Goodbye Dong Da Lake!

(PICTURE: One day children living on Dong Da Lake will think this picture was altered in photoshop.)

Last week I wrote a post about the disappearance of Dong Da Lake. I had been told that it was just being cleaned and this was reinforced by a blog reader's comments. However, I have just been told by a reliable source (a thirteen year old boy who I tutor around the corner from that lake) that in fact Dong Da Lake is gone forever. There are signs posted near the lake saying that a railroad station will be built where the lake is. Needless to say, this makes me very very unhappy. If the railroad station was actually a subway that could help the traffic I could potentially be swayed into the necessity of destroying the beauty of the city. However, that is not the case. Goodbye Dong Da Lake. I really loved you.

Bear Bile Update

Last June I wrote a blog about the horrific practice of extracting bear bile for traditional medicinal means. Well, there appears to be some good news -- organizations are starting to crack down on this practice in Vietnam. My friend Sam sent me this article from the Huffington Post:

TAN UYEN, Vietnam — The three tractor-trailer containers sat in a row, divided with metal partitions into 19 tiny, sweltering cells.

Massive claws and furry black noses poked between the iron bars: 19 rare Asiatic moon bears awaiting their next gall bladder milking. Their bile is a coveted traditional medicine ingredient used to treat everything from hemorrhoids to epilepsy.

Some paced nervously inside the cages, panting and foaming at the mouth with wild bloodshot eyes. Others laid in their urine and feces, resting on the cool concrete floor. They devoured the bananas and chunks of watermelon – including the rinds – offered to them, a welcome treat from their usual diet of rice gruel.

The bears were found at an illegal Taiwanese-owned operation in southern Vietnam. On Friday, four days after being hoisted onto tractor trailers and driven 1,240 miles (2,000 kilometers) north, they reached a new home with grass and tire swings at a rescue center about two hours outside of Hanoi, the capital.

The newly rescued bears – two of them missing limbs and one blind – were sedated and removed one-by-one from their tiny cages Friday at Tam Dao National Park. They are joining 29 bears already at the rescue center.

Ultrasound tests found evidence of thickened gall bladders, a telltale sign of milking, said Animals Asia veterinarian Heather Bacon. She said some may need to have the organ removed because of extensive damage.

Many of the black bears, some standing 6 feet (1.8 meters) tall on their hind legs and weighing 330 pounds (150 kilograms), have been caged since being snatched from the wild as cubs up to seven years ago, said Tuan Bendixsen of Animals Asia Foundation in Vietnam, which rescued the bears this week.

Bear bile has been used for thousands of years in Asia to treat fevers, pain, inflammation and many other ailments. In the 1980s, China began promoting bear farms as a way to discourage poaching. The bears were housed in small cages, and the green bitter fluid was sucked from their gall bladders using crude catheters, sometimes creating pus-filled abscesses or internal bile leakage. Many bears die slowly from infections or liver ailments, including cancer.

The idea caught on in Vietnam and elsewhere as demand grew alongside the region's increasing wealth. Bear bile products are also illegally smuggled into Chinatowns worldwide. An informal survey by the World Society for the Protection of Animals found 75 percent of stores visited in Japan selling bear bile products, followed by 42 percent in South Korea. In the U.S. and Canada, it was about 15 percent.

Bear bile harvesting remains legal in China, where the government says 7,000 bears are milked on about 250 farms, though animal welfare groups say the real number could be double that. Demand for illegal wild bear bile, believed to be more potent, is also increasing, they say.

Amid international pressure, Vietnam outlawed the milking practice in 2005, and some 4,000 bears in captivity were implanted with microchips to help identify any new bears added illegally. Owners were warned not to tap them for bile. But the practice continues, and a black market thrives.

"We want this industry to end. Government has decided to phase this out, and we understand it's going to take time," said Chris Gee from the World Society for the Protection of Animals in England. "Across the whole of Asia there's probably 20,000 bears on bear farms."

Last year, a farm in northern Vietnam was raided for selling bile to busloads of South Koreans, who watched it being extracted as part of their sightseeing tours. Some of the farms in Vietnam are owned by South Koreans and Taiwanese.

"They're more organized and bigger. They're run like a business now," said Bendixsen. "It's part of a package tour."

Bear bile contains a high concentration of ursodeoxycholic acid. A synthetic version is sold as a pill and used in Western medicine for treating gall stones and liver ailments.

