“A World without Poverty”: Not Just a Dream

When I first heard about microfinance a year ago, I was intrigued. As I have learned more about the concept through research, lending, and finally this week interviewing borrowers, I am definitely hooked. Microfinance, largely established by Muhammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank, is the idea of lending money to the poor at low interest rates for the purpose of raising them from poverty. It sounds too good to be true: lend a few dollars to a poor woman for a few months, and you will lift her and her family out of poverty and there is a 99% chance you will get your money back? A cure-all solution to eradicate poverty worldwide? So I read Muhammad Yunus’ book, listened to him speak, joined Kiva and loaned money, and read articles in support and against it, and as far as I could tell, it would work. This week, I have gone further: I went with SEDA (Small Enterprise Development Agency, a local partner of Kiva) to a village in Bac Ninh Province, Vietnam to interview the entrepreneurs on the receiving end.

I conducted a total of 34 interviews over four days, and I am in the process of writing up ‘journals’ about each borrower to post on Kiva. All but two of the borrowers are women, though a few women work alongside their husbands and borrowed for their combined business. These are enterprising women who are excited about their businesses and love receiving loans. I watched a group of nine women (most loans are made to groups to make it easier to pay back) receive their loans. The stacks of dong came out, and their faces lit up as they began to count. Money empowers people, and even much more so when they have somewhere to invest it and when they know they must pay it back. Many of the people I talked to said that paying back their loan weekly to SEDA taught them how to save: they knew that they had to pay back a certain amount weekly, so they saved enough to pay back and then applied the principle even when they were not paying back a loan so they could save in the long term. Most of their income then goes toward educating their children and renovating their houses (unlike the wealthy often do, the poor do not usually use their money for travel or vacations). Despite being extremely uneducated (one woman finished 3rd Grade, most finished middle school or high school, and only one graduated from university), everyone wants their children or grandchildren to attend university. One woman said, “I did not allow my daughter to go to high school, even though she passed the exam, because I did not think education was necessary. When I later regretted my decision (my daughter told me she wished she had gone to school) and wanted to send my three younger sons to school, they did not pass the exam to get into high school. I hope my grandchildren will go to high school and then university if they are able.” Each generation is more educated than the last. But obstacles such as difficult exams and high cost of education often prevent children from continuing their schooling. Another woman said, “When my children were in high school, I could buy nice things for my house. Now that they are in university, I must spend my entire income to pay for their education!”

I was impressed by these women’s commitment to their children, but not entirely surprised, since every good mother hopes for a better life for her child and will do her best to help her child. This is why most of the recipients of microloans are mothers. However, I was surprised by the father I talked to. Some characterize Vietnamese men as being useless and just a drain on resources. And sometimes they are. But the men I talked to in this village were just as eager as their wives for their children to become educated, and they were just as likely to invest their money in their businesses instead of squandering it on cigarettes and alcohol. I still believe it is generally better to loan to women, but I was glad that the men I met were so supportive of their families.

One criticism I have of SEDA is that for nearly all of the people I met, this was at least their second loan from SEDA, and some had taken out loans from other sources. And while most only make about $5 a day, $5 goes much further in rural Vietnam than it does in the US. Many people live in nice big houses with televisions, and one family even had a computer. These people will use their loans well, and repay them, but they are not the poorest of the poor who need money the most. By loaning to more well-off clients, SEDA risks losing sight of its original purpose and becoming like any other bank.

SEDA also loans on a very small scale, with this particular branch in Yen Phong District lending 150-300.000.000 VND to 20-60 people per month. And when I asked the credit office about possible expansion, they sort of laughed and said it was a very long way off. SEDA does not actively advertise, instead relying on its clients to spread the word. There is a lot of unrealized potential here.

However, another improvement needs to be made to SEDA: in their head office in Hanoi, there does not seem to be much work going on. On the administrative side of things, I think SEDA needs to become more efficient and improve. The credit offices seem to be doing most of the work. For example, I have been waiting to edit the English for SEDA’s new website for over a month now, and it seems to be stuck. Perhaps this is one reason SEDA is having trouble expanding. The credit office on the other hand worked very efficiently and I was impressed with their dedication. I did enjoy working with the credit office, though. There are six people working regularly in the office in Yen Phong. They know their clients well, and interact with them often. This fosters good relationships with trust and lets both sides feel more confident throughout the process. The employees of SEDA enjoy working to help other people, and generally promote good will in the office and outside.

