Global Voices » Mark Robertson

Street Food and the Gentrification of Vietnam

Mark Robertson — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 06:47:09 +0000

An otherwise innocuous blog post on chicken rice (com ga) in the Central Vietnamese town of Hoi An hides a disturbing little announcement for fans of Vietnamese street food. After describing the chicken dish, longtime Hanoi-based food blogger Stickyrice writes:

“Alas, the vendor informed us, it was the final night of street food in the old town thanks to some new by-law preventing cluttered pavements coming into effect the very next day. Such vendors are being forced into proper premises or more obscure cracks and darkened spaces.”

Is this another doomed attempt to force Vietnamese streets into the mold of a Singaporean style modernity? Or the death knell of Vietnamese street food? Another food blogger Eating Asia laments in the comments to this post: “I think vendor-less streets are the wave of the future in Asia… I feel your pain.”

Street food is unfortunately often the victim of the march of “progress” in countries that perceive chaotic street life as anathema to development. Sometimes the rationale is cosmetic (street food vendors clutter the streets); other times the objection is poor hygiene.

A recent article in Nhan Dan, the official Communist Party of Vietnam newspaper, announces an imminent “nationwide crack-down on food safety violators and the building of standards for food hygiene in general”. The English-language article warns of plans to increase food inspections and stricter punishments for violators.

This campaign appears to be in response to industrial food safety concerns of the sort currently in the news about China (tainted soy sauce is the example given in the article). It is still unclear to what extent this crack-down may affect the vital tradition of street food in Vietnam.

One hopes the Vietnamese government will recognize the inherent cultural value - not to mention tourist potential - of the lively street food scene of the nation, and see that food safety and development are not necessarily at odds with its street food traditions.

Vietnam Bloggers Crash the Linguistic Divide

Mark Robertson — Tue, 01 May 2007 03:05:41 +0000

Ironically bloggers like Joe's Blog and Vietnamese God put the lie to the idea of a single blogosphere, a unified world of blogs that spans the globe. Yes, blogs have become a global phenomenon, but studies show increasingly that there are multiple blogospheres defined by culture, language and different technologies. Far too often these worlds are distinct solitudes operating in parallel.

Such is certainly the case with the Vietnamese blogospheres - there are least two: the expatriate and the Vietnamese. These two worlds would probably be completely unaware of each other's existence even if they were being written from the same internet cafes. A typical Vietnam blogroll makes this more than clear.

The Vietnam expat blogs have their stars - their Noodlepies, Antidote to Burnouts and its OMIHs. These blogs come and go as do the expats that write them. (I was one too!)

Then there are Vietnamese-language blogs. Unfortunately I could not give a competent blogroll for predictable linguistic reasons. The non-Vietnamese speaker has little access to this world. Occasionally it is possible to catch glimpses of it. For instance, last November a story appeared in English-language news sources about how the old Saigon-Hanoi rivalry erupted into a blog war when a Saigonese blogger slagged the capital in her blog. Clearly Vietnamese bloggers are alive and well.

The obvious reason the Vietnamese-language blogosphere is off the radar for most expats is language. Technology probably also plays a role. Vietnamese bloggers tend to use Yahoo 360 rather than platforms like Blogger or Typepad. And Vietnamese Yahoo 360 blogs do not generally get crawled by directories like Technorati.

Despite the distinctness of these blogospheres some bloggers, such as Joe Ruelle and Vietnamese God, are able to reach across the linguistic and technological divide.

Vietnamese God is one of the more prominent Vietnamese bloggers writing in English for an expat and foreign audience. Tu Van Cong is originally from Nha Trang but relocated to Ha Noi. He writes a good deal about food (he's in the hospitality business after all) but he also covers a mixed bag of other topics, everything from urban developments to nightlife to local customs. (On occasion he has written for Global Voices too.)

If it's rare to find Vietnamese blogging in English, it's even rarer to find expats writing in Vietnamese. Joe Ruelle's blog is very likely the only blog of its kind, and the novelty of it has made him something of a celebrity in Vietnam. In fact he has been called one of the “best known bloggers in Vietnam”, and most of his entries receive several hundred comments each. One entry even hit the high water mark of 8000+ comments. Apparently it is partly his use of local slang and other colloquialisms that have made him a big hit. And what does he write about? In a recent interview in the Canadian Embassy's newsletter he describes his blog as “a potpourri of whimsical observations”. “I do put a lot of effort into choosing topics that only a person in my position could write about, and I think that appeals to people’s curiosity.”

Duong Lam Anh is another blogger who breaks the mold since his blog alternates between English and Vietnamese entries. Lam Anh is a bridge blogger in the true sense. His hometown is Hue, Vietnam but he has also lived and studied in the United States and seeks to interpret his Vietnam for a Western audience, while interpreting American culture for his Vietnamese readers.

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.

The Sitting Party: Cross-cultural Reflections on Social Relations in Vietnam

Mark Robertson — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 03:00:30 +0000

Recently there has been a very lively discussion in the English-language Vietnam blogosphere about the phenomenon of the self-proclaimed expat expert. Kevin of What Happened to Your Hair? started it all off with a provocative posting on the Westerner who returns home after a short stint and adopts an authoritative attitude on his host country. This discussion spread across several blogs including Ethnically Incorrect Daughter, VA to VN and Antidote to Burnout. When the dust settled there seemed to be an agreement that cross-cultural insight is most fruitful when it is also accompanied by an awareness of what we do not understand.

An example of this kind of cultural dialogue is a discussion amongst Vietnam bloggers on the nature of Vietnamese social relations. This strand began with several posts in Six Months in Hanoi about the contrast between Vietnamese and Western patterns of socializing. In one post, HanoiMark describes a mixed party in which these patterns were in stark contrast: the fluid networks of Western expats vs. the family-like groups of the Vietnamese. In another post he tries to understand the nature of “closed social networks” or “groups” among Vietnamese friends. While Western modes of socializing often involve mixing circles of friends and creating new acquaintances, the Vietnamese approach affords a spontaneity and intimacy between friends that is perhaps less common in the West.

Mel of Antidote to Burnout elaborates on some of these themes as he describes a typical social event with Vietnamese friends. Many of the observations HanoiMark made of social dynamics in gay groups in Hanoi also seem to hold true in professional circles in Saigon. He also notices that introductions are rare in social groups even when new people appear.

Of course these sorts of cross-cultural comparisons also teach us much about ourselves. In seeking to understand another culture, one comes to see the peculiarity of own's own point of reference.

Virtual Doug brought in a Vietnamese colleague into the discussion who was able to reflect on the differences in social relations he perceived when living in the US. Duong Lam Anh contrasts the traditional Vietnamese “sitting party” which is about deepening existing relationships with the more Westernized “standing party” which encourages mingling, introduction and casual chit chat. He also notes that the term “friend” has a very different meaning in the West and in Vietnam; Westerners may use this word for casual acquaintances, but in Vietnamese culture it implies a closeness and intimacy.

There can be profound differences in the way different cultures socialize. It is far too easy to assume our own ways of interaction are natural and the result are misunderstandings and frustrations. Such dialogue helps foster cross-cultural understanding between expats and Vietnamese.