And I thought the riots in Latin America were bad. I am currently in Da Nang, Vietnam and have had the past month mostly off since schools have been shut down due to virus fears. Typically, I am here later in the year. This time I had to change things around a bit to be here in person to renew my residency. Lucky me. Most of my time is free which is new to me for such an extended period and allows for a WHOLE lot of time for reflection. You see I came here with death already on the brain. I have seen too much of it recently. All of the friends who were in my wedding party are dead or dying (ALS). I still have my family (who I promise not to put in these blogs), but as we all know, friends are a special relationship. I cursed the gods for a while but finally, the shock wore off. The dead outnumber us by 10:1, so eventually numbers would take control I reasoned. I am not that important in a 14 billion-year old universe either. I just hated seeing these guys cut down in their 40’s. Then I came here, virus land. The first two weeks were strange days indeed. Death thoughts in the context of death.
I had other stuff to do and eventually got back to it, but classes would have been the majority of my work. U.S. snow days have nothing on these school closings. As you can imagine, tourism is at 30% of what it used to be, and people here are hurting and maybe where you are as well through cancellations or layoffs. In Da Nang, those 5% service charges that your staff member gets in a typical resort tacked onto your bill are a lot less these days. It sometimes seems that I, and a couple others, are jointly keeping many places afloat. The city gets about 3 million big spending international (6 million domestic) tourists every year. It is a nice safe beach resort. This was where our military came for R&R during the Vietnam war (The American war to the Vietnamese here). Half of the international tourists are from South Korea and a quarter from China. In fact, there are direct daily flights every hour from Seoul to Da Nang, which seems like less of a plus now. China has been mostly closed off and now Korea has gone Code Red due to the virus there. How will Vietnam respond and how much worse will everything get? One government proposal here are quarantines for new arrivals from South Korea which have just started in some cases and one airline has already suspended service. I may have missed my window to leave, since I fly through Seoul. Whether classes are held next week is even more up in the air. The uppity Saigon (there is still very much a North – South divide here under the surface going back thousands of years) recommended to close all schools until April. Taiwan went back to school this week while Hong Kong and Japan postponed it another month until mid-April. Virus cases in China are stabilizing while Korea is bracing for a country-wide outbreak. Hanoi is having lots of emergency night and weekend meetings.
That is the current context which typically changes every morning after new numbers are released. Other local stuff to share, to give a feel of things, include a colleague who had to postpone his PhD in Hong Kong. Poor Hong Kong. Would you schedule anything there? He already suffered a delay due to the protests, which seems like a distant memory at this point. Now they are putting together an economic stimulus plan to give their 7 million citizens $1,200 each. And that is only about half of their economic proposal. Think they are worried? Sightings of western unemployed English teachers here dropping off resumes in restaurants was unseen before. This used to be the land of milk and honey for English teachers. They would make about 10% of what they would teaching IF a bar actually hired them. Another is a partner’s hotel under construction here which was delayed due to materials from China not arriving. China is however getting back to work domestically more every day, because people need money and, as we know, so much of the world is dependent on them. Meanwhile Korean cases have passed the psychological 3500 mark and are off and running. Whack a virus mole continues.
What will Vietnam do? At least they have been sincere in closing stuff down. They know they do not have anywhere near the healthcare system that South Korea has, and I think are doing the right things. It was “reported” that all of their 16 cases have been released from the hospital. South Korea has a huge footprint here and is looked up to by most Vietnamese. The young female tourists from South Korea often even wear the traditional Vietnamese ao doi, which one of my pals here said the locals found very friendly and flattering. Tough times though just got worse here and there. The question is how much longer can the people go without a paycheck? Hey, where is mine?
The weather is all blue skies in Da Nang and the food is still off the charts. SARS only claimed a hand full of lives in Vietnam as a whole in 2003, and so far no one here in Da Nang has or had corona if you believe the official statistics. Personally, I fear the mosquito stuff more, and do not think these pneumonia type viruses do well in warm climates. That remains to be seen, but it is still cold in China, Japan, Italy, Iran, and Korea. SARS never took off in Africa either, although they have a laundry list of other stuff with which to contend. Again, mosquito stuff scares me more. I was in Latin America for Zika, and I mean, even the President of Paraguay has Dengue right now.
Many seem to be adjusting to the new normal as best they can. Upon arrival, everyone was masked up, now less so. That could change at any second if it is detected here. It is though getting hotter and more humid. Highs in the low 80’s and lows in the low 70’s are the norm for this time of year. Once the sun goes down, the humidity shoots up to 90% and most of these virus types like it cold and dry. Right? I get optimistic when I see a corona world map with very little cases in the southern hemisphere where it is summer (Hola Argentina!) The seasonal flu we know dies off in our hot months, so let’s see.
