My Wife is a Page 3 Girl

Hello to all,

Well sometimes a headline just arrives, and this one I had to grab. But you are going to have to get to the end of the blog to see what it's about. And please don't feel let down when you get there......ho ho.

For anyone who is interested, the recent typhoon did arrive in Northern Vietnam , but by the time it got to Hanoi, it had pretty much run out of steam and just deposited a vast quantity of rain on the city. The evening before it was due here, we moved all of our garden furniture inside and we noticed that our gardener had secured our trees with cord attached to the garden walls. But you can see from the photo here (taken about 100 metres from our house) that other peoples' preparation was of a fairly 'Heath Robinson' nature. And since that day, the ladder has disappeared.



 Now the weather is just lovely. About 20-25 degrees, blue sky, cool in the morning and evening. But when I emerge to go to work at 7'ish in the morning (thinking "this is bloody lovely, why can't it be like this all year?"), I have to smile at the sight of the locals who are in puffa jackets, scarves, gloves, woolly hats and shuffle around braced against the 'Arctic' conditions.

It was Karen's birthday a week or so ago, and our treat was to stay for a night at the Metropole in Hanoi. This is THE hotel in Hanoi and it has an amazing history. Pictured here is the entrance to the Bomb Shelter under the hotel from the American War which incredibly was only 'rediscovered' about 2 years ago, and has now been designated a Unesco Heritage site. This was where Jane Fonda and Joan Baez (amongst others) gathered when American bombs were dropping on the city in the early seventies.

Last week saw the Hanoi International Women's Club Annual Charity Bazaar. This is not (as one of my colleagues 'kindly' suggested) a few ladies baking cakes, but is a highly organized event attracting about 10,000 visitors over a full day with about 100 participating organisations, including this year 43 different countries and communities (many of them Embassy backed) displaying food and craft from their area of the world. Karen was the Country Table Coordinator in 2012 (helping the Chinese and Taiwanese and also the Israeli and Palestinian tables to peacefully co-exist) but this year she ran the British Table. We persuaded one of the local hotels (the Marriot) to produce Fish and Chips and boy did they fly out the door! Everybody is hoping that last year's Bazaar total of 125k USD is going to be exceeded, with all proceeds going to Northern based Vietnamese charities. It is a simply astonishing event and I am proud to have Mazars as one of the key sponsors. Here is a picture of the UK table, and if you look very carefully you can see that one of the offerings was a "love it or hate it" Marmite Challenge..

And so to my Page 3 wife. Karen wrote an article about the K (cancer)  hospital in Hanoi which one of the local magazines was very pleased to tell her was going be published and innocently advised  "Miss Karen, we are going to publish you on Page 3". We had to smile.





And finally......you remember our houseguest Roland Rat a few months ago? Well here's our new houseguest. Anyone who has any clue what 'it' is......please let us know, as we want to give it' a name.
















Back to the UK for Xmas soon .

Very best to all

Kevin

THERE REALLY IS NOTHING ON TV TODAY.................

Hello to all,

it's only a month since my last newsletter, but actually quite a lot has happened over that short space of time. I have a little notebook , and whenever something happens that I  think is 'blog-worthy' ......in it goes.

Those of you that know me well, know that really I am a frustrated advertising executive or marketing guru. So when I was staying recently at my usual hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, I thought I would take a snap of a great bit of lateral marketing thinking. If you run a 3 or 4 Star hotel, that is really good, with a great repuation, but you want to 'catch the eye' and differentiate from the many competitors, then what do you do? Well maybe you could have 7 Stars on your logo? Whoever thought this up gets a pat on the back from me.

So today, there really is nothing on TV. Not that I watch much here, but even if I wanted to go to the cinema today or to a concert, I couldn't.. For the whole weekend , the country is paying tribute to General Vo Nguyen Giap, who died last week, aged 102. I have to say that I had never heard of him, but this is the guy who saw off the French in the 50's and and Americans in the 70's. He was a national hero, and my taxi journey to work every day this week took me past the astonishing queues of people waiting to visit his home to pay tribute. Many of them were carrying yellow flowers, and in the beautiful Hanoi sunshine it was sombre, calm and dignified, as young, middle aged, elderly and extremely elderly waited patiently in line in a queue that I reckon snaked about a mile.