The pill is sold in China but cannot be used in traditional medicine because it is not derived from a natural source.

In a paper published last year, Yibin Feng from the School of Chinese Medicine at the University of Hong Kong suggested herbal substitutes that produce the same healing elements for various ailments could replace bear bile.

Another option is to use bile taken from slaughtered pigs or rabbits, which contains lower concentrations of ursodeoxycholic acid, or use artificial bear bile, which has a similar chemical makeup and produces the same medicinal effects.

"We found some animal bile and plants have better effects than bear bile in some diseases," Feng said. "Given all these, people in China should accept these alternatives. Of course, some people in mainland insist that no matter how close those substitutes can be, it is still not as good as the real ones."

The moon bears, named for the tan crescent-shape marking across their chests, will remain in quarantine for 45 days. They will then be moved to a building with large living cells where they will learn to mingle with other bears, before moving to a bear house where they can play outside in an enclosure with trees, grass, tunnels and swings.

They'll also be spoiled with dollops of honey and peanut butter.

Cars, Cars, Cars

Despite the government changing the traffic patterns in the city, traffic is getting worse. In theory, the traffic patterns might have worked but there is one intangible the government didn't take into account -- cars.

I arrived in Hanoi in April of 2008. In nearly two years, I would say that that amount of cars in Hanoi has at least quadrupled. Two years ago nearly every car you would see would be a taxi. Now there are less taxis than regular cars. It seems that every upper middle class family and higher has bought a car. This morning I consciously took note of all the different brands I saw. There were GM cars, BMWs, Mazdas, Mercedes, Toyotas, Lexus, Mini Coopers and a few other companies I didn't recognize.

The increase in cars is a huge problem. Besides the fact that they take up more space on the road when they are being driven, they also take up space when they're parked. This city wasn't built with car parking lots which means cars are parking on sidewalks, sides of the road and basically any free space they can find to occupy.

Are You Serious?

(PICTURE: A garbage can in the stands.)

I've mentioned on my blog before that the Vietnamese like to throw garbage on the ground. It is just what they do here whether it be on the street or in a restaurant. It's part of the culture. You're in a restaurant and blow your nose in a napkin, chuck it to the ground. You're on the street and finished with your water bottle, toss it on the curb. This is the hardest part of the culture here for me to adapt to. I've gotten more than a few looks when I've kept a dirty napkin on top of the table rather than chucking it on the ground where it belongs.

Well, at the soccer stadium I got a taste of my own medicine. When we went to the Vietnam vs. China soccer game, Huyen and I had bought some roasted nuts outside of the stadium and brought them into the game with us. After I shelled a nut I threw the shell under my seat -- you know how we do it in America. I immediately heard a gasp to the right of me followed by, "What are you doing?!" Huyen was appalled that I would throw the shell on the ground. I actually wasn't sure if she was serious and brilliantly asked, "Are you serious?" She said yes and told me to put the shells in the garbage. Sure enough, there was a garbage a few feet in front of us. If only there were garbage cans on the streets in Hanoi...

By the way, one thing I found really interesting about the soccer stadium was that they made an announcement banning smoking at the stadium. Smoking isn't banned anywhere in Vietnam. To me this was a huge progressive step forward for the country...that is until seemingly every male lit up a cigarette at halftime (not in the stands but in the corridors, bathrooms, refreshment area, etc). Even worse than people smoking though was that the vendors were selling cigarettes despite the ban. One step forward, two steps back.

Vietnam vs. China

(PICTURE: Huyen and I at My Dinh National Stadium.)

Last week Huyen, me and about twenty foreigners went to My Dinh National Stadium to cheer on the Vietnamese national soccer team against China. The game was a qualifier for the 2011 Asian Cup. Unfortunately Vietnam has already been eliminated from qualifying and thus the stadium was 80% empty. Regardless we saw a really exciting game.

Vietnam put early pressure on China and had a few very close scoring chances. However, China quickly countered and scored two goals before halftime. In the second half, Vietnam came out with a fire that they didn't show in the first half. The Vietnamese team turned up the physicality level of the game and it seemed like a minute didn't pass without a Chinese player dropping to the ground while I Vietnamese player was issued a yellow card. The medical cart came out no less than four times in the second half. If you ask me, the Chinese players have been watching the Italians play too much. In fact, after about the fifth yellow handed out to Vietnam, the refs issued a yellow to a Chinese player for diving.

