It's true. Hanoi Swallows People

in #art6 years ago (edited)


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I went to Hanoi in April for one (1) month and ended up staying two (2). Not because I loved it that much (it was hugely interesting). But because the first month was a slap in the face. Now that I was awake, I could look at it over a second month, by which I mean properly.

The Hood

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I arrived in the evening, and it felt like the Asia of my dreams when I have been drinking a lot and I can hear the neighbour's music. In those dreams. That Asia.

The house was pleasant. Just below my window was a woman who made probably the best pho I have eaten yet. And all around the house, everyone was building other houses. There were already lots of houses. They seem to have replaced the military draft with a mandate to build something. There were saws and winches and hammers and, when it got serious, cranes and music.

A bit beyond that were massage parlours (the other kind) and they always thought I wanted one.

Eating

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There's lots of food, and lots of cafes. A gobsmacking array of cafe varieties. The coffee was great almost always. They have coffees with an egg in them, and you have not consumed a better thing than that.

It was hard to order food because the Vietnamese language fled my brain as soon as it got close, and it also bungled the great Google Translate. I'm pretty sure "banana technology" isn't edible, nor is it technological, or real. Either way, ordering was pointing. If you lose your fingers, you go hungry.

Some restaurants looked like garages and served great food. Others looked like restaurants and served mediocre food. Others looked like garages and served... food that was not nice at all. Or maybe they were really garages, in which case it was my fault for not being as granular in my assessment of the establishment's purpose. It wasn't easy. Every building with a hole in it had a motorbike stuffed in.

It's All Normal

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There was a garbage can in the middle of a crossroad, a pig on a leash, and there was a gym in a garage and it had sharp swords and spears, so that was fun.

And that kind of thing was normal. Hanoi tends to spit on good sense and yet makes it all work out in the end. For example, without fail, every time I have stood at a huge intersection with motorbikes, bikes, cars, buses and trucks hurling themselves through it at the same time, every time and without fail there is this:

a tiny grandmother walking her cart of wares diagonally straight through the middle. Like a living middle finger, she never stopped, never looked left or right. She played Russian Roulette with the carnage of steel around her and never lost.

That one will die in her sleep, if she wants.

I, on the other hand, got into two minor accidents in one morning.

Worms

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I also got into a puddle deeper than my ankles when walking to bar. The puddle was a good 20 meters long, unfortunately, so I couldn't help but think of worms crawling in through my pores as I waded through.

I did have a deworming pill. You're recommended one every 6 months in Hanoi because garage food, but quite unrelated to the pill, I had explosive diarrhea one Sunday and if anything in there managed to hang on through that little extravaganza, it's welcome to stay.

Swallowed

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A lot of foreigners get swallowed by Hanoi, coming for a month and staying a year or 10. They teach English, though some of them knew a lot less of it than I imagined. How does that work? Well...It's like those friends who insist on teaching you snowboarding when you're in your malleable 30s. They're sh*t at teaching it but look a lot more alright on the board than you do, so you go right along with it.

What's not alright is a large, floating dead catfish in the big lake in Hanoi, trapped between where it's supposed to be and where it very well cant't go. There were a lot of smaller fish doing the same, but I thought the bigger fish were supposed to set the example of proper aquarian etiquette.

Etiquette

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It's difficult to have good etiquette in a rowdy city where sushi is sold out on the street (and it's effing good!!) and certain bars give free beer every week, for free.

Locals feel free enough to exercise in droves on the sidewalks. It's the cutest thing to watch all the zumba moms go at it in the pretty evening light.

