Reasons I Love Hanoi

As I have been driving around the city recently, I've been making a mental checklist of the things that are truly, wonderfully Hanoi:

• Driving home late at night on my motorbike when the roads are empty and the temperature has dropped. Juxtaposed to the busy-ness of the day, it's a thrilling freedom to drive the quiet empty streets.
• Walking into bun cha smelling air-bubbles as it's being cooked before lunchtime.
  
• Looking up and realizing the streets are lined with ancient trees, peacefully rooted in the chaos.
• Being able to change the iTunes playlist at most of my favorite bars.
• Running into people I know everywhere I go.
• Stretching, bobbing women in aerobics classes en masse in the parks.
• Constant valet parking.
• The fact that none of the clothes fit me, so I never feel the desire to go shopping.

A Day in the Life

A day filled with variety is something tremendously wonderful. Too often our days are filled with monotony - it's the one thing I dread most about leaving Asia and my current life here.

Today, I woke up and turned on my water heater. Then I went downstairs (two flights), and used the electric kettle to boil water. I've stockpiled organic coffee from the USA (ground for a french press). I put a tablespoon of coffee in my Bodum and turned on CNN in the living room for 15 minutes while it brewed.

I left my computer at the office last night, because I went straight to Gaelic football practice and it was raining. So after my shower, I threw a mini-mango (yes, those exist) and a banana in my messenger bag, put on a light down coat - it was high 60's today - and headed over there. On my motorbike.

Putting on a motorbike helmet feels so natural that sometimes I forget I'm wearing one. And a facemask - no joke, after 1.5 years here I notice every motorbike ride I take without one. Air pollution is the #1 reason I want to move back to a developed country - or a less developed one.

I worked on the 'stack' - read powerpoint - for a pitch that I'm finishing for tomorrow. Today being Thursday, I had a standing date for a long lunch with a friend of mine. Just so happens he's an ambassador, so he has a driver and a car. This means getting to see the bustle of the city from a peaceful, climate controlled environment - which is a completely different experience than 90% of my days. It's great.

We take an hour to go to the driving range (ok, not EVERY day is like this. just every once in a while), then have lunch at Don's (he named the restaurant that). I live with the managing editor of a local magazine, and she's constantly over at Don's for tastings and things, and she's introduced me to him. And my friend is a regular, so he meets us at the door.

At this point, I've already spoken 3 languages today (English, Vietnamese, and Spanish). Just for fun, we chat in Portuguese for a while at lunch too. And discuss the fact that he'd like to resume French lessons - I've just started.

After lunch, I'm dropped off a block from the office. I'm ducking into the tailor's to see if my dress, suit and jean skirt are ready yet. No - ngay may. I have to come back tomorrow. No problem.

I run one more errand - I've got 2 government manuals for first aid and their 911 dispatch system. I want to share them with some doctors in the US, so I find a copy shop that will scan them into .pdfs for me. Both'll be done by Saturday - great.

The pitch isn't going to get done before end of business, so I walk back slowly and stop to buy a birthday present for my housemate. I walk serenely down an entirely chaotic street. It's a learned skill. I pass a shoe store - and just to check - go in and ask if they carry women's shoes in a 41. Nope. Not a single one. Eh, it's what I expected, but I thought maybe there was a shot.

I tutor for a bit - we talk about gerunds and infinitives - and then it's off to the Old Quarter to find 'pan street'. I end up making a miserable purchase of 2 baking sheets which both leak in the corners (which I don't realize until later), and head home.

Watching Grey's Anatomy (season 5) on TV while I cook some dinner, I plop down on the couch and chat with a friend visiting from Thailand. And then it's back to work. I'll be up late working on this pitch; it'll need to be in by noon if the Red Cross director's going to have time to look at it before the weekend.

A good run in Hanoi

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3302355

What is poverty?

There are many ways of looking at it. Here's an excerpt from Carola Barton's summary of some of the ways of viewing it:

We sometimes treat it as a matter of blame: the poor are poor because they cannot or choose not to be better off. We sometimes treat it as a matter of virtue: people choose material poverty because it generates—or does not interfere with—spiritual well-being.

We have a long history of explanations for the existence of poverty:

• Sociology: the poor are poor because human beings instinctively look to differentiate themselves from one another, and someone needs to be at the bottom of the pyramid
• Economics: the poor are poor because economic forces depend on a mass of impoverished workers to provide the labor that makes our societies run
• Psychology/Physiology: the poor are poor because individuals have unequal faculties, and in a society that does not compensate for those inequalities, someone must wind up at the bottom
• Scarcity: the poor are poor because there aren’t enough resources to go around
• Environment: the poor are poor because of regional environmental conditions—climate, topography, soil, etc.
• Spirituality: the poor have chosen material poverty because they have found, or have been endowed with, immaterial sources of wealth

Vietnam is considering raising the poverty line

In rural areas, the current poverty line is 200,000 vnd/person per month.

