Overcoming cultural barriers

In 2010 I spent about four months in Santa Barbara, California to teach a course at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), and to write a paper with Christopher Costello. I rented a single room in one of those suburbs that we Europeans only know from Steven Spielberg movies: green, spacy neighbourhoods with all single-story, detached houses. My landlord was a colourful guy named Charlie, who lived mainly from renting out the rooms in his house to students and the occasional visiting professor. He ran a mobile cafe (called Gay Cafe Santa Barbara) in one of those old-fashioned aluminum trailers, the proceeds of which went to some LGBTQ-friendly cause I still don't fully comprehend. His son drove in a small sports car with the number plate "LESBIAN" which I'm sure was Charlie's idea.

We got along quite well. Charlie had lived in The Netherlands for a few years, where he picked up some Dutch words and a love for Dutch spiced cakes. (He bought his cakes in the place where I replenished my stock of Indonesian bumbu - the Dutch have an exotic brand of homesickness.) We talked a lot about life in The Netherlands and in California, about politics (like many Californians, Charlie was a staunch Democrat), and other issues. In a place like California, where people are friendly but keep their distance, Charlie was the closest I had to a friend.

One morning I entered the living room and Charlie grinned at me sarcastically, asking: "have you been in the kitchen yet?" On the kitchen floor lay a paper waste bag, torn open where the paper was wet from the coffee grind I had put in it a few days before. Coffee grind spilled from the waste bag all over the kitchen floor. "You know," Charlie said grimly, "I have once thrown a tenant out because he did this repeatedly." No need to argue who cleaned up the mess and where wet waste like food and coffee grind went from that moment on. I had learned my lesson.

What went wrong here? Unlike European sinks, many American sinks are equipped with a disposal: an electric device that shreds kitchen waste into pieces small enough to pass through the plumbing system. Apparently, American plumbing systems are designed to deal with such solid waste without clogging. Charlie did tell me: don't throw wet waste (coffee grind, sauce, tomatoes) in the paper waste bags, because they will tear open. Turn on the disposal, and throw your waste in the sink. "It's not a sink, it's a disposal," he said. But when I had made coffee I just couldn't get myself to throw it in the sink. In Europe we learn never to throw such stuff in the sink: you may flush it down the toilet if you need to, but sinks get clogged if you throw all kinds of solid stuff in them. Surely he couldn't mean that I was to throw it in the sink? So I tried to press as much water as possible out of the coffee grind - and in the paper bag it went.

I was reminded of this episode when I thought about the issues in supervising students from cultures very different from my own. For example, I have found that some students from Southeast Asian countries are very reluctant to send their teacher or supervisor work in progress. For me as a supervisor this is a problem. I'd much rather be kept informed of a student's progress, or lack thereof, than to be kept in the dark for very long. The longer it takes, the more time is wasted if it is done the wrong way. But apparently it doesn't work like that in Southeast Asia. If you send something to your supervisor (a draft paper, say, or data analyses), you better make sure that it is perfect. Better to send a perfect document five minutes before the meeting than to send a rough draft two days earlier. With the result that neither I, nor our professor, have time to prepare for the meeting by reading the material.

We have tried several ways to convince these students that it is okay to send work in progress. Asking politely. Threatening to cancel the meeting if I don't get the stuff on time. Explaining patiently why it is better to send incomplete material early than to send complete material late. Getting angry when I receive the material late. But just like I had to overcome a cultural barrier to throw my coffee grind in the sink disposal, I guess these students need to conquer a strong inner voice that says: "surely he can't mean I'm supposed to send him this?" Yes, I do. I promise I won't be angry.

Going deep south

The day we arrived in Hanoi, Tu invited us at his home to get a taste of genuine Vietnamese biodiversity: swimming crab, carp, blood cockles, tiger shrimp, squid and some other species I don't remember. Like many Asians, the Vietnamese like their seafood fresh: everything except the carp and the squid was alive (and moved). It was served around a big bowl of broth, with tomato, ginger, pineapple, and lemongrass, where everything was cooked and the broth slowly became a delicious fish soup: say hello to the Vietnamese hotpot.