Pretty

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Hanoi is pretty, and pretty dirty in some places, and pretty loud, and pretty chaotic, and pretty amazing to see and drink and eat and live. Have you been?
What do you think?
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This post has received votes totaling more than $50.00 from the following pay for vote services:

appreciator upvote in the amount of $235.16 STU, $304.27 USD.
rocky1 upvote in the amount of $159.92 STU, $206.92 USD.
upme upvote in the amount of $152.68 STU, $197.55 USD.
smartsteem upvote in the amount of $131.45 STU, $170.08 USD.
therising upvote in the amount of $125.66 STU, $162.59 USD.
promobot upvote in the amount of $110.74 STU, $143.28 USD.
postpromoter upvote in the amount of $92.55 STU, $119.75 USD.
buildawhale upvote in the amount of $84.35 STU, $109.14 USD.
boomerang upvote in the amount of $49.32 STU, $63.82 USD.

For a total calculated value of $1,142 STU, $1,477 USD before curation, with a calculated curation of $285 USD.

This information is being presented in the interest of transparency on our platform and is by no means a judgement as to the quality of this post.

What about the important things? What about Hanoi girls? Were they hot?

Asian girls, in general, are hot. Not only in Hanoi. :D Vietnamese people (including girls) are usually very healthy. Thousands of them in Hanoi wake up at 5 AM to do some morning aerobics or other types of exercise. Those smiles add some beauty too. Amazing city... :DDD

i love this coment xD

And other important thing following the title of your post "Hanoi Swallows people"....More important than that would be "Do Hanoi girls swallow?"

In a city that swallows, such is par for the course.

Wow, I have no problem with using bots to vote up quality content but this is abuse plain and simple. Not to take away from the content the author has published, but this post is not worth over $1000 in votes and it's sickening to see how much the author has spent getting this onto trending. It wouldn't be so bad if the author was actively participating and giving back to Steem, but doesn't look like he has commented or voted anyone else's content: https://steemworld.org/@oneminja Love your work @transparencybot you're my favourite kind of bot.

I have problem with Steemians using bots to vote up any kind of content and buying audiences and abusing the syetem. Unless the content is community update or development on Steem blockchain based application.

  1. You’re for your short term gain
  2. You’re responsible for many new steemains feeling that they don’t get the reward they deserve
  3. You’re responsible for using https://steemit.com/@appreciator, https://steemit.com/@rocky1,https://steemit.com/@upme,https://steemit.com/@smartsteem…..

Fucking shame on you..

And you know you’re not contributing much and sucking of the rewards.

KARMA is a BITCH and it’ll come back to you sooner than later

I agree with you 100% ! In my opinion this post is worth no more than 25$

My fight is only just beginning and we’ll make sure there is no place for such a group of people in our Steem community.

Exactly👍🏻👍🏻

@nathanmars did you mean to post this comment as a reply to my comment responding to transparencybot? Or did you just reply to my comment for visibility? I am just a little confused.

It’s kind of both. I just to say how I feel about individuals who are ruining the system.

Everyone who are associate with it should look in the mirror and ask themselves why they are doing what they’re doing.

I’m fighting non violently against the people who are making thier way into abusing the entire community.

He clearly didn't understand and that is to be expected as well. Leave him be and move on it's best. I think @oneminja did a fine job he invested in a cerative piece of journalism. One thing I don't find nice is he posts infrequently and i don't generally follow such accounts. No harm done anyway.

Why is it so important that people post frequently? I'm just curious. I could post more often but the quality of my posts would go down. I'd like to have a reputation for only posting quality content and hope that people choose to follow me on that basis.

Hi @beggars!

I understand your feeling, but I do have some clarifications for ya.
"Wow, I have no problem with using bots to vote up quality content" That's great! The question is what quality content is. I've had previous posts promoted in the same way, I don't recall anyone complaining. Perhaps this content is not quality enough for you, which is fine.

"how much the author has spent getting this onto trending." There's the reason! I like writing and posting artwork that I make, and I also like people seeing it and reacting to it. But on Steemit, to get a LOT of visibility, you do have to get into Trending; it's set up in a similar way that advertising is set up. And yes, that's what I tried to do. If when people find it they decide my content was reviled or not helpful or interesting to anyone, then that's a different argument.