Moving on......I know I have rambled on about retail and shopping here before. So here's just a short and simple illustration. Karen and I went to a big , 5 floor electrical store to buy a small computer part. The photo does not do it justice, but on this floor (which was pretty small) there were 37 shop assistants, 5 security guards, 3 customers, and could we get served? The lipstick was perfect, the nails were pristine, the ipad thoroughly watched, the smartphone studied, the mirror scrutinised but the customers were not noticed. If only I could be invisible when I really want to be.

Just to highlight the multicultural aspects of life here......how about this? Last week , in Hanoi , Karen and I went to the cinema with a couple from Bolivia, to watch a movie in Welsh and Spanish , at which the special guests were the Ambassador of Argentina and the star of the film (a 26 year old Argentinian actor who was in Hanoi shooting another movie)? The film is called Patagonia by the way. Look it out....an amazing true story about which I knew nothing. Welsh immigrants in Argentina in the 1900's.

And finally.........I have no idea whether this 'craze'  if that is the correct word) has reached outside Vietnam, but what do you make of these photos? In a 'normal' aquarium shop in Hanoi, crazy coloured  live frogs and painted (or tattooed?) fish. Who knows what is happening here. We asked.....they laughed......somebody mentioned China........we went away..........enough said.





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Till next time everyone,

very best

kevin


......and as I am sure you have realized, no blog of mine is complete without some 'death defying' Health and Safety photos........

ANOTHER WORLD COMPLETELY

Hello to all,

Well for the last 2 or 3 months the weather has been rain, rain, rain.   Heavy rain, light rain, torrential rain, 'standing under a lukewarm shower in the bathroom rain'.  And the rest of the time just sticky and grey. But today.......the sun is shining. Slowly here comes the good weather. October/November/December are the nicest months in Hanoi and we are going to use the garden and enjoy the outdoors. Life is great.


Our new house is in another world. On one side of our lane (well track to be precise) you find houses like ours, and on the other side are some small family dwellings with their own plots of  agricultural land. One picture here shows a dwelling where a family does actually live ( I took the picture just by our front gate).  The picture below shows, in the distance, the Fraser Suites where we stayed for the first 6 weeks after arriving here last year.  It's maybe 300 metres away but on the other side of the main road, which is 'expatville'. We are so close, yet so far from our old area in Hanoi, in a very Vietnamese area now, and when we tell other expats where we live they tend to say " Oh wow.....I've never ventured over the other side of the main road before. What's it like?".

One major issue here is the difficulty in getting taxis. We have an incomprehensible address, that even locals look at as they scratch their heads. They use numbering systems for the small lanes and alleys that adjoin the named roads, and our number has obviously been produced by Hanoi's 'random number' machine, 'cos it makes no sense at all. But we have our 'taxi lifesaver'.  This is Mr. Ninh (or his fiance Miss Phuong). He is our gardener/maintenance man (before you ask, yes we still have Ms Chi as our housekeeper). We now get Mr. Ninh to ring for a taxi , and each time we know that in Vietnamese he is saying "Go down Lane 200 Au Co; go past the market and turn left onto the track where there's a sign with a lane number that seems to have been borrowed from another district of Hanoi". And sure enough, the taxis come......although when it's raining we have a long wait, and sometimes a taxi might refuse to drive past the market, which in the morning is heaving with people, and so we have to walk 150 metres and hope that somebody else hasn't nabbed the taxi.

Changing the subject, blogging is getting quite interesting here. There is a real crackdown on bloggers. Not bloggers like me, who merely chat about nothing in particular, but rather bloggers who have a point to make......and the point is usually one which is frowned upon , no matter its relative merits. I make no judgement here, and perhaps enough is now said (and hopefully understood).

Changing the subject again I thought I would share 3 interesting photos with you.  The first two show the view from two of the Mazars offices I have visited recently - Hong Kong and then Liverpool - compared to the third which is the view from my office window. Where did I go wrong when we chose the Hanoi office?

I can't remember whether I have ever covered the fact that I am now a member of the Hanoi Whisky Club. What a fine institution it is. And how much have I learned and can now appreciate about Single Malt Whisky! There have only been around 80 members in 9 years (with a maximum of around 20 at any one time). It's a real privilege.

