May 24, 2005

04:45:22 am China, Week 1  

Country Background:
Population: 1.3 billion
Per capita GDP: $5,000 in purchasing power parity; $1,100 in US dollars (see note below)
Size: between US lower 48 states and Canada
Currency: yuan, fixed at 8.28 per US dollar.
Language: Standard Chinese, which is based on Putonghua, the Beijing dialect. In English, this dialect is known as Mandarin. Many other dialects and ethnic minority languages exist, most notably Cantonese. The degree of English spoken varies based on area, but you generally can find someone who speaks some English. See Hong Kong post for more background on language.

GDP note: All logs prior to this show only the purchasing power parity number. Going forward we will show both. In countries where goods are cheap, such as China, the purchasing power number will be much higher than the US dollar number. Purchasing power parity is a better measure of people's relative standard of living, while the US dollar number more accurately depicts absolute income levels. Both are useful; neither is the right or wrong number. Often the news media will only show one without explaining which number it is (just as we did in the logs prior to this). So in one place you will read that the size of China's economy is about $1.5 billion (in US dollars) and another place you will read that it's over $6 billion (in purchasing power parity). So one source will say that China's economy will overtake the US (in the aggregate, not per person) by 2020 (in purchasing power parity), while another source quotes something like 2050 (in US dollars).

Think of it this way, if you travel to China the US dollar figure will measure how far your dollar will go (after all an ice cream bar in a tourist area from a street vendor may cost as little as 25-50 cents). Or if a Chinese travels to the US, the US dollar figure measures how poor they would feel (where that same ice cream bar could cost $2-$3). But within their own country, Chinese aren't paying $3 for an ice cream bar (we're ignoring for a moment that Hagen Daaz (spelling?) does exist in China with its $6 ice cream cones), and so their $1,100 per capita GDP figure buys a lot more than it would in the US. So while the average Chinese person is still poor by US standards, they are not nearly as poor as the US dollar figure indicates. The purchasing power number is a better measure of their standard of living.

Itinerary:
Commuter train (KCR, Kowloon-Canton Railway) from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, 45 minutes
Commuter train (KCR) from Shenzhen to Guangzhou, 75 minutes
Two nights at Guangzhou Riverside Hotel
Shenzhen Air flight from Guangzhou to Guilin
Private car from Guilin to Yangshuo, 75 minutes
Four nights at Yangshuo Paradise Hotel

Shenzhen
Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - Thursday, May 12, 2005
One night at Sunshine Hotel
Temperature high/low during our stay: 95/75
Population: Every source quotes a different number, perhaps because the name Shenzhen can refer to Shenzhen City, Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, or Shenzhen County. We never got a clear story on which number corresponded to which area, so let's just call the metropolitan area about 6 million. In 1980, Shenzhen was a fishing village with a population of 30,000.

Shenzhen is one of the four initial experimental Special Economic Zones (SEZs), established by the Chinese government once it decided to open its economy. Shenzhen was chosen as an SEZ in 1980 because it borders Hong Kong. This location has made Shenzhen a boomtown, and its population now rivals Hong Kong.

Guangzhou (Canton)
Thursday, May 12, 2005 - Saturday, May 14, 2005
Two nights at Guangzhou Riverside Hotel
Temperature high/low during our stay: 95/75
Population: 6.7 million

Guangzhou is the capital and largest city of Guangdong, the southernmost province in China, which borders Hong Kong.

Back before Pinyin took over as the common English method of spelling Chinese words in the west in 1979, Guangzhou was known as Canton. (Remember when we used to call Beijing--Peking and Mao Zedong--Mao Tse-Tung? One pre-Pinyin spelling that did not change in the west is Hong Kong. In Pinyin, it is Xianggang. Perhaps some day this name will change too, now that British rule is gone.) Cantonese food and the Cantonese language dialect originate in Guangzhou.

Yangshuo
Saturday, May 14, 2005 - Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Four nights at Yangshuo Paradise Hotel
Temperature high/low during our stay: 95/75
As we have learned, it is hot and muggy in May in southern China.
Population: 300,000

Nearby Guilin is bigger, and is better known, perhaps because everyone traveling to Yangshuo by plane or train must arrive in Guilin first. But Yangshuo puts Guilin to shame as the scenic heart of the karst limestone formations, and for its laid-back backpacker friendly atmosphere. See our image gallery for photos.

Notable Activities:
Window of the World (Shenzhen)
Shenzhen Museum
Boat ride down the Li River (Yangshuo)
Hot air balloon ride (Yangshuo)
Bike ride (Yangshuo)

We've decided to quit listing every activity we do, and only list the most notable ones. Complacency is setting in as we near the mid-point of our trip.

We spend 30 days (29 nights) in China, the most allowable on our single-entry visa. Our time could be broken into four segments, each roughly one week in length, as follows:

- Southern China: Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Yangshuo, 7 nights total
- Shanghai area: Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, 7 nights total
- Yangzi River and Tibet, 8 nights total
- Northern China: Xian, Beijing, 7 nights total

Shenzhen is a business center, rather than a normal tourist destination, although it does get a fair amount of tourist traffic from people entering and exiting China via Hong Kong. Shenzhen connects to the rest of China, as Hong Kong connects to the rest of the world. Shenzhen is just a 45-minute train ride from downtown Hong Kong, with trains departing every few minutes. The two cities have become twin cities, albeit with immigration control between them. Most tourists do not stay in Shenzhen; rather it is a place from which to go somewhere else.

We stayed one night as Nick had read repeatedly about Shenzhen in the business press over the past dozen years, and wanted to see it first hand. It is usually maligned in tourist guidebooks as a sterile business center full of high rises and nothing interesting to see. Further, as it has boomed, like a magnet, it has attracted negative elements--beggars, prostitutes, crime--from all over China, or so the story goes. Well, we think any place that in 25 years has grown from 30,000 to 6 million, give or take a few million, is a place worth seeing. Besides, how many museums full of thousand-year-old pottery do you need to see? There is none of that in Shenzhen (actually, the Shenzhen Museum did devote one of its four floors to such relics, while the other three concentrated on skyscrapers, infrastructure, and city planning). And finally, is a place really booming if it is does not attract the wrong elements? Culture can come later; there is money to be made now.

