HIV & Feminism

My teacher and I went in a hospital to talk to HIV patients. We talked to one. (On a side note, it was SO ODD to me that no one checked us in and we just freely walked in and picked a bed and random patient to talk to and even weirder that he was willing to answer our questions and share about his personal history. I guess one of the differences between US and Vietnamese culture.) He contracted HIV from "relations" which I assume to mean an extramarital affair or he hooked up with a prostitute.

His wife was with him and she didn't even wanna get checked! I told her she should really get checked. If I were her, I'd definitely be PISSED...one, because she might have HIV now and two, because he cheated on her and in the end, who is taking care of him? her. I guess I'm especially irritated because it seems like such a NORM for Vietnamese men to do...extramarital affairs or prostitutes (variations of...massage, at a bar, at a cafe shop, comes with beer, on the street)...a sign of manhood. And women in Vietnam are expected to take it like their grandmothers, their mothers, their sisters, and their neighbors...they all take it. Vietnamese women are PRAISED for their sacrifices...for the crap they have to put up with. Just in Malaysia, a Vietnamese women who was in Malaysia to work told me about how her husband would beat her several times a day and she still stayed for the kids. Finally it seemed like he was trying to kill her and with advice from her daughter, she finally left.

I asked him how he knew to get checked. He had a fever that wouldn't go away and then he went into the hospital and got several scans that seemed ok and finally they checked his blood. This particular hospital in Saigon (or this particular building) is for HIV patients when they turn bad...like their health is taking a turn for the worse. Otherwise, they should just be taking their medicine regularly outside of the hospital. I was most curious about prevention. Did he know how to protect himself? He said no, and he also said he didn't think enough...I'm not sure what that answer means. I asked him about sex education in school...he didn't go to school. He worked in the rural areas, and a lot of poor children or children in rural areas stop going to school. What I did read about sex education in VN though is that it's very biologically based and hard to understand. I also asked him now that he knows he is infected, has anyone told him what to do to protect others. He said nope, they just give him medicine a couple times a day. That's terrible. That information is CRUCIAL!

I was talking to one of my other teachers...his wife is part of an organization that counsels HIV patients...I am planning to call to see how I can help. Health education is SO SO important and part of this situation breaks my heart because that knowledge is a privilege that I often take for granted as a Public Health major but important knowledge that they didn't have.

Medical system in VN

I've made an active effort to learn more about the medical system here.

My doctor friend took me on a tour of the hospital and answered my questions (when I volunteered to teach English in SF, one of my students turned out to be a doctor in Saigon...crazy where connections can take you).

So I always think the doctors in America don't give each patient enough time. Vietnamese doctors are seeing about 20 patients an hour. I was like....what the???! How is that possible unless they walk in and out the door. Also, each hospital has another floor for people who are willing to pay more...the floor isn't amazing. There's still a bunch of beds in one room and all the patients can see each other..and those are the good rooms. They said that if they had money, they would also have curtains like in America. The emergency room is just a big room with a bunch of beds and sick or injured people laying on it waiting to be seen or pushed into the appropriate department.

Health insurance is given only to the selected few...health care providers automatically have it. Right now health care insurance in Vietnam is all public, but according to the doctor I talked to, only 30% of the population have it...it's really hard to get it, even if you have money. Furthermore, right now they are trying to switch to universal health care insurance.

Abortion is legal here and seems to be done pretty frequently...for younger girls (under 18), they need parental consent...but not really. Money solves all, and it's such a taboo here that the doctor will just do it anyway rather than make the girl deal with family reputation and such being lost. One of my Vietnamese friends (a few years older than me) says a lot of her friends have gotten pregnant and gotten abortions already.

That's pretty much all I know for now.

Trường Nguyễn Định Chiểu- school for the blind

Viết về cuộc sống của một người khiếm thị mà bạn đã gặp, trờ chuyện và cảm nghĩ của bạn sau chuyến đi.

