Growth of Vietnam’s IT sector depends on its ability to combat piracy, Rebecca Ho, IP program strategist with Microsoft, tells Thanh Nien Weekly.

Thanh Nien Weekly: Where does Vietnam stand now, in terms of IT development and copyright protection?

Rebecca Ho: The IT sector and software industry are growing rapidly in Vietnam, while the piracy rate has steadily gone down since 2005. Inevitably, as we have seen in many countries around the world, there are those who will seek to exploit this thirst for technology by producing and selling inferior counterfeit products to consumers and businesses across the region.

In 2009, despite the financial crisis and consequently the general expectation that piracy will worsen, Vietnam was able to contain its piracy rate to 85 percent (according to the Seventh Annual BSA and IDC Global Software Piracy Study, 2010). This is higher than the regional average piracy rate, and it will need to be further reduced in order not to impede the growth of the IT sector.

No country is immune to the impact of software piracy – it is a global issue that needs to be addressed in every market and Microsoft is working in partnership with local ecosystems, including local governments, educational and industry bodies to ensure we are focusing our efforts in a way that will make the most positive impact and increase growth opportunities for local economies.

Which products of yours are most vulnerable to piracy?

In part, today’s high rates of piracy reflect the surge in demand for software in emerging markets as the benefits of technology are realized. Usually the more popular the products, the more widely they are pirated, such as Windows, Office and Windows Server.

These high rates of piracy represent a need for continued education on the value of genuine software to individuals, business and the economy, and the risks inherent in using counterfeit software.

We are committed to supporting governments as they boost their economies by educating their communities on the value of intellectual property and the opportunity it represents.

In Vietnam, the Business Software Alliance (BSA), of which Microsoft is a member, formed a partnership with VINASA, and the Copyright Office and Inspectorate of the Ministry of Culture, Sports & Tourism, to protect intellectual property rights.

How does copyright infringement in Vietnam affect your company?

Counterfeit software has an enormous impact on the software industry. Microsoft invests a tremendous amount of human and monetary effort in its software development and distribution, which is impacted greatly by the effects of piracy.

Microsoft is determined to protect its customer, reseller, and partner ecosystem from the threats and losses associated with piracy, and to prevent counterfeiters from taking advantage of innocent victims and gaining an unfair advantage over our honest partners.

More importantly, copyright infringement impedes the growth of local IT industry. The government of Vietnam has a clear goal to turn Vietnam into an IT power by 2020, aspiring to export software and digital content services to the world.

To realize that goal, we believe that innovation needs to be fostered. Innovators, however, will not have sufficient incentive to innovate if their intellectual property will not be protected. Emerging economies which have strong intellectual property laws can also benefit from technology and knowledge transfer and strategic alliances with multinational companies such as Microsoft which in turn will help enhance the competitiveness and innovative capacity of the local IT industry.

Has your company sued any individuals or organizations in the country for piracy?

No, we have not. At Microsoft, we believe in first educating (the public) about the benefits of using genuine software, and working with law enforcement agencies as well as our industry association, Business Software Alliance. We believe in taking legal action as a last resort to show that there are serious consequences to the crime.

What measures do you take to minimize piracy?

We focus our activities and investments on combating software counterfeiting and other forms of piracy into a single coordinated effort, the Genuine Software Initiative (GSI). The initiative focuses on increasing investments across three strategic areas: education, engineering and enforcement.

Vietnam finds it difficult to balance the reduction of software use and respect for copyright, while prices of legitimate software are too high compared with people"s income. Does your company have any pricing strategies for the Vietnamese market?

Pricing is only one component of why people choose to pirate software, and not purchase it. Microsoft has many options for delivering value and cost savings for customers. The best pricing usually comes through either the pre-installation from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) or from our home and student packages for Office, for example.

Just lowering pricing does not result in less piracy; there is more to it than that. As an example, Lac Viet, another BSA member, whose Dictionary software is priced at US$2.5, probably the same cost of a KFC meal in Vietnam, is also widely pirated. This is clear proof that pricing is not a main factor for piracy.

Many firms find it hard to implement the intellectual property law due to limited financial capacity or awareness. What would you say to them?

Intellectual property protection is an essential part of maintaining a healthy cycle of innovation in the IT industry and it is important that intellectual property rights are respected across borders.

Intellectual property rights protect legitimate businesses by making it possible for companies to focus on the areas which differentiate themselves and their products from the competition, improve product features, and speed up delivery to the market. This spurs growth and job creation that benefits consumers, industry and the economy.

The swelling number of state-provided cars in Vietnam is a luxury that the country’s struggling economy cannot afford, experts say

A state-provided car (C) in Ho Chi Minh City. The increasing number of state-provided cars in Vietnam is a luxury that the country’s struggling economy can ill afford, experts say.

Bureaucrats all over the world are famous for their penchant for showering themselves with largesse at the tax payers’ expense, and a recent report from the Public Asset Management Department shows Vietnam is no exception.

The department estimates that as of June 24, 2010, Vietnam had around 26,000 cars valued at about VND13 trillion (US$680 million) meant for official use. Ho Chi Minh City led the pack with around 1,000 state-provided autos, followed by Hanoi with 800 cars, the report said.

In July 2006, when around 19,300 state-provided cars were recorded nationwide, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung applied the brake on further purchases, but released it in July 2009.

The report points out that many provinces and cities have spent more money than they were allowed to on buying official vehicles. Provinces are only authorized to purchase cars that cost less than VND700 million each; many have ignored the regulation, the report said.

“The increasing number of illegitimate state-provided cars has done nothing but confirm the egregious squandering of the state budget,” said Dr. Le Dang Doanh, an economist with the Hanoi Economic College.

“This is a huge paradox compared with the size of Vietnam’s economy,” Doanh said.

Around 70 percent of all Vietnamese citizens still depend on agriculture for their livelihood. Per capita income is about $1,000 and the minimum government salary is VND730,000 ($38) per month.

The World Bank has also said that Vietnam’s budget deficit was “very high” at 8.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2009. “I think this is not just a question of money. People would need a clear and transparent explanation for the use of state-provided cars bought with their tax money,” Doanh said.

Unhealthy privilege

Recent media reports have highlighted how state-provided cars have been used for different unofficial purposes.

A bunch of official cars, distinguished from others by their green license plates, were found parked in front of many schools in Hanoi and HCMC last month when the national college entrance exams took place.

In February this year, state-provided cars thronged the site of a major lunar festival in the Mekong Delta province of An Giang. The cars were spotted littering closed streets and halting traffic throughout the city.

“Ordinary people can easily spot a green-plate car parked at a restaurant or a wedding party,” Doanh said.

Those traveling in official cars are apparently immune from punishment for any traffic law violation, Doanh said.

“This is a very unhealthy privilege which should be stripped,” he added.

‘The government knows all’

“26,000 cars and VND13 trillion are indeed startling figures,” said Nguyen Minh Thuyet, a prominent parliamentarian.

Both Thuyet and Doanh urged a comprehensive probe of all state-provided cars to ensure they have been used properly.

But they remained doubtful that drastic and serious measures would be taken against the misuse of state-provided cars.

“Punitive measures will only work when they are enforced frequently and seriously. Otherwise they will turn out to be just lip service,” Thuyet said.

“I think the government knows all about the squandering of money [in buying state-provided cars] because it is nothing new,” he added.

Thuyet recalled a plenary session of the National Assembly in 2005 when the then Finance Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung took the floor to address the issue of wasting money in buying state-provided car.

Hung, now the deputy prime minister, was then quoted by the media as saying that officials who waste state money on buying cars should not get any promotion or nomination for awards.

“But I have not seen anyone punished until now,” Thuyet said.

Progress is paving its way through Vietnam’s ancient cities and no one knows what to save and what to toss.

After several debates regarding preservation efforts in Hanoi, the nation still lacks an agency capable of evaluating the historical significance of a given site. What’s more, Vietnam needs technicians who know how to preserve the relics it wants to keep.

Olivier Tessier, researcher from the French School of Asian Studies (École Française d’Extrême-Orient, EFEO), sat down with Thanh Nien Weekly to discuss what Vietnam can do to hold on to its cultural heritage.

Thanh Nien Weekly: How do you assess the historical value of a place like the Thang Long Imperial Citadel?

Olivier Tessier: The imperial citadel has great historical and cultural value. It was the capital of the Ly, Tran and Le dynasties as well as a major center for cultural and economic exchange between Vietnam, China, Champa and other countries in Southeast Asia.

A section of Hoang Hoa Tham Street, thought to be part of the citadel, was recently excavated during the construction of an overpass. What are your thoughts on that?

- Cities run into this problem all over the world – Rome, Paris, Athena, etc. We want to preserve our heritage as well as develop our cities. Meanwhile, cities can’t develop if everything is preserved. Hanoi is a city with a long history. When you build roads, you’re going to run into relics of the past – as was the case in Hoang Hoa Tham Street.

So, what can Vietnam do in this case? If you ban all construction, you’ll stymie socioeconomic development. Every year in France, some 700 square kilometers of land are set aside for the construction of roads, railways and private and public buildings. Underground relics are definitely destroyed during the construction. Inevitably this leads to disputes among politicians, scientists, residents and economic sectors. So, in 2002, the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP), was established to research the protection of archaeological relics.

While researching 20 percent of the 700 square kilometers, INRAP combs the project sites, work out their maps, and photograph them, before a decision on the use of the site is issued. Construction projects are seldom stopped. INRAP doesn’t make the decision, politicians do, but only after considering our findings regarding the site’s historial and cultural value. They weigh those findings against issues such as land planning, and the development demand of the surrounding community.

Such an agency can’t make everyone happy, but it can cool down disputes by establishing a legal procedure for potential construction projects. Such an agency could help Vietnamese authorities make decisions in cases like Hoang Hoa Tham Street. Once again, however, you can’t please everyone.

But, we should strive to maintain our cultural heritage for posterity...

- Right, you are right. Everyone agrees with you. But, you can’t save everything. Hanoi might not have become the capital of Vietnam if construction had been banned, a thousand years ago, to maintain historical integrity.

There are a number of ways you can approach the preservation of a given site. You can preserve relics on-site. You can study relics and then remove them to museums. Additionally, you can bury them so that future generations, with more advanced technology, can study them further.

There are different methods (for preservation) but the goal is to maintain something that scientists can continue to study and preserve evidence of the past for future generations

What should we do about the Thang Long Imperial Citadel?

- The discovery of archaeological relics at the imperial citadel is of great significance to Vietnam’s history. The relic site has two unique features. The first is that the site sits on top of five meters of sediment filled with objects that span 13 centuries (from the 8th-19th). The second is that the space above ground continues to be used.

There are older and better heritage sites in the country, but Thang Long is especially interesting because it contains a long-term history. It is here, in the space of a few hectares, that Vietnam’s political center has been established over the course of a thousand years.

