My Lil’ Saigon

As Jon said over in his blog, something strange is happening around the city. They are cutting down trees, or branches of trees.

All along the canal ( the dirty, nasty, whoknowswhatdiseasesarefloatingaroundinthere canal) they have taken down ALL of the trees on the Tan Binh district end and it seems like they will continue down the rest of the canal. Why they would do this I don’t know, I can only assume that they are going to be doing more construction. Which is good… if it is water treatment plants, but still, why get rid of the nice trees. When I speed up and down that road I always see people under those trees, they seemed to be a very nice area to rest during the hot midday sun. Well, Assuming that you could handle the odor of the canal.

Also, I happened to be eating at one of Ly’s most favorite childhood breakfast joints, on the corner of Dien Bien Phu and Ly Quy Don, while on the outside wall of the place they workers were going at trees with chainsaws and climbers taking down branchs. Most of these branches were hitting the metal roof above my head, and I was thinking that maybe I should move before a big one came crashing through the roof and onto my head. Anyway, as I was leaving I looked up at the tree and noticed that they had taken a significant portion of the huge canopy away. Like they were scalping the tree or something. A sad sight.

Next I was driving to the W.A.R hq near the HTV building when I saw that nearly the entire street had trees that had buzzcuts. No branches at all, only tiny little twigs with tons of leaves. Most of these trees are 20m tall aswell, so it makes a funny sight.

One can only wonder what the city is doing. I’ve never heard of such tree management plans as this, and I don’t know what they are doing, but I really don’t want to see these trees disappear. If there is one thing that this city desperately needs (let us not count how many things it actually needs desperately) it is green space.

In 3 very long weeks one of my best friends from the states will arrive in Vietnam for 3 weeks of well deserved vacation time. Being that this will be my first long vacation since Tet (save the 5ish days I was in Nha Trang) I plan on making it an adventure. Though if you knew my family, namely my father and uncle, you would already know that any trip I go on ends up with some adventure. Ask me over a beer, you hear some good stories. Moving on. In the 3 weeks that he is here we will manage to do many things that I’ve been planning on for over a year.

Here are the possibilities:

1) Visit as many beer haus’ as possible. I’ve been to a few, but there are many more that claim German or Czech pilsner. I want to know which is the best. I can’t do this alone, and Ly doesn’t drink beer for taste. I have heard that men that drink alone at bars are there for one of two things, Being an alcoholic, or looking for ladies. I’d rather not be grouped in either of those, so if I am to drink alone, I’ll do it at home.

2) Jungle Beach. complete isolation. Sounds lovely.

3) Hoi An. Don’t know much about this place, but it sounds pretty relaxing. I want a silk bathrobe.

4) Hue? Possibly. Imperial capital. Could be done, but I don’t know there is something else that would be better in my mind.

5) Motorcycle ride through the countryside and to Cat Tien/Cat Loc national parks. 5ish hours from HCM and a large preserve. Supposedly it has many animals and it also has (again supposedly) one of the last surviving Javen Rhino populations in the world. You stay in the jungle (kinda) and you can hike and rent bicycles to ride around. Hell Yes this sounds awesome.

Open to any suggestions. I’d really like some ideas for where to go in Hoi An or Cat tien, I’m pretty much clueless there.

On a cold Wisconsin day, in a woods far far away, Mr. Porcupine showed himself to me. Sky clear as it could be, food hidden under the bark of trees. Wind swirling and gusting around, but the search must continue.

Racism

Global Warming

Increasingly I have seen these words be used with reckless abandon. Whenever anything has the slightest connection to the theme described by these words, instantly the word is used to invoke a response.

Most recently I have seen the word “Racism” used in conjunction with a trailer for a new video game. The game is the 5th in the series, and for the first time it is located in Africa (the other 4 are all European/American sites). Since the enemies in this game are derived from the location (I won’t side step the obvious.. they are all zombies), the body composition must follow the people you would find in the area. In this case, the zombies are black. From the trailer that is all we know. Instantly someone shot out the racist call on the game and that it promotes hate crimes against Africans. I say it only promotes racism on Zombies, but I’m ok with that.

Global Warming. The words on the tips of all journalists and scientists who desire money. The serious threat to our species that has become a billion dollar industry. Scientists have finally found their 15 minutes of fame to make their millions. Now whenever a natural disaster occurs, it is sure that someone will bring up Global Warming. It is the best friend an environmentalist can have, since they can finally find jobs that give them some money, but it is also the worst thing that could happen to the legitimacy of the topic. Overuse of the word has started to lessen the meaning, and now some people are starting to get tired of it already, discounting the potential effects because the impossibility of 100% accuracy in predictions (hell, I’m guessing a 10% accuracy rate would be awesome). Either way, within the next year or so, I’m assuming that a backlash will be heard from the anti-alarmists, the ones who don’t think anything serious is happening to the climate.

My personal opinion? Racism exists. However I think that it is worse to assume that it occurs than to really look at the facts. I think that in America this has become impossible. Global Warming. Yes. It will affect our species, and the rest of the species on the Earth. It may or may not decimate fish stocks. It is merely a sped up version of changes in the past, but the buildup of gases will make the return to neutral slower than in previous scenarios. I’m more worried about short term over utilization of resources.