Six Months in Hanoi (& Beyond)

New Years Anthem

2007-02-18T09:35:00.000-05:00

To mark the occasion of the arrival of the Year of the Pig I offer up the official Vietnamese New Year Anthem by everyone's favourite Swedish foursome. I'm sure there is a entire canon of traditional Tet songs, but these were hardly in evidence last year at Tet. Instead the Vietnamese universe seems to be obsessed by one song, and one song only. In fact the song serves the purpose of both New Years, Western and lunar, the result being about almost two solid months of Abba on replay, not just two discrete flare-ups as you might think. I've never been a big Abba fan but I must admit the brilliance of this song. It has an insidious way of lodging itself in your brain, particularly if you are trapped on a bus from Haiphong with the video on a loop for over an hour.

As for the video, check out the state of Ikea circa 1979, not to mention the eye shadow, and the innovative Lazy Susan filming effect. My big question: what's he looking at out the window?

It's an appropriate video to be posting today for other reasons too, since I'm feeling that post-party effect (though I'm not lounging around on my chesterfield in a party dress). Jon, Koen and I pulled off a full-on Hanoi Tet meal complete with ga luoc (poached chicken with lime leaf and ginger dipping sauce), nem (Hanoi style deep fried spring rolls), banh chung with pickled leeks (purchased not made from scratch), dau phu sot ca chua (tofu in tomato sauce), nom kho bo (green papaya salad with spicy dried beef), cha lua (Vietnamese sausage), a pork and radish soup, authentic green tea from Thai Nguyen, followed by fruit and mut Tet (candy). Oh yeah and we polished off my only bottle of Nep Moi (Vietnamese rice vodka made of young rice, smells like hazelnut and packs a whopping 40%). I think I'm ready to take on Iron Chef Vietnam.

As it turns out, our celebration was 24 hours too late! I discovered that Tet is sometimes a day earlier than the Chinese New Year, and this was one of those rare years. It's something to do with Vietnam being in a different time zone from China, although I can't imagine how that one hour makes any difference whatsoever. When I got through to a few friends in Hanoi on their Saturday morning, I was told "Tet roi, Tet roi!". I was assured though that the Tet in the Vietnamese diaspora however has come to conform with the Chinese date. Oi gioi oi, nothing is ever simple!

Riding the streets of Hanoi

2007-02-04T19:24:00.000-05:00

Koen shot this a few weeks back. I'm the one in the orange up front. Jon's behind me. For those of you who know the hood, we turn right from Dai Co Viet onto Ta Quang Buu, heading into Bach Khoa.

I know it's not the best footage, but it's all I got!

And for those of you interested in the psychology of this kind of traffic, here's a fantastic post on the topic by Antidote.

Humour and the Ông Tây

2007-02-04T11:37:00.000-05:00

One night this past December Jon and I met up with a group of friends at a cafe. We sat on the floor around a low table nursing coffees and juices. The conversation was entirely in Vietnamese except when one of the guys would take pity on us and fill us in a bit. After a while Jon turned to me with a wry smile and said, "I'm at a loss. What on earth is going on." "Welcome to my Hanoi life," I said. And welcome to the other side. Here we're in the minority.

Despite our almost complete incomprehension, it wasn't boring for a moment. Somehow humour communicates across a linguistic divide. We had no idea what anyone was saying, but it was infectious anyway.

But sometimes the humour doesn't translate. Vietnamese is rich in puns based on differences in tones, reversals in meaning (something means its opposite), changes in word order, etc. A friend once tried to explain some joke that had been made in an internet cafe the other day, a joke he'd been laughing about ever since. It wasn't just the subtlety or delivery that was lost in translation - the combination of linguistic turns and cultural references was completely opaque to me even when carefully translated.

Despite the linguistic challenges to the cross-cultural understanding of humour, I still find that a person's "sense of humour", as a personal quality, is able to communicate. And I can vouch that the Vietnamese often have a wicked sense of humour. There are still incidents from my time in Hanoi that continue to crack me up. Key to this sense of humour is the fact that the Vietnamese generally do not take themselves too seriously. Nor are they beyond gentle teasing.

Speaking of gentle teasing, I offer my nickname as an example. It began with just a few little jokes, and gradually developed into the following list of monikers: Ông Tây nhà quê, Maria, háu ăn, đuểnh đoảng, buôn chuyện, hải ly.

I am proud that I was deemed worthy of such a long nickname, even if the individual elements of the name may seem less than flattering. I guess I don't take myself too seriously either...

Ông Tây: literally, Mr. Westerner. Thinh gave me this name one night and it stuck. To tell the truth he was one of the few whose sense of humour confused me at first. Thinh speaks no English whatsoever. Apparently he is hysterically funny, even if sometimes he has a bitchy edge. The first time he called me Ông Tây we were eating noodles on the street with a group of friends late one night. Whatever he was saying was followed by gales of laughter. Initially I was not amused. The term Tây can on occasion have a slight edge and I mistakenly assumed I was the butt of some joke. Later Viet reassured that his quips were completely inoccuous. In fact Viet insisted that the group would never allow anyone to diss me in public.

Nhà quê: village; country. I can find no exact equivalent in English. Country bumpkin is too goofy. Hick is too harsh. In some contexts it can actually have a real edge so you have to watch where you use it. Amongst friends though it suggests a naivety or lack of sophistication. I blogged earlier about the irony of my status as Tây nhà quê: although I may be from the urban West, I still come off as somehow parochial and awkward. I might as well have come from some village just up the river. Why? First of all, I knew nothing of the urban ways of Hanoi, at least initially; and second, given the choice I always preferred to go local, sit on the little plastic sidewalk stools, drink coffee in ancient little cafes, and go to my chaotic gym in Bach Khoa. I mostly eshewed the slick new Westernized hangouts that had such appeal to some of my more upwardly mobile Vietnamese friends.

Maria - Hung came up with this one. Back it the 90s it seems there was a very popular South American television series in syndication in Vietnam. The series featured Maria, a country girl transplanted to the city who makes it big climbing up the corporate ladder in the fashion industry. (Sounds like one of the many versions of Betty La Fea, which eventually became the American Ugly Betty. The only incarnation of this character I can find named Maria was a Greek remake.) Okay, so why the hell am I Maria? Something to do with my nhà quê status (like the Maria/Betty before her metamorphosis?), and the fact that at least to Vietnamese ears my name sounds a lot like Maria. I feared to ask whether they thought my fashion sense was like Maria before or after her rise in the fashion world. Hmm.

Háu ăn - Viet slapped this one on to my ever lengthening name during our trip to Bangkok last year. It means something like greedy eater. Anyone even slightly familiar with this blog will understand that I have a bit of an obsession with food, and especially street food. Our trip to Bangkok consisted largely of Viet stopping at every stall to bargain for clothes, knock-off watches, and CDs, and me stopping at every cart to fill my piehole with every manner of street offerings.

đuểnh đoảng - Another Hanoi slang expression with no exact equivalent in English. Somewhere between spacey, absent-minded and happy-go-lucky? It's supposed to be a very endearing term, so I prefer to think it's closer to absent-minded, which I will admit is a sometimes accurate description of yours truly. This quality was also excerbated by the fact that I often didn't really know the score, and was sometimes helpless in such a new context. Similar rationale to nhà quê above I guess.

Buôn chuyện - Literally it means "wholesale talk" or "gossip by the bulk". It seems I don't just chat a little; when I talk it's by the yard. In fact I think I earned this not because I sit around gossipping or can't shut up, but because I know a lot of people in Hanoi. Viet could not fathom how I might be so well connected at a place like Apo. This relates mostly to Western social patterns of mixing, mingling, introducing and being introduced. It didn't take me long to build up a network beyond the scope of my Vietnamese friends.

Hải ly - Viet Anh is to blame for this one. Apparently I resemble either an otter or a seal.

The translations don't even quite do it. I know I am missing much of the nuance of my own nickname. Despite the barrage of jokes though I know it's all good-natured. I've vetted the name with disinterested Vietnamese friends who all assure me as much.

Duck in Three Parts

2007-01-21T12:21:00.000-05:00

Egg: I finally got a good shot of the infamous trung vit lon. My earlier shot was actually snapped in Laos. This one ordered curbside for brekky in Bach Khoa after a banh my trung left me still peckish. Koen and I partook. Jon sat this one out.

Fertilized duck egg has lost much of the visceral challenge it once posed for me, but it retains its fascination. I still don't look too closely nor do I linger over it - the taste though is actually quite nice. Egg on the meaty side.

If you do look closely the duck is really not that far gone - at least not as served in Hanoi. According to this very graphic article (you are forewarned!), it's another story altogether in the Philippines where they call it balut. At that late stage duck embryo really does deserve the infamy it has attracted on recent reality shows.

My Bach Khoa egg arrived minus the shell and ready for its close-up. I appreciated the photogenic potential of the naked embryo even if I missed cracking the shell and sipping off the embryonic fluid (a chicken soup-like teaser). The fresh julienned ginger and rau ram were welcome diversions.

***

Blood: If duck fetus has lost its gory thrill for me, the same is not true for tiet canh vit, a.k.a. raw duck blood soup. Only the brave should click here for the full visual effect of this lovely dish. Still I'm fascinated and I'm game as long as I don't necessarily have to commit to an entire bowl.

I've long heard about this delicacy. The first mention I recall was in a WHO case report of bird flu transmission in rural North Vietnam. I'm unsure if you can still find this dish in Hanoi given the circumstances. Several of my Hanoi friends insist it's quite delicious, but warn me to resist the temptation. Aside from the bird flu issue (which has long ceased to really worry me) it has been known to result in less lethal but still serious episodes possibly requiring extended hospital stays. In any case, I never saw any signs of this dish in Hanoi.

Imagine my shock then when I spotted a little (untranslated) sign on the wall of my favourite pho shack up the street from me here in Toronto: tiet canh vit. I could not believe my eyes. When I pointed to the sign and inquired if they really serve raw duck blood soup, at first I received a vague response to the effect that they are not sure what's in stock right now, let them go look, and was I ready to order my pho? No confirmation that I had actually read the sign correctly. Only later when I persisted in my questioning they finally brought out a nice bright red bowl for me to inspect. Yep no doubt about it: duck blood soup.

Only served on Sundays. Should I or shouldn't I? So far I've enlisted two brave souls who might share a bowl with me. None of us are really keen to commit to more than a couple spoonfulls.

***

Meat: Somewhere in Linh Dam in the southern suburban fringe of Hanoi lies a field. On one side a lake, on the other a row of buildings set way back, and above hangs a great cloud of smoke. Beneath this cloud a hundred low plastic tables laid out in lines. In total this field must be home to at least a dozen purveyors of the same delicious dish: vit nuong or grilled duck. The dish and its obscure location was only revealed to me last month during my visit. Somehow it had escaped my attention last year. I expected something like the roast duck that hangs in the Cantonese BBQ joints in my Chinatown back home. It was nothing like that. Instead the chunks of duck had been beautifully grilled over charcoal. In fact there were several preparations, each quite different and new to me. I have no idea anymore where this field is. All I remember is the taste of the slightly charred duck meat, the expanse of low plastic tables spreading out, the surreal duck smoke wafting above, and the company of friends. Some day I will drive by again on another motobike. The dreamy quality of that field will then find its place on my already tattered map of Hanoi.

Bike Seat Math

2007-01-18T23:25:00.000-05:00

If there is one image that sums up my December in Hanoi, this is probably it. For those of you not intimately familiar with the motobike culture of Vietnam, it's a bike seat...with lots of numbers...in chalk...

It looks an awful lot like a math lesson. In fact it's all about parking. The system goes like this: you pull up to a place, a young parking guy emerges from the chaos of the sidewalk. You hop off, he hands you a numbered tag, chalks up your bike seat, and rolls your bike off to some acceptable corner of the sidewalk. Somehow upon retrieval even the numerical tangle pictured above does not fool the attendants. They know exactly which number is theirs. In this case I think 39 was the most recent addition.

This picture represents the cumulative activities of Hanoi Week 1. If only I had a legend for each number.

My visit was intensely social. I had hardly a moment alone, and most of this socializing happened in cafes, sidewalk eateries, restaurants, tea houses and bars. Each meeting, each meal, each cup of ca phe left its trace on my seat. I actually began to admire the effect and was sorry to see the composition obliterated by a bike wash (incidentally immediately after this photo was snapped).

Thanks to another Viet (this one in Japan) for the moto! Access to wheels makes all the difference in a city like Hanoi.

The End of Apo?

2007-01-16T22:50:00.000-05:00

The late breaking news first arrived by Yahoo Messenger offline messages this morning. I am feeling very connected.

Apparently Hanoi's infamous Apocalypse Now nightclub is down and out after an evening of violence culminated in homicide. It seems it all began with an argument between two groups over a table. A fight broke out in the club, and those involved were kicked out by security guards. The fight then continue outside in the parking lot at 12:30am Sunday morning where one person was killed and three seriously injured. When I asked my friend what the weapon was, he told me "knife, we don't have gun here". The incident was described to me as gang-related.

It also seems that in the investigation afterwards the police discovered that Apo has been illegally selling untaxed alcohol. Several friends told me this was in order to compete with the New Century club across town. Apocalypse Now has been closed indefinitely because of these charges.

I can't find any English language coverage of the incident, but for those who can read it here's the Google cached text of a brief report in Vietnamese in Thanh Nien online.

Giành chỗ trong quán bar, 1 người chết
Vào hồi 0 giờ 30 ngày 14.1, tại trước cửa quán bar Apocalypse Now - “Thiên Khải” ở 2 Đông Tác, P.Trung Tự, Q.Đống Đa, Hà Nội đã xảy ra vụ đánh nhau lớn giữa 2 nhóm thanh niên. Nhóm bị chém có 4 nam 2 nữ, nhóm gây án mạng có 5 nam. Theo thông tin ban đầu, hai nhóm mâu thuẫn nhau vì tranh giành bàn rượu đã đặt chỗ. Hậu quả anh Nguyễn Huy Linh (28 tuổi, ở E8 Phương Mai, Q.Đống Đa) bị đâm chết; các anh Nguyễn Chí Huy (32 tuổi, ở E8 Phương Mai, Q.Đống Đa), Tạ Duy Thắng (31 tuổi, ở 36 ngõ 13 Giải Phóng) và Bùi Quang Hưng (36 tuổi, ở P.Hạ Đình, Q.Thanh Xuân) đều bị đâm trọng thương. Công an Q.Đống Đa đang phối hợp các đơn vị điều tra truy bắt những kẻ gây án. (N.V.C - K.T.L)

Will Apo rise again? Probably. Apparently a similarly violent episode shut down New Century several years ago and it eventually saw the light of day again. In the meantime I've been told that GC will probably experience a sudden influx of "family".

