A week end in Ninh Binh

I wanted to post a bunch of pictures from my week end trek to Ninh Bing on blog itself, but I figured it would be easier to post the link to Facebook. It's all I use it for anyways-

Check it out, got some neato little captions to go along with the pics.

Click Me for Pictures

No work at the office = Nietzsche philosophy time

Cause and effect: such a duality probably never exists; in truth we are confronted by a continuum out of which we isolate a couple of pieces, just as we perceive motion only as isolated points and then infer it without ever actually seeing it. The suddenness with which many effects stand out misleads us; actually, it is sudden only for us. In this moment of suddenness there are an infinite number of processes which elude us. An intellect that could see cause and effect as a continuum and a flux and not, as we do, in terms of an arbitrary division and dismemberment, would repudiate the concept of cause and effect and deny all conditionality.

from Nietzsche's The Gay Science, s.112, Walter Kaufmann transl..

Leave it to Nietzsche to point out the hidden within the obvious. This passage strikes me particularly strongly, as the questions I ask myself about this strange country have mostly to do with what I deem to be incomprehensible. How can something be incomprehensible though, when approached form the right angle? I am constantly 'isolating a couple of pieces' of this life I live in Vietnam, I can never get a full picture of what I see... this is not due to my limited vision or closed mind, but rather I am limited by my humanity, by my inability to transcend the boundaries of my body and mind.

Everything has a beginning, but what began the beginning? Every row of dominoes must have a force that knocks over the first, be it a finger, a gust of wind, etc. The problem is that the row of dominoes is so long that we cannot see the beginning nor can we see the end. Each human being is limited to a momentary view of the bigger picture of life, and, as such, we cannot help but be stunned at all the falling dominoes.

I think what Nietzsche was trying to say is that because we clearly see or define the beginning or end of any series of events, that we are trapped into thinking that each moment we experience is independent of other moments. That's why, when we suddenly get caught in a freak rain-storm, that we are shocked by the sudden appearance of clouds on what had otherwise been a blue-sky day. Perhaps, if we could have seen the beginning of time, and if our senses allowed us to understand the seemingly infinite combinations of factors which would lead up to a storm cloud forming on a specific day at a specific time, we might have been able to predict it.

This is why being human is so wonderful. Even though being able to predict a rainy day would do wonders for picnickers around the world, it would mean that our sense of discovery and wonder would not exist.

It's great to know the cause of a certain effect, but to be unaware of the true effects of your actions allows for that dynamic aspect which adds to the unpredictability of life.

Nietzsche wants to point out that our vision of the world is limited by what we see of it. I want to point out that it seeing only moments and not always the big picture allows us to retain beautiful wonder about the world we live in.

I would like, however, to know what force in the infinite past triggered the moment in the hopefully near future that will see me buy my very own car...

Time to think

Seeing as things have gone to shit in a lot of ways over the past few days, I figured it was time for some perspective. When everything seems to be going bad, it has to be for a reason, and I think that I need to figure out what exactly this reason -which has been relentlessly beating me down since wednesday-is.

When I consider what a bad day consists of, I tend to play a bit of a blame game, and point my finger at something or someone else, external from myself, who is tinkering with my perception. For instance, my work and the people at work have been getting me down. Complaining about my 'irrational' way of going about my business, when I myself see their lack of any sort of work habits as being quite irrational. My living environment has been annoying me, as the director of my 'home' seems to take great pleasure in poking his nose into my personal business and trying to control every aspect of my life. And finally, I simply am not happy with what I am doing with my days at SHAPC, at my NGO... it simply isn't what I imagined, and all the efforts that I have been making to improve it are proving to be useless.

This general unhappiness that has suddenly burst my bubble has led me inward to find a solution to my problems. The fact of the matter is this: I am unhappy because I am not doing what I want with my time here in Vietnam. I wanted to get hands on work in the field of HIV/AIDS, I wanted to learn how to work in a professional environment, I wanted to take away and contribute all which my optimistically driven energy could muster! But, alas, I find myself spending days in front of my computer with nothing to do, I am given shit jobs like editing documents from bad english into english.

