Cuba
Schiffrin, Anya
AFTER WORKING as a journalist in Vietnam for two years, the author made her first trip to Cuba in January 2000. She described her impressions to colleagues and friends in the following letter....
...The police don't take bribes, and a Canadian businessman told us that commercial bribes never amount to more than 1 percent of the contract price...
...Those of you who frequent the bars in Ho Chi Minh City might be shocked to hear that she quoted us a price of $ 100–a lot more expensive than the $7.00 now charged for straight sex in Ho Chi Minh City...
...People are allocated POLITICS ABROAD a small amount of bread every day...
...They all said he should be allowed to return home to his father...
...Cubans are banned from patronizing resorts or hotels and from buying certain theater tickets if they can be sold to foreigners— apparently because the government desperately needs foreign exchange...
...in a salsa bar...
...On one occasion, a government official rubbed his skin to show her that brown people were not allowed into the hotel she was trying to enter...
...The authorities also canceled regular television programming so everyone could watch Elian propaganda...
...There's lots of stuff to buy but only in the dollar shops or on the black market where fuel is available...
...No doubt as the country becomes more capitalist, corruption will become more common as it has in Vietnam and China...
...Dear Of course I had heard how repressive Fidel Castro's regime is, and we all know how badly central planning works...
...It was also the Party line...
...For example, people think that New York is very dangerous and Mexico is very poor (although, with per capita gross domestic product at $4,200 a year, Mexico is doing well compared to China and Vietnam, let alone Cuba...
...Vietnam launched its version of perestroika, Doi Moi, in the mid-1980s and set up the State Bank of Vietnam in the early 1990s...
...Every day we were on the island, there was a front page story about six-year-old refugee Elian Gonzalez and a heavyhanded story inside about how high infant mortality rates are in the United States...
...We overheard locals discussing the reports, and a number of people brought it up in conversation with us...
...children get milk until the age of seven...
...By not setting the pace of reform, the Cuban Communist Party is denying itself any say in how things will be run in the future...
...According to the guidebooks and even Martha Gellhorn's memoirs, Cuban food has always been bad...
...After that, we bought the beads of our appropriate Yoruba deities...
...Someone told us the Cuban media mentioned the incident only after it was apparent that people all over the island were talking about it...
...There are fancy clinics for foreigners who fly in for special treatments, but herbal medicines are the norm for locals...
...The drivers were afraid of getting caught and having to pay a fine...
...The Vietnamese, on the other hand, are masters at keeping the International Monetary Fund at bay and taking World Bank money while making only minor economic reforms...
...As a result, it will take the International Monetary Fund about five minutes to dismantle the revolution once Castro dies...
...government but of the extremists in Miami—true from my point of view...
...In Cuba, people griped about the economy constantly but were generally afraid to talk about human rights, freedom of the press, and so on...
...screamed the headline in the English-language Granma International on January 9. The papers made a huge point about the pilot's "mercenary" origins...
...Licensing charges in the tourist industry are very high...
...A Lunatic, on Drugs, or a Mercenary...
...it is very rare to find anyone even selling food from carts...
...The classrooms had peeling paint, and there were few books...
...Even the museum guards asked us for chocolates...
...Yet it was clear from the books that some goods, such as tomato paste, are simply not available in the ration system and have not been for months...
...companies...
...One doctor told us there is a shortage of all medications except aspirin, and in the clinic that he showed us, there was nothing but some herbs...
...People in the countryside seem more supportive of the system, in part because conditions have improved more markedly there than in the cities, in part because older people there remember the bad old days...
...He said the bribes are included in the price, not paid separately...
...Given the very close relations between the two countries, I am surprised the Cubans have not decided to follow the Vietnamese example...
...Wearing them on the street, we felt the locals treated us with new-found respect...
...to drive a taxi or rent rooms to foreigners, you must pay U.S...
...I hear prices there have collapsed because foreign investment has fallen off, and some Vietnamese prostitutes are offering sex for free in the hopes of finding a foreign boyfriend...
...EDS...
...The Cuban papers are propaganda rags with absolutely no real news...
...After Castro, the folks from Miami will come back, and so will U.S...
...Although economic growth was expected to be 5 percent to 6 percent in 1999 (thanks in part to a rise in sugar production) and although people claim things are better than during the "special period" (when the former Soviet Union cut off aid), the current system is unsustainable...
...Many Cubans seem to live off remittances from relatives in the United States...
...But the press had a field day when it turned out the plane was piloted by Vietnamese-born Ly Tong, who had fought against the communists during the Vietnam War and in 1992 had hijacked a Vietnam Airlines plane en route from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City...
...City dwellers seem more fed up...
...The trip was not all sober observation...
...The closed nature of the economy is evident in the lack of business activity on the streets...
...It was far worse than in Russia in the 1980s...
...After four rum mojitos, I accidentally picked up a prostitute at 3:00 a.m...
...So it's probably not fair to blame the communists...
