Meeting Mr Taiwan man

Jessica and I went along to the Taipei school down the road yesterday to see an unusual stunt. Ed Wu is a young Taiwanese man who has begun a project of travelling the world wearing a huge Taiwanese festival costume. His aim is simple: to make people across the globe aware that Taiwan is a country on the world map. It doesn't seem to be a political campaign in light of the fact that many of the world's governments do not recognise Taiwan's existence; Wu said himself that he just wants people to know that Taiwan is a different place from Thailand. Everywhere he goes he draws a crowd, particularly where there is a local Taiwanese population, to take photographs, to watch him dance and for a Q&A session; his Facebook page has over 41,000 followers, with entertaining photographs of all the places he has visited. Vietnam is the 15^th of the countries Wu has visited, and he hopes to reach one hundred. In the question and answer session he explained that he often meets trouble along the way- being asked for bribes by the local police, understandably having trouble getting through customs with his enormous costume, and occasionally meeting hostility from members of the public. His worst experience was being arrested on his way to see the presidential palace in India, and having to spend eight hours in a cell. But he said it was pretty cool nonetheless.

About fifty people had gathered at the Taipei school to see Wu, most of who were friends with Jessica. There were also plenty of people around to watch a game of baseball going on in the sun-filled school playing fields. Wu arrived and there was excited joking and heckling in Chinese. He was helped into the heavy costume for photographs, and everybody was given a Taiwanese flag to wave. Next there was the question and answer session, after which somebody turned up with a similar Vietnamese festival costume. This led to a dance-off between Wu in the Taiwanese costume and one of the baseball players in the Vietnamese costume, to the blaring sounds of LMFAO. If only Vietnam-Taiwan relations were so good in real life.

Jessica with Ed Wu

Vietnam-Taiwan dance-off

Today I went into the city to buy some essentials for my trip away; I leave for Laos tomorrow. I bought a knock-off Lonely Planet guide and had some photographs taken for my landing visa. This was done at a roadside laundrette on Pham Ngu Lao that also offers passport photos. A blue cloth was slung over the whirring washing machines as a background for my picture; my photo was taken on a digital camera and printed five minutes later. Walking back towards the bus stop, I stopped for a rest in a park and was soon approached by a Vietnamese student who asked if he could talk to me for a while to practise his English. This happens to me almost every time I sit down in a park or stop in a museum, but this conversation was far more interesting than any other I have had so far because the boy I was talking to had very good English. It also turned out he was very clever; he told me he had come third in a national competition for gifted and talented students and was given a scholarship for a geography degree, although he decided to take international business studies instead. We talked for a while about education, geography, politics and culture. He seemed to know a lot about the differences between Vietnamese and British education, for example that Vietnamese schooling is focused around the rigorous rehearsal of facts rather than the British style of explanation and debates. This explains how he was able to effortlessly reel off statistics during our conversation. It also explains why another boy who had joined our conversation said “You must have a good memory”, when I told him that I like history.

Later I had to return to the city to meet Jessica, to buy a pair of walking boots for the trip. She took me to Saigon Square, the market to go to for designer brands, low prices and questionable ethics. I spent a long time trotting up and down between the stalls in walking boots and a skirt, looking like Tubs from the League of Gentlemen. When I felt (fairly) confident that I had found a pair that fit properly, we bought them for little more than £40 and went for dinner. We dined at Le Bouchon du Saigon, a French restaurant that was busy even on a Monday night. I loved the red-and-white gingham provincial-style tablecloths with matching napkins, and the art posters on the walls. Despite having changed management only ten days earlier, the service was excellent and the atmosphere was warm and welcoming. I had steak with garlic-parsley butter and perfect homemade chips. Jessica ate duck leg, which was delicious. And for dessert we shared a blissful, wonderful, divine chocolate mousse. It would highly recommend this restaurant; it’s certainly one of the best I’ve been to in Ho Chi Minh City so far. The best part was the free glass of champagne after being seated, a lovely surprise considering it was not a hugely expensive meal. We happened to run into Frances and Dominique, the French couple we dined with at Lucca café several weeks ago. They were with a group of friends who donated a few glasses of Californian chardonnay our way, meaning Jessica and I got nicely tipsy on free alcohol all evening. We also chatted with the two men sat opposite us who work in the oil extraction business in Kuala Lumpur. They were each eating a kilo of mussels.

Back home I am preparing everything for my two-week trip to Vientiane, Hanoi, Sapa and Ninh Binh. I will firstly spend four days in the Laotian capital by myself, staying in a youth hostel and seeing the sights of the city, before meeting Jessica in Hanoi on the 28^th to travel to Sapa and climb the highest mountain in Indochina. I will keep up with the blog as best as possible during the trip; the next time I write will be from Laos!