BAR FIGHT AND SAIGON NIGHT LIFE

A daytime view of the Hotel de Ville, originally built by French colonists

It’s a Friday night, and I leave Godmother's Bar, on my way to meet Chris, another American in town. Leaving the the Pham Ngu Lao tourist neighborhood behind, I cross into a city park. Even in the evening, HCMC is fairly safe. Although theft and corruption are common, violent street crime is a rarity. Culturally, the Vietnamese don’t like confrontations. I’ve only heard of one foreigner mugged in Vietnam, and it happened in the park I'm walking through. The German victim was so drunk, that he could hardly even walk when thieves spotted him. Stumbling drunk through a dark park at 3am is just inviting a mugging.

But tonight, there’s little to worry about, it’s only 9pm; at this hour it's safe enough. I've plenty of company; the park is full of Vietnamese couples. There are few places in Vietnam for romancing pairs to be alone, as single men and women usually live with their parents until marriage. Good Vietnamese women usually don’t go to bars, and most young men have little money to spend on restaurants or movies. Going to a public park is a cheap date. On weekend evenings, the city’s parks are full of couples. Tonight is no different, countless couples are cuddled up together on park benches, occasionally sneaking a kiss in the dark. With all benches taken, late arriving couples sit on the seats of parked motorbikes. Some nights, older couples take over the park’s gazebo. I’ve often seen them ballroom dancing, despite the tropical heat. They don’t need an orchestra; music from a boombox will do.

I recall another night when I walked through this same park, and the park’s occupants weren’t Vietnamese. On that particular evening, every single bench in the park was occupied by a sleeping African. There were more than 40 of them. During that weekend there had been an immigration crackdown. There were a number of Africans in HCMC who had overstayed their tourist visas, and didn’t have enough money to get home. When the police raided their hotel rooms and apartments in another district, they fled to this park to sleep until the raids were over.

Passing Ben Thanh Market I scare a couple of rats, and take a slight detour. I turn down Pasteur Street, named for the famous French doctor, and come to one of the most stunning colonial buildings that still survives. Bathed with bright exterior lighting, is the magnificent Hotel de Ville. More than a century old, it’s now an official government building occupied by the People’s Committee. The Classic French architecture, contrasts with the armed Vietnamese police outside. They sit bored in their security posts, hardly looking as I walk by. I’d love to have a look around inside the grand old building, but I’m not allowed in. Since it’s no longer a hotel, it’s closed to outsiders. Ah, if these walls could talk…

Looking up, a Vietnamese flag flies high above the old hotel’s center tower. In a slap in the face to the French, the Vietnamese installed a statue of old Ho Chi Minh sitting in the park right out front, reminding them just who it was that bested the colonials. Floodlights light up the entire front façade every night. As I walk past admiring the scene, I notice that all over the yellow painted exterior, there are… lizards! Small gecko lizards, all over the walls. The lighting attracts insects, which in turn attract the lizards. I give up counting them after I pass 100. Back in its heyday, this hotel hosted governors, presidents, and the rich and famous. Now, the only thing living here are little reptiles looking for an easy meal.

Entrance to Apocalypse Now, from asia-bars.com

Returning to the main boulevard, I continue on to my evening destination, a disco. In a country that seeks to forget the war, one of the most popular nightspots in town is called, “Apocalypse Now”. Taking its name from the intense Francis Ford Coppola war movie, this strangely themed place opened in the 1990’s when the city’s nightlife was more liberal than now. If you’ve seen the movie and thought it was rather bizarre, well, so is this place. The décor is dark and dramatic. Spherical white light fixtures are painted red, giving the appearance that blood is dripping down them.

On the wall, a surfboard is painted with that famous line from the movie, “Charlie Don’t Surf.” Upstairs the bar is made of sandbags, much like a military bunker. Old US made army helmets from the war have been turned into more light fixtures. The wall's top is lined with barbed wire.