As far as I could see, all of the seafood served came from aquaculture - not a big surprise in a country that ranks third in global aquaculture production. Tu works at the Vietnamese Research Institute for Aquaculture as a fisheries economist, and he does his PhD research at our group on how the shrimp farmers in the Mekong delta adapt to climate change. Expectations are that as sea levels rise, and average temperatures increase, shrimp farmers will increasingly have to deal with disease outbreaks and salt water intrusion (black tiger shrimp are a bit like Goldilocks, preferring their water not fresh, not salty, but brackish). How will these farmers deal with these problems? In other words, what kind of autonomous adaptation will they implement, and what kind of planned adaptation can or should the government implement?

I had discussed these issues at length with Tu over the last twelve months or so, but it is difficult to discuss these issues if you have never seen these farms in reality. So Monique and I reserved a few days to travel to Soc Trang, Bac Lieu, and perhaps Ca Mau, where most of the Mekong Delta's shrimp come from. We were joined by Tu, Le Xuan Sinh (an aquaculture expert from Can Tho University) and Nguyen Trang (a master student at Wageningen University who does her thesis work in the Mekong Delta). Sinh suggested to drive along the coast road between Soc Trang town and Bac Lieu town the first day, and stay the night in Ca Mau town. The day after we went deep south: by car to Nam Can (the most southern town of Vietnam that can be reached by car), and then the boat all the way to Mui Ca Mau (the southern cape of mainland Vietnam).

 

No matter how much I had read about Vietnamese shrimp farming before I came, it still struck me how different the shrimp farms in different regions are, and how strongly these differences depend on their natural environment. The relatively fresh waters of Soc Trang allow for intensive shrimp farming, in many cases even with systems where the pond is perfectly separated from the water or canal. These are fairly capital-intensive systems, with neatly dug ponds, aeration devices, and much use of shrimp feed and other inputs. These farmers have the system quite under control.

How different are the farms you find deeper south, in the vast mangrove forests of Ca Mau province. The water is much more brackish here, so that the ponds are more strongly connected to the rivers and canals. Farmers let water in or out to control the salinity of the water, and in some cases to take in shrimp seed and fish. In the center of the pond you find planted mangrove trees that provide food and shelter to the shrimp, and that are usually sold after about 15 years for firewood or charcoal. The farmers use little feed because the shrimp can feed on algae growing on the mangrove trees.

 

Apparently our visit was quite an event for this farmer. He invited us for a meal of cooked crab and some sort of Vietnamese jenever. Even though it was 11am we bravely jugged the stuff down because it would have been impolite to refuse. So here you have another problem of doing field work in Vietnam: you need to be able to drink. Heavily. All the more reason to let the respondents come to some central place instead of going from door to door yourself.

Although it is hardly featured in tourist guidebooks, I consider Ca Mau one of the highlights of my trip to Vietnam. Of course for being invited to food and drink with some shrimp farmer, and for the thrilling boat trip through the mangrove forests to Mui Ca Mau, but also for the mangrove forests themselves. I just love mangrove forests. The sheer fact of having a forest in such a salty, tidal area, with stilt-roots sticking in the mud. And when you look closely, at any square meter of the mud between the trees, you see the forest is teeming with life. Different species of crabs crawl over the bottom. A snake slithers by. Mud skippers skid over the puddles of brown water at the edge of the forest.

 

So what have I learned from this trip? First of all, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for Vietnamese shrimp farms to deal with medium-term or long-term changes in their natural environment. Adopting a closed system, or cultivating white leg shrimp (a hardy species from South America) instead of black tiger shrimp, may work for the intensive farmers in Soc Trang but not for the extensive farmers in Ca Mau. Second, there is a looming problem in almost all shrimp farms: the waste coming from the pond. Farmers regularly clean the ponds, and then a muddy mixture of shrimp faeces and salt comes out. It may have been a good fertilizer if it weren't for its salinity. So far no solution has been found for it yet, so all farms have a load of salty mud piling up. The farmers are not allowed to dump the mud in the river, but monitoring and enforcement is weak and the farmers have little alternative. Third, another problem is that the stock of wild shrimp is declining as more and more farmers catch wild shrimp seed in order to cultivate it in their ponds. Wild shrimp tend to be more disease resistant, but there is of course only so much that the local ecosystem can provide. Fourth, conducting a survey in areas like Ca Mau is going to be a daunting task: getting there over water, identifying and randomly selecting respondents, and last but not least staying sober.

