Camping in memory of Ho Chi Minh

Sometimes you just know that you are flogging a dead horse…  No amount of cajoling, coaxing, threatening or inflicting sheer terror is going to breathe life into the corpse.

When a class of 15-16 year olds (grade 10…) looks and acts more lifeless than me (after a week of battling the worst bout of gastroenteritis I have succumbed to in just over three and a half years of exploring the great beyond divorce), something is seriously amiss.  Whilst the girls were at least minimally attentive and not shy of some input, the boys were basically overwhelmed by persistent inertia… M’s head immediately settled on the desk upon his late entrance into the classroom and no matter of gentle – or otherwise – prodding got more than a grunt out of him.  Normal behaviour for a teenager, you say… only Vietnamese teenagers buck the trend.  They are, on the whole, a very polite, well-behaved, eager-to-learn bunch and make teaching a pleasure…

In their defence, I admit that watching a Youtube video of daredevil Danny MacAskell enjoying an endorphin high whilst doing awe-inspiring stunts on his mountain bike, may not have exactly produced the same adrenaline rush in the classroom.  Especially as the video was merely a prelude to a reading exercise analyzing tenses such as past simple, present perfect and present perfect continuous…  Lesser things have been known to drive teenagers to distraction and into oblivion in an English classroom.  I should know, I once sat on the other side and I can assure you, we did not even have the likes of Youtube videos to liven up the monotony of conjugations and verb patterns…

‘It’s the ‘camping’,’ H assured me, hovering just above a comatose state.  ‘We’ve been busy getting everything ready at school…’  His eyes glazed over, the mere effort of one sentence sapped him.  We shelved the grammar, my capitulation inevitable.  I relented, ‘OK, tell me all about it…’

Being a rather nosy specimen of the human race, I already had a pretty good inkling of what ‘camping Vietnamese-style’ entailed…  Only a day earlier, I had witnessed the transformation of the nearby city square and put out feelers about what exciting event was about to unfold.  Normally a quiet, peaceful area, occasionally frequented by teenage cyclists on their way home from school and early morning or late evening exercise fanatics making ample use of the street-gym-apparatus, that day every corner was beset by youngsters wielding massive bamboo poles and erecting intriguing structures…

Of course, I enquired about the goings-on at the English Centre where I work.  Surely, someone would be able to give me the low-down and all the details…  ‘Well,’ B in the office started, ‘to be quite honest, I have no idea…  It’s the camping… Something to do with 26^th March springs to mind.’  It was a start indeed… Like all good traditions in any country, Wikipedia and the internet probably could shed more light on folklore than the locals who live and breathe it.

Surprisingly, even cyber-space was particularly tight-lipped about this auspicious occasion, but as it transpires, the ‘camping’ is an annual event, celebrated nationwide on or around 26^th March to commemorate the inauguration of the Youth division of the Communist Party, in 1931.  Founded and initially led by Ho Chi Minh himself, the Ho Chi Minh Youth Union is the largest social-political organisation of Vietnamese youth.

Participating groups – either in the town square or in schools – pitch up against each other in exciting and fun-filled competitions, such as building the most spectacular and eye-catching entrance to their tent, hence the bamboo poles…  Cooking skills are also hotly contested and there are even prizes for organizing the most exciting game such as tug-of-war, or possibly even for piggy-backing the girls across the square after performing manly acrobatics on bamboo poles under the watchful eye of Ho Chi Minh himself peering out from the inside of every tent… It is camping after all, and after dark, swarms of teenagers circle campfires whilst singing suitable songs and daring a bit of flash mobbing, and at least some of the lucky  ones will be enjoying a sleepover…  Teenage adventure as it should be.

Although the origin of the camping event may be largely lost on today’s Vietnamese teenagers, it is clearly one of the highlights on their calendar..  And who can begrudge them the fun, because just like their Chinese counterparts, the burden on Vietnamese students to do well, work hard and even harder, and build a successful future is immense.   More classes after more classes, a diet of relentless studying.

