Ho Chi Minh City

GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!!! This was the theme that seemed to stick with us from our weekend trip to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). This could be because we watched Robin Williams's movie Saturday night, but it could also be from the excessively early flight we were cattle prodded onto forcing us back to Hanoi at 6:30 am Tuesday morning.

HCMC seemed much more welcoming and homey to us than our temporary home in Hanoi. Formerly known as Saigon, the city was renamed to honor “Uncle Ho” following the fall of Saigon to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The reason we visited HCMC over the weekend was to visit one of our own, Erik Page, class of 1990. Erik is the US Vice Consul to Vietnam at the US Consulate in HCMC. After reading about our trip to Vietnam through the school's Web site, he contacted us and invited us to come down and visit him. Erik is the head of the Fraud Prevention Unit and largely the “gate keeper” for immigration to the States from Vietnam. As one might imagine, this is no small task.

            We arrived in HCMC on Saturday afternoon, and we found a small guest house down a tight alley that cost VND 400,000 per night, which is the equivalent of USD 20. It was the nicest place we have found to stay during our travels throughout Vietnam. It came with a refrigerator, two clean beds, our own bathroom, and an amazing air conditioning system. We settled into the room and utilized it for some much needed R&R.

On Sunday morning we met Erik for breakfast at a restaurant called The Elbow Room. Upon arrival, he greeted us with a warm Southern smile and a firm handshake. The ring was a sight for sore eyes after being here for three weeks and not seeing anyone from our neck of the woods. We sat down to order, and he recommended a drink called “ca phe sua da,” which is iced coffee with milk. He warned us about it, saying he limits himself to three ca phe sua da per week, because it has the caffeine equivalent of three cokes. During breakfast we soaked up Erik's knowledge about Vietnam and the nature of US-Vietnamese foreign relations. After having two ca phe sua da and a massive breakfast burrito, we were all ready to check out HCMC.

           

            First, Erik took us to Nhà thờ Đức Bà, which is the Notre-Dame Cathedral. It sat in the middle of a five road intersection, and was guarded by a tall statue of the Blessed Mother Mary. It was immediately apparent that this is a popular site for wedding pictures, as the church was surrounded by beautiful Vietnamese women in their ornate white dresses. Erik explained a little about the history of Catholicism in Vietnam and the troubled past that Vietnamese Catholics have faced over many years. 

Our next stop with Erik was the old Saigon post office. We stopped in and viewed the beautiful architecture of the building, which was designed by Gustave Eiffel and constructed when Vietnam was part of French Indochina in the early 20th century. While touring the interior, we sent some post cards back home to friends and family, letting them know where we were and how we were doing. It was a fun way to say hello after being gone for several weeks.

            Afterward, we parted ways with Erik and went on to a local market. This proved to be a stressful experience as we squeezed through the many aisles of Vietnamese clothes, leathers, watches, jewelry, and food. Shopping in a Vietnamese market is very different from our large shopping centers back home, because you are being constantly grabbed at and harassed by the chaotic marketing strategies of the local Vietnamese vendors. Every purchase is a bartering battle and every step through the market is a strategic move around some obstacle, whether it be a vendor or a pile of merchandise. After regrouping and taking a lunch break, we headed to Dinh Thống Nhất, Reunification Palace.

            The Reunification Palace, with its 1970s style layout was the home of South Vietnam's President, Ngô Đình Diệm, and the center of government, during the Vietnam War. It was also the site where North Vietnam rolled two Russian tanks over the gates guarding the palace signaling the end of the war in 1975. The building contained everything a palace might be expected to have, including a huge stair case, excessively long conference tables, fancy banquet halls, elaborately furnished entertainment rooms, a full theater, a long road between a park leading up to its gates, wood inlaid murals on the walls, a large water fountain, and a lot of signs saying “No Touch.” It gave me an eerie feeling considering its historical significance and the many images it conjured from its past exposure to conflict.

            Our next stop was the War Remnants Museum, formerly called the American War Crimes Museum. It offered an obviously biased and largely inaccurate view of the Vietnam War. Every description of the pictures on the wall painted US soldiers in a negative light, and the museum completely ignored the nature of this civil war, in which the Vietnamese were killing each other. It was a very rattling experience to see the war from this perspective.

That evening, we met Erik at a colonial French restaurant and chowed down on many different foods. His jovial character lightened the mood after a long afternoon of seeing the city, in particular the War Remnants Museum. I had salted squid for the first time, which was a light yellow color and rubbery, but it tasted really good with sweetened fish sauce and lemon salt dip. Following dinner, Erik took us to an amazing ice cream parlor call Fanny's. It had a huge selection of different ice creams and was a great way to wrap up the day.