So Shenzhen does not have a lot of culture, but it does have China's first Wal*Mart. Actually, now it has six. We visited one that was two levels, with typical discount store merchandise on the top level and a full grocery store on the entry floor. The product mix was similar to what you would expect, except the live fish and frogs were for your dinner table, not your aquarium (see image gallery).

Shenzhen does attempt to provide culture and satisfy tourism with several kitschy theme parks that show miniaturized versions of natural and manmade wonders in China and the world. After visiting Splendid China, Window of the World, and the Chinese Folk Village, we thought about canceling the rest of our trip and just heading home. We'd seen it all. At 1/100th actual size. Why waste all of our time and money, and experience all of that travel hassle, when in minutes you can travel from pre-9/11 Manhattan to Easter Island to Rio? We've included a few pictures from our Around the World in 80 Minutes journey in the image gallery. Window on the World was the best of the three parks and it has some unusual rides. Take a log ride through the Grand Canyon, or an underground roller coaster through Greenland (not sure what the tie-in to Greenland is, but whatever). The best though was the alpine sledding hill where in minutes you could leave the sweltering 95-degree humid real world and be transported inside to sub-freezing temperatures with real snow. Pneumonia anyone?

The Shenzhen Museum chronicles a long list of impressive business facts about the Special Economic Zone. For example, one-half of all watches produced in the world are made there. You probably have dozens of items in your home that originated in Shenzhen.

Nearby is Guangzhou, booming as well, mildly only in comparison to Shenzhen. Guangzhou has existed for centuries, so it does have cultural attractions in addition to its commerce. Its airport, like about every airport in China it seems, is new, ultra-modern, and built with massive overcapacity that over time will be filled, we expect. While Chicago dithers for decades over one new airport, China builds dozens of new airports.

The Pearl River Delta region with its triple economic powerhouses of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou is arguably the most vibrant in the world. One list we have, as of 2003 and thus slightly out of date, but nonetheless illuminating, puts half of the dozen tallest buildings in the world in this region (four in Hong Kong, one each in Shenzhen and Guangzhou). More are planned. But that's a different topic, which we will put off for a little longer.

To be honest, neither Shenzhen nor Guangzhou, are overly attractive in the sense of being a world-class city. But they are interesting to behold for a day or two. And maybe one day they will become attractive. The wealth generated there may make this happen, as it has in other boomtowns in other times (e.g., Chicago and San Francisco).

Yangshuo is an altogether different place. Booming in its own way, but for a different reason. The attractions here are natural, not manmade.

We could describe Yangshuo's landscape, but you will get a much better sense of it by looking in our image gallery. Karst limestone formations dominate the land, rising straight up to form mini mountains. You may recognize the landscape from traditional Chinese paintings of mountains in the mist. The only place we have seen like this is Halong Bay in northern Vietnam, but we think Yangshuo is even prettier.

Yangshuo has a strong backpacker and tourist culture, with people from all over the world descending upon it. It's transitioning from being unknown a few years ago to now being discovered. Nick was here one year ago, and while it's grown as expected, its charms are still present. Catering to backpackers, it tries hard to be a Western oasis in the middle of China. All of the restaurants feature pasta, pizza, and pancakes, usually right along side local favorites such as fried dog meat. The menus and staff speak English, or at least they try hard to. Everyone in town knows each other, and within a few hours, you can meet most of them for yourself. You feel like your have walked into a John Steinbeck novel. There's Uncle Sam, the local teacher turned tour guide. There's Monkey Jane, who runs a guesthouse and bar. There's Scott, the Australian tour guide who resettled permanently (for the moment at least) in Yangshuo to run a bar and to start an adventure biking company offering tours throughout exotic locales in Asia. It's a great, relaxing place.

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May 17, 2005

06:14:42 am Hong Kong  

Saturday, May 7, 2005 - Wednesday, May 11, 2005

City Background:
Population: 7 million
Per capita GDP: between $25,000 and $30,000
Size: about 4.5 times larger than Singapore
Currency: Hong Kong dollar, fixed at 7.8 per US per US dollar. Independence: In 1997, the United Kingdom transferred Hong Kong from its control to China. It is now a Special Administrative Region in China, with a different currency, economic system, legal system, political system. Immigration control is separate from the mainland.
Language: Cantonese, Mandarin, and English.

Itinerary:
Bangkok Airlines flight from Siem Reap, Cambodia to Bangkok, Thailand
Finn Air flight from Bangkok, Thailand to Hong Kong
Four nights at Hotel Miramar, Kowloon side
Temperature high/low during our stay: 80/70. Rainy and overcast all four days.

Activities:
Star Ferry
Stanley Market
Lunch at Lucy's in Stanley with Anne Kim, who we met in Siem Rep. She lives in Hong Kong, and is a friend of Andy and Lisa Edwards (Andy works at Inforte, and we ran into him by coincidence in Hanoi, Vietnam and Siem Reap, Cambodia).
Peak Tram
Hong Kong Museum of History (good--US quality--tells entire history of Hong Kong)
Haircut (Nick)
City Gallery in City Hall (Nick)
Hong Kong Museum of Art (Deanna)
Shopping (Deanna)
Many, many hours spent researching future travel via in-room internet connection (Nick)
Buying new books to read
Movie: The Interpreter
Post office, to mail home items purchased and books read (previously we've done this in Cusco, Peru, Katherine, Australia, and Singapore)

6 Key Dates in Hong Kong History:

1842: Treaty of Nanjing--British gain control of Hong Kong Island at the end of the First Opium War.

1860: Following Second Opium War, British gain control of Kowloon Peninsula. This territory and the previously acquired Hong Kong Island are what most tourists and businesspersons visit and refer to as Hong Kong, but since 1898, these areas are just under 10% of the land area of constituting Hong Kong.

