Filming Pick-Ups Begins for The Hobbit Again Next Week.

Bilbo himself, Martin Freeman, posing for me on the red carpet. 

Stay tuned for exclusive interviews and videos here on The Fish Egg Tree. 

About 6 weeks ago the folks at Weta Workshop and 3 Foot 7 began hauling props and set pieces out of storage and inspecting them for re-use in filming next week. Most of the principal cast from The Hobbit Trilogy have been returning to Wellington over the past few days (some returned quite a while ago to re-train and get back in shape) to begin filming the remainders of The Desolation of Smaug (to be released in December this year) and There and Back Again (December 2014). The special edition of The Hobbit is hoped to be in stores by the time Desolation of Smaug is released.

A variety of clips (known as pick-ups), unfinished scenes and supplements for the special editions will be filmed over 10 weeks. Filming has been scheduled to begin on May 19.  Filming will be intensive, beginning with early-morning make-up sessions at 5am and going late into each day.

Park Road Post Production. Though pleasant from the outside, it's surprising how large it actually is on the inside. This is where much of the work gets done after principal filming. Its closed to the public but I did have a lovely lunch inside with a friend at Weta.

Most filming is expected to be done in studios around Wellington; namely Miramar and in the Lower Hutt. However, the outdoor set for the city of Dale has remained in place on the Miramar peninsula since original filming, and it is likely that some additional shooting will be done there.

The set for Lake Town at Stone Street Studios in Miramar. 

Its long been known within Wellington that key scenes from The Battle of Five Armies at the end of the films have yet to be completed. It has been rumoured that men with beards and character faces would be in demand for the battle scenes (further confirmed by last week’s extras casting call), and so all year men around Wellington have been sporting an unusual number of long, bushy beards, in hopes of landing a part  for the trilogy’s epic finale.

Cate Blanchett on the red carpet. 

I'll just say she looks like a million dollars whether she's on the red carpet or out of the limelight. 

Best wishes to my friends at Weta Digital, Weta Workshop, 3 Foot 7 and all the cast and crew. If you happen to be in Wellington over the coming weeks, be sure to keep an eye out for hobbits, dwarves, elves, wizards, Laketowners and a ranger or two...

Stay tuned for more exclusives on The Hobbit from Wellington, New Zealand... 

Where Joel Brinkley Went Wrong on Vietnam: He Should Have Pissed Everyone Off With The Truth

Earlier this month Stanford University Professor Joel Brinkley created a huge uproar with a piece for the Chicago Tribune, titled: "Despite increasing prosperity, Vietnam's appetites remain unique". In it he basically suggested that Vietnamese are voracious carnivores who have eaten everything in Vietnam that moves; from wild to domestic animals; stripping the country bare, and that in so doing this, he explains, the Vietnamese are somehow more aggressive than their neighbors.

Throughout, his story was full of incorrect observations, assumptions and analysis. Many readers took great offense to the article (many seemed particularly sensitive to comments about dog meat) and accused Brinkley of being racist and unprofessional. I will forgo analysing of his equally offensive defence of the article, or addressing any particular detractor. However, I would like to point out how Mr. Brinkley could have written his article to be more factually correct—although I have no doubt it would still create an uproar among certain overseas Vietnamese and expats regardless.

Brinkley begins by asserting that visitors will not see dogs, rats, birds or squirrels in Vietnam because they have all been eaten. This is of course blatantly untrue. Most urban areas have serious sanitation problems in Vietnam and rats are a veritable plague in some places. Dogs are assuredly popular pets. Indeed however, squirrels and birds are far less common than they used to be, for the very reason he states (as well as the pet trade). Many of the bird species that I commonly saw 10 years ago, even in urban areas, have been completely absent in these places for several years.

Brinkley is correct when he goes on to say that Vietnam, like its neighbors, has a serious problem in trafficking of large mammals, although I would differ with him in the idea that most of these tigers, elephants, bears and rhinos are being trafficked to China—the Vietnamese themselves consume many of these animals. He is also correct that Vietnamese have specifically targeted rhinos (for their horns). He didn’t say this, but I will: that Vietnam has been the primary instigator in a worldwide war on rhinos. Vietnam is directly responsible for poaching of rhino horns in not just Asia but also Africa.