I heard many stories of women who were able to expand their businesses, send their children to school, renovate their houses, and learn how to save money because of the loan they received from SEDA. Microcredit clearly has made a huge difference to these people, and will go on to make a difference in the lives of many other people. But what exists now is not enough.

In his book, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism, Muhammad Yunus expands from microcredit to discuss the concept of a social business, a business with a structure similar to that of a profit-maximizing business but with the purpose of reducing poverty. He initiated his idea by creating several social businesses as branches of Grameen. One example is Grameen-Danone, a joint venture between Grameen Bank and Danone food company which produces low-cost nutritional food for the poor. Another Grameen branch provides low cost environment-friendly energy for rural families. Yet another is in development which will consist of a series of rurally located eye-care hospitals where doctors will perform cheap eye surgery for the poor while charging regular market price for the wealthy. Yunus envisions a world with a “social stock market” of social businesses, and eventually a world without poverty[1]. I share this vision, and I want to be part of its accomplishment. However, microfinance, through a few organizations including Grameen Bank, Kiva, and Babyloan, operates on a very small scale compared to how many people it could be helping. In the future, I hope that more people will learn about microfinance and social business and start up social businesses of their own. I hope these businesses will reach to all corners of the world, eradication poverty on a grand scale. Poverty breeds discontent and war, so without poverty, we will be a long way toward achieving peace. And we will achieve the dream.

[1] Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism, Muhammad Yunus, 2007

Tough Love

In English class (again—we write so many interesting papers!), we recently finished reading The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien. While a novel and not a memoir, The Things They Carried is certainly a worthwhile read whether or not you are interested in the Vietnam War. O’Brien details his experiences as a young soldier in the war artfully and insightfully. I really enjoyed this book (O’Brien might be my new favorite author!), and I hope you will go out and read it.

Our assignment was to write about the things that we carry physically, emotionally, and otherwise. While I could write pages and pages on this, time is limited, and following is a slightly edited version of what I wrote:

On August 26th, I left for Vietnam. I carried two suitcases and a lime green backpack stuffed full. I carried clothes and shoes and shampoo and a pocket knife and sunscreen. I carried my sixteen-year-old pink walrus Mookie and Blankie and photos of my families and friends in the US. I carried homemade chocolate chip cookie bars for sustenance, and a box of pasta and miscellaneous gifts for my host family. My past sixteen years and my next four months of life in two suitcases and a lime-green backpack.

In the car on the way to the airport, I suddenly wondered, “What am I doing?!” Waving goodbye to my family as I passed through security, blinking the tears from my eyes, I wondered again, “Why am I doing this?!” From DC to LA, I carried anxiety and indecision. For five hours, I kept asking myself those questions. Then I got to LA and figured it out: I was going to Vietnam! And it was going to be awesome. An almost tangible sense of excitement buzzed in the air around me. I got quite impatient. Now I was carrying two suitcases, a lime green backpack, anxiety, excitement, and impatience. And when we finally arrived I found myself still carrying everything! Only when I met my new family could I put down my suitcases. And only now, months later, I have lost the anxiety and impatience (not the excitement though!).

So my load seems pretty light—just a lime green backpack. But how could I move here and not pick up anything new? I now carry four new pairs of shoes (they were a good deal!) and various gifts for my family and friends in the States. I carry new knowledge about Vietnam’s history and language, about writing and math, about economics and environmental science. I carry the same love of learning I have always carried, but it has grown stronger and rooted deeper. I carry the same morals and beliefs I left with, but with a new perspective. I carry the experience of living in a foreign developing country, of walking down a street knowing I am the only person in the vicinity who speaks English, of living with and loving a new family from a radically different culture. I carry an appreciation for this new culture as well as a deeper appreciation for my own. I carry a love for two countries.

I love the US for its democracy and checks and balances and people and ideas and free market. I love Vietnam for its people and their entrepreneurialism and for its beautiful mountains and for its potential. But right now it’s only potential, and I want to nurture it and watch it grow into something truly beautiful. I feel like my soul has split. Or rather multiplied. I love my home country no less, really more, and I have a newfound love for Vietnam and a desire to change it. To have two homes, thousands of miles apart, is tough love.