1898: In a further, final concession, Britain extracts the New Territories from China. The New Territories comprise over 90% of Hong Kong's area today. Significantly, this concession is only a 99-year lease, not a transfer in perpetuity as were the two earlier concessions. At the time, this may not have seemed to be a significant distinction--99 years is a long time, after all--but it ultimately led to all of Hong Kong reverting to China.

1984: The UK and China negotiate the Basic Agreement, which provides for the transfer of all of Hong Kong--Hong Kong Island, Kowloon Peninsula, and the New Territories--when the 99-year lease of the New Territories ends in 1997. China agrees to preserve Hong Kong's distinct economic, political, and legal systems for at least 50 years following the transfer under a "one country, two systems" policy.

July 1, 1997: China assumes control of Hong Kong as scheduled. Hong Kong was the last significant territory controlled by the UK, so some see this handoff symbolizing the formal close of the British Empire. (The UK still controls numerous well-known islands, such as Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, the Falkland Islands, and many others, but none of these has the population or economic base of Hong Kong.)

Nick visited Hong Kong in 1989 and 1990. At that time, the city was in an anxious state. Tiananmen Square (June 4, 1989) was fresh in everyone's mind, and many wealthy Hong Kong Chinese were emigrating to Canada and other western countries. (Canada had an aggressive campaign to recruit affluent Hong Kong citizens, while the US short sightedly did not. Today, Vancouver has a large Chinese population from this influx, which is helping transform it into a world-class city.) But the handover also spelled an economic opportunity, something not to overlook in the Hong Kong, the Ferringinar of Earth. Eight years before the handover, every vendor in the city was already selling t-shirts and half-British, half-Chinese flags commemorating the transfer.

China's economic surge helped dispel Hong Kong's concerns about Chinese control, but decades hence the handover might still mark the beginning of Hong Kong's relative decline. If a decline does happen, it will not be for the reason feared initially--China imposing authoritarian communism on Hong Kong and crushing Hong Kong's free enterprise way of life, but rather for the opposite reason. China has adopted Hong Kong's capitalistic ways, lessening Hong Kong's uniqueness. In the past, Hong Kong provided an entry to China. Now a western business can just set up shop directly in China itself. In Shanghai, we will visit the Krotzers. John and family moved there in January 2005 to establish a China office for his company. While brief consideration was given to Hong Kong, it was quickly dismissed in favor of Shanghai. In the 1920s, Shanghai was the financial center of Asia. It will be again, we think, now that the absurd economic system of communism has been discarded.

This will take time. Hong Kong's per capita income is about five times that of Shanghai and these two cities are not going to equalize overnight. It will take a few decades. But they will equalize. And then Shanghai may zoom ahead. It will be interesting to watch. But not if you are a Hong Kong property owner. Property prices there are at one-half of their 1997 peak.

We are not predicting that Hong Kong will wither away. It is and will remain a vibrant city, important to China and the world. Disneyland opens there in a few months--what more proof do you need! (Although, we wonder if Disney officials, who probably made this location decision over a decade ago, have any pangs of "whoops, we picked the wrong Chinese city." Probably not, actually, as Hong Kong is the only Chinese city wealthy enough today to support Disneyland, and they can always open in Shanghai or Beijing in another decade or two, but we are curious to know their thoughts.) London was once the financial and political capital of the world. It lost its place to New York and Washington D.C., but it remains vibrant. If it is diminished, it is only on a relative basis, not on an absolute basis. That too is likely Hong Kong's fate. Still a world-class city, but not quite as distinct as it once was. Turning back to our London analogy, we note though that the leading financial firms in London today are just as often London offices of New York firms, than they are London firms. So too will Shanghai's financial firms be more likely to take over Hong Kong, rather than the reverse. Again, this will take decades to play out.

We think an overlooked beneficiary of Hong Kong reverting to China is Singapore. In the 1980s and 1990s, Singapore and Hong Kong were rival cities for foreign investment. An American or European company would usually choose between one of these two cities for its Asian headquarters (Tokyo is another option, but Japan is geographically on the periphery of the rest of Asia, while Hong Kong and Singapore are more centrally located, and importantly, English speaking, which Tokyo is not.) Today, the choice between Hong Kong and Singapore is simplified we think. The China office goes in Shanghai. That office may also serve Northeast Asia or even all of Asia. But you would probably have a Singapore office as well, at least to serve Southeast Asia, or all of Asia, if Shanghai does not serve that purpose. Hong Kong? If you were not already there, would you establish yourself there now? Probably not. Maybe as a regional office for your southern China manufacturing operations. But then you might just put that southern China regional office directly in Shenzhen or Guangzhou for that matter.

Language in Hong Kong may change as well. English prevalence could decline gradually as Hong Kong looks inward to China. On the rise is Mandarin, the most common language of China. Holding its own for now, but possibly in decline in the long run is Cantonese, the dialect of Hong Kong and Southeastern China. Mandarin may one day, many decades from now, become the leading language in Hong Kong.

And finally, a brief overview of the Chinese language dialects. Mandarin and Cantonese generally use the same characters--Cantonese does have some special characters not present in Mandarin--so there are few differences in the printed language, but the way each is spoken is quite different. So Mandarin and Cantonese speakers can read each other's writing, but they cannot understand each other without learning the other dialect. When people refer to the "Chinese" language, they are referencing Mandarin, which the government designated as standard modern Chinese in the mid- 20th Century. Mandarin, or Putonghua as the Chinese call it, is the dialect spoken in Beijing. Fortunately, for those who cannot read Chinese characters, Chinese can be written using Roman letters (e.g., the letters used in English, Spanish, French, Italian, etc.). This method of spelling, known as pinyin, often appears along side Chinese characters throughout the country. At one time, the government favored phasing out Chinese characters in favor of pinyin, but that idea never took hold.

