My Lil’ Saigon

Since my last vist, I’ve been quite busy. Some of you may have noticed this my by absolute absence from any online communication. (Skype, Gmail, Blog, Facebook, etc etc), as well as my complete avoidance of district 1 for the most part.

What I’ve been up to?…. In short, I’ve been trying to figure out how to do my job more efficiently so that I can have a little more free time. Mainly I’ve been busy with keeping up with staffing, events, events requests, and organizing to open up a new takeaway/delivery Fish&Chips shop for the restaurant I work for.

To this point, the biggest achievement we’ve had has to be the successfully held Porsche Vietnam Launch Event. From my Flickr account (bdcotter’s Flickr) you can see some of the things that happened at the event. We had a buffet for 100 people including Fresh Grilled Ribeye Steak, Cajun Chicken Breast. Fresh Grilled Crab, Prawns, and Seabass. A variety of Salads and our Home Made Passion Fruit Parfait, a Creme Brulee, and some Ice Cream. The entire restaurant was decked out in Porsche gear and I even got a picture or 2 with the models (woo!). The two models of cars were the Cayman and the new Boxster.  I didn’t get too many pictures but it was a great event and I look forward to holding more of the same at some point….

Now… its back to business as normal… Talk to you soon! (Not 2 months later, I swear!)

My long awaited return to the blogosphere!

I’m sure this won’t be as good as you all hoped, but at least it is something.

1. I have a new job, I no longer work for a NGO.. I am now in the F&B industry working at a new restaurant called “Boathouse”. So far so good. It is located at one of the most peaceful places in Saigon.. The APSC compound in District 2. I never thought it could be so quiet within 5 minutes of a highway in this country. More to come on this.

2. New House. I will be moving to a brand new house in about a month. I can not wait as I hate the anticipation of the inevitable. I was expecting to move in early November, but now it seems more like December will be the time of choice. We have new furniture, new house, new district, new everything it seems. hurrah!

3. New post. This is all you get. I’ll be back… hopefully sooner rather than later.

plus I can ‘t believe I didn’t get ANY takers on that beer tasting stuff.

Here is a writing exercise I did in Vietnamese…. Composition isn’t so great, but I’d like any comments on grammar or word usage. I expect that the composition is rather elementary.

Bài 1. Viết về một nơi du lịch ở Việt Nam mà bạn thích nhất.
Nơi du lịch tôi thích nhất là Đà Lạt. Tôi rắt thích Đà Lạt vì ở đó là yên tĩnh, có thời tiết mát mẻ, và phong cảnh đẹp lắm.  Đà Lạt có rắt nhiều cây xanh và hoa. Khi tôi ở đó, tôi được giải trí.
Tôi đã đi Đà Lạt bốn lần rồi.Tôi thường đi Đà Lạt khi có ngày lễ. Khi tôi đi Đà Lạt lần sau, tôi sẽ chạy đều vòng quanh và ăn nhiều rau xanh. Tôi rắt thích thành phố Đà Lạt!

More to come….

Better late than never….

1) More wedding pictures up on my Flickr

2) Looking for people to help me “research” the Beers of Saigon… Any takers? I’d like to make some information pages on each of the beers, including taste tests, brewing information and costs.

Thanks!

Coffee is addictive. Coffee is tasty. Coffee can be made out of poo?

Well not really. Ca Phe Chon is traditionally made out of coffee beans that have been passed through a palm civet (Con Chon in vietnamese) and then brewed. Trung Nguyen, the Vietnam equivalent to Starbucks ( by number of stores, not style of store), the weasel poo coffee has been brought back to popularity. Not by actual civet poo though…. by artificial enzymes that simulate the process. Trung Nguyen has artificial poo.

Today I drank some. Tasty indeed. At 10x the price of my normal cup of coffee, it was a bit expensive, but then again, I usually get mine from the street corner. The ca phe chon was dark, heavy, chocolaty, and quite good. Also , it made me very jittery for about 4 hours. Meaning it was pretty damn strong too.

I’d really like to have the real thing, but for now, I’ll probably have Trung Nguyen Ca Phe Chon anytime I’m feeling for a strong cup of coffee.

2007 is gone. My blog failed terribly. I hope that this year I will write more, post more pictures, and generally have a more “social” year.

Just as a reminder to all.. my pictures (on the right side) are open to the public and I wish all of you could look at them.. and leave comments!

Happy 2008 from Vietnam. My Lil’ Saigon hopes to see you more often in the future.

conservation

|ˌkänsərˈvā sh ən| noun

the action of conserving something, in particular

• preservation, protection, or restoration of the natural environment, natural ecosystems, vegetation, and wildlife.

• preservation, repair, and prevention of deterioration of archaeological, historical, and cultural sites and artifacts.

• prevention of excessive or wasteful use of a resource.

• Physics the principle by which the total value of a physical quantity (such as energy, mass, or linear or angular momentum) remains constant in a system.

