cramped in Saigon and wanted to get out. Now that I'm back, it's never looked like such a cosmopolitan and exciting place.
Friday, August 07, 2009
Websites Banned in China
They include:
Blogger
Youtube
Facebook
Most human-rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch etc.
The Daily Show/Colbert Report websites
Wikipedia's entry on 'Chinese Internet Censorship'
Websites that have been blocked in the past include non-Chinese Google, Yahoo, and Hotmail.
Firefox, canny little devil, notes that when the website you're trying to access is blocked it does not say 'Error' or 'Web timeout' but 'connection interrupted'.
Of course, if Blogger is blocked, how am I writing this? I'm using what's called an online proxy, which hides your ISP and allows you to surf the internet (mostly) free of restrictions, though some websites such as Facebook are still a bit off.
Blogger
Youtube
Most human-rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch etc.
The Daily Show/Colbert Report websites
Wikipedia's entry on 'Chinese Internet Censorship'
Websites that have been blocked in the past include non-Chinese Google, Yahoo, and Hotmail.
Firefox, canny little devil, notes that when the website you're trying to access is blocked it does not say 'Error' or 'Web timeout' but 'connection interrupted'.
Of course, if Blogger is blocked, how am I writing this? I'm using what's called an online proxy, which hides your ISP and allows you to surf the internet (mostly) free of restrictions, though some websites such as Facebook are still a bit off.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
A Chinese Story
Having fled Vietnam just in time I found myself in Hong Kong with a few days to kill. Since I didn't know anybody I headed over to the local Jewish organization. When they turned out to be arrogant and unhelpful I realized I was going to have to take care of things myself.
Out of necessity I ended up staying in Chungking Mansion, where a tiny little room with a fan could be had for the bargain price of only 80 Hong Kong dollars a night. Imagine if Phamn Ngu Lao, De Tham and Bui Vien streets were crammed into a single shabby high-rise and the Vietnamese replaced with Indians and Africans, and you have a pretty good idea of what Chungking Mansions is like. Decent curry though.
Hong Kong isn't much of a city to look at - just endless skyscrapers housing offices, apartments and shopping malls, with elevated walkways between them to avoid the drudgery of having to descend to the lowly earth. On street level, Hong Kong resembles nothing so much as simply a Chinese New York with British street names.
It is notoriously short on sights. There's the harbor and the Big Buddha and some decent parks and even a Disneyland but didn't appreciate them.
You see, I was in a lather because NOT ONLY did the French people decide to go to Paris without telling me or leaving a forwarding address, leaving me stranded, but my backup plan - teahcing summer camp in Zhuhai, China - was canceled due to swine flu. At my wit's end I stormed into the office of the Education Company (I'd rather storm into Jean-Marc Merlin's office, but he's out of reach) and demanded they give me money or, failing that, employment. Eventually the agreed to give me a do-nothing job in Huizhou, a city near Canton.
So now I'm in Huizhou, which I suspect was devised by some clever Ministry of Tourism initiative to make every other place in China - maybe every other place on earth - look fun and exciting. My teaching starts next week but it looks like my classes will have less than 5 students each.
China is strange. It pretends to be Western with it's high-rises and straight streets and Macdonald's, but just under the surface it is far more bewildering than anything I encountered in Vietnam. Also the censorship si really bad; i can't get on Youtube or Facebook, and I can only update my blog now because I got a 'proxy server' to get past the firewall.
Wish I were in gay Paris, but that'll have to wait. I'll still be back in Vietnam come September.
Out of necessity I ended up staying in Chungking Mansion, where a tiny little room with a fan could be had for the bargain price of only 80 Hong Kong dollars a night. Imagine if Phamn Ngu Lao, De Tham and Bui Vien streets were crammed into a single shabby high-rise and the Vietnamese replaced with Indians and Africans, and you have a pretty good idea of what Chungking Mansions is like. Decent curry though.
Hong Kong isn't much of a city to look at - just endless skyscrapers housing offices, apartments and shopping malls, with elevated walkways between them to avoid the drudgery of having to descend to the lowly earth. On street level, Hong Kong resembles nothing so much as simply a Chinese New York with British street names.
It is notoriously short on sights. There's the harbor and the Big Buddha and some decent parks and even a Disneyland but didn't appreciate them.
You see, I was in a lather because NOT ONLY did the French people decide to go to Paris without telling me or leaving a forwarding address, leaving me stranded, but my backup plan - teahcing summer camp in Zhuhai, China - was canceled due to swine flu. At my wit's end I stormed into the office of the Education Company (I'd rather storm into Jean-Marc Merlin's office, but he's out of reach) and demanded they give me money or, failing that, employment. Eventually the agreed to give me a do-nothing job in Huizhou, a city near Canton.
So now I'm in Huizhou, which I suspect was devised by some clever Ministry of Tourism initiative to make every other place in China - maybe every other place on earth - look fun and exciting. My teaching starts next week but it looks like my classes will have less than 5 students each.
China is strange. It pretends to be Western with it's high-rises and straight streets and Macdonald's, but just under the surface it is far more bewildering than anything I encountered in Vietnam. Also the censorship si really bad; i can't get on Youtube or Facebook, and I can only update my blog now because I got a 'proxy server' to get past the firewall.
Wish I were in gay Paris, but that'll have to wait. I'll still be back in Vietnam come September.
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