This historical gem sits in the middle of Hanoi, an expensive city that’s rapidly modernizing. Moreover, it is in the center of Ba Dinh political area, adjacent to the National Assembly’s building. For that reason, its development has been widely debated in recent years.

So, what’s the best option in this case?

- Now, we must determine how to best preserve the site and develop a working plan for the project. Foreign and local experts agree that there’s no single best recipe for handling this scenario. It’s not like baking a cake.

Research proposals from the Institute of Archaeology (of Vietnam) have proposed that part of the site be left open for sightseeing, while the rest be covered with land and soil to protect it from the elements. This should be urgently implemented. In fact, the relic has been affected by rain, sunshine, and moisture since it was unearthed eight years ago.

Is there anything else Vietnam can do to preserve its cultural relics?

- I think Vietnam should train more experts in the technical aspects of preserving archaeological relics in particular, and cultural relics in general. Archaeologists cannot succeed without this technical understanding and capacity. This is a subject that is taught at many universities, especially in Europe.

Hanoi’s old-school portraiture still captures the moment

75-year-old Nguyen Bao Nguyen, as one of old-Hanoi’s best portraitists, has been working at that easel in that 10.2 meter-square-room for nearly a half of century

The tiny old shop on Hang Ngang Street is surrounded by sparkling fashion boutiques crowded with hipsters.

But inside Truyen than Bao Nguyen (Bao Nguyen Portraits), it’s a different world.

The distinguished and aging artist, thin and white-haired, sits cross-legged in repose at his easel, the way he has been doing for 50 years.

Portraitist Nguyen Bao Nguyen, 75, began working at that easel in that 10.2 meter-square-room as a young man, a whimsical bohemian from a middle class family trying to make ends meet during the war years.

He was supposed to have gained a degree in 1960, but he took a severe stomach ache the day of his graduation exam as an omen, and he’s been living with ink-stained fingertips ever since.

The young Hanoian had always drawn as a self-taught artist at home, and when he decided to follow the traditional urban trade no one in his family had yet plied, Mom and Dad supported him.

The investment wasn’t much compared to the possible returns. He just needed paper, charcoal, and pencil-brushes, which he made himself with the ends of incense sticks and matches.

It turned out to be a good move, as he quickly earned a reputation as one of old-Hanoi’s best young truyen than artists. The 60s were an energetic time in downtown Hanoi, and Nguyen brought in a good deal of money with the art.

Old gold

Truyen than (Conveying the Soul) portraiture first showed its face in the small streets and alleys of Hanoi’s old quarter in the early 20th century. The simple black and white charcoal drawings were meant to convey the essence and spirit of whatever their subject was in a non-ostentatious or sensational way.

The art came about as people wanted more personal depictions of their relatives to use for ancestor worship. The artistic renditions of family members copied from old photographs quickly became popular, especially for wedding photos.

For the first time, not only the super-wealthy could decorate their homes with realistic images of their nuptials.

And some people simply wanted copies of their photos, or to create a new image as their old photos were fading.

Truyen than family portraits became a popular ornament in many Vietnamese homes. For a small price, people could easily have a high-quality, large-size portrait hung in their living-room.

Reinvention

According to Nguyen, truyen than drawers are not copycats. He said that the key was in making the viewer feel both the aura and spirit of the character in the picture, whether it is a human or still-life.

“The special features of each character must be found by the artist’s senses. The spirit could be expressed in any detail like the corner of one’s eyes, the wrinkle on the forehead, a snub nose or just a hair on the face. No one can teach you that.”

A truyen than portrait must not only look like the character but also “make viewers feel that the character is sitting there and talking to them,” said Nguyen, adding that it usually takes him a week to finish a piece.

“A 10-20 percent divergence from the character’s real face or figure is a success... but I only draw a portrait once, it’s too hard to repeat.”

He said the inspiration comes to him only once, and he does not like to copy his “emotion” again and again.

But he admitted that there were some pictures that he has had to fix four or five times before they were done.

"I looked [at the character] for a long time but the person in the drawing still couldn"t talk to me," he told Sports and Culture newspaper.

He once spent two years completing a portrait of writer Lan Khai from an old and stained photo Khai’s son had given him.

Over the period, Nguyen read Khai’s writings obsessively to find true inspiration.

Because the photo was blurry, and Nguyen also loved Khai’s writings, it took an immense amount of time, he said. He wanted to draw the perfect picture.

All paid off when he saw how moved Khai’s son was when he saw the picture of his father.

“This is him,” the son told Nguyen.

Bringing out the dead

Despite the abundance of imported ink now available in Hanoi, Nguyen still uses his own handmade ink.

To do so, he burns scraps of rubber tires with a kerosene lamp. He uses the soot collected from that smoke to create pitch-black ink that stands in stunning contrast with his white paper.

He also makes his own pencils.

He makes them with the slender end of an incense stick or match and then ties them tightly to chopstick-like bamboo stick with a little copper wire.

Nguyen said his most rewarding work was when families came to him asking for pictures of their dead parents, many of whom were killed or went missing during the war.

Many of his customers have burst into tears upon receiving their folks’ pictures. Some say the drawings have helped them through the pain of missing their loved ones.

Blogger Hoang Duc Nha said Nguyen has a guestbook full of praise, appreciation, regards and letters.

“That is the most precious gift that I’ve gotten in my career.”

But he worries the art is slowly fading away.

“The city used to have over 300 truyen than shops,” said Nguyen. “But now we can count the number of artists on two hands.”

The history of Vietnam-US relations is still crazy (after all these years)

Former US President Bill Clinton is greeted on the street in Hanoi, Vietnam on Wednesday, December 2006

In the days following the liberation of Saigon, Nayan Chanda, the young Saigon correspondent for the Far East Economic Review, thought he had a scoop.

He went to the man he hoped would be his source: the editor in chief of the Vietnamese Communist Party’s Nhan Dan (The People) newspaper, Hoang Tung.

“I said I know that a lot of official US documents were left behind in Saigon, which your government now has in its possession. Would you help me get access to these documents?” Chanda told Thanh Nien Weekly via phone.

Tung’s answer was no.

“I was surprised,” said Chanda. “He [Tung] said: ‘Look, the war is over, there is no reason to throw salt in the American wounds.”

According to Chanda’s history of postwar Indochina Brother Enemy: The War after the War, American banks and oil companies were invited to Hanoi as early as 1976 to explore possibilities of trade and financial relations. “They [the Vietnamese government] wanted to seek everyone’s help. It was this [US-imposed] embargo that prevented western countries from helping Vietnam,” he said in the interview.

This July 11 marks 15 years since the US decided to open its doors and lift the embargo.

Warren Christopher, US Deputy Secretary of State 1977-1981 and Secretary of State 1993-1997 (during normalization) wrote to Thanh Nien Weekly via email:

“In 1995, with the war almost two decades behind us, I believed that the time had come to establish a working relationship with Vietnam, to recast the word in the American consciousness as a place rather than a war.”

What took so long?

After the fall of Saigon, Vietnam was invaded by the Khmer Rouge several times. Vietnamese-led forces then crossed into Cambodia and ousted Pol Pot in 1978, ending a genocide that had killed two million Cambodians.

The US was not pleased. In 1981, US Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. said the US would not recognize Vietnam because of its actions against Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.

Edwin A Martini, author of Invisible Enemies: The American War on Vietnam, 1975-2000 and Associate Professor of History at Western Michigan University, told Thanh Nien Weekly what the US was up to in Cambodia at the time:

“The US was providing all these supplies and materials to what they called the ‘non-communist resistance’ when everybody knew full well that most of those supplies and most of those materials were going to the Khmer Rouge.”

This relationship made normalization seem virtually impossible for the Vietnamese.

“After the war, the US led a coalition of nations to establish a political blockade and economic embargo on Vietnam, preventing Vietnam’s development of regional and international relations,” recalled vice chair of the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs Committee Ngo Quang Xuan, who served as Vietnamese ambassador to the United Nations during the normalization process.

Martini added that even ostensibly non-political organization like the IMF and World Bank, whom Vietnam had invited into the country post-1975, were under the influence of the US and couldn’t work here under the embargo.

But now, with Vietnam a World Trade Organization member and major trading partner with the US, Xuan considers the large economic gap between the two nations to be their greatest challenge.

However, even given the richness of the friendship, Xuan still felt relations were not yet “comprehensive.”

“I believe that US-Vietnam relations will only be comprehensive once the Agent Orange matter has been resolved.”

Flying high

In a press conference on June 29, US ambassador Michael Michalak announced the winner of the anniversary logo contest: a soaring kite, made up of the two nation’s flags.

Michalak went on to describe the various millions of dollars the US government has invested in Vietnam since the end of the embargo: including $46 million that had been donated since 1989 to help the disabled.

“I feel very strongly that relations between the US and Vietnam have never been stronger,” he said in his closing remarks.

‘Propaganda’ no more

Seated at her District 1 office in confident repose, Madame Ton Nu Thi Ninh, retired diplomat and former vice chair of the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs Committee, seems comfortable in the light of Vietnam’s bright future. She plans to open a major new private university and is always happy to speak with the press.

Though she holds no grudges, Ninh remembers the harshness of the embargo with great clarity.

The stateswoman told Thanh Nien Weekly that a high-ranking UNICEF official had explained to her that even for a multilateral body, normal relations with the US were an important prerequisite for serious cooperation.

She considers Agent Orange the only problem between the two nations. “But AO will never capsize the boat,” she said.

To illustrate how far the two nations had come, Ninh recalled that years ago, a former US ambassador had dismissed Vietnam’s Agent Orange toll as “propaganda.”

“No US ambassador will use that word anymore,” she said.

Encouragement

Nguyen Duc is perhaps Agent Orange’s most famous victim.

He was joined at the leg, from birth, to his brother Viet – who remained bedridden following their 14-hour separation surgery.

Viet never fully recovered following the operation. He died in 2007.

Now, Duc walks with one leg.

He is married and living in a home made possible by international donations and the salary he earns as a computer technician.

He was just a child when relations normalized. “Over the past 15 years, I have seen remarkable progress in the relations between the two countries,” he said over the phone. He was encouraged by the recent arrival of four US Senators willing to discuss dioxin cleanup and hopes that the Vietnamese government will continue to lean on the US for a resolution to the Agent Orange problem.

“If I had a chance to speak with the US leaders, I would tell them to stop all other wars waged elsewhere in the world,” he said.

Freedom fighter

Nguyen Kim Phuong, 80, fought in the guerilla resistance movement against both the French and Americans. His father was killed by the French and his father-in-law was confined at Con Dao prison, notorious for its infamous “tiger cages.”

Like most Vietnamese, Phuong is forgiving about the war and is happy to see US-Vietnam relations moving forward.

“Since normalization, the lives of our people and our economy have both improved. Our relations are mutually beneficial. The Vietnamese people are grateful to the generous support from the US,” Phuong said.

“But... history cannot be forgotten.”

