noodlepie

Twittering power cuts

Just wondering out loud here... does anyone in Saigon or Hanoi use Twitter? And if you do, do you Twitter when you have a power cut? We normally had power outages for either the whole working day - 7:30am - 5pm - or for just an hour or so. There was at least one per month and usually it was a day long job. If I needed to work I'd normally head to District 1 and try and find a wifi cafe with power. It just occurred to me that if you twittered from a mobile that you were on the end of a power vacuum, your Twitter friends may be able to locate the nearest power/wifi source for you. Just a thought.

It comes screaming back...

Just when you think you've forgotten how your toes and teeth curled at restaurant reviews in Vietnamese newspapers and magazines, it all comes screaming back at you and turned up to 11. The Hanoi-based PittStop blog highlights what has to be the most incredible restaurant review I have ever come across. Here are his snippets,

the interior is "Cozy contempo-minimalist", the concierge desk is a "slanted grey marshmallow", the total effect is "short of opulent but thoroughly Oriental in a temporarily satisfying way. It’s like King Herod’s breakfast nook – no leopards, belly dancers or sandalwood smoke, yet its intentions seemingly pay lip service to "decadence", "the street’s audio-spatial cacophony of tchotchkes for sale is suddenly gone, like putting on a pair of velvet earplugs... ", "In its own way (that is, removing fun and Truman Capote from the equation), going to Green Mango is an experience akin to having gone to Studio 54 in New York preternaturally cursed with the foreknowledge of all that would come after: here is a Disneyland ride where one can feel wealthy and with-it while consuming the raw distillate of a certain moment in a city and a nation’s history. Like Studio 54, the last greatest disco, one is on hand as a trend is perfected, transcended, and rendered obsolete in the very same instant. Green Mango merits consideration, as do the processes of history that brought it to an ageless mercantile avenue of Thang Long." link

You can read the whole thing at Vietnam News. You can, but I wouldn't advise it. Seriously, is this guy having a laugh?

Jealous...

Robyn at Eating Asia got to go back to Saigon... and I didn't. Phil got to have a bia hoi... and I didn't. France is great, but you know...

Blogging and Vietnam and blogging and...

From The Standard

...Vietnam may be a one-party state that censors its official media and the internet, but this has not stopped millions of young people embracing a world of carefree online chatting their parents could only have dreamed of."Blogs were nothing two years ago and suddenly everybody's got one," said 28-year-old Canadian expatriate Joe Ruelle, a celebrity in the local blogosphere."The number of people who have blogs is baffling. It's kind of like the Wild West right now. People write everything."......Even Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has shared details of his personal life in a one-off online chat to reach out to young and tech-savvy citizens......But for the most part, it is youngsters who have pioneered the form, usually with nonpolitical chit- chat.

cheers Mike

Technorati Tags: Vietnam, Vietnamese blogs, Nguyen Tan Dung, Joe Ruelle

Vietnamese language help needed

I previously mentioned a blogging guide the Global Voices project has produced to help people who, for whatever reason, need to blog anonymously. Global Voices co-founder Ethan Zuckerman drops into the comments to say they need help with translating the guide into Vietnamese,

the guide is available under Creative Commons attribution - if anyone wants to translate it into Vietnamese, they're more than welcome. And I'm looking for someone who might fund that translation - it's one of our priority languages right now...

Anyone who's been reading this blog for a while will know I'm a big fan of Global Voices. Over the years, I have also tried to encourage the Vietnamese blogger wannabes who have contacted me, but fear and paranoia exists about writing stuff online and for very good reasons. However,

If you can help translate this document into English or sponsor the translation work, drop me or Ethan a line.

Andrea, Kevin etc. know anyone who might be up for the task? Or any rich Viet Kieu willing to shell out a few bucks to get the job done? The latest appeal for a Vietnamese cyber dissident, Le Nguyen Sang, was scheduled to take place in Ho Chi Minh City earlier today. It's an ongoing story etc. etc. A translation of this guide could really help folk avoid getting arrested for something as simple as expressing an opinion.

I know they're old and all that...

...and I'm all for going back to the same restaurant again and again and again, but isn't this all a bit well... bloody sad?

"Lee and I first ate in the Eastbourne McDonald's in 1990 and we've been back every weekday ever since. We had just moved over from Vancouver and we just fell in love with McDonald's.

We call it "the office" now and our relatives will ask us how the office is and have a little joke about it. We almost have our own table and if someone else is sitting there then, oh boy, I have to sit somewhere else and I feel like I'm lost. We never go to any other restaurants, you'll never see us anywhere else.

