Pictures of Hanoi

 Hoan Kiem Lake in the main part of the city. If you can see the red bridge in the background, that leads to a small pagoda where many have recently gathered to pray for luck in the Lunar New Year. The tower, called Tortoise Tower after the famous giant turtles that legend says live in the lake, was built by the Le Dynasty in the 17th century.

This is an example of the make-shift stove that people use to make soup and tea on the street. It's essentially a tin can filled with burning charcoal.

Another post about smell...

“The first thing I noticed in Bombay, on the first day, was the smell of the different air. I could smell it before I saw or heard anything of India, even as I walked along the umbilical corridor that connected the plane to the airport. I was excited and delighted by it, in that first Bombay minute…but I didn’t, and couldn’t, recognize it. I know now that it’s the sweet, sweating smell of hope, which is the opposite of hate; and it’s the sour, stifled smell of gree, which is the opposite of love. It’s the smell of gods, demons, empires and civilizations in resurrection and decay. It’s the blue skin-smell of the sea, no matter where you are in the Island City, and the blood-metal smell of machines. It smells of the stir and sleep and waste of sixty million animals, more than half of them humans and rats. It smells of heartbreak, and the struggle to live, and of the crucial failures and loves that produce our courage. It smells of ten thousand restaurants, five thousand temples, shrines, churches and mosques, and of a hundred bazaars devoted exclusively to perfumes, spices, incense, and freshly cut flowers. Karla once called it the worst good smell in the world, and she was right, of course, in that way she had of being right about things. But whenever I return to Bombay, now, it’s my first sense of the city – that smell, above all things – that welcomes me and tells me I’ve come home.”

This beautiful quote, from the very first page of Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts speaks to one of my favorite things about travel: the smell of a new country. Every city has its own unique feeling but the smell can change everything. Accra, Ghana smelled of sweat, dust, heat, fresh pineapple, banana and cocoa beans, not to mention fufu with peanut soup. Hanoi and Haiphong, at least in the winter, smell of mist, green tea, basil, lime, hundreds of motorbikes and the hard work of street-food sellers. I could go on and on describing different cities. And more than that, the smell of these places changes throughout the day, almost to the point where you can tell what time of day it is even if you close your eyes and just breathe. But even with the changes, each city is distinct and whenever I get a whiff of spicy peanut soup at home, my mind goes back to Ghana. I can only imagine what will spark homesickness for Vietnam when I’m back in North America. 

I love the smell of Phở in the morning!

          I wrote this awhile back and just putting it up now, so it's about HaiPhong even though, it could easily be applied to HaNoi. This is me putting a different (much happier) twist on a famous movie quote (+10 points to those who know it! - I'm pretty sure my dad at least does). You can pretty much tell what time of day it is by the smells hanging in the air. I wake up to the smell of incense burning in the house next door, the days offering for good luck. The morning smells crisp and clean with hints of basil, stewed chicken and burning charcoal. When you walk outside, you see women and children at small plastic tables on the sidewalks, their chopsticks clanging against lacquer bowls. Most likely, they are eating Phở before heading of to school or starting housework for the day. Unless you get up before 6 am, you are unlikely to see men or young women at the breakfast table as the work day begins at 7 am for most people.
         In the afternoon, you can practically smell the heat rising from the pavement, which also leads to a powerful smell from any surrounding plant life, which is lovely and sweet. However, if you walk through a local market, the pungent smell of fish, meat, even blood, practically smacks you in the face. You can hear the sound of knives slicing through the air and a hard chop on the cutting board.
         As night falls, you can smell the air cooling down but my favorite smell at this time is spices. From Everywhere. Most people cook outdoors on small make-shift stoves and the smell is remarkable. When you walk past the street stalls, you can see, hear and smell men sitting down to a glass of Bia Hoi, a truly terrible but popular draft beer. People will sit at these stalls for hours, puffing away on cigarettes, drinking beer and chatting with friends until 10 or 11 at night. Children run around everywhere, completely unsupervised, and their laughter, plus their tiny pattering feet is a charming sound. Things quiet down and the spices leave the air at around 11 o'clock as people clean up and go to bed. From then on, the only smell is the heat, or the cold (depending on the season), clean and comforting, until 5 am the next day when it all starts again.

A reflection

"[John McCain] also offered an acidic commentary on how the Vietnamese portrayed life inside the prison. Alongside the pictures of Mr. McCain and his fellow prisoners, a plaque declared: "Though having committed untold crimes on our people, the American pilots suffered no revenge once they were captured and detained. Instead, they were treated with adequate food, clothing and shelter."
Shaking his head, Mr. McCain muttered, 'That's entertainment.'"

So having come out of the Hanoi Hilton with some questions about POW life there, I found some really interesting articles online reporting on the US side of the story. Where Poland and Germany have founded great museums reflecting the truth about the horrors that their own countries inflicted upon innocents, the same does not appear true for Vietnam. This once again reminded me that I am living in a communist country where speaking negatively about the government or the country results in the death penalty (something I discussed at length with one of my higher level classes in HaiPhong). My boyfriend reminded me of the photos the Nazis took of the camps for the Red Cross and it appears as though similar things happened during the American war here. Nonetheless, it does appear as though certain soldiers were given medical treatment that ultimately saved their lives (McCain himself benefited from this) and that torture dwindled over the years.


