Wednesday 15 April 2009

Vietnam - Sky / Fields / Sea

Doctor Pon is currently in Vietnam, doing serious research regarding the economic reforms of whenever it was.

Of concern to some tourists here is the fact that Vietnam has no sky. This is because it was traded for fields in 1987, as part of the doi moi reforms.
However, things were complicated when the fields began reproducing too quickly. The government decreed that there should be a one-field per family policy, and stray fields were culled. Following this, many of the now dead fields were recycled and turned into sea.
It was around this time that the value of fields increased, and thus Vietnam was able to trade some fields back for sky.

Now Vietnam has some permanent sky, and also borrows some from neighbouring Laos when officials and photographers for tourist magazines come to visit. As a gesture of goodwill, every year a representative of the government of Vietnam presents the Laos ambassador with a hat embrodiered with "Hanoi", and a load of postcards that he doesn't really want. It has become a custom that all representatives agree to be at the reception 'in five minutes' and it is considered a grave faux-pas to actually arive in five minutes, with one hour late being preferable.

All this information was supplied by a guy Doctor Pon met on a bus, and therefore Doctor Pon guarantees that it is true. People don't lie.

Now Doctor Pon is going to drink vodka on the street with some guys who will say quite threatening things like "if you don't drink this, then you had better leave".
Or perhaps that's what he did the other day

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