What do we love about it? McDonald's has always been very pleasant, and the people who work and go there are always very polite and friendly. In all these years, we have never, never had a cross word from anybody. We have people coming to sit with us who are a quarter of our age, and I love listening to the young kids and the students. And if they haven't got time to talk to us, then they'll just wave and go about their business.

We both order a double hamburger with one portion of chips between us, Lee has a cup of coffee and I give him one of my hamburgers, so I have one and he has three. I did once try the Big Deli sandwich and, I tell you, I couldn't walk out of the door it was that big!

We don't eat big when we come home, we like to sit down in the afternoon and watch Deal or No Deal with a Magnum chocolate-covered ice cream. We sit there licking it like two little old kids.

I've heard it said that people who go to McDonald's all put on weight - don't you believe it! I'm very slim and so is Lee. It's just nonsense about McDonald's not being healthy. Lee will have a bowl of cereal in the morning, and I'll make him a pre-cooked roast beef at the weekends, but there's 400 calories in our ice cream so we don't eat much else.

We were there all through that terrible time of the BSE crisis when they said don't eat beef. We were just fine and we're still healthy now. We're both 84 and there's nothing wrong with either of us. They're always going to criticise McDonald's and I don't understand why - it is one of the cleanest places you'll ever go to and we just love it." From The Guardian.

Technorati Tags: McDonald's, restaurant repetition, groundhog day syndrome

Vietnamese government lose the online plot

I've long been a subscriber to the excellent Intellasia news service. Today I received a message that the web driven news service is under attack from the Vietnamese authorities. Intellasia Director Peter Leech, whom I have met on a number of occasions, writes a reply to an article in An Ninh Thu Do,

"Despite the fact that Intellasia has over the years promoted Vietnam as a safe and good destination for foreign investors, balanced news reporting that gives all sides to any story is banned. Intellasia has always endeavoured to present a fair picture of what is happening in Vietnam during the good and lean times over the years. But now that the country has joined the WTO, things have suddenly reverted ominously."

You've got to wonder what the Vietnamese government's agenda is at the moment what with their pathetic attempt to amend the press law and censor blogging and now this latest moronic attack against probably the best English language resource for investors and news junkies interested in Vietnam. A phrase, including the words 'shooting' and 'foot', comes to mind... Read the full article. And for those interested - and it looks as though a Vietnamese translation might be needed Ethan - here is an excellent guide to how to blog anonymously.

UPDATE: through the email ether... "Interesting [Peter] used same reference to large feet and projectiles when we spoke this evening. Guess you're not planning a visit anytime soon neither ?"

Technorati Tags: Vietnam, censorship, intellasia

Working as a journalist in Vietnam

I often get emails from journalists and the like who either want to work in Vietnam or visit to work on some story or other, anything from sensitive human rights stories, illegal immigration features to food and travel stories. Here are a few common assumptions about working as a journalist in Vietnam I received this week,

Freelancing is basically illegal in Vietnam, the government will not give you any access unless you are fully accredited.

In order to be accredited, a bureau must be set up by a credible news organisation (and "fees" paid to the foreign ministry).

Journalists MUST be based in Hanoi.

Permission is required by the government every time you want to leave to report outside of your home city.

The whole thing is basically unfeasible.

Can anyone out there - Kay? Julien? - confirm or deny these assumptions? This was always the way I kinda saw it - through word of mouth more than anything else - but has the situation changed any?

Technorati Tags: Vietnam, Vietnamese journalism, freelancing, Asia

4 years, 4 trials, still no verdict

Ben Bland, a journalist on the Daily Telegraph, points me to his story about jailed Brit Peter Laking in Saigon,

British consular officials in Vietnam have written to the Vietnamese government to protest about the treatment of a British businessman who is being forced to endure a Kafka-esque ordeal after his trial on fraud charges was postponed last month for the fourth time in three years...

...The fourth attempt to try Mr Laking began on June 12, but the trial came to a halt after just an hour when the prosecutor said that he had insufficient evidence to prosecute at this stage and was granted an extension to carry out further investigation by the judge. Fair Trials Abroad, the campaign group, says that the ongoing delays are unacceptable...

...Although he has no income and has lost all of his assets, friends say he sees his future in Vietnam and cannot imagine living in the UK again. Link

I hear the last sentence... I hadn't come across this case before, but it appears Fair Trials Abroad have been on the case for a while.