Well now I know why they have those security guards posted conspicuously around the clubs. This isn't the first bit of bar violence I've heard of in Hanoi clubs, though usually it doesn't usually end in murder. In any case, it's not like we don't have periodic club shootings here in Toronto.

Not Yet

2007-01-05T15:37:00.000-05:00

I have returned home with a backlog of stories and photos. No time to type in a two week crash-course visit. Forgive me Viet if I begin with a story about you.

Despite the fact that he was my closest friend in Hanoi, I never met Viet's family in the time I lived in Hanoi. I knew only the most anonymous things about the family he lived with just a few minutes motobike ride from my little house. He kept me entirely separate from his domestic world. In fact his family may have only learned of my existence near the end of my stay when it seems Viet was spotted by his sister on the back of my moto going up Bach Mai. Who was this Tay their son was hanging out with?

As it turns out, his mother regards Westerners with great suspicion. I am told she is a fan of Vietnamese soaps and, like my mother, has at times a very active imagination and a sense of drama. According to the world of Vietnamese television one should always be wary of the Ong Tay. You never know when he might slip something into your drink, corrupt your children with foreign influence and social evils, leading them gradually into a life of crime and depravity. Perhaps it would have come as no surprise if she'd know this Ong Tay had lived in the infamous Black Spot of Hanoi.

So this time I was very surprised to be allowed to meet Viet's mother at his aunt's house on my first day of my most recent visit. I was not prepped for the occasion except that in the narrow alley leading up to his aunt's house Viet strongly suggested I pocket my earring. I slipped it off for the remainder of my time in Hanoi.

After my rehearsed "Chao Bac" greeting, I was invited to take a place on the tile floor while Viet took care of some family business. I sat there quietly as the family discussed who-knows-what and I let my eye wander around the living room inspecting the family altar, the domestic bric-a-brac and the view to a little paved courtyard populated by a dog, a few cooking implements and some wash basins. After our initial greeting, the family paid me very little attention, hardly a sideways glance.

Finally though after about twenty minutes, Viet's mother turned to me and asked me one of the Standard Questions: "Do you have children?" In fact my Vietnamese interrogators rarely get as far as this. I am usually asked first about my marital status so the question of children is always preempted.

In comparison to Western languages Vietnamese is not a yes/no language. There is no straightforward equivalent to the English word yes, and when the question concerns the future, the Vietnamese prefer not yet to the generic word for no. Maybe this reflects a more tentative never-say-never outlook. In any case I answered the Standard Question with my Standard Response: chua (not yet). But given that this was my one opening, probably my only chance to chit chat with the family, I felt compelled to add something, and I tossed around for some other expression, some little elaboration. Showing off a bit I proudly offered: "chua lap gia dinh" - meaning, I have not yet formed a family.

An awkward pause followed. Turning away Viet then addressed his mother, then turned back to me and said: "I had told my mother you were married but did not yet have children. Now I told her you were just joking."

Apparently I had just contradicted an alibi I didn't know I had. If Viet needed some wiggle room he might just have said I didn't really know what the expression meant or I understood it differently. What does it mean to "form a family"? Does that mean to marry or to have children? It seemed to me that there was enough ambiguity here to work with.

Well the phrase is not ambiguous in Vietnamese; it clearly relates to marital status. So Viet insisted I was merely joking. Viet's mother must think Ong Tay have a very dry sense of humour - or none at all. I sat there clueless on the floor with a sincere and humourless expression on my face.

Afterwards Viet didn't seem too concerned about the whole incident, but I felt embarrassed I managed unwittingly (though through not fault of my own) to put my foot in it. It seems that while the Ong Tay may not be a criminal corrupter of youth, he may however quite naively risk blowing your cover. Obviously a little Vietnamese is much more dangerous than none at all. Mea culpa Viet. Next time I play real dumb.

Back Down the Rabbit Hole

2006-12-12T05:27:00.000-05:00

I am experiencing that weird compression of time again. Last March I felt it returning to Toronto. Now I feel it again here. It's like I was just here, like I am just picking up exactly where I left off. A whole universe in waiting. Everything is still so fresh.

I spotted Viet through the glass in the arrivals hall at the airport. He had arrived early not having been able to sleep the night before. During the cab ride to town he brought me up to speed on all the group gossip and gave me the low-down on any new players I might meet. Viet dug into his pocket and handed me my old cell phone like it was the key to the city (which it probably is). It didn't take long for the txt msgs to be flying all directions. The network was activated. How many friends did I first see on a motobike? Cell phones and motobikes - the twin emblems of modern Vietnam?

Andrew has spent weeks fixing up his new house in time for the visit. It's large and very comfortable and tucked down an obscure alleyway in Bach Khoa, the bustling academic quarter, just a street over from where I stayed with him when I arrived last year.

The first day I was kept very busy and distracted from the preparations for my "surprise" party that evening. I was not supposed to notice the strange and random appearances of friends in Andrew's alleyway. Then I seriously disrupted their careful planning by insisting on a nap mid-day. More mysterious scurrying around. Post-nap Viet whisked me up to Truc Bach Lake for coffee, then abruptly found a reason to get us to Bach Khoa by 7pm. Finally when I was let back in the house and subtely led to open the kitchen door. About fifteen very familiar faces lay just beyond. In the process of getting reacquainted I drank copious amounts of red wine. This is not a recommended approach to dealing with serious jetlag and the inevitable onset of traveller's stomach, but I had the next day to think about that.

I certainly feel well cared for. In addition to Andrew and Viet's hospitality, Lam found me a motobike. It feels wonderful to be back on wheels. Thankfully my skills at negotiating Hanoi traffic are also still very fresh.

The boys have also made a point of giving me a bit of a Hanoi makeover. I guess I reverted to my nha que Western habits and needed a few points of correction. My gold hoop earring was attracting way too much attention so it's long gone. The cuffs of my jeans had to be unrolled. Happily though they approved of the cologne I was wearing (though I didn't tell them I only own the testers).

Some cities feel like a vast expanse of surfaces, extending outward; you get to know these cities by covering ground. This city feels contained but with infinite depth; you get to know it by burrowing in. Hanoi is like a huge rabbit warren. And now that I know this world and have my connections I feel like I can easily disappear into it. It's gratifying and it's good to be back.

Noi tieng 15 Phut

2006-12-07T15:45:00.000-05:00

I'm well into my 15 phut of fame now.

A few weeks ago I arrived at work and noticed an excited little email from my Mom about an article in the travel section of The Globe & Mail (for my international readers, that's Canada's national paper). She had spotted an article entitled "Discovering Hanoi's Secret Alleys" (Nov. 22, 2006, p.T5) and thought to herself "Oh, Mark will find this interesting", and proceeded to cut it out. Then she noticed who wrote it. And who took the accompanying picture...

During the APEC buzz I had decided to adapt an old blog entry and submit it to the travel section thinking that it might help put a face on the city everyone was blathering on about in the most formulaic sort of way. I didn't know it had been accepted until it was already splashed across the country. (Unfortunately they don't publish the "Travelblog" column in their online edition so I can't link to it. Write me if you want a copy.)

My debut in the Vietnamese media had actually come several weeks earlier, when several of my publicly posted photos were picked up by the online edition of VTC News to provide some illustrations for a translated NYT story on Vietnam's acceptance to the WTO. (Rest assured that I was asked permission first. It didn't happen entirely out of the blue.) It seems my photos were used to illustrate themes such as the development, povery and the youth of the country. I hope it goes without saying that the second photo in the story is NOT mine. A more recent VTC story on the WTO used another of my photos.

And now it appears that tomorrow YFile, my university's internal online daily, will be running a story about my work last year in Hanoi! (Here it is.)

Despite all this attention, at least someone is trying their best to keep me from my Warholian moment. How else to explain the persistent mispellings of my name in the VTC photo credits. A few of my doppelgangers are getting all the credit.

Destination Hanoi

2006-12-02T22:57:00.000-05:00

In retrospect I guess I kind of painted myself into a corner when I named this blog "Six Months". Henceforth let this blog be known as "Six Months in Hanoi (& Beyond)".

The occasion for this loophole is a little plan I hatched in October to put me back in Hanoi for the holidays. In one week I'll be somewhere high in the sky in transit limbo on the way to Hanoi for a three week visit. I'm thrilled to be returning. I'll be mostly in Hanoi but will also be spending a few days in Bangkok and three in Sapa. This time Jon will be joining me, but only for two weeks since he's got to stick around here a bit longer than I do. I will blog the trip as much as possible. I imagine much of it will likely be written upon my return. It will be a whirlwind of visits; I don't know if I'll find much time to write.

I am returning only after ten months. It has been long enough that I have settled back in but brief enough that I still have all my connections. I expect it will be at least a little surreal to enter back into that world. Time felt foreshortened when I returned to Canada. I imagine I will have the same experience coming "home" to Hanoi, as if I'd only just left.

It is starting to sound like my arrival will be a kind of fugal repeat of my arrival in August 2005: Viet will be meeting me at the airport and taking the cab with me to Andrew's house in Bach Khoa where I'll be staying. Of course I won't be quite as wide-eyed as before. Viet recently told me that he sensed in me a fear and caution when I first met him in the arrivals hall as he picked up my bags and led me to a cab. I am embarrassed to admit he was probably right. I was throwing myself into the hands of a virtual stranger. I was exhilirated but so uncertain.

Now it's not the arrival but the anticipation of the subsequent departure that makes me wonder. Everything about my departure last winter anticipated my return, because I was not ready to leave. The last thing Viet said to me was "You are not going away. You are just going on another trip - but this time much longer." Will my next departure anticipate yet another return, or a reluctant and probably unconscious closure? The former I hope.

Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself. For now I have so much to look forward to.

Blog Plagiarism

2006-09-01T10:40:00.000-04:00

It is a great irony that after six months of teaching information literacy in Vietnam I become the victim of information piracy. Thanks to Technorati's link tracing feature I discovered my blog postings are being reproduced hollus bollus without attribution at this and this blog. And an even greater irony - one of the addresses is "vietnamofmine.blogspot...". Just who's experience is this?

To be fair, at least the first of Mr. Trang's blogs is called "Learning English By Other's Blog Posts". I'm very happy to let my writing be used for teaching purposes, but what about asking permission or setting up some context at the very least? And why not just use my original blog for this purpose rather than filching it?

I will admit to some ambivalence about all the flagrant intellectual property abuses that are rife in Vietnam and other Asian countries. When it comes to CDs and DVDs, the letter of the law would probably mean that the vast majority of people in Vietnam would have virtually no access to recorded music and film. It's not like Disney and Sony are yet being cheated of vast reserves of Vietnamese disposable income. But this strain of piracy carries over into so many cultural enterprises. It hardly seems necessary to pilfer content in a blog. My blog is already free. Just use it where you find it. And isn't it teacher's responsibility also to teach respect for other's work?

I have left comments on Mr. Trang's blog in the hopes that he will respond out of conscience (or write me at sixmonthshn AT gmail DOT com). At least he seems to have brought me out blog retirement.

The Nature of Blogs: Some Parting Thoughts

2006-05-05T18:20:00.000-04:00

It's time to put this beast to sleep. I've called my blog Six Months, but in fact I think I'm into my eleventh month if you include my first post last July before I left.

It's not like there isn't still material - I've still got piles of stories and experiences - but my writing has become more introspective since obviously Hanoi is inside my head no longer around me. More importantly though, my muse has fled. While in Hanoi I often had the odd experience of having my postings writing themselves in my head as if someone were feeding them to me. I don't feel that anymore, although I'm listening carefully; maybe I can find the muse hiding in some other corner of life here.

And so although I'm winding this blog down, who knows? Maybe I'll come out with another blog. If so, I'll be sure to post a quick note here with the referring address.

The truth is, the blog bug has bit me. Writing became a way for me to process what I was experiencing in Vietnam, but it was also an experience in itself. I discovered a virtual community of people engaged with trying to understand Vietnam. I continue to be an avid reader of Vietnam blogs. Although I never got around to creating a blogroll, I would have included Virtual Doug, Sticky Rice, Our Man in Hanoi, Noodlepie, and Xe Maybe. HanoiMark will continue to live in the comments sections of these and other Vietnam blogs.

Now that I am sitting at my desk back home, it's easy for me to wonder if I made a mistake in keeping my blog under wraps for so long. On the surface a blog may seem like an online journal - except for one major difference: a journal is personal and rarely has an audience, while a blog is a public medium and the idea of audience enters into its writing. I think the failure of so many blogs is that they are written as if they were mere personal diaries; they end up being impressionistic scrapbooks, like collections of notes to self.

Other blogs are have more in common with email; the readership in envisioned, but it's a specific audience. Early on I thought my blog would be an efficient substitute for broadcast emails keeping friends and family informed. This I think is the limited goal of so many travel (and family) blogs. There is an intended audience, but it reads as if the author were still filling in addresses in the TO: field. These blogs have little significance beyond those who personally know the author.

When I began writing I was very conscious of those I knew were reading my blog: friends, family and some coworkers back home. Early on I was concerned about how I could balance the demands of such different groups of people. At the same time I tried to keep the existence of my blog relatively quiet and limit my audience. For one thing, I still hadn't figured out how personal I wanted to get.

This strategy proved in vain as readers I didn't even know began to tune in. I think this is because somewhere along the line I had already abandoned the email analogy and started writing as if it mattered. I decided I would only write something when I felt I had a point. I was not travel blogging, and was not interested in posting mere descriptions or lists of places. Those things I would save for private emails when I felt the need. Instead I decided to post observations, reflections, a good story, anything I thought was a window into the culture. Once I began to write for a more general audience I became much more disciplined - not just in the writing process but in the choice of topics.

I don't know if I succeeded, but this is the peculiar potential of the blog, to become a kind of grassroots journalism, personal, engaged and yet disciplined. This is what Global Voices calls the "bridge blog", blogs that are rooted in personal experience and yet can speak to a much broader audience beyond its local context.