            Monday morning we met Erik at the US Consulate. He gave us a tour of the grounds and told us about its history as well as his role there. After our tour he led us to a conference room where he had arranged an information session with members of the US Secret Service, US Diplomatic Security, and a foreign services officer in the politics cone. They each gave us overviews of their jobs and told us about how they got started. They gave us great advice on what to do if interested in pursuing careers in their job fields. It was such a great chance to meet with individuals in well-established career paths, as I am in the process of choosing a career personally. They were very welcoming to us and more than willing to help us out in the future should we have any questions.

            After the meeting, we said our good-byes to Erik. We had not expected to get such an informative session and thanks to Erik we were able to have a great experience in HCMC. After only a few hours of sleep Monday night, we climbed out of bed before 5:00 am and headed to the airport to fly back to the Volunteer Peace House to continue our work.  Our trip to HCMC was a great success!

-Keegan Bailey

  Oscar '12

Property Rights in Vietnam

Property rights seem to be an area that is suffering in Vietnam, owing to its general lack of administrative efficiency.  Vietnam is an authoritarian single-party system, and it faces many problems known to plague most developing countries, including the need for capacity building among domestic institutions.

Property rights can be defined as “legal titles given to landowners enabling them freely to buy and sell their plots and other rights to use, gain income from, or sell property” (Todaro and Smith 2009, 835).

While Vietnam has taken definite steps towards the establishment of property rights since its doi moi reforms of 1986, issues like corruption and a general inability to efficiently enforce the laws set by the government hinder the movement toward privatizing property.

Prior to 1986 all property in Vietnam was state owned. However, as part of the general movement toward a more market-oriented system, the National Assembly passed the first Land Law in 1988 to provide for the state allocation of agricultural land from co-operatives to private households. This transformation from collective to individual property rights encouraged agricultural production, and households using land received land title certificates (LTCs). Under the 1986 law, foreign investors were allowed to lease land property for up to 50 years and in some poorer areas up to 70 years.  However, the adoption of this law did not include the creation of a specific land administration system (LAS). Instead, the allocation and registration of land was left to local authorities, and land users did not understand the significance of the LTCs they received. (GIM International 2008). In 1993, the National Assembly adopted a second Land Law that clearly outlined the economic importance of land. For example, the preamble of the 1993 Land Law states:

Land is an extremely valuable national resource, a special production material, the most important part of the environment, and the foundation on which residential areas are distributed, on which economic, cultural, social, security and national defence bases are constructed;

Over many generations, our people have devoted an enormous effort, labour and sacrificed our lives to establish and protect the land as it now is;

Under this law, households with LTCs were given five rights: land exchange, transfer, lease, inheritance, and mortgage. Also, the 1993 Land Law recognized the monetary value attached to land, and defined this. Finally, it established a land titling system, and the Land Administration System (LAS). Under the land law of 1993, households seeking LTCs had to apply to the district-level People's Committee. Before an application was approved the “land in question must be surveyed and the legal description of the household's land allocation that is entered on the application must be consistent with the commune's land registry” (Hare 2008, 345).  Although the official fee for getting one of these certificates for the household was VND 10,000, which is the equivalent of about USD 0.50, in reality the fees were much  larger  because local governments were not given enough financial support from the central government to accomplish the certification process (Hare 2008).

           

The LTC system was also very cumbersome in terms of administration. For example, the total process of approving and giving out LTCs for three villages in one district took 945 labor days. More important, given weaknesses in the judicial system, disputes over who has the right to land take a long time to work out between the parties involved. One village near Hanoi took more than 40 meetings to settle a single land dispute. In addition, the issuance of LTCs is unevenly distributed. For example, in the Mekong Delta, where the land is less separated and has larger plot sizes the process is much faster than in more urban provinces (Hare 2008, 346). Other problems related to the need for capacity building are also apparent.  As the Heritage Foundation’s 2011 Index of Economic Freedom notes, “Corrupt government bogs down the system of property rights, due to low wages for government officials and inadequate means of enforcing accountability on these officials. Therefore, “contracts are weakly enforced and resolution of disputes can take years” (Heritage 2011).

The 1993 Land Law has been updated and revised in recent years to help address these weaknesses. Most recently a third Land Law was adopted by the National Assembly in 2003 to support the development of a comprehensive, transparent and more uniform LAS. Ideally, this law will also increase the ability of local communities to resolve historically complicated land issues, create publicly available land use and management records, and facilitate the development of a property market. (GIM International 2008). The good news is that land prices are rising rapidly in line with the growth of the economy, and the state is now allocating nearly 10 percent of the revenue it generates from land to building up the LAS. Still, there is a need for capacity building for land officers at the local, provincial and national levels and for raising public awareness about the value of property rights.

