Hash Function.

Paddie-whack.

Hanoi, Vietnam – A cloud of white smoke rose skyward as fire burned in the field.

The acrid air smothered my nose as we trudged through rice paddies, tiled yellow at the foot of the mountains. Conical hats bobbed among the plants, harvesting the staple of cuisine here.

It was my last time with the Hanoi Hash House Harriers, and my final day in Vietnam. I had joined the group for three of the four weekends I was in the country, and today was cooler than previous outings – a slight breeze tickled my face.

It was a nice alternative to the 45-and-humid that had usually slapped me across it.

Farmers took small sickles to the plants, stacking them into tiny bundles atop the severed stalks. Diesel-powered engines rattled heavily and belched black smoke as threshers separated the husks of rice. Scrap was left like large piles of exhausted hay.

Nearby roads were painted yellow by grain left to dry. As the sun glimmered its final smiles, women used hoes to pile it back up and bag it.

Like the friendly locals in these fields, I, too, could only smile: this was a great way to cap off my trip.

Sssupper.

Was the waiter's name really Mr. Feng?

Hanoi, Vietnam – “Would you like some more bile?”

I can honestly say it’s a conversation I never would have imagined having.

Particularly after having just dropped a cobra’s still-beating heart into a shot glass of its own blood, mixed with rice wine. Now, it was the same process with the snake’s bile.

Bottoms up.

The lump in my chest was to be expected, but the heart stuck in there wasn’t mine.

For weeks, Katrina and I have talked of visiting the Nguyen Van Duc Snake Restaurant in the far east end of the city, but finally built it into our schedules tonight. We made a conscious effort to check our ethical concerns at the door for a couple hours, and to simply take in the experience.

Plate after plate arrived at the table: our cobra – which had only minutes before wound its way toward us on the restaurant’s floor before being hooked by a handler – had been sautéed, grilled and folded into spring rolls. There was also a surprising amount of liver, but at least everything was used.

Its skin had been fried into cracklins and we were presented with bowls of snake head soup. I bit it before it could bite me.

And yes, it tastes like chicken.

That's what I'm telling myself, anyway.

Gone Fishing.

Well planned.

Hanoi, Vietnam – “We don’t do market research,” Mr. Tien said.

“We go fishing – we just put the line in the water and maybe we catch a fish.”

It was the line of the morning, so to speak.

I continued the analogy by explaining how time consuming fishing is, and if you’re lucky to catch one, there’s hardly room for another. If you’re going to successfully market yourself, know your audience and how to reach them.

It’s a message I have been preaching for the past month.

In order to extend the impact of my stay beyond my mandate with BTL, I volunteered to facilitate a three-hour workshop this morning for the Vietnam Association of Community Colleges.

The group of 17 was engaged, active and thoughtful, leading to fruitful brainstorming sessions directed toward improving the reputation of community colleges across the country. We focused on planning, understanding audiences and putting the ‘social’ in social media.

As if to punctuate my point, Mr. Tien came up to me after we had taken a series of group photographs.

“My wife just texted me,” he said. “She told me I had been standing beside the tall foreigner.”

Female intuition?

No. Someone had already posted photos to Facebook.

Exit.

The BTL-WUSC Connection.

Hanoi, Vietnam – “I have high admiration for your work at BTL, and for your vision,” the rector said as we huddled around a board table at the WUSC office this afternoon.

We spoke in deliberate phrases and, given the structured hierarchical nature of society here, I had no option but to take it as significant praise.

“You are my English teacher and my communication teacher.”

My entire mandate, I’ve maintained my goal has been to establish meaningful connections at a personal level, rather than suggest wholesale changes. As such, I have been grateful to form a relationship with, among others, Mr. Vinh.

Since our first meeting, he has reminded me of my manager back home: aversion to the status quo, big ideas and the energy to see them through. The system in which he operates, however, is much different.