Ok everyone.....until next time,

very best to all, and to close, how about this? An Atlas moth in our back garden.

Kevin

SHALLOW EXPAT RAMBLINGS...............

Hello to everybody........

Well today there will be nothing particularly profound: no earthshattering observations, nothing deep or meaningful, but just a collection of selected, unconnected thoughts from the last few weeks. So let's set the tone right away:

Halibu....... ha ha. Nothing needs to be said here. Every time I see our bottle in the kitchen it makes me smile .

And now a message to the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the UK. Every time I come back to the UK I have to start dealing with COINS. In Vietnam it's just NOTES. Notes are way better in my view; easier to store, easier to handle, and they don't clank about in your pocket. But that isn't to say that the currency in Vietnam is perfect. There are so many 'noughts' that it makes you dizzy. Yesterday we finished work on a deal here where a company was sold and the figure was in the trillions of Dong. It was so long that it nearly went off the side of the page.

We've now moved house. We love our new house; Sally loves our new house. Here's a photo of something which our landlord left us in the garden. Clearly this is a Go Go Dancers cage from a defunct Hanoi nightclub.

As is the norm here, we asked for a safe to store cash and valuables . And boy did our new landlord deliver us a safe. There will be no sneaking out with this little beauty. It's a monster and we won't be accidentally taking this at the end of our lease as excess baggage.

So whilst I said there is nothing profound in this posting, here is a thought process that possibly has a little depth. 'Expat Possessions'. We are paying 71.08 GBP every month for storage in a warehouse in Leeds for the possessions that we didn't bring with us to Vietnam. Neither Karen nor I can remember what these possessions are. We have managed perfectly well without them for 18 months. So what are they? Possessions or emotional baggage? And how will we feel in a couple of years when we open the container and say....."Wow , I remember these"?

And moving this thought process on, when we moved into this house last week, we found 15 cases of possessions in the cellar. These didn't belong to the previous tenant , but to somebody else who left Vietnam 8 years ago but couldn't afford to take them at the time. The person apparently wanted them to be stored for her, didn't want to pay, and consistently wouldn't pay for them to be shipped. Well anyway they are now in the community recycling system in Hanoi and we have an empty cellar.

Moving swiftly along, I went to Hong Kong recently on business. When reading the local newspaper I read about a survey of men living there between the ages of 40 to 50. It claimed that over 50% of them would willingly trade living a shorter life with having a full head of hair. I read it twice to ensure I had not misread it. I had not misread it.

My final thought today. I have fallen in love again. It was a sudden realization of a love that I used to have which gradually faded until I had forgotten all about it. And now in Vietnam it has sprung back into my life with a youthful energy that makes my old heart leap (just a little). I will make my re-affirmation of this love right here and now in this blog. I LOVE the Radio (Digital of course) and in particular I LOVE BOB HARRIS. I listen to him every week on 'catch up radio'. What a voice he has; so soothing , so smooth, and so restful. Long live Bob Harris.

Cheers everyone,.......some more photos below.......

Kevin

A Mahjong set I bought for Karen,who plays with friends from the Asian Women's Group in Hanoi.

Our front garden.........

Dogs ,Diplomats,and an Aeroplane in a Lake..................

Hello everyone,

Well its been 2 months since my last update. I can't believe where the time has gone. Anyway , can I just ask one favour of somebody? Is there anyone on my distribution list who is going away for a couple of weeks over Xmas and needs a house-sitter? Last Xmas we rented an apartment in Salford Quays which was a bit soul-less, and whilst we've signed up with a website called Trusted Housesitters.com, someone we know would be a real plus.

I'm writing this on Phu Quoc island, just off the south coast of Vietnam where we've come for a 4 day break. It's beautiful here , except that we've picked the rainy season to come so it's er ....raining outside......that annoying hard rain. I dare say we'll manage to venture out soon though.

Coming to Phu Quoc is a bit of a co-incidence as we have just tried ( unsuccessfully) to have a second dog; a Phu Quoc Ridgeback to be precise. Sally and the new dog ( see picture) did not hit it off ( that's quite an understatement actually) and she had to go. Not her fault at all. She was a cutie, but Sally showed that she isn't just a laid back couch-hound; after two real scraps one of which ended with me at the clinic, we had to end the hostilities. But wow , Phu Quoc Ridgebacks; the only dog in the world with webbed feet. I kid you not........