Brinkley mentions that gibbons in Vietnam are near extinction because they have been eaten. This is true. Obviously they are trafficked and eaten (or used in medicine) by a minority of people (it couldn’t be a majority, since there are so few numbers of gibbons left due to all the trafficking and habitat destruction anyway). Even in my province of Binh Thuan, several ethnic minority villages specialize in hunting of what’s left of the province’s monkeys and gibbons.

Brinkley goes on to say that while the Vietnamese have consumed all their wildlife, it’s neighbors have left theirs alone. The truth is a bit more muddy. Vietnam has indeed stripped much of its own wildlife from the country. Cambodia has too—thanks largely to the turmoil of the Khmer Rouge years and poverty afterwards. Thailand, Laos and Myanmar do have a serious problem with wildlife trafficking, however their forests (particularly those in Laos) are indeed much more pristine than Vietnam’s. In the case of Laos and Myanmar this may simply come down to a smaller population to land ratio. In Thailand this may be to the result of a higher level of economic development and more effective wildlife management by the government.

Brinkley is correct that Vietnam’s culture originally derived from China, and its neighbors more from India. He is also correct that Vietnam has had a violent and aggressive history over the long term—Vietnam spent the last 1000 years not just periodically fighting for independence from China, but also continuously attacking the southern Kingdom of Champa, until it was destroyed and eventually conquered by the Vietnamese. However, Brinkley’s suggestion that Vietnam is somehow more aggressive than it’s neighbors, who all fought battles of their own, or that this is somehow linked to excessive animal protein in their diet is nothing more than groundless and silly Vegan pop-psychology. Meat is common in the national diet of all of these countries, regardless of romantically ignorant ideas of their religious history and culture.

Brinkley is correct that dog is a popular food in Vietnam, and that stray dogs do get quickly grabbed up and sent to restaurants and markets. I saw this happen every day myself. I also saw a lot of dogs chopped up in butcher shops in Hanoi and around Sapa on my visits. In fact in some villages I visited in northern Vietnam, dog meat was more commonly eaten than beef—even the pho usually contained thit cho. Nonetheless, many people in Vietnam do keep pet dogs—and don’t eat them either.

Brinkley’s problem was largely a matter of generalizations. Vietnam does indeed have a serious problem with wildlife trafficking, but unfortunately he used anecdotes and extremes out of context, and incorrectly applied them to the whole country. As someone who has spent nearly a decade living in Vietnam, I can assure you that while many ‘unusual animals’ are eaten in Vietnam, the vast majority of people normally stick to things like chicken, duck, beef, pork and seafood… and the occasional frog… maybe a snake… a bucket of snails once in a while… rarely a turtle… in Mui Ne lizards are popular… oh, and fried silk worms or crickets are good… porcupines and bamboo rats do make it on the menu once in a while in rural villages… and there was that time Anthony Bourdain ate (an illegal) mouse deer in Dalat on international cable tv… but yes, the vast majority of people stick to chicken, duck, beef, pork and seafood most of the time.

Other arguments aside, I must set something strait on the rats, as someone who's seen plenty of rats eaten in Vietnam, and eaten them myself in Vietnamese homes on more than one occasion. The only real difference between a 'clean field rat' and a 'dirty city rat' is whether they are caught on the field-side or the house-side of the sewer-gutter. Nobody--I repeat nobody--'farm raises' rats in Vietnam. Regardless of where they are caught, rats are disease-carrying vermin, whether they are eaten out of desire or necessity. And while I am on the subject, with all this talk of dogs and rats, I'm surprised nobody brought up Vietnamese eating cats. Though not nearly as popular (dog restaurants are peppered throughout my old home town of Phan Thiet, and common throughout every part of Vietnam), cats are also occasionally eaten in the countryside. In fact, in the Central Highlands, quite a few Kinh Vietnamese immigrants from Hanoi frequent dog and cat restaurants. In Vietnam cat meat is called 'little tiger meat' because it sounds sexier than 'morsels of house cat.' Now of course it would be wrong to say that all Vietnamese eat dog, cat or rats--just like it would be wrong to say that all Americans live on pizza and hamburgers. But one thing I can say for sure, of the many Vietnamese folks that do eat said animals, they really don't give a damn what the rest of us think about it.