"but doesn't look like he has commented or voted anyone else's content" Not since around mid March, no. But I haven't been on Steemit at all since then. I've been slammed with work. Yesterday's post was my first since, I put it up and went to bed. If you look at my previous few posts, you'll notice I comment on everyone, and go to a lot of their posts and upvote them.

It may not be ethical to use bots to boost the visibility of shitty posts but oneminja has a quality post here, it's true that there are numerous scummy people abusing the system but I don't think oneminja fits into that category.

You call this quality ? .... a random travel blog post with absolutely no unique stuff in it? ...... ok..... lol

You obviously haven't perused much of the cesspool of bot driven content on this site... I didn't say it was god-tier content, just "quality" which can be taken any way the reader sees fit.

that's pretty nasty and it's plain wrong as well. It is written with a style that captivated me as a reader. The pictures and video are excellent too. I expected to find he hadn't used any bots quite frankly - I was surprised to find that such excellent content REQUIRES any bought bids. It's a sign there's need for change here to see this. I looked over your content and clearly, you content is great photography and it isn't getting noticed. It SHOULD be noticed.

i started with an opinion that bots were bad until i learned what is really doing harm here is all the bootlicking and whales out to upvote one another. This hype about bots being responsible for bad content is plain wrong, at best it is an unproven rumor that bots are the main cause bad content here. (this is in relation to the comment by @steffenengman )

Your working being good....and this blog post was excellent....doesn’t validate your use of bots to artificially bolster your status/visibility on Steem. You want to be competitive when it comes to showcasing your work? Sure! Just like the rest of us, but we should all be willing to get in line for that....these sorts of tools are the electronic equivalent of muscling other people out of the way. Consider that, and that your actions are not harmless to others.

If you dont feel like it deserve that much why dont you flag it?

LOL - ;-) maybe he did we just didn't notice

The steemit system doesn't reward merit or quality. The chance that a whale will notice your posts are zilch unless you actively seek them out and befriend, or better yet, bribe them, which is how the upvote bots work.

Otherwise the best you can do is hundreds of minnow upvotes for just a few dollars. It's not about how many people see your stuff, it's about WHO upvotes it and how much SP they have.

Sounds like I should ignore Steemit

Your content is good my friend. I see no harm - you invest in content when you believe it is great. I hope you post more frequently and continue also to invest time interacting and engaging other creative folks. I am part of poetsunited and schoolofminnows - two of the many groups on steemit that are open to people of all views - genuine lateral thinkers and focussed on community upliftment. i'm of the view every person makes his way through this thing much like life. There's nothing wrong with earning by investing your money in your own output! It beats bootlicking which goes by the euphamism 'whale hunting' over here. That means also sacrificing at some point one's editorial or creative freedom. It's like Billie said, God bless the child that's got his own.

Everything is cool @oneminja. Everyone likes to talk about that mysterious "quality content". It's like a unicorn. Every person in the world imagines how it looks like a little differently.

Let's come back to the main topic. @Kamile and I have been in Hanoi last year. I must say, it is one of my favorite cities I have ever visited and I've seen a lot. All those sounds and smells. Hanoi definitely has something unique. I'm happy you had a good time. Where else in Vietnam have you been? I hope I can visit Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) one day. Some people say it is very different compared to Hanoi...

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This certainly is not an isolated occurrence of this type of abuse. I do hope more and more Steemian's will find it less than desirable to have their rewards pool treated in this manner and taking action against this. Let the author know and I you are so inclined, flag the worst offenders if you truly disagree with their rewards.

To me, transparency bot is like explaining why the upvotes are high, which is okay, @oneminja did put his investments in for those upbots, it is not like some whales who upvote among themselves. I understand the effort @oneminja puts and it is not easy! I believe it's one of the strategy to gain viewers like me, who saw this post has high votes and wonder about the content. Content isn't bad anyway, just keep writing good quality ones. I support, because I am a steemian too.

Your name suits you - you're transparent. I always gave your bot the benefit of doubt, assuming you were just about informing but you didn't have an agenda. I am disappointed.

This site is a scam. Prove me wrong.