So what if the past simple and present perfect continuous send my students to sleep?? They probably earned and needed the rest….  At the end of the day, grammar or camping?? No contest at all!!

No escaping China’s clutches…

I may well have finished with China last summer, but it appears China has far from finished with me…  Am I famous, or is it more a case of infamy???

Only just about two weeks ago, a friend in Hangzhou sent me a copy of a newspaper article…

‘Look,’ my friend L. exclaimed, ‘your name is in the newspapers in China!!’

‘Hmmm,’ I replied.  ‘It may well be my name… but it’s clearly your mugshot and your husband’s….’

‘Don’t you fret…  Your mugshot is there!! On that wall…  We’re looking at it.  Just check it out in the left-hand corner..,’ she carried on.  Or did she mean right-hand corner?  The photographs are far too small and far too grainy for me to recognise my own self in them…

Not exactly thinking rationally at the time, and being in the grip of a definite black period in my life, panic ensued at seeing my name – LIEVE LEE – plastered in several places across the paper.  And did I  spot the unmistakable word ‘FAMILY’ in capital letters?  Somehow the only logical connection I could see was to my rather unorthodox exit from China.  I certainly could not recall any grand achievements that would have warranted the attention of the media.  Maybe my agent was pursuing me after all!!  Or maybe the Chinese mafia were trying to get at me via my family in the UK…  What had I been thinking in the summer?  That escaping the past unscathed would just be a plane ride away?  Although granted, a wanted poster usually features the ‘wanted’ person, and not a handful of  nosy loawai staring at some photographs pinned up on a wall…

‘On the upside,’ a colleague in Vietnam remarked after studying the photograph, ‘there is no mention of a telephone number to get in touch with the police if anyone was to know your whereabouts and decided to report it.’  But was I really sure??  Do the Chinese use the Arabic numerals or do they have their own unintelligible (to the uninitiated…) characters??  I rued my careless decision not to at least acquire a rudimentary grasp of the Chinese language.  Isn’t counting to ten one of the most basic things we learn in any new language???

The problem was that neither my friend L., nor I, learned a single iota of Mandarin during our stay in China.  So how to get a translation and from whom?  A real Catch-22…  Who to trust?  Would they be friend or foe if indeed the article was less than complementary about my exploits on Chinese soil?  Until I could ascertain the content of the article, it was tricky to decide who would be the most appropriate person to approach to translate it…

After a day or two of some head scratching and digging deep into my list of loyal expats in China, I remembered J from the UK…  A man with a bone to pick with his own agent and well aware of the reasons of my sudden departure from China AND with sound contacts whose command of the Chinese language was undisputed.  I sent him the photograph of the newspaper article and was keeping my fingers crossed.

As expected, a man of his word, he put out some feelers and got the gist of the article to me in no time.  Far from me being added to a blacklist or wanted list, it was all a whole lot more innocent.  The article merely related how J, a Taiwanese friend in Hangzhou, came to the rescue when I needed a lift back home from the hospital after my knee surgery…  Funnily enough, whereas my guardian angel at the time was only referred to as an Australian (???) Chinese member of the ‘family’ – the community where I lived – the journalist clearly deemed it entirely appropriate to add my name in full, just to make sure there was no misunderstanding…  Still, it felt good to have the mystery solved.  I could breathe a sigh of relief; I was not ‘wanted’ after all…

No sooner was the issue laid to rest, than more evidence came to light of my lasting impact on China.  A photograph featuring yours truly is being used by a small Hangzhou-based travel company to promote exciting and adventure packed day and weekend trips in and around the area… Although I am of course flattered, I cannot shift the feeling that, as I was on most trips organized by them between last March and last August, they may have struggled to find any suitable photographs that did not star me…

Personally??  I would have gone for the photograph below.  I much prefer the incognito look. Wanted.  Dead or Alive.

 

Vietnam from the sea to the table.

