My amazing trip while UC buddies have theirs

I kinda want to keep this fresh in my head while I write it so although I'm flooded with works, more urging ones,now, I spend sometimes for the blog. I have to do it tomorrow anyway. So here is it, a week without my UC buddies.
It sucked till the end of the week. Living here for 3 years now, I thought I got used to seeing so many people everyday commuting to and from work and school. Maybe because of the coming 1000 anniversary of Thang Long, Hanoi becomes incredibly crowded, annoyingly crowded. I hate it when traffic jams are turned into norms, into something people start to endure and consider a must. The weather also should be mentioned. It was unbearable for me. I think I had eating disorder. My only rejoice of the whole week was to wait and expect for my trip to the North West of Vietnam. And I was right to go on the journey, it was really a peaceful and relaxing time.

I have a team, a traveling team and I love it every time I join them for a motorbike trip. We always travel on motorbikes no matter the distance. Vietnamese people call it "du lịch bụi" or "phượt". This time, we traveled to Yen Bai and Sapa to enjoy natural attractions on the way: Khau Pha - Khau Co - O Quy Ho and Mu Chang Chai. They are amazingly beautiful. I thought it was a wonderful coincidence I read about high lands and low lands relationships and exotic tourism just days ago and at that time, I could view the life there under different eyes as I had known more than I used to.
The sight, they are gorgeous. Never in my life have I seen such a beautiful picture. So beautiful that I wanted to throw my camera away. It could never capture such a thing with its rare and natural beauty. I wished that they could have invented a camera that was similar to your eyes, operated the way eyes and brain worked. I would rush to buy it if they had one. Terraced fields were what I enjoyed the most. Together with land fields, they made adorable shades of green and yellow and brown, but mostly green. Mountains were everywhere, they continuously headed off each other, it was like I was lost in Inception where all the cities were upside down. There, I didn't want to be on the road, I wanted to dissolve myself in the clouds flying around the top of those hills. And when we went higher and higher, the whole became so imposing, so huge, so enormous that I kept a surprising and indescribable happy look on my face.





People there are just nice. When I wanted to take photos of them, they kept running away or hiding faces. But when I went into the markets, they surrounded me with stuffs. They even complained if I bought too much of the Dao people but not anything from the Mong people (different minority groups). And what's really funny was that they wore clothes from China, but they sold their authentic hand made clothes, embroided and took at least a month to finish and were expensive, much more expensive. In the past, those used to be for their festivals, holidays to go out or even for weddings.

I came back Hanoi Monday morning. It took 3 nights and 2 days on the trip and I rushed to school the moment I set foot on the capital. To be honest, I felt a little tired and depressed as spending the time outside enjoying few-people-places with fresh and cool air and only green color, I just don't want to suffer again from congestion, from unbearable heat, from people who annoyingly horn through the traffic lights, etc. I just had no clues where life is taking us. Probably not to a good place.

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1.03.01

"Poor" and "Not poor"

How can you define poor? Well I have used the term before but only now do I realize I've never used it with care. I don't know how I myself define poor. For me, in the past, I guess, being poor is not having little money (How much is little, anyway?)
Liz: What is being poor?
Person 1: There're so many ways to tell. In the world, they have standards for it, like GDP per capital or average income level per person, if one has less money than average, he/she is poor. However, these rates vary among countries. (I did expect that she would say so because she's a knowledgeable HR manager so I asked for more insights)
The second time, she said: "If your demands for some certain important and basic needs are not met then you are definitely poor" (much easier to understand)
Person 2: Being poor is not being rich (Absolutely I don't agree)
Person 3: Having little money (Wow, I got the chance and I have to take it:"What is little?")
"Little" means the amount id not enough for a person to live a good life and to raise his/her family as well
Liz: Does a good life only mean prosperity in terms of material?
Person 3: Not really but mostly. If you don't have money, hardly you can be happy.
Liz: What about happiness? I can be poor and happy at the same time, can't I? I mean there are thousands of rich people out there in the world and they live in pain, sometimes they don't even realize that.
Person 3: Being rich doesn't necessarily make you a happy person. However, a happy person needs not to be poor.
Liz: ...

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Liz: Are you richer than you used to be? By richer, I mean having more money and live a wealthier life for it.
Person 3: Yes, I have (I knew the answer and the reason for it even before I asked)
Liz: Do you think it's a trend that people get richer, does everyone get richer.
Person 3: Most of us want that, dear. Yes, people have more money than in the past, but it doesn't always mean they are richer, you have to look at others to tell, you also have to look at the market to see with more money, can you buy more things. If everyone has more money then you're going nowhere.
Liz: What about the gap between the rich and the poor?
Person 3: I don't know. But one thing I know is that many, nowadays, is getting richer not for they have done good things but they commit crime, fraud, corruption, etc and there're more and more of those worms. We're going down. They are richer, we are poorer compared to them. And overall, even more are wealthier, our nation is worse off because of them.
Liz: (sad) ... (and mad)

First impression in Kiem An

Finally we started with the interviews. It's like we have finished four but I am not so satisfied. Maybe I am a demanding person or maybe I just happened to do worse than I expected. I wished that I was good enough to make everyone open to me.
The interviews, of course, were full of questions, questions that I sometimes I doubted if they would ever get me to where I want, dig deeper into interviewees' lives. I guess that I failed.
I remember this girl I myself talked to. She is the same age as my cousin, who's living with me now but she looks a lot older. She's having her own business, well it's not really a big thing.
We walked into her store and asked her if we could have some questions to put on our project. And she said Yes reluctantly as she was saying she was not well educated, thus not being qualified for interviews. One funny thing about the experience was that we had to turn on and off the recorder about 5 times. One time was because the store was full of her customers (I mean, students like us) and they were too loud. Another time: she was having some daily conversations with her landlord - a lady and her sister. I caught something that made me understand more, too bad those she didn't tell me, or wouldn't. Well for the others, she was just too busy going inside and out cooking something, washing something or smashing something...
She kept on telling us about the story of her life while never letting go of tools she used for her jobs. One thing she repeated all over again as if we could forger was that her life was harsh before and especially on this job. Could be? Through my observation she didn't have any free time, no one to help, all alone. She shared with us that this once was her childhood dream but it turned out no so good. I felt sad as life was hard enough for this woman, yet she knew, still she had to hold on to it cause there was nothing else she could do. Look what a dream has become. A dream or just something to self encourage. I don't know and I don't have a clue. But if someone let her choose, I thought she would choose different.