From Switzerland to Viet Naam, overland, 2005.

Part Eight: Cua Lo 26th Feb A one-day trip to Ha Long Bay I bought a couple of cards of this world-famous site, but personally all I saw was mist, fog and the other tourists at the end of our boat ; all I heard was a continuing soundtrack of a 1950s B movie. But what I felt was really surprising calm, a permanent smile on my face, the absolute certainty that I knew the dialogue which ever way the scene was to be played. Perhaps it was because of the mist, but I wasnt even tempted to whisper a recording while we were on the water All the other members of my 4x4 were staying on for Sunday, but I had to get back tonight, because were leaving for Cua Lo tomorrow. Today will be a day to relive and savour : not at all what I expected, quite a different kind of magic. ************** Sunday, 27th February 2005 Ive packed up half of my belongings and left them with Natalie. Surely it will be a little warmer in Cua Lo ? This morning I went to have my eyes tested and will pick up the glasses when I come back from Cua Lo. Theyll be ready at 3 this afternoon, but we leave from the Training Center at 1400hrs. I also got measured for a suit ! Bottle green English worsted : jacket waisted and draped to mid thigh, semi-Regency style ; a second pair of trousers in grey worsted. Ill have a fitting the day after I come back to H Ni. Now were having lunch at Little Hanoi. Then Natalie has an appointment in her room with three DVDs... and Costa and I have to meet up with Mssrs Van and Quang at the Training Center ************** 28th Feb 05 So we arrived in Cua Lo last night after a hair-raising drive from H Ni. Hairraising for lots of reasons... The Viet Naamese have a siesta after lunch... like the Italians used to. Those of them coming with us to Cua Lo had their siesta in the car and, as we left just before two o'clock, they were all falling asleep. And so was our driver, regularly. Which, as I said, was rather hair-raising... But, anyway, after 6hrs we arrived down here in Cua Lo which is a holiday resort where the VTV Training Center has a hotel. I think that just about any holiday resort I've been to out of season is a sad, sad, sad place. I haven't had time to go down to the beach yet, so I only have information from Marcus who's been here for four days already. He said that on Thursday there was a dead dog on the beach, which disappeared on Friday, but got washed back again on Saturday... so perhaps we shouldn't expect too much. When we arrived last night, Costa, Marcus and I popped out for a quick beer and a little natter ... after we had had dinner and Costa and I had had to completely change our programmes for this morning (which will start in half an hour, at 9 o'clock) because the profiles of many of the participants left a lot to be desired.

So my two weeks in Cua Lo are about to begin... and we shall see what we shall see. They all - 'all' the TC trainers- want money from outside sources and more, newer technology... but I really want to make it clear to them that I'm NOT here to talk about technology; it's about the grey matter upstairs, and how you make the most of whatever technology you have at your disposal. Now I'm going to the top floor to join the participants and TC staff in an informal tea (and perhaps coffee) ceremony. ************** First impressions do make a big impact; as we all know, it's tremendously difficult to remove those first impressions, which is why sometimes relationships with people get off to a bad start. I can look out of my apartment window on the 4th floor, next to the director (I think it has something to do with my age), and there's a superb swimming pool down there in the courtyard; a full-length pool, but... If you can imagine a fish pond that hasn't been looked after, where the water is dark green, the sides of the pond are stained... The garden itself, I'm sure, in season, will be absolutely magnificent. But again it's this really sad thing of looking out of windows in holiday resorts out of season. I must have done at least a dozen films in similar locations: holiday resorts out of season - and there was always this sense of sadness, loss, emptiness... And we, the cast, invariably had to recreate the gaiety of high season, which was incredibly energy-consuming. But I haven't come here to perform, and I don't have any other members of the cast with whom I can create a lively, happy atmosphere. I got side-tracked again. I was talking about looking out of the window and seeing all these hotels, with nobody around: I mean, our hotel is working basically because it's a training centre, but in the other hotels there's nothing doing. According to Marcus, in season, Cua Lo is the prostitution Centre of Viet Naam. North, south, or all of it, I don't know. I hope to walk down to the beach at lunchtime. It's not raining, but it's dripping wet outside. At least it's warmer than it was, but it's not terribly... what's the word I'm trying to think of... inspiring... We shall see. ************** 1st March 2005 It's Tuesday evening, we've had our 2nd solid day of viewing and discussion. We saw one superb film from a young film-maker. I certainly want to do whatever I possibly can for him. His film, unfortunately, is 42 minutes long, which doesn't fit into any recognised format. Because it's so well edited, it would be a major task to re-edit or (worse) cut the film. This will be a huge stumbling block for when/if Viet Naam wants to export TV programmes: there is absolutely no standardisation of length, whereas we DEMAND standard lengths to fit into schedule formats. So it's not an artistic problem, but purely commercial. The Vietnamese (and Chinese) are obviously

