Plastic Factory in Ninh Binh

Last Saturday I sat in traffic for four hours on my way to Ninh Binh, a beautiful land of jagged cliffs and fantastic landscapes with space shuttle structures juxtaposed against ancient mountains. I was there helping my friend take footage of a plastic bag factory, which she promised was only an hour and a half away. We were going to make an industrial film for her company, an intermediary between foreign plastic buyers and the Chinese-owned factory in Vietnam.

When we arrived, the smell of plastic was strong and the inks they used to print graphics were left in tubs that were fuming into the air. The workers were 90% women and a few men working on the maintaining the machines, the average wage being around $100 a month. All functions involving detail work, such as punching holes for handles or reinforcing bags with cardboard, were done by women.  The atmosphere, fumes everpresent, was relaxed enough. Though facemasks nor any other protective gear was used, there wasn’t too much wide-eyed intensity nor sweat inching down the cheak of the overworked proletariat. Everything seemed quite normal in the everyday Vietnamese fashion.

In one room of the factory you could see how they took recycled plastic collected from the local neighborhood and reconstituted them into plastic handles and other functional goods. The whole process took place in that one room. Recycled plastic scraps were somehow turned into plastic pellets, then poured into a machine from which plastic bag handles came. Apparently, plastics could be recycled in this was up to five times though out the lifetime of the plastic. It was all very fascinating to see in the moment.

After we were done taking footage, we rode back to Hanoi properly inebriated on plastic fumes. Back home, I heard my friends had visited two other factories, Yamaha and Hanoisimex, which are automotive and textile factories, respectively. I might have missed out, and could help but feel a little regret. It’s hard to say if I’ll ever find myself in a true factory again.

The Mountain Women of Sapa

Last Thursday, I left with about fifteen other study abroaders for Sapa. We got on a train at 10pm, with seats a tad bigger than one on airplanes. I wrapped a silk scarf I got from Hoi An around my head to keep the light out, but I still didn’t get any sleep that night. We arrived in Lao Cai, a small city that borders China, around eight in the morning and got on a bus to Sapa.

The ride up there was foggy but what we could see was still amazing. Terraced rice farming is always impressive, especially in person. We checked into the Pinnochio Hotel and got ready to hike to Dragon’s Mouth. I had to wait for my friend Jake, who was to arrive a little later, and so decided to have breakfast instead of going on the hike. As I walked around, I found a great many stores stocked fool of North Face jackets and other mountain gear, along with an abnormal number of foot massage parlours, at least three every block. There were also groups of ethnic minorities, primarly girls, who dressed in their traditional garb and sold bracelets and finely woven bags in brilliant colors. The girls and women were of all ages, from 6 to 90 years of age, and they all chanted “You buy from me?” At first I tried to teach them how to be more polite with, “Would you like one?” but it didn’t seem to stick.

I walked around a bit for the rest of the day and had some pizza for dinner. There was a market or two, but each stall had the exact same collection of things: mostly northface jackets, knives, lighters, machetes, and wallets. There were of course the usual scarfs and woven bags. As for the restaurants in town, most are European or American fusion, and in general the place is pretty much a tourist trap. That is not to say one can’t have an “authentic” experience.

That night I decided to have a drink with my friend Jake, who had just finished touring China and had come to Vietnam to visit me. We decided to start at the Hmong bar because someone had given us a free beer pass. When we arrived we found a couple of expats, some frenchmen, and about twelve Hmong girls laughing and screaming around a pool table. They were pretty good, and so I decided to write my name on the board. It was a fun night, and I won and lost some. Those Hmong girls were pros, and they had some nasty mouths on them too. Still, they were a fun bunch who knew how to have a good time. Talking to a few of them, I found that many of them lived together, and a few had their own apartments. During the day, they dress up in traditional garb to sell souvenirs, but at night, they dress like the rest of us and they like to get shitty just like the rest of us.  

So we all got pretty drunk and there were a couple of tussles and what not but all ended well. I almost found myself going to a discoteque with them after the bar kicked us out at twelve, but I suppose I hadn’t drunk enough. So as Jake an I passed our hotel, we bid farewell to the enchanting mountain women of Sapa and went to bed.

Hanoi's Millennial Anniversary

Hanoi’s 1000 year anniversary was anti-climatic at best. A couple days before the final night, the huge tanks storing the fireworks exploded. There were enough explosives to light the night sky for a full hour, in 19 seperate but it all exploded at once.

Offically,  two Germans, a Singaporean, and presumably a Vietnamese person was killed in the explosion, but there were many more reported by the locals. The unofficial count is 37 people. The Vietnamese government have tried their best to keep this a secret, and in the aftermath immediately bought replacement fireworks. The led to outrage in the community due to the recent floods in the central region of Vietnam. The official budget for Hanoi’s 1000 year anniversary was $4 billion dollars, and before the explosion, not a penny went to central.

In response to public criticism, the government cut back on the fireworks, leaving only enough for one location in Hanoi, a staudium, as opposed the originally 19 planned. Instead, each region in central affected by the floods was given $100,000, enough to buy a back of cheetos for each person in the region.

The mayor was quoted complaining about having to give the money to central instead of spending more on firewords, which I’ll paraphrase: “In central, floods happen every year,” he said, “but Hanoi's 1000 year anniversary only happens once a millenium.”

Cooking with Rice

Over the weekend, the study abroad group and I went to a small rice-farming village to experience the agrarian lifestyle. The objective of the day was to harvest rice from the fields. We all woke up at early and met at the front gate of our university at 6:30 to arrive at the village by 7:30. When we arrived we found an idyllic village with a pond next to the main red-brick gate, complete with an old tree to sit under.

We all shuffled into our the large house of our host, Mr Coi. His two daughters helped us ready for the fields. Unfortunately for me, I had signed up to cook, and so didn't have the experience of harvesting the rice. I volunteered because I had promised myself that I would learn how to cook traditional vietnamese dishes, and this seemed like a unique opportunity to do so for about 50 people.

While I had missed out on scything and threshing rice, I actually enjoyed preparing the vegetables, mushrooms, other items needed in our dishes. We sat in the concrete courtyard under a banana tree, sitting on small wooden stools while cleaning our vegetables. We got the water from a faucet jutting out from a moss covered wall. All of this made me think of life in a home, the feeling of purpose in working diligently to have lunch in time for all our hungry rice-harvesters in the fields. It was interesting to imagine the life of the homesteader. At the same time, I was wondering about what I was missing in the fields.

We finally finished the meal around 11:30, and the spread was impressive. The meals were arranged on two floors of the house, a total of 50 people with  6 people per set. The meal included morning glories (greens), tofu and tomato, pork slices with shrimp sweet and sour sauce, and of course, some rice. There were so many people that we ate on two separate floors of the house.

After we finished, we all slumped over full and satisfied, napping for an hour before we explored the village to interview the locals about their lives and livelihoods. I met a man who was renovating his house, and I watched as his workers helped pulley a water tank from the ground floor to the roof with a single twine rope. He said that everything would take about 2-3 months and about $80,000 dollars.

It was interesting to see the village moving from a small rice-producing village to an outer-suburb, complete with corner stores and its own small outdoor market. There was an organized soccer game with oxes and calfs for spectators, along with some of the locals boys sitting around the pond. I wondered if the pond would still be there in 10 years, and I couldn't bear the thought.