Technorati Tags: Vietnam, Fair Trials Abroad, Peter Larking, Saigon

Missing Miss Internet Popularity 2007

Somewhat bizarrely, Google is hopeless at tracking down the 2007 Miss internet Popularity contest. OK, I only looked at the first set of page results, but it sounds such an intriguing competition,

Trieu Trang Thu Trang is currently leading the online voting to be crowned Miss internet Popularity 2007... Trang is leading the online poll with 2,100 votes. In second and third place are contestants from Thailand and the Republic of Korea with 1,400 and 1,300 votes respectively.

Sounds like Trang is running away with it and for a competition with a difficult (impossible?) to Google poll that's not at all bad. Good luck Trang.

The online voting (if you can find it) for Miss internet Popularity ends July 30.

Technorati Tags: Vietnam, Miss internet Popularity, online poll

Vietnamese cannibal case a hoax

Well, that's a relief then...

Reports of the murder of a Nepalese national by four Vietnamese who then cannibalised their victim in Qatar are false, according to Qatari officials.

A fully-fledged investigation was launched after several newspapers in Qatar, the Gulf and France 's Liberation daily ran coverage on the story. The Vietnamese side has requested that Qatari law enforcement investigate the source of the story as a precursor to pressing libel or slander charges against the culprit.

The Vietnamese side has also demanded that the newspapers that ran the story print a correction. Presently, close to 10,000 Vietnamese people are working in the Middle East, including Qatar. via Intellasia

Technorati Tags: Vietnam, cannibals, Qatar

Vietnam set to amend press law

Following on from earlier, a little more info. on the Vietnam blogging crackdown

The Ministry of Culture and Information is drafting regulations to prevent bloggers from posting subversive and sexually explicit content online. Vu Xuan Thanh, the ministry's chief inspector, said they would enable agencies to control weblogs and slap fines on people disseminating 'subversive or licentious information'.

He said once the regulations were finalised a circular would be issued and they would be incorporated in the amended Press Law.

But the manager of Ngoi Sao Network Company, which runs the licensed weblog www.ngoisaoblog.com, warned that superfluous formalities like asking bloggers to register their real names and ID card numbers would only see a rise in blogs located outside Vietnam. via Intellasia

If you're Vietnamese, living in Vietnam and want to start a blog why would you ever want to submit your blog to the vagaries of the Ministry minions? Especially given their track record with people writing online. Even if you have absolutely no intention of publishing anything 'subversive or licentious', why run the risk of falling foul of a flimsy law when you can easily set up a blog on a free service hosted outside the country?


Technorati Tags: Vietnam, internet censorship, internet dissidents

Vietnam to censor blogs

"The Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Culture and Information are to target bloggers and blog-hosting websites in the latest move by the government to restrict what Vietnamese write about and post on the internet. The chief inspector of the Ministry of Culture and Information Vu Xuan Thanh said the two ministries would issue a joint circular to strictly control and monitor what is written in online blogs, especially views against the state." via Intellasia

Does anyone know anything more about this? I'd really appreciate comments. Or email me on graham at noodlepie.com if you prefer. More general background from Amnesty and Reporters without borders.

Technorati Tags: Vietnam, censorship, internet censorship, monitoring blogs

Vietnam Airlines food - Behind the scenes documunchery

How did I ever miss this? From the excellent Airlinemeals.net a lengthy photostory from behind the scenes at the really bloody awful catering end of Vietnam Airlines. I found it after I had just googled around for a link to post to the airline food thread on Word of mouth. You might not want to eat Vietnam Airlines food - and quite frankly, who can blame you - but the look behind the scenes is fascinating. And, for the record, in ten years or so I only ever travelled once on Vietnam Airlines Business class and it was really rather good. Unlike the slop you get in economy.

Technorati Tags: Vietnam Airlines, airline food, mile high munch club

Hello John got a new motor?

Is this the first? The first of many? I wonder if Bentley will be required to supply supercharged car horns to Vietnam... the one in this vid sounds a bit weedy. You got circa $200,000 spare? Maybe a Lamborghini?

"Mr Cuong ordered the car as a wedding gift for his wife, the beauty and actress Tang Thanh Ha" Ahhh... Hope she can drive...

NB: post title explanation.

Lê Thị Công Nhân et al

Been a while since I did anything at Comment is free, but I noticed a story on the BBC this morning about the jailing of Lê Thị Công Nhân, a human rights lawyer in Vietnam, and others and it's a story worth reading, thinking about and acting upon. I suggest you click all the links in the column to get a fuller picture of the situation. I think Richard Lloyd Parry sums up the reality of the situation on the street very well,

"The Vietnamese government is one of those regimes whose repression is so narrowly concentrated that casual visitors - and even its own citizens, for some of the time at least - are quite unaware of it ... Leave people alone as long as they are making money, creating silk paintings, winning Olympic medals and the like. But as soon as they assert themselves politically, as soon as they question the authority of the party - then crush them."

