Antidote to Burnout

Sorry....false alarm

Every time I think about writing about the weather, I tell myself this is a topic I know not much about, and should stay away from posting opinions. But I can't resist posting about the change of seasons. This year, I got caught.

On 17 April when I last posted, the winds had made their annual change of opposite direction, or so it seemed. I am fascinated by the physics of this phenomenon -- it the winds make such a sudden and consistent change, then the seasons should change along with it.

Over the past two years, twice a year, when the wind changed (and it changes almost instantaneously), it stayed changed, and the seasons changed accordingly. This year, it stalled out and changed back. There were very light winds for a couple of days after the 17th, so it seems like the wind never regained its change in direction.

So we remain in the dry season at this point (there are always occasional thunderstorms even in the dry season), and the winds remain out of the east. Sometime over the next month, though, it will change and stay changed, bringing the rainy season.

Meanwhile, it looks like Kevin's shedding dog theory has the upper hand in credibility at this point.

Change of seasons in HCMC

The winds shifted two days ago to now be out of the southwest, the direction of the annual monsoon winds. For the past six months, the winds have been from the east.

The shift this year is occurring 21 days earlier than last year, so we are going to get an early start on the rainy season this year.

Music vendors in the lanes

Many vendors come through the hẻm (lane) everyday shouting out what they have to sell.  This brush vendor is typical.

Recently, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of music CD vendors.  They come through with a loudspeaker blaring whatever is inserted in the CD player at the moment.  They power the player with a battery.

They always draw a crowd of neighbors looking to get the latest Vietnamese tunes.  The CDs cost 5,000 Vietnamese đồng a CD (US$.31).  At this price, you know the recording label and artist are not getting any royalties.

You can try out a CD in the player to see if you want to buy it.   We bought one CD, but it did not work in my Mac laptop -- the CD volume could not be mounted and the computer spit the CD back out.   You get what you pay for.

Increasing retail sophistication in HCMC

Over the past two years in Ho Chi Minh City, I have noticed an increasing sophistication in the presentation of new retail concepts.  Most of this increase seems to be centered on new services to the growing numbers of middle-class families of Saigon.  Like families in America, Vietnamese urban middle-class families have both the father and mother working outside the home.  Childcare centers are readily available in the neighborhoods, so the next task is to spend quality time with children off work hours, and to make the home more comfortable with attractive decorations and furniture.  Like hectic middle-class families elsewhere in the world, Vietnamese urban families are looking for services to take away some of the normal hassle of household maintenance.

While this first photo is not a store, it does illustrate the kind of service available now that otherwise would be the function of an extended family.  The kind of service this company provides supplements what a family can provide and possibly gives working parents some piece of mind knowing they have provided some extra care for their young children.

This new retail concept recently opened in my neighborhood, and it has taken me awhile to figure out what service it is selling -- what is "family edutainment"?

It seems to offer a high-tech version of a public library, with story hours for small children, tutors for special educational subjects, musical instruction, and motor skills exercise (yoga for kids?).  This new store is located adjacent to the coffeehouse I frequent daily, so I have been gaging its success over the past month it has been open.  Unfortunately, it does not seem to be attracting many customers so far.  As in America, there are economic limits to what middle-class families can outsource to others for a price.  Perhaps it still too early in this market for this level of sophistication, or this location is too remote (it is not on a busy street).

Notice that the graphics and colors of the previous store are important in attracting attention.  As I have said many times previously here with regard to houses and design touches, Vietnamese have an innate sense of good design, and it is taking good design or use of color and graphics to attract and hold their attention.  While the gift shop in the following photo is not in an interesting building, the colors and graphics give it an air of sophistication that is increasingly important in this marketplace.

The idea of a gift shop is also new in the Vietnamese marketplace as middle-class families turn their attention beyond the basics of daily survival to enhancing the quality of their home or their relationships.  This gift shop is not located where you might expect sophisticated boutiques to be located -- on Donh Khoi Street downtown where tourists congregate.  This store is located in the midst of a middle-class neighborhood on Huynh Van Banh Street in the Phú Nhuạn District.

My colossal miscall...

Back on 12 October 2007, I said the rainy season was over since the monsoon wind had changed direction for the first time in five months, which brings the end of the rainy season.

Since then, we have had torrential rains virtually every day, and the forecast is for daily thunderstorms and rain past the next week.  Here is what the Saigon Times Daily said in this morning's article about th weather:

Meanwhile, southern provinces including HCMC, Dong Nai, Can Tho and Bac Lieu were suffering from torrential rains yesterday with rainfall measured at 100-150 millimeters. Pouring rain will continue in the next several days in the southern region.

Yesterday, HCMC suffered severe flooding due to a three-hour downpour. All streets in the city center were flooded, with quite many streets knee-deep, causing traffic congestion in many hours as many motorcycles and automobiles broke down or could not move ahead. High flooding yesterday also overflowed residential areas.

