Philadelphia vs. Hanoi: Football Celebrations 2018
The stunning difference between two cities breaking records and their celebrations
Philadelphia, USA: 5 February
The Philadelphia Eagles, an American football team, have just won the Super Bowl for the first time in history. The game set multiple records in football history.
After the win, Philadelphia fans celebrated by destroying their own city. They lit fires, flipped cars over, broke streetlights and awnings, looted businesses, and even stole police horses.
Philadelphia, USA: 9 February
Another record was set at the celebratory parade: amount of garbage generated, at an estimated 60 tons. Two people were stabbed, and a police officer was assaulted.
Hanoi, Vietnam: 23 January
Hanoi’s national U-23 football team (football as it’s called everywhere else in the world, soccer) has just won the semifinal. It’s the first time in history Vietnam has made it this far. It’s an even bigger deal, though: it’s the first time any Southeast Asian team has made it this far. No Southeast Asian team had made it to the quarterfinals before, either. They’ve made it this far, and now they’ve won. It’s a continent-wide record.
After the win, fans flood the streets of Hanoi and every other city in Vietnam. Here’s a video I took. Notice: no damage, no looting, no fire. The police, smiling, gently herded fans off the steps of the capital building.
Hanoi, Vietnam: 29 January
Vietnam lost the championship. Records were set in national viewing and social media, along with, of course, the record of their mere presence at the game. Here’s a photo I took in Hai Feng. Notice, again, the lack of damage, looting, and injury. The fans set off flares and sparklers here and there in the crowd, but hung onto them until they self-extinguished (that is to say, no fires). The glitter explosions probably left trash, but we didn’t see piles of garbage the next morning.
Takeaways
Firstly, it’s embarrassing. It’s embarrassing that, not only does my home country regularly destroy its own cities as “celebration”, but also that the police forces treat these riots in such a different manner than they do peaceful protests for basic human rights. For example, no tear gas, rubber bullets, or fire hoses at subzero temperatures injured these “fans”. Nobody was beaten, choked, or murdered by police, despite one officer being run over. No military-grade vehicles were deployed; no journalists were chased by police. In fact, that same evening, over five times the number of peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters were arrested (while protesting the Super Bowl) as were “joyful fans” at the celebration of the same event. The media shamefully covers these sports riots by saying “Some Fans…” and calling the rioters “Revelers”, rather than “Thugs”; they reserve the term “thug” for protesters who participate in the same types of actions. Our double standards show themselves glaringly on the world’s stage.
Secondly, it’s curious. While the US can’t seem to contain celebrations of victories limited only to our country, to one city in fact, an entire subcontinent’s victory celebration goes off without a hitch. People in the US generally don’t travel internationally (only 30% of us even have passports), often due to fear, and only 19% of US international travelers end up in Asia at all. In reality, though, people were far more likely to be injured in the Super Bowl’s celebrations than by those in Vietnam.
Certainly, Vietnam has its problems. People burn trash on the side of the road, traffic is a free-for-all, citizens live in buildings riddled with mold. The US, however, is a world economic and political power. Our country touts itself as civilized, publicly calling poorer nations “shitholes”, while we allow one in five children to live in poverty (second-worst among developed nations), we mass-murder each other (at 25x the rate of other high-income countries), and we consistently destroy our own cities in celebration. Vietnam, only 40 years after US troops raped and murdered thousands of its civilians during its civil war, loves and welcomes Americans in both north and south Vietnam, while people in the US still haven’t gotten over our own Civil War 150 years later.
We need to do better.