From South Africa to Laos, authorities are cracking down on traders in endangered flesh

Environmental police seize two frozen tigers and one frozen panther from a house in the north-central Nghe An Province’s Dien Chau District on June 22. Conservationists have called for more efforts to stop the trade of endangered species.

Experts are lauding the recent seizure of two frozen tigers and a frozen panther in the north-central province of Nghe An. Still, they say more must be done to stop Vietnamese traffickers plundering the world’s precious fauna.

In an extensive response sent to Thanh Nien Weekly, Douglas Hendrie, technical advisor for Education for Nature-Vietnam (ENV), the country"s first local nongovernmental organization (NGO) to focus on conservation of nature and the environment, said that a more holistic approach is needed to staunch the loss of wildlife.

Vietnamese authorities must collaborate across borders to take down the international networks responsible for the trade, he said. At home, they must make sure local markets are free of the illicit products.

“We are focused too much on the act and too little on the enterprise,” Hendrie said.

Thomas Osborn, coordinator of the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC’s Greater Mekong Program, said that the environmental police have demonstrated once again their dedication to halting the illegal trade in protected species such as tigers.

“If we hope to save the country’s remaining tigers and other threatened species, it will take ever increasing vigilance from authorities and a strong commitment by the government to support and promote existing wildlife laws.”

As few as 30 wild tigers are estimated to survive in Vietnam.

Despite their protection under Vietnamese and international law, tigers and panthers continue to be illegally hunted and traded across Vietnam and Southeast Asia. On the black market, tiger parts are sold as food, souvenirs and the components of medicine. According to a TRAFFIC statement released on July 2, tiger bone wine remains in high demand throughout the region.

Tiger farming

On June 22, environmental police entered the farm of 53- year-old Le Xuan Thoan in Dien Chau District in the north-central province of Nghe An. VietNamNet news website cited reports from the local Forest Protection Agency that Thoan’s farm housed two rhinoceroses and a host of other wild animals.

Inside his house, they discovered a menagerie of a different kind.

In addition to the trio of frozen feline carcasses, police seized the skeleton of a wild animal believed to be a lion and around five kilograms of wildlife bones.

Senior Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Viet Nhi of the provincial environmental police said this was the biggest case of frozen wildlife ever to rock the region. He said police will continue to investigate the matter.

RECENT WILDLIFE
SMUGGLING CASES

From April 14 to May 19 in 2010: Seven young bears were seized in three separate cases in Dien Bien, Ha Tinh and Nghe An provinces. All three cases involved smuggling from Laos to Vietnam.

From April 29 to May 28 in 2010: Hai Phong City customs officials busted four smuggling cases. They confiscated around 4.7 tons of elephant tusks in total.

March 2010: Lao Bao Border Guards in the north-central Ha Tinh Province seized the body of a 95-kilogram tiger and a 27- kilogram black panther being transported across the border to be sold in Vietnam.

October 2009: Vietnam Environmental Police seized two frozen tiger carcasses weighing a total of 130kg and arrested five suspects in Hanoi.

(Source: Education for Nature – Vietnam)

Several conservationists have said that Thoan is not the first “wildlife farmer” to be caught in the illegal trade.

ENV has taken aim at the tiger farming.

The NGO recently issued a study that found three out of seven tiger farms across Vietnam are involved in illegal tiger smuggling. Some farm owners opt not to report the number of newborn and dead tigers so they may trade them on the black market, it said.

“Tiger farming in Vietnam should be banned. Only licensed zoos and qualified and strategically planned tiger conservation facilities should be permitted to keep tigers,” ENV’s Douglas Hendrie told Thanh Nien Weekly.

“Most tiger farmers in Vietnam would be better named ‘tiger businessmen’ because they are hardly farmers like the public thinks, but rich businessmen, most of which have purchased their tigers illegally, and nearly all of which are suspected or confirmed to be illegally selling tigers out the back door of their farms, while crying to the public that they are only trying to help save tigers by breeding them for conservation,” he said.

Rhino smuggling

Though tiger numbers in Vietnam are dwindling, rhinos have been forced to the brink of extinction. This April, the carcass of a Javan rhino was found hornless and bullet-ridden in the forest in the Central Highlands Lam Dong Province.

Biologists are still trying to determine whether the corpse represents the last of its kind in Vietnam.

Meanwhile, the thirst for rhino horns prevails.

On March 29, South African authorities seized a Vietnamese national named Xuan Hoang at O.R. Tambo International Airport. Of the seven rhino horns found in Hoang’s possession, several matched the DNA of a rhino that had been poached just a few days earlier.

The horns weighed 16 kilograms, and were valued at approximately US$117,000 according to a press release issued by South Africa-based NGO Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT).

The South Africans hit the Vietnamese trader hard.

According to the EWT’s press release, Hoang pleaded for mercy and tried to convince the court to levy a fine for his crimes. Magistrate Prince Manyathi responded by saying that fines would no longer suffice as a measure of discouraging future such crimes.

On June 30, the magistrate sentenced Hong to ten years in prison for possessing the horns. “A message needs to be sent to Vietnam,” he said.

Last week, three Vietnamese citizens applied for bail in South Africa. The trio were arrested on the opening night of World Cup 2010 on June 11 with a total of 25 rhino horns, EWT told Thanh Nien Weekly via email. Their court case is due later in July.

“[Hoang’s] sentence will be setting a norm in the courts for future sentencing of similar cases and will hopefully be a deterring factor to the poaching. It is very significant that such a large number of horns get smuggled out of South Africa into Vietnam undetected and it is our aim to see that better detection of such horns becomes the thing of the future,” said Faan Coetzee, Executant of EWT’s Rhino Security Project.

 A Vietnamese farmer pulls off dying rice plants in Ben Tre province

The rivers that should nourish his thirsty rice paddies are too salty, and the rains are late this year. Dang Roi does not know if he will be able to salvage anything from this spring’s crop.

Vietnam is the world’s second-biggest rice exporter and the Mekong Delta, where Roi farms, accounts for more than half of its production.

But Roi’s paddy fields in Ben Tre province are burning up during a drought which meteorologists say is the worst in decades.

The dry season should have ended already, but in the yard of Roi’s house in Que Dien commune, barrels that collect rainwater for his family’s cooking and washing show the desperate situation. They are half-full, or empty.

Experts say Vietnam is one of the countries most threatened by climate change, whose effects are seen in worsening drought, floods, typhoons, exaggerated tides, and rising sea levels.

The country is planning for a one-meter (three feet) rise in sea levels by 2100, which would flood about 31,000 square kilometers (12,400 square miles) of land – an area about the size of Belgium – unless systems such as dykes are strengthened, said a UN discussion paper released last year.

It said the threat of floods is greatest in the Mekong Delta, where 17 million people live.

If that land becomes unusable there are “serious implications” for the region, Helen Clark, administrator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), told AFP last month.

She said Vietnam faces a “huge challenge” from climate change.

Over the past 50 years the sea level has already risen by 20 centimeters (eight inches) along Vietnam’s coast, according to the increasingly worried communist government.

While delta farmers cope with drought, they are also challenged by sea water intrusion, which experts also link to climate change.

There is little water in the rivers near Roi’s fields “and it’s salty so we can’t pump it” for irrigation, he says.

Recalling easier times on his 1.2 hectares (three acres), Roi says, “The rice fields weren’t dying like this.”

The Vietnamese government emphasizes the role of climate change in disrupting its agricultural environment, but experts do not rule out an effect from dams upstream in China. That impact could be worsened by the opening of more dams further south in Laos and Cambodia, they say.

“The Chinese dams have made the system fragile, but the impact of the downstream dams will be cumulative,” said Marc Goichot, of the WWF.

Goichot said a delta is influenced by three forces which affect one another: subsidence, which causes the delta’s bed to fall; coastal currents; and sediment brought down by rivers.

Dams retain sediment, reducing the amount that collects where the coastal current and waves are strongest downstream, meaning the salty water can more easily penetrate, he said.

The impact of sediment needs to be better understood, Goichot added, calling for a suspension of dam projects pending further research.

China has eight planned or existing dams on the Mekong River, but rejects activists’ criticism that the hydropower dams contribute to low water levels downstream.

There are proposals for another twelve dams in the lower Mekong countries.

Vo Tong Xuan, a leading Vietnamese rice expert, said the flow of the Mekong River – whose long journey ends at the delta – is “extremely reduced” this year.

He is concerned about the impact of Chinese dams, but also blames Vietnam’s increasingly intensive methods of rice growing.

As the delta’s population has expanded, farmers have gone from planting one to two and sometimes three rice crops each year.

Xuan says that too many farmers plant three crops, draining crucial water from provinces such as Ben Tre during the dry season.

Ultimately, he says, the Delta may need new varieties of rice more adapted to a dry and salty environment.

Roi, 64, grows rice only twice a year and is not waiting for new strains.

Squatting beside his sorry-looking paddies, he points out about 30 baby palm trees he has planted along the edge of the rice field. They are better adapted to the delta’s harsh environment.

“If one day we can’t grow rice any more, we’ll grow coconut palms,” he says.

For thousands of years, farmers in Vietnam’s rural communes have supplemented their incomes by producing handicrafts in the post harvest season.

These villages tended to specialize in a specific craft item: from fine crockery to baskets to traditional lacquered woodwork. The trade secrets have been passed from generation to generation.

At the moment, these villages are finding it increasingly difficult to survive in the new global economy. Complicated procedures have hindered them from accessing subsidized bank loans and government efforts to expand this cottage industry have proven ineffective. General Secretary of the Vietnam Association of Craft Villages, Luu Duy Dan sat down with Thanh Nien Weekly to explore the bigger picture.

What is happening these days in Vietnam’s handicraft villages?

Vietnam’s handicraft villages have developed in line with Vietnam’s rural economic growth. According to last year’s statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Vietnam is home to 2,790 craft villages which produce 200 kinds of products.

However, these craft villages have stayed afloat largely on their own. Cooperation is weak among the small scale operations. They face a whole host of difficulties: limited production spaces, poor production infrastructure, unqualified laborers, unstable material sources, you name it. What’s more, the limited coordination between these production households has prevented some craft villages from securing big contracts.

Kids coming up in these villages often love the traditional careers, but they avoid them due to the low income involved. These children end up leaving their villages to work in cities as construction workers, motorbike taxi drivers, and stevedores.

We are not doing enough to save this crucial aspect of our society. Many of our policies are not in line with the reality these craftsmen face. Local authorities have proven unmindful and irresponsible towards these communities. As a result, some investors flinch at the prospect of investing in these villages.

In a glaring catch-22, craft firms wishing to secure government subsidized loans must employ 50 laborers or more, under current policy. Meanwhile, most of the firms are small and cannot expand production because they don’t qualify for subsidized loans.

If we don’t start paying more attention to them, many handicraft villages will be lost or continue to limp on in this half-dead manner.

