Lotus (bong sen)

My server has been down all weekend, so here's something nice to make up for the hiatus.

The lotus is the national flower. It is on the tail of the Vietnam Airline planes. It is a major buddhist symbol. It is a source of food. And it is associated with women: Vietnamese women, like the lotus, are lovely things that grow in dirty water. Needless to say, that is a male viewpoint.

In the central planning period the Vietnamese began to manufacture tractors. Two of the larger models are known as Bong Sen (lotus) and Hoa Mai (apricot blossom). They are noisy, filthy things grown by beautiful Vietnamese people.

Thuan Hai ceramics

Although situated in a town that specializes in the manufacture of ceramics, this shop sells mostly imported Chinese products which are much more popular with Vietnamese buyers than the 'handcrafted' look of the local stuff. Dong Trieu is located on the main road to Ha Long Bay, so it picks up a lot of trade from passing traffic and the couple who run this shop are rich by Vietnamese rural standards.

Skyline

One of the more noticeable changes over the past decade is the increased use of colour. Galvanized iron roofing has become popular and the variety of colours available is amazing. People are wallowing in new choices of colours, spires, towers - so different from the old days. Even in the early 90s, when a lot of new houses were being built, we used to joke that there was only one architect. Nowadays, I think everybody's an architect!

Fruit vine (qua gac)

Here's the fruit I mentioned yesterday that gives the red colouring to food. I can't find the name in the dictionary, but gach is given as the red-orange fat of a crab (see the crab soup yesterday). Maybe the fruit has the same name. Gach is also the word for bricks and tiles.

Update: commenter corrected me. It is gac (ga^'c).

Lunch for seven

On the table - clockwise from the top:
bun: thin rice noodles
xoi: sticky rice with orange colouring from a fruit called something like gac
bun rieu: crab meat soup with rice noodles;
salad of lettuce leaves, a variety of green herbs and (I think) banana flower;
more xoi and bun rieu;
I don't remember the one with half a lime - some kind of animal innards with dried shredded something else on top;
On the tray - clockwise from the top again:
Pork innards and skin with veg;
gio: a kind of pork sausage meat;
The two bowls contain fish sauce and various condiments;
Grilled pork meat;
Boiled chicken with lemon grass.
Salt, pepper, chilli and lime in the centre.

Halida beer to wash it down.

It was all totally scrumptious.

Loading rice

Each bag weighs 50 kg. In 20 minutes a man and a woman loaded 2 tonnes from the storeromm at the back of the shop into their truck. They just worked steadily, each carrying out 20 bags. No money changed hands, the wholesaler wrote in her book and told us that she sells on credit and has a hard time calling it in. But if she doesn't offer credit, the customers will go elsewhere. That load was worth about $750.

Under eave

The house belongs to a farmer and is about 100 years old.

Two women

How light are you? Lenin Park

I posted an earlier photo of the former Lenin Park at dusk. Here's another, of one of the people who try to make a living from petty services all around the city. The older woman, in the conical hat, has set up her scales not far from one of the park entrance gates and, since she clearly doesn't have customers queuing up, she and her friend are engrossed in conversation. Note the loudspeaker higher up that blares muzak all day. Nonetheless, its something of an oasis of calm in a noisy, traffic-clogged city.

A bit of shade in the noonday heat

This somewhat rickety looking hut is a place where the farmer can take a siesta after lunch if he's out working in the fields. It's up on stilts so the occupant won't be disturbed by passersby - since the only dry land around here is the public path, that seems to be a necessary adaptation. The baskets hanging underneath are fish traps. I wasn't sure whether anyone was in there, so I didn't look inside, but it's possible that it's also used to store some stuff - as long as, like the fish traps, it's stuff that is so commonplace around the village that nobody would want to steal it. The door was open, but then it didn't look as if it could be closed either.

Ceramics depot

Down by the river's edge to the north of Hanoi is an open-air warehouse of ceramics that are traded up the river from places like Bat Trang and Kim Lan. By the look of this boat the river trade is not a path to great riches. From here they're carried all over the city by travelling hawkers - usually on a bicycle with big wire baskets on either side.