Mai Chau Reflection

In summary, we went on a school trip to Mai Chau for a weekend. Mai Chau is a small 'town' in the mountains North of Hanoi. We left on a Friday morning, and spent several days hiking around the area, staying in three different villages: Lac, Van, and So. We all felt proud of ourselves by the end, having "trekked" a total of almost 30 kilometers over the mountains! Mai Chau is gorgeous, where rice paddies cover the valleys and jungle forests cover the mountaintops and red dirt roads wind between the mountains. Highlights included: eating grasshoppers, hiking in the rain and turning red from the mud, giving up on shoes when they slipped off in the mud, sleeping in stilt houses, "mattresses" being hard cotton-stuffed bed rolls, a squat toilet flushed by hand, "showering" with buckets and water from a cold mountain stream, yoga with Happy (our 70-something year-old resident director's wife and college counselor), circus acts with Pascal (History teacher) and his daughter, shopping in Lac village, an intense girls versus boys soccer game (we won!), and a cultural performance by the Hmong minority people in Lac village. The following reflection (another English in-class writing assignment) regards this performance.

The notes of the not-quite-a-guitar filled the air and six women and three men in traditional costumes processed out and began to sing. I quietly slid up to the front and sat on the step to get a better view. The women’s faces, carefully painted with pale makeup and red lipstick, smiled dutifully. The men, awkward in their traditional costumes, stood staunchly by them. As they moved on to a dance of spring, the women pulled out lacy pink fans. They moved delicately, swaying gently to the music and always smiling. But they seemed to maintain an air of humility and even servitude as many of the dance moves included bowing and kneeling on the ground. I couldn’t help but get the impression that these women do not feel the same sense of empowerment that American women and even Vietnamese women living in cities enjoy. I know that I can do anything I want to with my life. But while the town of Mai Chau is actually quite well off compared to other villages nearby, it is still relatively isolated. These women probably knew their paths from the moment they were born in a rural village. They went to school for a while, helped around the house and farm, grew older, probably attending high school but not university, married and started a family of their own in the same village in which they were born and performed the same traditional songs and dances as their mothers and grandmothers. Perhaps they have opened shops and maybe risen a little from total poverty, but they certainly do not have the same opportunities I will and have already had. Surely they hope for more for their own children. They never stop smiling, but are they really happy?

*A note on women in Vietnam: here in Hanoi, women are clearly out in the working world and ride motorcycles to work every day like any man and seem to be very independent. In fact, the Vice President (or its equivalent position) of Vietnam is always a woman while the President (or equivalent position) is always a man. In America, we can barely manage a female candidate for the Vice Presidency. Nonetheless, I think women here have very different roles and opportunities in the countryside from in the city.

The Train Ride

We are taking an overnight train from Hanoi to Hue, but the journey really begins with the bus ride to the train station. Someone decided to take a ‘shortcut’ route since it was rush hour. Well, it turned out to be rush hour on the shortcut road too, and it took almost an hour and a half to travel less than ten kilometers. But we finally arrived, grabbed a quick dinner at the station (a hot dog sandwich for me), and hopped on the train. The train is quite nice, or at least our section is (second class). There are four beds to a cabin, about five feet ten inches long, with sheets, pillows, and (rock hard) mattresses. We even have a small table, two electrical outlets, air conditioning, and nightlights. And the bathroom may be a squat toilet over the tracks, but at least we have a toilet and a sink.

We manage to stay awake for a few hours, but eyelids are drooping pretty low, and despite my hard mattress, I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.

I wake to a lightening of the sky outside my window. Rolling over and propping myself up on my elbows, I look outside. The scene is perfect. Mist rises over green farms of trees and rows of vegetables. Marshy rice paddies, now empty of their harvest, reflect lines of mango trees on their smooth surfaces. The red sun rises slowly, dispelling the mist. And I see even the sun in double, reflected off the water. This early in the morning, the people are already awake, pacing their fields and leading water buffalo behind. A buffalo calf kicks up its heels playfully, enjoying the morning.

The train rolls gently to a stop, and my cabin mate jumps up suddenly, remembering that no one will tell us when we have reached our stop and hoping that this is not it. As soon as she opens the door, a Vietnamese lady looks in and asks briskly, “Tea, coffee?” With a little aid from those universal hand signals, she reassures us that Hue is down the road, and persistently asks again whether we would like tea or coffee. Now we assure her that we are fine, and she moves on immediately before answering our second question of “So when will we reach Hue?” But with a little probing elsewhere, we find out that we have several hours more, and drop the heads to the pillows once again.