What role do craft villages play in the rural economy

Craft villages have made an important contribution to the export economy. But, most importantly, they create jobs in rural areas. In 2007 craft exports accounted for only US$760 million of the country’s total export revenues of $35 billion. On the other hand, craft villages generated jobs for 11 million people, including the disabled, the elderly, and children. As more and more arable land is seized for large development projects, handicraft production is emerging as the only viable endeavor for rural farmers.

A thriving village economy can help reduce social ills, foster close sentiment among villagers, and attract visitors curious about Vietnam’s traditional culture. Many craft villages have become successful tourist destinations.

Under current policies, some craft villages are thriving, while others are stagnating. What are the reasons for this?

It all comes down to production planning. Bat Trang craft village has a pottery market. Its production is organized under existing business law and the small firms operating there have a good understanding of that law. The village market promotes trade, promotes technological advances in production, and has secured stable material sources for its manufacturers. As a result, Bat Trang has been able to net large contracts from straight-laced companies. What’s more, the village’s pottery makers have managed to infiltrate the overseas market, while at the same time attracting domestic buyers with reasonable prices.

After the economic recession (in 2008), some craft villages succeeded in tapping the domestic market, where there’s a large demand for stone, wood, and bronze products that bear cultural significance.

Don’t some craft villages become even poorer after following their traditional career?

That’s a serious problem. Some craft villages are struggling right now. Non Chuong Village is a good example. Each production household in the village makes about two or three hats per day. They cannot possibly survive in the new global economy using their traditional production model. This should be cause for alarm. We still lack many things. We have not yet developed a school that specializes in the training of craftspeople; we only have general policies [on handicraft village development]. Meanwhile, production space in the villages is shrinking. Many villages have no ponds or sewers - a circumstance that poses grave risks to the environment.

So, what should we do to deal with these issues?

The main difficulty is the trajectory of capital and development. We need to have a long-term vision for these villages.

The procedures for accessing bank loans should be simplified, advanced technology should be applied, and we should work towards tapping both the domestic and overseas markets. Current regulations on capital need to be brought in line with reality.

Craft villages also face difficulties in terms of manpower, and material sources. The government has planned to train one million laborers for craft villages between now and 2020. We (the Vietnam Association of Craft Villages) have proposed three training models: training laborers for developing new craft villages, training laborers for production of materials and improving manpower in production areas.

Now, most craftspeople are trained by skilled veterans. The training is not officially organized with the support of local authorities or the government.

We should regard the development of these villages as a rural and social development issue, which will help generate jobs, contribute to poverty reduction and reduce social evils.

 Tran Thi Hoan stands in front of the US Supreme Court in 2008. Hoan is a victim of Agent Orange, the herbicide laced with dioxin-tainted defoliant that was sprayed across huge swaths of Vietnam between in the 1960s and early 1970s, and she fears that she could pass on the poison that saw her born without legs and with a withered hand to her children.

At 23, Tran Thi Hoan dreams the dreams of a typical young woman: find a good job, start a family and, as a native of a country long ravaged by war, live in peace.

But Hoan is a victim of Agent Orange, the herbicide laced with dioxin-tainted defoliant that was sprayed across huge swaths of Vietnam between in the 1960s and early 1970s, and she fears that she could pass on the poison that saw her born without legs and with a withered hand to her children.

So she’s let go of part of her dream.

“Maybe my children will be disabled like me. So I don’t believe I can get married,” Hoan told AFP after she became the first Vietnamese victim of Agent Orange to testify before the US Congress.

“I’m worried,” she added quietly.

“I’m scared.”

Hoan had just read a three-page testimony in English to US lawmakers in a packed hearing room.

“I am not unique, but am one of hundreds of thousands of people whose lives have been marked by our parents’ or grandparents’ exposure to Agent Orange,” she said.

“I was born as you see me: without legs and missing a hand.”

But in spite of her handicap, and in spite of her fears that nobody would want her as a wife, Hoan told the packed hearing called by Congressman Eni Faleomavaega, a veteran of Vietnam, to try to determine how to meet the needs of Vietnam’s victims of Agent Orange, that she was “one of the lucky ones.”

“I’m missing limbs, but my mental functioning is fine,” she said.

Some Agent Orange victims do nothing but sleep, she said. Others fall ill with a slight temperature change. Still others die young, at age 10.

“Many babies, children and young people live lives of quiet agony. They are trapped in bodies that do not work. Their brains remain in infancy even as their bodies grow.

A ribbon supporting Agent Orange victims. Today, Agent Orange and dioxin, which is known to increase the risk of cancer, immune deficiency disease, and reproductive and developmental disorders, still contaminates the land and water of Vietnam.

The American Public Health Panel estimates that some 77 million liters of herbicides, including 49.3 million liters of Agent Orange containing dioxin-contaminated defoliants, were sprayed over 5.5 million acres (2.23 million hectares) in what was then South Vietnam by the United States military.

The aim was to destroy the densely wooded hiding places of the Vietnamese liberation forces.

Today, Agent Orange and dioxin, which is known to increase the risk of cancer, immune deficiency disease, and reproductive and developmental disorders, still contaminates the land and water of Vietnam.

Vietnamese medical doctor Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong told the hearing that studies she has conducted have found that up to 4.1 million Vietnamese were directly exposed to Agent Orange during the war and more than three million have suffered its effects.

Babies are exposed through their mother’s breast milk. Others have been exposed by living in or near contaminated areas called “hotspots,” such as Da Nang, where the United States had a base during the war.

The United States, which reestablished diplomatic ties with Vietnam 15 years ago, is funding a program to “remediate” dioxin at Da Nang, or burn it at ultra-high temperatures of 350 degrees Celsius (662 Fahrenheit), which causes it to vaporize.

Not doing anything would mean dioxin, which has a half-life of 100 years – meaning it will take 100 years for it to fall to half its initial strength – would still be tainting the land and people’s lives next century.

“My gosh,” said Faleomavaega, “We’ll all be dead and it’ll still be there.”

Though Hoan’s life has been marked by an event that happened decades before her birth, she insisted Agent Orange victims have to look to the future.

“We can look at the past and see the consequences of war, but we don’t want to stay in the past. We have to look to the future and see what we can do,” she told AFP.

And she added another wish to her wish-list.

“We want those responsible for the terrible consequences of Agent Orange to hear our pain and respond to us as humans,” she said, speaking not only for Vietnamese victims but for “the children and grandchildren of Americans who were exposed to Agent Orange and who are suffering like us.”

In the audience, a veteran of the Iraq war cried. Another applauded quietly.

One of the chemical companies that made Agent Orange, Dow, says on its website that manufacturers were compelled by the government to produce the herbicide.

In 2007, Dow said there was no evidence to link Agent Orange to Vietnam veterans’ illnesses.

And last year, a US embassy spokeswoman in Hanoi said there has been no internationally-accepted scientific study establishing a link between Agent Orange and Vietnam’s disabled and deformed.

Members of the French Vietnam-Dioxine Collective gather in Paris on June 18 to show their support on the same day the US Court of Appeals held a hearing in New York related to a lawsuit filed by Vietnamese victims of the chemical Agent Orange against several US chemical companies that manufactured the toxic material. Agent Orange, a dioxin-containing defoliant used during the Vietnam War, caused disfiguring birth defects, cancer, and many other health problems to those exposed.

The authors of a ten-year plan to battle the effects of Agent Orange have witnessed the first trickle of US funding and hope for more

Two children affected by Agent Orange at Peace Village in Ho Chi Minh City’s Tu Du Maternity Hospital, a home for Agent Orange victims. Despite growing declarations of goodwill from high-level US officials, funding for Vietnamese Agent Orange victims remains elusive.

The US House of Representatives has just approved a War Spending Bill which includes US$12 million for dioxin clean-up at Da Nang Airport during this fiscal year. The bill, passed on July 27, also approved an additional $13.3 billion in funding for US Veterans affected by the same chemical. The money symbolizes the first step in funding a $300 million, decade-long effort to remediate the effects of a chemical campaign waged by the US military during the Vietnam War.

“It’s a good start,” Congressman Eni Faleomavaega (D-AS), chairman of the subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment told Thanh Nien Weekly by phone. “More needs to be done.”

In June, the US-Vietnam Dialogue Group on Agent Orange and Dioxin, an independent consortium of scientists, private donors and policy-makers, issued a comprehensive ten-year action plan for the clean-up of highly toxic “hot spots” and the treatment of disabled people throughout Vietnam.

The group set a $30 million annual target to fund comprehensive restoration efforts - from the re-forestation of defoliated countryside to an improvement in the diagnosis and treatment of cancers. The hope was for the US to take the lead on the funding and spur private donations from American companies doing business in Vietnam.

The recent approval of spending signifies something of a victory for those who have worked hard to increase US funding to Agent Orange victims inside Vietnam - though it is unclear how far the money will travel. The language of the bill approves the $12 million in “assistance for Vietnam to support the remediation of dioxin contamination at the Da Nang Airport, which poses extreme risks to human health and welfare, and related health activities.”

In a release made subsequent to the approval, Susan Hammond, director of the US-based War Legacies Project wrote: “How much, if any, of the funding recently allocated will go towards the ‘related health activities’ is not yet known.” Hammond added that some analysts have estimated that the cost of cleaning up the former base alone will run to $34 million.

The airport has received a great deal of attention of late.

Early this month, a delegation of three US Senators visited the Da Nang Airport, where American soldiers once loaded more than 11 million gallons of the dioxin-laced defoliant to be sprayed all over the country. The senators then toured a local facility designed to assist deformed and disabled victims of the fat-soluble chemical. According to the US-Vietnam Dialogue group’s action plan, the American Institute of Medicine has linked dioxin to “cancers, diabetes, and nerve and heart disease among people directly and indirectly exposed, and to spina bifida among their offspring.”

Because the known carcinogen is slow to break down, it can persist in soil, ponds and streams for generations. One study in Vietnam discovered high concentrations of the chemical in fatty tissue samples taken from fish and livestock living in heavily sprayed areas.

In an interview with a Vietnamese newspaper, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) told reporters he was aiming to raise between $20-30 million for victims here, a sum that represented a tenfold increase of the $3 million annual allotment that the US had set aside in the fiscal years of 2007, 2009 and 2010. During a recent interview, Rep. Faleomavaega (D-AS) referred to the $3 million as “just a pittance.”

In response to a list of questions sent by Thanh Nien Weekly, Sen. Harkin’s staff backed away from an exact figure, and confirmed only that Harkin would “continue to seek funding” for AO victims. “Things can change,” a staffer noted in the response.

Meanwhile, at home, the US is trying to reconcile stark projections for the care of its retired soldiers and their offspring. Early this year, the US office of Veterans Affairs projected a $42.2 billion increase in domestic Agent Orange-related medical claims over the next decade.

Those affected in Vietnam have not been nearly as fortunate.

According to a report prepared last year by Michael Martin of the Congressional Research Service, much of the initial funding was spent on scientific research and did not reach Vietnamese victims. Since then, there has been greater interest in involving Vietnamese organizations in the effort. There is a hope among those involved in the process that future funding will have more of an impact on the day-to-day lives of the disabled and afflicted here.