Black mud

I took this in a village called Kim Lan, a ceramics producing centre not far from the more famous Bat Trang, in Hung Yen province east of Hanoi. The kilns here burn coal and the whole village was covered in coal dust that turned to mud after rain. Yes, we visited on a cold, wet day in late 2001. It's a reminder that coal produces other pollutants besides carbon dioxide and that it costs a lot of money to clean up the mess and to make places more pleasant to live in for those who need to use the fuel for energy. Actually Vietnamese coal is anthracite, which burns relatively cleanly compared to softer, bituminous coals, so you don't see the smoke-haze that characterizes other coal-burning industries. It doesn't have the sulphur content either. But it's still filthy stuff!

Winter street scene

Near the northern end of the Hoan Kiem lake on a chilly day. The red sign says that it's forbidden to park any kind of business vehicle on that part of the street - aimed at farmers who come in and sell stuff from their bicycles. However, it's apparently quite OK to just leave your car in the middle of the road! It doesn't belong to the two women buying from the shoulder-pole woman. Its owner was nowhere in sight during the 40 minutes I was waiting there getting a new pair of specs.

Chao, pho

Apologies for the lack of focus. I took this outside our lunch place in Cu Da - the only eatery in two villages. The menu consisted of two dishes: chao (rice porridge) or noodle soup with chicken or beef. The noodles were not actually pho, but bun which are also made from rice, but not wide and flat like the pho. On our last day, as a special treat, our cook actually made the soup with the local product, mien. Whichever noodles we had, however, the soup was very good, as was the chao - filling and tasty. I'm looking forward to going back.

Barber shop

Barbers usually set up in the street. They often hang a mirror on the wall so the customer can keep a check on progress. There used to be a block of Quang Trung St in the city that was lined with barber shops, but there are few there now. Maybe because the wall was (is?) also frequently used as a public urinal. Or maybe the barbers have moved up in the world and found a real shop to work from.

The slogan on this wall tells people to vote in the national election.

Bastille Day at the Opera

Vietnam is a good place to be reminded that the meaning of national days can change. Neither the 4th of July, nor the 14th were originally days when patriotism equated with approval of empire. The 4th of July even had a specifically anti-imperial meaning and the 14th was all about liberation from oppression. Nevertheless Bastille Day in 1911 (which I think is the year that the Opera House was finished) was no doubt celebrated by the French in full unconsciousness of how far they were then removed from their original ideals of 'liberty, equality, fraternity'.

My first visit was for a concert in late 1991. There was a pleasant piano piece composed and played by a visiting Thai musician (who also conducted the orchestra), then the orchestra's regular conductor took the stage to conduct the most incredibly botched piece of Tchaikovsky I can ever recall hearing. My Vietnamese companions were very embarrassed and explained that the orchestra had no money and the players were too busy earning a living to be able to practice. I went back a couple of years later, with some trepidation, to see a concert by Dang Thai Son - an absolutely brilliant Vietnamese-born American winner of the Chopin Prize. On that occasion the conductor was English, the pianist was a genius and the orchestra played brilliantly. So money was not the only reason for their lack of motivation back in 1991. The Opera House itself, was gorgeous, if somewhat dilapidated, the seats were so close together that your knees tended to get bruised and the rising damp was everywhere in the foyers. By 1997 the place had been restored to its full glory with French money (they were unable to solve the damp problem however, nor did they move the seats). The nicest touch is that in the second floor salon behind the colonnade, they have left the original mirrors, complete with bullet holes from a famous battle of 1946.

I should mention that nowadays the Opera House seems to be the scene of battles in the Culture War. This is a war fought between the donors - the British Council, the Alliance Francaise, the Goethe Institute, etc. Each tries to outdo the others in bringing their cultural showpieces to Vietnam for the benefit of the expat community and the tiny Vietnamese elite who appreciate this sort of stuff.


To the right of the photo you can see a little bit of the Hilton Opera Hanoi (a hotel, not a prison), the architect of which made an attempt to copy the style of the Opera House in order not to ruin the environment of Hanoi's most famous building. If you look at the two buildings together, however, I can't really say it was a successful attempt. In fact the effect is quite jarring. It might have been better to put up the usual plastic box hotel - or leave the park that was there before!