And the other news is that we are moving house. Yes we are moving from our palatial , 6 storey townhouse, to a much more sensible 2 storey house in a pretty much exclusively Vietnamese area which is very near the Red River. So why are we doing that? 3 reasons.......

• It's cheaper......ever the accountant
• Next door (to our current house) is being demolished and rebuilt and they start construction every day at 5-30AM , 7 days a week, including public holidays. And the law in Vietnam is that the normal construction day begins with drilling and hammering and then when all the neighbours have buggered off to work, you spend the rest of the day on a tea break playing cards.
• The Red River is fabulous for Sally the dog. She loves it there, and we are 5 minutes walk away. So yes we are leaving the safety of our nice little Expat area, with all the 'western' restaurants and bars, and foraging into the unknown. Actually I have dramatised that a litttle, but it is certainly an area with very little social cache.

Pictured below is Chi , our Housekeeper with whom we are completely in love. Here she is cooking up our evening treat......Beef in Betel leaf.

Changing the subject , one aspect of this life is the chance to be part of the ambassadorial merry-go-round. So I get invited to the British Embassy to celebrate the Queens Birthday, play tennis with the Mexican Ambassador, sit next to the Canadian ambassador at breakfast the other day, have dinner with the Lord Mayor of the City of London ....and so on. Once again its something  I have never experienced before but it's a real privilege and you learn so much. One chap I met the other day , from the British Embassy has just moved here from the Sudan. If I think Hanoi is hot, well I certainly won't be rushing to move to the Mazars office in Sudan .

I'm not really one for visting temples and cathedrals. I'm much more into historical stuff. So during the last few months we have seen;

• Changi museum on Singapore where the Japanese incarcerated the locals
• The Bangkok to Rangoon railway using forced British Labour in WW2. ( Bridge over the River Kwai etc etc)
• The prison here on Phu Quoc where the Americans kept the North Vietmamese prisoner. This was in operation all the way up to 1973.
• A B52 Bomber in a lake in Hanoi, which crashed in a bombing raid in 1972 and the Vietnamese government have just left it there

I've got nothing to say about any of it except that it makes you stop and think and realize that no matter how hard we think our lives are, that my generation has not been really tested. And I'm not posting any pictuers.

Here are some snaps from our trip to Bangkok, where we played with an elephant and fed tiger cubs........

So that's all for now and I won't leave it so long  next time......

cheers all

kevin

VIETNAM FOR EUROVISION

Hello to everybody,

I've started to write this during a 4 day break in The People's Democratic Republic of Laos. We have come to Vientiane , the capital city, which is only an hour's flight from Hanoi, but frankly could be on another continent. It is hot, but not humid, quiet, sedate, and has what seems to pure and unspoiled air to breathe . It's bliss. I knew nothing about Laos and yesterday we visited a working centre, called COPE, for the manufacture of prosthetic limbs. A strange choice you may say , but it turns out that Laos is the most prolifically bombed country in the world. It has had 280 miliion bombs dropped onto it , of which only 70% exploded on impact. Thus there are at least 100 people that lose a limb every year  by standing on a 'scatter bomb' , and this is after 4 decades and millions of pounds spent on locating and disposing of bombs. Below is a sculpture made from bomb casings at the centre.

I very rarely buy myself beautiful things. Somehow the scales of aesthetics against cost are weighted in favour of prudence. My Rado watch is perhaps an exception. But in Laos yesterday, we were in a Social Enterprise workshop and they were making some stunning polished wood pens and mechanical pencils. No matter how many times I walked away from the display an invisible heartstring kept pulling me back. And now I own one, and in a lovely wooden case. See the photo. I will love using this every day.

Moving on ( and back to Vietnam), Karen and I are convinced that the Euro 'powers that be' should extend the 'boundaries' that now include Israel and Azerbaijan, and invite Vietnam into the the Eurovision song contest. This would be a 'sure fire' method to ensure that Great Bitain does not finish last. There are simply millions of 'would be' Eurovision crooners' in Vietnam , with microphone and karaoke machine in hand ,who we are sure would battle it out in the heats to represent Vietnam. The streets are alive with the sound of 'music' in Hanoi , and of extremely variable quality. The decibel factor seems to be thing that counts here; the competition obviously being to see whether they can be heard in neighbouring countries.