Despite the drinking and partying, the club isn’t as wild as you’d expect. There's some hugging and kissing among the patrons, but not near as much as in clubs in America. On the dance floor, there is far less hip grinding and suggestive dancing. One of the contradictions of Asia, is that sexy dancing, or public displays of affection aren’t considered acceptable. Partying is done in a more conservative manner; there are no go-go dancers here. The government doesn’t want HCMC to turn into another Bangkok.

Prostitution unfortunately, is part of Vietnamese culture. As in many bars in poor countries, some ladies present are prostitutes. Others are Vietnamese ladies hoping to find a western husband. I ignore the advances of a pair of working ladies, and make my way through the crowd to my buddy Chris at the bar. He’s a business consultant in town for a few weeks. As I order a Tiger beer, he tells me about his last weekend, at a karaoke place with a big group of colleagues. He enjoyed the evening, but the next day he had one of the worst hangovers of his life. He couldn’t understand why, since he didn’t drink heavily. I ask what he was  drinking.

“We had three bottles of Johnny Walker Black,” he answered. “We bought the expensive stuff. The first bottle tasted ok, but the second and third bottles tasted a lot different.”

What he didn’t know, was that the first bottle was genuine Johnny Walker Whiskey, and the other bottles were counterfeit liquor. The karaoke workers figured they were drunk enough after the first bottle not to notice the difference! Their 2nd and 3rd bottles of premium imported $100 whiskey, were actually only cheap moonshine. It's a common scam. Johnny Walker Black is supposed to be 12 years old; that’s why it has the darker color. For booze counterfeiters, that’s nothing a little water coloring can’t fix.

Some time later, there's a commotion by the bar. I turn just in time to see a bar stool sailing into the crowd near me, flung by an angry Chinese drinker. The Vietnamese woman he was aiming for responded with her own weapon; she took off her shoe and counter-attacked with her high heel! Her girlfriend also jumped into the fray. In the melee that ensued, the group was gradually pulled apart by black shirted security. Fortunately no one was seriously hurt. Since I’m an American, a bar fight is nothing new. America is probably the world capital of bar fights, and although I’ve broken up a few brawls, I’ve managed to never get attacked myself. US bar fights are usually one on one fistfights between belligerent drunkards. The fracas usually lasts only a few seconds, until bouncers charge in and shove the combatants out the door.

Bar fights in Asia however, are altogether different. As noted from the previous instance, Vietnamese rarely use their fists, and will attack with whatever weapon they can find. In bars, you'd think that their first weapon on hand would be a beer bottle, but they always reach for something else. I once saw a Vietnamese drunkard try and club his opponent with a motorcycle helmet. When Asians go to bars, they go out in groups. In the same manner, when they fight, they never fight alone. Like the woman with her high heel, I once saw a group of Vietnamese remove their shoes, men and women, and fling them all at a belligerent foreigner on the street. Apparently Iraqis aren’t the only ones who throw shoes at their enemies.

Fortunately, bar fights in Vietnam are much less frequent than in the states, since Asians are generally less prone to violent outbursts than Americans. (Surprising, given Asia’s violent history.) But when a bar fight does happen in Vietnam, watch out for those flying bar stools. Or shoes.

With the battle royale over, the excitement in the club dies down, and the crowd gradually thins out. As Apocalypse Now closes, patrons weave towards the exits. As the lights go up, the last song played was that memorable 60's tune from the Doors: “The End". Jim Morrison would have felt right at home here.

NIGHT LIFE AND CORRUPTION IN SAIGON

Qing Bar in Saigon's District 1, an upscale wine bar that closes on time

In Southeast Asia, pubs and discos are excellent places to meet fascinating people, from a variety of backgrounds. In the bars of Vietnam people of all kinds are generally more friendly, and more open to meet strangers, than they are back in America. This has nothing to do with the hustlers or scammers either. Most Vietnamese are hospitable people, with a friendliness that is infectious.