Beach Pictures!

Ocean View from a Pagoda


Linh (sister) and Me



Ong and Ba (on Dad's side)

The Family (Mom's Mother, Me, Dad's Mother, Brother, Mom)

A Little Slice of Heaven

Beach!

On Thursday afternoon, my mother informed me that I needed to talk to my teachers because we were going to the beach for the weekend and I had to leave school at lunchtime for us to be able to make it there on time. Despite initial complications, I eventually got permission. At 1pm on Friday, Mom, Bro, Sis, Grandma 1, Grandma 2, Grandpa, and I (along with a driver) piled into the family SUV to go road tripping. Four hours, 200 kilometers, many snacks, a bathroom stop on the side of the road for the grandparents, beautiful mountains, and lots and lots of bumps later, we arrived in Sam Son.

I could immediately tell when we were there, because funnily enough a beach town in Vietnam has the same feel as a beach town in America. We drove down wide streets passing hotels, food stands selling seafood, and vendors selling sea shell wind chimes and bracelets. The first hotel we stopped at required me to have my passport, which at the time the school had (to make hotel reservations for another trip), so we had to find a different hotel. But we quickly found another hotel that didn’t require my passport, and all was well.

Since it was a little late for swimming, we unpacked and then headed to dinner. Here I saw another quirk of Vietnamese society. In America, some restaurants and even cafés do not allow you to bring your own food or drinks and will even kick you out if you do take your own food. But when we went to this seafood restaurant in Sam Son and sat down at the table, the grandmothers pulled out fruit and Cokes and other snacks to last as appetizers until the main meal arrived. Other SYA’ers have had similar experiences. Just another quirk. But the main meal was delicious: steamed clams, spinach with garlic, French fries, and chicken—an eclectic but tasty mix.

On Saturday, we woke up early, shimmied on swimsuits, snatched towels, and sprinted down to the beach to swim. The water was surprisingly warm, like bathwater, and the waves were small and several seemed to break simultaneously. The sibs and Grandpa and I frolicked in the water for an hour or two while Mom waded and the grandmothers chatted with the locals. The ocean is so calming and relaxing—I really love the beach. But Vietnam is unique because beach people and mountain people can go together to the same town, and both will be totally satisfied. In Vietnam, the mountains meet the beach.

Before lunch, we all hopped back into the car and drove partway up a small mountain nearby to visit the pagoda at the top. We burned some paper money and incense, took some photos, drank some fresh coconut milk, and returned to the hotel for a lunch similar to dinner but with the addition of fresh crabs! The pagoda on the second day was even nicer. I felt like I was experiencing a slice of heaven as I sat on the side of a mountain, sipping coconut milk out of the coconut, overlooking the sapphire blue ocean dotted with fishing boats, living the life! Then we returned to the hotel for the never-neglected afternoon nap, a very sensible practice which Americans have yet to appreciate.

Swimming in the afternoon, several of my fellow beach-goers begged for photo ops with me. Naturally, I willingly obliged. Here I must explain one of the biggest differences between Vietnam and America and one of the hardest things to get used to. Walking down the streets of Hanoi, especially certain parts, and especially the beach town of Sam Son, everyone stares. Virtually all the time, I am the only Westerner in sight, and I may be the only Westerner to pass by that spot all day or even all week or longer. In some ways, Vietnam is very homogenous. I don’t mean that critically but purely as a fact. Walking down the street, everyone I see is Asian, specifically Vietnamese. With my blonde hair, blue eyes, and light skin, I stick out like a sore thumb. Everyone stares. Some people point. Others shout, “Hello!” Occasionally I hear, “You are beautiful!” I’ve had taxi drivers pat my arm and ask for my phone number. Boys and girls lean in, their fingers held in the ubiquitous peace sign, posing for a photo with me. In fact, I’m really still not accustomed to all the attention. In DC, I can walk down the street wearing a makeshift toga and people don’t stare as much as they do when I wear normal clothing here. I know that if any of them were to walk about in DC, no one would give them a second glance because DC is really so diverse in so many ways.