Last time I told you about Health and Safety here. Well just to prove the point, our neighbour decided to demolish their house. See here one of many interesting photos we have. The generally accepted method is to start at the top with your pneumatic drill and demolish from underneath you. It worked perfectly well and we heard of no accidents. I also attatch another H&S photo which really needs no explanation apart from an explanation mark.

One very annoying result of the house next door to us disappearing was the  disruption it clearly caused to the rodent life in our alley. We have a brand new house and no unwelcome guests up to now, but just after the demolition work started our friend Roland Rat came to stay. On paper this should be no problem for us. We have Sally the trained lurcher hunting dog. She has had plenty of rats on our walks ; they seem 'small fry' to her at an almost inconsequential level. In the house though it's a different story. We have polished wooden floors which are not designed for animal killing machines with long spindly legs. Sally knew that already, it seemed , and clearly she made a secret pact with Roland to allow him the 'freeedom of the city' in our house. Not a damn did she give. So the old phrase        ' why keep a dog and bark youself' went straight out of the window and we had to engage the services of our landlord to hunt Roland down, corner him and bash him to submission with a long handled metal rat basher.  Here's a picture of Roland taking his afternoon stroll.

We have now done over a full year in Hanoi and what a year it's been. I generally feel so blessed to have been given the chance to live my life a different way, in a different place, with new colleagues and friends. It's been tough, but in every sense, a life changing experience.

Cheers everybody

kevin

And here are two Vientiane photos. The lower one is

the Laos' Arc De Triomphe', constructed from the

concrete of airforce runways ( we are told), and still

not finished.

Where am I going to be 'healthier and safer'?

Greetings everyone,

I'm sitting here at home on saturday 9th February and tonight is New Year's Eve. The office has closed for a week, and we are told that Hanoi will be empty for the next few days as so many people have gone back to their home town in the provinces and all the expats have gone on holiday. We are going to enjoy a quiet Hanoi ( that will be weird) and watch all the celebrations tonight.

So the topic this week is 'Health and Safety'. Over the years ( and without any facts or figures) my feeling is that Europe has created a whole industry with rules, jobs,fines,legislation and media influence around Health and Safety. And now I am questionning whether what Europe has done is a little over the top.

But before talking about Vietnam , I'm going to talk about a company I did some work with in Liverpool. It made playground equipment including the ground areas for playgrounds. As you can imagine the company was beseiged by safety standards that goverened every single thing it did. Yet chatting to the older guys there, they did'nt really believe that what they did was totally worthwhile. Typically the story went......'in my day everything was concrete and if we fell off we learned the lesson, got bandaged up, and went back to playing again'. So arguably the safer you try to make something, the more compromised it becomes in terms of a learning experience.

Vietnam does have health and safety standards.. But if you go out in the street, within 10 seconds you'll see something that would be immediately closed down in Europe. And are their buildings falling down, fires in the streets, multiple pile ups, epidemics of typhoid, and all the things that H&S is meant to prevent? Err......no,at least not apparently so. People tend to look out for themselves, which doesn't seem such a bad idea to me.

 Take a look at these photos, both of which are less than 50 metres from our house. Who knows what is going on with this 'highly traditional ' cooking method for street food which seems to comprise a multiplug, a piece of wood, a plastic bag, a portable stove, a pot with some food in and an unidentified electrical gadget which certainly isn't on sale at Currys.

And the other photo shows an alleyway's electrical system. There are thousands of these 'spaghetti junctions' in Hanoi.

And one other highly refreshing aspect , whilst I'm on the subject. If you transported the pavements of Hanoi to any UK town , it would be a 'kerb trippers' paradise. ( See the lovely little toe breaker just down the road). But there ain't no insurance companies here paying out on this kind of thing. So there's one  industry that will find it hard making its way to Vietnam.

 I am not saying that H&S is a waste of time and money. But what I am questionning is how to create an objective view of the state of affairs and to consider no further expansion in legislation once the law of diminishing returns comes into play.Put another way, a rethink of the balance between legislation  and common sense.Indeed a study I looked at last night commissioned by the UK government suggested that there needs to be a higher level of engagement with society about what 'risk' actually means. Probably a niaive standpoint from me on this, but isn't part of the point of a blog just to make people think?

