Better be prepared

The Reporter's Notebook

 

Last updated 2/10/2021 at 7:41am



When you travel, expect the unexpected.

Always have money on you for the country you are visiting. My first trip to Vietnam started out as an embarrassment, and nearly was a disaster. I forgot to exchange money before leaving Hong Kong, so when I got off the plane in Saigon, I only had U. S travel checks with me.

I got my bag and headed to the bus for transport to my hotel. Before I could get to the bus, a Vietnamese man grabbed my bag to carry it to the bus. It was obvious he wanted a tip. All I had with me, except for travel checks was a nickel.

I gave him the nickel and you should have heard him yell. It was really embarrassing, but he was the one who grabbed the bag. He hollered and made a real scene until the bus pulled out.

I got settled and then headed uptown to meet Mansanoma Fujimoto, who was a correspondent for Nippon Television. I was carrying a message from his wife and mother whom I had met in Tokyo. He was staying at the Caravelle Hotel, the place of business for the more serious journalists and those who were permanently assigned to the war.

Masanoma asked if I had exchanged any money yet, so I told him no and of my experience at the airport. He said don’t and opened his desk drawer, which was stacked with Vietnamese folding money. He picked up a couple of stacks and tossed them to me. He explained that when his team took rest breaks, they went out of the country where they got a more favorable exchange rate, so they were piling up their reserves from the better exchange. The stacks he gave me provided me with money during my stay.

I had a similar incident in Hong Kong. They really believe in full employment there. In the rest room off the lobby at the Mandarin Hotel where I was staying, there are men stationed there to help you wash and dry your hands, all for a tip.

I shrugged off the guy and went out to the lobby, where he followed me, making a scene. Pretty embarrassing!

Now, I don’t want to leave the impression that I don’t tip. I always try to tip at least 20%. But in both cases I was caught by surprise.

Prior to my trips, I always had an aggressive reading routine so I would be prepared for different things.

Getting ready for this trip I took a try at learning Mandarin, probably the best of the Chinese languages. I saw an ad in the Seattle Times of a guy who was going to teach the Chinese language. I responded and arrived at his house at the appointed time. He was a very strict teacher and I could tell it wasn’t going over well. There were six of us the first night, and only four showed up the second night. The third session I was by myself. I could easily understand when he said it wasn’t worth it for him to continue. In the three sessions I learned to write and speak 50 characters. I could pick out some of the characters in the Chinese newspapers, but not enough to figure out what they were saying. Not practicing, I lost what I had learned.

Probably Hong Kong is the easiest place along the Pacific Rim to visit. Since years as a British colony, nearly everyone spoke English. This made it easy to move about and shop.

Probably the next easiest place was Taiwan. I believe Thailand would be next. English is the second language in many countries.

 

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