Although I wish I had done it earlier, opening up my audience came with certain risks. For one thing, although I adopted pseudonyms, I was still writing about people I knew and I feared them finding out. In any circumstance this would be awkward, but anyone who has read my entries about the dynamics of Vietnamese social groups (The Group, for instance) will know the value placed on confidence amongst friends in a society given to so much gossip, even when it comes to things we wouldn't consider particularly personal in the West. Furthermore, I was often writing about gay men who have more urgent reasons to keep their worlds separate. Consequently I tried not to write too personally about people I knew, even though there were some fascinating stories that were just begging to be told. Same things with pictures of people.

There were other constraints. I think anyone blogging in that part of the world probably has a nagging question about who out there is actually reading your stuff - and I don't just mean personal friends. Let's just say a little bit of self-censorship probably occurs. I'm not even talking about overtly political issues necessarily. It would have been a disaster on so many levels if my workplace had discovered me writing on workplace experiences. It would have entailed a loss of face and trust among other things.

Actually I suspect all serious bloggers probably face at least some of these constraints just by virtue of the fact that blogs are public. The freedom of the diary (even the email) is lost; what is gained is the potential to make your experiences speak to others. And to participate in virtual communities.

Speaking of communities, I'm very curious to know who my readers are. So I'll end off by inviting those of you who have been followed my blog (even just a little bit) to sign in the Comments field like a Guest Book. Or if you don't want to identify yourself, just sign it anonymously but with your whereabouts.

Since I can't guarantee I won't return with another blog, for now I'll say only Hen gap lai!

Yao Paintings Redux

2006-04-20T12:13:00.000-04:00

Sometimes it's all about the comments not the entry. This was definitely the case with my March 22nd piece entitled The Mystery of the Painted Scrolls. The entry was an experiment to see if I could harness the collective knowledge of my virtual readership to help identify and interpret two painted scrolls I purchased on the eve of my departure from Hanoi. I was not disappointed. A special thanks to Anonymous and Wulingren for helping me understand the origin and meaning of these paintings. Because the discussion happened entirely in the comments section, and I know many readers skip comments (especially when there are 22!), I thought I would give an update - though I recognize this stuff is probably too esoteric for most of my blog readers out there.

As it turns out I should not have been so dismissive of the vendor who told me the scrolls were from the Dao (aka. Yao) people in the Northern highlands of Vietnam. The Yao migrated into Southeast Asia (where they are scattered across the highlands of Yunnan, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand) after being squeezed off their land near Shanghai in the 12th Century. (I've included a photo I took of a Red Dao woman in the countryside near Than Uyen, Lai Chau Province - see my entry Heaven's Gate.) They took with them a form of Taoism which became more distinct over the years. One of the central features of Yao Taoism are sets of sacred painted scrolls displaying the deities in the Yao pantheon. These scrolls are not merely depictions of these gods - in fact, the paintings are considered to be the abode of the gods who are present within them. The paintings are used for ceremonial purposes (such as ordination). When the paintings are old and worn out, the deities are invited to leave the scrolls in a "closing of the eyes" ceremony, after which they can be sold. It seems I bought some cast-offs.

Painting #1 (click to see it) depicts the Four Messengers (or Liaison Officers) of the Governors of the four supernatural realms. The messenger for the Governor of the Sky rides the white crane at the top. The messenger for the Governor of This World comes next on the white horse. Below him is the messenger for the Governor of the Underworld on a tiger (which were thought to dig up corpses and graves). Finally we have the messenger of the Governor of the Waters at the bottom riding a dragon.

It seems these messengers have a role not unlike Hermes, shuttling back and forth between the high priests, one of whom you can see at the bottom left, and the gods. At the top left corner is the hand of a supreme deity who is receiving the messages. I still don't know who this is. The Jade Emporer?

There is a painting reproduced in J. Pourret's book "The Yao" (p. 241) with exactly the same figures in exactly the same configuration.

Wulingren was able to interpret some of the text at the margins (from the comments):

The painting seems to be a representation of what takes place on a heavenly level during an ordination ritual, and is probably hung during the ritual. In the bottom you see the teacher, in this case, surnamed Li, and the student, with tablet.... On the right side, it says, "receive the disciples of the sanyuan (translated as 3 primals, 3 origins, 3 principles--the upper primal/heaven, the middle primal/earth, and the lower primal/water).

It is still unclear what the relationship is between the 3 primals and the messengers of the four supernatural realms depicted.

Painting #2 (click to see it): I know much less about this one except that Anonymous tells me the Chinese characters at the top read "Dai Lua" which is the Taoist heaven. But who is this guy in the picture? I could find no clues in the books I've consulted on Yao paintings. Possibly he is one of the guardians of the temple? Looks like he's keeping someone at bay.

As it happens I picked up these two small folksy portraits at the same store in Hanoi. I thought very little about them and in fact mostly forgot them until i came across a section in Pourret's book on Mun Yao paper masks. I had a flash of recognition. These masks are worn by Mun Yao priests "on his forehead whenever he needs to impersonate a particular deity for the ritual at hand". Just a hunch.

By the way, the store where I bought this stuff had piles of these Yao paintings which were going for reasonable prices (though I had a Vietnamese friend with me to help me drive a hard bargain). I picked my scrolls because of their excellent condition and bright colours, but I remember seeing many very old looking ones in more muted mulberry colours (probably more historic). There has got to be some important stuff there, though many are falling apart. So, if you happen to be in Hanoi, the store is just south of the little corner of Ngo To Tich and Hang Quat in the Old Quarter (maybe 1 or 2 doors down on the east side of the street). The paintings are upstairs. While you're at it, get a trai cay dam further down the street!

Returning: One Month Later

2006-04-08T10:07:00.000-04:00

Something lay there that eluded not just me, but many who have experienced another way of life. We write about some facets of it, some surfaces, that we make our business. But the gold we find is transformed by the reverse alchemy of our journey, for there to here, into lead....What is this reality that gets left behind?

-Hugh Brody, The Other Side of Eden

Last week I saw a woman in a conical hat riding down Parliament St. Then I looked again and saw only a man on his bike wearing a large beige hood that sat like a triangle on his shoulders.

The woman seemed as natural as the man, except that she inhabits another world. I only saw her though because I was still between worlds. It's as though my body returned to Toronto, but my mind lagged behind, shifting between alternate realities, not sure where it was or wanted to be.

It's been a very long month since I returned. I expected reverse culture shock, but that was the easy part. Grief has been the greater challenge.

My first shock was the silence. I live in an urban area by North American standards, and yet the silence in the house was deafening. I felt like my ears were stuffed with cotton: no honking motobikes, no clanking dishes, no water pump motor, no barking dogs or calls from the laneway vendors. Only silence. Even outside I felt a kind of sensory deprivation. Where were are the people? A city of millions behind closed doors, an entire metropolis inside, hidden away in houses, cars and office buildings. No theatre of the street, no sea of motobikes, no adrenalin.

Of course I knew I had arrived in the midst of our winter slumber. We are only now tentatively emerging into spring but the city still waits.

The cold was one reason I hid at home for the first few days. The other reason was that I was not ready to be part of things again. Reengagement was an admission that it was all over, and I was not ready for that. That would come later when I felt like I was returning, and mentally I felt I was still in the process of leaving. I still feel that grief. My mind wanders back to the vivid world I left behind and then suddenly I reawaken to my surroundings and feel a yawning loss.

Grief is in many ways a renegotiation of identity, and my challenge has been to incorporate HanoiMark with a different self that inhabits this world. I left something behind in order to explore a new identity abroad and it is as if these two selves now meet as strangers. At first I felt distant and disconnected in my old contexts. For at least two weeks I felt tone deaf in conversations with friends. I felt I was observing our conversations but strangely never fully a part of them.

Sometimes after a vacation you experience that strange sensation when you walk into your house and somehow everything feels different. The space of your home feels altered, as if someone changed the height of the ceiling or the shade of the walls. This return had a different quality. Places seemed completely unchanged - it was the other stuff: the sounds, the conversations, the social relations, the pace of life, that all seemed strange and foreign. And maybe the fact that the places seemed all too familiar, highlighted the odd temporal character of the experience of returning. I felt I was returning, not just to a place, but to a time half a year earlier. Time itself seemed compressed and foreshortened. Because everywhere I returned felt like I had only left moments before, the six months, in their intensity and richness, seemed to inhabit some other dimension, some unrelated time.

This disconnect between worlds played out on so many levels. Most people had a very difficult time relating to my experience or knowing what to ask or say. I think it helped that many friends had been following this blog. Still I tired of answering the question "So how was it?" because the question only seemed to invite a quick summary. And then there was this one: "What was the one highlight of your time in Vietnam?" I cannot distill the experience like that. All I can say is something true but generic like "my friends" - which sounds flat to the listener who was probably hoping for something more exotic or lyrical.

I'm not sure I'd be any better at engaging someone who had returned from a place I knew nothing about. And the problem is not all theirs either. I became aware that people would tire very quickly of me beginning every sentence with "In Hanoi..." so I would censor myself. Too often the result has been a huge gulf in communication. People don't know what to ask, but then I also don't know how to get started. What remains is a sense that I experienced a very vivid dream, a world hermetically sealed off from this one both in time and quality, a private world resistant to all attempts at description.

I try to find ways to bridge these worlds. Writing helps. Also I've been able to keep in touch with so many of my Hanoi friends by chat and internet phone. I am still up on all the gossip. How long this will last I don't know. And I've tried to continue to feed my addiction to Vietnamese food. Toronto has no shortage of Viet restaurants, but then the offerings here have lost their magic. What impressed me so much before pales now in taste and variety. I haven't given up yet, but I stare at the menus here and recognize little. This is partly because most of the restaurants here are Saigonese style. Even when I have found the odd place that serves Northern delicacies I find that the dishes have inherited only the names: bun rieu, cha ca, bun cha - but rarely their essence. I've been assured by others who have returned from abroad that eventually your tastebuds forget. Is this a blessing or a curse?

In January my friends Deep and Daniel visited me in Hanoi for a weekend. They are Toronto friends but are now living in Bangkok for several years. Viet and I took them all around town on the backs of our motos. One evening we took them across the Red River to a fish restaurant in Gia Lam where we joined 6 or 7 of my Group friends and sat on grass mats eating grilled fish and hotpot. Later I told them how pleased I was that some friends had come to witness this world. It meant that I would have someone to talk to about this experience, to validate the existence of all of this, and to make it seem less like a private dream. I told Deep how I was already anticipating the challenges of returning. I worried that I'd have to box up this part of myself and put it on a shelf. "Welcome to the immigrant experience", Deep said.

Obviously my return after six months cannot approximate the profound dislocation that immigrants must feel, but at least it gives me some small insight into the challenges that can result from such cultural shifts. It also reminds me of the richness of place that sometimes seems to resists language. I can see how this surfeit of experience could defeat and silence - or inspire acts of imaginative expression.

Deep agreed that probably part of this experience would sit sealed in a box. But he also assured me that it is never really forgotten. "There will be times you'll need it, and you will take it again off the shelf."

The Mystery of the Painted Scrolls

2006-03-22T04:25:00.000-05:00

I had a full six months to do my shopping in Hanoi, but human nature being what it is, I left it to the last minute. Here is another reason why my last week in Hanoi was intense. I spent a few manic afternoons running around stores picking up things like eggshell laquer trays, rosewood chopstick sets, Hmong bookmarks and a pair of stuffed water buffaloes for my niece and nephew.

I also happened upon these two paintings (click on the thumbnails for larger images). I guarded them jealously during my flight home and somehow they survived all the way to Toronto without being crushed by luggage. Now they are framed and waiting to be hung on my walls.

The problem is, I don't know what they are.

I want to try an experiment. There is so much talk these days about the role of virtual communities in the creation and sharing of knowledge. I'm not sure who out there reads my blog, but I'm hoping I can harness some of that collective brain power to help interpret these images.

Painting # 1 (above): My friend Dat didn't know what it was, but he has a theory: these are not six different mandarins, but one. He thinks the painting depicts the adventures of this character as he rides around on sacred animals (a dragon, tiger, phoenix, white horse). He carries with him a wooden card inscribed with his name and rank. At the bottom we have what appears to be an official of some sort, and at the top we have a divine hand. Dat thought the hand belongs to a female divinity because of the fingers and the style of robe. Or is it the Jade Emperor? It's not clear which direction Mr. Mandarin is going.

Painting #2 (right): I wondered whether this is a Dvarapala, one of the guardians of a pagoda. The sword and the stern expression seem to suggest that he might have some role in frightening off evil spirits. These figures are usually in pairs, with one on either side of the entrance to a pagoda. The platform on which he is seated is offset so maybe there was originally another figure on the other side to provide symmetry. My friend Hung suggests instead that this is also a mandarin. Apparently the gate above his head reads "Heavenly Man".

The woman I bought them from couldn't help me. She would only tell me that they were painted by Red Dao people in the Far North of Vietnam. I am not convinced of that. I am unsure of the age of the paintings, but the paper was worn and ragged.

Anyway, those are my best guesses. I may be wildly off. I claim no expertise in these things, but would love to hear other ideas. Please make liberal use of the Comments button below.

My Photographic Diary

2006-03-16T02:06:00.000-05:00

My six months are up, but my blog continues - for now anyway. I've still got a few entries in me, so don't give up on HanoiMark yet.

I intend to write a piece on the experience of reentry which has not been easy. One of the more productive ways I have been dealing with my return has been to organize and publish the best of my photos from the last six months on a Flickr website (click here to see). I admit I have a hard time weeding out photos, so it may be more than anyone cares to view. Feel free to view them selectively, even though I think they look best using the slideshow feature.

Note: They are not all of Hanoi. I've created sets of other places in Vietnam, and included piles of pictures of Laos. Also, I have excluded pictures of friends for reasons of confidentiality.

I have always regretted that I could not blog more about my incredible Vietnamese friends, but I have avoided getting too personal in order to protect their privacy. It seems to me that there is a paradox in Hanoi society. Life is at the same time more public and more private than it is in the West. On one level, everything is everyone's business. Life is lived more on the street than behind closed doors, and everyone loves to talk. At another level though it seems that people respond to this by carefully shielding parts of themselves. It always seemed taboo to broadcast personal stories learned in confidence - especially when many of those stories involve sexual identity.

The same goes for photographs, so while I'd love to post pictures of friends (to illustrate for instance the way Group A would occupy my living room), I think it would be unwise.

Flickr is much more than photo viewing tool. Like a blog, it also allows for comments, so if you have a question or a comment, feel free...