One night at a bar/restaurant in Pham Ngu Lao, an English friend introduced me to Truong, a young Vietnamese. He was on his way to a disco called Gossip, where he would dance until the wee hours of the morning. Although I’d just met him, Truong invited me to go along.

Feeling tired I declined, but before he left, I asked him, “how can the discos stay open until the morning in the city? I heard there's a law, that bars and discos cannot stay open late.”

“There is a national law, that no bar can stay open past 12 o’clock,” Truong said.  “Everybody know that if bar is open after 12, they are paying the police.”

This corruption of bribes for bars to stay open doesn’t end there either. According to Truong, bar owners had to entertain the police regularly. “They don’t just pay the police,” Truong continued. “They have to take them out to dinner. They have to pay for everything, food and drink.”

Truong had a rather humorous take on the corruption system for bars. “My father is policeman. The bar give money to my father. My father give money to me. I give money back to the bar,” he said smiling. “Recycle. Recycle.”

Corruption is nothing new to Southeast Asia, existing here in one form or another for centuries. With the re-introduction of capitalism to Vietnam in the 80’s, foreign investment money has flowed in. This has brought enormous potential for graft to government officials with low salaries.

Truong proceeded to tell me about a corrupt government official. “Next door, this restaurant is owned by man in prison now. He worked in government petroleum. He in prison for corruption. In prison, he have good life. He pay the prison guards, he have good TV, telephone, nice room. His son and daughter, they go to university in America. In Vietnam, if the father go to prison for corruption, the son has a good life.”

A reputable organization which does surveys on corruption, Transparency International, annually ranks the world’s perceived level of public sector corruption. Their 2011 Corruption Perception Index, ranked 182 of the world’s countries. Vietnam was tied for 120th place, along with Senegal, Kosovo, Moldova, Egypt and Algeria.

Old Ho Chi Minh would be very displeased at the current level of corruption that exists in the 'communist' government that he left behind.

EATING, FASHION, & DOCTOR LOVE

Lotus rootle salad....delicious!

It’s a new day, and I finish my last bite of lotus rootle salad in Au Pagolec, an open air restaurant on Saigon's Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street. Open since 1930, the downtown business is family owned. Although closed for a time, it's been passed on through three generations. Like the city's storied hotels, I wonder how this place could have remained open for so long. There are few businesses in town that survived the French colonial years, through the American war years, and into the communist years.

I asked a Vietnamese businessman, who gave me his view on successions. “When the war happened, many rich families have more than one son,” he tells me.  “They don’t  know which side will win, so some families send one son to join the Viet Cong, (communists) and the other son to join the (South Vietnam) government. So no matter which side won, they have a son on the winning side. They can keep their business.” As disloyal as that sounds, it’s not without precedence. Some rich US families did the same thing back during the American Civil War.

Most restaurants in the city are family owned places, but some foreign fast food chains have made their way into the country. McDonald’s hasn’t arrived yet, but there is a popular burger chain called Loteria, owned by South Koreans.  Representing the Americans, Pizza Hut is in town, along with the famous chicken chain, KFC. Outside each KFC restaurant in town, the face of Colonel Sanders  looks out from the front wall. One day, I pointed at his likeness, and asked a Vietnamese woman, “Who is that?”

The romantic Cafe Nirvana

“Ho Chi Minh,” she answered. Hilarious. More than a few Vietnamese mistake Colonel Sanders for Ho Chi Minh. Perhaps it’s that resemblance that helped get KFC into Vietnam.

More popular than fast food joints, are the cafés. The French influence left a strong café culture in the city, and cafes are everywhere. Walking down Nguyen Dinh Chieu, I pass the traditional Café Nirvana. With décor of dark wood, Vietnamese artworks, and antique furniture, the place has an atmosphere of decades gone by. Soft music and a waterfall complete the romantic scene. But there are few customers here.