Bridge (Cau Buou)

This bridge is a major crossing from the Cau Buou area on the Hanoi side of the river into Ha Tay province and the only bridge for miles. For a more a more stable bridge you need to detour via the road bridge in Ha Dong city. They were building a new concrete one not far away, but I'll kind of miss the excitement of this one. In the photo you see A, more than slightly terrified by her first crossing, though Mr T, her driver, is surely experienced at this sort of thing. I have even ridden across more challenging bridges myself, though I admit the steep first section of this one and it's narrowness, together with the fact that it moves around quite a lot on its pontoons makes it interesting to ride across. There's a 2000 dong toll (about USD 0.12)for motorbikes - I hope they use it for maintenance!

Car wash

The view from my friends' balcony. On the right is one of the ubiquitous 'home improvement' projects - usually they involve demolition of the old house and construction of something from 4-6 stories on the same site, preferably with as much ostentation as is possible. On the left (rua xe) the place where you go to get your motorbike washed. They have a few tables and chairs so you can get a cuppa while you wait. Between them (in front of the rua xe sign) a watch repair stall.

Cafe Pho

Just three years ago Cafe Pho (literally Street Cafe) in Ly Thuong Kiet was the sort of place that basically catered to foreign customers. Now during the lunch hour it is packed with the new Vietnamese middle class. The lunch is buffet-style and not fantastic.

Prayers

Mr L was snap happy at the pagoda during the festival day. My digital camera was a new toy for him and I was happy to let a local take the photos since I wasn't sure what was appropriate behaviour. He did quite a good job too. These women seemed very devoted, joining in the chanting every now and then. Others, who sat further towards the periphery spent more time talking to each other.

Tea stall outside the Dinh, Cu Da

The archway through which I took this photo is the old gateway to the village, at which horseriders were supposed to get down and start walking. Nowadays the village extends beyond this gate right up to the border with the next village. The woven bamboo boards covered with the bright orange stuff are part of the mien manufacturing process - out to dry before being cut into very thin noodles. They are all up and down every street in the village: these have been set up against the front fence of the village dinh .

Toad

During lunch breaks last October we ate every day at the only "restaurant" in two villages. The choices on the menu were chao (rice porridge) or pho (soup with rice noodles). Both very good quality. The place had a balcony overlooking the river, which was fine until the river went black and stinky. Most of the customers came in with a saucepan for takeaway and we rarely had anyone else sit down at the only table with us. This little beastie was hopping about the floor of our eatery one day. I chased him with my camera and had him (or her) cornered for this shot.

Doing laundry

One of the housekeepers (the Vietnamese word is o sin, after Oshin the Japanese soap about a housemaid from over a decade ago). from the guesthouse next door doing the laundry in the alleyway below. At my guesthouse they have a washing machine. I've stayed in that one though, when my regular place is full: the woman who runs it really objects to having to engage in merely money-making activities. As a consequence, it's a ramshackle place, though the price is no different from the one I stay in. My landlady, who runs a great operation, is nevertheless looked down upon by her less successful neighbour who just happens to come from an elite family!

Palanquin from the Khuc Thuy dinh

I had to crawl under the dust cover to take a look at this in the dinh at Khuc Thuy. It is only pulled out once every two years for the Hoi Lanh (village festival), for which the villagers all dress up in old-fashioned costume and participate in a parade down the main road. I have no idea what or whom is or was carried in this big sedan chair - maybe they leave it empty these days because it looks heavy enough on its own. Again, however, the fact that they have a piece of equipment as fine as this testifies to the former prosperity of the village. I've visited quite a few dinh over the years, but I don't recall anything like this one. Mostly they seem much more crudely decorated, not to mention dusty and decrepit.

Something for the Fourth of July

This is not exactly a great photo, but it has an interesting story. It shows the new roof of Hoa Lo prison, popularly known in the west as the "Hanoi Hilton" (taken from an upper floor of the nearby Melia Hotel where I was at a conference). Originally constructed by the French - hence the name Maison centrale over the main entrance - it once held many Vietnamese revolutionaries and is basically set up today to tell that story. But for a few years it also held American POWs. I visited about 10 years ago - I only remember the approximate time because one of the prison's former inmates, Douglas 'Pete' Peterson, was then back in Hanoi as the first US ambassador - a person hugely appreciated by the Vietnamese for his ability to forgive and get on with life.