Dealing with flood risks in the Mekong delta

The Mekong delta is just about the flattest region in Vietnam. In some places, where extensive green rice fields stretched between lines of trees that marked the otherwise perfectly straight horizon, we almost felt like we were back in Holland. A place as flat like this must be as exposed to floods as The Netherlands.

And it is. Even fresh-water areas here have a strong tidal variation. Usually the people take advantage of the steady rising and falling of the water level, irrigating their rice fields and catching small shrimp to grow further in ponds and baskets. Water is central to life in the Mekong delta: until the government improved road infrastructure, most transport took place by boat. The floating markets around Can Tho are popular tourist destinations. But the water is a treacherous friend. In 2000 the Mekong raised about 5 meters high, submerging hundreds of thousands of houses, and drowning hundreds of people as well as cattle and crop. The area saw another big flood in 2011.

Expectations are that the flooding problem will get worse as the global climate gets warmer, bringing heavier rains and a higher sea level. But even a climate change skeptic should be able to see the importance of learning to deal with these heavy floods. Much of what the inhabitants can do makes sense even if no climate change occurs: strengthening dykes, building higher or stronger houses, buying insurance to cover the financial risks of crop and cattle loss. One of the big questions is what the government can or should do (planned adaptation in jargon), and what the local residents do (autonomous adaptation).

Binh is the smartly dressed gentleman in the center.
The ponytailed Dutch guy in the ugly red shirt, that would be me.

One of our PhD students, Phung Thanh Binh, does his research on flood insurance in the Mekong delta, under the supervision of my colleague Zhu Xueqin and myself. Are local residents interested in getting flood insurance, and if so, under what conditions? What insurance premium are they willing to pay for a little bit more coverage? If they have flood insurance, will they still prepare for floods or will they transfer some of the risk to their insurance company?

It was good to visit Binh's research site, and to see how he conducts his survey. I had not realised how complicated such surveys can be around here: just going from door to door, as you would do in countries like Kenya and Tanzania, is unlikely to work for several social and cultural reasons. Binh invited, through local authorities, respondents to come to the local community office where one of Binh's research assistants would interview them. It seems I have a lot to learn still about doing research in southeast Asia.

Glorifying poverty?

It's an inevitable part of economic development: as infrastructure is improved, and capital is accumulated, and production processes and markets become more efficient, old ways of doing things disappear. There is a nostalgic Irish song that puts it quite well:

By trade I was a cooper;
lost out to redundancy;
like my house that fell to progress
my trade's a memory

The song played through my mind all the time when we saw what was left of the floating market of Cai Be, in the Mekong delta. Our guide told us the once famous floating market was disappearing rapidly in favour of the land-based market now that infrastructure in the region has been much improved. That is perhaps a shame, but perhaps it's also shameful that we think it's a shame.

Like the wooden barrels and casks they used to make, there are few coopers left in our modern economy. We store our beer in aluminum kegs now: much more durable, much more hygienic, much more efficient. But as tourists, we lament the demise of the old ways, for they make our holiday destinations 'charming' and 'exotic'. We curse progress when floating markets are replaced by supermarkets, when thatched roofs turn into corrugated iron, or when small-scale fishers get a job at an industrial-scale purse seiner.

But much of what we find charming is in fact a sign of poverty. Many people in developing countries prefer a corrugated iron roof over a thatched one, and they will get it as soon as they have the money to buy it. Floating markets emerged due to lack of good road infrastructure. Those men playing Chinese chess in a local Vietnamese coffee shop? You may call it the good life, but you might as well call it unemployment.

Yes, as developing countries get richer they start looking more like us: there will be more shops (more chain stores, also, unfortunately), more cars, fewer street stalls, better infrastructure, cleaner streets. Prosperity is often accompanied by a certain cooling of interpersonal relations as people become busier, more efficient, and more business-like. Some of these changes are to be welcomed (better health care, cleaner streets), some changes may be a necessary price to pay for the welcome changes (more efficiency, less surprises), some changes are to be lamented (loss of traditions, old professions that become folklore at best).

But honestly, should they stay poor so you can make pretty pictures?