On the other end of the spectrum, further down the street is the crowded MGM Saigon Café. This place has nothing to do with the famous Hollywood movie studio, but it’s trendy and very popular. This café with a retro 70’s interior is four stories high.  In here the DJ blares music so loud, I wonder how any customers can hold a conversation. This place is part café, part restaurant, part disco. Well, cancel the disco. I have a look at the disco on the 3rd floor, and it’s completely empty. “The club closed,” a waiter informs me,” construction.”

Odd, the club only looked empty to me, and there were no renovations. A friend later told me the more likely reason it wasn't open. “That disco was very popular, but it was also popular with the drug dealers. They sold drugs in the bathrooms. The police came and ordered it closed.”

Walking further down Nguyen Dinh Chieu, both sides of the street become lined with shops. As the Vietnamese economy grows, a middle class is growing with it. More people are getting disposable incomes, and brand names and luxury items are finding their way into the Vietnamese marketplace. Here there's a L’Oreal shop, down the street is a Levi’s factory outlet, and a shop carrying Legos and Barbie dolls. Since the city has the country’s best shopping, western name brands are hitting HCMC.

Many foreigners who live here stay away from the name brands though. Long term expats know that it’s far cheaper for them to get their clothing tailor made, than it is for them to buy brand name clothing off the rack.

The very popular, and noisy, MGM

Another nearby store is named, “Chic & Trendy”. Faceless mannequins in the front window sport outrageous fashions reminiscent of the New York club scene. These tastes are reflected in local Vietnamese fashion magazines. Nowadays in HCMC, western fashions are all the rage, for women and for men.

A Vietnamese woman buzzes by me on a motorbike, and I’m reminded that not all traditional fashion is lost in the city. She wears the national women’s outfit known as the ao dai, seen in most foreign movies about Vietnam. The traditional outfit consists of silk pants, and a form fitting silk tunic. There are slits cut on both sides of the tunic, reaching higher than you might expect. The slits form long flaps in the front and back, leaving just a hint of skin visible on both sides of the waist.

This national dress had all but disappeared, until a beauty pageant was won by a Vietnamese contestant in 1995 wearing the ao dai. The traditional outfit made a comeback, and it’s still worn in some schools, government offices, and for formal occasions.

One of my Vietnamese friends Chi, wears a bright blue ao dai every week for her job at a bank. Chi is originally from the Mekong Delta, but now lives in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).

“My mother was VC,” she told me. As a young Viet Cong fighter, her mother was wounded fighting Americans in the Mekong Delta. To this day, her mother cannot raise one of her arms past her shoulder because of a shrapnel wound from the war. Her grandfather was also VC, and died fighting Americans in the Delta. Her father on the other hand, was a draftee in the ARVN, the old South Vietnamese Army. He left the ARVN after only a couple of months. It’s likely he was a deserter.

Born after the war, Chi is from Vietnam’s new generation that drives the growing economy. She is a modern woman, in every sense of the word. She’s a university graduate, financially independent, and an entrepreneur. Besides her bank job, she owns two outside businesses. “I have shop at hotel for foreigner(s),” she tells me. The shop sells souvenirs to business travelers. But that’s not her only side business.

Saigon is the center of fashion in Vietnam. Western trends are popular.

“I have bar on Phu Quoc Island,” she continues. This small bar is in a growing tourist destination south of the Mekong Delta. She occasionally flies there to check up on the business.

Chi was married once, and has an adorable daughter of six. Soon after her birth she learned that her Vietnamese husband, like many urban Vietnamese men, was spending time with prostitutes at karaoke bars. While many Vietnamese wives tolerate this behavior, Chi didn’t, and divorced him. Her husband still visits his daughter on weekends. Chi has moved on, and with her current work and outside businesses, she now earns more money than her ex-husband.

Chi was born after the war, and like most Vietnamese, she doesn’t dwell on it. The subject still comes up though, even with her daughter. “My daughter ask me one day,” Chi relates, “why did Americans come make war here?”

As seen here, Vietnam's traditional dress, the "ao dai", has made a comeback.