In school I studied conservation. Through almost all of my studies, the focus was prevention of loss, protection of the “helpless”, or punishment of the “evil doer”. In other words, stop, fight, prosecute. In the globalized, monetized, capitalistic world we live in, this is like a 5 year-old trying to walk on his hands through midday HCMC traffic, it may be possible sometimes, but in the most part you’ll probably end up battered, bruised and lucky to be alive. (On the positive side, many of our current day successes in conservation used this model, and I give many thanks to teh people who fought to make it that way. For some things, absolute conservation is the only way, otherwise the animal ( or whatever) may be gone before a more efficient way is found) The point is, that model of conservation has been found to have a small rate of success ( larger in fully industrialized nations like the US and Europe).

When it comes to other places, the absolutism of this type of conservation fails more often than not. Increasingly intelligent projects are occurring around the world and they are combining the conservation goals with business goals. It only makes sense to go with the flow and use money as your partner in conservation. Decrease negative environmental usage by increasing positive usage. Remove outdated methods of doing something and replace it with a more efficient way.

Example 1: The light bulb. How much conservation was done by simply inventing the fluorescent light bulb? Consumers buy it to save money, but the side effect was less energy used. There you have it, HUGE conservation success. (See:Cali Conservation

Example 2: Fish Preservation. Currently in areas where most of your fish is coming from (looking at you USA) A lot of the preservation techniques are rudimentary, mainly ice on the boats until passed on to industrialized ships or elsewhere. This works for the big fishers, but not for the little guy. Their preservation is left to the ice, and probably a heavy dose of antibiotics in said ice. Enter an efficient refrigeration method, and you have less loss of quality fish, less use of antibiotics, and other minor advantages ( such as higher success rates for fishermen, reducing the need to give more fishing effort.)

The list goes on. Business based decisions can lead to amazing conservation results. The consumer, once aware of this, can make intelligent decisions based on conservation results of the product. The only way to make all of this happen is by using money to guide big business to what you want.

Many car companies are making “hybrids” for the American consumer. Most of these cars don’t get much better mileage than regular commuter cars, but at the same time it is a step in the right direction. An educated consumer can force businesses to have real innovation instead of retrofitted half-*moon* attempts.

ramble.. ramble… Ramble…

CAKE!

Big Things:

Things are starting to move in Vietnam. For me personally, and for many others. Economy is booming, so are food prices (up 8% this year on average, as seen here:Thanh Nien News , 15% on rice, which is incredible considering it is a staple of everyone’s diet). Land is outrageous, and the government will be implementing some taxes rather soon to combat the prices (I doubt the price will sink much). Also I’m not looking forward to seeing the import tax come down on cars, as we really, really don’t need any more of those as it is (10% reduction on 1 liter and below engine size: see Thanh Nien News to find it). More and more and more, it is booming. I guess I should get in on the action?

Little Things: I now officially weigh more than I did in the states. Being better fed recently and a complete lack of anything resembling exercise will do that I suppose. I’ve gotta stop being lazy.

Which brings us to…

Laziness Abounds: No exercise, No intelligent work, Lots of games, lots of cafe sitting. What have I become. I have a great chance to work on things I actually studied for (somewhat) and I keep on putting the work off. Lame! I guess after this trip to the states, I’ll have to roll the clock back and start working a bit (a lot) harder. Play soccer, study, read, lift weights, become an active person again.

or I could eat another piece of cake and read Thanh Nien News.

While the above statement might be true, I have failed to understand why everyone must assume that the path to becoming rich must be paved with environmental degradation.

In developing countries, environmental exploitation is not only assumed but accepted as a fact of life. This is due to the lack of money allocated to curbing degradation, in favor of social programs, infrastructure, and other programs. However, at a certain point, this must change.

Lately I have been reading about Vietnam receiving multi-billion dollar investment promises from Korea, Singapore, Japan, and possibly even Taiwan. With all this money coming in from other places, I would assume that it would be possible for at least some of it to be used to keep Vietnam from becoming as polluted as Chinese cities ( such as Beijing or Hong Kong). Instead of building another car assembly plant, how about we use some money to improve fuel quality and improve car exhaust systems? Why must improving environmental protection be viewed as a hinderance to progress. Does taking 4 months to improve the qualities of things really make it more difficult to attract foreign investment?

I know that some simple changes would improve the air quality greatly. I’d love to be able to see a bus go by without leaving a huge trail of black, particulate filled smoke. I suppose I’m just ranting, but I wonder if Vietnam couldn’t be a little original in its development, and make a commitment to reducing pollution while developing at a high speed. Maybe a commitment to mass transit would be great, or government subsidies for people who buy new trucks (with better engines) or improve the quality of the older cars/trucks.

Maybe I’m just pissed off that I can’t drive from my house to get some coffee without putting on a mask. Or that I will have to start covering my eyes because the air is so thick with particulates that my eyes get irritated just from a short drive.

Or maybe I’m just a country boy who has lived in the city for too long.

Pick your reason.

Not quite a forest, but it was a good walk until I got stung by 3 hornets.