That is $11.11 per month.

The new definition would raise that to $19, which will double the number of poor.

Vietnam—“New poverty line would double number of poor”—Viet Nam News

25-07-2009

The Ministry of Labor, Invalids, and Social Affairs proposed raising the official poverty line to twice its former level. The move would mean those living in rural areas who earn VND 350,000 (US$19) or less a month or those living in urgan areas who earn VND 450,000 ($25) or less will be considered poor. (The existing poverty line is VND 200,000 per person per month in the countryside and VND 260,000 for those living in urban areas, respectively.) The new standard means that the number of households living in poverty would rise from 13% to 20%...

http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/showarticle.php?num=07SOC250709

In a country where you can earn $25+ per hour teaching English with no previous certification.

New Release from the Economist Intelligence Unit

Here's what the Economist Intelligence Unit has to say about Vietnam:

Outlook for 2009-10

• The ruling Communist Party of Vietnam will maintain its tight grip on power in 2009-10, rejecting calls (especially from groups of overseas Vietnamese) for political pluralism.
• The government's fiscal stimulus package includes spending on infrastructure, as well as tax breaks and a delay in the implementation of the new personal income tax regime.
• Given that the inflation rate is continuing to ease, the State Bank of Vietnam (the central bank) is likely to keep policy interest rates low in 2009-10.
• The Economist Intelligence Unit forecasts that the economy will expand by 1.6% in 2009, before growth picks up to 4% in 2010. But concerns exist that official data will not reflect fully the extent to which the economy is suffering.
• As domestic demand growth weakens, we expect price rises to continue to abate, and inflation is forecast to slow to an average of 5.4% in 2009.
• We forecast that the value of the dong against the US dollar will fall by around 8% in nominal terms in 2009.
• The current-account deficit will narrow sharply in 2009-10 as a result of a major reduction in the merchandise trade deficit.

Monthly review

• A recent court case suggests that the government is increasingly intent on curbing unfair business practices that contravene the 2006 Competition Law.
• From June 1st foreign investors will be allowed to acquire up to 49% of total equity in unlisted companies, up from 30% at present. The move brings the foreign-ownership cap into line with that for listed companies.
• The government’s policy approach to boost economic growth will focus on supporting key sectors; stimulating investment; poverty reduction and social stability; and adopting a flexible approach to monetary and fiscal policy.
• A study of two industrial zones by an international charity, Oxfam, showed that the global economic downturn has had a negative impact on business. Most firms conceded that production orders have fallen.
• The trade balance swung into deficit in April. After posting three consecutive months of surpluses, the trade deficit soared to US$700m for the month.
• Foreign direct investment inflows are down significantly. The government approved US$6.4bn in new projects the first four months of the year, down by over 72% year on year.

Poor Mexico

Lately, all I've been seeing is drug crime and swine flu. Considering I spent my entire senior year focused on people and money moving across the US - Mexico border, I feel a bit involved and attached to transborder flows of any sort, and I've got to say - it's never good news. No one ever talks about on the news, "Oh how great that we have a huge border with Mexico so that we can get easy access to inexpensive labor, fruit, and vacations." Pshaw.

On the issue of drug crime, I'd like to refer you all to the following article: Reflections from Latin America by Ibsen Martinez. He notes, as I have maintained, that the crackdown on drug imports from Colombia have led Mexico to be the new route into the US. The decreasing purity and increase in street price of cocaine in the US are also a side effect of this success. However, he also points out (which I did not know) about a potentially huge gun smuggling business from the US into Mexico. So perhaps increases in gun control in the US would be one policy to help our neighbor?

See an excerpt from the article below:

Mexico has quickly become the other epicenter of the violence activities carried out by criminal organizations associated with drug trafficking. Mexican drug cartels have come to supplant the Colombian traffickers as the main suppliers of illicit drugs to the U.S. market.

Mexico's attorney general reckons that U.S. consumers buy U.S. $10 billion worth of drugs from his country's cartels each year. All that money allows the two main cartels to arm, equip and pay for a highly motivated army of 100,000 that almost equals Mexico's armed forces in size and often outguns them.

"Americans are understandably focused on the flow of drugs and migrants into the U.S. from Mexico," says Andreas Peter, author ofBorder Games: Policing the U.S.-Mexico Divide. "But too often glossed over in the border security debate is the flow of weapons across the border into Mexico," he told FoxNews.com in a statement via the Internet.3 Mexican authorities say 90 percent of smuggled weapons come from the United States.