Miss Saigon
Theme: Social Inclusion
Nguyen sells Nuoc Mia, a traditional Vietnamese drink made from fresh sugar cane, delivered daily straight from the field and crushed to order by a press attached to her street side cart. The three-wheeled cart is un-motorised; at sixty-something years of age (she's not sure exactly), and four foot nothing, Nguyen pushes the hefty stall to her regular site every morning, and then moves it about the city throughout the day as trade demands. She shouts as she walks, competing with the ever-present cacophony of motorbike horns and street traders that is Ho Chi Minh City. When she finds a customer she cranks the press by hand, and serves up the drink in a clear carrier bag, wrapped around a plastic straw with an elastic band.
Passing by the new KFC outlet, the Gucci store and the shopping mall, she pauses in the sticky midday heat; overhead, the petit silhouette of Nguyen beneath her conical straw hat is dwarfed by an oversized, neon red Coca-Cola advert. Life Tastes Good, it declares. Not for the first time in Nguyen's life, her world, Ho Chi Minh City, is changing.
The catalyst for this latest change to the city once known as Saigon, Vietnam's largest urban settlement was Doi Moi, or 'New Thought', an economic reform programme introduced in 1986 after attempts by The Communist Party of Viet Nam to create a centralised, wholly agricultural society failed, generating nationwide poverty and eventually famine.
Do Moi directed the country towards a socialist version of a free market economy and as such Ho Chi Minh City began to open its doors to foreign investors. An export market was developed, glass towers and business men in suits emerged, and many Vietnamese ditched their bicycles for motorbikes, and more recently, cars. Many became rich; some exceptionally rich. Vietnam became recognised as one of the world's newest money pots and wealthy investors swarmed to it. To the visitor, Ho Chi Minh City portrays a prosperous image of global success.
True, general living conditions in Vietnam have improved vastly since 1986, and poverty levels have dropped at a staggering and highly commendable rate. However, a 2004 report by The World Bank suggests that while the country's wealthiest citizens continue to prosper and succeed, and whilst the newly created middle class Vietnamese continue to climb The Ladder to Better Things, for the country's very poorest citizens, those who began at the very bottom of the scale, Nguyen and her contemporaries, conditions are in fact deteriorating. Over the coming years, Vietnam, it is predicted, may transcend from once being one of the most egalitarian societies in the world to becoming one of the most polarized and socially unjust.
Nguyen is one of thousands of street traders in Ho Chi Minh City. So prevalent are the traders, pushing their wares in carts, yelling from behind market stalls, peddling bicycles, riding motorbikes over-laden with goods, or carrying baskets of fresh produce hung from poles across their shoulders, that they have become icons of the city, synonymous with urban life in Vietnam.
In the state's quest to create a sleek image of global modernity, however, gradually, one by one, the street traders are finding themselves increasingly squeezed out of life in Ho Chi Minh City.
The beginnings of this movement began during 2005, when The People's Committee, Ho Chi Minh City's administrative board, declared plans to eradicate nearly half of all Ho Chi Minh City's existing market places by 2010. This was to make way, it was stated, for a more controlled, centralised food distribution network within the city; essentially paving the way for the inevitable supermarket domination of the food chain.
The displacement of street traders continued in 2008 when all three wheeled vehicles were banned from the majority of the city. This was approved in the name of traffic calming, but in effect prevented thousands of traders like Nguyen from working. Not only does this jeopardise Nguyen's income, but also creates a band of knock-on effects. Supermarket shopping suggests a certain level of wealth. It presupposes the ability to buy in bulk, transport goods and store food for a length of time. For the poorest Vietnamese, this is not a possibility. For those who tend to shop frequently in small, cheap, readily available batches, street traders provide an essential life line.
Similarly, The People's Committee have also stated at some point this year, that they intend to remove the city's distinctive street cleaners; an occupation normally held by the elderly, who push rubbish carts around the city, collecting litter and making a modest profit by trading at recycling plants. It is one of the lowest income trades in the city, and whilst the streets are kept exceptionally tidy, the rubbish collectors are an all too clear, all to visible symbol of poverty, and not in keeping with the new face of Ho Chi Minh City.
The new face of Ho Chi Minh City is a mask. The glass towers are a stage set. The state authorities are prioritising image over substance and those with the least voice to object are suffering the most as Vietnamese urban culture is swept away on a tsunami of globalization.
This problem is not unique to Vietnam, but rather Ho Chi Minh City serves as a microcosm of a world-wide phenomenon. Globalization is a two-faced event; it creates millionaires, but at the expense of millions. It creates shining utopias which vilify their inhabitants, and ultimately, what is a city, if not its inhabitants; all of them.