*************

Sources

GIM International (2008) “Land Administration in Vietnam: Volume 22, Issue 9

Hare, Denise. (2008) “The Origins and Influence of Land Property Rights in Vietnam. Development Policy Review, 26

Heritage Foundation. 2001 Index of Economic Freedom (http://www.heritage.org/index/country/Vietnam#property-rights accessed 7/26/2011)

Todaro, Michael, and Stephen Smith. (2009) Economic Development. 10^th  edition. Pearson Education, Boston.

 - Keegan Bailey

Economic Growth and World Heritage at Risk

In a previous blog, Cadet Bailey extolled the virtues of Halong Bay as a tourist destination and a place to celebrate one’s birthday. As he noted, Halong Bay was named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1994 for its outstanding scenic beauty and great biological and historic interest. This area, which includes some 1,600 islands and islets, forms a spectacular seascape of limestone pillars.

The word “Ha Long” in Vietnamese actually means dragon descending. Legend has it that when Vietnam was threatened with invasion centuries ago, the Jade Emperor sent down a mother dragon and her children to help fight the invaders. As they descended, the dragons spat out numerous pearls, which were changed into jade stone islands. The larger rocky islands where the dragon landed are called “Ha Long,” and the smaller islands are called “Bay Too Long” after the children. It is believed that the long string of islands, called “Long Vi,” was formed when the dragon wriggled its tail.

Okay, modern scientists will probably bore you with long-winded details about how periods of climatic change over millions of years resulted in great undulations in the region, as ancient rivers gauged out pathways across the plain. The result, of course, is the spectacular landform of the Bac Ba Gulf archipelago, with over 1960 stone islands of various sizes rising from an emerald colored bay.

More important, Halong Bay represents a unique ecosystem that includes intertidal wetlands, mangroves, coral reefs and diverse varieties of marine life. It is also a case-study of what not to do when it comes to sustainable economic development.

Halong Bay and the part of Quang Ninh Province that surround it together with Hai Phong and Hanoi form a large triangular area of dense population and economic activity that is experiencing rapid growth and development. The main coal mining area of Vietnam, with reserves exceeding 8 billion tons lies immediately beside Halong Bay, and large amounts of limestone, kaolin, clay and sand are extracted from the area to supply construction materials for Vietnam’s burgeoning industry. Large merchant ships cross the Bay each day en route to the two large ports of Hai Phong and Cai Lan. These and five other smaller ports, service Vietnam’s export trade, which is projected to more than quadruple over the next decade.

Halong Bay itself supports a valuable fishing and seafood industry and attracts large numbers of tourists every day. While only a few of these may be celebrating birthdays, the number of visitors to the Bay grew from 120,000 to nearly 2.1 million a year from 1994 to 2007, and current projections suggest that Halong Bay will attract in excess of 3 million domestic and foreign tourists per year by 2020.

However, the expanding commercial activity in the Halong Bay area is placing extreme pressure on its fragile ecosystems, placing the area at serious risk. Unless immediate action is taken to restore and preserve Halong Bay and the surrounding areas, the prospects for continued economic development may come to a screeching halt!

According to the World Bank’s 2002 Vietnam Environment Monitor, rapid economic growth and urbanization are creating a multitude of environmental problems - such as unmanaged landfills, transport-related air pollution, untreated hospital and hazardous waste, and raw sewage flowing into open water ways – throughout the country. But, the area surrounding Halong Bay seems to be particularly at risk. Over the three decades from 1960 to 1995, the Quang Ninh and Hai Phong provinces, where the Halong Bay is located, have suffered the loss of more than 40 thousands hectares of mangrove forest, and today only 15,700 hectares remain in the two provinces. It is estimated that the annual loss in terms of forgone economic benefits (e.g., fishery, forestry, and erosion) could be in the range of USD 10-32 million per year.

Current threats to water quality include land-based pollution sources, fishing with poison (e.g. Cyanide) and dynamite, unregulated tourism, transport and seaport development and heavy metals from coal mining operations  

These factors are also placing 96 percent of Vietnam’s coral reefs at risk. The coral reef decline recorded in several locations, including Halong Bay (Quang Ninh), Cai Ba (Hai Phong), Ninh Thuan, Binh Thuan, and Khanh Hoa is estimated to be more than75 percent.