That’s not an easy question to answer. Given what happened to Chi’s mother in the war, I’m surprised that she doesn’t dislike Americans, but she doesn’t hold a grudge. “That is past,” she says of the war, “that was so many year before.”

Chi told me that long before she had married, she used to work for a medical organization, and worked with an American doctor. They worked closely together, and soon began dating. He became her first love. ”I loved him so much,” she admits.

That love was reciprocated, and he eventually asked her to marry him.

As much as she loved him, Chi turned him down, since she believed her parents wouldn’t approve.

The doctor cried.

VIETNAM'S TRIAD OF POWER

Are these items metaphors for power in today's Vietnam??

I'm out and about in downtown Saigon, and I stop at an ATM at the Go 2 Bar in Pham Ngu Lao. To one side of the ATM, there were old propaganda posters on the wall left over from the war years. Printed in the old cold war style, they featured armed soldiers, and the communist hammer and sickle. To the other side of the ATM, was a small Buddhist shrine. It was complete with a statue, incense, a few offerings, and some flashing red lights for a touch of modernity.

I looked at these three diverse, contradictory things lined up next to each other in a row, and came to the realization that right here was the Vietnamese triad of power. These represented the three most powerful forces in Vietnam today. The ATM is business, the posters are the communist government, and the shrine is the Buddhist religion. Today all three of these are distinctly Vietnamese in nature. Even the ATM was from a Vietnamese bank, indicating that foreigners don’t control Vietnamese commerce. Without question, it’s the Vietnamese who control the purse strings in this country nowadays.

As it gets later, I decide to head back to my hotel, since I have plenty to do tomorrow. Since it’s only a few blocks walk, and the neighborhood is fairly safe, I walk back alone. I’m almost back to my destination, when suddenly a motorbike pulls up next to me. A man is driving, with a young lady sitting on the back. Through the darkness a husky voice asks me, “Where you go? You want lady? You want lady?”

“No, no, no,” I reply firmly, very annoyed. I continue walking, and they pull the motorbike further ahead stopping right in front of me, blocking my way.

I try to sidestep around them, but they won’t take no for an answer. The little lady hops off the motorbike, grabs my arm, and I hear that same husky voice ask, “You want I go with you?”

YOW! That little lady was no lady at all. I yank my arm away forcefully, since the next thing he may try is to pick my pocket. Since my earlier rebuffs were being ignored, I find a few choice expletives that finally convince the two men that I’m not interested in a prostitute of any kind.

I escape to the safety and quiet of my hotel room. Next time I’ll take a taxi.

SAIGON'S DARK SIDE, COPS & THE GODMOTHER

An Alley scene near Pham Ngu Lao.

Travel books recommend Saigon's Pham Ngu Lao area, and it is indeed reasonably safe and cheap. Most tourists eat and sleep here with few problems, taking advantage of the low prices. The neighborhood has a dark side though, giving it a bad reputation among Saigon’s residents.

In among the shops and legal street vendors, are many hustlers. Attracted by the foreigners with money, there are many scammers. The cyclo, taxi and motorbike drivers tend to be the worst offenders. Some will charge a foreign backpacker double, or triple the usual fare.

The closest thing to violent crime in this neighborhood, is an occasional purse snatching. One day in Pham Ngu Lao, two young Vietnamese men on a motorbike grabbed a purse from an older western woman, knocking her to the ground in the process. While making their getaway, a nearby policeman tried to stop them with a flying kick. He missed. The driver then cut a sharp corner, skidded, and the bike ended up on the ground. That’s when the crowd descended. Vietnamese shopkeepers who had been watching this drama unfold, attacked. The two thieves took off running. The first was captured immediately. The second, pursued by more neighbors and police, was brought back in minutes. The woman’s purse was returned. Admittedly, it’s rare for purse snatchers to be caught, but it shows that average Vietnamese will occasionally gang up on street criminals. They are victimized by thieves even more than foreigners.