On one play a Vietnamese player was issued a red card for some apparent foul. Clearly the fans didn't agree. However, playing shorthanded seemed to inspire the Vietnamese. I could go on and write a blog how the Vietnamese historically like to be the underdogs in battle but will only just state the fact that Vietnam dominated the second half once they were down a man. With only fifteen minutes left a Vietnamese player was fouled in the box and issued a penalty kick. The player took the kick and it was saved by the Chinese goalie. However, a Chinese player had entered the box before the kick and the referee granted Vietnam a do-over. The player didn't miss again and Vietnam halved the scored.

In the final few minutes Vietnam had a couple extremely close chances. Twice the ball skidded along the goal line, somehow not going in. In the end, China held on and won 2-1.

Goodbye Long!

One of the hardest parts of living abroad is that friends come and go. Out of all my close friends from last year only a couple are left in this city. Sadly, that number is about to drop again. My good friend Long is leaving Hanoi today.

Long leaving is personally sad for me. However, Long's departure is actually a huge loss for all of Hanoi. More than anyone else I have met here in the last couple of years, Long is the nucleus of the Hanoi expat world. In Hanoi we don't play six degrees of separation to Kevin Bacon. We play six degrees of separation to Long. It seems that every single person in this city either knows Long or has a friend who does.

As I've written on my blog once or twice before, the best thing I can say about someone is that they're a good guy. Long is great guy. Since I met Long, I've never heard him say a bad thing about anyone. How many people can you say that about? I guess Long can find the good in everyone...which is probably why he has so many friends in Hanoi.

Good luck back in Australia, Long!

Dengue Fever

I was too nervous to blog about this when it happened but I'll blog about it now:

One night when I was in Japan, I skyped with Huyen and she didn't look so good. She said that her head was hurting and actually started to cry while we were on Skype. I was extremely worried and encouraged her to call her sister and to go to the hospital. Huyen is as tough as they come and seeing her cry I knew something was wrong. There's nothing worse than being far from someone and feeling totally useless when they are sick.

Huyen went to the doctor and got diagnosed with "Petechial Fever" from a mosquito. She ended up having to take ten days off and go for IV drips ever day. The first few days were really scary and I started to look into flights back to Vietnam. Luckily Huyen rebounded and soon got better. I had never heard of "Petechial Fever" and did some research online and emailed some doctor friends. There was very little online except for talk about a rash that occurs during the fever. Well, after some more research I asked Huyen if she had Dengue Fever. Huyen looked at me on Skype and said that's exactly what she had. Apparently she had looked up her illness in a dictionary and it had two translations. The first was Petechial and the second was Dengue. As soon as I learned that she had Dengue I started to freak out. I don't know too much about Dengue but I know it is really painful and potentially fatal. I emailed my mother's cousin Herb who was a US Army doctor in Southeast Asia for many years. He emailed me right back and told me that Dengue is often called "Break Bone Fever." Herb told me that he had Dengue twice and wasn't embarrassed to admit that it brought him to tears because of the immense pain.

This was a few months ago and Huyen is now back to 100%. However, dealing with Dengue was very scary and something that most people outside of Southeast Asia have not heard of. Unfortunately that might now be changing because Dengue has been spreading outside of this region. My sister emailed me this article in Newsweek:

Dengue Fever Could Be Next Public-Health Threat

Andrew Bast

Last Spring the threat of swine flu sparked a panic: the World Health Organization declared a pandemic, universities and drug companies kicked into overdrive to develop new vaccines, and governments raced to stop the virus's spread. Meanwhile, another global public-health threat proliferated virtually ignored: dengue fever, a potentially lethal mosquito-borne disease traditionally found mostly in Central America and Southeast Asia.

The numbers on dengue's expansion are staggering. While the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control reported that H1N1 had killed 11,749 people as of December 2009, the WHO reports that "explosive outbreaks" of dengue hospitalized half a million people last year. Forty years ago, the disease struck only nine countries; it is now endemic in more than 100. And it's not just a disease of the poor south. Dengue has spread into a large swath of the U.S. (39 states) and has climbed to the second most common illness that European travelers bring home. If global warming continues and the mosquito's habitat spreads, more than half the world's population will be at risk, according to the Sydney-based Lowy Institute. While London, New York, and Beijing pour millions into warding off swine flu, dengue's scourge--and spread--continues. It may not threaten to shut down the global economy, but it's a growing killer that deserves some attention of its own.