Update: I'd be interested if anyone could translate these videos of Lê Thị Công Nhân and Nguyan Van Dai,

Safe as houses for Ong Tay

I thought it was already possible for foreign nationals to buy property in Vietnam, however it appears it will at least be a little easier as of next month,

Vietnam will permit foreigners working in the country to buy houses local newspaper Youth reported Tuesday May 8. Under the scheme compiled by the Construction Ministry and submitted to the government for approval, those eligible for house purchases include people who directly come to Vietnam for investment or make contributions to the country and receive medals, or scientists who are bestowed Vietnamese academic titles and degrees, experts in socio-economic fields, highly-skilled workers, and persons who marry Vietnamese. via Xinhua

Not sure I'd qualify in any of those, admittedly vague, brackets. However, I still wants me a big, shiny, bling Vietnamese Friendship medal - if it's good enough for Daimler-Benz, given their history, it's good enough for me - get me one of them and I'll see if I can rake up a cool few million and go buy my plot.

Circa $2.5 million downtown Saigon

Bargain. Picture and cost estimate courtesy of Out to lunch. Bells ringing here. I'm not sure if at 2.5 million big ones you get the rags at the end of the pile thrown in. Worth haggling over I reckon.

Vietnamese behind British bars

Reading the ever good Ethiopian blog Meskel Square I followed a link to a fascinating statsite that lists the current numbers of non-Brits behind bars in the UK. A quick look at the South East Asian prisoners tells us that as of end of February, 2007 the stats were as follows,

Burma/Myanmar - less than 50
Indonesia - less than 50
Malaysia - less than 50
Phillipinnes - less than 50
Singapore - less than 50
Thailand - less than 50
Vietnam - 381

At the end of December 2006 the same question was asked. The results were similar, but Vietnam had 332 in prison. There have been a few high profile criminal cases involving Vietnamese citizens in the UK, but I'm wondering why the numbers are relatively high for Vietnamese nationals. Are there more Vietnamese nationals in the UK than other SE Asians? Or is something else going on? Any thoughts welcome.

Bridging Vietnam

At Global Voices HanoiMark has an interesting post about some of the most popular blogs in Vietnam, of both the Vietnamese and the English language variety. He references a story about a big Vinablog spat we talked about here last year. HanoiMark talks about a number of blogs I already know. He also mentions the phenomenally popular Joe Ruelle who I first heard about from a Vietnamese journalist back in Saigon. Unfortunately, as I can't read Vietnamese so well, I don't dip into Joe's world. HanoiMark's point is that,

"Bloggers like these help break down the barriers between the linguistic and culture divides that separate the various blogospheres in Vietnam. If the immense popularity of Ruelle’s blog is any indication, it would seem there is an appetite for the perspective of those who can bridge the gaps between expatriats and local Vietnamese." Link.

All of which I agree with. However, I'm still waiting... Is there a political blog scene in Vietnam? Where's the Guido Fawkes of Saigon? China's gone outspoken blognuts, yet I've heard nothing similar from Vietnam. We've talked about this before, but I'm still wondering... Some Vietnamese folk have told me 'sensitive stuff', that does not make it into the state press, is disseminated through Instant Messenger and email and not on blogs. Not yet anyway. I'm just suprised that; here we are, wth blogs a global phenomenon, and yet we're not hearing much dissent from Vietnam. I could well be missing sommit - like Vietnam really is utopia??? - please put me right if I am. But, for now Sod the dissent, the big question remains... where's the Vietnamese food blogger? It's a potential goldmine and I'm still waiting for him/her to surface too.

Just say no to dancing frenziedly to strong music

You gotta love the ol' Vietnamese state organ, Thanh Nien. It's not so much the story as the way they tell 'em,

"At 1am, the officers laid siege to the disco at No 10 Trang Thi Street in downtown Hanoi and found over a thousand people, mostly from 17 to 24 years old, dancing frenziedly to strong music."

OK drugs were allegedly involved in the raid which involved over 500 armed police and resulted in over 1,000 folk getting fingered by the cops, but I do find it hard to stifle a smile at the implication that "dancing frenziedly to strong music" is somehow wrong or at least indicative of debauched behaviour of the big Vietnamese book of social evils kind. Although, in all fairness, going by the frenzied Vietnamese dancing to strong music I've witnessed over the years I can see why social evil may be the most apt description.