Then there are the drug pushers and pimps who pester the westerners, sometimes to the point of harassment. Take the case of Dave. He was walking through Pham Ngu Lao one night, when he came to a street corner. Heavy traffic forced him to wait before crossing, and a short young drug dealer approached him. “Marijuana? You want marijuana?”

“No,” he firmly replied.

With traffic heavy, he still couldn’t cross the street, and had to wait. The little Vietnamese drug pusher pestered him further, and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Final straw: the pusher tugged his shirt sleeve.

Wondering if the little pest was trying to pick his pocket, Dave lost his temper, swearing at the pusher to finally leave him alone. The pusher came right back at him, and the confrontation nearly escalated into a fight. Knowing that few pushers in Vietnam have guns, Dave could have easily pummeled him, but decided to do the right thing and inform the police. He quickly walked to a nearby police station.

Inside, he heatedly explained what had happened, informing them that the drug dealer was only 50 feet down the road. If they hurried, the police could easily catch him. The policemen stoically listened to the upset foreigner, and did nothing. They declined to leave the station, and instead began setting up a DVD player to watch a movie!

Infuriated at their inaction, Dave lost his temper again. “You’re worthless,” he bellowed at the policemen, “absolutely worthless!”

He then stormed out of the police station. He couldn’t get them to arrest the two-bit drug dealer, but he still felt better. After all, he had yelled at a roomful of lazy policemen, insulted them, and had gotten away with it. Apparently Dave wasn’t the only person who decided that that particular police station was worthless. Months later, the station was torn down.

New location of Godmother's Bar. The Godmother is a battle scarred ex-Viet Cong.

One night in Pham Ngu Lao, I checked out a hole in the wall bar popular with long term expats. Once inside, a buddy introduced me to the Godmother. As I shook her hand, I managed to avoid staring. The Godmother has a deformed face. Her left eye is out of place, and her nose has been shortened, twisted off to one side. The Godmother may have a scarred face, but she’s lucky to be alive today. The left side of her face was torn up by a grenade blast during the Tet offensive in 1968. At the time, the Godmother was a 17 year old Viet Cong fighter, taking on the American Army.

This female war veteran owns this bar, and it is appropriately named,  “Godmother’s Bar”. As her name implies, the Godmother is from a very connected family. Her relatives had fought on the communist side for decades, first battling the French, and then the Americans.

As the war ended, Saigon boomeranged from capitalism, to communism, and back to capitalism again. The Godmother went along for the ride. She went from being a communist Viet Cong guerilla, to a respected businesswoman today. Since her side won the war, her family’s political connections have paid off well. The Godmother owns four bars in the city, and has her hands in a few other businesses as well.

Her connections have even benefitted her foreign customers. When one of her long time German customers was robbed of his mobile phone, one of the thieves was immediately caught. The stolen phone ended up in the possession of the police, who refused to return it. It only took one call from the Godmother, and the phone was returned to its rightful owner.

She spends most of her time these days at Godmother’s Bar. It’s popular with expats living in Saigon, especially the English teachers. Without air conditioning, foreigners still come for the food and low prices. A bottle of beer is only 20,000 Vietnam Dong, about US $1.20. Some of her regulars even include American veterans of the war, who have returned to live in Saigon. I’ve watched her toast and drink with these old veterans on occasion, men she would have eagerly killed in her youth.

Today there are no hard feelings between them. She doesn’t speak much English, but between these old war veterans, words aren’t really needed. In her bar, everybody knows who everybody is, and what their past is. The war is in the past, and she's happy to welcome them as her customers.

My buddy Kenny, the former US Marine veteran from the war, is a frequent customer here, and the two old adversaries are friends now. Since he’s friendly and speaks some Vietnamese, he’s popular with the Godmother, and the bar staff. One night in the bar, a loud drunken American was being rather belligerent. Spewing obscenities, he shoved one of the bartenders off a stool. Kenny stood up, and walked over to his fellow American. Then Kenny picked him up, and threw the drunken idiot out of the bar into the street.

You don’t mess with Kenny, or his friends at Godmother’s.