Martin’s report closed with a suggestion that the United States could stand to benefit from more generous involvement in the Agent Orange remediation efforts: “US military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq have undermined its global image,” it said; and to restore its image, “the United States should more actively engage in ‘soft power’ exercises, such as humanitarian assistance to Vietnam to address its ‘war legacy’ problems.”

Last week, during a visit aimed at discussing regional security, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made similarly vague pledges to increase funding for Vietnamese victims.

"We"ve been working with Vietnam for about nine years to try to remedy the effects of Agent Orange,” Clinton told reporters. “I will work to increase our cooperation and make even greater progress together."

A State department spokesman declined to elaborate on any developments.

“We are increasing our funding,” P.J. Crowley told Thanh Nien Weekly. “I don’t know whether it will get to [$30 million per year].”

Phil Sparks, a spokesman for the Agent Orange in Vietnam Information Initiative, a lobbying group, said that a Senate appropriations committee has included $10 million in Vietnamese Agent Orange funding for the 2011 fiscal year. “[The $10 million] will be considered between now and the end of the year,” Sparks said.

He attributes the sudden rise in funding to the publication of the report by the US-Vietnam Dialogue Group.

“They’ve opened the dialogue,” Sparks said.

Despite a lack of firm commitments from private donors, members of the Vietnam-US Dialogue remain optimistic and hopeful.

Charles Bailey can remember arriving in Vietnam as the country liaison for the Ford Foundation in 1997, eager to take on the long-debated problem.

“It was a logjam,” Bailey said. “People [on both sides] were not allowed to talk about it for various reasons.”

Since that time, the Ford foundation has been lauded as one of the principal groups advancing the Agent Orange cause inside Vietnam. Based on figures released in the US-Vietnam Dialogue Group’s plan of action, “the Ford Foundation has provided $11.7 million in grants to develop treatments and support for affected Vietnamese, test and contain contaminated soils, restore landscapes and educate the US public and policymakers on the issue.”

Bailey said he is not concerned that no additional private funding has been committed since the plan’s publication last month: “It’s still early days.”

Bailey did stress the need for “an increased sense of urgency” on the part of policymakers and potential donor corporations.

“There’s a new spirit of hope,” he said of the atmosphere created by the publication of the action plan. “It’s good for people with disabilities; it’s good for US-Vietnam relations. It’s a window of opportunity and, as we know, windows open and they close.”

David Devlin-Foltz, director of the Advocacy Planning and Evaluation Program at the Aspen Institute (a major player in the International Dialogue group), said that he is firmly convinced of the United States’ liability in Vietnam.

On a recent visit to Da Nang Airport, Devlin-Foltz and his colleagues recounted how they had been asked to don disposable shoes to protect themselves from the toxic chemicals that continue to seep up out of the ground.

“We could see and smell how negative the impact was,” Devlin-Foltz said. Not far from where they stood, children continued to play in a pool of water.

Despite the overwhelming evidence, the US has been calling for increased research on the actual effects of the chemical on the Vietnamese population. While it has come to acknowledge 13 conditions and diseases as associated with Agent Orange exposure in its own veterans, it has not done so for those who were on the receiving end of the spraying. Devlin-Foltz has attributed the long delay in US Agent Orange money to a fear of similar claims from war victims all over the world.

“[The refusal to extend US veteran benefits to Vietnamese victims] has largely to do with concern that it could be interpreted as an admission of legal liability that could open [the US government] up to massive damage claims,” he said in a taped press conference.

Devlin-Foltz told Thanh Nien Weekly that he remains patient.

“The action plan calls for activity over a ten year period,” he said. “If it ramps up over time, that’s fine. What we are hoping to do with the [plan] is to make real change in the lives and livelihood of Vietnam.”

Farmers, lawyers baffled by provincial farmers’ association reluctance to take river polluter to task

A portion of the Thi Vai River in 2008, much of which was polluted by the illegal wastewater discharge of Taiwanese MSG manufacturer Vedan Vietnam.

Nguyen Lam Son was angry, puzzled and relieved.

His lawyer had just told him that he is likely to win a lawsuit against Vedan, the company that had destroyed his livelihood by dumping untreated wastewater into the Thi Vai River in the southern Dong Nai Province for 14 years.

“The prospects are bright. This is totally different from what I was told a week ago,” Son said.

At a meeting between some 100 representatives of 5,000 farmers from Long Thanh and Nhon Trach districts in Dong Nai on July 7, the provincial farmers’ association reiterated its stance that members stood little chance of winning a lawsuit against Vedan.

Despite the fact that province was hardest hit by the pollution caused by the Taiwanese MSG maker, the association asked affected farmers to drop the case, and continued to “negotiate” the compensation with the company.

“I was shattered by that. It seemed that we have no choice but to accept something that has already been set up,” Son told Thanh Nien Weekly.

At the July 7 meeting, all the farmers accepted that they would drop the case.

Except Son

Shrimp farmer Nguyen Lam Son of Dong Nai Province’s Nhon Trach District said he would sue Vedan on his own, despite warnings from the local farmers’ association.

“I was frustrated as the association just clung to the lack of evidence claim to talk the farmers out of pursuing the lawsuit. They kept saying that we had to present all the invoices and documents certifying that our business had suffered heavy losses due to Vedan,” Son said.

“But I would dare anyone who can find such documents as evidence. Most of the farmers in my commune are illiterate and their business transactions are based solely on mutual trust and word of mouth.”

Son, a shrimp farmer, said he decided not to drop the case because he has had enough of putting up with the “crime” Vedan has committed.

“Vedan’s crime happened right in front of me for years. Now I will never ever let them do it again,” said Son, who had been breeding shrimp by pumping water directly from the Thi Vai River since 1996.

Devious ploy

In September 2008, government inspectors found Vedan Vietnam dumping untreated wastewater into the Thi Vai River in the southern province of Dong Nai. The company had avoided detection by hiding pipes under ground and in the river, and had been discharging toxic liquids through them for 14 years, massively polluting the surroundings.

A study authorized by the Institute of Environment and Natural Resources found in December 2009 that Vedan was responsible for 77 percent of the pollution then plaguing the Thi Vai River.

The report said Vedan should compensate farmers in Dong Nai Province, Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province and Ho Chi Minh City with a total of VND1.7 trillion (US$89.2 million) for the damages it has caused, including the destruction of marine farms and damage to land crops on the banks of the river.

But the company rejected the figures about the extent of damage as “groundless”. Vedan claimed it had inspected and assessed the damage by itself and offered far less compensation than the government-sponsored study said the farmers are entitled to.

Earlier this year, farmers’ societies from HCMC, Ba Ria-Vung Tau, and Dong Nai, agreed that they would take the company to court and demand fair compensation.

Lawyer Nguyen Van Hau, who will defend HCMC farmers in the upcoming lawsuit, said he could see what Vedan was up to in trying to delay the bargaining process.

“After September 15, two years after the company was caught red-handed, if no lawsuit takes place, demanding even a penny from the company would be a tough task,” Hau said, referring to a statute of limitations.

But the Dong Nai farmers’ association made a u-turn early last month, saying it would persuade the farmers to drop the case due to lack of evidence.

The association also agreed in principle to accept “financial assistance” worth VND15 billion from Vedan without consulting the farmers.

Lawyer Hau said he found the decision of the association incomprehensible.

“I’m baffled. Dong Nai farmers are the hardest-hit and they should receive the largest support [from the association]. I just don’t understand.”

Hau said he did not think suing the Taiwanese company would be that tough.

Son’s lawyer, who wished to remain anonymous, said he has found the way out not only for Son but for other farmers hit hard by Vedan. However, he declined to spell out specific measures, saying, “Let’s just wait until we get to the court.”

The farmer’s willingness to go against the stated odds has impressed 47-year-old Hoang The Dung, another shrimp farmer in Dong Nai’s Nhon Trach District.

Dung said he would also follow Son in taking legal action against Vedan.

Dung said he was not consulted when the Dong Nai farmers’ association held a meeting on what action they should take against Vedan. “That just made me livid,” Dung said.

“I don’t trust the association anymore. I will go on my own.”

‘Certain to win’

Nguyen Van Phung, chairman of the HCMC’s farmers’ association, said he was not in a position to judge the decision of his Dong Nai counterparts.

“But I just don’t agree with them.”

Phung said he was glad that the two farmers in Dong Nai have shown their determination to take the case all the way.

“The court officials have told me that they all know about the ploy by Vedan to buy time. They urged us to expedite the process so that the court hearing could take place in time,” Phung said.

“We are certain to win.”

The Tuoi Tre newspaper quoted Nguyen Quoc Cuong, chairman of the Vietnam Farmers’ Association as saying that they would strongly support the farmers.

“Any farmers’ association should be protecting the right interests and benefits of the farmers,’ Cuong was quoted by Tuoi Tre as saying.

“Perhaps because Vedan is located in Dong Nai Province, the farmers’ association there need to take their relations with the company into consideration,” he surmised, referring to the reluctance of the local farmers’ association to pursue the case against the company.

Regulations on the trade and processing of dog meat have been awaiting government action for over a year, according to a Ho Chi Minh City animal health official.

In the meantime, the popular food item continues to pose grave public health risks.

“We are not encouraging dog meat consumption but we need regulations to ensure food safety for the current situation [dog meat demand],” Phan Xuan Thao, head of HCMC Animal Health Agency, told Thanh Nien Weekly on July 19.

A survey conducted last year by Thao’s agency identified around 175 restaurants and eateries in HCMC that served dog meat daily. At that time, the agency found up to 350 dogs were being slaughtered per day to meet city demand.

Early last year, the city’s Animal Health Agency produced draft regulations that would require strict inspections of dog processing - from the farming to the slaughtering of the animals. According to Thao, the regulations also contained stipulations on the trade of the meat.

“[Dogs killed for human consumption] must have a clear origin,” Thao said. “They must be vaccinated against rabies and other diseases and quarantined 15 days before being slaughtered,” he said.

While the regulations await action from central authorities, the industry remains largely unregulated.

In Vietnam, dog meat has long been considered a tasty drinking food with traditional health properties. A study conducted by a Thai researcher from

Chulalonkorn University estimated that as many as 30,000 dogs are trafficked from Thailand to Vietnam every month along a single road.

At the moment, Vietnamese laws only require that dogs slaughtered for consumption have a certificate of origin and proof of rabies vaccination.

However, a 2007 study by the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology showed that 20 percent of sick dogs tested in Hanoi area slaughterhouses tested positive for rabies.

Meanwhile, the city’s enforcement wing bears a heavy load.

Thao and his officials are only permitted to inspect vaccination certificates.

Inspectors at the year-old HCMC Food Safety Agency have the authority to seize dog meat from slaughterhouses and restaurants if the owners fail to produce certificates of origin. Officials from the Food Safety Agency declined to comment on their capacity or status.