Hôm qua, em đã cuối cùng được hưởng thụ được massage toàn thân ở trường Nguyễn Định Chiểu. Tên nhân viên mà tôi phỏng vắn là Kim Việt. Cô ấy kể cho em biết là đa số người ở Trương Nguyễn Định Chiểu bị bênh sởi khi con nhỏ và hậu quả là bị mù. Vì người Việt Nam thời đó quan niệm rằng có bệnh sởi thì không nên đi bác sĩ (em quên lý do chính xác), cô và nhiều người cùng lưới tuổi cô ấy không chữa trị kiệp thời trở nên mù. Đay là một điều rất đáng tiếc. Vì không có đủ kiến thức và giáo dục trong ngành y tế, cuộc sống của bao nhiêu đứa em bị biến đổi, thế giới của họ trở thành đen tối mãi mãi.

Cô Kim Việt sống chung với người chồng khiếm thị và một con gái và nhận là “người như chúng cố không dám có nhiều con.” Em thấy đây là điều đáng buồn nhưng cũng thực tế. Thêm nữa, phản ứng của em ngạc nhiên khi em nghe về gia đình hoàn chỉnh của Cô Kim Việt. Em tưởng là người khiếm thị sẽ rất khó có thể lập gia đình nhưng đa số nhân viên ở đó đều có gia đình riêng của họ. Nói cách khác, người khuyết tật nào vẫn là con người cần sự yêu thương và chăm sóc.

Trong quá trình massage, em đã hỏi cố ấy rất nhiều câu hỏi. Cố ấy nói cho em biết là nhân viên khiếm thị thường dùng cây gậy nếu nhà gần chỗ làm. Nếu xa thì đi xe ôm. Băng qua đường thì cần người dắt đi. Cô ấy nghĩ rằng Việt Nam quả thực thiếu thốn thiết bị cho người khuyết tật, nhất là trong những chỗ công cộng. Tuy như vậy, cô ấy tỏ là họ vẫn phải tiếp tục phấn đấu liệu chính phủ có hổ trợ hay không. Họ không có lựa chọn nào khác vì họ phải tộn tại. Em thấy chính sách cho người khuyết tật ỏ Mỹ không được thực hiện hoàn hảo lấm nhưng khi em so sánh với Việt Nam, em biết là Việt Nam đã thất bại hơn Mỹ nhiều trong lễnh vực này. So sánh hai nước thì em tự nhiên thấy Mỹ có nhiều thiết bị cho người khuyết tật.

Người khuyết tật thường bị coi như một phế vật chỉ có nương tựa vào người ta làm gánh nặng cho gia đình. Trái lại, em thấy là dậy người khuyết tật cách để tự sinh sống sẽ giúp họ đống góp vào cộng đồng, thay vì làm một gánh nặng cho xã hội. Trường Nguyễn Đình Chiểu ra một trường rất cần thiết dậy cách cho người khiếm thị để hòa nhập vào xã hội. Hơn nữa, các học sinh cũng biết ơn. Cô Kim Việt nghĩ rằng trường Nguyễn Định Chiểu rất “đáng yêu.” Mùa hè thì những học sinh được thăm nhà cũng vẫn nhớ trường. Cô ấy học thế nào để hòa nhập vào xã hội từ trường này. Cô ấy cũng trả lời là thích việc làm của mình vì đó phủ hợp với khả năng của cô ấy.

Em để ý những nhân viên ở Nguyễn Đình Chiểu rất lạc quan, suốt ngày cười, nói, và tám với nhau. Suy nghĩ lạc quan là một phương pháp tôn tại mà em rất tôn trọng mặc dù đời sống họ đầy kho khăn. Họ vẫn giữ sự lạc quan cộng với các ước mơ để sống một cách vui vẻ hạnh phúc.

The truth of war

I've been to a couple museums here and at the War Remnants Museum, it's disgusting how biased the museum is (highlighting what America has done to Vietnam), but it's also disgusting what truth there is to what they say. In Vietnam, they call it the "American War."

