TV AND FORBIDDEN FOREIGN MARRIAGE

Local TV seems locked in the 1970's

Taking some time to relax in my downtown hotel room, I stretch out on my twin bed that’s too small, and turn on the boxy old television. Flat screen TV’s aren’t so common in Laos these days. 

Surfing the channels on offer, local shows aren’t much to look at, since Lao TV is still government controlled. Like their communist neighbors in Vietnam and China, Laos has allowed economic liberalism, while maintaining tight control of public media. Production quality is low; some of the current shows on television look like they were made in the 1970’s. 

Fortunately for the viewers of Vientiane, TV’s here receive broadcasts from the other side of the Mekong. The highly developed media from the relatively free country of Thailand produces the most popular shows in Laos, especially the Thai soap operas. Since the Thai and Lao languages are very similar, most Laotians comprehend Thai TV shows quite well. These shows add to the ongoing love-hate relationship that Laos has with Thailand. 

I don’t speak Thai or Lao, so I’d like to go online, but my room doesn’t have wifi. There’s no hardwire internet connection either. Fortunately the hotel lobby has a computer for internet use. There are also a few internet cafés in town, filled with foreign backpackers doing email, with a few Laotian teenagers doing chat. There isn’t much internet censorship in Laos yet, for the most part it remains relatively open. Relatively few Laotians can even afford internet access, so it's not much of a threat to the current government. Not yet anyway. 

While the internet and Thai TV continue to get around the Laotian government censors, the local Lao newspapers don’t. Case in point is a copy of the local English language newspaper that I’ve bought, ‘The Vientiane Times’. 

I scan the front page, and a front page headline says, “Recognition for Skilled Workers on the Way.” Great reading, if you want to go to sleep. To a westerner like me, government controlled news is hardly news at all. 

Lane Xang Hotel in Vientiane, you foreigners with Laotian girlfriends, stay out!

I find one notable and story inside, with a misleading title: “Police ensure Lao women have good husbands.” While the title sounds ludicrous, the story actually refers to Laotian women and their foreign husbands, and to the ongoing problem of human trafficking. It’s a fact that arranged marriages are sometimes connected to human trafficking, a serious problem in Southeast Asia. Some women are pushed into sham marriages, and then forced into prostitution. Others have been pressed into jobs with slave labor conditions. 

The story goes on to mention that some foreigners with criminal backgrounds had been marrying Laotian women, solely so that they could stay in Laos indefinitely without visa problems. 

Foreigners with serious Lao girlfriends are not allowed to bring them into local hotels. This brings up the issue of senior westerners coming to Laos, and marrying young Lao ladies. These marriages are officially discouraged; clear discrimination. A local news story cites a case where the government is withholding official approval of a marriage between a 21 year old Laotian woman, and a foreign man in his 60’s. 

 “Police were suspicious about the marriage, believing the man would treat the young woman like a servant,” the newspaper says. Obviously that's a double standard. In this male dominated society, police believe it’s ok for Laotian men to treat their wives like servants, but not foreigners. 

The paper later quotes a Laotian Brigadier General as saying, “it is unbelievable that a man aged over 60 is unmarried.” 

Apparently this general has never heard of bachelorhood, or a western divorce! 

IS THERE 'FREEDOM OF SPEECH' IN VIETNAM?

There is freedom to 'Rock-N-Roll' in today's Vietnam, just don't criticize the government

One afternoon I was traveling through Hanoi by taxi, when I saw a rare sight. Passing by a government building, I saw that a crowd of Vietnamese citizens had gathered out front. A mass of about 60 adult Vietnamese were all grouped together, seated on the ground, and totally silent. This is what passes for a demonstration in Vietnam. There were no speeches, no chanting, and no colorful banners advocating their cause. It was basically a public sit-in.

I would've liked to take a photo of the peaceful demonstrators, but I didn’t dare. There were no uniformed police, but plainclothes police were likely present, watching everyone and everything. Freedom of speech and public assemblies that criticize the government, can quickly get you in trouble here. Anti-government dissent is rarely tolerated in Vietnam. This demonstration could have been over any number of things: corruption, repression of religious sects, and unfair land confiscation have been common issues these days.

A peeking door looks into an old prison cell in Vietnam

When it comes to freedom in Vietnam, the good news is that they have come a long, long way since the dark days of the cold war. The bad news is that rights are still repressed, and they still have a long way to go.

Take the oddities of daily newspapers for example. With the reforms of doi moi, newspaper content has improved drastically. For the most part, communist dogma has been replaced with regular news articles. The national press now publishes many stories from western media verbatim, such as from Associated Press and Reuters. During my travels, I often read the national English language newspaper, ‘Viet Nam News’, and most stories printed within are indeed newsworthy. The format mostly mirrors western papers, with sections on world news, national news, business and sports. I even found stories covering NBA basketball.

Then there is what’s missing:

Internet access to foreign websites is better in Vietnam than in China

stories critical of the Vietnamese government are rare. Since Vietnam remains a one party system, the communist party is still the main source for government news. The occasional lead story about drab government policy shows the communist party still gets top billing when it so desires. Recent front page headlines include: “Performance key to evaluation of cadre: Party General Secretary.” Or this one: “Cultural exchange hailed as key to building Japan ties.”

Yawn…

As far as mass media goes, a recent step in the right direction, is that there are some privately owned publications. These periodicals tend to focus on fashion, lifestyle or business, rather than hard news. Newspapers, magazines and TV continue to be highly censored. To stay in business, most editors practice self-censorship to continue operating with government permission.
A foreign editor who published a monthly lifestyle magazine called “Asialife”, once explained to me his process of dealing with Vietnamese censorship. “Before it goes to the printer, we send the whole magazine in, and we have to have everything approved,” he told me. “We usually don’t have any problem. We get it back in about a week.”

