A trip to Mai Chau
When most foreign tourists go to the stunning countryside areas of Vietnam such as Mai Chau in the northern province of Hoa Binh - the place from which I have just returned - we see a romantic landscape of verdant, terraced rice fields stretching into the distance up the misty valley, surrounded by steep mountains partially enshrouded in clouds.
Among those fields are set small villages upon copses of trees and bamboo. And, in the fields work the farmers at their own steady pace, a pace dictated not by the clock, but rather by the season, the weather, and the rice.
Of course, I know those people there, people whom we have romanticized so often, toiling all day with the heat of the sun beating upon their backs mercilessly; battling the soil, insects, lack of drinking water; and struggling with the local politics and national policies that lead to the endless uncertainties shared by farmers everywhere in the world. There is nothing romantic to them about being knee-deep in mud, sweat running down their bodies, sleeping on hard mats in houses with too little clean water, and barely able to eke out a living while trying to make their children’s lives better.
Ceaseless self entertainment
My friends back in Hanoi, used to the ever energetic fast pace of the big city with its never-ending demands and distractions, but also being Vietnamese born and bred to know the harsh realities of rural life, see the countryside not as a place to escape to from the city but rather as a place to escape from into the city.
They think us westerners that we’re romantic fools when we tell them what we see in the countryside. When local city-dwellers head to the country they say that they find the quiet pace there so boring they prefer not to stay more than a day. And even then they require the comfort and support of a large group, bringing with them the noise from the Karaoke machine, the endless energy of having to be doing something all the time, and ceaseless self entertainment, consequently missing the real sights and experiences of the area.
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