What goes up

Not sure I'd recognise the place. Saigon that is. I've been grinning my way through Jon's posts at It's the Final Word, one of a number of English language Vietnam blogs I continue to follow since moving to France. He's busy documenting changes he sees on the streets of Saigon - buildings that go up, those that come down, abysmal chain stores that take root etc. His blog is a great wee way of keeping posted direct from the streets. As always, if you know of any new Vietnam blogs, particularly those like Jon's, with a keen eye for the minutae, the wallpaper of the city - please post a comment, email etc. Yet to find a new food one, but I hope it's only a matter of time.

Kind of inspired by Jon, I thought I'd post a few (crappy) photos I took yesterday and this morning from Toulouse. Pictured above is the statue of Toulousian poet Pierre Goudouli in Place Wilson. The humour value of Fairy Liquid in a fountain never fails to cheer me up.

As can be seen from the Sunday edition of the local rag - La Dépêche du Midi - it turned out crap again. Rain, drizzle, wind, grey, dull and suicidal, all very un-south of France if you ask me, which you didn't.

On Sunday I ate too much. The bread above is very, very good stuff. It can be found on Victor Hugo market. I'll blog more on it one day. A hard crust protects an intelligent dough - that sounds daft and it is daft, but I'm adjective buggered ce matin. It makes for a more than decent partner to the cheesy specimen below.

And this is where this blog post gets slightly interesting - bear with me. This is Vieux Boulogne. It's a cheese. This is the first time I have ever tasted it. As I sniff it's cheese power I twitter about it from my mobile,

What I didn't know then, but do know now is that my nose is electronic,

"Scientists at a Bedfordshire university have found what could be the smelliest cheese in the world. Vieux Boulogne, a soft cheese from northern France, beat 14 other whiffy varieties in tests. Experts at Cranfield University - who led the research - used an "electronic nose" to analyse the cheese odours, along with a panel of 19 human testers... The particularly pungent smell of the Vieux Boulogne is created by the beer reacting with enzymes in the cheese. It even beat Epoisses de Bourgogne, a cheese so smelly it is banned from being taken on public transport in its native France." From BBC News.

Much banter ensued upon the arrival of the Vieux Boulogne on the cheese splattered table. Six adults and four children struggled with adjectives to adequately describe the foul stench that had gatecrashed a pleasant Sunday afternoon. My first thought was chlorine, but not the straight chemical in a bottle stuff. More man chlorine. It's street wall toilet chlorine or, more precisely, stale urine in the heat of the summer sun. Close your eyes and you could be face to face, or rather nose to Armitage Shanks, with a filthy French urinal. Clearly not a cheese that makes friends easily, but it's creamy and rich and far tastier than it reeks. Other noses have their say,

"The odour of rotting vegetables and the scent of a goat on heat"

"Unwrapped from its plastic covering the Vieux Boulogne sent an aroma of six-week-old earwax floating through the Guardian’s offices. From a safe distance of 50 metres, the cheese emitted a pleasant eau de farmyard, replete with dung and Barbour jackets. Close up, its firm orange flesh, flecked with a delicate mould, recalled varnish." via Petite Anglaise.

 

Fat Police

In cholesterol news,

"Fat, pot-bellied traffic policemen in southern Vietnam must stay off work for six months and lose weight, a provincial police chief said.

"Recently, the fat and pot-bellied people have contributed to worsening the image of the traffic police," the head of the Dong Nai provincial police department was quoted as saying.

The state-run Lao Dong newspaper said Colonel Nguyen Van Khanh had told his staff that traffic police officers must be well-built to be dynamic. The department would give overweight policemen six months to rebuild their physique, he said." From Reuters.

I quite like the cuddly, corpulent, corrupt look in shades of peach. Be a shame to see it fade into memory.

Vietnamese food videos

Over the past few weeks I've gathered together a bunch of Vietnamese food video links from around the interent - that's my personal fave above... Click by dish or place below to view. If you know of any other Vietnamese food related videos online, please post a comment or email etc and I'll update the list.