Perspective! Perspective...
I'm sitting here in this little room located on the outskirts of Hanoi. After sitting outside and recounting one of the most influential dreams I've ever had to 2 girls who live in this building, I suddenly realize the importance of putting everything into a wider perspective. I'm not happy because I can't find a meaning within the every day activities which occupy my life. I have lost contact with the big picture, I seem to have stepped too far into my life and have been unable to account for the unreasonable distortions which my common sense rejects about this country. But it came back to me tonight, after a day of rest and contemplation. I simply needed a jolt, and this is what I found:

My work, my coworkers, and this building where I live: they piss me off. This is an unavoidable fact - I could attempt to justify it to myself, to say 'oh whatever, living through this will make me appreciate blah blah blah'. I could. But I won't.
Instead, I would like to approach this life problem from the side, instead of head on.

I went outside at around 11 pm. I sat down and I thought about the meaning of simply being able to recognize that I am alive. I am here, I am now. This sentence, though simple, is extremely powerful when used in the right now. I have been feeling a mental and emotional discord in my life, with my work and living conditions. However, I have been in a greater discord with the very aspect which connects me to this larger reality which work and home are simply a part of! I am alive, god damn it! I am in a foreign country, I am learning a new language, being exposed to a new culture, living within a very complicated and headache inducing political structure (which I had up till now only read about in books - thanks Marx), and I am in the process of planning out my life. Life is GOOD! How can I let work and my home get me down when there is so much else going on in this picture? I don't want to be brought down by others or by my work... I want to be the dynamic human being who looks past the small instances of discord and be at one with everything else. Sure, I am not doing what I thought I would, but who has the nerve to think that anything they predict will actually ever happen? Leave the precise predictions to the physicists and mathematicians, I say.

Seriously though, if my organization has no work for me, I will have to find something to occupy myself with. Maybe attempt to learn something new every day, maybe work on my Vietnamese, maybe even catch up on some Nietzsche or Wittgenstein. Something, anything, to help me move past and see beyond the everyday images which occupy my vision, so that I can move beyond mere sight and into the realm of the pure potential of being.

Sounds lofty, but life is such that if you get too caught up in the very instant, you risk loosing sight of the marvellous colours, sights, and sounds which occupy so much more space than your narrow vision allows into your brain.

I think my own vision had been narrowed for a while, and it's time that I rediscover the wonders of being alive. To hell with work, to hell with not having any running water this week end - I'm going to do what I want and walk to my own beat.

And you know what? I feel better already!

More Frustration

After 3 months of learning XHTML from scratch, after having spent hours and hours building a website for this god damn organization, after asking for feedback, information, and receiving none of it... after having finished a final copy of a basic shell for a website for this place that had nothing to begin with - they decided that my work wasn't good enough and that they would pay the ridiculous price of 10,000,000 VND to a private firm to create their site.

I am so angry and frustrated. I know that this is a lesson for life (or some shit like that) - that people will not always appreciate, or even recognize, my efforts... but that doesn't remove from this feeling of pissed-off regret for having given enough of a shit to read 3 books on web design, to have learned a whole new programming language on my own, from taking the time to ask for feedback and receive a load of nothing in return!

The director made the final choice. She never even looked at my website. She only listened to what her son said. Her son, for the record, is a douche bag. He tampered with my site while I was making it (I know it was him, only he had access to the FTP's login and password), and he told his 'mommy' (as he calls her) that the work I spent all this time learning on my own how to do could have been done in 5 hours or less by himself.

hoanclc@yahoo.com
I am so tempted right now to write this bastard a really mean email. At this point I don't care of the consequences of such an act.

But I can't say that I don't care about not being given a chance to finish this work. How many people would come and work for this organization and learn, from scratch and on their own, a whole new skill... for free?

This is exactly the kind of thing that makes me not want to try anymore. I am not producing anything, nor learning or accomplishing anything any more than if I were at home laying in bed. Where is the impetus to work?

The worst part is that this website has kept me busy at work when I've had nothing to do. Now I have absolutely nothing to do anymore.

I don't want to whine, I just need to vent. I take the bus for an hour and a half to get here, only to be treated as a 'volunteer'.

Anyways, time to put a smile on my face and to look for a new job, screw this place.

In another meeting:

Why do I always think so much during meetings?

Meeting in progress:

Everyone is gentle, unassuming, and nice. Smiles, perhaps forced, spread across the faces of those who would belong to SHAPC. I feel disillusioned.

Mrs. Wood, the representative of the Ford Foundation, seems to be well put together, and has probably had to deal with the same kind of things that I have over the past few months. I like people like these, I need them as mentors.

She has a calm about her demeanor, it puts me at ease. Her age shows wisdom, and perhaps patience the likes of which I have yet to attain.

I am upset still about the lack of appreciation which has been replaced by complaints. I wonder at the sorts of questions Mrs. Wood will ask concerning SHAPC – what sorts of truths will be revealed through questioning? Truth can be bent, twisted, and turned into a pretty little package. Will she see this?