quite happy to sit for 3hrs watching a documentary; I think WE have frittered away our concentration span for the sake of instant gratification - and we've done it at our peril. On the basis of: "Tell'em what you're going to tell'em. Tell'em. Then tell'em what you told'em", I have tried to impress on participants what they need to do in order to EXPORT, but that there is no need whatsoever to change what they know works wonderfully in and for the home market. The film that I mentioned, by Mr Lam, has all the hallmarks of 'Discovery Channel', which he admits he watches whenever he can. But I wonder how long he will remain a 'Viet Naamese film-maker', because he obviously sees his future elsewhere. Terrific potential. A very nice, charming young man. But I see him falling foul of the decision-makers put in place by the party. ************** Cua Lo, which is 300Kms south of H Ni. From what I understand, I'm now the only western person here. In the whole of the area. It's a summer resort. The hotel where we're doing the courses is in fact a hotel for Viet Naamese TV employees during the summer, while out of season it's used as a training centre. Cua Lo. A small town, with a front very much like Venice Lido... The first time I went down there the other day, the beach was filthy (and I told you Marcus' story about the dead dog). But today, the sun is out. Yesterday evening the sun was out and today the sun is out... and people are working like ants. Obviously preparing for the season. I've now given my participants a different theme for their 14 minute documentaries, the theme being "Low Season in a Beach Resort", so it will be interesting how they approach that: home consumption v. tourist info. Let's get things into proportion, because so many things would be inconceivable back home: at the end of last summer season, there were 10 Internet cafes in Cua Lo, which is pretty impressive by western standards. Now, and we are are still pre-season, there are 54 Internet cafes ! And from what I've seen between 11.30 and 1.30 or 2 o'clock, the lunch + siesta time, these Internet cafes are full -mostly with youngsters wearing headsets (mikes and earphones), either online gaming or chatting to friends... often 'friends' sitting in the same room that perhaps they don't actually approach in real life. Oh yes, and one thing that any of you who come over here will have to get used to is... the arguments going on and the comments being made, as the people standing behind you are interpreting and trying to read your Email. It was an unforgettable experience the first time this happened: I was reading a message from home, quietly in my head, while a very young female 'voiceover' somewhere behind me was in perfect sync with my reading ! But once you get over the normal reticence which most of us have, it really is rather fun. I'm glad I've moved into the spirit of it. They are charming, warm, kind people. They really are. ************** As I said before, the people are charming, warm and kind. Bureaucracy... any forms of bureaucracy that I've come across, anyway, are a pain in the whatsits, they really are. At the same time, I got very pissed off with the European Delegation people for complaining about the corruption here