If you're interested in reading some American accounts (I really prefer to avoid Wikipedia when I'm looking for most information, although most of the info you find online is about McCain), check out these articles:
http://blogs.thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/2008/01/what-it-ws-real.html
http://www.mishalov.com/Vietnam_hanoi_hilton.html
http://www.spike.com/blog/survival-stories-1/86067

And so, as Don said, it is always important to remember from whom your information is coming.
All that being said, it is still wonderful to be able to come to this country today with no fear of being treated any differently than other foreigners when 40 years ago, it would have been a death sentence.

5 things I don't understand in Vietnam

1. Rubbernecking is an Xtreme sport:
Now, I could introduce a whole bunch of psychological terminology right now - bystander effect, diffusion of responsibility (....is it apparent that I'm studying for the GREs?) BUT the Vietnamese take Rubbernecking to whole other level...they will literally STARE at people who've fallen off their bikes (usually me...) but do nothing to help...no one....does anything....but stare and make horrible traffic.

2. Helmet-less babies on motorbikes and, for that matter, pregnant women on motorbikes:
Is it just me or was no one in Vietnam taught that babies have INCREDIBLY soft skulls...Children don't wear helmets until they hit middle school age and pregnant women zoom around on motorbikes...even if you see a young kid in a car, he or she is sitting on mom's lap in the DEATH (ie passengers) seat...WHAT?!
   
3. Stores that sell only ONE thing:
Okay okay, I know what you're thinking - sure home depot sells all home improvement supplies and Staples sells everything for the office...no, thats NOT what I mean. I mean one store sells nuts and bolts, the next store sells book cases, the store after that sells helmets, etc etc....but but but...what about one stop shopping?!

4. Words that look exactly the same and have completely different meanings:
Phố means street
Phở means delicious noodle soup
Gà means chicken
Cá means fish (but C in Vietnamese is pronounced like a hard G)
.....so what if you have a horrible fish allergy and try to order chicken but end up with fish?! enough said...

5. Adults wearing Pajama's outside...at 3 in the afternoon:
 So I'm 22 and I'm certainly guilty of wearing my pj pants out to the store on a lazy afternoon but the Vietnamese do not do things half way....they wear FULL pajama outfits outside. Flannel button-down shirts with matching flannel pants is apparently not a faux-pas in Vietnam.

Pictures! Ho Loa Prison

 Vietnamese prisoners were chained to one place for hours at a time but at least these prisoners could speak to one another, unlike those in Cachot.

Cachot was used to confine prisoners who broke regulations. They were kept in solitary confinement and chained to one place where they rarely saw light.

 The original door to Maison Centrale, as the prison was called under the French.

One of the Cachot cell doors.

Ahoy HaNoi!

           Having hated the administration and "organization" (or rather, lack there of) at my school in HaiPhong, I made a decision upon my Christmas return to North America: I'm going to move to HaNoi. While the prospect was daunting at first, it's been a remarkably easy process! I was hired at my very first interview and the school began looking for a room in HaNoi at once. They found me a pretty large room in a house owned by a Vietnamese family with 4 rooms they rent to students. I have my own bathroom, fridge and tv and the internet is free (although it has been less than reliable so I am thinking I might look into getting internet of my own).
           During my downtime when I returned to Vietnam, I visited HaNoi's famous Hoa Lo prison, "affectionately" nicknamed the Hanoi Hilton by the US pilots (including John McCain) imprisoned there during the Vietnamese War. It was fascinating. Although I went in thinking mostly about the American POWs, I came out thinking that they WERE practically living in a 5 star hotel compared to what the Vietnamese political prisoners experienced under the French. Of course, the humane treatment of the POWs by the Vietnamese government could have been exaggerated at the museum but pictures don't lie. While the Americans had billiards, freedom of religion and thought and access to doctors and press, the men and women under the French regime had torture by electrical wires, rotten food, the constant threat of the guillotine and were shackled to one place for hours on end. Obviously, most of the museum pays tribute to these prisoners, leaving only two rooms to detail the lives of American POWs. Part of me wonders where the Vietnamese found the humanity to treat their prisoners so well when their own people had been so cruelly treated by the French only 30 years before (not to mention what the US was doing to their people at the same time).
          Within the prison, there were pictures of POWs and Vets returning to the prison to see the museum. I found myself trying to imagine the POWs thoughts when they saw how the Vietnamese were treated by the French in the very same place they had been relatively "safe" during the war. Then, of course, the Vets - trying to imagine just coming back to this country in present day is mind blowing. The country is booming; the jungles that were the soldiers' daily horror houses are now flushed out villages and towns, and the communist people of Vietnam, whom "threatened" the American way of life and destroyed many families' and friends' lives, now greet Americans with a smile and a slew of curious questions ABOUT the American way of life.  All of this in itself must be jarring, without even considering the number of actual war reminders that flood the streets.
          I find the Vietnamese a remarkably resilient people. I rarely come across someone who is horrified to discover that I'm American. The American war, as they, naturally, call it, often seems a distant memory in today's Viet culture.