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May 10, 2005

01:27:51 am Timeline of Western Involvement in Vietnam  

Although we have already posted on Cambodia, we take a step back to Vietnam with two posts on the Vietnam War. These posts took a bit longer to think through and write, so we are just posting them now. As an American visiting Vietnam, the war is always in your mind, even for us who were too young to have firsthand experience with it. These posts are our attempt to understand it better.

The first thing to realize though, is that the Vietnam War is difficult to understand. It lacks the we-were-bombed-and-now-we-are-responding moral clarity and precise beginning of World War II. (The Gulf of Tonkin incident provides this to an extent, but it turns out the main incident probably did not occur--see below.) To understand the war better, we compiled this timeline from what we learned while we were in Vietnam. This timeline is not intended to be comprehensive, and reflects the dates and events we thought most relevant. Outside sources include, "Vietnam A History" by Stanley Karnow, "The New York Times Almanac 2005" and "The Rough Guide to Southeast Asia."

1861: France captures Saigon. France extends its control over other parts of Vietnam in the following two decades.

1887: France creates Indochinese Union composed of Vietnam and Cambodia. Laos is added in 1893.

September 1940: Japan occupies Indochina, but allows Vichy France government to continue to administer colony, just as Germany allowed Vichy French government to run France.

July 1945: At Potsdam Conference, Allies agree that British will disarm Japan below 16th parallel, Nationalist Chinese to do the same above the 16th parallel.

September 2, 1945: On the same day Japan formally surrenders, Ho Chi Minh declares Vietnamese independence in Hanoi. His declaration is not recognized by Allied forces.

1946: Eventually, the British and Chinese leave, and France resumes control of Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh agrees to this, fearing that otherwise the Chinese forces might not leave. In his words, "I prefer to sniff French shit for five years than eat Chinese shit for the rest of my life." Despite a common communist ideology, China and Vietnam's shared border has historically made them enemies, with China occupying Vietnam for many centuries. France promises to recognize Vietnam as a free state within the French Union (analogous to the British Commonwealth), but France generally reneges on this treaty.

1946 - 1954: Ho Chi Minh's communist forces resist the re-establishment of French control during a nine-year insurgency. Eventually France is defeated militarily on May 7, 1954 at the Battle of Dienbienphu. The US provides most of the funding for the French anti-communist effort.

May 8, 1954: Geneva Conference convenes between US, UK, France, Soviet Union, China, and factions from north and south Vietnam. The parties agree to partition Vietnam in two at the 17th parallel. The communists, led by Ho Chi Minh, will control the north, and the anti-communists led by Ngo Dinh Diem will control the south. French forces leave the country. Elections are to take place in 1956 to unify the country, but neither side intends to carry through on election pledge and they never occur. The Vietnamese communists view China's support for a partition as a betrayal of their cause. China favors a weakened Vietnam consumed by internal strife, viewing it as less likely to cause them trouble. The US begins to aid South Vietnam directly. A low-level communist insurgency in South Vietnam begins, supported by North Vietnam.

1959: North Vietnam increases the magnitude of the South Vietnam insurgency, which becomes known as the Vietcong. Gradually, US increases its aid to the south in response.

Mid-1962: US advisors in South Vietnam now total 12,000.

November 1, 1963: South Vietnam military stages coup and assassinates South Vietnam President Dinh Diem the next day. US was apprised of coup plans and indicated it would not oppose the action. Although initially supportive of Diem, US over time believed that South Vietnam would not prevail under Diem's weak leadership and corruption. A series of coups follow, with one government of weak and corrupt leaders replacing another. In 1967, Nguyen Van Thieu maneuvered to become president and he remained in power until 1975.

August 2, 1964: Gulf of Tonkin incident occurs in which North Vietnamese patrol boats attack a US destroyer positioned off their coast. A second incident supposedly occurred two days later, but research and investigations since then indicate it likely was stormy weather that affected radar readings, rather than another attack. Not knowing this, Congress passes Tonkin Gulf resolution by a near-unanimous vote on August 7 giving President Johnson discretion and power to act in Southeast Asia. US air attacks against North Vietnam begin later in the month.

March 8, 1965: First US combat troops arrive in South Vietnam. By year end, US forces would be nearly 200,000, increasing to nearly 400,000 at the end of 1966, nearly 500,000 at the end of 1967, and 540,000 at the end of 1968.

January 31, 1968: North Vietnamese and Vietcong launch Tet Offensive, suffering significant military losses that would hamper them for years. Unexpectedly, though, Tet is a huge PR win for the communists, as the sophistication and scale of their attacks stun the US public. In the words of Walter Cronkite, "I thought we were winning this war."

March 31, 1968: Two months after the Tet Offensive comes President Johnson's shock announcement: "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president."

May 1968: Spurred by LBJ's announcement, peace talks begin in Paris. Little progress is made for years.

January 1969: Nixon assumes office.

June 8, 1969: Nixon announces first withdrawal of US troops. On July 25, unveils Nixon Doctrine stating that going forward countries receiving American military and economic assistance to fight communism would have to furnish their own troops. Applied to Vietnam, this Vietnamization policy provides the basis for the eventual complete withdrawal of US troops. Troop levels fall to 480,000, 280,000, 140,000 at the end of 1969, 1970, and 1971, respectively, and to 0 in early 1973 after a ceasefire is signed.

October 1972: Henry Kissinger announces prematurely "peace is at hand." Each side has made a major concession--the US no longer insists that North Vietnamese troops withdraw from South Vietnam, and North Vietnam no longer insists that Vietcong be represented in South Vietnamese government.

December 18, 1972: With peace talks stalled over minor details, Nixon orders massive controversial "Christmastime" bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong. Raids continue for 11 days. Communists resume talks when bombing stops.

January 27, 1973: Ceasefire agreement formally signed in Paris.

March 29, 1973: Final US ground troops leave Vietnam.

Summer & Fall 1973: Congress stops funding US military activities in Indochina. Nixon vetoes bill, Congress overrides. US bombers now may no longer attack or retaliate to oppose communist ceasefire violations.