We held my exit debrief with the college today, and discussed both what I have accomplished during my time in Vietnam, and some plans for implementation.

As I flipped through the jagged scrawls etched onto my notebook’s pages, we found I have, over the past three weeks:

• Designed and developed three marketing pieces;
• Provided a marketing template, a how-to guide and basic training for design;
• Tailored a communications plan and trained staff on developing strategies;
• Provided consultation and analysis related to BTL’s marketing efforts; and
• Conducted a workshop to build capacity related to marketing, branding and communications.

The rector decided he was also looking for a step-by-step guide for crafting marketing messages, and I explained this would no longer be capacity building: I have left tools and provided training that can empower his staff to carry out this work. It’s time for the connections we established to begin to bring their ideas to life.

He smiled, and nodded.

I have volunteered to host a workshop for the Vietnamese Association of Community Colleges tomorrow morning, but my mandate for BTL is now complete.

On Deck.

The light shines brightly.

Hanoi, Vietnam – In many ways, I’m well suited for my position in Canada because I’d prefer to make others, and the university, look good.

It can be easy to hide behind the ever-shifting ink that flows from my pen: the spotlight and I aren’t really on speaking terms.

So, it was a bit of a stretch to my comfort level to be facilitating a 2.5-hour workshop at BTL this afternoon, where 23 pairs of eyes pointed toward me as the observer who has spent the past three weeks at the college.

Facing discomfort and expanding your horizons are, of course, key reasons for participating in an experience like Leave for Change. How else to grow?

I had, ironically, drawn up a deck short on words and high on imagery to get back to basics of branding, marketing and communications, and to have staff begin planning practical activities that address their flagging recruitment efforts. I used images I had taken of Hanoi to help identify audiences, and we began the process of defining who ‘BTL’ is.

From there, we pulled threads together by developing communications plans that address areas of strategic importance to the college. I wasn't there to provide answers, but to offer suggestions of things to think about, and different approaches. Share the spotlight.

Showing a picture of the college’s front entrance – and the impact it can have on both first impressions and BTL’s brand – drew immediate acknowledgements of improvements that should be made. Tasks were assigned before we left: ownership was in the right place.

Today was one of those rare instances in front of a room my nervous legs did not chatter at a greater pace than my speech. Instead, calm: it was a successful session.

And, somehow, we ran only 15 minutes long.

No Words.

Kayaking in one of nature's wonders: Halong Bay.

Being Shellfish.

Don't call me a shrimp!

Hanoi, Vietnam – I really wasn’t sure what I was ordering.

Which isn’t out of the norm when I'm here.

But I at least knew it was prawns – delicious, delicious prawns. And something about a ‘sauna.’ (A prawna sauna?)

When the plate came out, a tiny leg poked at the plastic wrap, causing it to curl like a leaf. I became curious. Raw, living prawns? What have I done?

Sushi gone wild.

Then came a heavy pot with smoking coals and lemongrass resting on top.

The waiter returned and poured a half a mug of beer into it, followed by prawns the size of my fist. They quickly blushed as the boil flowed from the dish, flavouring the air.

A quick dunk in some lime and chilli pepper salt, and dinner was served.

Once, of course, I disrobed them from their shells.

No Hhonors.

Not a gate you would have wanted to cross.

Hanoi, Vietnam – Rounding the bright yellow wall topped with crushed bottle glass and barbed wire, you discover there’s very little left of the original, infamous Hỏa Lò Prison, also derisively known as the Hanoi Hilton.

Modernity and high rises, and all.

I actually found the tone of the museum to be relatively lighthearted, in part because the propaganda has been laid on so thick and planted between pictures of US Presidents attempting to reconcile with the country it once invaded.

Victors write history.

It’s not until the end of the tour, though, you reach the death chamber’s cells, where one of two original guillotines looms overhead – its history less dull than its blade.