After dinner, my sister and I jumped onto a two-person tandem bike and rode up and down the street along the beach, racing with my mom and brother on their own tandem bike. We beat them solidly. :)

I really had a wonderful time at the beach, resting, relaxing, and bonding with the family. I can’t wait to go again!

The Oreo and Me in Hanoi

A slightly adapted version of a fun English class assignment:

I never truly appreciated Oreos until I got to Hanoi. At home, they were sometimes present in the cabinet, sometimes absent. But all I wanted was an afternoon snack: fruit, cookies, or ice cream could satisfy my ravenous hunger. Oreos were just another cookie.

Then one day, as I am strolling the aisles of Big C (the super grocery store—similar to Target) passing by noodles, badminton rackets, and whitening soap, the package jumps out at me—a familiar face in a crowd of strangers. Oreos in the middle of Hanoi? Indeed, there sits the box of Oreos, dragging on my heartstrings. An instant of doubt, but the temptation is too strong. I quickly pull them off the shelf and triumphantly make my way to the cash register.

Thus began my addiction. I now find myself craving Oreos at every turn: “You have Oreos???” and my heart skips a beat. I savor, gently twisting the two halves of chocolate to reveal the soft, creamy white inside which I slowly lick free from its dark chocolate encapsulation. Then I pop a cookie outside into my mouth and crunch down, chewing thoroughly before swallowing the chocolate goodness. And I repeat.

The delectable cream and chocolate combination takes me home for just a moment, to my kitchen in DC. And right then, I am perfectly filled with bliss, my mind inundated with black and white cookies.

They are not ‘just fat bombs’. They are Oreos.

Moon cakes on the other hand, now those are fat bombs…

Perfume Pagoda Pics

The Mountains


Entrance to the Cave



The Cave (Perfume Pagoda)




The "Tough Cookies"






Rowing in the Rain

Perfume Pagoda

Weekend before last, we went on a school field trip to the Perfume Pagoda (Chua Huong Pagoda). Early on Saturday morning, teachers, students, and several host siblings (mostly older—my brother and sister did not attend) boarded a large bus for a scenic two hour drive through the countryside. Upon arrival, despite some light rain and fog, we hopped into small boats rowed by local Vietnamese men and women. After a pleasant hour of rowing down a river between the beautiful mountains of Vietnam, we landed and the tour guide showed us the Temple of First Presenting (Den Trinh temple) and the Pagoda Leading to Heaven (Chua Thien Chu) and we stopped to eat our packed lunches (bread and condensed milk for me) before beginning the long trek up the mountain. Or at least some of us (the “tough cookies”) made the trek up the mountain while the wimpy ones took the cable car :)

What a beautiful hike though! The mountains of Vietnam are so gorgeous—gently sloping peaks swathed in dark green foliage rise from yellow-green rice paddies and patchwork farms. Stone stairs pave the way as we hike by shacks with corrugated tin roofs and walkways sheltered by blue tarps. Some people shout out, advertising cold water and ice cream while others just follow us with their eyes. We saw a small building with the floor covered in the yellow and white flowers that are so abundant here, and found out that people leave the flowers out to dry for making tea!

On the way up we took a brief detour to visit a small cave with altars inside. Pagodas are plentiful in and around Hanoi, and I have already visited many. When you walk in to the main room, there is usually a large altar in the center elaborately decorated in gold, red, and green with statues of Buddha presiding on top. The altar will be piled high with offerings of Choco-Pies, crackers, or fruit. Sometimes there are additional secondary altars to the right and left of the main one.

After around an hour or so of hiking, we finally reached the Perfume Pagoda itself. We climbed down a steep staircase into a huge cave, its lower walls covered in lush green moss, its ceiling soaring hundreds of feet above us, prayer flags draped like banners across it. Picking our way over the cave floor, we descended into the depths of the cave. Famous cave formations stand up in the middle of the floor as altars stand in the corners.

We take the cable car back down the mountain, and I can just see the distant flat farmlands through a break in the mountains. In the boat on the way back, I ask our rower lady if I can take a shot at rowing the boat. Although I managed to move us a few meters, it’s harder than you might think!

On the way home, we took a brief stop to chat with some friendly rice farmers and saw how they harvest rice- it’s tough work!

Food

Meals on a typical day:

Breakfast ranges from French bread spread with condensed milk to leftover fish to chicken noodle soup. Grandma cooks and I wolf it down at 6:20am.