Fortunately, one of the nongovernmental organizations we have been assigned to work with, the Center for Sustainable Development Studies plans to come to the rescue.  By forming partnerships with community based agencies and groups in Vietnam as well as organizations in other countries – like perhaps even the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in the United States – the CSDS hopes to put in place sustainable programs to help restore Halong Bay and preserve its riches for future generations.

 - Dr. Sarah Tenney

Another Day in Paradise

For the past couple of days we have continued working with our first round of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The NGO I’m working with, the Morning Star Center, is a school and rehabilitation center for children with several types of learning disabilities, including primarily autism. I wrote about the Center in depth in my last entry.

Compared with many NGOs in Vietnam, the Morning Star Center has an excellent facility and great potential to make a large, positive impact in its service area. The main challenge faced at the center is the lack of training, or lack of specialized training in educating children with learning disabilities. Mainly due to limited funding, lack of hiring resources, much of the staff gets its training on the job or in fast-track training programs of various qualities.

This brings me to the second step in the process of helping the Morning Star Center, which is the stage where we try to help develop solutions to such problems. In this case, it means to devise sustainable training programs, using qualified volunteer staff from Volunteers for Peace Vietnam (VPV) to supplement Morning Star Center’s staff training resources on an as needed basis. Since I have been here, I have noticed that at any given time VPV usually has a couple of volunteers with teaching qualifications. Usually, these volunteers are assigned to projects that involve teaching English or serving as assistants to other local teachers. However, it should be possible to use these volunteers in another task, i.e., the solution we have been working on. Today, I will be drafting a program proposal that will entail asking volunteers with certifications in special education areas to develop and deliver training programs for the staff at the Morning Star Center.

On a separate note, things in Vietnam are going well. We have been invited by Erik Page, the US Vice Consul in Vietnam, and fellow Citadel bulldog, to visit Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) this weekend, and discuss current topics related to our work here.

Things at VPV Peace House - nicknamed COMA 6 due to its former residence of a construction/supply - are going well. We are surrounded by a diverse, capable, and even fun group of volunteers, many of whom have become very tight knit over the past couple of weeks.  We also have a large, unusually bold and brave contingent of rats that have a knack for performing acrobatics on exposed wires from the ceiling. This is a great feat given their large size.

-Matthew Allen Stewart

Fallen Patriots

            This weekend I spent some time in the beautiful city of Hoi An. It is located about half-way down the country and, compared to Hanoi, it is quiet and peaceful. As I wandered the streets I peaked my head into a local antique shop to see what I could find. Sadly, in this peaceful city I found the reminders of an ugly war-torn past. In a glass cabinet tucked between the Vietnamese war medals and ancient clay pots were six little oval pieces of metal. These were no ordinary antiques. In fact, they were USMC dog-tags. Covered in rust, dented and dirty, these tags had the names of our soldiers, our boys who lost their lives fighting a brutal war decades ago. I was at first shocked, then outraged, as I realized what they were and how they came to be in that shop. I know that when a soldier is lost, one tag is taken from the body to identify him as a casualty. If battlefield conditions do not permit removal of the corpse, the other tag is to remain with the body…usually, not always, in the mouth held in place by the rigor mortis brought by death. Meaning that these tags were almost certainly taken from the boot, or pried from the mouths of our dead boys—our greatest patriots. As I gazed on the tags, I also began to wonder why on earth our country has not retrieved these tokens of death. These men gave their lives fighting for God and country—these men gave the ultimate sacrifice for freedom and liberty, yet the most personal reminders of their service are being pedaled like cheap smut on street corners. I wonder how they would feel, our boys, knowing what has become of their memory…knowing that after death their only identification was ruthlessly wrenched from their cold bodies. Worst of all, how have these dog-tags remained in the hands of a former enemy for four decades without our government coming to get them? Call me an idealist, but it is my strong opinion that these dog-tags should be brought back home, to where they belong. These tags should be sent to the families or the graves of the fallen, at the very least they should be on American soil, back in the good old US of A. I have talked to other travelers, and I have identified one location in Ho Chi Minh City where there are a large number of rusty old tags for sale. I will be traveling there this weekend with the Citadel group, and I intend to purchase every single tag I find. The only problem: Funding. I’m just a poor college kid who is already broke. Each tag goes for about fifteen dollars apiece, and from what I gathered, there are a few dozen at the location I mentioned in HCM City. So I ask you, I implore you, I beg of you…all who read this, please help me find the funding to bring back what is left of our fallen patriots. Those pieces of metal are symbols of lives lost, symbols of loyalty and patriotism, symbols of bloodshed, not collectable souvenirs for fascinated tourist to buy. My name is Devon Smith, and I intend to fix this travesty…help me, email me at smithd6@citadel.edu. I will arrive in Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday. Time is of the essence.