Doors, shorter and narrower than I, frame the cells: dark, dank and desperate. The musty odour clings to your bones in a way that speaks in voices that pass through the years. And through your soul.

Door number two? Don't want to know.

Unlike the polished display cases – including one containing Senator and former presidential hopeful John McCain’s jumpsuit – this part feels very real.  This, despite the stylized mannequins with hollowed cheeks and ribs that have been installed within them.

The doors are painted with European-styled red numbers, faded like the hopes of those who once resided there. Peeling, they speak of a bygone era, and of an anguish that hasn’t fully seeped from the concrete walls. They immediately remind you where you are.

As a knot formed in my chest, I could only hope it wasn’t from the ghost of a hangman’s noose. I felt chills.

Mission (Mostly) Accomplished.

Everybody stays away from the bus.

Hanoi, Vietnam – As the bus thundered past the sprawling Panasonic, Canon and Yamaha factories in Dong Anh, it struck me my time at the college designed to support these industrial park tenants has pretty much drawn to a close.

I had just commuted 45 minutes for a five-minute meeting, before pointing myself back in the same direction toward the centre of Hanoi.

I have one week left dedicated to a pair of workshops, a chamber of commerce event and debriefings, but I have otherwise completed my mandate – and my amended mandates – ahead of schedule.

As I watched the materials I have created get sucked into the vast tangle of a computer’s wires, I could only hope they will once again see the light of day.

And so, I sat, pinched into a tight seat with torn nylon and chipped paint, reflecting as a high-pitched children’s choir pumped through the bus’s tinny speakers. The driver opted to pass into oncoming traffic while crossing the bridge over the river.

Who is to argue? No wonder these buses are efficient.

The sun has finally been sprung from its shackles, and I have a fresh haircut. It’s time to turn the clock off and take in the transcendent splendour of Halong Bay tomorrow.

Taxing.

I wanted to scoot.

Hanoi, Vietnam – Generally even-keeled, I knew I shouldn’t be annoyed.

And yet, as the taxi driver, crawling at 20 km/h, drew his eyes to the pulsating blue dot on his phone to find where he was, I felt the red rise to my face. This is a city known for taxi scams.

He was lost in the matrix of his Samsung Galaxy, as opposed to the maze of the old quarter. He didn't even offer so much as a single punch of the horn as bicycles pulled alongside. In my experience, that's unheard of.

Being dropped off a block away from my destination in rain that drove harder than he did did nothing to unfurrow my brow, especially when he had no change to offer.

“Oi zoi oi,” as the locals say. Good lord.

Over the past couple weeks, I've obviously become accustomed to the mad rush this city injects into your blood stream. It's not necessarily a good thing.

But I really shouldn’t be annoyed: while nearly double the normal fare, the 100K VND only constituted an extra couple dollars.

And driving a taxi in this city cannot be easy.

I Pity the Typhoon.

Ponchos for sale hang from the bus sign.

Hanoi, Vietnam – These days, the sun is but a passing bird.

Feeling the effects of Typhoon Kalmaegi hitting the Halong Bay area today, the city is reminiscent of a child’s Lite-Brite: pinpricks of colour set against a tableau of grey.

Bright orange fish swish in clear plastic bags hanging from racks perched atop rusty bicycles across the city.

Tinted tin roofs quilt a patchwork that blankets my sightlines and xe ôm – moto taxi – riders tuck under the backs of their drivers’ brightly coloured ponchos. They quickly become veering dots of dye set against the wet, grey pavement as drivers, too, fold all but their faces into their nylon bubbles.

Warm, tropical rains leave pencil sketches of Morse code on the horizon. With the winds, the trees join in on the Tai Chi practiced around the lakes.

Even the blocks-long flower market I pass every morning on my way to work is nearly abandoned and painted the colour of storms – but for the scattered petals consumed by puddles. Left to nature’s hand, faded umbrellas spin like tops.

As I sit for more than an hour waiting for a meeting to begin, it’s perhaps an apt metaphor.