Lunch during the week is either at a cafeteria on campus or at one of the abundant cafes nearby and could be noodles with beef and vegetables, fried rice, or chicken and green beans. And lunch often involves ice cream and perhaps a sinh tò xoaí (mango smoothie).

I eat dinner with the family around 7:30pm. Mom and Grandma cook an assortment of different dishes to spread across the table while the giant rice cooker has a special chair at the table. Everyone sits down and gets a small bowl with chopsticks. First I pass my bowl down to get some rice and then I pick up food from different dishes, place them in my bowl, and eat them with rice. This often involves multiple arms reaching over others but I have yet to see anyone knock elbows. Using chopsticks to eat has posed some problems, but after my host father showed me the right way to eat, I think I’m getting better at the chopsticks thing. The method: once your bowl is full, you must maneuver your chopsticks as a shovel and hold your bowl right up next to your mouth, scooping the rice with meat or vegetable into your mouth. Needless to say, table manners are a little different here! Some of my favorite dishes are spring rolls (any variety), stewed tomatoes stuffed with meat, and squid.

Although my stomach took a few days to adjust, after a brief bout of food poisoning in my first week here I have thankfully had no further trouble. In fact, I think I am now so accustomed to Asian food that when we went out with the school for French food last week my tummy grumbled a bit!

Around Hanoi

Pagoda on West Lake


Pagoda



A Lake

Ho Tay (West Lake)

A Narrow Squeeze

Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and Museum

Little Brother


Mother, Sister, and Me at the Ho Chi Minh Museum


Mango Road

Ho Chi Minh's 'House on Stilts'

Presidential Palace

My Host Family

I have a mother (38), father (45), sister (11), brother (6), and a grandmother. I feel so lucky because I really like all of them and look forward to spending my four months with them. They all speak some English (except for the grandmother), but my mother and sister speak it fairly proficiently and communication is not much of an issue.

I usually eat dinner with my family as well as breakfast and lunch on the weekends. We also play badminton in the evenings, put together puzzles, play with tops, go on excursions to the pagoda or grocery store, and watch TV. Last weekend, my family and some other students and another family went to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum and museum and saw where he lived and worked—an interesting experience!

Their house is fantastic-- six beautiful stories including an indoor terrace on the roof, a fish tank in the living room, a garage with a car, and a karaoke room in the basement! Of course very few Vietnamese families live like this, but for now I am happy to be one of the lucky few.

I really love my host family, and am having a wonderful time here. Today we go on a school day trip to the Perfume Pagoda, which I am looking forward to despite the persistant rain! I will work on keeping you updated and still have much more to write about!

When 93 degrees feels cool...

Chào, and apologies for the late entry—I didn’t realize I would be so busy even here! Despite a brief bout of food poisoning, I am now completely healthy and doing well! Here is an example of what my daily schedule might be:

Monday
5:45am—Wake up, shower, breakfast with grandmother
6:30am—Leave for school in a carpool with neighbor Pamela and her host sisters, driven in a car by her host father
6:45am—Arrive at school and do homework and socialize until classes start
8:00am—Intensive Vietnamese language instruction
9:45am—Precalculus
10:35am—Free Period
11:20am—Lunch at either the university cafeteria or a nearby café
12:15pm—School Assembly
1:05pm—English
1:55pm—Environmental Science (Double period on Mondays for lab work)
*other subjects include Vietnamese History and Culture (VHAC) and Economics; All classes occur four times per week except for Vietnamese and Math which occur five times
3:30pm—Leave school for an internet café to get snack and do homework
5:30pm—TaeKwonDo class at the Hanoi Sports Centre with local kids, ages ranging from six years old to 17 years old! Three of us SYA’ers attend the class together twice a week.
7:30pm—Return home for dinner with host family
9:00pm—Finish homework and sleep!

A few snapshopts of Hanoi

A few snapshots of Hanoi


A 'massage train' at Hoan Kiem Lake



Train tracks





A street barber




Old Quarter, Hanoi




A long load

Greetings from Hanoi!

Greetings from Hanoi! What a crazy place of contradictions-- motorcycle traffic and rice paddies, desperate street vendors and beautiful French architecture, grandmothers in traditional ao dais and teenagers in shorts and spaghetti straps, apparent chaos and yet the people can get the job done. I like it.

