The room I am moving into is in the (inevitably, not really, quite yet, fully completed) house of friends in the town of Tinh Gia (roughly pronounced Ting Za) some 200 kilometres south of Ha Noi, the capital of Vietnam. At this stage I fully believe that the said Tinh Gia has absolutely nothing going for it: except the fact that it is inhabited by Vietnamese - the world's most loveable people, howbeit sometimes all too human - and my Vietnamese friends live here, and I want to live with them.

The town is small, maybe 8,000 people and bereft of any cultural or social delights whatsoever. It has a climate typical of its Province (Thanh Hoa, pronounced roughly Thine Hwa) - ranging from the humid bone zapping cold of winter to, the Aroldite glue end of, hot and sticky in summer. And it also manages to be unbearably humid one minute and yet have choking dust levels the next. It is one of the poorest Vietnamese Provinces and indeed this, one of its poorer Districts, is having money thrown at it just now in an effort to push it away from the bottom of the league. I am a great novelty at present for there are no other westerners, they do not come for, in the eyes of the guide books, there is nothing, so:

You too best not come here.

But the poverty is not third world poverty. People are not hungry, there are services, and most strikingly there is a strong sense that life is getting better. Each year, for the last five, Vietnam has topped the UN poll for most optimistic country - France and UK compete near the bottom. And in this year of 2010 it is expected that officially it will move to have middle income, rather than developing, status. That makes it very comfortable to be in, rendering one sympathetic with people, not sorry for them, which all too often is the problem in India, for example.

And of course it is the people that I come for and wish to tell you about, although their cultural and geographic context is part of them, and necessary for the picture I would want to paint. In that respect Tinh Gia is as good as the next town, and more typical than the view from Ha Noi which has a great range of its own special charms. Here there is no distraction to focusing on the people! I do not know exactly what makes them special and simply hope that it will emerge from what I write or better still:

You could come and see for yourself.

This is the first in a set of notes in which I will try to show you something of these contradictions. Next week I move in. I do hope you will read on and become fascinated, as I have, by this land and its people.