Chris Lum
March 28/08

Vietnam is pretty great.
Ahhh. Sweet communism.
Pretty great how you can buy old propaganda posters in every shop (not really, you have to search). But there is a commi street where they sell the same communist flags and banners in every shop. I found good price.

Everything is cheap, but the drawback is that every store sells the exact same thing. There is hardly any diversity. I’ve seen nearly 30 tourists, including some of our own, wearing the same Vietnam shirt that I highly doubt they bought at the same place. I bought a Tiger Beer shirt for 50,000 dong. That’s like 3.50 American. Good Deal, No?

For a country where you can buy a 100% cotton shirt for less than 4 dollars, the kids* are kinda mean when you give them less than what the other foreigners give them regularly. I give them 20,000 dong (~$1.30), they say “NO!” So I say “fine. 25,000.” They say “NO!” I say “that’s all you get.” They say “NO!” Then they resort to violence. Much fun watching them trying to hustle us. One little brat punched me in the back and then whipped me with a branch. His friends kicked him. They threatened to stab me with branches…I love little Vietnamese kids. ☺

*Footnote from Vinh Dang: Every year, I have come to the Sand Dunes in Mu Ne, It is one of my favorite places in Viet Nam. Here, you can see miles and miles of red sand dotted with pine trees along the coastal town in Mui Ne. Just in the past few years, the Dunes have become a tourist attraction and all that comes with it including kids (ages 6 – 14) who spend their day hustling tourists for money. Some of the kids are very sweet and some are aggressive. I told my students ahead of time that the price for renting a plastic sheet from these kids to slide down the dunes should be no more than 15,000 dong. If one person gives more, the other kids get upset (crying and even cursing profusely)
I regret that the incident of the branch and violent threats, that Chris is referring to, happened while at the Dunes at a moment when I was not around to intervene. Due to the escalating aggressive behavior of the “Dune Children”, I lament that this will be my last time I take our kids to the Dunes. As blog essays by our other students suggest, the behavior of the dune-kids” do not represent the majority of beautiful, appreciative kids that we encountered during or stay in Viet Nam.