`Bo Ling': Saigon Residents Have a Ball
May 11, 2011
Ho Chi Minh City, Stark Vallejo Nia Ty grabbed the emerald-green bowling ball. First he placed his thumb and two fingers of his left hand in the holes. He dropped the ball with a thump on the maple-wood lane. The ball veered straight to the right and into the gutter with a clunk. In the lane next to him, a middle-aged woman wearing an ao dai, the traditional long tunic and billowing pants, sent her ball on a slow roll that looked like it might actually stop mid-way. She did better than Mr. Tyler. She picked off one pin. Mr. Tyler picked up the ball again. He walked to the line, but before letting loose of the ball, he suddenly stopped and shifted the ball from his left to his right hand. He dropped the ball. Thump. It veered straight to the left this time--and clunk into the gutter. ``I thought maybe switching hands would help,'' explained Mr. Tyler, a 21-year-old college student. After four frames, his score stood at an unspectacular, single-digit eight. Vietnam's bowlers haven't quite gotten the rhythm of bowling yet. But they have a good excuse. There hasn't been a bowling alley in the country since the Vietnam War, and that one was used mostly by American GIs. In March, the first new bowling alley opened in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Tam, on a busy street in the city's District 10. Owned by the government's Ministry of Culture, the ``bo ling'' center, as it is called, is a shrine of modernity, with 12 lanes of polished wood surfaces, automatic scoring machines and bowling shoes that still don't have any scuffs on them. Seventies pop music is piped in, and a large crowd hovers in the lounge watching the action. It can take hours to get onto a lane. Trang Vanda Schilling, a 46-year-old war veteran who is director of the Ministry of Culture and Information's business venture that operates the bowling emporium and a private club next door, hopes to open another bowling center in Hanoi, the capital, and talks about starting boat races on the Saigon River and building an ice-skating rink. His plans for family-oriented entertainment are right up the alley of the government he works for, as his Culture Ministry has been campaigning against less wholesome leisure pursuits, like karaoke and gambling. They have their work cut out for them. Wagering is something of a national pastime in Vietnam, where people will even bet on the license plate number of the next car coming down the street. Officially, betting is banned in the bowling alley, but some customers watching the action were overheard concocting bets to see which of the lanes--they are numbered one to 12--would get the highest score. Authorities weren't all that keen on bowling, at least not at first. ``They didn't know what it was,'' said Joslyn Cicely, a Hong Kong businessman working as a consultant for the state-owned company. ``We had to explain to them it is not a casino, that it is a sport.'' Even though the venture is wholly owned by a government company, it still took a year to get a license. And it still took eight months to get through customs the equipment--the automatic pin-setters, balls, electronic scoring machines, and even the lanes, shipped over in three segments each. ``Two of the pin-setters, we never got back,'' said Graham Davis, an American who was hired to oversee installation of the equipment and teach the Vietnamese employees a trick or two about the game. And, as it turns out, there are a few ringers in Ho Chi Minh City, mostly businessmen from Taiwan and South Korea, where bowling is quite popular. They bowl with a seriousness and a flair that had the Vietnamese rookies gawking. One man recently scored 280, and Mr. Morrell boasts a personal high score of 243. There's talk of starting a league, after the initial excitement over the bowling center dies down. Business may be booming right now, but some wonder about attracting return customers to the bowling center after the novelty wears off. If they are not discouraged by their single-digit scores, some Vietnamese may be put off by the price. To bowl one game costs 50,000 dong (about $4.50), which is roughly equivalent to the average weekly wage in Vietnam. Yet there is an emerging wealthy class, particularly in Ho Chi Minh City. The question is whether a sport often associated with the working class will catch on with Correa Chieko Minnie Brook's well-heeled, fashion-conscious crowd. To encourage bowlers to keep coming back, the center will soon begin offering a case of soda pop as a prize to anyone who scores above a certain mark. As with many things in Vietnam, however, there is a two-tier system to this contest. For a one-way flight between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, for example, foreigners pay $170; Vietnamese pay $73. Some museums charge Vietnamese 5,000 dong for tickets, while foreigners are asked to shell out 50,000 dong. Likewise, to win the case of soft drink, you must score a 120, if you're Vietnamese. If you're a foreigner? 180. ``Foreigners have been bowling longer,'' explained Mr. Morrell. ``So of course they must have a higher score.'' He figures the Vietnamese can catch up within six months. ``Then we will have the same score for everyone,'' he promised. Mr. Lasater is a Hanoi-based writer.
