Good morning Vietnam! An Ode to Sensational Saigon

Mariah Loves Earth. Quan 1. 2023

The experience of stepping off of the stairs onto the black tarmac was like no other. Instantly my olfactory glands recognized exactly where I was—even before my eyes adjusted to the bright spotlights that illuminated the midnight sky. A heaviness of humidity and heat hit me. There was a slight sweetness in the air intermingled with a peculiar pollution fragrance. Hello, Ho Chi Minh. I could tell that certain neural pathways were excited by the memories that were triggered in no other context. It had been four years since my mind had been tickled pink by the same sensory environment. 

As we were herded onto buses to be taken to the airport customs a certain camaraderie arose. Smiling faces now faced each other after six hours of flying from Seoul. But this was only the end point of our journey; we had flown two previous flights totalling 18 hours. We all came together from point A to point B, but our lives were scattered over the far reaches of the globe. Earlier, in a Canadian airport, we had met a fellow Canadian flying to Kathmandu for the first time in seven years to visit her family. On the plane we sat with a Texan who was meeting his Vietnamese wife and child in her home village. Once on the tarmac, we met a Vietnamese-American woman who lived in Las Vegas and had not been back to Vietnam in almost a decade. Airports are a unique environment of brief connections where people with every passport in the world enter each other's lives for mere moments.

It's a quizzical experience grappling with the thought of America in Vietnam. In Canada, it can feel as though there is an overwhelming tidal wave of American culture pouring over you everyday. With streaming platforms and digital content it is easy to avoid Canadian produced content and only to engage with American media. There are so many American corporations you can completely avoid Canadian stores—except Tim Horton's of course. In Canada, you will see advertisements for the Kardashians, conversations about Trump (with varied opinions), and people listening to American music. The days of The Red Green Show are long gone and the Conservative Party of Canada leader, Pierre Poilievre, would like to defund the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (Fawcett, 2023). With the internal strife and division that marks America there is a sense that it is beginning to drift over the border. Canada a country with a diverse peoples, with a diversity of religious beliefs, is appearing to become more politically Republicanized and conspiratorial—at least in Alberta, with premier Danielle Smith comparing Covid-19 vaccinated to Nazi followers and wanting to privatize healthcare (Herring, 2023; Thompson, 2023). Although there is a large connection between Canada and the states, the high cost of living, expensive food prices, gun legislation, and French community do distinguish the two places. 

In Vietnam, while there are remnants of French architectures and  I've found there is largely an absence of Americanization. Even with an absence of Americana, an impression remains through the birth-defects from Agent Orange, the daily question of "What country are you from?," and the distrustful glares of older men in Hanoi toward my husband whose appearance may remind them of the history of foreigners in their country. In Ho Chi Minh City, you may see the same international American conglomerates, such as McDonald's and Starbucks, the identity of the Vietnamese is strong and apparent. 

You cannot avoid Vietnamese culture in Vietnam. Circle K carries Vietnamese grown and produced chocolate, almost every restaurant on every block is Vietnamese cuisine, and I believe architecture in no other place in the world compares to that of Vietnam. The new buildings are lanky sky-scrapers in a rainbow of colours, with quirky finishing, and loud signage. In the mega city of Saigon it appears that no two buildings are exactly alike. Walking down a Ho Chi Minh street can feel like a fair's midway at times with the smell of oily foods lingering in the air, the large crowds, and the unabating noise. Frequently you will hear Vietnamese cabbies play Vietnamese music and drive Vietnamese Vinfast cars. Already, a vast amount of clothes for sale in Canada are produced in Vietnam so you can imagine that it is much the same in their stores. It makes  sense that a country that defended itself from multiple world powers would be strong in its self-identity. 

There is a certain vibrancy and electricity that can be felt in the young city. The average age of the Vietnamese population is 32.5 years, whereas in Canada there is a large ageing population (Vietnam, n.d.). This shift in demographics is often called "the greying of Canada" with Statistics Canada estimating that by 2051 25.5 percent of Canadians will be over the age of 65 (Vyain et al., 2014). As Canada's economy, and population, is threatening to dry up Vietnam stands in contrast as it blossoms into the future. This "second-world" country is more modern than many would expect with its innumerable sky-scrapers, extensive manufacturing industry, incredible phone plans, and three-story coffee houses. After more than 25 years of war, Vietnam has experienced a revival in culture and has bounded into the future. 

Citations

Fawcett, M. (2023, April 20). Defund the CBC? try defending it instead. Canada’s National Observer. https://www.nationalobserver.com/2023/04/20/defund-cbc-try-defending-it-instead

Herring, J. (2023, May 8). 2021 video shows Danielle Smith comparing vaccinated to Nazi followers ... Calgary Herald. https://calgaryherald.com/news/politics/2021-video-danielle-smith-comparing-vaccinated-nazi-followers

Thompson, M. (2023, May 25). Danielle Smith has spent decades pushing to privatize Alberta’s health system. PressProgress. https://pressprogress.ca/danielle-smith-has-spent-decades-pushing-to-privatize-albertas-health-system/

Vietnam population: An insight into Vietnam’s demographics. Vinpearl. (n.d.). https://vinpearl.com/en/vietnam-population-what-to-know-to-have-a-deeper-look-at-the-country#:~:text=32.5%20years%20old%20is%20the,75.8%20years%20for%20both%20sexes.

Vyain, S., Scaramuzzo, G., Cody-Rydzewski, S., Griffiths, H., Strayer, E., Keirns, N., McGivern, R., & Little, W. (2014, November 6). Chapter 13. aging and the elderly. Introduction to Sociology 1st Canadian Edition. https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontosociology/chapter/chapter13-aging-and-the-elderly/#section13.1.