• Bun dau mam tom - a group of friends eat this pungent dish on the streets of Hanoi.
• Banh Chung - Banh Tet - Video of Banh Tet preparation and still images of cooking.
• Banh Bao - From an American? cookery show dubbed in Vietnamese.
• Trang Bang - Making the rice paper that accompanies Banh Trang phoi suong.
• Banh cuon - Rolling and steaming banh cuon. And again on Ben Thanh market.
• Banh mi - lightning quick sarnie prep.
• Banh mi cay gay part 1 -  A Vietnamese language cookery show from ChiChoe.com. Part 2.
• Banh mi thit - A Japanese chap buys a meat baguette on Ben Thanh market.
• Banh xeo - from Dinh cong trang street in Saigon, Vietnam. Sizzle, sizzle.
• Bap my - a sweetcorn seller in Saigon.
• Bittet - Hot metal plate beef and eggs on Ben Thanh market, Saigon, Vietnam.
• Bo bia - snackfood prepared on the streets of Saigon.
• Bo la lot - from Cach Mang Thang Tam street in Saigon, Vietnam. Also a banh xeo stall.
• Bun bo Hue - conjured up at a street stall in Saigon.
• Bun cha - at the 'famous' - but crap - Bun cha restaurant in Hanoi. And in Saigon.
• Bun Rieu - VTV in the kitchen rustling up a Bun Rieu. In Vietnamese.
• Chanh Hung night market - nothing but fish at this Saigon night market. More here.
• Cha Gio - how to roll Vietnamese spring rolls in Saigon.
• Chao Tom - making shrimp paste on sugarcane in Saigon.
• Chao Trang -  rice porridge stall in District 10, Saigon.
• Chuoi nep nuong - cooked by an American woman in an ao dai on something called greenchefs.
• Con Duong - a worm/maggot type thing that lives in coconut trees. More here.
• Giong Phan Thiet nuong moi - grilled lizard in Mui Ne, near Phan Thiet - home of lizard eating.
• Hot Vit Lon - Embryonic duck eggs on Ben Thanh Market with Anthony Bourdain.
• Lau - the love it leave it hotpot Hanoi style & right next the railway line.
• Mia da - making a sugarcane drink in Saigon.
• Mi hoanh thanh - wonton noodle stall in Saigon, Vietnam.
• Muc nuong - selling grilled, dried squid on Dong Khoi street, Saigon.
• Pho - from a beef noodle soup stall in Hanoi.
• Pho - and Saigon style from Pho Ngan on Pasteur street in Saigon. In Vietnamese. Ngon la'm.
• Pho - how white guys eat pho, apparently.
• Pho - a faceless pho slurper assembles her lunch.
• Phung Vy restaurant - a nightime seafood restaurant in Cholon, Saigon.
• Quan An Ngon restaurant - a very popular (and good) eating spot in Saigon.
• Quan An Ngon (Hanoi) - the second branch of this popular restaurant, this time in the capital.
• Tiet Canh Tom Hum - Fresh lobster blood and alcohol.
• Thit cho - dogmeat and dogmeat alcohol in Hanoi.
• Thit Cho - rap fuelled dogmeat sellers.
• Thit cho - how to cook dog.
• Ruoi - worms cooked Hanoi style with English commentary.
• Ruou tac ke - How to make lizard 'wine' in Hanoi.
• Thit nuong - a stall selling grilled meat outside Chanh Hung night fish market, Saigon.
• Thit ran - Cobra heart in Saigon with Anthony Bourdain.
• Thit ran - more snake eating etc.
• Thit ran - snake heart beating.
• Tib Restaurant - looks like a promo video for this good vegetarian restaurant in Saigon.
• Turtle - a lunch of turtle, blood, bile and all in Hanoi, Vietnam.
• Vietnamese food - UK style at Au Lac restaurant in Shoreditch, London.
• Vietnamese food videos - scroll down, there are tonnes of video links here. Will include eventually.
• Vietnamese rolls - easy to do, very tasty, but don't soak the rice paper as long as this chef...
• Vietnamese rolls - at home in Vietnam with music.
• Xoi Vo - making sticky sweet bean rice.

New York Times in Hanoi... again

Seems to be their favourite place. I dunno how many reports I've read in the Travel section of the New York Times from Hanoi in recent years, but as a place it seems to get more than it's fair share. The latest offering focuses on Hanoi's art scene. I enjoyed the audio slideshow - some great shots - which you can click on in the left hand column, but... I dunno if it's just me but a lot of it seems so naive.

"All of the young artists had Yahoo! accounts"

So? That was probably true 5 or more years ago. I knew folk with Yahoo! accounts in 97' or '98. Then there's the inevitable war word and a number of  'frozen in time', 'race to catch up' moments including my favourite old Vietnamese chesnut from the Vietnam travel article school of journalism,

"In it's race to catch up with the rest of Asia and the west, it will change"

Isn't this like saying your street will change. Your town. Your city, Your country. Whoever you are, wherever you live? It's meaningless. And yet every time I read about Vietnam in the western press the same line gets churned out. I'm looking forward to reading an article about New York City,

"In it's race to stay ahead, it will change."