in Viet Naam... and their general attitude to what they -the French-speakersrefer to as the 'South', 3rd World or Developing World to other people, where corruption is rife. After what's been going on in Bruxelles and Strasbourg and all stations East, West and South of the European Union, I don't think they really have a leg to stand on as far as corruption is concerned. Are we going to have a debate about 'Our corruption is better than your corruption'? I really hope not. But one thing that is absolutely certain here, is that, dealing individual to individual, it's wonderful: they are really lovely, lovely people... they are. Those who were put in place as part of the bureaucracy are virtually impossible to deal with. They have the usual cut-out of: "Oh, I can't make a decision, I have to talk to Mr X, or Miss Y (though usually mister) and the result can become more than frustrating. But asking someone to do something for you or with you, where they don't need permission from anybody else, you find that they'll do anything for you. When you're dealing with these youngsters who sit behind me, or stand behind me... or DANCE behind me while I'm trying to get my Email in the Internet cafe round the corner... well, yesterday evening, they were smiling and giggling and laughing, and I had one who said: "Would you like my older sister? Would you like my younger sister? Would you like me?" But done and said with such charm... it isn't graft! I'd begun to wonder whether prostitution as such, in this country, or here in the north, was in fact anything to do with crime, anything to do with organised crime as we think of it in other countries. Because... even when you say: "No thank you. Thank you very much." It's taken absolutely lightly and nicely. The little girl who asked me last night, as I sat in front of the computer (because they are quite slow and occasionally it takes ages for a screen to load) I spoke to her mother who was there and she brought me a little pot of tea -a little tea ceremony around the Internet- oh and yes... the girl herself and her younger sister were both in school uniform... which you could interpret quite unpleasantly, considering the amount of European sexual tourism that goes on... As Cua Lo has the reputation of being the centre of prostitution in Viet Naam, one of the briefs that I gave to the 4 groups of documentary-makers this morning was to find out what the girls do out of season: those who carry on working... are some of them nurses, schoolteachers, town councillors...? Do they bring people in from the local neighbourhood, do they come from H Ni, do they come from all over Viet Naam for the season? I have no idea, but perhaps they can find out. There are a lot of questions like that: what do farmers do? What do the fishermen do, in and out of season? And these schoolchildren... how does life change for them in season when the place is full of tourists? The building that's going on here! I can imagine someone who came to Cua Lo last year not even recognising it this year. The number of buildings which are going up... looking out of my window here... all along the front. It's a tremendous boom. (see photos on Smugmug.) If they really copy their Chinese neighbours, we're all in for a hell of a shock. If you're a smoker and intend to go to Beijing, consider giving up smoking before you leave home! You'll find 'No Smoking' signs just about everywhere.

All throughout the Forbidden City: 'No Smoking' ... Out in the streets, in Beihai Park... There were notices in my hotel about ecology, about not wasting water, about only changing your towels and bed linen when you really think it's necessary, rather than automatically expecting it every day. Now, whether this is something in general for the future, or whether it's something being emphasised because of the Olympic Games in Beijing, I don't know, but it's a huge, huge change. And Mr Bush and the Bush Babies are going to find themselves further and further out on a limb, if China puts its considerable weight behind the next Son/Daughter of Kyoto protocol, because, unless the US declares war on India & China and lays waste to the continent, they're in a 'no win' situation. The future's bright, the future's orange... and brown and yellow and black. But once again I've rambled off the point. The reason why I'm using the internet cafes is because, although this hotel belongs to Viet Naamese Television, it doesn't actually have any connections to the web... anymore than does the Training Center in H Ni -Trung, my translator, has to take his laptop out of the TC and across the road to an Internet cafe. (He tells me that they hope to have a link sometime next year. Given the amazing proliferation that I've seen here, the reason for the lack can only be political). ************** At the risk of being boring, I have to repeat my observation of the warmth and kindness I find around me. The people across the street, workers on top of buildings, those who come running down the beach, shouting "Hello!" Most of them only seem to know the one word 'hello' in English, yet I can feel quite at home because I can shout back "Ciao" -not the right spelling, but the right pronunciation- which means 'Hullo' and 'Good-bye' in Viet Naamese, so we have a little exchange of language there and they seem to appreciate it. The 'Hullo, hullo, hullo' is a bit difficult if I'm trying to record on this machine (or with the video camera), which is why I'm in my room recording at the moment. But again, this need... wish... I mean, they come a long way, two or three hundred metres down the beach just to pass close by and say "Hello" and smile, and go on their way. Nothing else. This morning I passed three boys on bicycles... that's to say, three bicycles, but six boys, because each of the bikes had two up... very often you'll find three up, especially on mopeds and motorbikes... you'll even find four up at times, which looks terribly dangerous. Especially in this town where, like H Ni, the motorbike taxi is very, very popular and everyone makes up their own rules of the road as they go along. I don't think I REALLY want to go on the back of a mototaxi, although I expect that at least one of my camerapeople will be doing that for his or her film. So we shall see what kind of tracking shots they get, because of course the equipment we have is very limited: we have 4 lights, we have 4 cameras -the lights can only be plugged into the mains (no batteries), but because we have some sunshine now, it's possible that people might be able to make reflectors and (I hope will) help to cure one of the big problems of Viet Naamese television which is the lighting. I've shown them examples of films (even very expensive films for IMAX)... the

