how green is our valley?

There are times, working in Vietnam, when you suggest something and people look at you like you have just stepped off a space ship.

You become aware of glances between Vietnamese colleagues. The "what is this guy on?" look.

This has happened time and time again over the litter issue.

Before both field trips I have organised, I've taken care to give a program to the trainees.  Just a brief itinerary and a few dos and don'ts.

Always in the don'ts is "do not drop litter".  I underline this in the general meeting.  And I repeat it before we set off.

And then, we stop the bus for a break in some beauty spot and a troop of kids leave the bus and throw all their rubbish on the ground.

By pure knee jerk instinct I snapped and angrily told them to pick it all up.  They looked at me like I was nuts.  Although they were following what I was saying, I asked a colleague to translate to make sure.  She was frankly embarrassed to do so.

Eventually, I managed to grab a couple of kids and got them to help.  One suggested it would be better if we threw the rubbish, not on the roadside but directly into the scrub on the mountain behind.

Strangely in a way they were being tidy.  They were actually tidying the bus.  They could quite easily have sat amongst the mess but they tidied their sitting area and threw the rubbish outside.

It seems that there is a number of reasons for this.  Firstly, in the city, your rubbish goes in the gutter.  That is the system and a little old lady comes and sweeps it up.  In the country though there is no little old lady but the rubbish still gets chucked.

When you go for food you drop your bones on the ground, you stub your cigarette out on the floor and the peanut shells add to the mess. A lady comes and sweeps it onto the street. Rubbish isn't bagged so much as just moved on.

Maybe it's the same situation as to when I sit in a Vietnamese cafe and the record is jumping, the speakers are shot, the track has repeated five times and I am the only one who has noticed.  Not just noticed but going out of my mind and ready to kill someone if the music doesn't change.

Maybe litter is a blind spot, like noise pollution is a deaf spot.

And pollution is the one thing that worries me about Vietnam's future.

Sure, Vietnam will become more westernised.  Kids will get fat.  People will swap rice for burgers.  Youth crime will go up. Etc etc etc.  Maybe these are just side effects of development, perhaps you don't get one without the other.

But the pollution.  The litter.  The noise.  Vietnam is the most wonderful country I have visited but it could kills its own tourist industry.  And surely tourism is Vietnam's big hope.

When I spent time in Central America, Nicaragua was just beautiful.  Later I entered El Salvador - similar histories, sizes, wealth, geography and landscapes.  But El Salvador was just covered in litter.  It looked awful.  Really horrible.  What was the difference in the culture or education of these two countries to make such a contrast?

If the KOTO kids are anything to go on there is a huge education job to do before even the concept of environmental damage is understood.  I can understand that when people and countries are struggling, then the first concern is food for the table and the last concern is the environment.

But Vietnam is hopefully moving beyond that.  I guess old habits are dying hard.

One final thing to add.  The message does get through.  Later on the field trip I watched half a dozen kids walk out to go sit on a rock in a nearby field and hang out.  An hour or so later I saw them come home with the same Coke cans they had taken out.  They went in the bin.  A big step forward.

The following day when we were playing in the stream, one of the kids waded after a plastic bottle that had been washed away from our group.

Progress I guess, and we made sure our bottle-retriever won Field Trip Trainee of the Day and we made sure we explained why to everyone.

Small victories but I'm still waiting to see litter signs in Vietnam and the TV commercials.  Surely there must be some recognition, at some level, that this is a problem.

*Footnote: These thoughts were put in my head after filling in a form to give feedback on Vietnam.  If you're visited  then you should too.  Go here.  But it struck me that while parts of Vietnam are beautiful they are not so unique.  What makes Vietnam so very special is its people.  Its strengths are: first second and third, it's people.  That's it. Friendly, hard working, positive and (this gets missed a lot)  the most fantastic sense of humor,  And the worst thing: it's not the service (better than most give credit for) and its not the transport (the hassle is part of the adventure), it's the litter.  And its getting worse.

Comments

[layered]

As usual, you have gone to the very heart of an issue. This is a very thoughtful and well-written posting.
-- Mel

[Oanh]

Rubbish is a huge problem there! I would hold my rubbish until I found a bin and then if I couldn't I would ask a storeowner and they would look at me funny and say "just throw it on the ground" as in.. duh!

Some other areas burn their rubbish in the wee hourse once it builds up.

Life over there is so much about work and making money to live on day-by-day that taking care of the natural future is not focussed on.