The Prisoner's Dilemma in traffic

Witnessing the traffic in Vietnam, whether it was the madhouse on the streets of Hanoi or the exasperating driving style of motorists on the highway, I realized that traffic is very much a Prisoner's Dilemma. The overall motto in Vietnamese traffic is every man for himself. Drives prefer the left lane and adamantly refuse to let others overtake them. Be careful when you cross the street, even at green pedestrian traffic lights: red traffic lights are considered no more than suggestions so you might still be run over by one of the countless motorbikes.

It made me realise that in everyday traffic there are a lot of occasions where you can gain some benefit at the expense of other road users: cross a red light, overtake somebody on his right side, don't let others pass or enter the highway. On the short term you may benefit from this behaviour, but if everybody behaves this way we are all worse off than if we would just show a little courtesy. You can see the result in many of Vietnam's streets: congested roads, traffic accidents, aggressive drivers. A game theorist would say that Vietnamese traffic is somewhere in or near its Nash equilibrium (nobody has a reason to change his or her individual behaviour, given the behaviour of others), but the Nash equilibrium is not Pareto optimal (everybody would be better off if everybody behaved differently): the textbook definition of a Prisoner's Dilemma.

In countries like Norway or the United States, however, the traffic seems much more organised (Dutch drivers, I must confess, are less courteous, but yet more so than Vietnamese drivers). Why don't Norwegian drivers and American drivers obey our microeconomic models by behaving more aggressively? (I don't mean to insult Vietnamese motorists, so let's call it driving assertively.) I believe hefty fines are only part of the explanation. It is also that Norwegian and American motorists consider it bad behaviour: in other words, there are social norms that keep them from driving more assertively.

Another interesting observation is that a Norwegian wouldn't get anywhere in downtown Hanoi unless he drives like a Hanoian. So once this assertive way of driving becomes the norm it will be very difficult to change it to a more courteous norm. Assertive drivers may get somewhere in Oslo, but perhaps their friends would tell them off for their driving style. In any case many Norwegians consider it bad form, and people have a natural tendency to conform to the dominant norm. So there are self-enhancing mechanisms that keep the dominant social norm in place.

So to understand Elinor Ostrom's work you don't have to go to the irrigated rice fields of rural Bangladesh: just get a driver's license.

 

Greetings from the delta

The last four weeks Monique and I spent our Christmas and New Year's holiday in Vietnam. We made it a holiday combined with a little bit of work: we started in the North, where we met one of my PhD students, Trinh Quang Tu, and visited such tourist destinations as the Mai Chau valley, Tam Coc, and Ha Long Bay. After a few days in the ancient city of Hué and the picturesque merchant town of Hoi An we continued to Ho Chi Minh City, from where we travelled to the Mekong Delta. In the Mekong Delta we had reserved some time to meet people at Can Tho University, visit aquaculture farms in the regions where Tu does his research, and to visit one of the research sites of another PhD student of mine, Phung Thanh Binh. In the following weeks I will post my impressions of my trip.

Vietnam is a magnificent country, with wonderful people, stunning views, delicious food, and a fascinating history. Despite the obvious traces of a millennium of Chinese domination and a century of French domination, the Vietnamese have a strong sense of independence. I think the Dutch and the Vietnamese have something in common: two relatively small countries, surrounded by big powerful neighbours and the deep blue sea. During the Anglo-Dutch wars the English called the Dutch 'frogs' because of our wet and muddy natural habitat (they later later applied the same pejorative to the French, but then for culinary reasons). I like to think there is a similarity between the Dutch frogs in their cold Rhine and Meuse delta, and the Vietnamese tortoise, a mythical specimen of which provided a magic sword to Le Loi, the Vietnamese emperor who kicked the Chinese Ming dynasty out of Vietnam, in the tropical Red River and Mekong deltas.

But Vietnam is also a country in transition from a poor communist economy to a bustling capitalist economy, with all the environmental and social issues associated with that process. You can see beautiful big houses next to crumbling shacks. Small businesses everywhere, Pepsi and Samsung billboards next to Communist propaganda posters. New infrastructure is being built, and shiny new office buildings. Streets and shores are littered with plastic bags and bottles. Both deltas are under threat from upstream dam construction in neighbouring countries, and from climate change. Large areas of mangrove forest have been cut to make room for shrimp farms. And don't forget the motorbikes. You cannot escape the motorbikes, buzzing their way through the streets like angry hornets with vehicle horns.

And no, I am not going to mention the war.