My Predictions for Vietnam in 2013

Last year I offered my very popular post with predictions for Vietnam in 2012. Most of them actually turned out to be true, such as my points on the failing economy and crackdowns on rights and speech. A few did not come out as planned though--Vietnam did accept that awful 7 Wonders award, for instance. You can read last year's predictions here and let me know how you think I did. Below are my new predictions for 2013:

Economy: 

2013 Will bring a pronounced recession to Vietnam, with a GDP growth rate near or below 4%.

Real Estate and finance sectors will continue to contract. Saigon and Hanoi property markets will be hit hardest with catastrophic numbers of building projects stalled or abandoned.

In a continued effort to avert impending failure of state banks, Vietnam will consolidate them further and significantly tighten banking regulations. Emergency measures will be imposed and a sudden bank holiday instituted when a perceived run on the banks occurs. The sudden withdraw of significant funds will cause at least one state bank to fail. Emergency measures will be taken to quickly absorb the loss and merge the bank(s) with a larger entity. A moratorium will be placed on state-controlled press to limit stories on the bank failure.

There will be further crack-downs on trade in gold and currency exchange.

Overall, Western retail and fast-food brands will vacate Vietnam.

Exports will grow slightly.

Vietnam will increase restrictions on foreigners living and working in Vietnam.


Speech and the Internet: 

A scandal will ensue when information is made public suggesting that one or more major foreign social media and internet giants has been providing private user information to the Vietnam government, resulting in the harassment and arrests of both Vietnamese and expatriate users residing in Vietnam.

Vietnam will continue to detain, arrest and deport foreign bloggers, writers and journalists.

American citizen and peaceful pro-democracy activist Nguyen Quoc Quan will be sentenced to between 5 and 7 years prison and accused of trying to overthrow the Vietnam government. The sentence will result from the Vietnam government’s perception of weakness on the part of the Obama Administration under the tenure of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Ambassador Shear. Additionally, in an attempt to test the waters, Vietnam will further capture and hold other US citizens as political prisoners; among them possible writers, bloggers, journalists or pro-democracy activists.

With the contraction of the economy, grumblings will increase against the Communist Party and government leadership. There will be increasing government paranoia and crackdowns on free speech and restrictions on topics in blogs, music and other media.


South China Sea and Other Unrest: 

Tensions between China and Vietnam, Philippines and Taiwan will continue to escalate. Ships belonging to Vietnam and the Philippines will be sunk and the crew killed or taken prisoner. Widespread protests will occur in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, particularly in the summer. High-profile protestors will be arrested and sentenced to re-education camps. Among them will be US and French citizens.

Several new government land-grabs will occur, resulting in large-scale riots in the north. Police brutality will cause several riots in the south.

Once again, several high-profile government officials and businessmen will be forced into early retirement and then arrested.


Tourism and Mui Ne: 

Tourism numbers will be the lowest in a decade but the Tourism Administration will produce its customary inflated figures to hide the actual numbers.

Vietnam will largely be ignored by tourism media in 2013.

Vietnam will continue to develop misguided tourism campaigns intended more to promote territorial rights over the South China Sea than develop tourism.

The Vietnam Tourism Administration will attempt yet another poorly-received branding-makeover.

Tourist numbers from western countries will decline but tourists from China and Southeast Asia will increase.

Mui Ne will be one of the few major Vietnam tourism destinations to stay afloat in 2013 but performance will be anaemic. Russian tourists will continue to dominate.


Environment: 

Forced government closure of the Tam Dao Bear Sanctuary will receive international media attention but it will be too little, too late.

Vietnam’s war on the African Rhino will continue. Government or military officials in Vietnam will be implicated for their involvement by an investigation conducted in South Africa.

By the end of 2013, no wild or semi-wild elephants will remain in Vietnam. The few remaining captive elephants will be under threat from poachers and require constant monitoring. Wild elephants will effectively be extinct in Vietnam.

In 2013 no new evidence of wild tigers will be produced in Vietnam, raising some to suggest tigers are now locally extinct.

Bird Flu, Hand Foot and Mouth Disease, Dengue and Swine Flu will all continue to be serious epidemics. A resilient new strain of one of the diseases will emerge, causing speculation of the possibility for a new pandemic.