big outdoors in the Rocky Mountains, or up in the Arctic and places like this, where filmmakers -in spite of the natural light- use reflectors and even projectors as well... which my participants find quite amazing. But the whole idea of using artifice to make things look natural is what television is about. ...to go back to what I was saying about being greeted... it reminds me... I have a memory of being in a pushchair, but I'm sure it must have been afterwards because of the time span... in Hunstanton, or Hunston, during the war, I remember looking from a very low angle, so perhaps I was just having my hand held and toddling... across to the other side of the road, where there was an American, a black American, in uniform, sitting on a wall... and, like these people with me here in Cua Lo, children, mothers with children, mothers without children, grandparents, coming from right down the other end of the road (obviously having received the message from somebody else), finding any excuse they could to come along and say "Hello" to this black American soldier. Probably the first black American... quite possibly the first black person a lot of them had ever seen in that part of East Anglia. At the time, my father was working on the airforce base quite close by, which was why we were up there; I think we were also still sort of 'evacuees'. And here it's very much the same kind of thing... the same kinds of reactions... quite unusual. I'm sure in season they must have people from the West here, but they assured me downstairs in reception when my English interpreter came to join me, that "No, no... you are the only person from the West who is in the whole of Cua Lo at the moment". It's very different, isn't it, once people start to think that those strange foreigners have 'taken over' our road... then our whole area... latterly "the country doesn't belong to us any more". Racism is a funny thing, it really is... as long as people can fuel the 'us and them' stand-off (whether at a national level or within a single family), things will never change... and certainly never by legislation. Legislation will only (hopefully) facilitate the change in individuals and individual groups. ************** MP3 recording No. 83 - Cua Lo part three. I was thinking again about 'Hawkers and Pedlars/Pedallers', because the stimuli are ever-present... There was a separate yellow & black sign on that same entry in Terry Road where I used to play with Peter Clifford and the other kids from Folly Lane who lived close by. This one simply said 'Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted', then below, down right: 'By Law'. Here in Cua Lo and also during the week I was in H Ni, I have felt quite safe in leaving my door unlocked. At the Camellia, someone's jeans came back from the laundry, neatly folded on the bed ...and the 350,000 dong-worth of notes that she'd forgotten in her back pocket were neatly folded underneath her bedside travelling clock. I've only had one problem around money and that was earlier on today. And I'm almost certain it was my mistake, not someone trying to cheat! By habit, I fold my money (colour-coded) with the smaller denominations on the outside; the only drawback to this in Viet Naam is that the 5,000 dong and 20,000 dong notes are exactly the same colour. I thought I had paid for my purchase with a couple of 50,000 notes and a small pile of 20,000s. My change was a 2,000 dong note, whereas I was expecting 17,000. I tried to explain, but