Privleged

            Privileged? Blessed? How about obscene? The lives we live in our little 1^st world American bubble are so far removed and spoiled from the rest of this world that we all ought to take another look at how we live. I have gone through my life wishing I was rich, wishing I had that nice car, or that big house, or that little band of gold known as “the Ring”—but recently I have realized how perverse those ambitions are. In this country you can’t drink the water; half the time the water doesn’t even run. People in the streets all drive cheap little mopeds or broken old bicycles. The children play soccer in cement courtyards, and the roads are so dirty and dusty that everyone must wear masks to protect their lungs. Most of the markets here are infested with flies and the stench of butchered ducks, fish, and dog…yes dog, and it’s delicious. The houses here are cheap and dirty with hardly anything in most of them, but the strangest thing is that they are full of the happiest people I have ever seen. That’s right, in this poor little developing country the people smile and laugh more than any nation I have ever seen. Of all the things they don’t have, they do have a happy life. As I walk down the streets I see smiles at every corner and a world full of people that seem to get the big picture. Here it is not about the money or the prestige—and that’s more than I can say about where I’m from. The United States of America is the greatest and most powerful nation in history, but our people don’t seem to be happy with the simple things in life.

            I am truly grateful for the things I have seen in the last two weeks. In the morning I visit the Friendship Village, around lunch I work on NGO consulting work, and in the afternoon I teach English to a living room full of nine Vietnamese children. My view of the world and my feelings about my complex and privileged life has forever changed. I wish now, more than ever, for a simpler life. I may be wrong, but it seems that these people here have a pretty tough life: they labor in rice paddies from dawn till dusk; they live in shanties compared to our big American homes, but life is simple and they are happy. We should all take a lesson from these people; we should desire a little less and smile a little more. We should realize that our big schools and beautiful houses are not a given; they are a blessing. I hope that everyone back home can read this and understand that they are living in paradise, because the average person over here makes the average US citizen look like a billionaire. We should strive for happiness not money. Over here the wealth is happiness, and that means the Vietnamese must be the wealthiest people on earth. 

- Devon Smith

Halong Bay

                This last weekend was truly amazing. It was a milestone for me personally, as I celebrated the beginning of another year of my life. Never did I ever expect to spend my 23rd birthday in Vietnam, but I wouldn't change it for the world.

This weekend a group from Volunteers for Peace Vietnam (VPV) traveled to Halong Bay. Hạlong Bay, which literally means Descending Dragon Bay, is one of the seven natural wonders of the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is located in Quảng Ninh province,

It took us three hours by bus to get to the bay, where we were picked up by a small boat that took us to a much larger ship where we were to spend the evening. The Vietnamese people believe that during the Chinese invasion of Vietnam thousands of years ago, dragons came to the aid of the people and dropped rubies from the sky onto the Chinese boats, destroying them and turning them into over 2,000 mountainous karst that rise up out of the water.

During the afternoon we went for a Kayaking trip through these karst observing the splendor of Halong Bay. A karst is like a mountain of limestone sticking up from the sea. We followed our guide through the waters and stopped at a cave in one of the karst, called Thien Canh Son.  We made our way though the cave until we saw daylight that opened up into a large circular oasis in the middle of the karst. There was a small pond filled with fish that were jumping all around us as we waded out into the water. After taking time to explore the cave’s corridors, we made our way out and back into the Kayaks. As we paddled our boats, weaving in and out between the huge karst, the sun was setting. We were exhausted, yet amazed by what we had seen.

After dinner, we spent the evening making friends with different people from all over the world. It was a great chance to meet new people and learn about other cultures. It was also rewarding to see how easily we all got along, even though we were from different places around the world.        

The next day we went to Cast Away Island. Here we spent the afternoon swimming and exploring the area with Kayaks. Across from the island, there was a floating village. It was shocking to learn that many of the people living in the floating villages never leave them from birth until death. They spend their entire lives fishing and working in these villages. During the day we also got the chance to go out on a boat for wake boarding and tubing.

We spent a second evening under a huge hut where we dined and continued getting to know our new friends. After a while we decided that it would be fun to go swimming. I was surprised to find that when I moved my hands through the water it looked as if I  had parted a mass of diamonds that sparkled with the movement.

After a swim, we settled into A-frame huts made of straw and bamboo that sat about three feet above the ground. After climbing under a mosquito net and squeezing in beside Matthew Stewart, I quickly fell asleep.

The next morning the group woke up and boarded our boat back to the mainland. It was a birthday that I will never forget! I have never seen such beautiful place.

 - Keegan Bailey