Living in the provincial town of Quang Ngai, it can be hard to forget that just a few miles beyond the confines of the city a totally different world unfolds.  As in any urban environment, people’s lives in the city seemingly revolve around providing services: coffee shops, restaurants, clothes shops, the wet market and the supermarket, the local hospital just around the corner.  At peak times, on crowded roads, hordes of motorbikes jostle for space with cyclists and cars, and even a few hapless pedestrians as cafes, food carts and street vendors spill out onto the pavements making them impassable.

The sea breeze, emanating from the South China Sea along the Vietnamese coastline, does not reach here to clear the stuffiness of stagnant, stifling air or ease the closeness of the oppressive summer swelter.  Verdant hillocks beckon in the distance, too far to get to by bicycle and, after my e-bike adventures in China, I am not too keen on braving the traffic on a motorized vehicle…  But the beach is only a bike ride away, one hour there and another on the way back.  Thirty-four kilometers of unbridled cycling freedom, whilst the rush of warm air keeps the worst of the heat at bay.   A treat in the cooler winter months, when cloud cover and occasional heavy downpours made for soggy but enjoyable ventures.  These days, bike rides are more likely to coincide with slathering on sun cream, sporting my wide-brimmed hiking hat and, lately, even a long-sleeved shirt.  Better to be safe than sorry; the wise words of my daughter!!!.  The sun can indeed be relentless.

But whilst MY trips to the beach focus on relaxing with a Vietnamese coffee, indulging in Ban Xeo (rice pancakes), dipping my toes in the gentle waves and building sand castles on a whim, the locals are busy making a living from what the sea has to offer.  With a coastline extending to the full length of the country, and plenty of deltas, waterways and lakes inland, it is no surprise that Vietnam’s fishing industry is buoyant.  Not only is the sea exploited to provide much needed protein – sumptuous seafood and fish – to supplement the diet of the local population, Vietnam is also a major exporter of shrimp and other seafood delicacies.   And as is still often the case in the developing world, the work involved is backbreaking and arduous.

Beaches are littered with fishermen’s paraphernalia.  Of course, there are the usual fishing boats, elongated in their shape with a distinct bow and stern, but circular tub-shaped boats are equally common.  Many of them are equipped with battery-run lighting for nighttime trips out to sea as fishermen take to the deeper waters along the coast to cast their nets.

Later, taking advantage of the force of the incoming tide, two lines of men and women, patiently and laboriously, tiny step by tiny step, draw in the nets from both ends, hauling in the catch.  Groups of villagers, or tourists, flock out of nowhere to inspect or photograph a (hopefully) abundant yield, whilst the workers carefully sort the various species brought ashore ready to be dispatched to fish markets and stalls.  Local housewives or restaurant owners come along to have the first pick of what the tide turned in.

On another occasion, we watch three people trawl the shallow waters edging the beach.  They plod on slowly and doggedly, dragging an unusual tool just below the sand.  Every now and again, one of them stops dipping a hand under the water as the metal bar at the bottom of their pitched wooden fork clangs.  They are collecting a type of shellfish, buried in the sand just below the sea surface…

But spare a thought for the makeshift scuba divers, earning their keep by scouring the seabed for shrimp or baby lobster…  We never found out what they were really looking for; a mixture of the obscurity of my photograph and translation problems…  It just seemed a lot of risk for a handful of shrimp…

Initially my curiosity was piqued by bobbing heads breaking through the waves in the shallower water and the humming of a battery perched on some slippery rocks near the water’s edge.  Attached to the battery was what very much looked like a garden hosepipe, supplying air to one of a team of snorkelers and scuba divers who were locating and collecting the precious seafood.  At least they were kitted out with wet suits and snorkeling masks but it is difficult to underestimate the damage the excessive air pressure must cause to the divers’ lungs…

Maybe it is befitting to give thanks to the Vietnamese fishermen, as well as the Almighty, for ‘giving us our daily bread’ and seafood….