Summer 1974: Communists plan final push to take south and reunite country. Attacks begin December 1974.

April 30, 1975: South Vietnam government surrenders to communists in Saigon. All US diplomatic personnel were evacuated in the days prior.

July 2, 1976: Vietnam formally reunified under a communist government.

1986: With its economy in shambles, Vietnam begins move toward capitalist economic system. Communist political system remains in place.

July 1995: Full diplomatic relations restored with US.

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01:18:38 am Vietnam War, Our Opinion  

Whereas our timeline post is factual, here is our opinion on the war, after reading its history and visiting the country. We offer no black-and-white it-was-right or it-was-wrong conclusion, as we think it cannot be summarized that succinctly.

- We think the US intentions were good.
- We think the US execution was poor.
- We agree with Clark Clifford's quote, "Countries, like human beings, make mistakes. We made an honest mistake. I feel no sense of shame. Nor should the country feel any sense of shame." Clifford championed the war early on, but came to oppose it soon after he became secretary of defense in 1967, succeeding Robert McNamara.
- We think the US underestimated the resilience of the Vietnamese communists and misunderstood the extent to which they viewed the conflict more as a war of national independence than as part of the international struggle to communism.
- Having said that, we do not agree with those who in hindsight disparage the domino theory. After all, in a thirty-year period in Asia, Burma, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos all became communist. Four of these six countries are still communist politically, while Burma retains a repressive military regime, and Cambodia defeated its communists completely only in 1999. Overlooked we think is that most other surrounding Southeast Asian countries fought significant battles against communist insurgents. That the communists were defeated in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines (sort of--the insurgency is still active in the south), Singapore, and Thailand, does not mean they were never a threat. We think those lampooning the domino theory would be surprised to see how prominently the defeat of communism is portrayed in the history museums of these countries. We were.
- We note that Lee Kuan Yew, prime minister of Singapore from 1965-1990 (and one of the top political leaders of the second half of the 20th Century in our opinion--see our Singapore post), credits US involvement in Vietnam for keeping most of Southeast Asia free. He states that the US involvement, even if unsuccessful in Vietnam, stalled communist advances in the region, giving his country and others time to build up their defenses and repel communism.
- We view Vietnam as an unsuccessful battle in an overall Cold War that was won decisively. The number of deaths the US and other nations suffered fighting communism worldwide was relatively small, considering the magnitude and importance of the triumph, and especially in contrast to the millions of their own people that communists killed in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, and elsewhere, once they were in power.
- Whatever criticism the US may deserve for its Vietnam involvement, we think its intentions were far more honorable than the French, who were guided in the late 40s and early 50s mainly by a desire to reestablish their colonial domination of the country, rather than any more noble ideology.
- We think we never had a worthy ally in South Vietnam. Their political and military leaders were consistently too corrupt and too self interested, bent on preserving their own power more than fighting the enemy. Their soldiers, sensing this, were never as courageous as they might have been under more inspirational leadership.
- The US should have pushed for the agreed-upon 1956 elections to be held in Vietnam to reunify the country. If the communists prevailed at the ballot box at the time, so be it, provided the elections were fair. The US mindset of 50 years ago would not allow this. Today, we think the US will need to accept election outcomes it does not like, and we think it is prepared to do that, although a true test of this in the middle east or elsewhere has not necessarily occurred.
- We had a low opinion of LBJ (because of the overreach of the Great Society programs and because of Vietnam also) before learning more about the war. Now it is lower still. LBJ had significant doubts about our ability to win from the beginning, had no clear plan to win, and deliberately downplayed our growing military commitment to the public. He failed to take decisive action, fearing the PR fallout. We do not think the decisive action would necessarily have won the war, but we do think the lack of decisiveness prolonged the war.
- Knowing what we do now about not having a strong ally in the south, the hostile terrain, and the near unbeatable tenacity of the north, we probably should have never committed troops. Of course, this is hindsight that took nearly a decade of experience on the ground to realize (and many today still would disagree). Judging our leaders only on what they could have known at the time, it is entirely understandable why they committed troops, we think.
- Now here is the really difficult what-if question. What if the US never sent troops in? We think the south would have fallen to the communists in the mid-60s instead of the mid-70s and LBJ would have received as much criticism, if not more, for not acting than he did for acting. Today, LBJ's name might be synonamous with Chamberlain's as an example of a leader failing to act to stop aggression. What other wars would we have fought in the 70s and 80s having "learned the LBJ lesson of not confronting communist aggression." Would we have sent troops to Angola? Would World War III have broken out over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? Perhaps those examples are too remote, but closer to home it seems likely that we would have been involved more directly in Nicaragua and El Salvador. What military disasters might have occurred because we never experienced the lessons that Vietnam did teach (e.g., use overpowering force--don't escalate gradually; go all out to win; state clearly the reason for the war). Would the 1991 Persian Gulf war have been one the most spectacularly one-sided victories in the history of warfare, as it was, had we not learned these lessons in Vietnam? You can't assume that had we not gone into Vietnam that all history since would be the same. It would not. Overall, post-Vietnam, things have worked out pretty well. Would they have done so otherwise had there never been a Vietnam? We will never know.
- We think Nixon did a reasonably good job having inherited a virtually unwinable hand. He took a lot of heat for his tough actions (e.g., sending troops to Cambodia and the 1972 Christmastime Hanoi bombings), but we think more often than not, these actions brought about the changes he desired, such as getting the North Vietnamese back to the bargaining table and ultimately agreeing to a settlement. We think his willingness to act decisively without regard to public opinion stands in contrast to LBJ. Moreover, we think Nixon's bold stroke twin summits with China and the Soviet Union in 1972 made North Vietnam more amenable to a ceasefire as they were unsettled by their allies consorting with their enemy.
- We were not aware previously of how significantly US troop involvement ramped down prior to the ceasefire. There were only about 60,000 US combat troops left when the ceasefire was signed. Nixon's Vietnamization policy began shortly after he took office, with US troop commitments dropping from 550,000 to 0 in about four years--about the same amount of time that troops ramped up from 0 to 550,000 in LBJ's final term.
- The main criticism of Nixon is that the ultimate settlement did not last (true) and that in any event it was no better than what was discussed when peace talks commenced years earlier (also true). On the latter point, we do not think the US public was ready for the 1973 settlement in 1968. Public opinion surveys consistently showed that even once most Americans thought our decision to enter the war was wrong, the majority still thought 1) we should fight to win given we were involved and 2) we should not leave dishonorably. We think Vietnamization made public acceptance of the ultimate settlement possible in a way it would not have been years before. Further, we are not convinced that North Vietnam wanted a settlement in 1968, even under the terms discussed at that time.
- With regard to losing the peace, Nixon's Watergate-weakened presidency allowed an opposition Congress to forbid US air strikes. Nixon and others have argued that this Congressional prohibition along with aid limitations ultimately led to South Vietnam's downfall. Others have argued this is making Congress a scapegoat unfairly. We think each side has a case and what might have been will never be completely clear. What is clear is that--in contrast to Korea--we did not make an ongoing commitment to Vietnam and the peace did not hold. Another difference, though, is that in Vietnam, the communists had much greater willpower than the government in the south. This was not the case in Korea. This leads us to believe that losing the peace in Vietnam may have been inevitable, due to South Vietnam's chronic lack of leadership.
- If this reads like we are apologists for Nixon, let us point out that Nick puts him near the bottom, along with LBJ, in his ranking of US presidents. On the subject of the Vietnam War, though, we think Nixon did a better job than LBJ.
- To try to a put a summary on all of these thoughts, we think: 1) we should not have committed troops to Vietnam; 2) but that is based on what is known now and was not known then, so we understand completely why troops were committed; 3) given that troops were committed, the US should have been more decisive in trying to win; 4) however, even with more decisiveness, we probably would not have won, but the war may not have lasted as long; 5) even though unsuccessful by itself, Vietnam a) had many positive consequences, such as teaching the US valuable lessons to apply to future wars and giving other Southeast Asian nations time to defeat communists; and b) was part of an overall extremely successful Cold War. If you try in hindsight to remove the less desirable bits of the Cold War, such as Vietnam, who is to say that the some other undesirable situation would not develop. You must be careful when pulling out untidy threads of history, you may find the whole tapestry of what you accomplish unravels. Thus, in a paradoxical way, Vietnam may well have been worth it, even though in hindsight we should not have gotten involved militarily.