Wins.

BTL.

Hanoi, Vietnam – You can’t change the world in a month.

Instead, my goal for this and every mandate is to try to establish meaningful connections at a personal level to build capacity in a collaborative manner. I certainly don’t have all the answers.

So, it was with great excitement I saw a normally quiet man come to life in front of his colleagues during an all-staff meeting today. He spoke passionately about having new ideas to market the college, and he wanted to build pride in the room.

We had discussed gaps in the college’s strategy during a meeting last week, when I stressed the importance of assessing the effectiveness of BTL’s tactics. If they’re not working, figure out why. If they can be fixed, fix them. If they can’t, move on to something that will provide value.

Have a plan, and don’t be afraid to change what is not working. At the time, his eyes lifted from his page with a glimmer.

He became animated and implored his colleagues by using many of the same messages he had quietly absorbed the week before. Over the past seven days, he has changed his marketing approach by getting back to the basics.

With his help, we actioned a couple of the recommendations from the four-page memo I drafted after our meeting last week.

It was one of those eye-opening moments where we found ourselves speaking the same language.

Even though we don’t at all.

A Slice of Language.

A pizza my morning.

Hanoi, Vietnam – A smiling woman arrived unexpectedly at my desk this morning, a personal-sized pizza in hand.

She laughed and visibly searched her English vocabulary for the right word.

“Product?”

With furrowed brows and a chuckle, we scanned each other’s faces for the lexicon that would unlock the secret of the doughy creation.

“Students!”

Bingo. The mid-morning snack was courtesy of the college’s Culinary Arts program, which provides students with an understanding of the tourism and hospitality industries to provide them more stable jobs.

Best of all: no delivery fees.

A Brewed Awakening.

Coffee, condensed.

Hanoi, Vietnam – Thunder crashed like cannonballs through the old quarter’s crooked alleys.

In the process, sharp cracks and baritone howls shattered my dreams. It was thunder as I’ve never heard it.

It didn’t help I had only recently fallen asleep, kept awake by the electrical buzz coursing through my veins from a too-late-in-the-afternoon cà phê sữa đá.

Almost as prevalent as Hanoi’s scooters and bia hoi are coffee shops serving this other national beverage. Vietnam is the world’s second-largest coffee producer, and here, it is enjoyed slowly throughout the day on sidewalks that wrap around nearly every corner.

Cà phê sữa đá is coffee, dark as the night that painted my windows, which has been slow roasted – often in butter oil – and served over condensed milk and fat rings of ice. It packs a punch, and I know better than to have it so late in the day.

But it’s just that good.

Re-hash.

Are you reddy?

Hanoi, Vietnam – Each step forward was a step upward.

And, as rolling valleys dotted by buffalo unfolded below us, each was a step farther into a picturesque postcard of rural Vietnam.

On a sunny clear day, though, the skies clung to me, falling heavily onto my shoulders with a humidity that sucked through my core. At 45 degrees, I became a puddle.

My second week with the Hanoi Hash House Harriers took us 90 minutes north of downtown Hanoi, and into the heavily treed mountains that frame the city’s landscape.

The day’s 14-kilometre hike wove through switchbacks and down sharp inclines, before trekking across vast rice paddies. At one point, we were forced to limbo under a barbed wire fence and a low-hanging clothesline, before emerging through the portico of a family’s house – much to the surprise of children playing in the front yard.

Throughout, wet red clay melded to our feet, trying to claim us for the mountain.

It would be a beautiful place to stay.

Marketed.

Bright Nights, Big City.

Hanoi, Vietnam – A bumblebee-sized micro-copter buzzed overhead, its blue LED lights pulsing against the night sky.

They kept pace with the rapid heartbeat of electronic music thumping out of a clothing store, its half-open maw of a metal shutter door spilling contents over the sidewalk like a lolling tongue.