Anyway, it is a pretty ugly place. The ground floor is somewhat like a dungeon - huge, gloomy long rooms with sleeping benches on either side to which Vietnamese prisoners were kept in leg-irons; tiny, dark and dank solitary confinement closets; and a guillotine - a barbaric instrument if ever there was one. The exercise yard, of which there's only about a quarter left since two thirds of the total area was demolished to make way for the Hanoi Towers - Hanoi's first and possibly ugliest set of 'skyscrapers' - actually had a couple of trees and must've been a huge respite for those who were allowed to use it. Apparently 100 Vietnamese prisoners - led by Do Muoi, who was Party Secretary in the late-1980s and early-'90s - escaped through the sewers in 1945. That must have been when the Japanese rounded up all the Vichy French just prior to the end of World War II.

The room we were shown as having been accommodation for the Americans was, by contrast, comparatively luxurious. I note, however, an American website which says that 47 POWs were living in one room at Christmas 1971, so they certainly could not have been in that room. I see from another site that the room was in what the Americans called the 'New Guys' Village': there is a photo of the room here. Most of them were in fact held in the now-demolished section they called 'Camp Unity' shown here, in a photo that appears to post-date the American war. The section in the foreground where the Hanoi Towers now stand.

At the time of my visit I had no idea so many Americans had been shot down over North Vietnam - there were more in other rooms in the prison as well as scattered in other places, including the Yen Phu power station and MoD area of the old Citadel, presumably so that these places wouldn't be bombed. I visited a fan factory a few doors down Ly Thuong Kiet from the prison back in 1992. The manager explained that, unlike most other factories, his had never been evacuated from the city during the war because they were confident that no American bombs would come anywhere near to Hoa Lo. I have some better photos, from my pre-digital era that I need to get scanned.

Tea stall

These are all over the city. A lot of life takes place on the streets due to overcrowding, but it makes for a vibrant social life. An endless cup of tea is very cheap and passersby as well as regulars can stop for a few minutes refreshment and a chat. This woman used to pack up at night, but then another lot of stalls open up and you can see little groups of men sitting around, nearly always with a woman serving, paraffin lamps burning, at all hours.

Modernized tradition

We were invited to participate in a festival at the pagoda. I forget exactly the occasion, but possibly it was the 'anniversary' of the establishment of the first pagoda in the village by its first monk about 1000 years ago. The fact that it's right after the harvest and everyone has some cash to contribute might have more to do with it than any actual anniversary. Anyway, they hired a monk to come and perform with microphone and strategically placed speakers so that he could be heard from every corner. He was definitely chanting in Vietnamese, but reading from a text written in ideograms - possibly Han Nom, which is the indigenous version of Chinese characters. This marks him out as a scholar since very few people these days can read these characters. The other two were there simply to give a timely clash of cymbals or bang on the drum. The men and women were praying separately in two parts of the pagoda. The women in the front section where they had their own non-chanting chief nun and the men in the back part where this guy was. The women's section was full, the men's almost empty. In fact the men were all to be found in the out-building where the food and drink (beer) was being served.

Village house and yard

The people who own this house are poor and not very successful farmers. They have enough land to make a better go of it, but somehow they don't. As a result they both have to spend time doing wage work for others. She does agricultural work, I'm not sure what he does, but it's in the provincial town and, she told us, he's training to be a hairdresser. I guess farming and hairdressing don't really go together! They have one small kid. The other possible reason for their poverty is that they recently inherited land in the village from his family. Most of the rest of the family lives in Thanh Hoa province, to which they had fled during the French bombing in 1946. The result is that this couple don't really know a whole lot of people in the village and it's possible that they learned how to farm in a place where conditions are quite different. Not really being plugged into the local networks means that they could be having difficulty adapting.

Everyone has a brick-paved yard so that the paddy can be spread out to dry after the harvest. Each night it is raked up, using the instrument in the foreground, and put into storage indoors overnight so that it doesn't get damp again. And, by the way, that is a pet dog, not an edible one!