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May 07, 2005

02:28:38 am Cambodia  

Country Background:
Population: 13 million
Per capita GDP: $2,000
Size: between Missouri and Oklahoma
Currency: Riel, 4,000 per US dollar. US dollars are commonly accepted and usually preferred. We never used riels during our short stay.
Independence: 1953 from France
Language: Khmer (official). English is common. French spoken occasionally.

Itinerary:
Vietnam Airlines flight from Saigon, Vietnam to Siem Reap, Cambodia

Siem Reap
Thursday, May 5, 2005 - Saturday, May 7, 2005
Two nights at Raffles Grand Hotel D'Angkor

Temperature high/low during our stay: 105/80

Population: 85,000 (according to August 2002 Lonely Planet), and exploding

Siem Reap is adjacent to the world-renowned temples of Angkor, built during the 8th through the 13th centuries. As an archaeological site, Angkor belongs in the group of world wonders, such as Egyptian pyramids, Machu Picchu, and the Taj Mahal.

The most famous temple is Angkor Wat, and this name is often used (incorrectly) by tourists as the place name for the entire area. Angkor Wat is just one of a number of fabulous temples--Angkor Thom, Phnom Bakheng, Praeh Khan, Ta Phrom, and many others--all next to each other. Angkor Wat is the biggest temple, with the highest quality workmanship, and remains the best preserved. According to Robert Kaplan in "The Ends of the Earth," "It is the single largest religious building in the world, built by the Khmer king Suriyavarman II between 1113 and 1150 A.D. The compound comprising Angkor Wat is 960 meters--or over ten football fields--long and 800 meters wide. It is completely surrounded by a rectangular moat, nearly a mile long from west to east, and three quarters of a mile from north to south." According to Kaplan, it covers almost four times the ground space of the Great Pyramid of Cheops, with almost as much stone, and was completed in only 37 years. Unlike the pyramids, though, all of the stone at Angkor Wat is intricately decorated with stone carvings.

During the second half of the 1970s, Cambodia was the worst place on earth to live. If you are reading this, had you been Cambodian during this time, you most likely would have been murdered. All teachers, writers, businesspeople and for good measure anyone who wore glasses--a sign of being an intellectual--were wiped out, often along with their families. Out of a population of 8 million at the time, 1-3 million died, depending on which estimate you read. Education, money, mail service, and newspapers were eliminated. The calendar was turned back to year 0 on April 17, 1975 by the Khmer Rouge on the day they seized power. 2000 years of Cambodian history no longer mattered--the world was beginning over again, at least that was the Khmer Rogue rationale. Entire cities were emptied, as all citizens were forced to work on agricultural communes. The population of the capital city, Phnom Penh, dropped to around 15,000. It is now over 1 million.

All of this was in the name of creating a communist utopia. The Khmer Rouge, under their leader, Pol Pot, took control of the country 13 days before Saigon fell in neighboring Vietnam. The dominos were falling. The genocide in Cambodia was so extreme, however, that it was the Vietnamese communists of all people, who put a stop to it when they invaded Cambodia in late 1978. It seems farcical today to learn that most of the world, including the US, denounced Vietnam's invasion and continued to recognize the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot as the legitimate rulers of Cambodia, even though they were now in hiding in the jungle while Vietnam ran the country. China, fearing a resurgent Vietnam on its border and also to protest Vietnam's poor treatment of ethnic Chinese, decided to teach Vietnam a lesson, invading it in early 1979, but this action never really amounted to much.

