davethegrinch.net

Dave Says:
Mike works at our hotel in Saigon. He is twenty six and like many amiable young
people in the big cities of Vietnam, sees a career in the booming tourist trade
as a way to make a little for himself and make a little of himself.

Our room wasn’t ready when we arrived today so we waited in the usual
Vietnamese hotel lobby containing only the essentials: the reception desk and
the tour booking desk. The only chairs are the ones by the tour booking desk
making it impossible not to interact with the friendly face beaming at you from
the otherside. Mike was today’s face although when I earlier mentioned he
“works at” our hotel, I really should have said “works outside” our hotel.
Mike is hired by the travel company in the basement to bring in tourists using
any means he can. I suspect he wasn’t really meant to be in the lobby but it
was hot today and the lobby had A/C.

Mike isn’t really his name. But, as he told us with great affection (through
teeth that don’t see western dental practises very often) of his love for
Michael Jackson and that his friends tease him and call him “Mike” we decided we
should too. Mike was very happy with this arrangement and names were swapped.
It should be noted the later works of Mr. Jackson do not rate highly with Mike
but he loves Hotel California and has listened to it over 100 times.

Mike was born in a small town called Can Tho in the Mekong Delta south of
Saigon. His parents still live there, his Dad still works for the local
government but his Mom no longer works. He explained through broken but
enthusiastic english that he attended univeristy for two years but became bored
of having no money and thought the city would offer him better opportunities.
His mother was very upset with him but realized that it was important he “find
his own path”. So he found himself in Saigon.

He laments that he shouldn’t have left college so early and also that he took
french at school rather than english but he never once lapsed into either self
deprecation or blame of those around him. The Vietnamese are proud people but
proud in a good way not in the American way. Pride of your culture and
nationalism are two different beasts that the US would well be advised to
nurture one and tame the other. Speaking of which, Mike was very insistant that
we not feel bad in our upcoming tours of American/Vietnam war sites. He
repeatedly explained the Vietnamese love Americans and think only of today and
tomorrow and not of yesterday. We tried to explain it would be good for us to
feel bad but I think that’s a concept that niether translates culturally or
linguistically here.

Although Mike has worked for other travel companies, his new employer, TNK, is
the largest and most well known. This is his big chance and although only being
on the job for 22 days, feels he is making good progress. His career however is
limited unless he can earn his tourism certificate and for that he must return
to school. And there lies the conumdrum. In order to just survive Mike works
seven days a week, thirteen hours a day outside this hotel trying to get
tourists off the street into the office only to loose the credit to another
agent if he can’t immediatly seal the deal. Although he knows this is tough, he
also knows that he must work hard and prove to his boss that he can do the job
else he isn’t going anywhere. If he does well for the next few months his boss
may give him a couple of days off which, he says cheerfully, he’ll use to
sleep.

Mike loves to talk; it helps him with his english and he loves meeting people
however he is also proud of his job so its important that he explain with as
much detail as he can the tours his company offers. It seemed to be very
important for his career and his self esteem that he do the best job he can in
this regard, so repecting his wishes, we listened as hard as we could.

Later in the afternoon we decided what tours we should take and I walked across
the street to find Mike, tell him, walk him into his own office and have him
write out our ticket with his name as the agent. He was so happy not because of
commission (of which I doubt he’ll get any) but because he did a good job and got
business. When we talk of responsible tourism we talk of plastic bottles and
buying locally made goods but perhaps we should talk about conversations with
those who struggle to make a living from our cheap $5 day trips (lunch included,
drinks extra).

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 30th, 2007 at 5:49 am and is filed under Global Travels, Vietnam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.