My Lil’ Saigon

I’ve just been lazy.

Latest non-useful addictions have been:

Wilbur Smith Books: Monsoon and Blue Horizon.

TV: House M.D. and Las Vegas (went through 2 seasons on Las Vegas in just over a week)

Hoping to be useful over the next month.. we’ll see though. I’ve promised that before.

Tết is the Vietnamese word for Lunar New Year. This time of the year is marked by spending time with family and giving offerings to the gods and ancestors to make the next year a good one.

Tết mà is a phrase taught to me by my brother-in-law. During Tết, if anyone happens to ask you something like “why are you eating so much” or “Why must you drink so much”, you should reply “Tết Mà” or “because it is Tết”.

Pictures from the Flower Festival, Suoi Tien, and various activities around the house from Tết available on my Flickr, or click the picture above to see the album.

Happy New Year to All… Now get back to work.

Or is it a call for help?

Either way… I’ve just recently started working a lot more. 30 hours of teaching, plus a assistance ship at Wildlife At Risk (a NGO here in Southern VN). All of the projects I’m involved with concern Marine Conservation, and are in their fledgling stages.

Let me tell you about the projects.

1. Mapping/Monitoring of Endangered Species in MPA’s of VN.

-Title is a bit misleading at this point, we aim to use GIS or WORLDMAP to map the distribution and density of endangered species. Staring with Con Dao MPA (currently being developed). A little rough around the edges at this point, since I’m completely void of any experience in this field.

2. Fishermen Surveys/Additional Training of Fishermen

-Surveying fishermen to get supplemental data for conservation purposes in Southern Vietnam (materials, socio-economic, etc), and training fishermen in skills that will allow them economic opportunities while reducing dependence of fishing, therefore reducing fishing pressure.

3. Eco-Resort for Long-term funding

-A new conservation model of sorts. Use land that would normally be paved over for a traditional resort. Keep it green. Use green techniques of energy, local foods, etc etc, and make it a profitable business. Use profits to fund conservation projects. With the amount of marine resources available in VN, this could be a very excellent opportunity to make a model funding source for future conservation.

4.RARE conservation training

-Improving the marketing potential of Conservation in Vietnam. RARE conservation aims to put some business sense in the people who want to promote conservation.

That’s the basic information. They entail much more than I’ve written but basically we’re trying to approach the conservation from a little different angle. Creating awareness, leading to concerned citizens and tourists, bringing attention to projects that are happening in VN. For more information, or if you have some ideas, please contact me.

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.

I’m pretty sure I’ve been inhaling a large amount of particulates the last 3 or so weeks. The sky has been grey for almost 2 weeks solid now, and the sun rarely breaks through. When I drive I feel like little things are pelting my face ( except when I’m in a traffic jam, then I feel like I’m being smoked with a fine sulphide-apple wood).

I haven’t seen any articles on it, but I’m almost positive that the increase of truck and ship traffic, in addition to more cars and factories have contributed a huge amount of particulates to the city area. I don’t remember the skies being so grey last year,  but maybe I’m wrong.

Either way… Tet is coming up again, and food preparations are already under way. In the kitchen here, there are currently some sweet onions under construction. One of my personal favorites, it is funny because in the states sweet onions are used as garnish for drinks, but here it is another side dish. Yummy. I think I’m gonna take a lot of pictures this year of all my favorite tet foods.

Well… favorite until the 4th day, when I’m feeling a little porked out.

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!

So, it’s been a month. No blogging. I really am bad at this.

Anyway. I was back in the states for thanksgiving. I really enjoyed that. There is nothing like a good holiday dinner to relieve any stress you have built up from work, etc. Good ole’ Nueske’s bacon was a definite plus to the vacation. Not much can wake up a person up like that smell.

Anyway, I’m back in Vietnam now. Starting to play soccer and maybe some ultimate frisbee in my free time… after I recover from a badly sprained ankle that I suffered in my 2nd night of soccer.

Other than that? Maybe I’ll post a bit more often.. you never know!

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.

No writing today, but I have made some serious updates to my flickr account.

Flicker Update

I now notice how few pictures I took. Many of the ones I just put up were taken by my friend. I’d rather have my friends and family come and experience Vietnam.

Maybe…. next year.