Oh and the eating guide is a bit weak... Not one Vietnamese place in 'their picks'? Not one?

Agent Orange aid

Ex-Saigon blogger, now Open Society tweaker, Mike emails to say,

Our long planned fundraiser should be occurring on April 30 in NYC.

We are joining with some very dedicated people in New York who have been working tirelessly on this issue for years.

On April 30 (the anniversary of the end of the American-Vietnam War), these activists/lawyers will be showing a film at Gallery Vietnam (Tribeca in NYC) and we will be showing some artwork we picked up in Danang back in April of 2006. While we realize we won't raise much money from the artwork, we do hope to take in some donations. All of the art we have was painted by children at a group home for children affected by Agent Orange run by the Danang Quang Nam Fund and the Vietnamese Red Cross. All proceeds from the event will go back to this group home (via the Danang Quang Nam Fund - www.danangquangnamfund.org). We met with the home's administrator back in April and he is desperate for money. Kids need food, medical supplies, teachers, and school supplies.

I'm not writing to ask for money but just to check out our blog to keep up to date and informed on the issue: http://www.helpinghands-vn.org/blog.asp

We just got it up and running and I will be updating it often with news related to Agent Orange.

The goal of our fundraiser is to raise money for these kids but also awareness. Agent Orange is a massive problem, affecting millions of people. Every dollar counts but it will take millions to make a real difference. Thus, along with the small donations we hope to bring in, we also hope that more people will become aware of the issue, and hopefully one day, the U.S. government will start providing aid to the Vietnamese victims who continue to suffer from a war which ended over 30 years ago.

Asia Life in Saigon

Looks like there's another magazine guide to Saigon. This one is called Asia Life. I assume it's new because a) I've never seen it before and b) the website is filled with empty adspace. Asia Life would appear to be compeing with Saigon Inside Out, The Guide and Discovery. Do a Google search on Saigon Inside Out - ouch... Hang on... www.saigoninsideout.com redirects to Asia Life. So, it's a makeover mag, right? Well, is it better? Worse? You still in charge Johny? Cut to the chase. Here's the restaurant section. And here's a ChefMoz 'votable' guide on Saigon restaurants.

I love the smell of blogging in the morning

It took them a while, but they've twigged. People in Vietnam are talking. They're talking about sex. Worse, they're talking about sex and they're blogging about sex. Maybe they're even having sex. The local press is not impressed,

"It is quite shocking to enter a blog whose nickname is enough to help readers conjure up all sorts of things like "Lustful gentleman." This blog isn't grossly sexual, though. Mr. Lustful "subtly" addresses sex through various stories about male and female animals, humans included."

Phwoarr. Hot stuff. And the Vietnamese authorities have ants in their pants,

"According to Mr. Vu Xuan Thanh, Chief Investigator of the Ministry (of Information and Culture), blogs are growing too fast for the Ministry of Culture and Information to manage. Mr. Thanh even said that the Ministry's investigators don't know much about blogs themselves."

Today's article on Vietnamnet Bridge spends half its time blethering on about the non-story that a miniscule number of 'black blogs' - blogs focussing on those nasty things the Vietnamese government calls social evils that they say will send us all to hell - whereas the real story is elsewhere. Where are the Vietnamese voices people are listening to in number, talking with, empathising with? In short, who are the Vietnamese blogstars? Well, we don't learn who they are, but we do learn that the government is on the case,

"The Investigation Agency of the Ministy of Culture and Information has recently dispatched a team to research blogs in order to find out ways to manage this form of writing diaries."

Back in July 2006, on The Guardian's Comment is free blog, I wrote that blogs were barely on the radar in Vietnam. Less than a year later and some Vietnamese language blogs are now attracting 5,000 comments. If this signifies the take off of blogs in Vietnam, it is highly unlikely the authorities will be able to keep up and 'manage' the growth of blogs.

Like many other 'sensitive' countries, writing something innocuous online in Vietnam can get you banged up, beaten up or locked in your home. But when you have a million people writing online, or when you have 30 million, even 84 million. Is it a manageable phenomenon? Hmmm... unlikely. Would listening and getting involved in the conversation be better? Well... probably.

"According to Mr. Thanh, most names and addresses of questionable blogs are false. Mr. Thanh also said that though there haven't any particular regulations of blogs, Regulation 55 and Circular 02 issued by the Ministry of Culture and Information prohibit Internet contents that are opposite to social and Party's values."