Vietnam will continue to push ahead with its new Nuclear program with Russia and Japan but several significant setbacks will suggest serious viability issues. The US will however renew it’s support and provide funding, technology and training, despite serious safety problems in the location and development of the nuclear reactors.

Many new species will be discovered in 2013, particularly reptiles and insects. Additionally there will be several ancient archaeological discoveries of new temples.


US – Vietnam Relations 

At least two out of three (President Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta) will visit Vietnam in 2013. One or more in 2013 will publically suggest the Obama Administration’s support of Vietnam against China in territorial disputes within the South China Sea, as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has done in the past.

The Obama administration will continue to negotiate terms for a US naval base in Cam Ranh Bay. However Vietnam will not consent until China attacks and captures several Vietnamese naval installations in the South China Sea, some time prior to 2019.

The Obama administration will be unable to secure the release of any of several Americans to be held prisoner in Vietnam in 2013.

The US will continue to provide back-room support in the form of money, technology and training for Vietnam’s programs to maintain territorial sovereignty in the South China Sea.

The Parrot's Bubble Gum Ice Cream

Jeremiah was no bullfrog. He was my blue and gold macaw. A parrot originally from South America, his earliest days were spent riding the handrail in the front of a repainted blue and yellow school bus. He rode with my family for 10 days and 5000 miles, looking out the windows on our journey from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, along the Al-Can Highway and ending in Anchorage, Alaska. Jeremiah and I bonded on that trip, sharing perhaps a dozen bubble-gum-flavored ice cream cones, french fries and bags of M&Ms. Before either he or I knew chocolate wasn't good for birds, they were one of his favorite things in the world, although he did tend to eat the peanuts and spit out the chocolate, to my bewilderment.

Jeremiah loved the view from the bus windshield, and seemed to particularly marvel when we stopped to watch a mother moose with calf along the road, or a bald eagle perched in a tree below the snowy mountains.

At the end of the journey and in the years--then decades--that passed, Jeremiah was relegated to the periphery of the house. He wasn't ignored, but 'his corner' was out of the way where his messes (a healthy Macaw is anything but tidy) wouldn't interfere with the rest of the house. He wasn't isolated, but it was perhaps lonely.

I went off to college, and off to work, then overseas to live. One year I came back from Vietnam to visit and was sitting in the living room. While I was watching tv, Jeremiah did something he hadn't done since my childhood. In the back of the house he climbed down from his cage and walked down the hall. I heard the click, click, click of his claws on the wooden floor. He came into the living room, walked around from the couch, and climbed into my lap. I was completely surprised. He looked up and talked to me. Then he looked over to my ice cream and talked to me some more, as if asking permission. I pushed the bowl of ice cream over to him and we shared it. When it was finished he sat in my lap all evening, talking, cuddling and watching tv.

I didn't know that he still remembered those days in the bus to Alaska, so long ago. I assumed he'd hardened a bit in his age. Those times were special to me, but what I didn't realize was how special they must have also been to him, and how the absence of such times with me in his later years may have also impacted him.

I few weeks later I went back to Vietnam. Jeremiah died a soon after.

Concerning Mountain Ponies

I saw The Hobbit again over the weekend. Just as good on a second viewing. The treks through caves, mountain cliffsides and goblin towns really strike a chord with me. My trek through Tiger Leaping Gorge in Yunnan, China was the longest, most treacherous, and only two-day walk through the mountains that I have ever endured. Hiking above the Yellow Sands River, which later becomes the Yangtze, my brother and I passed through Naxi villages in hanging valleys along the ancient Tea Horse Trail. The first day we were caught in a storm and the wind howled fiercely through the teeth of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. After a night in a cliffside tavern we continued our trek through waterfalls cascading across the mountain path. As we turned a corner a train of ponies saddled with bags appeared in a bend of the trail ahead. The path followed a cliff that fell thousands of feet to the gorge below. The way was only big enough to walk single file, so I hugged the rocks as the ponies stumbled passed. I looked into the eyes of the last as he came close, wondering what he would think if he knocked me off the mountain to my death in the gorge below. Would he feel any responsibility or remorse? As he passed me, his rump knocked me against the rock face and his hoof stepped on my sore feet. His stomach groaned and then grumbled into a loud fart just below my head. I looked back at him and his burdened comrades as they turned the corner and out of sight, but he did not look back at me.