As the air cools in the late afternoon, the police eventually catch up with Nguyen. They fine her on the spot for illegal street trading. She pushes her cart home, all her day's taking lost. Life Tastes Good, beams the sign as she passes underneath it.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/journalismcompetition
Nguyen sells Nuoc Mia, a traditional Vietnamese drink made from fresh sugar cane, delivered daily straight from the field and crushed to order by a press attached to her street side cart. The three-wheeled cart is un-motorised; at sixty-something years of age (she's not sure exactly), and four foot nothing, Nguyen pushes the hefty stall to her regular site every morning, and then moves it about the city throughout the day as trade demands. She shouts as she walks, competing with the ever-present cacophony of motorbike horns and street traders that is Ho Chi Minh City. When she finds a customer she cranks the press by hand, and serves up the drink in a clear carrier bag, wrapped around a plastic straw with an elastic band.
Passing by the new KFC outlet, the Gucci store and the shopping mall, she pauses in the sticky midday heat; overhead, the petit silhouette of Nguyen beneath her conical straw hat is dwarfed by an oversized, neon red Coca-Cola advert. Life Tastes Good, it declares. Not for the first time in Nguyen's life, her world, Ho Chi Minh City, is changing.
The catalyst for this latest change to the city once known as Saigon, Vietnam's largest urban settlement was Doi Moi, or 'New Thought', an economic reform programme introduced in 1986 after attempts by The Communist Party of Viet Nam to create a centralised, wholly agricultural society failed, generating nationwide poverty and eventually famine.
Do Moi directed the country towards a socialist version of a free market economy and as such Ho Chi Minh City began to open its doors to foreign investors. An export market was developed, glass towers and business men in suits emerged, and many Vietnamese ditched their bicycles for motorbikes, and more recently, cars. Many became rich; some exceptionally rich. Vietnam became recognised as one of the world's newest money pots and wealthy investors swarmed to it. To the visitor, Ho Chi Minh City portrays a prosperous image of global success.
True, general living conditions in Vietnam have improved vastly since 1986, and poverty levels have dropped at a staggering and highly commendable rate. However, a 2004 report by The World Bank suggests that while the country's wealthiest citizens continue to prosper and succeed, and whilst the newly created middle class Vietnamese continue to climb The Ladder to Better Things, for the country's very poorest citizens, those who began at the very bottom of the scale, Nguyen and her contemporaries, conditions are in fact deteriorating. Over the coming years, Vietnam, it is predicted, may transcend from once being one of the most egalitarian societies in the world to becoming one of the most polarized and socially unjust.
Nguyen is one of thousands of street traders in Ho Chi Minh City. So prevalent are the traders, pushing their wares in carts, yelling from behind market stalls, peddling bicycles, riding motorbikes over-laden with goods, or carrying baskets of fresh produce hung from poles across their shoulders, that they have become icons of the city, synonymous with urban life in Vietnam.
In the state's quest to create a sleek image of global modernity, however, gradually, one by one, the street traders are finding themselves increasingly squeezed out of life in Ho Chi Minh City.
The beginnings of this movement began during 2005, when The People's Committee, Ho Chi Minh City's administrative board, declared plans to eradicate nearly half of all Ho Chi Minh City's existing market places by 2010. This was to make way, it was stated, for a more controlled, centralised food distribution network within the city; essentially paving the way for the inevitable supermarket domination of the food chain.
The displacement of street traders continued in 2008 when all three wheeled vehicles were banned from the majority of the city. This was approved in the name of traffic calming, but in effect prevented thousands of traders like Nguyen from working. Not only does this jeopardise Nguyen's income, but also creates a band of knock-on effects. Supermarket shopping suggests a certain level of wealth. It presupposes the ability to buy in bulk, transport goods and store food for a length of time. For the poorest Vietnamese, this is not a possibility. For those who tend to shop frequently in small, cheap, readily available batches, street traders provide an essential life line.
Similarly, The People's Committee have also stated at some point this year, that they intend to remove the city's distinctive street cleaners; an occupation normally held by the elderly, who push rubbish carts around the city, collecting litter and making a modest profit by trading at recycling plants. It is one of the lowest income trades in the city, and whilst the streets are kept exceptionally tidy, the rubbish collectors are an all too clear, all to visible symbol of poverty, and not in keeping with the new face of Ho Chi Minh City.
The new face of Ho Chi Minh City is a mask. The glass towers are a stage set. The state authorities are prioritising image over substance and those with the least voice to object are suffering the most as Vietnamese urban culture is swept away on a tsunami of globalization.
This problem is not unique to Vietnam, but rather Ho Chi Minh City serves as a microcosm of a world-wide phenomenon. Globalization is a two-faced event; it creates millionaires, but at the expense of millions. It creates shining utopias which vilify their inhabitants, and ultimately, what is a city, if not its inhabitants; all of them.
As the air cools in the late afternoon, the police eventually catch up with Nguyen. They fine her on the spot for illegal street trading. She pushes her cart home, all her day's taking lost. Life Tastes Good, beams the sign as she passes underneath it.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/journalismcompetition
Labels: Vietnam
écrit par Lux-Development à 1:26 AM
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