...Please keep in touch—or better yet, come visit...
...When she 38 DISSENT / Spring 2000 realized we were interested only in talking, she stomped back to the dance floor in a huff...
...We always had three or four people in the back seat, and everyone we met asked us about Elian Gonzalez...
...Yet I was amazed at how poorly things seem to be going in Cuba and how unreconstructed the country still is...
...We also consulted a Santeria fortune-teller (Santeria beliefs are based on a mixture of Catholicism and animistic African religions...
...In Vietnam, people complain about corruption all the time but not about other problems...
...Foreign soldiers were "mercenaries," and Miami's Cuban-American congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen was a "ferocious wolf disguised as a woman...
...Local taxis drivers commented that it was illegal for them to carry us (I was traveling with Sheri Prasso, an American journalist who's lived in Cambodia) because Cubans need a license to do private business with tourists...
...That really ticked people off...
...I went to some of the downtown department stores in Havana, and there was little to buy: some old-fashioned toys and ugly clothes in cheap fabrics...
...But one Cuban friend told me (with a tinge of hurt pride) that there is far more available now than a few years ago...
...50 a month was adequate) or from dollars they get working in the tourist business...
...That's all for now...
...The newspapers were another shock...
...But it seems to me the Cubans are missing their opportunity to reform from within...
...I think Cuba is the first developing coun36 n DISSENT / Spring 2000 try I have ever been to where no one sells juice or fruit from a stand—let alone a substantial meal such as pho, the delicious noodle soup with chicken or beef sold all over Vietnam...
...Yet people I spoke with resented the government-organized mass demonstrations for Elian, which they said were a waste of gasoline...
...Like the Vietnamese, the Cubans seem to believe what they read in the newspapers...
...The government-run Juventud Rebelde and Granma made me long for the Vietnamese Communist Party's Nhan Dan or even the People's Daily in China...
...Many people are afraid to risk setting up businesses and, as you can imagine, they are furious about the limitation...
...Yet these are very underfunded...
...We went to a state-run bakery and looked at some customers' ration books while they were waiting for bread...
...They were written in a rhetorical style that you rarely find anymore...
...We got lots of sun and heard enough salsa to last a lifetime...
...The revolution will be a thing of the past...
...We visited a school in the northern town of Remedios where no one had pens, and the pencils were all stubs without erasers...
...I traveled to Cuba with a suitcase full of pens, markers, soap, shampoo, and chocolates, which were eagerly received...
...At the lunch counter, people were eating awful sandwiches made of rolls and mystery meat...
...People who can't get dollars are pretty much screwed because the government-provided rations are tiny...
...In general, Cubans defend their health and education system, saying they love the free social services...
...One of the few things that seems better in Cuba than in Vietnam is the lack of corruption...
...Far worse in Cuba than in Vietnam is the strict double standard applied to nationals and foreigners...
...There were a few news briefs from Reuters or the Spanish news agency EFE on the inside pages, but the longer foreign news stories were about how great other "socialist" countries are...
...No one anywhere appears to like Raul Castro, Fidel's brother and designated successor...
...It took the official papers several days to report on the light aircraft that buzzed Havana on January 1 and dropped propaganda leaflets calling for a general strike...
...As in Vietnam, it was quite easy to see where the Party draws the line on political debate...
...Much love, Anya • ANYA SCI-IIFFRIN is currently on the KnightBagehot Fellowship at Columbia University's School of Journalism...
...In one town, they swapped beautiful peso notes decorated with Che Guevara's picture for a bottle of shampoo...
...Sheri and I began questioning her about her line of work in an informal interview, but then it became clear she thought we were negotiating a price for a threesome...
...we were told that U.S...
...For example, agricultural reform seems to have begun in Cuba only after the collapse of the former Soviet Union, and the country set up a central bank just a few years ago...
...Technically, Cuba has no shortages...
...A foreign journalist told us that his Latin American wife was banned DISSENT / Spring 2000 n 37 POLITICS ABROAD from press conferences and held by Interior Ministry officials until they determined she was not Cuban...
...200 to $250 a month in taxes—even if you don't have any business that month...
...The Ministry of the Interior does have plainclothes agents all over, and there is a strong neighborhood watch system that monitors (and so stifles) potential dissent...
...The state employees at the bakery had set up a private business and were selling cut flowers outside, presumably to supplement their salaries...
...They also said the conflict was not the fault of the U.S...
...Because of the fuel shortages, the entire nation hitchhikes...
...We had a wonderful trip, and I would gladly go back...
...In terms of economic reform it lags fifteen years behind China and probably five years behind Vietnam...
...some rice, eggs, and meat each month...
...WE RENTED a car, drove around for five days, and picked up hitchhikers everywhere...
...A few high-level officials have been implicated in drug crimes, but this was exceptional...
...He performed a purification ceremony for Sheri involving rings of fire, a dove, broken eggs, and machetes rubbed across her stomach...
Vol. 47 • April 2000 • No. 2
