I am no expert on Vietnam. I'm a little embarrassed about how little effort I have put into learning anything about the culture, language, or even geography of this country that at least for now is my home. I don't think I am too far off base when I say that it is pretty evident that the average Vietnamese person is quite willing to capitulate when it comes to anything the government tells them to do though. I don't know if this is out of a sense of loyalty or if it is fear of the consequences of not doing so but you don't see much resistance to anything the government tells people do do here.
The lockdowns have been rather extreme in the past 6 weeks and I have had the good fortune to see it coming and move somewhere that I have friends in the building and make the best of a bad situation. I truly feel bad for your average Vietnamese person who probably is already quite poor and hasn't been allowed to work to make money for a long time now.
I am seeing pockets of resistance though and it is starting out as refusing to comply with silly rules that really need to be scrapped.
These "barricades" of sorts are all over town at various junctions. They consist of some police tape and whatever branches they could find to create some sort of do not cross area. For weeks people have been walking under them to get where they are going and if you were on a motorbike you can get through them anyway just by kicking a branch out of the way and lifting up a piece of tape.
The silly thing about these roadblocks is that the other side of that tape you see there... you are allowed to go over there and this is true with all of the other roadblocks of this sort that I have encountered. I found this out the other day when I was trying to go to an ATM and I was eventually able to get to it, but several of the paths were blocked by things like this. It really doesn't make any sense because they aren't preventing us from going anywhere, they are just turning it into a maze of sorts.
Last night when I took Nadi out for a walk, I noticed that 3 of the 4 roadblocks like this that are in my neighborhood had been torn down, presumably by the people that live here. I did not do this as I am quite afraid of what will happen to me or any other foreigner that rocks the boat over here but I do agree with what whoever these people have done and would be very tempted to help them if I saw it happening.
At the moment as I understand it, our movement is not restricted provided we don't leave certain wards (which are actually quite huge) and you are supposed to have a mask on - something I have always found pretty stupid since no one does it properly and is constantly pulling them down to smoke, get a drink, or just because it is too hot. Businesses are slowly opening back up and some sense of normalcy is starting to be a part of our lives.
They are once again allowing people on the beach to exercise but once again, they are restricting it to certain hours of the day so that the maximum amount of people end up on the beach in as short amount of time as possible. Have we learned nothing from the past?
I suppose there is always a chance that those people that are on the beach are there illegally and if so, I am very proud of those folks.
In the meantime I have now completely moved out of my old condo and am in my new temporary condo that I will stay in until they reopen the airports. The rumors at the moment is that this is going to happen on the 14th of October. I wouldn't hold your breath on that actually happening.
Here's a photo of Nadi in one of her 4 beds to end on a bright note.
She badly needs a haircut but those shops are still not allowed to be open. I can't even imagine the logic behind why that is since the dog food store is allowed to be open and for the groomers are in exactly the same location.