Thao said the fledgling force is restructuring to more effectively enforce existing regulations.

The trafficking of Thai dogs into Vietnam appears to be a growing problem for the country, as demand for dog continues to rise. Last year, the Global Post reported that “Hanoi’s leftover Thai dogs were once re-sold in China, according to researcher Thanyathip Sipana, but now Vietnamese consumption leaves little for the Chinese.”

Meanwhile, at home, the thriving trade in the meat is only occasionally stymied by health raids which are usually prompted by outbreaks of communicable disease.

Early this month, officials from the Hanoi Department of Health closed dozens of dog restaurants and slaughterhouses in Hoai Duc and Ha Dong districts after samples of dog meat tested positive for cholera.

In response to last year’s demand for controls, the city Agriculture Department instructed HCMC’s Animal Health Agency to draft regulations on dog meat trading. The draft proposal has been submitted to the central Department of Animal Health twice in the last year and the issue continues to be batted around like a hot potato.

In February 2009, the central Department of Animal Health declined to enact national regulations on the trade, thus shifting the onus of approving the regulations back onto the HCMC People’s Committee – the city’s municipal administration.

Seven months later, in September 2009, city officials asked Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to issue nationwide regulations on trading and slaughtering dogs. The problem is too large to be managed by city officials, they intimated. This time, city officials recommended that the ministry consider limiting or banning dog meat altogether.

The ministry told Thanh Nien Weekly that they have re-submitted the request to the central Department of Animal Health – the very organization that declined to establish national regulations in the first place.

Thao says that the city has not received any feedback from the ministry so far and that an outright ban on dog meat would be unfeasible due to existing demand. He further indicated that such a ban could exacerbate smuggling, thus complicating the prospect of effective food safety management.

“I think the ministry and department [of animal health] were afraid that [a decision] would draw opposition from international organizations for human health and animal protection,” he said.

Indeed, one such organization has publicly taken credit for defeating the measure.

Animals Asia Foundation (AAF), an international nonprofit organization, claims to have been instrumental in the central government’s decision not to enact the regulations.

AAF’s website claims that the Vietnamese government solicited their opinion in February of 2009 on a plan to extend existing standards for the slaughter of “cattle, pigs and chickens” to dogs. After writing an opinion denouncing the measure, they claim, the government relented.

“Vietnam Central Department of Animal Health (DAH) issued an official directive stating that they would not enact legislation designed to regulate the processing of dog meat for human consumption,” AAF stated in a release posted on their website.

The release quotes the organization’s Vietnam Director, Tuan Bendixsen, as saying that individual localities can still attempt to enact their own regulations. “Usually they will not go against the Central Government"s directive,” he says in the release. “I"m now looking at getting the Central Government to officially ban it [dog eating] instead of just not enacting regulation.”

 For expats in Vietnam immersion is the best way to learn Vietnamese

Vincent Milliot was late, again.

“He spent at least 15 minutes trying to tell the taxi driver where to meet us,” complained his friend, Frank Picatto. “Finally the guy got it.”

Picatto didn’t understand what took so long. The fact is, his pal Milliot, a French diplomat, was practicing his Vietnamese.

Like many other expats who have just arrived in Vietnam, Milliot took every opportunity to try his hand at the language.

He is not alone.

Four expats told Thanh Nien that when they first arrived, they took language lessons at least two times per week (the price of a private lesson ranges from US$5 to $15) and sought to practice Vietnamese everywhere with everyone. But in many cases, this “fever” doesn’t last forever.

In fact, there are many expats who live in Vietnam without speaking Vietnamese.

“I think if an expat works in Vietnam for more than two years they have to study Vietnamese seriously,” said Alberto Fabeiro Linares, trade adviser of Spanish economic and commercial office in HCMC, Embassy of Spain. “My contract to work in HCMC is nine months, and at first I [studied] Vietnamese at university. Then when I tried to speak Vietnamese with people like taxi drivers, I suddenly felt like people do not understand. “English” they asked so I started speaking in English,”

Last week, Linares and his friends gathered in his apartment to watch their home team battle the Portuguese. A note pad on the door offered pointers on how to buy fruit and ask for directions. The sign offers the only trace of that initial enthusiasm to learn Vietnamese.

Alberto’s colleague, Joan Navarro, IT manager of Spanish Economic & Commercial office in HCMC agreed with him. “I studied Vietnamese for the first three months during my nine months in Vietnam. I find it is very difficult to study. I could always speak English with my friends. Now I only use Vietnamese to order food, ask for directions, and deal with money. If I lived in Vietnam for two years I would learn more.”

Joan Navarro said that he travelled from HCMC to Hanoi on train, bus, and motorbike. “These were moments that I really wished I could speak Vietnamese more than ever. During the trips to small villages, I enjoyed discovering the place but I could not speak to the people there.”

As a language with six distinct tones, Vietnamese can quickly discourage expats who work here for a short time. For those who live here for a long time, learning Vietnamese allows them to break into all aspects of Vietnamese society.

Sarah Johnson started working in HCMC two years ago as a journalist. “When I got to Vietnam, I was determined not to learn Vietnamese because at the beginning I planned to stay for just nine months,” she said. “But then I changed my mind and I found out that learning Vietnamese would make life easier. For three months, I took private lessons with a tutor. Then as I made more friends I practiced Vietnamese with them and people on the street.”

Jon Dillingham, an American editor also agreed with Sarah. For his first three years in Vietnam he kept picking up and dropping Vietnamese classes. At first, he felt very stupid for living here and not speaking the language. “You can speak English with middle and upper class people but there are so many more other people outside these classes,” Dillingham said. “At first I learned on my own and I did not pay attention to the tones and that was stupid. After two months, my tones became better. I was lucky to have lots of encouragement from my friends.”

Encouragement and help from friends are important contributing factors to learning Vietnamese. But, the main factor is you.

Chantelle Woodford is one of many expats who can speak Vietnamese quite well. When this young diplomat makes a speech in Vietnamese, she receives high praise from Vietnamese audiences.

Chantelle Woodford has been working as Vice Consul (trade, economic) to the Australian Consulate-General in HCMC for one and half years. It is her first overseas diplomatic post. She was so passionate about her job that, in her first year, she studied Vietnamese every day for three to four hours.

She says she now spends around one hour per week studying with her teacher. She makes a point of reading Vietnamese newspapers, listening the radio and watching Vietnamese TV. “Now that I can speak Vietnamese I understand people more and Vietnam is more accessible to me. I can integrate with people from all corners of life. I like to talk with children and people in the market and school.”

Woodford says she is a long way away from fully understanding Vietnamese culture but speaking the language is an essential tool.

 Marc Moynot, 66, in his HCMC chocolate lab in Tan Binh District

Marc Moynot, 66, stands in the garden of the French General Consulate during a Bastille Day celebration.

The little old man’s soft, gentle face seems to disappear behind his trove of handmade chocolates. They are white and black, milky and dark. Some have the yielding texture of truffles. Others feature firm shells that burst open to yield tropical bonanzas: passion fruit jam, orange peel marmalade and kumquat liqueur.

Cinnamon and other piquant spices swirl through the buttery softness of these little marvels and a je ne sais quoi that is distinctly Vietnamese.

The following day, I decided to trek out to the small workshop he shares with his Vietnamese partner and her two children out in Ho Chi Minh City’s sprawling Tan Binh District.

The intoxicating aroma of 50 kilos of chocolate almost knocks me out as I step through the door of 27 Nguyen Van Mai Street – Moynot’s home and the headquarters of Astair Chocolates private company. The ground floor of the private home features Moynot’s neat laboratory. Shelf after shelf of pots and trays line the walls. The slight man slinks along a long stainless steel table and goes to work.

Moynot’s production team consists solely of his partner, Nguyen Thi Mai Huong, her two children and a maid. Together, the crew is endlessly experimenting with new fillings based on distinctly Vietnamese flavors - white honey from Da Lat, kumquat, mango, peppercorns.

The nose knows

Laurent Severac has made a living scouring Vietnam for thrilling smells. For the past 16 years, the stout Frenchman has tromped through the nation’s forests in search of seeds, leaves and aromatic woods that delight the senses. He makes his livelihood distilling his finds into essential oils and selling them to Western perfume designers.

For this olfactory epicure, Moynot’s chocolate is sui generis.

Last year, Severac ordered around 200 boxes of kumquat chocolates to give to friends and clients for the Lunar New Year. “Marc’s chocolate surprises me most with its purity and simplicity,” Severac said. “I’ve been in Asia for 22 years. Every time I come home, my father asks me to bring him two things: Tiger Balm and Astair chocolates.”

When Severac tries to slip a French-made truffle to his staff in Hanoi, they turn up their noses.

“I prefer chocolates from your friend in Saigon,” they say.

Moynot has agreed to customize chocolates to suit Severac’s thirst for Vietnamese flavors. In his small lab, he’s whipped up fillings derived from ingredients harvested in the mountains of the north: star anise, wild pepper, and wild ginger – to name just a few. “They are simply the best I’ve eaten in my life,” Severac said.

Moynot B.C. (before chocolate)

The master candy man once made his living as an Apline guide, leading ski trips, forays and search parties into the mountains in Savoir, France. He was busiest during the snow-packed four- month winter season. The rest of the year was slow and Moynot got by on taking tourists hiking and camping.

In 1993, he decided to visit Vietnam on a one-month holiday.

After returning to France, he was determined to change his life. In 1995, he moved to HCMC and took a teaching job. He didn’t care much for the work and toyed with the idea of becoming a water sports instructor in Mui Ne. During the transition, Moynot’s friend, a successful HCMC caterer tried his two standby dessert recipes: chocolate mousse and dark chocolate truffles.

His friend was blown away.

“I had these two recipes when I was in France,” Moynot says. “I learned them from a box of chocolate.”

The apprentice

Moynot’s caterer friend helped him import ingredients and supplies from France. Seeking further guidance, Moynot approached Serge Rigaredin, the former head chef of Sofitel Saigon Hotel, to learn more chocolate recipes. (Rigaredin has since returned to France and could not be reached for this article).

The budding chocolatier felt very lucky at the time. “Serge Rigaredin was a very kind, skillful and devoted teacher,” said Moynot. “He also loaned me several good books.”

In 2001, the standard for chocolate was fairly low in southern Vietnam; Moynot worked hard to change that.

Around the same time, he met his partner in Da Lat. Soon after the meeting, the two began making chocolate together. Huong said that it was difficult to enter the field at the time. Step by step, she added, things became easier.

After a few months their chocolates were being served at some of the finest restaurants and hotels in HCMC.

A tiny, happy empire

After nine years, Moynot’s empire is confined solely to the four walls of his little lab.

He has played a role in every aspect of his operation. He sketched out a design for the heated cauldron he uses to mix the chocolate and built the device he uses to cut wrapping paper.

His major problem has been marketing. “When I started I had very little money for marketing but I am conscious that we need a marketing team for our chocolate,” he said. “Many of the hotels in HCMC make their own chocolate these days.”

