Reflection: Vietnam

After spending a week in Vietnam, I can’t say that it’s one of my favourite places in Southeast Asia.  I seemed to have enjoyed Thailand and Malaysia much more.  There are so many similaries between China and Vietnam – Communist governments with capitalist markets is definitely the biggest similarity.  Of course, both countries are also developing at such quick rates.  I heard that Vietnam is currently second only to China in terms of economic development.  However, I definitely didn’t find that to be the case this week.  I mean, when you compare China and Vietnam, Vietnam still lags way behind, even with things like pollution and cleaniless (if you can imagine that).  When I got back to China, I actually felt that I was finally back in a more developed place!  It’s ironic how our perceptions change, as just a couple of years ago, I was saying how far behind China is compared to the West.

There are definitely more differences than similarities between the two places.  First and foremost – air conditioning.  I never thought about air conditioning being a measure of how developed a country may be, but I guess it makes sense – how could developing countries have the luxury of air conditioning any time they wanted?  With the exception of our hotel rooms, we didn’t come across a single place with air conditioning.  Even the major sites such as War Museums or Palaces.  This was really surprising to me!

Secondly – pollution.  It was strange because the pollution in China is very obvious.  You can see it in the skies and you could feel it when you breathe.  The pollution in Vietnam was very different. I felt it there, but I never felt like I was breathing it in.  Perhaps this is due to the fact that the entire country always smells of incense!  Actually, that was quite interesting to me as well.  The incense smell was very different from any incense I had ever smelled before.  It was a combination of firewood and incense, so it made the incense a lot lighter and easier to breathe in.  I actually quite liked that smell.  It was definitely better than smelling pollution, like in China.

Although Vietnam lags behind China in terms of development, there are so many things that are ahead of China.  The constant spitting, urinating and nose picking that we always have in China was non-existant in Vietnam.  Well, I did see a grandma hold up a baby to urinate on my last day in Hanoi, but other than that incident, I didn’t see anyone else acting that way. Vietnam’s population is also much smaller than China’s, but it is still an Asian country which means it still has a great deal of people, and somehow it felt much more organized.  People lined up properly for the most part and moved for you if they saw you coming.  It was so nice to get back to that for awhile.  The people in general were much friendlier as well.  Again, not sure if it’s because we stuck to tourist areas and they just wanted us to buy things, but regardless, it was nice to be in a more civilized place again for awhile.

I’m obviously not a good judge of how difficult it is to get around in English in China, because I would just speak Chinese…but my friend commented that it was way easier to do everything in Vietnam because everyone spoke a bit of English.  I found this quite surprising, because I always felt that Chinese people’s English skills are okay for the most part.  Although, we did stick to touristy areas, so it could be that anyone who works in these areas must have a simple handle of English.

Lastly, the most important difference is the internet!  Facebook and Youtube are available in Vietnam!  And everywhere you go, there is free Wi-Fi.  You can basically be on the internet at all times!  That was very impressive!

Would I go back to Vietnam?  I’m not sure.  Just based on this one week, I would lean towards no.  It’s not that I didn’t enjoy my trip, but I feel that I was already able to get a great deal out of it and it may not be necessary to go digging for more.  We’ll see though, I did only stick to the major cities and Ha Long Bay this time.  Perhaps I will have to go back to the coast one day.