The H&S area that Hanoi is crying out for is to improve the pollution levels. It's arguably got the worst air quality of all cities in SE Asia , and my guess is that it is vehicles ( rather than industry) which is to blame. When I was told that there are real plans for an Underground I just laughed wondering when Vietnamese April Fool's day is. But there are plans which  I have now seen, although I don't think that I'll be trying to buy my annual season ticket to Tay Son Street any time soon.

Changing the subject, do you remember that in a previous edition I told you that shops of the same type are grouped together? ( ie all the sports shops are together, all the bookshops etc etc......), well I was in a taxi the other day and went down 'maternity dress street'. Pretty much all the pregnant clothes mannequins in the world are in one street in Hanoi.

So now you know..........

very best everyone; and here's some more snaps

kevin

See above what we found in our chicken stew given to us as a gift. Nothing goes to waste here you know.

Above shows what appears to be beautiful blossom on a small tree at a garden nursery. But check out the black branches which are in fact plastic , as is the white blossom. Astonishing.

And finally, this is a huge world map covering one wall of Hanoi Post Office. It's odd to see Australia and Asia in the middle ( rather than to the right which is what we are used to). But given where we are it's screamingly obvious that world maps will be drawn up like this.

WHITE BEDOUIN

Hello Everyone,

We've been back in Hanoi for a week (after Xmas and New Year in the UK) and now we know why the shops in Hanoi were full to bursting point with thick winter coats. When we left on 14th December it was 25 degrees, and now it's 10. The house is freezing and the first thig we did was work out how to use the air conditoners as heaters. There can only be two or three months in the year when the temperature is fairly neutral and the house doesn't need cooling down or warming up!

My major topic this month is 'roots', because I've realised that I've met several men in Vietnam, the type of which I have never really dealt with before. They are 'western', speak with a perfect, but undefinable English accent, and to all extents and purposes are 'English'. But they are not. I suppose that this is a feature of my 'sheltered life' ( joke), but I have never come across people who were maybe born in the UK (or certainly to a UK family), have lived all or most of their life abroad, and so whilst appearing 'English' have no real affinity to the UK at all.  They may been educated at a series of international schools or, depending on their parents' postings, in boarding school.  They  have no real desire to visit the UK and certainly would not wish (ever) to live there (unless it was a work posting). Several admit to being completely 'rootless'. When I ask the 'well worn ' tax domicile question ,"Where would choose to go to die?", then the answer is "Dunno really".  Somebody in conversation recently referred to them as 'White Bedouin'. What a great turn of phrase.

So I guess we all have differing needs for our roots and where we feel that ultimately we belong. I was thrilled to feel, on my way back from a business trip in Europe the other week, that I was 'going home' to our house in Hanoi. I don't think that I ultimately belong here, and I know that the UK still has a major part to play in my life, but this experience has really made me question my 'roots' and whether I could ever join the itinerant 'white bedouin'.

Changing the subject, here are some photos...........

Our local  'cock fighting' ring . (I have inserted the word 'fighting' here to prevent my immediate arrest.) Cock fighting is legal here, but gambling on the result isn't.

A fish being kept in a pot by the side of the road at a restaurant (as is the norm here), obviously decided to make a bid for freedom and I watched it jump out of the pot and zig zag across the road. The locals thought it was hilarious that I wanted to take a photo.

A snake on the pavement near our house, eating something or other.

The Xmas reindeer outside our offices (where there is also a shopping mall). I love this photo.

Finally I should let you know that if I have a shiny red nose and veined face the next time you see me , it will be because I have joined the Hanoi Whisky Club. It's run by two venerable Scots guys here and they 'inaugurated' me a few weeks ago.Every meeting you have to take a bottle of single malt. I will be taking a bottle of Welsh Single malt that one of my clients bought me as a leaving present (thankyou Dawn!), but I have no idea whether this will be welcomed as a 'great change' or made fun of as an 'imposter'. Hopefully the former, because it's a fantastic bottle of whisky.

So that's it for now everyone......

Very best for 2013.

Kevin