Reasons Not To Read Craig Heimburger's Vietnam Advice

Having said that, I suggest everyone now read Craig Heimburger's blog entry on "Travelvice" called Reasons to Hate Vietnam. With all due respect to the guy, it sucks. I think it's funny enough to merit a bit of attention, but only to comment on how "Ugly American" it is--to the extreme. For instance, he writes:

I'm chiefly blaming it on... [the Vietnamese] general lack of intelligence. Yeah, that's right, Tatiana and I think most of the people are genuinely below average in the mental faculty department. "Many are nice, but they're dumb as rocks", Tatiana would say.

It was obviously written by a guy who spent a few days in Vietnam, thought he had something interesting to say, and wrote it without knowing what he was talking about--which was, I'm guessing, probably just a small oversight--but he should be banned from online travel journalism forever as a small public service. At the very least, when you write a blog claiming that certain people are as dumb as rocks, you'd better not inadvertently make them seem far smarter than you--which he did. And I don't really understand what he means in making his wife look stupider than him--it's not fair.

Part of the reason this article is so bad is that it is extremely disappointing. There are many good things to complain about if you want to write about Vietnam. I'd begin with the crazy experiences I've had at Giap Bat bus station, where crowds of Vietnamese taxi drivers regularly (on dozens of occasions) surrounded my wife and me, pushed us around, called her a prostitute and insulted her for being with a foreigner. Or the bus drivers in Vietnam who don't stop to let people--young or old--get on or off the bus, only slowing down enough to let you leap into the air from the moving bus. Or the fact that so many Vietnamese men think it's their right to cheat on their wives and see prostitutes. I don't criticize him for being annoyed with Vietnam--it's a wonderful place with more than a fair share of problems. But I don't think his comments merit anyone's attention, because they're nothing more than a two-cent laundry list of common complaints.

Vietnamese Inability to Communicate. He complained about the Vietnamese inability to communicate. It's funny, because so far as he's concerned, they communicate well--with words. Does he know any words? Can he speak Vietnamese? Did it ever occur to him to look up "mortar and pestle" in an online Vietnamese dictionary instead of "grind" or "pill"? I mean, who walks into a pharmacy saying "pill," "tablet," and "medicine" expecting someone to throw a "mortar and pestle" in his face?

To his credit, he did Wikipedia the subject. He notes how the mortar and pestle does have a pharmaceutical usage--that it has been used to crush pills prior to making a prescription. But in Vietnam, and in the rest of the developing world, the "mortar and pestle" has been (for thousands of years) associated with crushing food-like ingredients--not "pills"--and the "substances" crushed to make medicines were edible substances, not chemical compounds. This revelation comes with just a bit of developing country experience: developing countries generally did not have pills until relatively recently, and there was hardly any decent medicine to speak of. And nobody will grind your pills in preparation of a prescription--they hand out pre-packaged prescriptions. Pharmacists in Vietnam are not doctors and have no real medical background whatsoever.

The next logical question an intelligent traveler would ask himself is as follows: where do Vietnamese people buy food and do their day to day shopping? Well, first of all, they don't go to "supermarkets". Supermarkets generally keep imported and "upper-tier" goods--a category that obviously excludes mortars and pestles. Vietnamese people shop at "markets"--the obvious" cho'." Food preparation should have been the obvious category for finding the mortar and pestle, and online Vietnamese dictionaries are extremely helpful for anyone having similar translation problems. The standard reference is VDICT However, it seems that Mr. Craig is the only person in this story who is as "dumb as rocks". His comments about communication and Vietnamese stupidity are poorly placed, because (pardon, but this is funny) he can't even say half a word in Vietnamese and can't use a dictionary! (WIKIPEDIA DOES NOT COUNT!) Mortar and pestles are everywhere in big market places--just ask someone with words, and they'll tell you!

Vietnamese Language. Here is an interesting passage from his blog, referring to the Vietnamese language:

I could also describe most men sounding like a recording of mentally handicapped person with a mouth full of Novocain, making an impression of a goose, played in reverse.

What a nutcase. I think this suits him well--you know, his being an ugly American and all. It's funny, this sort of passage criticizes itself. Sure makes my job easier.

Mutant Lobsters. I mean, he actually went to Vietnam hoping to get lobster. It's there, but without grabbing a reference manual in Darwininan evolution, it's a different type... Most people go to colder climates to get fat lobsters. On a similar note, you will be equally disappointed if you go to Vietnam hoping to ski, or taste Vietnamese cheeses, or hoping to engage in recreational aviation. Part of the pleasure of travelling comes in having appropriate expectations. (Good lobster would be an appropriate expectation for, say, a vacation to Maine.)

Liars. Vietnamese has a very funny expression for people like Mr. Heimburger, who naively (or "unwittingly" in his case) leap at the opportunity to pay ridiculous prices for cheaply made stuff. (To his credit, Mr. Heimburger does admit to walking out without paying on a few occasions--a crime in his own country, but oh well.) These poor souls are referred to as "Fat Chickens," or "con ga` beo/". The idea is that you need to be street-smart: you can't blame the world for stealing your car if you left the door open with the keys in the ignition. If someone can trick you into taking a taxi for $30 when it really costs $6, then either you don't know the rules of the game, or you're just playing the wrong game. But don't think for a second that it's not a game. Street-smart travelers (I've seen some really good ones) can take the heat, and Vietnamese people notice and respect that. Their wallets are duly rewarded.

Cultural Insensitivity. I'm sure this part of his article was just an oversight. He complains about cultural insensitivity, how Vietnamese people touch. When it comes to cultural sensitivity, Hitler was more culturally sensitive to the Jews than this guy is to Vietnamese people. The number one rule of being a good tourist is to realize that the burden for being culturally sensitive falls on the traveler, not on the citizens of that country to cater to your tiny view of the world. The guy seems to have forgotten that he's in Vietnam, not the US. Nobody gives a damn what he expects them to do. He's a typical ugly American: angry at the world for not being like him. And honestly, nobody in Vietnam has the slightest clue how they should treat each foreign person that walks into their shop--with over a hundred and fifty different countries on the planet, this would be a lot for a third world shop keeper to manage. Maybe Mr. Wealthy Whiteguy could do us all a favor and try his best next time? At least he could try to be as "culturally sensitive" as his Vietnamese counterparts.

This note is already too long. I don't want to go point by point through his article. Let me end by clarifying further where he is right. The noise is terrible near the road in any Vietnamese town or city, and yes, this is largely because of the country's terrible traffic problems. Yes, it does cost an arm and a leg to enter Vietnam, but the Vietnamese government is not stupid: they know that if you'll pay $1000 for airfare, pricing the visa at $10 or $100 makes no difference to whether or not you come--and a big difference to their coffers. Plus, its part of a principle of visa fee "reciprocity". Yes, Vietnam has skinny buildings--it has a population density over 7.5 times that of the United States. This leads to a different use of space than in, say, Los Angeles, and--yes--storefronts are often obstructed as a result. And yes, there is cholera in Vietnam, as well as cockroaches, and the chairs for street food generally are Vietnamese size (there's no sense in using highchairs). After this list, everyone generally has the same response: so what? Welcome to the third world.