Vietnam pulled out of Cambodia in 1989, no longer being able to afford the occupation, as it was no longer receiving Soviet largesse (see our belt joke in our last post). In 1993, the UN spent $2 billion to sponsor free elections, at that time the most costly UN effort ever. By March 1999, the remaining Khmer Rouge elements were killed, captured, or surrendered. Gradually, Cambodia was returning to a civilized state. With peace and increased security, the tourists began arriving to one of the great archaeological sites in the world. Whereas backpacking through Cambodia even ten years ago was still a life-or-death proposition, today millions of tourists visit Cambodia without a concern.

Kaplan describes Siem Reap in the mid-1990s as a town "with a primitive airport, dirt roads, no computers, intermittent electricity, and a grand hotel whose seedy rattan interior was decorated with out-of-focus tourist posters." Today, the restored Grand Hotel is a five-star luxury experience. According to our guide, there are now 81 hotels in Siem Reap, up from 12 in 2000. Nevertheless, that's not enough capacity for expected future growth, and new hotels are opening every month. The primitive airport is modernized, and an additional new terminal is being built. Our guide pointed out that basics such as running water and electricity (instead of private wells and generators) were put in place in the last two years. The dirt roads are being paved and expanded. "I am so glad to see these things happening," said our guide, "because for half my life nothing good occurred."

Considering that things could not have been worse in Cambodia just over 25 years ago, it is remarkable where they are today. Granted, we saw only the main tourist area, but still it is amazing to consider. The country does have centuries of cultural and language to fall back upon, and it is well located economically with booming Vietnam and Thailand as neighbors.

Comparing and contrasting Siem Reap to Calafate, Argentina provides an interesting perspective. Both are booming tourist areas adjacent to world-class attractions (glaciers in the case of Calafate), that have been discovered by mass tourism over the past five years. The infrastructure in both places is struggling to keep pace with the growth. A new dirt road one year may be paved the next, and become a four-lane highway the year after that. The pace and scale of Siem Reap's development exceeds that of Calafate, however. Most of the new hotels in Calafate are small and locally owned by Argentines. Only now are foreign hotels tentatively beginning to enter Calafate. In contrast, Siem Reap's hotels are bigger and foreign operators are here. Argentina is a more developed country, but the nature of hotel development in these two places seems to be the reverse of what you would expect. We suspect the lingering impact of Argentina's debt default and hostile treatment of foreign investors has retarded entry of foreign operators into Calafate.

Our Siem Reap guide, Chen Sekhoeun, or Hoeun for short, is 37 years old. In 1975, at the age of 7, his family was separated, with his mother, father, brother, and he sent to four different camps to work. He had to work all day long for three years and eight months, until the Vietnamese drove the Khmer Rouge back to the jungle. Hoeun described the Cambodians love/hate relationship with the Vietnamese. "Helping is helping, but invading is still invading."

Hoeun's family was reunited, but his grandfather and uncle were killed. Hoeun went back to school through junior high, which was all that was available to him since all of the teachers were dead. He himself became a teacher, eventually teaching physics and math. He learned English in a "street school" where for a few dollars you could get four hours of instruction at a time. He quit teaching in 2000 for the more lucrative profession of tourism. (This is a common theme throughout developing countries. Because of the hard currency tips from western travelers, many professionals in poor countries go into tourism, as it is often the highest paying job available. In Cuba, for example, many former medical doctors are now tour guides.)

The story of Cambodia's genocide is told in the movie, "The Killing Fields." Many scenes from a less serious movie, "Tomb Raider," were filmed in the Angkor temples.

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May 04, 2005

08:02:05 pm Vietnam (Southern half)  

Itinerary

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)
Sunday, May 1, 2005 - Monday, May 2, 2005
Vietnam Airlines flight from Hanoi to Saigon
One night at Caravelle Hotel

Temperature high/low during our stay: 95/75

Saigon is the largest city in Vietnam and its economic center. It was the capital of South Vietnam during the war. US troops left the south shortly after the January 1973 cease fire was signed. Fighting continued in South Vietnam despite the cease fire. On April 30, 1975, two years after the US ended its military involvement, communists took over Saigon. It was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in 1976 in honor of the communist leader who died in 1969. Both names are used interchangeably.

Population: the 1989 census was 3.2 million; our guide says the current official number is around 7 million.

Saigon Activities:
- Cu Chi Tunnels (1 hour outside of city)

The Cu Chi Tunnels were not part of the Wilderness Travel itinerary (see below), but we added it based on a recommendation we read on another around-the-world travel web site. The tunnels were built by communist insurgents during decades of fighting the French and the Americans. Everything needed to live exist underground was contained within the three levels of tunnels--food, medicine, kitchens, latrines, wells, dorms, meeting rooms, and rudimentary hospitals. Entire families would live underground for weeks at a time. At completion, 150 miles of tunnels crisscrossed this area, with some of the passages smaller than three feet by three feet. The entrances were disguised to the point where you could walk through the area and never know the tunnels were present. Seeing this, and crawling through a short space of tunnel--now widened slightly for Western girth--you begin to understand the dedication of the communists to what they saw as a simple nationalist fight for independence. Their will to persist through decades of fighting in conditions that Westerners could not fathom raises the question of whether the Indochina wars were ever winnable.

Two web sights of other couples that have traveled around the world are:

http://www.teamhopf.com/14month/
http://www.ourownway.com

The first site chronicles a 14-month, mid-1990s, journey of Leo and Harriet Hoph. Leo attended Tuck business school, and the alumni director there, hearing of our trip, put Nick in touch with Leo. The second site covers a 13-month trip in 2001-2002, and was referred to us by a professional colleague who now works with the couple taking this trip. Check out their fabulous picture gallery of toilets from around the world! In their honor, we have added a picture of a DIY toilet in Vietnam to our Image Gallery.