Both Sides Now

2006-03-10T09:52:00.000-05:00

A few days before my departure I was invited to a house party hosted by two Americans. The party was split down the middle, expat and Vietnamese, so it seemed an appropriate anticipation of my transition back to the West.

I've written a lot about the way Vietnamese socialize in groups. The differences with Western modes of socializing were in stark contrast at this party. Predictably all the expats gravitated towards the kitchen. The Vietnamese meanwhile camped out in the living room. But the way they were relating was the most interesting thing.

I didn't know any of the expats, but all I had to do was stand around a few minutes in the kitchen before a few people introduced themselves. Although these introductions were generally stiff and awkward ("Hi, my name is Barbara. How long have you been in Hanoi?"), I was still struck by the peculiarity of this sort of cocktail conversation in which strangers introduce themselves and search for intersecting interests. There should be nothing unusual about this except that I could see it fresh after being away from it all for so long. Here was a room full of mostly unrelated individuals chatting in small clusters, mixing and regrouping throughout the evening. All the sudden I could see the fluidity of the Western kind of socializing. There was a kind of randomness and serendipity, like atoms bouncing off each other.

In the living room there was no mixing and mingling whatsoever. Instead the Vietnamese group all knew each other and hung together like a big family. They were essentially draped over each other on the couch and the floor. If you didn't know them already there would be little way to break in. But in contrast to the random fluidity in the kitchen was warmth and casual intimacy. Once I'd had my fill of finger food I opted for the living room where I curled up the couch with the rest of them.

Now I am back in Toronto and this contrast is even starker. In Hanoi I would sometimes complain about the cliquey-ness (sp?) and the fact that people wouldn't talk to others outside their group. Now I can see the good and the bad of each pattern. We Westerners may be better at introductions, and mixing and mingling, our social networks may be more open and less defined, but intimacy between friends doesn't seem to come as easy for us.

I don't know if the patterns I saw were specific to the gay community, or reflective of wider society. I also don't know if they are specific to Vietnam or other Asian culture, but when I shared my observations with a Singaporian friend here, he recognized it all immediately. When he moved to Canada two years ago, he felt isolated. Sure you can meet people, but social plans have to be arranged a week in advance. You do not have to break your way into a clique and to this extent it might seem less complicated, but people only have so much time for you because they are busy balancing their other social commitments.

Despite the closed nature of the groups I experienced in Hanoi, they afforded a family-like intimacy. No need to make plans days in advance because it was taken for granted that the group would hang out. One phone call and half an hour later the group might be meeting for coffee or bia hoi.

I may have a large social network here, but my mobile phone rings only occasionally. I miss that intense interconnectedness, and the way I was always receiving new text messages. I miss the spontaneity and the feeling of being embraced by a close-knit family of friends.

Travel may be a outward exploration but it is also about the discovery of self. It's about the return as well as the voyage. There are moments when you suddenly discover the peculiarity of who you are and where you come from, and this party off Nguyen Thai Hoc was one of those moments.

In the end I succeeded in breaking down some of the barriers between two groups in Hanoi. (I will have to save that for another post.) Now the challenge is to bring more of that warmth and spontaneity into my Canadian social world.

Leaving

2006-03-08T07:24:00.000-05:00

Maybe it's schadenfreude, but it made me feel a bit better to read other Vietnam expat bloggers lamenting their imminent departures on Noodlepie. Never mind that the remaining time for the author of Noodlepie is roughly the length of time I had in Hanoi in total.

Expats come and go from Hanoi all the time. I keep wondering if it is normal to feel so traumatized, especially after just six and a half months. It has taken me a week to feel I can even write about it.

Someone brought a Torontonian to my farewell party. He was also about to leave Hanoi, and he couldn't wait to get out. He was tired of not being able to communicate, tired of the chaos and poor hygiene, tired of being followed in clothing stores. My colleague also told me about this year's batch of Australian Youth Ambassadors who all hung out together each weekend, going for coffee at Puku and drinking at Barracuda. They couldn't wait to go home, but from the sounds of it they had never actually left.

It may have only been half a year, but it was a whole world. I get irritated when people ask me, how was your trip?, as if I was just another backpacker on an extended fantasy. Despite the relative brevity of my time, my life there was full and three dimensional, and I developed strong attachments to people who have come to feel like family. Saying goodbye to them was painful. Leaving Toronto had not been so hard because I knew I was returning.

In a previous post I talked about my farewell party dilemma and how I couldn't just throw a bash for all and sundry because of complicated group politics. So there were two parties, one with an eclectic group of friends at Chim Sao on Ngo Hue, and the other with Group A on the roof of Highway 4 on Mai Hac De. I was so busy during my last week that I wasn't actually prepared for the finality of the goodbyes after the parties. Suddenly people got up to leave on Saturday night and I was faced with the unthinkable. My experience of leaving Hanoi was of suddenly seeing the loss of a whole community. I know I will return, but I will never regain that world.

Viet stayed over that last night. In the morning I awoke in darkness before the alarm. My packed bags were waiting for me in the living room. Viet couldn't sleep either. Hungry and restless we got on his motobike and rode up Lo Duc for my last bowl of pho, on the sidewalk under a tarp sheltering us from the light rain. Afterwards on the way home I asked Viet to take me for one last loop around Hoan Kiem Lake. He turned his bike around but insisted that this would not be my last time. It was still early and the park around the lake was full of seniors, strolling, practising tai chi, and playing badminton. If you pass by here in forty years, Viet said, look for me and you will probably see me doing the same.

When we got back, my landlord was already waiting. Moments later it seemed and the cab had arrived, my bags were in the trunk and the car door was open waiting for me, but I couldn't get in. I was a mess, but Viet was stoic. As we embraced he said to me that I was not leaving Hanoi, I was only going on another trip, but this time much longer. I got in and watched my house and Viet disappear out the cab window behind me.

My Moveable Feast

2006-02-21T10:06:00.000-05:00

On one of my last nights in Vietnam three years ago, I remember hopping on a xe om to check out the New Century Club here in Hanoi. I felt a small victory learning how to negotiate a xe om after a month in the country. As I was riding the motobike down the side of Hoan Kiem Lake at night past the Thap Rua Tower I had a sudden sense of freedom and an uncanny feeling that this city could feel like home. It was a feeling I could not get out of my head.

Now several years later I am on the verge of another departure. This time though I am not left with a premonition of what might be but with a memories of a fulfilled dream, of a deeper relationship with this city.

There have been times I been cynical about the extreme lyricism of so many of the portrayals of Vietnam: langourous, dreamy, and rice paddy green. But now when I think back over the last half year, despite the chaos, dust and grey winter mornings I do find a kind of lyricism in my memories. So I hope you'll forgive me if I indulge in a few of the most vivid images and experiences I take away with me.

Hanoi from Under a Raincoat
This ride was on the way to lunch on the other side of town. It was raining and cold. Viet drove and I sat behind him hidden under his big plastic poncho raincoat. Mostly I experienced the sound of the Hanoi street: the honking, the sounds of motors, the clanking of soup bowls, snippets of incomprehensible conversations in passing. I could see only whatever random flashes the flapping of the raincoat revealed: wet feet, wheels, red plastic stools, puddles, metal rods balanced on a cyclo, the trunk of a banyan tree pushing through the cracked pavement. All of this I experienced from within the intimacy of the raincoat I shared with Viet, with my head on his shoulder, my arms wrapped around him and my hands in his warm coat pockets.

Hung at the Altar
Shortly after I met him Hung offered to take me out on the back of his black Vespa to Bac Ninh Province for the day to see pagodas (see "Village Life"). It was hot late summer day and the dry roads blew grit in our teeth. From on top of one of the Delta dyke roads you could see the countryside stretch out punctuated with little villages and orange brick kilns. Hung first took me to Chua Dau. There are more spectacular pagodas, but this one has an austerity, a serenity. Hung was my cultural interpreter and helped make sense of the religious imagery. Each time we approached an altar Hung would first bow his handsome head and quietly pray. Each time I was deeply moved. It was something about seeing him shift from talking about to participating in. I humbly put away my camera.

Summer Storm in Bach Khoa
It must have been my first day because I asked Viet to take me to an internet cafe so I could write home to say that I had arrived safely in Hanoi. It was sweltering and he took me to a tiny internet cafe where we squeezed between the chairs to the two remaining computers at the back. The weak air conditioning had little effect with all those bodies in such a narrow space; the strong fans helped more. Suddenly the heavens outside opened and let loose a storm like I have never seen. I was alarmed but no one else batted an eye at what is in fact a daily occurence during this wet season. The streets flooded in a matter of minutes and I was without a raincoat. After waiting in vain for a few minutes Viet found a way for us to hop from awning to awning down the street until we succeeded in picking up a cheap plastic raincoat and a couple of caramel puddings which we ate in a little tile floored storefront open to a sheets of pounding rain.

Upstairs at Cafe Nang with Dat
Dat introduced me to Cafe Nang and it will always be linked to him in my memory. Dat is one of the proudest Hanoians I know. It's unusual for such a young man to have such a passion for the history and traditions of his city. When he would walk through the Old Quarter it was always as if he was discovering the streets for the first time. He took it upon himself to show me the quirkiest little joints hidden down alleyways and up secret staircases, and Cafe Nang was one of my favourites. He showed me the little marble staircase at the back of the cafe. It always felt so Alice in Wonderland squeezing our way up, passing through a tiny ancient kitchen lined with drip coffee filters, to a little room littered with the cracked shells of red watermelon seed shells. There we would drink nau da and watch the drama that is the meeting of Hang Bac and Hang Be. With Dat I felt I had been let in on a secret world, a world of street vendors, plastic stools, and cafes with broken plaster that had not been painted since the French pulled out.

The Kittens
I was usually the last to be informed of the gatherings at my house. Vo Thi Sau became the Group clubhouse and I was always happy to oblige. The doorbell would ring and there would be a pod of bikes outside in the lane waiting to turn my front room into a parking lot. The guys would deposit a pile of shoes at the foot of the stairs in my kitchen and head upstairs to my living room. Someone would bring a bag of fruit to be carved up and devoured. Hardly anyone would drink a drop. My furniture always seemed to be an awkward imposition. Instead they would throw the cushions on the floor and pile on, curling up, leaning on each other, limbs all overlapping. Like a litter of kittens I thought.

Embraced
Viet, Hung and I found ourselves out across town with only one motobike. It's supposed to be illegal to ride with more than two but it's a common sight and we piled on anyway. Hung drove, I rested my head on the back of his neck, and Viet sat snuggly behind me. Motobikes afford a kind of intimacy amidst chaos, and there is a powerful feeling to this paradox. I have many fond memories of conversations with Viet while we rode slowly around the city late at night with my chin on his shoulder. Then there is the physical intimacy; doubling on bikes is in fact a form of public spooning. During this particular ride I felt a supreme happiness. I surrendered to the warmth and care of two of my best friends, embraced in this little corner of Vietnamese life.

Market Abstractions

2006-02-18T08:54:00.000-05:00

I'm a sucker for markets. It doesn't matter where I am, I seek them out. You would think all those hours shucking corn and selling potatoes in the basement of the Hamilton Farmers' Market as a kid would have killed my interest. Somehow that tedious experience never succeeded in spoiling the fascination.

I am now in Luang Prabang, Laos. I never intended this to be a travel blog. I'm not particularly interested in publishing a catalogue of places. So instead of going on about the golden wats, saffron robes, and my conversations with monks (all incredible of course), I am offering a little photo essay on markets, and those of Vientiane and Luang Prabang in particular.

My pointillist cherry tomato and eggplant composition above got me thinking about the incredible abstract potential of piles of food. Who said still life had to be representational?

Today in Luang Prabang's Talat Phousi I passed by a big vat of blood pudding that looked very Mark Rothko. The bright red blocks floated in a deeper red bath. Red on red. It's a shame I didn't have the stomach to hang around the meat section longer. So this exhibition is vegetarian in nature. Maybe it's the influence of all those saffron-robed monks I've been chatting to over the last couple days.

Never The Twain

2006-02-09T06:39:00.000-05:00

One thing that half a year in a country will do is to strip away some of the layers of fantasy and orientalism that are unconscious to many of us in the West. During my first encounter with this country three years ago as a tourist I vacillated between thinking I could understood the place and a feeling of profound incomprehension. Both reactions are off the mark but inevitable. Over time the experience of the exotic has been replaced by an understanding of the Vietnamese world as lived, and gradually I can begin to see how the horizons of East and West overlap and on occasion even fuse.

Of course six months is not a long time all things considered, and there are still many cultural differences that truly baffle me. These are phenomenon whose inner logic escapes me. Now that my days here are seriously numbered all can do is describe some of them and surrender for now my attempts at true understanding.

No Thank You
The constant need to say thank you is deeply ingrained in the Western brain (maybe especially in Canadian ones). There are casual thank yous and then there are heartfelt ones. I completely understand how absurd the casual thank you can appear to the Vietnamese. When we are at a restaurant we say thank you when the waiter brings the bill. But why would we do this? This is all part of the waiter's expected role, not some kind of personal mitzvah. Besides, why would you thank someone for asking for money? Ditto with the kind but wimpy way Westerners tend to deal with hawkers pestering them on the street. I've heard tourists proudly use the literal Vietnamese translation of "No, thank you". Thanks for what? Seeing me as a source of income? There is no rational reason to thank people for merely fulfilling roles.

All Action, No Talk
Then there is the heartfelt thank you. I have been on the receiving end of so many generous acts here and I truly want to express a deep sense of gratitude. "Thank you" is fine in this context, but all that's needed is a quick understated "thanks". I have trouble with this because I sometimes experience a surplus of unexpressed gratitude, but if you go too far it's seen as overly formal and even possibly insincere. On one occasion I was even told that my thanks were unnecessary, and that true thanks are expressed by doing something in return - ie. words can be cheap. The opposite could be true for the Western sensibility with this expectation cynically interpreted as some kind of debt that is due - I scratch your back, you scratch mine. So which is more "authentic", saying or doing? And this leads to my next theme.

Direct/Indirect
People here can be very direct with some things. I have been told point blank that I have bad skin, I am too hairy, I am lazy and of course I speak atrocious Vietnamese. If you are fat you will probably be told that to your face on a daily basis. And on a linguistic level the imperative is far more acceptable here than our Western way of couching requests in indirect niceties; the Vietnamese tell you what to do, while we preface requests with things like "would you mind?" or "can you please?"

