After spending several weeks in Vietnam, the level and prominence of poverty has been a constant thought in my mind. Seeing pictures of poverty, hearing stories about poverty, and knowing the statistics regarding poverty is completely different from actually living amongst poverty and seeing or hearing about it everyday. I never truly understood poverty until now. I’ve experienced so many mixed emotions concerning the poverty among the Vietnamese people; I jumped around from feeling guilty about being more wealthy here, grateful for my life, and sympathetic for the locals. In the US, I grew up really poor and not having much. To this day, I am still struggling with making ends meet. To the Vietnamese people, I am wealthy compared to everyone else, which is something I’m not at all accustomed to back home. It is so interesting how different poverty in the U.S is from poverty in Vietnam. What is more interesting is how the poverty in Ho Chi Minh City is from poverty in Mekong Delta, which is an area only several hours away from Ho Chi Minh City.
In Ho Chi Minh City, I have gotten glimpses of poverty from the Vietnamese roommates. From what I gathered, Vietnamese people generally earn about 100 USD per month. A barista at a coffee shop or a waitress at a restaurant earn around half a dollar an hour. My Vietnamese teacher told me that she could work her whole life and still never save enough money to buy a house. A 60000 dong meal (which converts to about $3) is a great deal to me, but is a fortune to spend for the average local. From my observation and from what I have been hearing from the locals, the majority of the population is struggling financially.
Because I am currently living in Ho Chi Minh City, I frequently forget that Asian population is predominantly rural. Because of this, governments tend to associate poverty with rural areas. After visiting the Mekong Delta, I can understand this association. I paid close attention to the houses. The houses I saw were often poorly built and sometimes had missing windows or doors and limited utilities. The houses near the home stay we stayed at were built very close to the river; moreover, because of the changing tides of the river, these houses are more susceptible to flooding. Along with residing away from civilization, the houses are also far apart from each other. The location is also inconvenient due to the lack of nearby hospitals or convenient stores. When we visited a home where rice paper was made, a market, and a brick kiln, it was obvious that people there all worked long, hard hours everyday in unpleasant conditions.
What still astounds me is that even with the seemingly monotonous and difficult lives of the locals, many of them seemed content. When we biked through a small village, many people greeted us. People were friendly and smiley at the markets. The ladies at our home stay were all generous and very accommodating. At night, the kids that we got to spend time with were just…kids–they laughed, they played, they were exuberant. Many people gathered to watch Cai Luong, a traditional type of music, and just enjoyed the night. We met a sweet old lady who made rice paper for 60 years and was content. Thu, our tour guide told us that people from the Mekong Delta are generally very peaceful. She also said that people in the Mekong Delta feel wealthy because they always have enough to eat. I think I came to the Mekong Delta expecting it to be depressing and expecting people to be unhappier than people in Ho Chi Minh City because they comparatively had less. Now, I have come to understand that it’s all relative. Poverty is poverty. Feeling impoverished is also subjective.
References:
Dahiya, Bharat. “Cities in Asia, 2012: Demographics, Economics, Poverty, Environment and Governance.” Cities 29 (December 2012): S44–61. doi:10.1016/j.cities.2012.06.013.