Moynot still takes orders from luxury hotels, but he’s on the lookout for new customers across Vietnam. Though he sometimes finds himself pining for the quiet of the Alpine forests, he remains a satisfied man in busy HCMC.

“I have a happy family here and I make something that other people like,” he said.

Inquiry follows wave of Agent Orange interest in wake of Senators’ visit

Tran Thi Hoan, 23, with her friends at Peace Village in Ho Chi Minh City’s Tu Du Maternity Hospital, a home for Agent Orange victims. Hoan, who was born without two legs and a hand due to her mother’s dioxin exposure, is testifying about the plight of Vietnamese Agent Orange victims at the US House of Representatives this week.

The United States House of Representatives is set to hear the testimony of the first Vietnamese Agent Orange victim to ever speak on capital hill this week.

Tran Thi Hoan, a 23-year-old 2nd generation victim told Thanh Nien Weekly her testimony on July 15th would focus on the agonies she and her peers have suffered, “and the aspirations of Vietnamese Agent Orange victims to be fully redressed by the US government and chemical companies.”

Hoan’s testimony coincides with a rising tide of US interest in Vietnam and its estimated 3 million Agent Orange victims. Hoan was born without a hand and both legs, which doctors have attributed to her mother’s exposure to Agent Orange.

According to an article written by Charles Bailey, Director of the Ford Foundation’s Special initiative on Dioxin/Agent Orange: “Between 1961 and 1971, the US sprayed close to 20 million gallons of Agent Orange and other herbicides over 10 percent of what was then South Vietnam.” Bailey added that the chemicals contained Dioxin, defined as a “persistent organic pollutant that even in tiny amounts (parts per trillion) can seriously harm the health of anyone exposed and potentially their offspring and future generations.”

Nearly 50 years later, members of the US government are stepping forward and taking ownership of the act.

“We as a country and a government formulated this policy of using this chemical toxic substance to supposedly fight the war in Vietnam only to find out that the consequences were just unbelievable,” Congressman Eni Faleomavaega (D -Am. Samoa) chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment told Thanh Nien Weekly.

Faleomavaega used the words “chemical warfare” to describe the US spraying campaign.

The Congressman was stationed with the US Army in Nha Trang from 1967-68. He summoned the first congressional hearing on Agent Orange that included the US-Vietnam dialogue group in 2008. He called another in 2009. In this third hearing, members of the House will come face to face with the consequences of the spraying.

“When I see these children in the hospital there in Vietnam who are deformed, it’s almost like being exposed to nuclear radiation in a way,” he said.

Rep. Faleomavaega is the second US official in two weeks to acknowledge a direct moral obligation on behalf of the US government to increase aid to Vietnamese Agent Orange victims.

The Samoan Congressman was unaware that a group of three US Senators had visited Vietnam last week and toured Agent Orange treatment centers in and around Da Nang.

During the delegation’s visit, the Tuoi Tre newspaper reported that Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Ia.) expressed a desire to raise the current allotment of $3 million to $20-30 million.

“[What] I want to do is to get the money for the compensation for the same illnesses here as we are doing in the US,” he was quoted as saying.

In an e-mail, Sen. Harkin’s staff said they could not commit to a specific number. “Sen. Harkin is working hard to increase funding,” a spokesperson said.

Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and AL Franken (D-Minn.), who accompanied Harkin to Vietnam last week, declined repeated requests for comment on the nature of their trip and plans for future action.

During the fiscal year of 2007, Congress approved $3 million for Vietnamese Agent Orange victims. The amount was approved again in 2009 and 2010.

“This 3 million is just pittance,” Rep. Faleomavaega said. “I really hope that we’re gonna see what we can do to increase our efforts.”

Both Harkin and Faleomavaega independently praised the work of the Ford Foundation, a charitable organization that has worked to develop a $300 million clean-up plan with the US – Vietnam Dialogue Group on Agent Orange/Dioxin. The plan requires funding largely by the US government –money that has yet to arrive.

“I don’t know where this is going to end up,” said Rep. Faleomavaega. “I’m just doing the best I can. Hopefully there will be members who will see the rightness of the issue and say we just need to correct it that’s all.”

Dr. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong, who will testify alongside Hoan and was the first Vietnamese citizen to speak on the issue before congress in 2008, said the money that comes into Vietnam for Agent Orange assistance needs to be used properly.

“The money should be directed to Vietnamese NGOs for better distribution. As far as I understand, the already meager assistance has been trimmed by US NGOs tasked with bringing the money to Vietnam,” said the former president of HCMC-based Tu Du Maternity Hospital and current vice chair of the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin (VAVA). Phuong has conducted extensive research on the impact of Agent Orange on breast milk in Vietnam.

“Imagine how much Vietnamese Agent Orange victims would receive given the fact that such [US] NGOs often come to Vietnam in large delegations and stay in five-star hotels.”

SHOW ME THE MONEY

Congressman Faleomavaega was the first to hold a hearing on Agent Orange that included the Vietnamese government. He served in the US Army from 1967-8 and was the first Asian-American in the history to chair a sub-committee on Asia and the Pacific.

In 1989 he was elected to Congress by the people of American Samoa. They have been re-electing him ever since.

During an extensive interview with Thanh Nien Weekly, Congressman Faleomavaega spoke on a range of issues, excerpted below.

We’re gonna spend another $100 billion on the 100,000 soldiers we’ve got on the ground in Afghanistan. And we’re right in the middle of saying, are we justified, does this smell of Vietnam again?

... Every time I read about the billions and billions of dollars that have been wasted on the war on Iraq and out of Afghanistan... that really burns me up, you know?

... We can’t account for billions and billions and we can’t spend a few million to alleviate [Agent Orange]? Billions and billions we can’t even account for? Give me a break. That’s not right.

In my review of the situation, this started under the Kennedy Administration, these major chemical companies like Monsanto... They pointed the finger at the Department of Defense. They are both responsible for what happened.

... What makes it worse is that this didn’t go on for a few months, it went on for close to 10 years!

... I have to put the ball squarely on the pentagon and those officials who conducted the war effort are responsible for what happened.

A Son Dong sage passes on the art of Chinese calligraphy

The 69-year-old retired farmer and veteran Nghiem Quoc Dat practices writes Chinese calligraphy, which is helpful for people to perfect their character

Every Sunday afternoon, nearly a hundred students gather to listen to the teachings of Nghiem Quoc Dat.

On a recent afternoon, the old man sat in the cramped quarters of his living room—his former classroom. A blousy kerchief hangs from the slight 69 year-old man’s neck like a flag. A large plush blazer ruffles against his narrow shoulders as he paints the beautiful tapered lines of a single Chinese character.

Dat, a retired farmer and former soldier, is perhaps his village’s most vital mind.

Five years ago, he began teaching the lost art of Chinese calligraphy. “I principally began doing this because I wanted the children in my family to carry on our traditional love of learning,” Dat says. “But, what’s more, my village is famous for its lacquered boards and wood panels which are all engraved with the complex characters. The younger generation needs to know about this so they can preserve the village’s traditional trade.”

Located some 25 kilometers from Hanoi, Son Dong Village has long been a home to craftsmen and artisans. The town boasts a number of Confucian scholars still capable of rendering and interpreting the nearly 4,000 year-old pictorial alphabet.

The characters first appeared in Vietnam in the first century BC.

Because the language is character-based (each word is represented by a symbol that must be memorized to be understood) it requires intense study to master. Modern Chinese dictionaries contain more than 47,000 symbols; a “literate” adult may only know between 3,000-4,000.

Portuguese missionaries began developing the current Romanized script in Vietnam in the 16th century to advance evangelical efforts. By the late 19th century, the Chinese alphabet had all but disappeared.

Since then the art has been carried only by artisans and scholars.

Startled by the possibility of its disappearance, Dat consulted the small educational board chaired by his extended family (the Nghiem clan). They encouraged him unanimously to begin teaching at the end of 2006.

The old man shelled out a huge chunk of his meager monthly pension to buy ink and brushes for his students.

He refused to accept any money from the children’s families and cleared out his 25 square-meter living room to make space for students.

The first class was made up entirely of Nghiem kids. He called it Sao Khue, after the Chinese astrological constellation that has served as symbol of art and literature in Chinese and Vietnamese culture.

Dat had no teaching experience when he began his Sunday lectures. But he soon found himself peppering his lessons with poems, puzzles and stories. The old scholar’s lessons don’t merely focus on the technical aspects of classical calligraphy. When teaching a given character, he inevitably delves into its complex Confucian meaning. For example, the symbol for “rest” combines the symbol for “man” and “tree.” Thus, a man sitting near a tree is deemed to be at rest.

His method worked. The floor of Dat’s living room swelled with students crowding onto the floor. He was forced to cap classes at 20 pupils until a local secondary School principal offered him the use of a classroom.

Dat believes in the old Vietnamese adage: net chu net nguoi - literally, “handwriting reveals your character”.

Dat’s tutelage has won praise from satisfied parents.

“We all know that Dat has a profound knowledge and, more than that, lots of personality,” said Van Thi Duyen whose ten-year-old son attends the old teacher’s class. “We all love watching naughty children improve under Dat’s moral guidance.”

In addition to kids, Dat’s classes are frequented by teachers, artisans, farmers, and Buddhist priests who attend whenever they can. Shocked by their dedication, Dat tends to gush when speaking about his pupils.

In some cases, it seems as though the old man’s calligraphy lessons have given some men a new hope in life.

“Tien is a war invalid,” Dat said. “But for the past two years he has driven his three-wheeler some 20 kilometers to come to class. He used to be a hot-tempered man but after a while in my class, he has developed a patience that extends into all things.”

Nguyen Phuc Hiep was born to a poor family in Dong La Village— some 15 kilometers away. Though he loved to learn, Hiep had to leave school to begin working at the age of 13. He now works on construction site and is one of Sao Khue’s top students.

“Studying calligraphy is very interesting,” said Hiep, who enrolled in the class three years ago. “Besides studying the meanings behind each character, I’ve fallen in love with the act of writing them. I really enjoy every lesson and want to organize a class to teach people in my village”

Several Sao Khue alumni have gone on to pursue calligraphy professionally. Thrilled by their success, Dat has no plans of stopping. “I still want more students,” he says. “I will continue to teach free until my health forces me to stop. The biggest reward for me is seeing my students absorbed in their work.”

Farmers whose lives have been ruined by pollution in the Thi Vai River are not going away, and neither are their demands that Vedan pay for the damages in full

Farmers in Thanh An Commune, an impoverished area on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City that is still reeling from 14 years of pollution from an upstream Vedan factory that destroyed sea stocks and crops

Nguyen Xuan Ty said he might as well have died several years ago along with the section of the Thi Vai River killed off by Vedan’s secret and illegal discharge of untreated wastewater.