Agree. But maybe using the bots isn´t worthwhile at the end of the day. OK, he got some additional exposure by making it into the trending pages but so what. Not a huge effect. E.g. I rarely read the trending pages, but just the people I am following - much more interesting.

I am just wondering what is the upvote of this? Well you get 60 new followers (25 rep score and 3 +45 rep score). Ouu and you loose a money a lot of it. Bet yeah I think the same. Bots are just making Steemit worser place. Ou there is one good think about bots. We see some others on trending (sadly most of them shity) not just first comers and same faces upvoting each other all the time. Yeah but still. For newcomers and those are making some good content steemit is not so hostile place.

Overclocking Bitcoin
Now, when bitcoin sets new records and is extremely difficult to objectively evaluate it, most people think: "Apparently, time is lost." But here it is worth to answer for yourself a lot of questions and after that to decide - are you really sure that this is the limit for bitcoin? Most likely, the answer is "no."

What a scam

Disagreement on rewards

You think he should be losing more?

Do you realize how meaningless your comment can be for the average person?

I suggest you upvote @transparencybot reports instead.

your comment is worth $ 0.000001

Beautiful .. Be yourself and be a good
Great words from you, well done
Thanks for sharing..

woow nice about travel, made nice post by beautiful original photos with huge information my friend keep up your job be happy

@vahidrazavi yar kya app ka pass bohat sbd haan.itni zyada amount ma bidbot ma send kar ka apna bi noqsaan kar rahy haan or dosaroon ka bi.send money to bidbot according to vote value of this bidbot.and also consider how much people already send money to present bid roll.

You received a 40.00% upvote from @brotherhood thanks to @vahidrazavi!,

join on @brotherhood community on discord channel:https://discord.gg/3HZdaGk and share your post there.

Delegate to Bot and Get High Return Fix 100% earning return,
bidders will always win something and it will adapt to distribute all the 100% upvote ,now we reached to 12000 SP and recommend. send the 0.15 to 0.4 sbd or steem.

My friend its a great opportunity to be informed a lot at a time. thanks and have a travelous life. and keep always happy

You're welcome @subroto. :) Travelling is great, opens up your mind. I'm happy to share it!

Thank you! I'm happy you enjoyed the read :)

Thank you! I always try to be happy :) I wish you the same

Would love to go one of these days! Love the food and the culture and scenery look amazing! Was it difficult not speaking any Vietnamese?

What a beautiful place. I can see getting swept away in all the fun stuff to do there.

Great post, it reminded me my trip to Vietnam last year. it was a great trip, it was warm(hot), cheap, and people are nice, of course, you always have to pay tourists tax in a way that i am not such a fan... i do understand it though, anyway it was a great trip hope to see more of your posts, :)

Hey @annieliu :) Thanks for reading!

You know, I like the tourist tax. I was raised in Kenya and experienced it from the other side. For locals, the experience (let's say going on safari) was a novelty and we hardly travelled, so we got it at half price. It brought up local tourism and we got to see more of our own country's luxuries. So I get it from that perspective!

I get that, I understand it totally, I am from China after all, lol.

Fantastic, Hanoi looks like it has an awesome personality

That's actually a good way to put it :) An incredible personality actually. And a bit insane hehehe

Hmm, i'm a bit skeptical of the $$$ amounts and the reality of this post. But i'm gonna say good job anyway. Anyone feel the same way? Not that I don't think the poster is getting legitimate upvotes it is just that something seems fishy. That is all. Have a good day guys.

Thanks for letting me know about this!

I fucking hate bots! ..... hate them!

Hi @djsteef and @geronimo! Thanks for reading!

Well, maybe I'll help by clarifying. Some Steemit users have created a lot of bots that can increase your visibility quickly. They do this by upvoting you and you pay for that service. Then you're much more visible and, IF people like your content, then you get more people enjoying and following. And that also shows me more people with interesting posts which I then look at.

I really like very good work.

Greetings.

FS

Thanks man! I'm happy you like it. :)