I am tempted by the little red devil hanging over the left side of my arm. He is telling me that vengefulness tastes like a big steak with mashed potatoes and butter, with a little bit of red wine to help it sink into my stomach.

But I can’t. I know better – who would it help to talk badly about an organization that has allowed me to work for them? Sure they complain about me, without reason, without understanding me… but that’s not reason enough to sabotage anything they do.

How can I remain positive when a part of my consciousness feels betrayed? Complaints about my work and attendance were made to the head of my host organization, VPV, and this left a sour taste in my mouth as the complaints were not made directly to me. I come to work, do my work, and try to maintain a good relationship with those around me. I have never been encouraged or acknowledged for my efforts. I don’t expect people to throw flowers to my feet as I walk in and out of the dingy little doorway. Instead, I simply want to be respected… I just want them to notice the work I do and not dismiss my efforts as ‘not enough’.

What am I learning from all of this? Do I actually enjoy development work? Can I consider what I am doing actual development work? Will this be what I want to do in the long run, can I apply these experiences to an actual career in a similar field? I feel like I am occupying negative space when all I wanted to do was help! I’ve lost hold of the ideas and hopes that brought me here – instead I am full of doubt over the objective differences I can make in this office, for this organization, and (with a lack of challenge) for myself.

Enthusiasm has a funny way of fading away when the cloud of ignorance which gave it life is lifted by the clarity of experience. One thing that I am learning is how to maintain a sense of purpose in order to make the most out of this experience for myself, and no longer for everyone around me. I cannot control what this organization will make of me and my work, I can only decide for myself if my own efforts are – in my own mind – worth throwing away.

From what I can tell, the bad should be appreciated along with the good. That will be the attitude that I need to keep in check.

The meeting continues – we discuss the effectiveness of SHAPC ability to affect law and policy concerning the lives of Homosexuals in Vietnam when much of the stigma and discrimination is culturally based more so than politically. However, in Vietnam, with one party controlling everything, it is hard to discern any difference between the two.

One thing, apart from my lack of satisfaction, is for sure: I would love to work for an organization that acts as a donor or adviser to home-based organizations like SHAPC, I would love to work with or for someone like Mrs. Susan Wood. That, I think, will require some more time and a brand spanking-new Master’s Degree.

www.shapc.hanoiyeu.com
The website that I have been working on for this organization is located at the link above. I never made a website before, and I taught myself XHTML in order to do it. It took me about 2 months. Yesterday I found out that SHAPC was looking into having a professional make a website for them, even though I told them that I would work on it for them, even though I’ve spent hours and hours doing this over the past 2 months. The cost of a website, according to the estimate that was given to them, came up to 26 million Vietnamese Dong, roughly 1,500 Canadian Dollars. Free vs. a ridiculous amount of money for an organization that has to constantly beg foreign organizations for support.

Common sense is a commodity – something I have learned.

Monthly UN Volunteers Meeting

65 people staring at me, waiting for me to speak. Some of them in Vietnam to volunteer their services, others here to work in human resource development within local NGO's, but all were at this meeting to share their experiences and network.

How had I been chosen to host this UNV meeting? Volunteers for Peace Vietnam, the organization which hosts me and provides me with a roof and bed somehow felt it appropriate to ask me to Chair the monthly United Nations Volunteers meeting held at the UN building in Hanoi. Floored, I readily accepted.

However, the night before the meeting, I felt a little less enthusiastic.

I had suggested that I write a short speech on volunteerism, sort of to break the ice during the meeting. At one of the previous meetings, I had been quite insulted by one man's insistence upon drawing a line between 'backpack volunteers' and 'Professionally trained' volunteers. He basically said that the former were not worthy of the term 'volunteer,' and that those who were paid by a host organization should be unacknowledged as 'more important'. Though I myself am sponsored and fit into his 'higher' level of volunteer, I had been insulted at his narrow-sighted opinion. This was about a month and a half ago... and when I was presented with the opportunity to Chair the meeting, I quickly jumped on the chance to counter his comment (because I knew he'd be there) with a 15 minute speech on why he was wrong.

I wrote the speech in 25 minutes, after having consulted with a few other volunteers at VPV. The next morning, I rehearsed it furiously, making sure that I could deliver this speech with precision and passion.