On the weekend, a seemingly endless line of the Old Quarter's streets are transformed into a night market, and closed to traffic. Cars, anyway: motoscooters, of course, make like salmon, pushing their way upstream through tightly packed crowds out for a Friday evening.

The well-lit stalls seemed to continue forever, flaunting colourful trinkets and souvenirs, undergarments and Zippo lighters; jewellery, pastries, toys and t-shirts. The air, meanwhile, was punctuated by the warm smell of skewered meat, which sizzled in shallow woks drowned in oil.

A robotic drone from a loudspeaker warned to watch over your valuables, its formal tone repeated in three languages.

With locals dressing up for a date night stroll in the market, it's a microcosm of the colour, life and activity in the Old Quarter.

But watch your bags.

On Target.

Don't mask your ambition.

Hanoi, Vietnam – Questioned about my ambitious goals, I am told to aim lower.

“Things are different here.” This much is true. “Volunteers usually identify three outcomes they would like to produce in such a short time.”

I choose seven.

Having spent my past couple days designing a template, writing a user guide, preparing messaging and creating marketing pieces for three of BTL’s programs, I have achieved all but one of my outcomes by my mandate’s half-way mark.

You have to think big.

Working abroad often requires flexibility, patience and positivity: resources and training are not always the same in other countries. I can’t imagine Corel Paint has been relevant in the Canadian design community for years. Not that I’m a graphic designer anyway.

I’m just currently playing one on Vietnamese T.V.

Crop a logo out of a .PDF because there are no .jpg, let alone .eps files? Cringe, but do what you have to do.

(And leave a gentle reminder about the importance of protecting the brand.)

Advice to future volunteers: a good attitude goes a capital-L long way. Smile – albeit honestly – even if you are uncomfortable.

You’re supposed to be uncomfortable: it’s how you learn.

But, don’t be afraid to think big.

Bus-ted.

I can handle this.

Hanoi, Vietnam – As the tall foreigner on a city bus, I’m accustomed to not receiving my change.

Often, it’s just a matter of the ticket taker having insufficient small bills – which, frankly, amount to a pittance in coins back home. Eventually, though, there’s something about the principle that rankles.

A week of riding behind me, I’m becoming a familiar face. As the ticket taker fanned himself with a large stack of bills this morning, he doled change out to all the locals.

I laughed, and flashed him a knowing smirk.

After rounding up his next line of customers, he came back and deposited a 1,000 VND note into my hand and waved a teenager out of a seat.

He smiled, and pointed me over to it.

I’ll take that as my welcome to Hanoi.

The Flow of the Road.

Hanoi, Vietnam – The metallic tinge of diesel hums in my nose with the incessant drone of motorbikes, like gnats in my ear.

Streets collapse over me, as waves of scooters swirl around like an ocean's eddies.

The mayhem is hypnotic, but oddly organized. A honk, a swerve, a coursing-through, like water finding the next available open path.

Even on a relatively quiet night, though, it is mayhem nonetheless.

Pho of Love.

Pho-to.

Hanoi, Vietnam – As I tucked my chair in from a breakfast of pho, assorted Western and Asian standards, and a couple cups of fantastic coffee, the concierge and wait staff stopped me from boarding the elevator.

“We like you. We really like you.”

The cook burst out of the kitchen with a sheepish grin and a twinkle in her eye.

“But she loves you.”

I’m not sure if it’s because of how much of her food I have evidently enjoyed over the past couple weeks.

I love it here at the Church Hotel on Hang Gai, too; this place has been fantastic. In some ways, the morning's laugh was a bit of an omen for the day to come.

After a 2.5-hour meeting with the heads of marketing and recruitment, I was able to compile some best practices from Canadian institutions and make four pages of recommendations for strategically marketing BTL, while enhancing its recruitment efforts.

In the process, I was finally able to cross off two of the seven major results I built into my mandate’s ambitious work plan.

It has been a good day.