I wake up like a lot of the world and check the latest corona news. Then, I spend my days with books and music on a beautiful beach or by the river and meet up with old colleagues and do a little work on some other projects. All is not morose. It is not a bad place for “end of days.” I always get 2 monthly memberships here; one, to a riverside hotel, and another to a beach hotel which gives me access to all the facilities and great employees and members who I have known for a while. So my exercise and relaxing time both have great views (Da Nang is a triple threat with mountains, a river, and the ocean) with a staff that baby me. Half of them are four months pregnant. I was here four months ago. It is a running joke. Throw in a new apartment and signing privileges at a couple restaurants all provided by the University and I am all set, or just maybe being fattened up for the virus. I still have my other peeps here as well. In fact, I had a great dinner the other night with the owners of an English language school that I help out a tiny bit. We had some great laughs. They are Vietnamese newlyweds and their school is obviously closed. I explained to them that after a blizzard in the U.S. we have a baby boom nine months later. We joked about how their, maybe kid, would be known as a virus baby. I guess it beats “Black Death Baby.” But hey, they did meet at a funeral. And the Irony Angel winks...
You wonder what the ramifications will be? How many will die? Will companies find more supply chain alternatives to China? How about new tourists? Will online learning finally improve into a viable option? Will food delivery increase even more? How about virtual gatherings as opposed to actual ones? Will my other life in Latin America become less export driven to China? Will Vietnam take more manufacturing business from China? What else?
So it looks like the virus is becoming a pandemic, killing more and wrecking the world economy. Let’s go back to my first two weeks here when the bad things were just beginning and to my thoughts at that time. It is a combined publisher/personal blog this time around anyway. Stay with me. I know that a couple hundred years ago, I would probably be dead due to life expectancy then, which has been extended by modern medicine and potable water by some 30 years. I am also familiar with the fact that in the 1800’s, it was not uncommon to see pictures of skeletons and actual skulls around in places. They were not meant to scare, but rather to serve as a reminder that we are all going to die, so go live! Advertising in the early 20th century shifted the collective mindset into purchasing stuff to “make you look younger,” or “live longer” and the skulls got put away. Ask your elder’s, elders.
Growing up, I saw two dead bodies in 20 years. I average about one a month these days, mostly due to traffic accidents. Morbidly, these sightings always bring me back to the skulls on desks in the olden days, unless it is a kid, where I am just mentally thrown. Population growth, more motorbikes, and aging infrastructure make for a toxic cocktail. My dead friend Brian liked his cocktails and pills so much he died of cirrhosis. I put him in rehab once, to no avail. He also always had a corona with a lemon in it on his person. He would be very much at home in Da Nang. You could be talking to him over coffee in the morning and all of a sudden a corona would just appear out of a pocket or a sock I guess. It just appeared like a cat. I guess that corona served as a memory trigger for this corona. What I did not realize until being here in this context was the common bond I had and have with my friends. I am also not sure, without this “free time” these thoughts would have appeared. We all have our bad days and baggage and I don’t recall any skeleton conversations, nor were any of us really religious. We all did however move on with stuff from the past moment, to the present one, and in anticipation of the future. That was our unspoken belief system. From small relationship stuff to problems with more gravitas, such as loss, eventually we moved each other along and past things. Don’t dwell or move on was the undercurrent meaning in utterances such as, “oh well”, “yup”, “over now,” or something in that ilk. None of us would let any bad event or person define us, and therefore trap us. I remember reading once when I was young that something or someone that makes you angry for a long time owns you. I like my freedom, and owning my past, present, and future, so maybe that is why I was friends with these guys. I think I should search their desk drawers for skulls.
As most of us know, Da Nang, and Vietnam as a whole, has seen its share of death. The founder of my University was a big time leader in the Viet Cong and portrayed in American films such as Platoon and Hamburger Hill. The CIA called him The Invisible Man. I will save his stories for another time; Safe to say he saw more than enough death. He was/is far from the only one with death history here. The Vietnamese just seem tougher. Has so much of it toughened them? The very sharp young Chancellor and friend at my University says the Vietnamese move on like no other. I am 100 yards from the old U.S. Marine base right now, and it is not even a conversation piece. The Japanese, French, and American occupations were a blip compared to the 1000-year Chinese one. Maybe that’s it? I have spent ten years working here and still find them tough to read, mostly due to the language barrier. I sometimes teach in Spanish, so Latin America is a lot easier to dig into culturally for me. If I were to guess, and nothing more, I would say that here and now they are more economically concerned than physically or emotionally.
When the zombie apocalypse happens, well, I guess maybe I will care a little less because of this time here, but they are in for a fight. I like who I am, my shared personal and professional accomplishments, and what I am doing. I mostly eat well and exercise. Throw in a life insurance policy that I purchased for my family some years ago, who are killing it (sorry, wrong verb), and I count my lucky stars and sleep well. This virus just seems out of my hands, but I will still wash them more.
A heartfelt one in Argentina always makes a toast before we eat saying, “To those who are no longer with us.” These days, I silently add, “right now”, or in Tralfamadorian, “So it goes.”