Suddenly, as if time decided to skip the whole morning, I found myself sitting at the head of a table full of people from all over the world. Many traveling and volunteering their work for a week or two in different countries, others were full time interns or project staff at the UN, and then there were those like me, in Vietnam to work and gain valuable experience while being sponsored by a host organization.

After I asked everyone in the room to give a brief introduction of themselves, Cuong, VPV's vice-president, gave a very short introduction to VPV and what we do. His planned 10 minutes quickly turned into a shaky 3, and I was handed the mic much sooner than expected.

I introduced myself, shuffled my papers around, and explained that I had written a short speech about volunteerism, and promised that I wouldn't bore them.

I think this was a mistake... even though I delivered the speech without any hang ups (and even received a surprising round of applause afterwards) promising anything to the audience will only generate blank looks that carry higher expectations. I think that if I were to do it again, I would keep them in the dark over the details of my speech, and to allow them to decide for themselves whether or not I am putting them to sleep.

Again, I don't know how I ended up at the front of that table that day, nor do I know how I pulled off a speech that I had written at 10:30 the night before, but somehow things went smoothly... and the meeting was actually quite enjoyable! I felt good about it, I made my point in revenge for the comment that set me off (and yes, the man was there, and no, he did not respond), good discussion was fueled, and a lot of networking took place.

And I discovered something that day, I like to be in positions of authority... is that bad?



Here is a copy of my speech (rough notes that I used throughout):

Speech Notes

Seeing as Volunteers for Peace Vietnam is chairing this meeting today, I would like to take this opportunity to talk about –what other than- volunteerism!

I would like to focus on two aspects of volunteerism:

One being,

- The seemingly inherent division between “professional” volunteers, and “backpack” volunteers.

And second,

- I’d like to shed light on what I think to be the fundamental aspect which unites these two despite their differences, as well as the guiding source which inspires our choice to volunteer.

But before I begin, I would like to start with a problem I once encountered.

That being the idea of a truly selfless, non-selfish act.

The word “volunteer” is described as follows by the Webster Dictionary:

“A volunteer is a person who performs or offers to perform a service out of his or her own free will, often without payment”

The ideal volunteer is one who performs his or her service knowing full-well that they would not benefit in any way from their efforts. However, I have often wondered: is this truly possible?

Can a human being knowingly dedicate a part (or even all of) his or her life to others, without receiving anything in return?

You might be thinking, the gratification that one receives from the smiles and grateful gestures he or she is the true reward… but that is exactly my point. The satisfaction of knowing you made someone happy is a form of ‘return’ on ones invested time, therefore there exists a form of expected reward.

Is a completely selfless act possible?

I will not answer this question just yet. Rather, I would like to come back to it at the end.

------

Living at VPV with many volunteers from around the world has given me the benefit of seeing many different aspects and perspectives behind the volunteer movement in Hanoi.

I myself am on a professional internship, volunteering my services while gaining much in the form of professional experience in the field of International Development.

Others at VPV are quite different, as our dorm like living arrangements not only resembles an ‘international ghetto’ of sorts, but is also home to many different volunteers who do different kinds of work.

Some of us are her professionally to work with local organizations,

others are students, here during a gap year between semesters, teaching English, French or both for children or adults

some are fresh graduates from high school looking to fulfill necessary social services

demanded by their government,

and then there are well established professionals looking to spend a few months learning a new culture and working either with disabled orphans or something to that effect

It had once been brought to my attention that a careful division should be made between these volunteers. What I understood was that the younger “backpack” variety, here for a matter of weeks or months, should not officially be referred to as ‘real volunteers’.

In a sense, I had agreed with the basic argument that was being made. Indeed, there are differences between the two.

- On one hand, you have people who are coming to Vietnam to travel, interact with the locals, and leave back to their respective lives.

- And on the other, you have professionals who have worked hard to get to where they are, and who are not necessarily volunteers per se. This is due to their annual stipend which formalizes them not as paid employees but as generous contributors to a higher cause.

That cause being the development of a modern infrastructure within Vietnamese organizations, to advocate for human rights, or other social issues.

However, I couldn’t help but find this argument unsatisfying, and I felt that it missed the point of what it means to be volunteer.

I would like to give two examples from two different types of volunteers to explain my point. Both are long term volunteers who live at VPV and work outside at their respective jobs.

1. The first was an experience described to me by a professional intern who is sponsored by the Canadian government to work at The Light Foundation, a local NGO.

- She is in the process of writing a grant proposal for a project which means to empower female Vietnamese Sex Workers to stand up for their own human rights.