After flying from DC to LA (my first time on the West Coast-- LA is huge!), I got to meet my fellow Vietnam SYA'ers at a last conference before we left. Students and parents had a chance to ask some questions and get some last-minute advice and guidelines, and we picked up our school books for the year and hopped on the plane! I have to do a little pro bono marketing here and endorse Cathay Pacific-- great service, good movies, and a hot croissant with ham and egg for breakfast! I think the South Pacific has to be my favorite place to fly over-- the ocean and islands are just gorgeous! After a brief stopover in Hong Kong and a lovely sunrise over the mountains, we arrived in Hanoi at around ten in the morning. Despite some inefficiency at the airport and rain on the way to the hotel, everyone and their baggage arrived safely at the hotels.
My first impressions of Hanoi include:

-Lots of motorcycles: Very few people drive cars; there are simply motorcycles everywhere! And they are not afraid to honk at you, though in most cases they honk just to warn you of their presence so they don't run you over! While crossing the street is definitely a challenge, I will surely be a pro after enough practice.

-Lots of small businesses: Walking through the streets of Hanoi, I have seen beggars, but I have seen many more people who have taken the initiative to start their own businesses. I have only been here for two days, but so far I may tentively conclude that the Vietnamese are hard workers, eager to make a living and experts at entrepreneurship. I think the with some good foreign direct investment (FDI), Vietnam is an up-and-coming country to look out for and certainly to invest in! But they do have quite a long way to go, especially in the areas of general efficiency and infrastructure. Vietnam has the will, but needs some help finding it's way.

-Good food! Favorites being duck, seafood (shrimp, prawns, fish), fresh fruit and fruit smoothies and juice, and delicious but murderously strong coffee! I discovered the magical benefits of coffee this morning when it knocked out my jet lag, but right now I think I am discovering the downsides of drinking it in the afternoon!

After a very informative meeting and Q&A session this morning, we split into groups of four to go on a scavengar hunt across the city. Tasks included buying postcards of famous landmarks, following directions to locate landmarks, and divining pieces of trivia. Although I managed to get my group lost, we had a great time and (eventually) got to the right places! It was a fun way to see the city. So far, I really like Hanoi, and I am super excited to be spending a semester here! I can't wait to meet my host family!!!

Hello!

Xinh Chào! And welcome to my blog. I’m Betsy Ray, and I devote this blog to detailing the more interesting aspects of my adventures, beginning with sprint kayak nationals in Atlanta, Georgia this summer and then moving on to the semester I will be spending in Hanoi, Vietnam. And I hope you will join me in my endeavors to follow.


Right now, I have just returned from Gainesville, Georgia for flatwater sprint kayak Nationals. I am very excited, because in K2 (two-person boat), I won the gold in the 1000m Juvenile (age 15-16) race and the silver in the 500m Junior (age 17-18) race (shout out to K2 partner Maeve!). Although she and I have trained very little together because of the distance between New York and DC, we still managed to beat K2s made up of this year’s Junior World Team members!


I have competed at the Lake Placid International Regatta and the US Nationals for two summers. This spring, at the Mid-Atlantic Regatta held at my home club (Washington Canoe Club, http://www.washingtoncanoeclub.org/) I qualified for the Junior National Team Development Camp in Lake Placid, New York. I attended the camp with about 20 other Juvenile paddlers from all over the US, including Hawaii, California, Washington State, and Georgia. We trained for two weeks with an emphasis on team boats, and I felt proud to race as a member of Team USA. I really enjoyed getting to know everyone at camp, and though I will miss the fall development camp because of Vietnam, I look forward to future camps. I just hope I can find somewhere to paddle in Hanoi!


On August 26, three days after my return to DC from Georgia, I will leave for Vietnam: a study abroad for the first semester of my junior year. The city is Hanoi, the program is School Year Abroad (http://www.sya.org/), and the foci are economics, environmental science, community service, and of course Vietnamese. I will be staying with a host family and taking classes with the fifteen other American students on the program. Although we are based out of Vietnam National University, SYA hires the teachers and runs the classes. I chose Vietnam to experience life in a developing country and because of my interest in economics and environmental science. I look forward to learning in depth about both subjects in the context of Vietnam, a fast-developing country to look out for in the future! So chào for now,


Betsy