It's my understanding that to have a website in Vietnam you have to have it registered and approved with the communist state. Anyone remember the great grapefruit dotcom scandal that came to light a year ago this week?

Blogs would appear to fall out of this area as setting up a blog is similar to setting up a free email account. Having said that, way back in the late 90's access to Hotmail and Yahoo! email accounts was very patchy, due to an intermittent, but effective blocking system. Blogs run through Blogger and Typepad are also, on occasion, inaccessible within Vietnam.

There are no figures that I'm aware of that tell us how many people in Vietnam are now blogging. Technorati doesn't track Asian language blogs. However, we can assume the rate, like everywhere else, is on the up. The fact that the authorities have taken an unprecedented interest in blogging suggests that Vietnamese people have taken to blogs in sufficient numbers that the state organ's knickers are starting to get in a twist. Well, rather than twisting they might be better employed listening or at least looking next door. Surely if King Norodom Sihanouk of the Kingdom of Cambodia can blog, anyone can.

NB: I wrote this to post this for The Guardian's Comment is free blog, but they take so long to run stuff. It's only been 10 hours or so, and in all fairness they'd probably run it tomorrow, but... ach... 10 hours is too long...

In other news

A few news items I noticed these past few days, worth a mention if not related to each other,

"Dalat central city Wednesday inaugurated a French-Vietnamese facility to produce high-quality wine, with an annual capacity of some one million liters. The plant, the first of its kind in Vietnam" Thanh Nien

I'm not sure how popular locally produced wine is in Vietnam. Popular or not, it is appalling. I wonder if these guys can up the local game a notch or ten?

"Around 20 students from Saigon used their own hand-held cameras and computers to shoot and produce a love story called Little Bubu.... With very little money - the whole project came to around $300 (£150) - the students made do with three camcorders, a microphone and home computers... (One of the students said) "Sites such as YouTube and Google Video have made it easier for people to be able to create their own movie, so we really think more and more people are going to become interested in it," BBC News

I haven't seen the film, but whatever, it's pretty cool to see young Vietnamese having a bash at creating stuff with bare bones tools and finding some success.

"A Vietnamese opera website went online last week ago in an effort to maintain the unique musical genre, with events and performances posted along with streaming music for the avid listener." Thanh Nien

Eastenders, but not as you know it.

technorati tags:Vietnam, Vietnamese, news

From Pyongyang with love

Here's a headline to warm your cockles - Vietnamese film wins best documentary in Pyongyang,

"Director of the film, Minh Chuyen... did not expect that his film would win the prize, Chuyen decided to go back to Vietnam at lunch time on September 22. But he was very happy when informed in the evening on the same day that his film had won the cup for Best Documentary Film."

There's confidence for you. The VietnamNet website helpfully adds the following caption to the photo above,

"Director Minh Chuyen (second from the left) at the festival."

Not sure I would have spotted him without that. Cheers.

Agent Orange art auction

Fellow ex-Vietnam expat blogger No Star Where emails to tell me his Agent Orange benefit art auction is now up and running at Helping Hands,

"We are going to auction off artwork created by Vietnamese children affected by Agent Orange who currently live in Danang, Vietnam. We visited a group home for these children in April and they donated several pieces of artwork to us."

The American manufacturers of Agent Orange dispute the evidence that the defoliant chemical caused birth defects and illnesses during and after the Vietnam War.

Niterider

Saigon streets and alleyways by day and by night. Had a lot of fun filming these. Think I probably had more fun editing them. Although it's pretty obvious I'm no David Lean. Marvellous what you can do with a phone, some software and a blog. Bloody marvellous. Gridskipper gave them a nice wee mention.

Technorati Tags: Saigon, videocast, Vietnam

Being Hoang Minh Chinh

An intriguing flickr-ed photo arrived in myRSS subscriptions - I subscribe to Flickr photos tagged with the word Hanoi. I emailed it to fellow Vietnam based blogger NoStar Where who pointed me to an article about the photographer on Reuters Alertnet and one in The Vietnam News. This comment sums up the blinkered view of some folk in Vietnam,

"Hoang Minh Chinh, who used to be a senior official of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam and nurtured by the Party and people, has been deceived by hostile forces, who turned him into a tool of the enemy without his consciousness."

Who's hostile? And who is the enemy exactly? Not us foreigners again, is it? After 8+ years living in Vietnam, I've come to the conclusion the only enemies the Vietnamese have are the Vietnamese.

Technorati Tags: Vietnam