Bear in mind that normally at this time of year, the rainy weather has shifted to the central provinces, along with typhoons.  These provinces have been experiencing record rains and floods, with a great loss of life.  So life is not so bad in Ho Chi Minh City where the flooding has been annoying but manageable.

I plan to stay out of the business of calling the seasons here from now on.

New sewer line outside our front door...

Concurrent with the extended rainy season we seem to be experiencing, workers came to tear up our hẻm (lane) and replace the storm sewer line.  The existing line was not large enough to accommodate the torrential rains, resulting in minor flooding at times.  Therefore the new line is welcome, although it has contributed to very messy conditions outside our front door (and tracked into the house) at times.

In addition to storm drainage, the line also takes the sewage from each of the houses on the hẻm.  Each house has (or is supposed to have) a septic tank under the house which at least takes out the solids prior to drainage into the sewer line.  However, I have rarely seen any pumpers in the neighborhood removing sludge from these tanks, so it is likely that many of the house septic tanks are no longer functioning properly.

After the old line is removed, the new line is installed at a fairly shallow depth, as was the old line.  I never saw the water line, which indicates it is lower than the sewer, which is contrary to safe practice.

The result has been a muddy mess of mud and continuing sewer effluent.

Collector basins are established about every five to eight meters along the hẻm.

Each house sewer discharge (which includes large quantities of storm drainage at times) drains to these collector basins.  Therefore each home owner was required to have his house sewer line rerouted as necessary to the new collector basins.

The collector basins have a concrete cover that also allows hẻm storm drainage into the basins.

The contractor should be back soon to install new paving throughout the hẻm.

Constant construction in the hẻms of HCMC

Kevin over at SaigonNezumi.com often posts about the constant construction around his house in a hẻm (lane) on the other side of the Phu Nhuan District from where I live.  He is usually concerned about the dust, mud, and noise brought into his house by the nearby construction, not to mention the holes that have been knocked into his walls from the house construction next door.

Constant construction seems to the normal condition of all neighborhoods in Ho Chi Minh City today.  It is a mark of the vitality and upward economy of the country that everyone who owns a house is usually in a position at this time to remodel their house, add a floor, redo the plumbing, replace a roof, add a terrace trellis, or tear down a small house and build a taller house in its place.  It may be [I have no means at this time to substantiate this] that people would rather improve the land plot handed down to them by their ancestors within the city than relocate to the new urban areas.  The local newspapers keep stating that the real estate market for existing homes is stagnant, and it very well may be (judging from the many nhà bán (house for sale) signs I see around), but this is definitely not restraining the urge to improve one's residential property.

Everyday, I hear hammering, sawing, and machinery sounds entering my home office, but I have learned to tune them out.  And certainly I do love construction anyway.  Here is a current sampling (all photos taken from my roof terrace) of the visible construction going on around my house (nonvisible meaning interior work that I can hear but not see):

An existing house that was gutted and thoroughly remodeled, including a new roof.

A roof being replaced (in addition to a full-gut remodel below), and a new house beyond that.

A large building being demolished.

and a new building off in the distance.

Although it is a few kilometers away downtown, it has been interesting to watch this new TV tower under construction off in the distance:

The tower is only half-way up so far.

Certainly the construction industry in Vietnam is thriving -- for both large companies and the small neighborhood companies working on the projects in the hẻm.

Telecommunications infrastructure in HCMC

Back on 10 Ocotober, we complained about the slow internet bandwidth here in Ho Chi Minh City.  At that time, many of us bloggers commiserated with each other about the slowing to a crawl evident at that time.  Immediately thereafter, service perked up to its usual mediocre level and has remained consistent over the past couple of weeks.  So I suppose we should be thankful.  On the other hand, what passes for normal bandwidth service here does not allow much for  radio-streaming or video.

The following photos illustrate the standard condition of the telecommunications infrastructure along the lanes and streets of Saigon.

I am not sure how the various internet providers and telephone companies sort all this stuff out.

Neighborhoood new houses...

There is construction work going on everywhere in all of the neighborhoods of Ho Chi Minh City.  While there are a fair number of high-rise buildings, bridges, highways, and housing subdivisions under construction, the bulk of work being done here is small-scale residential improvements along the small lanes within the large city blocks of Saigon.  My posting on 19 April 2007 described these neighborhoods as part of the urban fabric of the city.

Where home-owners are not tearing down their smaller houses and building much taller homes, they are constantly remodeling to add new features to their existing homes, or to raise the rooftop by another story.

Down the hẻm from me, an old villa was torn down over a couple of days and construction begun on five new 4-story houses at the same time, each on 4-meter wide by 12-meter long lots.  Three of the new houses were of a pop style using historicist (architectural styles adapted from the past) design elements:

The remaining two houses around the corner are of excellent modernist design:

These two modernist houses are now my favorites, and I need to return to them on a sunny day (rather rare around HCMC this month) to catch some better photos of them.