In 2003, upon learning that his stocks of clam and blood cockle had been all but wiped out by the pollution, Ty had no idea what he would do.

“I was at a loss. I was just kneeling down [in front of the dead stocks]. It was sheer luck that I didn’t commit suicide,” Ty told Thanh Nien Weekly.

The water in which he bred his animals, mostly clams and cockle, in Ho Chi Minh City’s Thanh An Commune had been seriously polluted since 1999, Ty said. As Vedan had already paid out compensation to local farmers whose stocks it damaged with pollution in 1996, residents had been suspicious of the Taiwanese firm. But they couldn’t prove their claims with evidence until a decade later.

In September 2008, Vedan Vietnam, the Taiwanese monosodium glutamate (MSG) maker, was caught by government inspectors dumping its untreated wastewater into the Thi Vai River in the southern Dong Nai Province. The company had avoided detection by hiding pipes deep in the river, and had been sending toxic liquids through those pipes for 14 years, inspectors found.

An Environment Ministry-authorized study by the Institute of Environment and Natural Resources found in December 2009 that Vedan was responsible for 90 percent of the pollution then plaguing the Thi Vai River.

The 2009 report indicated that Vedan should compensate farmers in Dong Nai Province, Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province and Ho Chi Minh City with a total of VND1.7 trillion (US$89.2 million) for the damages it had caused, including the destruction of sea farms and damages to land crops on the banks of the river.

But the company has dismissed the damage figures presented by the institute as groundless. Vedan already inspected and assessed the damage by itself and has offered compensation far less than the government-sponsored study said the farmers are entitled to.

The waiting game

The Institute of Environment and Natural Resources concluded that Thanh An Commune in HCMC’s Can Gio District, 60 kilometers to the southeast of the Vedan plant at the mouth of the Thi Vai River, had been hit by Vedan’s wastewater. Despite the severe damages to the area, the level of pollution there was low compared to the most affected areas, the institute said.

“I don’t know how serious the pollution is. I just know it had completely annihilated my stocks in 2003,” Ty from Thanh An Commune said.

Ty lost around VND1.3 billion he had invested in 2003 alone and has been in heavy debt since. His only income now is from a small sweet soup eatery in the commune.

Many other locals in the commune whose meal ticket used to be fishing and breeding seafood have also switched to other jobs to eke out a living, said Le Hong Phuc, chairman of the Thanh An Commune Farmers’ Society.

The commune is one of the five poorest in Can Gio District and among the 20 most impoverished in HCMC.

Thanh An Commune locals had filed complaints about the suspected pollution caused by Vedan for years before 2008, when the company was caught red-handed, Phuc said.

But they’ve been waiting in vain.

“The farmers have had enough of waiting for the compensation,” Phuc said. “Vedan said the pollution level was not that serious and they had assessed the damage by themselves. But we have never ever seen a single Vedan official come here to ‘assess.’”

Thanh An farmers have demanded compensation totaling around VND46 billion. Vedan said in a statement to the HCMC government that it would only pay VND7 billion.

Elsewhere, farmers in the provinces of Ba Ria-Vung Tau and Dong Nai, where the pollution level is concluded to be much more serious than that in Thanh An Commune, are also destined for the same fate as Vedan has been offering only one-fifth of the claim to Ba Ria-Vung Tau and less than one-one-hundredth of the claim to Dong Nai.

Now or never

Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet said during a meeting with locals in HCMC’s Cu Chi District on June 24 that the government would not tolerate any pollution activities of any company in the country

Triet pointed to the Vedan case.

“The US$20 billion BP pledged to compensate for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill could not bail the company out of the public outcry all over the world. The crime Vedan had caused to the Vietnamese people was much more serious than just a pollution crime.”

Earlier this month, Environment Minister Pham Khoi Nguyen indicated that the government was determined to press criminal charges against major polluters in the country.

“We’ve backed into a corner in terms of protecting the environment and it’s time for strict measures against those who try to cover up acts of pollution,” he said.

Lawyer Nguyen Van Hau, the legal consultant for Thanh An Commune farmers in the Vedan case, said everything is ready for the lawsuit he plans to file at the Can Gio District People’s Court later this month.

“They [Vedan] have defied not just the affected farmers. They have challenged the public and the country as well,” Hau told Thanh Nien Weekly.

Hau said he would first propose that HCMC farmers boycott all Vedan products at a meeting with the municipal farmers’ society on July 2.

Farmers in Ba Ria-Vung Tau and Dong Nai have also indicated their determination to bring the case to court, according to local media reports.

Hopes for justice

Wayne Lewis, a HCMC-based environment consultant, said he was convinced that the lawsuit would deliver solid results, given the national support behind the farmers.

[The impact of the environment pollution] here is far greater than it would be anywhere else in the world because there is no infrastructure in Vietnam for waste management,” Lewis said.

“What do Vietnamese people think about foreign companies coming over here and polluting your country? What do you feel if those major polluters are coming to kill your people, and to maim and deform your children?”

Ty of Thanh An Commune said he was also ready for the lawsuit.

“I will go to the end of it, it could be my last chance,” Ty said.

“I only hope justice will be done.”

A young barber from Kim Lien Village cuts a customer’s hair in an open air barber shop

The next time you need a haircut in Hanoi, eschew the high-end, luxurious salons.

Instead, make your way to Kim Lien Village (Phuong Lien Ward, Dong Da District) just a twenty minute amble from Lenin Park.

If you’re lucky you’ll find a barber from the century-long birthplace of the nation’s barbers. If you’re not in the mood to wander, take my Uncle Minh’s advice and go see Pham Duy Hao. “He’s not only a good barber,” Minh told me. “He’s a cute, funny, little guy.”

Nestled behind the cluttered clothing clothes stalls in Kim Lien’s second-hand market, Duy Hao Hairdressing Shop doesn’t bear any outward signs of belonging to a local master. But once Hoa’s scissors are out and snipping, Hoa will unfold Kim Lien Village’s great legacy like a hot towel.

“I am the third generation in my family doing this work,” Hao said, as he worked. “My grandfather Pham Duy Hien was among the first barbers in Kim Lien Village; he opened the first barber shop in Hanoi nearly a century ago when he was just 19-year-old.”

Hao swelled through the tiny shop as he recalled his ancestral past. “My grandfather’s skill brought him the great honor of an invitation from King Bao Dai to come to his citadel in Hue and work as the private barber for the royal family,” he said. “The king was so pleased with his skill that he took my grandfather with him on all his trips, even abroad. Thanks to the king, my grandfather earned enough to buy a big house and provide a rich life for his family in Hanoi.”

After some political upheavals, Hao’s grandfather left the palace and opened a chain of lucrative barber shops on Hang Quat and Hang Dao streets. He soon became the man to see about a haircut.

Hao can recall his grandfather belonging to a dapper circle of barbers who dressed like silent film heartthrobs. They wore felt hats, smoked wooden pipes, and maintained meticulous bi-bop hairdos in the style of King Bao Dai – imagine a sort of slicked-back mini-pompadour sans height.

While Hanoi’s famous barber class enjoys numerous stars, no one knows precisely who pioneered it all.

“According to Tu Hinh, who used to be a famous barber and now is tending the village’s pagoda, no one knows who the ancestor of our hairdressing trade is,” Hao said.

Hao introduced Thanh Nien Weekly to a pair of veteran barbers. These old-timers said that in feudal times, when Vietnamese men twisted long, luxurious hair into chignons, Kim Lien Village became the place to come for a shave.

Most of this work was done out of the home, Mau and Hien agreed. In their eyes, the trade took off with the arrival of the French at the end of the 19th century.

“The French guys brought scissors or clippers,” 84-year-old Nguyen Van Mau remembered. “They heard about us and came to instruct us on the use of these new tools. Some of our Vietnamese customers were gradually influenced by their style.”

Sixty-nine-year-old Nguyen Duc Hien is one of the few veteran barbers still working now. He clearly recalls the heyday of Kim Lien’s barbers. “When the French came, we started to open a lot of shops in Cot Co Street to serve them,” Hien recalled. “These foreign clients were very finicky. Before working on their hair, we had to clean every tool with boiling water and alcohol. They wanted their ears covered with cotton and asked to have scented water sprayed on their hair. When finished, they demanded that not a trace of hair be left on their clothes.”

Because most of their customers were French and aristocratic Vietnamese, Kim Lien barbers at that time all learned to speak some French. “Thanks to the high standard of these foreign customers, we always strove to become perfect barbers with professional manners. These demands made Kim Lien barbers famous throughout the country,” Mau added.

Beyond all the pomp, Hien says it was their sense of humor that really hooked the city’s elite. “Besides learning hair design, we had to figure out how to make our customers feel at ease. We told jokes and funny stories while we cut their hair,” he said. “Our customers came from different cultures and varied economic and social positions; we had to learn how to be able to talk to all of them.”

From the early 1950s to the late 1960s, Kim Lien’s hairdressing trade hit its peak. The town’s barbers enjoyed so much renown, they were able to leave Hanoi and establish businesses based on their hometown’s reputation. In the capital, barbers grouped themselves into a collective managed by Hao’s father.

“I started helping my father at his barber-shop when I was just a kid,” Hao remembered. “Anyone who wanted to work there had to pass an entrance exam and attend a course. I aced the first course, but I had to pass a few advanced placement exams to become a first-class barber – the highest-paid honor.”

Hao looks much younger than his fifty-plus years. His short hair is streaked with ruby-red highlights and quick, delicate hands. He carries a fanciful, stylish air about himself. Hoa says he needs just an instant to determine what haircut you need. Today, Hao is free to improvise with hair and take his time experimenting. He remembers a time when he served around 30 customers per eight-hour shift. “At that time everyone wanted the same haircut,” Hao said. “If we were inspired by a beautiful face and added a few flourishes, they docked our pay.”

As the capital continues to open up to the global economy, Kim Lien’s youth has its sights set on white-collar work. Many of them have turned away from their ancestors’ trade.

“In the 1970s and 1980s, 80 percent of our village was still doing the job,” Hao said. “Now that figure has shrunk to around 10 percent (about 200 people).”

The remaining barbers have had to equip their shops with modern tools and techniques to meet evolving customer demands. Yesterday’s barbers are now known as hair designers. Gone are the men who would arrive at your door carrying their wooden toolboxes offering a simple shave.

Now they are confined to open sidewalk stalls struggling to continue their line.

This spring, Kim Lien’s remaining barbers went head-tohead in an exciting hair design competition. The event was held to honor their traditional trade and encourage young people to follow in their ancestors’ footsteps.

A hairdressers club was also introduced on this occasion.

The chairman of Phuong Lien Ward’s People’s Committee, Bui Minh Hoang, has expressed a desire to preserve the barbers in Kim Lien. Hoang personally called on villagers to organize the competition. When we asked what he would do next, the young chairman said that he wanted to have a small street here dedicated to the preservation of the town trade.

Veteran barber Pham Duy Hao says he’s willing to open a class to teach the traditional job to the next generation.