Other things though are never to be expressed outright. Direct Western style expression is apparently seen as crude and confrontational as compared to the subtle approach used here. If you have a beef with someone, don't tell them - suggest it in a roundabout way to a mutual friend, ask them not to say anything, and watch as it make it's way back anyway. I have had several issues brought to my attention this way. I was once mystified by something that happened with a friend. I tried to ask directly for an explanation, but hit a stone wall. The harder I tried, the less I got. I understood much more later when things came out in a more by-the-way and less forced fashion. Sometimes though this kind of subtlety is completely lost on us foreigners. When a Western colleague began his contract he was fed apparently free lunches for several weeks before he suggested that they should really be asking staff to pay at least something. "We are so glad you finally asked," came the response, "Everyone's talking about your freeloading" ...or words to that effect.

Closed Social Networks
I am going away soon and I was contemplating a farewell house party. What could be more normal than inviting all my friends over for a big bash? In fact it would be like watching a train wreck in slow motion. You can know several "groups", but you shouldn't try mixing them. I have tried. Social networks are closed systems, at least in the gay world. The Vietnamese I know are generally lousy at introductions. You can be talking to a friend, someone else will appear but no word on their name or identity. The introductions I have attempted have fallen flat. All the groups I know hang out at the same places and know each other at least by sight, but there is little talk between groups. People go to clubs to hang out with their groups, rarely to actually meet anyone new (In fact I've almost never seen this happen in my group). I have asked friends why they don't talk to people in other groups (especially since the gay world here is so damn small), and I have consistently been told that they have nothing to say to each other and that conversations would be awkward and boring. Somehow talk is group-specific.

What baffles me even more is how groups form to begin with given these rigid social structures. One thing is certain though, people are only truly admitted to a group if they fit a certain profile and they improve the collective image. Outside the public realm though individuals associate much more freely. If you dig a bit you will find that are wider personal networks that belie the public patterns of group interaction. This tension between personal and group relations that makes for fascinating intrigue. There are people I'm friends with on a one-to-one basis, but who are actually quite distant in public spaces. I now know not to be offended by this.

I don't intend any of this to sound judgmental. These are just some of the things I don't understand. The longer I am here the more complex things become. Sometimes trying to figure it out can be like looking at a night sky in which faint stars recede when you try to stare them down, but reappear when you take in the whole panorama. Certain cultural phenomena appear odd or even absurd in isolation but are strangely intelligible within a larger context. But six months doesn't get me there (does a lifetime?) and still so much escapes me?

The NYT Hanoi Food Debate

2006-02-07T11:51:00.000-05:00

The New York Times recently published an article on the burgeoning Hanoi restaurant scene ("Restauranteurs Push Hanoi Food into the Future" by Matt Gross, Feb. 5, 2006). I was feeling a bit cranky pants the day I read it because of its bias towards elite restaurants and the way I felt it was snubbing the rich tradition of Hanoi street food. I never really set out to write editorial comments. Usually I just get worked up and unconsciously compose something in my head, which is what happened here. My purpose was to start a debate about the tension between traditional dishes and the haute cuisine that reinterprets them. Also I wanted to try to move the discussion beyond what I feel is a kind of North/South parochialism. I guess I succeeded. The NYT author responded at length.

As a librarian I will do the responsible thing and point to the debate at its source rather than reproduce text from another blog.

McDonalds Free Zone

2006-02-04T23:45:00.000-05:00

Last week I had the peculiar experience of watching the documentary Supersize Me with a friend who had never heard of McDonalds. It was completely lost on him. In fact Viet fell asleep after about 20 minutes. Apparently it was strange and incomprehensible in a land without fast food.

Last month Viet and I were in Bangkok and passed by the first Golden Arches I'd seen in nearly five months. It was a novelty enough for me to comment on it. Viet just had a blank look. Never seen or heard of it. So I tried to explain the fast food phenomenon. While I was at it I pointed out the KFC next door. All of it a new concept.

It's not that Vietnam is unglobalized. Viet may not be eating globalized fast food schlock, but he listens to The Black Eyed Peas and various other hip hop ambassadors. (He's also into army fatigues which I just can't understand. I have tried to point out the irony of his wearing a U.S. Army jacket to no avail. Have you taken a look at the Long Bien bridge anytime over the last 30 years, I want to ask him?)

Nonetheless there is something so refreshing about a land without fast food chains. From what I understand foreign conglomerates need real local partners. They won't let the money just flow out without some kind of meaningful local investment. I guess the Kroc family doesn't see much in it for them given these conditions, and thank God for that. There are some homegrown chains here though. The big one in Hanoi is Highlands Coffee, the Vietnamese equivalent of Starbucks - slick and standardized, with all the best locations, including a big balcony overlooking Hoan Kiem Lake and, my personal favourite, a permanently docked boat on West Lake. Other than a few instances like that (Pho 24 is another) the businesses here are generally small home-grown family affairs. Quirky charm and personality are the name of the game.

However, as you can see I did succeed in spotting one pair of Golden Arches in Hanoi recently. I'm not sure how the McDonald's mystique adds to the success of little Ca Phe Hanh in a country without fast food chain brand recognition. Ironically though it speaks to the thorough absence of McDonald's here. It seems not even this blatant trademark violation succeeds in provoking a cease and desist order in this little corner of the world. More power to the underdog is what I say!

Tet

2006-01-29T06:43:00.000-05:00

Coriander & Peach Branches
Dat took me out on Thursday to help me prepare my house for Tet. First the peach blossoms. We rode up to the outdoor Tet Market on Hang Luoc and bargained for a branch. Even though Dat approached the flower lady and I was purposely several steps behind, she was still too clever for her own good and tried to quote him an unbelievably ridiculous 400,000VND. Dat succeeded in charming her and we walked away with my branch for a mere tenth of the initial price. On the way back home Dat pulled up to a woman peddling herbs from the back of her bike: flowering coriander. All set, we returned to my house where we charred the base of the peach branch (stops the sap from escaping) and set it up in a vase in the living room. And this morning I did as instructed and boiled up the coriander and bathed with the fragrant water - a ritual prescription for thorough cleansing. I emerged from my herbal broth ready for a very savoury new year.

Lessons at the Family Altar
I was invited to Tet Eve lunch at my friend Thach's family's home. His father is a scholar of German and is responsible for authoritative Vietnamese translations of Goethe, Heine, ETA Hoffman. The conversation over lunch alternated between three languages, with no one person actually understanding more than two. Thach's father explained Tet traditions and Vietnamese spirituality in German. My understanding was always approximate; I had never heard German words for Vietnamese concepts. He led me upstairs to an incense-filled room with the family altar which he explained to me. He then asked that I also pray there, to the Buddha and the spirits of their ancestors. Lunch was traditional Tet: bamboo shoots, nem, chicken pieces and of course banh chung. I went home with a banana leaf wrapped banh chung in the basket of my moto.

Fire
Tet Eve dinner at another friend's family home. We ate almost the same traditional Tet meal. Midnight is a sacred moment for Vietnamese families when the house is sealed and then reopened by a guest specially selected as auspicious, so I made myself scarce at about 10:30. This also made it possible to make my way to meet a friend at Hoan Kiem for the fireworks over the lake at midnight. Once the crowds dispersed a bit we went in search of active pagodas - not hard to find just after Tet midnight in central Hanoi. The most magical was the incense-filled Chua Ba Da near the Cathedral. I returned home at about 1:30 but couldn't fall asleep. The atmosphere outside still felt electric with the sound of firecrackers and drums. Instead I wandered up to my rooftop to look down on the lake behind my house. At the far edge the sound of live drums, flutes and singing emanated from within some kind of complex (a temple or communal house?). At the lakeside several people built a bonfire of paper offerings and the tall orange flames reflected across the lake's surface.

The Pagoda Circuit
The visits begin in earnest after midnight and last for several days (and several months in the case of the holiest pilgrimage site, the Perfume Pagoda). On the first day of Tet I started things off with a visit to Ngoc Son Temple (holy though not actually a pagoda) in the middle of Hoan Kiem Lake. The beautiful square flags were out in full force as they are all over town. Afterwards I rode up to West Lake to one of the holiest sites in Hanoi, Chua Tran Quoc (see pic above). Finally a visit to one of my favourite neighbourhood spots, Chua Lien Phai which is tucked discretely down a rabbit warren alleyway off Bach Mai. Although it's hardly a secret, it's obscure location ensured that I was the only foreigner present. I arrived in the middle of hypnotic chants led by one of the yellow-robed resident monks.

Recently some ludicrous business type suggested in an newspaper column that Vietnam would be wise to abandon its faithful observance of Tet ritual because it's bad for business. Never mind the clueless tourist who gets stuck wandering empty streets. He was more concerned about the heaps of lost opportunity as Vietnam steps out of time - and the stockmarket - for a week. Of course this is just the beauty of it, to watch as a whole society switches back to its native calendar with its spiritual and symbolic markers. There are few things more powerful that seeing the whole world stop, and then gradually begin afresh.

The Kitchen God Departs

2006-01-24T11:03:00.000-05:00

It's not unusual to see little conflagrations in the street gutters at certain times of the lunar month here in Vietnam. Usually these paper offerings consist of fake (US) money, and occasionally paper replicas of other items your ancestors might need in the afterlife: furniture, motobikes, cars, maybe even a cellphone. Last weekend though it seemed to be getting a little out of hand so I start inquiring what was going on.

It turns out the Kitchen God was about to depart and would be needing a few things for his annual visit to the Jade Emperor. Ideally you want Ong Tao, as he's also known, to be comfortable on his voyage to ensure that he doesn't badmouth you and your family thus sealing your fate for the coming year.

The Tet countdown is on. The 23rd of the lunar month is final date of departure for your home's own personal god of the hearth. He rides a carp to heaven and so you will also see many people releasing small fish in the many lakes and ponds of Hanoi. Like Christmas or Easter, Tet is not just a day, but a whole ritual stretching several weeks. We are down to four days.

The closer we get the more riotous the streets. I rode part way up the dyke road this morning to check out the procession of kumquat trees and fruit blossoms. Pink peach blossoms are traditional in the North, but you can also see the yellow apricot blossoms more common to South Vietnam. These branches, bushes and trees are ubiquitous right now, but the parade of trees reaches it's zenith along the dyke road which leads to the flower market. The whole road becomes a massive outdoor garden store. Each side is lined the entire way with trees, pots, flowers, and branches. Needless to say you won't get anywhere fast on this road right now. From an aerial view the traffic must look like a giant botanical river. It seemed like every second motobike had a kumquat or peach tree strapped to it.

Tomorrow Dat will come over and help me buy my very own peach branch for my living room.

Since I have been invited to the homes a few friends I have also been shopping for gifts for their families. The most appropriate Tet gift is a selection of dried fruit. These are nothing like our bland dried prunes back home. There are a million varieties and are preserved in sugar and often have a chile or ginger zing to them. I'm addicted.

I was also warned to do a little food shopping for the house since everything will be shut down and the unprepared expat can go starving for a couple days. Actually my friends have said that regardless this fate will not befall me. They will take care of me and invite me to their homes for the traditional banh chung.

Stay tuned for more Tet reports!

The Banyan Tree Musical Club

2006-01-14T08:09:00.000-05:00

There is a travel article that needs to be written entitled "Hanoi: Beyond the Old Quarter". Most tourists have no sense what's out there. It helps if you have a motobike and don't mind risking your life squeezing your bike down narrow lane ways and dodging the oncoming obstacles, not to mention the ones that pop out sideways from hidden doorways.

Last Saturday I took advantage of the warm weather (ahhh, 25C in January!) and hoped on my bike with my map and the intention to worm my way across the city using only obscure laneways. My eventual destination: the Temple of the Kneeling Elephants (Den Voi Phuc) near the botanical gardens.

I still can't get over Hanoi's network of lanes. This is the Hanoi tourists are oblivious to. In fact, these are where most Hanoians live and it is one reason why this city will always be at least somewhat resistant to cars. They can only be reached by foot or two wheeled vehicles and they can be long! God forbid my motobike were to break down in the middle of one and I'd have to walk my way out.

I'm pretty good knowing my way around the main streets of Hanoi, but then every large city block seems to contain a vast terra incognita. I still can't figure out how to penetrate into the core of the block I live in, even though I can see acres of houses from my rooftop. Also it seems so many of Hanoi's 150 plus lakes are hidden smack in the middle of these blocks and invisible from the main streets.

So I took the very long way through the city, popping out onto main streets and slipping back into side streets on the other side. Eventually I made it to the Temple of the Kneeling Elephants, named after the creatures guarding the entrance. This is one of the four temples, one for each cardinal direction, that are supposed to protect the city from evil forces. It was built in the 11th century in honour of Linh Lang, son of Emperor Ly Thanh Tong, and one of the mythical Vietnamese boy-heroes who fought off the Chinese.

It's a charming little temple and, since it turned out to be the 15th of the lunar month, it was hopping inside. On the temple path though I was distracted by a little gathering of old-timers under a huge banyan tree who were using the temple gate as a stage for music making. A couple of erhus and banjo type stringed instruments were being used to accompany the singers up on the gate steps. When I stopped to listen they waved for me to come and sit down but I declined and went on to the temple. On my way back though, I paused again and this time a friendly old guy lept up, grabbed my arm and dragged me over to the table. So I gave in, sat down and let them feed me little mandarin oranges and candy. I was there for an hour.

They were so friendly that at first I suspected they might in fact be drunk. I suppose the amber liquid coming out of those thermoses could have been some kind of herbal ruou, but actually I think they were just high on life or something. In any case, they seemed thrilled to have me as their guest and took turns sitting next to me, shoving food in my face and trying to quiz me. So much for the supposed crusty reserved character of Hanoians. (This reputation is completely unfounded in my experience.)

Of course I let them indulge in the usual series of questions, but conversation was naturally limited. This older generation would have had few opportunities to learn English. In fact, for years of their lives it would have been illegal. Instead when my Vietnamese skills were clearly exhausted they tried the languages of their generation: Chinese, Russian, French. One lady was especially determined to communicate. She got all animated when she learned I was from Toronto. Something about her son, studying, Toronto, March, here is his phone number. At a crucial moment an older toothless stringed instrument player suddenly appeared at my side and began speaking German. Why not? White guy. Must know German.

