It is always interesting to read the local news when you travel. Here’s a selection from this week in Vietnam which might not have made it on to the Channel 9 news.
1. More than 100 kilometres of streets and footpaths in HCMC will be dug up this year. Excavations on just 30 kilometres in 2008 “evoked anger from residents“, according to the official government newspaper. The government recently announced that the figure for 2009 had been raised from 56 to 75 kilometres. This week they announced an increase for this year to 100 kms. I’m not sure how they’ll achieve this. Every pavement and every road in the city is already dug up.
2. The first catfish exports to Russia for 3 months will resume in April. We don’t eat a lot of catfich as a rule in Oz (like never) but it’s a treat here. However a slight problem with health standards caused Russia to veto further exports. Now guess how the Russkis worked out that there was a health problem with Vietnamese catfish. No – not a pleasant thought.
3. “A coconut picking grandma is still going strong. She didn’t have any food and she was pregnant with her first child when she decided to pick coconuts for a living“, as you do. 25 years later she is still climbing 20 metre trees every day. “When I w as 12, I saw boys picking coconuts to drink but they didn’t give me a sip so I decided to climb up and get my own.” One day when climbing whilst pregnant she fell from a 5 metre height but the baby was safe. (Not sure what the OH&S people would say about this). “When reaching the top the first thing I do is to check if the bees and snakes are at home. I chop snakes in half (probably pretty easy to do while balancing at the top of a coconut palm) and smoke out the bees. I wish my children would go to school and learn better jobs than climbing trees” she says.
4. “After nearly a decade of silence, Ha Noi chess returned to its place in the spotlight when 8 year old Tran Minh Thang became the youngest world champion in the history of Ha Noi and Viet Nam chess. Thang has already collected more than 30 gold medals from national and international competition. ‘I will try my best to become the country’s yongest International Grand Master’ “. Underachiever. What were our kids doing when they were 8??? Not winning international chess tournaments. This explains a lot.
5. “Legendary Ho Chi Minh Trail celebrates 50 years. A wide range of cultural activities wiill be held to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the legendary Truong Son Trail, also known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which opened on May 19, 1959.” The development of the trail was an extraordinary achievement and was integral to the success of the North in the war. I just have difficulty with the idea that the HCM Trail opened on a specific day. Did Ho Chi Minh cut a pink ribbon somewhere? Wikipedia describes it as “not a single route, but rather a complex maze of truck routes, paths for foot and bicycle traffic, and river transportation systems. Parts of it had existed for centuries”. Anyway there will be lots of cultural events, although I suspect not so many in the city named after him.
6. “Drivers will no longer be legally allowed to drink when law changes are introduced in July. Under the changes the alcohol level of 0.08 drops to zero for car drivers and 0.05 for motorcyclists. Offenders will be fined and banned permanently from driving“. Now, apart from the problems of enforcement of a zero level, why are bike riders allowed to drive pissed? I can only guess that no-one could tell the difference from when they’re sober.
7. “Representatives from Woolworths are making a survey of supply chains in Vietnam. They are interested in a wide range of products, ncluding rice, cashews, vegetables, canned fruit, coffee, mushrooms and frozen seafood”. Coming to a supermarket near you.
8. “A bridge with a loading capacity of 8 tons in the Melong Delta’s Long An province has collapsed when a truck weighing 20 tons was crossing it”. As it would.
9. “HCMC teenagers love to go shopping, although most of the money is provided by their parents. A survey of students at the city’s more prestigious schools found that 44% of their money is spent on shopping, 35% on entertainment, and 21% on study activities”. Why waste 21%?
10. “At least one variety of peanut butter infected with Salmonella is now on the market in Vietnam, according to the HCMC Health Department.” (Wait for the punchline……) “The product is imported from the US”.
11. And finally a very sad story. “HCMC Department of Planning and Investment has proposed that golf projects be reviewed and if necessary revoked. The city has licensed 7 golf projeccts but only one has come into operation. 5 projects are stalled by land compensation issues even though 2 of them were licensed a decade ago. It’s estimated there are about 5,000 golfers in the country, of whom 2,000 play regularly – and 90% of them are foreigners”. The answer, as always, is more golf.
VietGeoff 