I am not sure whether one land owner decided to build three pop traditional design houses and two modernist houses for sale, or he sold the lots and the new owners made their own choices.  I will try to find out.

Street Vendor of snacks...

A moving display of color and texture -- snack food:

Ugly Ugly Dog...

This has to be the ugliest dog I have ever seen:

The dog hadn't been in a recent fight -- that is just the way it looked.  This must be a cross-breed between a dog and pig, if that is possible.

I often see dogs in HCMC on short chains like this.  This one was outside of a restaurant in District 3.  I rarely see dogs being walked in HCMC, so I don't know when they get any exercise.

No need to rent a van...

Most goods get carted around the city on motorbikes or bicyles, as shown in this past posting.

But a refrigerator on a bicycle is pushing the limits, it seems to me.

More on jungle cafés...

Last year about this time, I expressed my frustration about the constant rains characteristic of the final month or so of the rainy season in Ho Chi Minh City.  This year we just accepted it like most Vietnamese and didn't let it stop us from getting out and about like it had last year.

So we headed out a few mornings ago to take a long motorbike ride out to District 9 of HCMC, the northern-most rural district of the city.  The city government is trying to encourage development of this district as an alternative to increased density in the inner-city districts.

We managed to miss the intermittent rain on our way out to District 9 along the Hanoi Highway, and we missed it on the way back through the Thủ Thiêm area of District 2, with a ferry ride across the Sài Gòn River to downtown Saigon.

We ducked into a cafe for a lunch stop and to let a rainstorm go over us.  Given the number of postings about cafés and coffee in this blog, readers must have the impression by now that I am obsessed with Vietnamese cà phê, and I surely am.  One of the reasons is the chocolaty taste of Vietnamese coffee -- the other is the unusual and comfortable venues for relaxing while drinking Vietnamese cà phê.

I posted about the jungle cafés out in the HCMC rural districts a year ago.  This particular jungle café in District 9 features a fully-stocked fish pond.  In addition to being a café, this establishment is also a hot-pot restaurant and a place to go fishing.

Some retirees were there fishing, and then cooking the fish for lunch.  The café, Tân Dồng Sông Xanh at 14/387 Lã Xuân Oai in the Tăng Nhơn Phú A neighborhood of District 9, advertises itself as an environmental recreation park.

Meanwhile, we relaxed and enjoyed the hammocks.

There were several gazeboes available for parties.

Retail stores come and go...

You may recognize where my banner photo above comes from -- the photo of this restaurant building off Phan Xích Long Street in the Phú Nhuận District of Hồ Chí Minh City was taken a year ago when the building was fairly new.

The restaurant has now been closed (perhaps temporarily) and the second level has had its large openings blocked up with hollow-clay tile blocks (hopefully temporarily).

I don't know if the infill was placed to keep out intruders for awhile until the building is rented again, or if the owner is preparing for a new tenant who wanted the openings blocked up.  This was one of my favorite modernist buildings in Saigon, so I will be coming by regularly to see how what the results of this renovation will be.

Neighborhoods in HCMC are not static at this time -- they are constantly changing.  You can walk along a lane one day, and then come back a couple of days later to find your favorite house demolished and a new house under construction.

The end of the rainy season is here

Last 5 May, I called the beginning of the rainy season here in southern Vietnam because the winds had shifted from the east to come out of the west, the monsoon winds that bring the rain for 6 months.  On the evening of 10 October, the winds shifted for the first time in a little over five months so they are now out of the east, and have stayed so for the past couple of days.

That doesn't mean the rain will end yet -- the change in winds will bring turbulence for a couple of weeks, but the main season is over, and my mood will improve immensely.

Celebration of the utilities...

An altar to the electrical grid, found on Nguyễn Văn Trỗi Street in the Phú Nhuận District, where the street has been newly widened.

On the other side of the street, the telecommunication cables are still hanging below head height.

More on slow internet connections in Vietnam

Here is a link to an article on Vietnam.net Bridge about the pervasive internet bandwidth lack in Vietnam:
http://english.vietnamnet.vn/tech/2007/07/718231/

We all seem to have the same problem -- here is a quotation from the article:

"Most internet subscribers are very disappointed when ISPs’ customer service departments blame PC viruses, modems, poor PC system configurations or even broken cables for the slow broadband.

 

"Toan said he has given up because “all internet services in Vietnam have the same problem”."

FPT's bandwidth limitations in Vietnam

Vietnam's economic growth is clearly outpacing its ability to get supporting infrastructure in place.  The increasing traffic jams are evidence of the lack of highways and the need for mass transit alternatives.  New housing developments and industrial parks are located out of the city along narrow country lanes that can't support the increased car and truck traffic.