Actually German is not so uncommon among older generations. This is one of the legacies of the political connection with the former East Germany. Through my interpreter I clarified. Her 23 year old son will be moving to Toronto in March to study. Like a good mother she saw an opportunity here. Will I meet him, she wanted to know?

I was hesitant at first, but actually I am happy to oblige. Not to get mushy, but the kindness and generosity shown to me here has been overwhelming at times. From the very beginning I have been embraced by so many people who have gone out of their way to open up their lives to me. It has often made me wonder to what extent we truly welcome newcomers to Canadian society. And when we do, how often is our hospitality offered out of self-conscious charity rather than a willingness to truly make new spaces in our personal lives. I am glad to have the opportunity to return a bit of the favour. Tonight I will meet Thang at a cafe on Ly Thuong Kiet.

The Delta Wedding

2006-01-11T05:40:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I get so caught up in what has become my routine life here that I start to wonder if I have anything left to write. Then suddenly I will find myself in the middle of something and the narrator starts up in my head. Then I know I've happened upon something blogworthy. Yesterday I experienced just such a "clearing".

The occasion was a colleague's wedding in her Delta village 40 kms. away. I didn't really expect it to be particularly interesting based on my previous experience at a Vietnamese wedding - fun but nothing to write at length about.

I almost didn't go. Generally the entire workplace is invited to weddings, though you are not really obliged to attend. The day before my other colleagues had been non-commital and I was also hesitant to ride out there. 40 kms may not seem much by North American standards, but is taxing with a moto on dusty and chaotic country roads. It took us just over an hour. I seem to have graduated to moto competency so I was asked to give a ride to one of my colleagues. The road out was full of life, which is not always a good thing when you are driving. Once we got beyond the city limits so many sights conspired to distract my attention from the road: wagons drawn by horses and oxen, ancient looking pagoda complexes tucked away along village streets, roadside bamboo factories, joss sticks laid out on the road to dry, impossibly stacked motobikes, etc.

We arrived at about 9:30am. We could spot the wedding house by the big blue tent outside framed by balloons, disco music pulsing within. We were seated in the courtyard of the bride's family home, for potent green tea and plates of pumpkin and watermelon seeds. These seeds are a perennial favourite in cafes, but apparently require a lifetime of experience (or Vietnamese genes) to split open properly with your teeth and pluck out the kernel. I spent much of the wedding practicing on the more brittle pumpkin seeds. I wouldn't dare humiliate myself on the watermelon variety which appear to be shellacked and hardened. Everyone make it look so easy. So much work for such a little crumb of a seed. Addictive though.

When I wasn't busy gnashing my teeth on bits of nothing I found myself entertaining the bride's family and friends. I was the only foreigner at the wedding and probably the first one to be spotted down the village side-streets in eons. I think my presence was appreciated - I'm not sure if my being there was novelty, honour or simply freak-show entertainment. The kids seemed especially fascinated. A shy four year old boy asked his father to come tell me that he had been to Australia!

When it was time for lunch (at 10am!) we went a few doors down to another house where the tables were laid with eight different dishes of dog meat. I don't even want to think about how many kennels were emptied out for this feast. Sometimes I feel guilty harping on such things because they play into the exotic and distorted image Vietnam has abroad, when in fact sometimes eating things like dog meat (or frog stomach, another recent culinary adventure) just seems pedestrian in its native context. There is a kind of truth in naivety and the experience of things as novel; at the same time this way of seeing is not true to the experience in its real world context.

To be honest though dog meat is distasteful even to some Vietnamese. My colleague next to me wouldn't touch it. This was my second time eating dog (see "Cellphones, Gyms and Dog Meat"), and I must admit that I enjoyed it much more this time. The meat was less fatty and grisly and instead of the usual mam tom (lethal shrimp sauce) there was a greyish dip, which looked like bean dip but turned out to be made of unspecified dog organs cooked with herbs. I know what you are thinking, but I should confess. I actually liked it. It had a nice lemongrassy taste. I also enjoyed the little ribs which had been braised until the meat slipped off the bone. Melt in your mouth doggie. I just wish the dishes had not been cold (instead - shall I say it? - hot dog). Well, I think that's enough for now. No need to go into the details of each of the eight canine concoctions.

I don't know why but people just seemed to nibble at the food. I was however famished after the ride, even at this premature hour of 10am, and chowed down. The sight of a foreigner digging into dog was of course of great amusement to the table. Once they got over it, they started on the usual foreigner interrogation. The questions are usually predictable and they run their course pretty quickly before they get bored of my very pat and rehearsed responses. This time they just couldn't get past my advanced age and unmarried status. Not even my witty redeployment of a Ho Chi Minh quote, "There is nothing more precious than independence and freedom!" would throw them off. I became the centre of what appeared to be a big debate: am I "on the shelf" or not? I think this is a colloquialism, a bit uncanny when applied to a librarian, for anyone who is terminally unhitchable, (aka. an old maid). On the plus side, I was told I definitely do NOT look 36. It went on and on.

This was all very hilarious, but these conversations sometimes make me wonder if I could ever come back here for my next sabbatical in seven years when I am an even riper 43! The older you get, the more of a puzzle you become and the more intense the questioning. It can be exhausting. Some days I think I would be better off just making up some story of a girl back home. It gives me an appreciation for the pressure that my gay Vietnamese friends have to endure. I only have to keep up this charade for a few months, not a lifetime. I think this partially explains why there are so few visible gay men over the age of about 32. As you mature, your options seems to be: moving to HCMC, studying abroad, or marriage. (Actually there is another more tragic option I'd rather not go into but which two of my close friends recently considered, one of them quite seriously.)

You would think given the importance of marriage here, there would be a big lead up and complicated ceremony to it all. It's hard for me to generalize, having only been to two weddings, but it seems that weddings are more about getting people together and eating than about pomp, ceremony and endless speeches. After the meal the groom's procession arrived (he was at his family home just a few village streets over), pictures were taken, and that was that. No declaration, no speeches, no I dos. It's actually hard to say at what moment the deed actually occurs. And the best part, no interminable goodbyes. When you are done, you just get up and go.

Occasionally I look around and find myself caught up in some little remarkable corner of Vietnamese life and I marvel at how I got there. It's not just the thrill of witnessing something, but of finding myself a part of things. This was one of those moments when I felt welcomed and embraced by this world. I may not be able to participate in all the banter, and I'm always a curiosity, but there is sometimes a warm sense of comradery that seems to bridge all divides.

Duck Interrupted

2005-12-27T11:19:00.000-05:00

My last entry began with eggs too. Maybe it's just some kind of pent up poultry craving following the most recent bird flu chicken black-out.

Last night I went out for hotpot with a friend. We had a mixed platter of meats and veggies, but included two eggs on top. We let them cook the longest and just before we sent the pot back we dished them out and cracked them open. I was shocked at the sight. This was no ordinary egg in my bowl. This was the infamous trung vit lon, or fertilized duck egg. I had been wanting to try this delicacy, but thought I had missed my chance when poultry products all vanished across the city. Still I was not prepared for the sight. I must say it was much more difficult to sink my teeth into this than to eat dog. The sight of it just screamed Don't eat me! at the most visceral level. The egg had already started to form itself into a little duckling. Thankfully I could not make out the head or beak (actually I think my first bite took care of that as it was the most, umm, well let's say textured of the bites), but the nascent wings were in evidence, and little veins were already forming just inside the shell. Then there was a little juicy grey section. My guess is that these were to become the little duckling guts. I ate the whole thing.

Well, there is one off my list. Again, like dog, not my favourite, but one of those things any food adventurer in this region has to try. I hear it is much better when served as a dish on its own, accompanied by herbs like rau ram, and dipped in various sauces (like the picture above, taken in Laos). Incidentally, the rau ram is supposed to modify the trung vit lon's apparently potent Viagra effect. It seems I am living very dangerously!

Christmas Eve in Hanoi

2005-12-26T04:04:00.000-05:00

Eggs seem to have made a return to Ha Noi, and so I had one in my coffee at Cafe Giang on Christmas Eve. This cafe is one of the old traditional hole-in-the-wall spots, and I will soon write more about its significance. It's speciality though is ca phe trung or egg coffee. I've never seen it anywhere else. Whipping egg white up in coffee sounds like an alarming proposition until you think of it as a kind of take on egg-nog. In fact, it's delicious. The entire cup is transformed into a frothy sweet mocha puff.

Dat and I met early on Christmas Eve for a quick gift exchange and a stroll around the Old Quarter. His mission has been to show me all the quirkiest local weirdo places where Tay ba lo fear to tread. Cafe Giang has been on our list for a while. So it made a special if unorthodox beginning to my Christmas Eve, and I don't think he'd anticipated the Christmas potential of this drink.

The big deal here is Christmas Eve here, not the following day. That's not to say it's celebrated in any Christian sense except by the small minority of Vietnamese Catholics. People boot around on their motos with Santa Claus hats, and you can hear Christmas musak at the shopping centres. The downtown core turns into a massive moto parking lot with everyone looking for a party.

After our egg coffee, Dat and I stashed my motobike and wandered down to the Cathedral to see what was going on. Naturally this is the big gathering place on this night. Three years ago Jon and I stood in front of the Cathedral and waited with a crowd that seemed to be holding some kind of vigil, waiting for something to happen. We had expected the Cathedral doors to be flung open in a dramatic flourish at midnight. Instead the hour passed without any climax and the crowd went on staring at the doors curious about the mysterious goings-on behind it.

This time Dat and were early enough to actually get in the church. There was no service going on but the pews were packed and the congregants were reciting some kind of liturgy in a chant. I couldn't put my finger on what was so odd about this, until Dat, who had never been in a church in his life, observed that the text was being read in a Buddhist tone and cadence. The only thing that was missing was the beating of the hollow wooden drum and the occasional sound of the bell. Here was a classic case of religious syncretism and the effect was quite mesmerizing.

Eventually hunger required us to break the spell and wander out in search of food. We ended up walking Hang Gai until we found the entrance into a special alleyway Dat had been wanting to show me. In all my wanderings I had never noticed this one, and it was one of those alleyways that has its own special character and life. This one doesn't peter out but runs deep into the block and after a few twists and turns, emerges (at one end anyway) at the Hang Da Market. One section is lined with little open rooms selling nem chua ran, or fried sour pork (fermented in banana leaves before being fried). We squeezed our way into one of these recesses, squatted on the plastic stools and ate an order accompanied by jimaca dipped in chile salt. A spot to remember for a late night post-bar snack.

So began my very eclectic Christmas weekend.

I had been receiving so many concerned emails from back home worrying about me being alone for Christmas. Of course I missed friends, family and especially Jon, but it was not as difficult as it might have been had I been alone in a country where Christmas is celebrated in the home. Here it is mostly as a excuse to get together with friends and have a party, throw a dinner, go to a club, or I guess hop on a moto and drive around. Just down my alleyway the neighbours had set up tables, speakers and a disco ball in the badminton court/parking lot.

After my Old Quarter adventure with Dat I was off to a big gay party for the evening. This was hosted by Group B. So far I've mostly written about Group A since it is my usual circle (see "The Group" posting below), but I am also friendly with this group, which is one of the more upwardly mobile of the gay circles in Hanoi. Most are professional, educated, well-travelled, and have excellent English.

There were about 22 of us: 2 whiteys, 2 Viet kieu, 3 Singaporeans and all the rest local Hanoians. It is strange how similar certain elements of gay culture are anywhere in the world. In many ways, a party hosted by the International Gay Brotherhood, Vietnam Chapter, seems so much like a party back home: the sense of humour (at least what I could understand of it), the fashion, the music, right down to what seem like certain universal gay character types. One of the Viet kieu guys from California and I would have flashes of recognition: ahh, so here is the Hanoi version of so-and-so back home. This uncanny familiarity is though I think in large part a function of the group's very middle class status and their exposure to the wider gay world outside the country. This is not generally the case with Group A.

Probably the most memorable moment for me though was the errand I was volunteered for upon arrival. Four of us were sent out on two motobikes to pick up the catered food. My job was to balance two heavy porcelain platters of salad rolls (dipping sauces included!) on my knee on the back on a moto in the intense Christmas Eve traffic. One end of the piled platters was on my right knee and the other end was sticking off the side of the bike. I was certain I was going to be clipped and shower an intersection with a fish sauce and rolls. At one point the plastic wrapping came off so our food was bathed in the lovely air of the Hanoi street. Soon after we ended up waiting at a train crossing as the train from Sapa rolled in. I was not optimistic the platters were ever going to make it to the party and considered just serving impromptu hors d'oeuvre then and there to my traffic jam neighbours.

After the party, we all ended up at Apo. Nothing to report except that I have never seen it stay open so late. A shocking 2:30am!

Sunday marked another missed family tradition for me. This was the first year in 14 that I was not able to light the Hannukah menorah. I tried. I asked my one Jewish friend here in the city if I could join him in lighting candles the first night. Unfortunately he said he had no menorah, and in any case was planning on attending the lighting ceremony at the Israeli embassy. Instead I sang the blessings while riding up the dyke road on the way to another Christmas party in Nghi Tam. And each night I have sung them in my little house, which by the way has great acoustics. There is something to be said for tile floors.

Flamenco in Alley 61

2005-12-20T06:07:00.000-05:00

A new friend from the gym asked me recently if I liked music. I thought it wise to hedge lest I get invited to another evening of off-key karaoke. Then he clarified and asked specifically about classical music. So I pictured an evening at the opulent Opera House. Wrong again. How about classical guitar in a cafe near Nguyen Trai St?

I accepted but later doubted I'd heard right. Nguyen Trai is the big dustbowl thoroughfare I take every day to and from work. It is the main to route through the burbs of Thanh Xuan and is currently the site of major overpass construction. Past the bridge site I'm sure there are lots of cafes - they are ubiquitous in this city - but live classical guitar seemed so unlikely. Vietnamese pop videos or live bong da (soccer) on satellite maybe.

Well, Hanoi is a city of surprises. What casual visitors to the city never see is the extent of the maze of laneways that make up this city. They are endless and quirky. Some promising ones fizzle out after a few turns. Others seem to be going nowhere and suddenly yield new networks complete with noodles shops, hair salons and internet cafes. I've heard the laneways of Hanoi compared to the medinas of Morocco in their complexity. You never know what is waiting for you around the corner through the next crack in the wall.

In this case, it was a bohemian guitar salon. Bao pointed his motobike down some narrow little corridor off a main street and we emerged into a little parkette type opening. Just past that was our destination.