America has committed some atrocities on the country, some massacres, threw bombs on civilians... Every war has damages on both sides, especially the country that the battles are occurring. All these horror stories unheard and unsaid but done nonetheless. The morale: you can sacrifice a few for the greater good...but how many people are sacrificed, to what degree, and is it even worth it in the end?

At the museum, I saw massacre, I saw war injuries, but the most scary thing was fetuses...Agent Orange. Fetuses (I don't know if these are real or not but they were definitely life-size) in a clear glass box floating in what looks like that chemical that are used to preserve cadavers (can't remember the name right now...I didn't do that well in Anatomy class). Effects of Agent Orange included fetus malformations, miscarriages, cancer, so many long-term effects.

This makes me wonder what America is doing in Iraq. I still remember reading a research article in Epidemiology class--before the war and during the war...violent crimes in Iraq has multiplied by several times.

At the museum, I read this article about an American pilot who refused to bomb the country because throwing that many bombs will for sure miss targets and hit civilians. My teacher told me today about women who would have to repair the streets, especially the street going from the South to the North because the South was providing provisions/food for the North, and these women would have to count the bombs that were dropped and the bombs that exploded and subtract bombs exploded from bombs dropped and then memorize those spots and mark them with a flag for bomb specialists to come. What a horrifying job.

So the funny thing about this day was I had my Xe Om (motorbike) driver come in with me. They usually just drive you places but I told him to come in with me and so we checked out the museum together. I asked him when he was born (he was 1 year old during the war), and I asked him what Vietnamese people thought about Americans. He said just normal...a lot has changed since the war. He doesn't seem to be biased against Americans at all. I remember when I first came to Hanoi, I was scared that Vietnamese people wouldn't like me because I'm from America. An analogy crossed my mind...I've been watching Chinese movies and this guy kills this little girl's family and then takes her and raises her to be a killer...and the girl is constantly conflicted because is this guy the enemy or the savior. But yea, this analogy's not that appropriate...it's a lot more complicated than that...I think....

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

Does the end justify the means?

Hanoi vs. Saigon

My teacher said that Saigon is like America, and Hanoi is like Great Britain. Hanoi is the capital, and they have their own vocabulary there, but they purely use theirs, whereas in the South, they use both their local vocabulary as well as the northern vocabulary because it is shown on TV and often thought as the more "correct (chuẩn)" accent. In the US, we actually use both American English and British English words like "either"(E-ther) and "either" (I-ther) and a bunch of other words that I don't really notice but my teacher pointed out. Anyway, for this reason, I really like learning Vietnamese in the South, especially since I see it as being much more applicable in the US.

I think of HCMC like LA and Hanoi like San Francisco. HCMC- the more trendier city, the more booming city, more open to business around the world, foreigners are not uncommon. Hanoi- the more romantic city with lakes and trees, the gap between rich and poor a little less apparent here, a booming city but not as much as HCMC.

So I noticed a key difference between the way I'm treated in Hanoi and Saigon. I am not ripped off in Saigon for being a foreigner NEARLY AS MUCH as in Hanoi. This may be because Saigon is pretty open doors and has a lot more foreigners here. (Side story: One of my teachers said that during the war, the North sent spies to the South and the South sent spies to the North, but in the North they found the spies yet in the South, they couldn't tell and it was very easy for the spies to immerse themselves in there. He said this is because the South is so open to other people coming in and so they can't tell, but in the North, they are very aware of outsiders.) Another reason, and this was so weird to me...in Saigon, they look at me and think I'm Vietnamese. One time I said "no thank you" to this guy and he asked me why I'm speaking English if I'm Vietnamese. I answered because I'm from America. (Well it was also because he was speaking English to my white friend.) SO SO ODD. In Hanoi, I experienced the complete opposite. They knew from the way I walked, dressed, I dunno what...even before I opened my mouth...that I was not from Vietnam...and if I did talk, it was a dead giveaway. In Hanoi, I was so aware that I was American. In Saigon, after talking to me for a while, people will figure I'm from somewhere else...possibly another province in Vietnam and sometimes they think another country because my Vietnamese is "lớ lớ" which kinda means not concrete...that's the best way I can explain it for now.