playground

Last Sunday we have been to the hồ bơi lao động – the public swimming-pool of the labour. We, that means Thuy Hang with her son Be, some friends and relevants of her and myself. It was good to get out of the hotel room and wireless-web-cafés that I am using to live at these days, looking for job opportunities in Vietnam. I had no problem to ignore all people staring at me, so the afternoon was relaxing and the liquid clear blue swam in a fresh contrast to the colourful but dirty streets of SaiGon. Later on there was that playground. It seems to be the only one in the quarter, maybe one of very few in the whole city. I observed all those kids playing and enjoying the sand that had been brought here by a foreign funded project. Many came with their parents, ate ice cream and were pleased with a balloon in their hands. One girl of maybe six years asked Thuy for candy floss. She bought it for her. The girl took it and went without any further moves. Then I saw “our” children shoving that girl from the swing. I observed parents of other children sending her away when she intended to play with them. All the time she was wandering around with a glance of despair and reserve. Nobody wanted to play with this lonely little girl in her pink pyjama and plainly haircut. Probably she had the face of a poor, and everybody recognized that when looking at her. Actually, she had the most gentle and lovely appearance of all them. Sometimes people say that children can be cruel. Here, adults are cruel as well. Vietnam is a country with little social responsibility within society. A Socialist Republic, in which ‘self’ counts more than solidarity. The country is a playground of the rich making money out of the poor. And this is not only a local mechanism, it is the system of a whole world. I ask myself what this child will be doing in a few years. I ask myself about the future of the world, of which the influential often tend to enlarge existing gaps for their own benefits. “Chris, wake up! What’s up? Don’t you enjoy it? Stop thinking! Sometimes you have to relax. Don’t think too much. Forget about the girl. You don’t understand about Vietnam” …

Is this the view of a person having put up with the fact of perceiving the world as just a playground after having been fallen into that gap herself? Is this the very Asian idea of fate as the outcome of collected Karma? Or does that gap have to be, in order to make scientific theories of patron-client-relationships work? But who is her patron in those deep gaps between the concrete rows of Ho Chi Minh City? And what am I doing here?

Hanoi light

in front of the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum

Arriving in Hanoi it was rainy and cool. The week’s stay at Dr. Scharfsinn’s house at the Westlake was of a sociable sort. We have spend much of the time in the city and enjoyed stories of our common past in the country and at university, drank Ca Phe Sua Da and hot coconut cacao, ate Al Fresco’s Pizza, Bit Tet (Vietnamese for Beefsteak) and that Pho Cuon of unbelievable taste. I saw Uncle Ho. Met some old friends from Bach Khoa University. Arrived in Ho Chi Minh City on August of 5th. I still don’t have an assurance for any internship in fields that I am interested in and that fact drives me a bit crazy. I will need money here. Teaching a language and thus staying in Vietnam will be better for my own language practice than to fly home. Nonetheless, such a job wouldn’t be very interesting. See what happens. I’m doing enquiries, trying to find an interesting project. The longer you’re here the more you become demanding. Feel the need for a regular day, for renting an apartment, for more privacy and opportunities than you have out of a guest house room in the backpackers’ area.

writing applications on Dr. Scharfsinn’s balcony

changing places – shifting perceptions

Being left in that serviced apartment somewhere in the middle of nowhere in outer Bangkok sadness fills the room. Moji just took the elevator down to the lobby. The view over roofs exposes the line of houses where she will sleep tonight with her mother being on visit in the capital.

A week ago I have left the beautiful island of Bali, a wonderful place, to which I will probably always go back to. A place that might have become the destination I am aiming to live at. With the semester at Udayana University a big dream has become true. And I will always remember it. Maybe it was the best time of my life. And I thank my parents and everybody who supported me with it. I am happy having met the people who made that time what it was. When arriving at Don Mueang Airport I did not yet realize that this time should be over.

Moji expected me at the arrivals and brought me to that place where I am now. Being in Thailand, the “medical hub” of Southeast Asia, I was at Bumrungrad hospital and they finally found out that my nose is the bug making me ill for almost 7 months. Now I got medicine and have to take it for half a year. I feel better already. Physically. Mentally I had better times. We have been to her parents’ village in Isaan Province in North-East Thailand, so that I could learn about the circumstances in her home town. The hamlet was in fact poor and around ten kilometres away from the next city Roi Et (spoken Loi Et). And it was all difficult somehow. A mood filled with problems, discussions, different opinions, misunderstandings and tension - all the days. Back to Bangkok this finally led to an intense dispute in a taxi this afternoon, which seemed to be an end of our friendly relationship characterized by hatred and dislike. What has changed since we left each other five months ago? However, then we talked much in order to get the conflict settled. Maybe we can stay friends. But we had to say goodbye this evening already. Sitting there, in front of the huge window, being both sad about that it all didn’t work this time, watching the facades and roofs of that endless big city outside, becoming covered by dusk. Then she went coz her mother wants it like that. I have some understanding for all I have experienced in the last week, there and here. But somehow I believe that it is often not the right way. At least I actually learned that my friend’s life is so very difficult, and so different from what one sees at the place where we met.


She left and I feel alone now. The land which once had begun with a Lonely Planet does tonight in fact seem to be such one. Because a country is nothing without the people you meet - those who mean something to you. Tomorrow morning I will take the flight to Hanoi. I will visit Dr. Scharfsinn for a week until I go to Ho Chi Minh City in order to find a job as language teacher until I hopefully get an internship. Probably it will be great days with my fellow and “vet” in Nam. I am looking forward to see that guy, who is so crazy and so serious at the same time. Vietnam will be the place to be until end of February. I will post from there.

Bangkok, Nice Mansion 2, Fri. July 28th