Day 28

18 May 2013

Hanoi

The important things in life

After spending most of the morning writing my stuff, I received a call from Eddy Verdriet. Ed and I met in Sapa two years ago and only spoke to each other for about 7 to 10 minutes, which was enough to know that we connected easily. I had seen him at the markets earlier in the day where he was enquiring about Hmong materials. I thought he was a tourist like me but found out during our brief conversation that he lived there and was going to the hassles of establishing a business in the Hmong valley. Over the years we had kept in touch via email and face book. The cardinal question I asked two years ago was "how do you cope with the simple minds" (empty heads to be more precise) as he was living amongst the locals and with Hmong lady. “It was a challenge”, he had said.

Ed was in Hanoi at present as his little one month old baby Tom is very sick with a bacterial infection. Today we met and spent talking and discussing many items and issues. We seem to feed of each other as I also find it a bit hard at times to have meaningful conversations with other travelers or locals for that matter. We had a beer at a roadside café overlooking a small lake and afterwards rode over the a small eatery serving nasi goring (fried rice) . Meanwhile I had the opportunity to learn the other side of communism which is a side I hardly had noticed as I only see and deal with surface issues.

Living and working here is a different thing. A new kind of communism had emerged out of the depth of the thoughts of Karl Marx, Lenin and Stalin. It possibly could be summed up as “Keep the people happy , but suppressed “ Leave lateral thinking to the few and mould the masses into submission. Change their way of thinking so apathy will be the overriding factor running their minds. To keep the one party system one needs to avoid people to think about change so give them what they want: a free market system. True communism per se should not see extremes in wealth or poverty. So what goes on here and of what I can ascertain is, that the communist system as it is, is also an illusion is this country.

Mid afternoon we visited the hospital. Conditions as reasonable as long as you go along with the system and a way of thinking which is absolutely frustrating for Ed. Mothers stay in hospital with their children 24/7 and are expected to be the true nurses. In Saigon I learned that this applied to anyone in hospital. Nurses do keep an eye on things but the family needs to stay with the patient most of the day. If they don't, the patient may be not fed. Tom is a tiny little boy and was connected to an oxygen line and fed via a tube. The meter reading on the machine has to be monitored all the time so he gets the right amount of oxygen. This has been going on for a month now. I had read the pleas for help on Ed’s face book as he saw his little son deteriorating. Tom is fairly stable now but it can go in any direction, Tom’s life is not guaranteed according to Ed and still hangs in the balance. Hien seems to cope well- “seems” I said, but really keeping brave face. Hope it will turn out well for them.