Nhac Tranh Cafe has only two little rooms. The first room is where you place your order, the second room is where the action is. There are several rows of low wooden benches (which refuse to accommodate Western spines) facing on to tiny stage. The yellow walls have character, all chipped and worn and covered in portraits of what it seems are the patron saints of this cafe: John Lennon, Trinh Con Son, and any Spanish guitarist. There is a large framed portrait of Andres Segovia over the stage. Once the room is packed your order is likely to be delivered from the outside through the window. The room is lit by candles and it seems the music begins when a small hurricane lantern is brought to the stage.

First up, a former professor from the National Music University, all tweeded up, performing Spanish classical. He is great but so unassuming and cracks only a faint smile when the applaud comes. The audience seems to be mostly students, many probably from the same institution as the prof. His act is followed by his students. The repertoire gradually gets less classical, less tweedy and more flamenco. And those nervy students get virtuosic. Wow! Sometimes it could only be played by the Buddha with a thousand arms. Too many notes, not enough fingers. But they do it. Meanwhile to our side are four fine arts students with a pad whipping off line drawings of the performers.

I am thinking I'm the only whitey in the joint when suddenly they pull a real live Spanish guitarist out a hat at the back of the far room somewhere. The master brings along a student on stage for a flamenco duet, followed by a kick-ass Cuban vocal number. The tiny room goes wild.

Sometime during all of this I start feeling watched. It turns out the art posse has decided I make ideal sketching material. I guess that's what I get for being in extreme minority. Even when the show is over they want me and Bao to sit there a bit. It's an odd experience. Where are you supposed to look when you are being sketched? I am flattered even if most of the sketches are not altogether kind and seem to overestimate my age. Must be the dim ambient lighting.

I didn't know there are real bohemian places left in this Starbucks world. It was all very 1963 Greenwich Village, but in a completely unselfconscious way. God forbid the Lonely Planet gets hold of this, but you know the remoteness of Alley 61 should be enough to protect it. The next day I text Dat to tell him about this discovery. He knows about it already, and is completely shocked that I've been let in on the secret. How many other secrets is Hanoi hiding from me?

Promise not to tell?

Quan Nhac Tranh
Alley 61, Thai Thinh St.
Thanh Xuan District

The Bike from Hung Yen

2005-12-14T08:01:00.000-05:00

I am now 100% moto enabled. I have joined the great sea of churning engines and much to my surprise, I love it! I've only had it about a month. It sat in my front room practically unmoved for the first week because all my time was spent in cabs with my parents during their visit. Also I was scared. Finally I broke through the inertia while they were away in Angkor. I got up my nerve, rolled it out in the alleyway, turned the key - but went nowhere. The engine wouldn't start. So I called up the rental agency and a guy with a toolbox appeared in my alleyway in about 15 minutes. I expected him to roll up his sleeves and get all dirty. Instead he listened to my problem, pulled out this lever thing called "the choke", hit ignition and the engine roared. Thankfully on his way over I had discovered that the front tire was also nearly flat, and this succeeded in redeeming my call and saving face. (This was my second humiliation that morning. Earlier I had my landlord send a plumber to check my water pressure which had not been the same since they installed a new water tank on my roof. I showed him the pathetic sprinkle of my shower and he just adjusted the shower head. It sort of half did the trick, and succeeded make me look like a totally helpless tay.)

I think my parents had mixed feelings seeing me roll up on my moto to greet them when they returned. As it was they were generally traumatized by the traffic in Hanoi. The surprising thing is that the traffic isn't nearly as scary when you are an active part in it. Maybe it's just an illusion of control. In any case, I got used to it very quickly, and now I can't imagine why it took me so long to dive in. I wish I had taken the leap earlier because it has changed my whole relationship to the city. Suddenly Hanoi has expanded. I am rapidly constructing a new mental map of the city including the directions of the one-way streets (never noticed them before). Also I now have a more effective way of exploring the mind-boggling network of alleyways surrounding my neighbourhood. It feels like there are dozens of hidden villages tucked away down long quirky tunnel-like alleys filled with little teashops, barbershops, internet cafes and produce spread out on mats. These hidden worlds are harder to explore on foot.

It's also made me feel much less dependent on people and has given me a new sense of freedom. I don't have to wait for some kind soul to volunteer to help me with mundane errands. In fact on a few occasions I have been the one ferrying around my Viet friends; this always seems to result in bemused sideways glances at traffic lights. The most fun is driving in a late night convoy on the long haul from Apo to Sheraton on Saturday. After Apo closes we often make the 30-40 ride up the side of West Lake to the Sheraton for the (only) after-hours scene. Hanoi's sidewalks fold up well before midnight, even on the weekends, so the streets are generally vacant by the time we start our procession. Although we could make it there in much less time, we drive very slowly in a group. I used to wonder why we drove so slowly on empty streets - until I realized that maybe it is the highlight of the evening, not because of the route, but because it is a social time. With virtually no traffic we can ride as a group alongside each other. The conversation drifts back and forth between bikes. I understand little of it unless they accommodate me with a little English, but the humour is infectious. Our pod of bikes reconfigures and regroups as the conversations float back and forth. There is a such freedom and beauty in the empty tree-lined boulevards at night, the rushing air, and the fellowship of good friends. I'm always sorry when we reach our destination.

That first week riding I knew I had to face my xe om driver. Actually I think he must have heard the news before he saw me roll up the alley, such is the neighbourhood gossip. The first day I took it for a practice run around the block, some man pulled up alongside me on my street, said something to me with a quizzical look on his face and pulled away again. I'm sure he was one of the local xe om drivers and this strange sighting would be reported up and down the street by the end of the day. When I finally screwed up enough courage to attempt my commute to work, I had to drive it out the alley past poor Binh waiting for me and my daily 20,000 VND. All I had to say was "Binh oi" and point to the bike beneath me. I'm sure his heart sank. What else to say? I waved goodbye and intended to zip off gracefully into the traffic. Instead I hit the gas, and the bike sputtered and died. Binh had to help me get it started again. In addition, it seems every morning I always forget to put my kickstand up and manage to scrape it on the speed bump next to where he sits. He may have seen his daily 20 nghin dry up but at least he's got some entertainment. One morning he tried to hop on the back of my moto.

My commute to work was the ultimate test for me. It is long, dusty, and chaotic. Now I feel confident and even enjoy it in a sick kind of way. It is exhilarating to be motoring along the boulevards, the only tay for miles it seems, having mastered the art of the Vietnamese rush hour.

On the other hand, sometimes my confidence crumbles when I am confronted by the violence of the road. I have seen death a number of times: twisted motobikes and bicycles, immobile riders lying on the street surrounded by crowds. Late one night I found myself driving through a pool of blood. Apparently, Vietnam is second in the world in incidence of traffic fatalities (China being the first). There are many reasons why this is so and I'll leave it to this blog to explain. Before you all click on the comments button below and plead with me to wear a helmet, I should mention I'm already wearing one. It is a cool black helmet cut above the ears with two white stripes running down the middle, and a subtle little visor. Very CHiPs. I am hoping to start a fashion craze.

There are also other little annoyances I'm discovering. For instance, this city is not made for contact lenses. My eyes burn after a ride of any length. Then there is the recurring Hanoi cold. In fact, it's not a cold at all but an exhaust induced nasal allergy that flares up after one too many rush hours on Chua Boc (must be seen - or inhaled - to be believed). Finally there is my battle with drowsiness. It takes me a couple ca phe den das to truly awaken to the world each morning. In the summer I used to blame this on the stifling heat and humidity. Now I've decided that I'm just half asphyxiated and it takes me a couple hours each morning to awaken from my carbon monoxide stupour.

Most license plates in Hanoi start with 29 or 31. This is the mark of a native Hanoian, and there is a kind of snobbery about other numbers, especially those from the country. My plate reads 89. I had no idea where this was until recently when I was parking my bike at a cafe, and the attendant got all excited pointing at the number and then himself. Hung Yen province it turns out. I guess he figures I'm another village boy just downstream. It seems my license plate has thoroughly cemented my image as Tay Nha Que.

Heaven's Gate

2005-12-12T09:33:00.000-05:00

One of my regrets from our 2003 trip to Vietnam was that we never got to the Northern highlands. We had considered it but by then it was late December and too cold in the mountains. A week and a half ago my parents left and the weather was still warm, so I booked a three day mountain biking trip running a loop from Sapa over the Tram Tom (Heaven's Gate) pass and back to Lao Cai on the border with China through the remote highlands of the Tonkinese Alps. This region is largely populated by pastoral hill tribes who possess their own distinct cultures and languages and are identifiable by their unique and beautiful dress.

Two days after I booked the trip, winter arrived quite abruptly in the North and I worried that I had consigned myself to a wet, cold and miserable weekend completely socked in by fog. I spent a week shopping for warm clothes in Hanoi to prepare. In fact, the weather was surprisingly decent (even a half day of bright blue skies) and accommodated vast mountain panoramas that filled up half the sky. Yes, not what what people think of when they try to imagine tropical Vietnam.

Our little biking group gathered in Sapa after an overnight train from Hanoi. The cast of characters: me; a young American water engineer working in Sri Lanka; Nam, the driver of our 1978 Russian jeep; and Tu, our guide.

Tu was able to give us the inside scoop on hill tribe life since he is himself of the Tay minority from a village in the remote Northeast. He spoke impeccable English and claimed to be entirely self-taught. He was one of the few to venture out of his traditional village to the big city to make his way. Initially he went to Hanoi to study, but his education was aborted and instead he found himself shining shoes and selling postcards at the side of Hoan Kiem Lake. Usually stories like this do not turn out pretty. Many of these vendors are desperate and hardened by the street, and most were swept away and sent back to the countryside several years ago during a crackdown. Remarkably it seems Tu escaped this fate. Instead he learned enough English by talking (and selling) to foreigners to get himself hired by one of the most reputable tour operators. I admire his chutzpah.

I did not get to know our driver Nam well because of the language barrier but he seemed to appreciate my little attempts to speak to him in Vietnamese and rewarded my efforts by continually offering me rounds of rice wine at lunch (admittedly not the greatest pastime for a driver).

The tour took us through over the Hoang Lien mountain range (though the highest peak in Vietnam, Fansipan was cloaked in fog) and then down through spectacular paddy terraced valleys dotted with the traditional villages of the Hmong, Red Dao, Lu, White Thai, Black Thai, and Tay peoples. The tour company assured me that this tour gets you deep into the countryside to areas infrequently visited by outsiders. I did not appreciate the truth of this until we later compared notes with other travellers who had been trekking and who complained about the constant sell job they received by villagers used to the allure of the tourist dollar (even on what they thought were remote mountain pathways). In contrast, only once in three days did we have anyone try to sell us anything. Instead we encountered what must be some of the friendliest people on earth. At every bend in the road, at every little village and thatched house we encountered overwhelming goodwill. Everywhere children giggled and called out to us with staccato "hellos" from all directions, from villagers along the road and sometimes even from distant voices from locations unseen. Even though the countryside is sparsely populated, there were often too many excited hellos to acknowledge, and yet we would feel guilty if we failed to respond to each one. The kids would get such a kick out of it and would erupt into giddy laughter. On occasion the kids would hop on their bikes and race us down the road.

At one point we leaned our bikes up against a tree at the side of the road and wandered down a path into the fields to see traditional White Thai burial shelters. Three young men came upon us as our guide was explaining local burial practices. In wordless unison they squatted next to us and watched in fascination as we talked. They looked stoic but when we smiled at them their blank expressions transformed into huge broad smiles. Eventually we returned to the road and found that at least half a village had emerged to inspect our bikes. They gawked, giggled and stared at us, but always in the most hospitable way.

Another time we took a slight detour to inspect the view from a narrow suspension bridge over a river. When we looked back from the middle of the bridge we saw about 30 people coming to check us out. Half of them were curious goofy little kids. They rushed in to gather round us. Thank God for display panels on digital cameras which are endlessly entertaining to kids. The children would gasp and break into hysterical laughter when they'd see themselves on the little screen.

We made two visits to stilt homes during our trip. On our first full day cycling, we took a very muddy turn off the main road to one of the few existing Lu villages. The Lu people are originally a nomadic people from Laos who settled in the highlands in the 17th Century. There are only 9000 of them and this village is the home of 400. We were invited into the village chief's stilt house. He was watching TV. Apparently it is the only one in the village, and so his living room becomes a bit of a social hotspot each evening. It was strange to see toothpaste commercials in a village where the woman dye their teeth black (with the occasional dramatic flash of gold). The women also wear beautiful embroidered black dresses and often have huge woven baskets on their backs which they use to carry firewood and other goods. It turns out that our tour operator had only just forged a connection with this village, and we were the first visitors to be brought by - possibly the first tourists here ever. That's not to say there haven't been other foreigners here though. Our guide told us that that strictly speaking this village is off limits for foreigners because protestant missionaries have been seen in these parts disrupting local customs, not to mention power structures.

The other stilt home we visited belonged to a White Thai family. At the time of our visit they were busy brewing cassava liquor which we tasted. Our driver would have appreciated it had he been there. Even a few thimble fulls had an immediate effect. A few more and I would have been thoroughly drunk if not blind. They also served us tamarind candy made with fruit from the tree in front of their house. We had to pass through a muddy construction zone to get to their house. Their beautiful green valley will be submerged under a dam two years from now, and they will soon be paid to relocate. Our environmental water engineer was not impressed by this sad fact.

The agricultural life fascinates me. We passed through tea plantations, tamarind groves, turmeric and galangal fields, and of course lots of rice paddies. Most of the rice terraces are dry at this time of year, but in a few areas the rice has only just been planted. The most fascinating were the cinnamon trees. Our guide wandered up a hill and returned with a branch of cinnamon leaves. We broke off the leaves and chewed on the stems to taste the most potent, spicy sweet cinnamon flavour I have ever tasted. Apparently the women wash their hair with the leaves and the fragrance lasts a whole week.

Each night we stayed in small dusty frontier towns. Each had a market, and a few streets with the general stores stocked with dry goods, Chinese blankets and hardware. For entertainment the locals had at least one karaoke bar and a cafe or two. The most entertaining though were the little outdoor streetfood vendors at night. People gather around a fire while local minority women serve up deep fried pancakes (taro or banana) and warm sugarcane stalks stewed in cinnamon and ginger. In the mornings we joined the locals in one of the few hole-in-the-wall restaurants. One morning a group of men are throwing back shots of rice wine with their pho bo at 7:45am. They are thrilled by the rare sight of foreigners. Somehow they zero in on me and bring over a few shots for me. Despite the fact that I am just barely awake and haven't eaten a thing, it's hard to resist their handsome smiles and generous hospitality. I threw back a few on an empty stomach before my guide pleaded with them to stop. They were pleased while it lasted.