Closer to home, the bandwidth available from our internet service provider, FPT, has been steadily decreasing over the past couple of months.   I notice that a few of my neighbors now have computers, and they have probably hooked onto the network.  As more and more neighbors buy computers and internet hookups, the service will continue to decline unless the service providers increase capacity.  FPT seems to be slow in doing so.

Kevin over at the blog SaigonNezumi.com just wrote about his frustrations at the the lack of bandwidth in the same neighborhood over the past couple of days.  I am thankful for his voice here because I was beginning to believe this was my problem.  We had called FPT for service, and they came over and were mystified why we clearly had a connection to the internet, but could not bring up a webpage.  They suggested that we needed to buy a new modem.  If they are having widespread bandwidth problems, and I assume their other customers call for service, wouldn't they have the smarts to figure out they had a problem and were honest with their customers about the problem and what FPT planned to do about it?  They either lack the smarts or are dishonest with their customers.  Neither reason speaks well of the future of this company in a country that is becoming increasingly sophisticated about good service.

Cars on the narrow lanes of HCMC

Everyday many more cars are registered in Ho Chi Minh City, and the results are experienced daily in increased frequency of traffic jams.  Seeing cars on the mid-block lanes is still disconcerting since these lanes were never envisioned to accommodate automobile movement.

Impressive large themed cafés

In my posting about American coffeehouses a month ago, I mentioned that the stores are much smaller than Vietnamese cafés.  The design of these stores are almost always retail in nature and rarely explore themes or provide environments more comfortable than the retail setting.

There are a wide variety of levels of Vietnamese cafés, presented previously here.  The biggest surprise is the number of very large themed cafés in Ho Chi Minh City.  A great deal of design skill and care goes into making these environments, and people flock to them, especially on Sunday mornings.  Unlike American coffeehouses which are mostly take-out oriented, Vietnamese cafés are all about relaxing and socializing.  On weekdays, these gatherings are often business-related while on Saturday and Sunday mornings, they become family oriented.  In the evening, these cafés are filled with young couples.

It is hard to understand why there are very few if any of these large themed cafés in America.  Is it because Americans won't take the time to relax and socialize?  I don't think it is necessarily the economics -- land is just as expensive in Saigon as in San Francisco.  An American café like the large themed cafés in HCMC could probably charge a premium for the value of the setting provided.  There may be one or two such cafés in southern California where many overseas Vietnamese live, such as in Westminster, otherwise known as Little Saigon.  But my friends from there know of none.  And I have never seen such cafés in the Vietnamese areas of Sacramento and San Jose.  I would be happy to hear of such a café in the U.S. because I believe there could be a good market for this fresh concept in the U.S.

Here are a couple of new examples introduced to me by my friend Toàn.  They are both similarly large, but have very different settings.  Both of these cafés are in the heart of the Phú Nhuạn District of HCMC, and are easily accessible from downtown.

Trầm Café

The first is called Trầm, and it features an ancient garden theme.  Trầm is at 100 Trần Huy Liệu Street between Nguyễn Đình Chính and Nguyễn Trọng Tuyển Streets.  The frontage on the street is very narrow and nondescript -- you have to trust that there is a large café behind the narrow gate.

Behind the front gate is a narrow lane along which motorbikes are parked by the attendant.

Beyond the inner gate, the garden opens up with a "canyon" between two buildings with air-conditioned seating within. 

I prefer the outdoor garden terrace on the second level.

I would love to see a beautiful garden terrace like this at a U.S. coffeehouse.  A great deal of care and landscape design has gone into this environment.

The centerpiece of the "canyon" is the waterfall on the left, which flows to the "river" below.

This view is from the garden terrace.

The overall effect of this environment is like being able to relax at Angkor Wat, the ancient temple ruins in Cambodia.

Du Mien Café

The second café is much more modern and energetic, and also twice as expensive as most of the cafés I visit (a cà phê đá runs about 35,000 VN đồng [US$2.15]).  The Du Mien Café seems to be frequented by the nouveau rich and their families, a fast-growing segment of society in Ho Chi Minh City.  Kevin Miller, Jr. of the blog SaigonNezumi.com recommended this café to me in a posting three months ago.

The Du Mien Café is hidden away on hẻm (lane) 48 at lot 9a off a small narrow street named Hồ Biểu Chánh, close to Huỳnh Văn Bánh Street.  Motorbikes are parked with an attendant at the lane, and you walk to the entry on a side lane.

The primary structure is a three-story modernist villa with a variety of indoor air-conditioned spaces as well as terrace decks.

The villa is set within a garden with a selection of patio terraces for seating.

Landscape features include a pool

and a corner garden with waterfalls.

Light food is available at this café, but the primary focus is on coffee drinks and an extensive choice of fruit juices and sinh tố (fruit shakes or smoothees).