We will say that each couple is far more ambitious than us in terms of roughing it. Their stories of camping in the wild or staying in remote villages made us feel like prima donnas. However, a key to travel is to be honest with yourself about what you like and don't like, and what you can and cannot tolerate. Otherwise, you'll never make it through the trip.

Can Tho (Mekong Delta area)
Monday, May 2, 2005 - Wednesday, May 4, 2005

Three hour van ride from Saigon to Can Tho
Two nights at Victoria Hotel

Temperature high/low during our stay: 95/75

Population: approximately 400,000

Can Tho Activities:
- All three mornings we biked 35-42 kilometers (21-25 miles). In the afternoon, we lounged at the pool in the heat or read in our air conditioned rooms like lazy tourists.

Before our trip began, Nick spent about two-and-one-half months planning the overall trip and booking flights, hotels, and tours through mid-April (through Australia). When our trip began, we had an outline of approximately where we would be when after mid-April, but other than a few major flights, nothing was booked. We would have to figure out and execute those details from the road. Most of southeast Asia Nick had visited while he lived in the Philippines in 1990, and he and Bill Carlson had ventured to China in 2004, so Nick was comfortable ironing out most Asian details himself, with travel agents in China and the US handling the actual bookings through e-mail. Vietnam and Cambodia were different. Neither of us had been there or knew where to go beyond the two wartime capitals. We knew of several US companies who organized small group adventure tours to Vietnam, and one, Wilderness Travel, who organized private journeys outside of their group tour schedule. So, to save time, we booked a tour with them around the dates we were scheduled to be in Vietnam and Cambodia. The adventure included 1-2 hours of sea kayaking per day each of the three days we were in Halong Bay and about 65 miles of biking spread over the three days we were in the Mekong Delta. Basically, we had a guide and driver with us for most of the day while we were in Vietnam and Cambodia. We wouldn't want to be handled to this extent for our entire trip (and it would be far too expensive), but occasionally it is nice to not have to worry about anything.

Saigon
Wednesday, May 4, 2005 - Thursday, May 5, 2005

Van ride from Can Tho to Saigon
One night at Caravelle Hotel

Temperature high/low during our stay: 100/80

Saigon Activities
- Ho Chi Minh City Museum
- War Remnants Museum
- Reunification Palace

Here's a joke we picked up during our stay that depicts the hapless state of communism in the 1980s:

Vietnam (to Soviet Union): We need more aid!
Soviets: We can provide no more aid. Tighten your belts!
Vietnam: Please send belts.

Vietnam has become an open place. In our hotel, we could get four international news networks: CNN, BBC, Deutsch Welle (Germany), and Australian Broadcasting Corp. The International Herald-Tribune newspaper and other foreign periodicals are available. Like China, the country has given up on a communist economic system and so there is no pretense about the evils of capitalism. Actually, channel one on our hotel TV is the financial news channel CNBC! Lenin would not be amused. Political history, though, is a different matter than current economics. Vietnam's museums, like Cuba's, remain laughingly full of propaganda. You learn that Vietnamese communists have never done any wrong. Every action is just, honorable, and heroic. The opposite is true of the French and the American imperialists and their puppet South Vietnamese government, who did nothing right, winning no battles, and oppressing the people every chance they had. These museums are an interesting departure from the bend-over-backwards political correctness of American museums. The one exception to this is the War Remnants Museum in Saigon. It does have some balanced exhibits, including one showing photographs taken by Western journalists killed during the war. Accordingly, it is by far the best and most effective museum we visited.

Other Vietnam observations:

- Saigon is a newer city than Hanoi (300 years old versus 1000 years old). It is bigger, louder, and more commercial--perhaps this merely reflects its former American presence? Economic power is centered in Saigon, while political power resides in Hanoi.
- Vietnam is growing fast, and its infrastructure is struggling to keep up. Many roads are being expanded, but many more are needed. We wonder how unrecognizable it will be in 10-20 years.
- The best roads seem to be around Hanoi. This is another political truism around the world--the best roads are in the capital. Still, Hanoi would benefit from more and bigger roads right now.
- Saigon could use about five subway lines yesterday. Government is considering a subway (there is none today) but to date, this is an unaffordable luxury.
- Motorbikes are the main form of transportation, and whole families manage to travel on one bike, along with a week's worth of groceries, several large packages, and the family pet. It's difficult to drive--not that we tried--with the bikes zooming around you from all sides and in all directions (see Image Gallery). We would guess that motor bikes outnumber cars 10 to 1.
- We did not notice a large number of new commercial buildings in Hanoi (there were some), but there were tons of new residential houses outside the city. The French colonial architecture style is much nicer than what you typically see in a developing country.
- We said it in our first post, but it's worth repeating. The Vietnamese are incredibly friendly and welcoming to Americans. It is stunning really, overwhelming when you think about it. Biking through the Mekong Delta, every house, every group of bystanders would shout out "Hello" at us. Never "Bon Jour" (French) by the way, nor "Chao Ong" (Vietnamese). Every westerner is greeted in English, which must drive the French crazy, as 50 years ago French was the dominant foreign language here in this former French colony. French tourists are common in Vietnam, probably out of the same sense of curiosity Americans have about a far away place where a painful, long drawn out war ended unsatisfactorily.
- The Vietnam War as we know it or the American War as the Vietnamese call it had troops from many other countries present. South Korea (50,000), Thailand (13,000), Australia (7,000), the Philippines (2,000), and New Zealand (600) all committed troops to the American cause. Their contributions are too often not mentioned. We did not know any of these countries were involved until visiting war museums in New Zealand and Australia, which naturally mentioned their own countries contribution. Nick just finished reading "Vietnam: A History" by Stanley Karnow, which in its 684 pages provides only two references to these countries, dismissing the "token troop contributions" of Thailand, Australia, the Philippines, and New Zealand and later referring to Koreans troops "complacency" in a specific battle late in the war. To its credit, the War Remnants Museum in Saigon also mentioned all of these countries in a non-disparaging way. China and the Soviet Union contributed equipment and money to North Vietnam, but no soldiers.

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