Almost immediately, she runs into two problems:

The first:

Sex Work is illegal in Vietnam, therefore convincing the Government or police to respect their rights isn’t very easy to do. Such a project may not seem plausible to a would-be sponsor, seeing as the goal of the project is a tad ambitious and perhaps unrealistic.

Secondly:

The term human rights can be quite ambiguous, especially in a country where social movements are quite difficult to start and effect actual change.

These are technical problems experienced by a professional volunteer. They are very difficult to deal with for someone who is used to a more forgiving infrastructure.

She has experienced frustration at having to work around a technically stifling bureaucracy, and has been hard-pressed to come up with a solution.

2. My second example comes from a volunteer who works at an orphanage for disabled children.

- This volunteer has complained of having seen instances of abuse by the staff unto the children themselves.

One of her examples stuck with me quite strongly:

- She witnessed a child being let out of a small, black closet after having been locked in for misbehaving.

Here we have a different kind of problem. This has nothing to do with logistics or an under developed infrastructure… this problem affected the very base of her moral instincts.

What she saw she knew was wrong, but how was she to proceed?

I would like to clarify that these instances are not unique to developing countries or to Vietnam. They are very likely to happen in our own countries, and I don’t want to seem like I’m blaming these problems on under-development specifically.

It is obvious that these different volunteers faced two very different problems in two different areas of work. However, who is to say that one is more difficult than the other?

Is the professional who faces the bureaucratic red tape of a developing nation truly distinguishable in her efforts over those of the orphanage worker who has to deal with acts that make her sick to her stomach from her inability to effect change?

To me, the answer is quite clear.

To distinguish the professional from the non-professional is an erroneousness mistake:

it is purely a superficial way of creating a distinction between similarly challenging jobs.

The truth is that the depth of the problems faced by the volunteer who is working at the orphanage is the same as the professional working at the NGO.

---

This brings me to my own problem which I began with.

Is there such a thing as a truly selfless act?

What makes us worthy of the title ‘volunteer’ in the first place?

The answer came to me from a person who is very important to me:

She said that:

The fact of the matter is that this is a question which also misses the point. The goal of volunteerism does not revolve entirely around the attainment of a final goal, but it is part of a whole which includes the very real ideal which inspired it.

All of us in this room are driven by an ideal, be it to improve the English of 50 screaming children in a classroom, or to improve the human resources at an organization.

We know that the Ideal can never fully be reached, however we strive to touch and perhaps get a glimpse of it,

and the consequences as well as the honest intentions of those efforts become self-evident in their final result.

This is what unifies us as volunteers, it is what has brought us to this very room here today! It is also the philosophy of VPV, which is why, despite their flaws, I am happy to represent them here today and everyday.

I feel strongly that we all have good, albeit different, intentions. And if we do not manage to lose sight of the ideals that drive us, we will reap invaluable benefits no matter what sort of volunteer work we are doing, or what their practical results.

Thank You

Food for thought

Every once in a while I will run into something worth while on the internet. It doesn't happen often, mind you, but here is an article that I highly suggest for those of you interested in the current scientific research and philosophy of the mind:

http://www.dailypress.com/news/opinion/dp-out_mind_0930sep30,0,4908398.story?page=1


It's interesting because the very aspect which gives birth to our consciousness is a complete mystery to scientists everywhere. Philosophers and mystics seem to come up with good answers, despite their being unable to ground them in practicality.

I tend to agree with the final part of the article, which says that our mind is a combination of multiple composite parts. You could compare it to a projected image being shot onto a white backdrop by a old reel-video projector that you see in museums these days. The image, say of Charlie Chaplin dancing around in silence, is not something that you can touch, grab, or put into your pocket for future viewing (though this is quite possible with those fancy new iphones, but that is another story altogether). The image can be compared to our conscious minds, whereby it only exists because of the reel which contains the images, the projector that displays them, the backdrop which houses them, the electricity which powers everything, etc. Without all those factors, the image could never come up on screen, it simply would not exist.

In this sense, our minds are the final product of the many separate functions that our bodies (primarily our brain) take on. The varying senses, the analytical capacities of our brain's composite parts, and the physical reality which provides us with a stage and with energy to get the system going... without them, the mind would not exist.

So what does this tell us? Not much, to be honest. It is quite obvious that the mind more complex that a series of moving frames which imitate real life. Our minds produce our 'selves', and though we don't know exactly what causes 'us', we know damn well that 'we' exist.

If anyone ever reads this the whole way through, I'd be interested in hearing what others might think of this phenomena we call the mind.
nk