Somebody does need to step up and make a change. I hope it does happen.

[omih]

Mel thanks, and Oanh, the problem with the rubbish is that there is not a single ounce of guilt attached to littering here. It is the norm. The gutter things works to a certain extent and I have become used to finding someone else's rubbish in the gutter and adding my rubbish too.

But it does create a culture of not using bins. Workable in the city to a certain extent but disastrous for the countryside and the beach.

I've seen worse, most noticeably in El Salvador but not much worse.

Those big speakers that most foreigners believe pump out non stop propaganda do serve a useful service - believe it or not they now tell people to wear condoms. This in a country where women used to be arrested as prostitues if they carried them.

And there are posters telling people to wear crash helmets, and on the dangers of drugs, undercooked food etc. The culture of government information is there - the problem just needs to be recognised and given the high priority it deserves.

The biggest problem this country still faces in poverty. But tourism is one avenue to get more people out of this. Litter can and will stop tourists.

If not for the environment then the litter needs to be stopped for the economy.

[D]

I agree that littering is an issue, but I wonder if in our 'tut-tutting' we are blinded by our western eyes.

Yes, the litter will distract from the tourism growth, but, unlike other non-1st world countries, tourism is not and will not be the salvation of the country - there is a great probability that tourism will be extinguished as the gears of industry dominate and decimate the landscape.

However, one can look inwards to see that this isn't just a problem in Vietnam. Sure, the chicken bones and Coke bottles make the issue more visible and vibrant - but, at least for us Americans, if you look hard enough you will see the same problems.

People in America still burn their trash in their backyards. Not just in the middle of Montana or someplace like that, but within 4 hours of NYC, you will find loads of folks doing that.

And the American garbage collection system involves either incineration (at plants that clean up the exhaust a bit over the backyard method), storing it at massive dumps, or dumping it in the ocean offshore. Every country needs to dispose of its trash in some way, of course, but if you look at the numbers, America's per capita trash is the highest in the world. We have the money to reduce this, and yet we don't.

I needn't go into how America has roughly 20% of the cars in the world and yet produce 40+% of the emissions, or how we have about 5% of the world population but contribute 25% of the world's carbon output. If only it were chicken bones and Coke cans.

[rvrw]

Ah! I have had this precise conversation in my head about trash in VN. It was great to see it articulated in your blog. Now, what the heck can be done about it?

[omih]

D I agree with you about America. The USA shows an absolute disregard for the environment, I recall Bush's refusal to sign up to KYOTO saying it was "not in America's interest".

That was before Katrina of course. However, the ongoing problems caused by pollution and thus climate change, still don't appear to be addresed in even the smallest ways.

And I guess there is two issues here. The visual pollution caused by litter and damaged landscapes, and the ongoing, possibly less visual, but much worse problems.

Certainly the USA isn't an excellent example for Vietnam to follow.

But, while tourism is unlikely to be the sole salvation of Vietnam, it is going to play an important part. Or at least should do.

Industry and tourism can survive alongside each other and in all honesty it is the less the "hidden" environmental damange and more the vidual problems of litter that is going to cause the tourist to look elsewhere for there trip.

I think my point is this: littering and pollution, it appears, is still so far off the Vietnamese radar or problems and areas for improbement. Vietnam showed with its dealing with the chicken flu virus, that it can get to grips with threats and deal with them effectively.

Of course, in order to do this, it needs to start recognising the threat. So far this doesn't appear to be happening.

[Thuy]

What a fantastic post. First, I have to tell you this - my half-sister has only been in the US for 2-yr. Once, she was visiting us at our home, blew her kid's nose and threw the kleenex on my (manicured) green lawn. I didn't get it. Then, when I was riding down the Perfume River in Hue, the nice couple that took us out on the boat would peel a banana and throw the peel into the river. My brother and I couldn't believe our eyes, we just looked at each other. I guess it's just habits. I think it's a wonderful thing that you are teaching them to care for their land - and not pollute.

[omih]

Can't really claim to be teaching them - to date its not part of the curriculum, just something we bang on about occasionaly.

Even when they don't drop litter I wonder if it's just as not to "upset the tays" as opposed for environmental reasons.

But I guess it all helps.

[Chico]

It's fantastic people? what do you mean? When they're trying to cheat you every time you need something? Sense of humor? When they are swearing at your vietnamese girlfriend just because she is going out with you? or when they are kidding you all the time in vietnamese thinking that you don't even understand? where are you living???