the woman just kept shaking her head. For whatever reason, I found I was getting irritated at this stalemate and (as one sometimes does) started to behave as if I had all the right on my side. The woman gave a couple of notes to her 6yr-old companion, while continuing to smile at me and shake her head. We were quickly joined by the small boy and an elderly man who spoke to me in German and told me that I had paid the lady with two 50s, three 20s and a 5, rather than 2 x 50, + 4 x 20 as I believed. He could see I wasn't convinced, so, like three-card-trick practitioners that I've seen at work on many street corners, he peeled off notes from his own bundle of money, folded them up into 4, then proffered them in the age-old 'take a card, any card...' gesture. When we unwrapped the three little packets, I realised that I could very easily have made a mistake and almost certainly had! This thought was reinforced immediately afterwards, when the man took three beers from the woman's ice bucket, opened them and handed one to each of us. With his "Alles Gut", we toasted Cua Lo, Viet Naam, the lady and her little boy and the ex-DDR, which was where the man had learnt his German. Then the lady did the same thing. And ONE half litre bottle of Tiger Beer costs 14,000 dong... ! I was not allowed to pay for 'my round'. Going back to the entry in Terry Rd.... We used to have Irish tinkers who came along an their bicycles. They turned the bikes over and readjusted the pedal and chain mechanism in order to sharpen knives. And tinkers in those days.. I remember when any of my family said "Oh you little tinker, you"... it always had a positive side to it, a twinkle in the eye; tinkers were thought of as being rather clever and very adaptable, unpredictable, likely to do the unexpected... and we actually rather liked our tinkers. There were also French onion-sellers, with the strings of onions around their necks. All of them seemed to have berets on, which I, know-all, used to (mis-)name Basque berets, although I doubt that any of them came from the Basque country at that time; they probably came from just across the channel and I now KNOW there were also Channel Islanders who used to come to the mainland PRETENDING to be French because they could make more profit if they were not British. So 'Hawkers' & 'Pedlars/Pedallers'... H Ni and Cua Lo: cities of Pedallers There are very few cars, some taxis, but an enormous number of bicycles... mopeds, scooters and motorbikes. And the 'Hawkers'... Well, I'd forgotten from my trips to the Far East in the 1960s how I used to cringe then, but it brought it all back to me with the incident beside the pedicabs in H Ni and the Billy Connolly duffle coat story. When I hear that now-familiar noise, I'm still very wary and look round to see where they're going to spit. Mostly, they don't anymore. But they do still clear their throats as if preparing to compete for a phlegm distance record. In the 1960s in Hong Kong, Taipei and Bangkok and all points between, I became inured to the near misses and hits: in those days, there were other, much more important, things to get uptight about. Frequently, nowadays, it's the hawk without the spit, so the message is getting through. But what is still a bit strange (cultural preconceptions to the fore), is the fact

that the WOMEN, if anything, do it more often and more loudly than the men. Even some of the quite sophisticated women who are on my course... quite well educated, quite well travelled people; there's one who tinklingly clears her throat as you imagine our Queen might do in public, then she goes round the corner and 'ChaaAA

CH'.

And... 'Trespassers will be Prosecuted'... not in my room they won't; if they want to go in and look around, it's fine with me. Kind, gentle people. ************** One of our team thinks that it's absolutely essential that services 'worthy of Westerners' are provided out here. I think that this is a very sad and unfortunately a very common kind of attitude. It's true, there are some things which need to be done as far as our comfort is concerned. But you don't have to come to South East Asia in order to hesitate to actually eat your lunch off a lavatory floor. There are some problems around toilets and things like that, certainly, different forms of hygiene; but if you're reasonably sensible... well, so far, I haven't ended up with a bad stomach, except once on the train when I overate myself on kumquat. Otherwise, this attitude still creates an 'us and them'. And the 'us' are the people who have the money and the 'them' are the poor people who are hanging around. This attitude doesn't create any kind of communication between people, whether it's a crowd of of British package tourists with their Watney's Red Barrel (if that still exists!) shut off from the rest of Spain in their little enclave, or other Brits out in their old, old colonies or as it used to be called, the Empire... or the French, for that matter, in their old and present empire... I think it's so important... watching these people, how they are developing... Believe me, they work like hell, they're determined that they're going to make it. All I hope is that whatever they make, however they make it, it will be something that will BE Viet Naamese, that will BE Chinese, something that will BE Laotian. NOT a cheap copy of what WE presume to be the best that can be on offer. Insulting ignorance. Wandering around the Forbidden City in Beijing, going to the cave where they found Pekin Man where things were being built and fabricated, when our Western ancestors were living in absolute squalor and degradation. Yesterday, because the sun had come out, there was a whole pile of people who came on buses to visit Cua Lo. I'm sure it must be very like when the British working class went on charabancs (or what ever the equivalent of charabancs was)... poor children going to the beach for a day, years and years ago in England... just the sheer joy of having got away for a few hours from their lives that were incredibly hard. It's so easy for us to forget about that part of our history, or deny its existence, and imagine that whatever riches we have nowadays, it's always been like that. I live in the richest country in the world, but not so long ago, poor Swiss

