2 ways you know you're in Beijing

- When you sense oncoming darkness on a non-"blue sky" day you find yourself humming the tune of Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun"

- When your 8-year old student comments not on whether they have an Apple device, but how many they have and the cost of each down to the last jiao

People watching

The chairs in the cafes, bars, and restaurants in HCMC are oriented toward the sidewalk and street, just like you would see in a Parisian cafe on the Champs Elysee. There's certainly no shortage of people watching opportunities here, like there is in France. Streams of moped riders cruise down the streets endlessly--we're told that, in a city of 10M people. there's 7M bikes, more than 1 for every adult. Collisions between riders are inevitable. We say a bad crash in the middle of a monsoon rainstorm the other day; someone rushed off the sidewalk to help, there was an exchange of words and both riders drove off. We didn't see any money change hands.

I'm looking out onto our small lane while writing this post. Meagan just walked by on her way back from some shopping, buying postcards to send back to friends and family stateside. As much as the cafes are arranged in the French way, enabling chats about the folks you see walking by, more than anything we see both locals and backpackers buried in their 3Gs, rarely having conversation even with the person sitting right next to them. Guess I'm one to judge, typing away here at my computer in the hostel dining room. It's a sad state of affairs when, as cool as the technology is, the Facebook Mobile post about the experience becomes more pressing than really taking the moment in.

Vietnam vs China

1) Generally better level of English in downtown HCMC than you see in central Beijing where we live. Don't know if the American occupation has left a legacy of English knowledge, better ESL education system.. certainly plenty of foreigners here in the backpacker district employed as FTs.

2) Very different relationship to history of foreign aggression. Almost definitely because Vietnam won in the battle with America, France, China, etc.--versus "200 years of humiliation" in China--there seems to be less of a sensitivity here and openness to speak about the war on more objective terms. I was surprised to hear our tour guide yesterday remark how the commentary at the War Remnants Museum is "one sided."

Agreed that, although the war stuff has been amazingly powerful and moving, we're in need of a change of gears. Here we come, Phu Quoc!

Strong coffee

Waking up in Ho Chi Minh City on vacation, checking the clock and seeing 7am, it seems inevitable what the next step would be: nothing, fall back asleep. Fortunately, the coffee in Vietnam is enough to get even me out of bed before midday. After having a cup downstairs, I  cruised through the rest of a small book of interviews with Lee Kwan Yew I've been reading the past couple of weeks, and I feel ready to run 3 marathons. Nice way to counter the sluggishness you usually get from the tropical heat. Even getting a blog post in before 9am!

Vietnam visa

The developing world is a crazy place when it comes to getting had. When you first get to China, you pay for your fair share of roundabout cab rides. You need to be pushy at the different haggle-based markets if you don't want to be paying triple and quadruple the real value of "cashmere" scarfs and false Ray-bans.

Soon, you get cynical, and you start getting played less--or at least less obviously. But then you begin to see, as you get to know the place better, that you do have folks peddling cheap and convenient services, people who aren't trying to screw you really badly. Oftentimes, even large government or corporate offices will outsource stuff to very shabby vendors for logistics and POS interactions, which can get confusing, as you'll be handing money to someone with no affiliation with the company you're supposed to be paying other than a very-crumpled invoice they're yelling at you to sign more quickly so they can get on to the next customer.

I guess you're supposed to have a visa to get into Vietnam. We're both very excited to get on the plane to Ho Chi Minh City and explore a new country.. but we learned yesterday that you're supposed to get a visa for entry. The flight takes off at 5:30pm, it's now 2:30 and we still have not gotten our visa. Internet search revealed an official-looking website to get visas online in 90 minutes. In the span of 15 minutes, I've exchanged 9 emails with someone named Mr Jacky Dang who can provide the visas once I've submitted $190 to them through Paypal. Five minutes ago, submitted payment and just received email from Jacky confirming the visas'll be in our email in 1 hour (3:30 pm).

Hopefully next posting will be from South Vietnam..

Shanghai vs Beijing

Just got back form Shanghai after their Mid-Autumn hockey tournament. Beijing's team went 2-3-1, I was only able to compete in 2 of 6 games because of work conflicts. As striking as the hockey were a couple other things I observed about Shanghai (this is my first stay of more than 20 hours despite having been in China for over 5 years):

1) Way more cosmopolitan. Aside from the city skyline, layout, As I've had it put by some female friends in Beijing, it sometimes seems as if local ladies here choose outfits by turning the lights off and grabbing whatever the touch first in their closets. Shanghainese seemed a bit more fashion-forward in such a way that they were playing with trends and designs in a more self-conscious way, as opposed to the bizarre mimicky stuff you see in north China.

2) Better service culture. Waitstaff at restaurants were generally much better trained, more attentive, and had better English than what you see on average in Beijing.

3) More coins used in change. I got a lot more 1 yuan coins than 1 yuan notes in Shanghai. I definitely find the 1 yuan notes annoying, but not as annoying (or destructive to the material in your pants pocket) as a sackful of metal coins I had to lug around.

4) Tips seem expected, from foreigners at least. Whereas in Beijing you would get 1 cabbie in 12-15 who would not give you back full change down the 1 RMB on your cab fare, 3 or 3 Shanghai cabbies I met did not return the 1-2 RMB extra change, then seemed irked when I requested all my change back. Guess this is a result of longer history of Americans/foreigners in Shanghai and increased tourist numbers?

5) Bit less picky about ID-related stuff. Whereas I was almost turned away at the turnstile in Beijing when I could not produce my original passport (I had a color scanned copy), they didn't bat an eye at the train station in Shanghai... however I was turned away at the hotel when I couldn't produce an original passport.

Most Chinese-y thing I did this week

We're supposed to pay our ayi by the last day each month--at least, that's the tradition we've gotten into, which is as good as a law in China. About a month ago, she asked for a raise, mentioning how the cost of living in Beijing is getting higher, and how long she's been working for us. In a letter I left for her to read, I responded that I wasn't aware that time alone necessitates a raise; rather, increase in quality of work over time is something that seems more raise-worthy. I mentioned several areas in which she was slacking, and the following week she wrote back her apologies and conceded the point. I am waiting, however, for the sabotage that is surely being plotted.. subtle sabotage: socks go missing a bit more regularly, weird marks or tears in favorite shirts, etc.

Last week, sitting on the table instead of money, I accidentally left her a bag of week-old defrosted chicken meat. Totally accidental--in running out the door, I spaced and just left the chicken I was meaning to throw out sitting there.. festering. By the time she came in to clean later that day, it must have reeked. Needless to say, it was still sitting there when we got back in the evening, REALLY festering at that point. It's moments like these in Chinese relationships, where a faux pas has been committed and something needs to be done to restore balance to a relationship.

Typically, I would have opted for money. Decent cure-all idea, and something she might have expected, after leaving the chicken there on the table defiantly. Money can be complicated as it leads to expectations about raises. Instead, I went the curry-favor-through-not-so-random-act-of-kindness route, involving an investment of money but more so some thought and in-kind reparations. At the shop today, I purchased a bag of nice jet-fresh mangoes, and deliberately left the weight and price on the bag. Classic Chinese move, people usually don't even try to pretend they forgot to take the tag off; neither did I. To boot, I threw in some Arizona iced tea, an American import and a personal favorite that I fumbled my way through describing as "one of southeast America's favorite summertime beverages." She seemed happy enough, and accepted with a kind of half-refusal--different from the usual 2 to 3 refusals you're offered when folks are actually being polite. Talk of the chicken did not come up. I'm hoping that the case is now closed, and that she's no longer secretly grinding up glass and putting it into our muesli...