The subject most notably absent from the daily news, is corruption. In a country where corruption is a top complaint, there are only infrequent stories about corrupt officials, and the occasional crackdowns. Of course, the communist party itself is aware that corruption is their biggest problem, but with so much money flowing into Vietnam’s rising economy, their current manners of dealing with it are like holding back the tide with a bucket. There is even less will on the part of the Vietnamese press to report on those who are arrested and convicted. Even the Chinese press to the north reports more often on their corruption crackdowns, than does the Vietnamese media.

Internet cafe in Vietnam, note that all those within are young people

When comparing Vietnam and China, one freedom that the Vietnamese have more of, is freedom on the internet. Most western websites are unblocked, and viewable within Vietnam. Internet usage has grown so fast, that even Google and Yahoo have Vietnamese language websites and services. But government IT censors do what they can to block many pro-democracy websites, as well as news stories and human rights websites critical of the Vietnamese government. In 2008, the Ministry of Information and Communication created a new agency tasked with monitoring the internet. Like China, they seek to filter out more anti-government information.

Bloggers have daringly tried to fill in the gap in independent news that is left by the traditional state dominated media. Unfortunately for local citizen journalists, Vietnam is not a good country to be a blogger. A select number of high profile bloggers who have been critical of the government have been arrested in recent years.

In 2008, prominent blogger Nguyen Van Hai, also known as Dieu Cay, was sentenced to 30 months in prison on tax evasion charges. Nguyen was the founder of the blogging group called the Union of Independent Journalists. The Committee to Protect Journalists stated that these charges were in reprisal for his blogging. With his conviction, Vietnamese bloggers are learning that exercising free speech online can lead to time in prison. 

CAFÉ LIFE ON KON TUM'S RIVER FRONT

Scenic view looking south from highland town of Kon Tum, with Dakbla River at right

I’m relaxing in a sidewalk café called Thu Ha Coffee, along the Dakbla River in the Highlands. It’s a lazy Saturday afternoon in the town of Kon Tum, and traffic on the nearby bridge south to Pleiku is light. On the road in front of me, two cows slowly pull a cart, while a farmer taps them along with a stick. The floodplain across the river is covered with a patchwork of farming fields.

The city has built a lovely river walk, and I’m surprised to see this kind of development so deep in the highlands. The walkway has designer fencing, steps leading down to the river, and plenty of landscaping. Saigon’s river walk isn’t this picturesque. Even new street lamps are of French design. The Vietnamese may have fought the French for decades, but they still like their decor.

In Vietnam, cafés such as this are another legacy of the French, and are extremely popular from one end of the country to the other. There are even a couple of nationwide chains, and they’re more popular than bars or discos for meeting friends, especially among groups of women. In Vietnam's conservative culture, good girls don’t go to bars, but they do go to cafes. You can see them crowded into cafés in any city, gathering after work or university classes. They chat the afternoon away, while sipping their iced coffees. 

I gaze at the lovely view of the distant mountains that cover most of the horizon. It’s a mostly sunny day, except for the smoky haze in the air. It’s that time of year when farmers outside town are clearing more farmland, leaving the familiar odor of burning brush.

An ox pulls its load along the river road in Kon Tum

There are more remaining forests left here than there are around Pleiku, but even this deep in the highlands the numbers are dropping. This was once a heavily forested area, but year by year the ancient forests have been shrinking.  In the war years air dropped defoliants were killing trees, but that was decades ago. The massive deforestation seen in the highlands these days is also man made. The population growth and migration of ethnic Vietnamese from other provinces has caused a major increase in land cleared for farming. There are also complaints of corruption connected to illegal logging.

As I finish my cold green tea, I notice an older American speaking with a local Vietnamese having coffee at another table. Wondering what the westerner is doing in town, I approach to find out.

“We’re with a charity, we support an orphanage here,” he informs me. “In our group there are some veterans, their families, and we have four doctors. They’re out at the orphanage now."

Charity groups such as this have helped to bring a lot of support for humanitarian work back into Vietnam. He excuses himself, returning to his serious discussion with his local staffer. He has a lot of orphanage business to take care of before they leave tomorrow. I wish them well, and depart the café. 

After walking a few blocks, I find myself in another café, an internet café. Even in this remote highland town, close to the Cambodian border, they still have internet. In this country where free speech is limited and press is still tightly controlled, access to the world wide web is mostly, but not entirely, unrestricted. The Vietnamese government does block a small percentage of websites. These include a select number of sites oriented to news, gambling, pornography, and those run by human rights organizations. But the vast majority of the internet is accessible in Vietnam.

Yes, that's really a child riding a steer, on the Kon Tum river front

I sit down to do email, and as expected, the connection is slow. But I’m not complaining, a half hour only costs the equivalent of 60 cents. I look around the internet café, and every single customer is under 18. There are boys playing computer games, while teenage girls do online chat. I’m pleased to see that there are not only ethnic Vietnamese here, but also teens from the highland minorities. These youngsters may be only playing games today, but they are all computer literate, and who knows where that will lead. Some of these kids are studying English, and at internet cafés here, and across Vietnam, thousands of them are chatting live with foreigners in faraway lands, including other American teenagers.

In a country where the government still goes to great lengths to control information, access to the world wide web may one day change. But the effects of this technology are already being felt. Compared to previous generations, these children are becoming far more aware of the outside world. It makes me wonder, what effect will this have on the future of Vietnam?

Who knows?