families were selling their children in order to put food on the table. These same families who nowadays (because of the price of land) are paper multimillionaires. Swiss children in the early 20th century being 'articled' (virtual slavery) as unskilled and semi-skilled labour. Memories like that should never be locked in cupboards and people who try to do so need to be 'outed'. It's not only dangerous, I think it's insulting to people who are making the same effort several decades later. I've just remembered the article I read in Beijing about the Italian-Chinese agreement on greenhouse gases. I still find it irritating and rather sad that the Italians can get away by paying -what was it- something ridiculous- $1.53 million, or something like that, in order to be able to use some of their ecological 'goodwill', so that they can burn fossil fuels in Italy by paying the Chinese cash. Let's get it all together in a bit of a different way... let's let everyone develop in their own ways. I know it's difficult. In my 'Living Archaeology' series I make programmes where I want everyone to have their own opinion, but the majority of the people I meet very obviously DEMAND to be told what to think, what to do. And these are the people who support, build up ANY sort of dictator, whether it's communist or fascist, christian or Moslem. It would be nice if we could stop doing that. ************** I wasn't sure whether I was going to have time to do any more recording from here, because the pressure has picked up tremendously, with the different things that are happening in H Ni and down here. Filming is almost finished, the groups are viewing and editing well into the night... I want to talk about a new hotel that they were working on when we arrived. They're still working on it now, but just the changes: to balconies in rough stone being supported by hundreds of bamboo poles and which have now disappeared (the poles, not the balconies), the facade has had one coat and they're preparing for the second; yesterday they brought trees which they planted every 7 or 8 metres in front of the hotel -they brought them along on the back of a lorry, they dug deep holes, they planted them, they watered them, and I swear that today some of the buds are in flower. It all goes incredibly quickly, the workmen keeping up with nature. So this is a hotel that didn't exist a few weeks ago -exactly how long they've been building, I don't know, but... all down the sea front, in every direction from the balcony where I'm standing at the moment, I can see buildings which are in states of... not repair, but being made, being built; hotels left, right AND centre. This thing with the trees... you look across now at the new hotel and you can imagine that people could move in and stay there in a couple of day's time. And when we first arrived here, it really was a foundations-plus-drainage channels. Goodness gracious me. ************** I arrived back in H Ni last night, Saturday, 12th March, from Cua Lo. We started off a little earlier than originally planned... which meant that we stopped for lunch after about 3 hours.

It was a Viet Naamese Catholic Restaurant, with Madonna and Child on every wall... you wouldn't do that if you were under threat from the authorities, would you? Back in the 4x4, we sailed down the middle of the road: traffic cops and the like turn an official blind eye because VTV is 'government'. This time I kept a weather eye on the driver and spoke (rather loudly) to Mr Van who was sitting beside him, whenever he, the driver, looked as if he were about to start his siesta. Unfortunately, this also disturbed Mr Van's 40 winks, but hopefully anyone would prefer that to ending up head-to-head with a cement mixer. Back at the Camellia, I collected my luggage from Natalie and went to my 'old' room, for a long, luxurious hot bath. Then I managed to get into The Little Hanoi just before they were about to close: they offered me my bottle of wine as a 'welcome home' present. **************