Time and time again the locals would welcome us with similar enthusiasm. There was such a innocence and eagerness to their goodwill. One afternoon I stopped to take a picture of a beautiful Thai stilt house along the road. A young man with a big smile bounding up the stairs into his house motioned to invite me in probably for a cup of tea with his extended family. I would have loved to except that my biking partners were already off down the road.

When we got back to Lao Cai after three days on the road, we ran into the other travellers who had opted for the trekking tours instead. We compared pictures. Despite the rich encounters we had with people, our pictures were mostly landscape, and their's mostly people. I did get some great pictures of people, but it was difficult. We were not in markets but on the road. We witnessed the country life of the hill tribes as they went about their business, and they were mostly on the move, as were we of course. We also respected their wishes when they clearly did not want their pictures taken.

I guess I am close enough to the end of my time here in Vietnam that I am already starting to anticipate my departure. As our train crossed the Red River on the way out of Hanoi at the beginning of the trip, I become suddenly quite melancholy. I could count my weekends now, and each trip out of town means one fewer weekends in Hanoi. The city has entered into me. I have a family of friends here and I know my departure will have a kind of finality about it that leaving Canada did not. It is difficult every time I leave Hanoi even for just a few days because each departure anticipates the ultimate one in a few months, the one I can't bear.

The flipside is that I was filled with excitement returning into the city. After crossing the Red River our train passed by the vast Long Bien night market in action (5:30am), and the skirted the Old Quarter revealing fleeting glimpses of kitchens, alleyways and ancient streets. I am glad to be back.

Intrigue at the Hair Salon (Or How I Learned to Quit Worrying and Love My Cell Phone)

2005-12-02T06:49:00.000-05:00

Once my parents recovered from the initial shock of the traffic and general sensory overload, they began to notice something about me that had changed. Not the fact that I have perpetually bad skin here from all the motobike exhaust, or the fact that I've probably lost a bit of muscle mass due to changes in my diet and the difficulty of getting a real workout here; they first noticed that I seemed to be constantly glued to the screen of my cell phone, all the while tapping away on the dial pad.

Gradually I think they started to realize that it was not really a cell phone but some kind of universal information transponding device. All my tapping away was producing translations, restaurant recommendations, addresses, plane bookings, free company cars, and fair price estimates, etc. In the West we still use our cell phones as if they are substitutes for the old technology, namely telephones. Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that cell phones are used differently here considering that land lines have a more recent history in this country (15 years ago they were a rarity). It's like they have leapfrogged over the telephone line here and into this world of hypernetworked pocket mini-computers.

People use many more multimedia options than we do. It's not uncommon for people in cafes to turn on their phone speakers and play their MP3s like a jukebox song after song (very annoying). Then there is text messaging (or "Tex Mex" as my Mom calls it). It seems like phones are only used a fraction of the time for making calls - the rest is all text. Last week in Apo, I noticed an entire line of guys texting up against the bar. Despite their poker faces I knew they were in fact gossiping about each other, finding out the scoop on other guys across the bar who are probably also texting. There have been a few times, I've asked an innocent question about someone. A few text messages later someone gives me the answer. It's almost creepy. On the other hand, I will admit to participating in the same e-grapevine.

On the more positive side, my phone is my lifeline. Today's visit to the hair salon was a perfect example. I usually go get my haircut with a friend who can translate so I don't end up having to sport the result of a misunderstanding for a month. Viet bailed on me today but I went anyway. First though I had asked Binh for his help. After confirming that in fact there was no English spoken at this place, I called Binh on my cell, told him what I wanted and then passed the phone to the woman running the place. After hanging up I realized I'd forgotten to work out the price. Hair salons are not the kind of place you normally bargain, but you are vulnerable anywhere you get a service without first clarifying the price. So just as the woman was starting to wet my hair, I asked. She pauses, looks a bit uneasy as she calculates what she thinks she can get away with, and answers VND60,000 (about CN$4-5). I nod. Well her hesitation is just a bit too obvious for me. Also she is talking to some colleague and I keep hearing numbers and prices as they look back and forth at me, so I figure they are debating the appropriate whitey mark-up. My rejoinder is to get out my cell and start messaging as she is massaging my scalp. I fire off a note to another friend Cuong who is a regular here. It takes a couple messages back and forth for him to determine it is only a VND40,000 job. When I'm done I approach the counter and give them the fair price. They readily agree. I imagine they know exactly what I was doing with my phone, and the jig is up.

I have heard the very act of texting has even saved some friends an exorbitant "fine" for a petty traffic infraction. The policeman changed his mind when he saw the flurry of texting. Who knows who has what connections, and which networks are being activated? In fact that time it was all a bluff.

No hard feelings in the case of the hair cut sting. It's all part of the game and keeps things interesting. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. Besides hair cuts here usually include a long hair wash, scalp massage and face wash. Not bad for a couple bucks. Never mind that the comb looks like it was made out of a chunk of scrap metal. It does the job.

A Philosophy of Food

2005-11-22T11:16:00.000-05:00

When my parents told a Vietnamese-Canadian friend that they were going to Vietnam, but just to Hanoi, they were given a sympathetic look and told something like: I'm sorry to hear that; the food is so terrible in the North. Well it's not the starving 80s anymore. Time to get acquainted with the Hanoi Renaissance. The richness of the food culture here is not to be believed, and as you will know, I can't get enough.

The culinary riches of this city struck me especially after visiting China. I have always loved good Chinese food, but unfortunately most of the food I ate in China was mediocre. We had some great meals (Beijing duck and dumplings and hotpot in Shanghai), but these were the exceptions. The vast majority was nothing to write home (or blog) about. Of course we had no idea where to eat in the cities we visited, so maybe it's not entirely fair. But this leads me to my point. The food in Hanoi and most of Vietnam starts at good and only gets better. It would be very difficult to get a bad Vietnamese meal in Hanoi it seems to me. The wee hours of Saturday night were a perfect example. I squatted on a plastic stool on a deserted street near the Water Tower at 1:30am with a group of friends and vacuumed up some kind of noodle soup with pork ribs and winter greens. What should you reasonable expect at such an hour and in such setting? Of course it was fantastic. Or I wander up a unknown street north of my house in search of a new place to eat. I spot a grimy little neon lit room with people slurping up the advertised dish: My Van Than. Never had it before, have no idea what's in it (even when I'm eating it actually), but I step up, sit down and slurp along. You don't need a recommendation in this city to expect fantastic food. It seems just about any old joint will deliver.

But the hold of Hanoi's food on my imagination goes beyond taste. There is also something fascinating about it. I couldn't put my finger on what it gives it its grip until recently I read an article about Southeast Asian food blogs on a web site called Global Voices. In this article a fellow Hanoi blogger from Sticky Rice notes that Vietnamese food lends itself to "the yarn behind the food; the process of watching the food prepared or the interaction between the people, even the journey. In our sanitized western world, we miss out on all of that when we go out to eat." This is true on so many levels. The food and the ingredients here are not processed and packaged, nor does the cooking generally happen behind closed doors in a kitchen at the back. Cooking is a curbside affair. And at the other end, eating is public theatre. Food is integrated with the other activities of the street. The net effect is that eating is not just for the tastebuds; food here is also a narrative experience involving whole communities of players. If technology has robbed food of its social context in the West, this is a place that puts it back in its proper place.

I think there is something else distinctive here. I may be risking gross generalizations, but I think the repertoire plays an entirely different role in the cuisine of this country than it does in the West. Vietnamese cuisine seems to be organized around a canon of dishes. The dishes call out to you on the street from little white neon sign boards like proper names. Each is the name of a tradition, and the goal of these small businesses is the perfection of a single dish, the attainment of an ideal. (Often humble eateries will become famous for their definitive version of a dish.) In the West it seems to me that dishes are more often than not descriptions that don't function like proper names. Think of the wordy menus in the West. Also the goal in the West seems to be interpretation and variety, not the embodiment of a ideal form or the realization of a tradition. Think of the proliferations of fusion cuisines in North America. Maybe these difference reflect deeper cultural values and different understandings of tradition. After all, one might expect a Confucian society to focus on the attainment of ideals and the reproduction of tradition rather than idiosyncratic creations.

Now having gone out on a limb with this last one, I must offer a bit of a corrective, because in fact there are different culinary traditions in Vietnam. Mainly what I am talking about is street food. There is also the kind of down home cooking I eat at work every day at our communal lunches. These meals are rice-based and very simple. The point isn't to perfect some dish, but just to fry, steam, or boil up something tasty to eat with your bowl of rice. Then there are proper restaurants with their tables and kitchens hidden away from view. These places tend to present you with a big menu presenting dozens of pages of options and varieties. Then there are other sub-traditions like exotic meat adventure eating where the point doesn't seem to be eating an ideal, but to prove your manliness by eating bizarre odds and ends and strange species. These other traditions don't work quite the same way, so take it all with a grain of salt - or dash of fish sauce as the case may be. Still I think there is something to it.

The Parents Arrive

2005-11-21T09:32:00.000-05:00

The parental units should now be sitting in their hotel room somewhere in Siem Reap, Cambodia. They flew off on Monday and will return Thursday evening after their private guided tour of Angkor. This follows nearly a week of sightseeing in Hanoi. When they return they will have another week to soak it up, see Halong Bay and whatever else strikes their fancy.

I must say my parents have been great. This is a very rewarding place to travel but not always easy, especially if you are new to Asia and the developing world. I've still been working days, but we've been getting together each evening and spending long weekends together. Of course they are getting to see the tourist highlights of Hanoi, but I've also made a point of giving them glimpses of Vietnamese life beyond what tourists usually get to experience. I've given them the inside scoop on cafes and restaurants, introduced them to half a dozen Vietnamese friends, taken them for a hotpot dinner at the house of a Vietnamese colleague, brought them out into the countryside to see some remote pagodas, and even got them sitting on plastic stools eating bun rieu and other delicacies on the street and in markets. They have been good sports, but there is a limit. No chance of getting them on the back of a moto. We'll see how successful I am in convincing my Mother of the virtues of do-it-yourself grilled goat's breast. The other challenge will be a walking tour of my neighbourhood which demands unusual nerve crossing Dai Co Viet.

It has been interesting to see Hanoi through their eyes. It helps me remember my initial impressions and to recall what was strange and new. In particular I remember the shock of the traffic. When I emerged from the airport in Saigon three years ago I was enthralled to the unbelievable spectacle of the street. I was wide-eyed for days. Forgetting this, the very first thing I did after my parents' check-in at their hotel was to lead them out into the swarming maze of the Old Quarter in search of food. Each major street required something like a ferry crossing. Confidence comes with experience though and now they are enjoying meandering walks about the city. Never leave without a map though I tell them; the streets try their best to lead you astray.

They were also impressed by how youthful a society this is. It's true. I look around at the streets and sometimes it seems they are populated almost entirely by 20-somethings. I often feel like I am pushing the ceiling with my 36 years. I am the oldest in my circle with the possible exception of Andrew who is the same age. If I feel ancient here, I can imagine how my parents must feel. Of course the older generations are in evidence too. Now that it has turned cool in Hanoi some of the older men sport berets (a hold-over from the French days). So does my Dad and so there is a kind of sympathy between them. On more than one occasion, they nod, smile, point at their hats and laugh in recognition. I'm sure they think he's French.

I cannot imagine doing Hanoi without experiencing its food culture. We've done cha ca on Pho Cha Ca, bun cha on Hang Manh, bun rieu on Pho Hoa Ma, and gave them a tour of the Hom Market where my Mom and I sucked back fresh passion fruit juice (nuoc chanh leo) while my Dad devoured two orders of dried beef (bo kho) dipped in hot sauce. Here too there are limits: their travel doctor in Hamilton has declared ice and uncooked vegetables off limits. I've never had any problems with these, although I have one friend who suffered from a nasty parasite called shigela which he probably caught from eating uncooked greens, but this was only after a four year diet of street food. In any case, we all decide on our personal level risk. The other concern is sugar since my father is diabetic. Thankfully sugar is not used liberally in cooking as it is in the South. The issue is more the copious amounts of white rice and noodle that are served. So far so good. Still on the food agenda: grilled goat, West Lake snail, bun bo by the Hang Da Market, and maybe fresh fish hot pot. Dog is definitely not on the agenda, says my Dad.

As it turns out, eating poultry at "ground zero" is a moot point since it was recently banned. There is still no evidence of risk of bird flu from eating cooked poultry, but a Hanoi man died recently after cooking chicken. It's the preparation, not the consumption that is potentially dangerous. I miss my banh my trung and bun thang, and feel sad for their vendors. The one upside is that most of the roosters behind my house have suddenly fallen ominously silent. I don't recall 5 am being so peaceful - although a rooster's call this morning made me wonder if some had just been temporarily relocated to save their necks. Actually despite my complaining, I was sort of pleased to hear his return. I like that village feeling.

The other interesting thing has been playing tourist again. I've already written about my ambivalence with this role, but what has been fun has been the shock value of what little Vietnamese I know in the tourist context. Clearly this is unexpected. I get smiles, giggles, gawks and turned heads. This is in contrast to the reaction I get in my own neighbourhood or any other non-touristed area of the city. Whitey sightings in those areas are rare and people are curious, but if you are sitting at a cafe in the burbs of Thanh Xuan or shopping for linens out on Bach Mai, the locals expect that you will probably know some Vietnamese to have gotten that far. I think they are surprised that I don't know more than I do. The expectations are completely different.

Part two of the parental visit will begin upon their return from Cambodia on Thursday. There are many more sights to be seen, but I think the most memorable experiences are the unexpected encounters with people along the way, the little dramas of everyday life. Viet Nam is rich in these, probably because life is lived so publicly. All the little details spill out onto the street. My parents delight, as I do, in the interactions with the vendors, cafe owners, kids, and strangers. A perfect example: Yesterday I desperately need some breath-freshening after my usual pre-gym banh my pate so I approach a little makeshift sidewalk teashop and ask the price of their gum. The man answers with a smirk: 5000 VND ( about 36 cents). This seems steep and I suspect a little foreigner inflation. I complain (dat qua!), at which point an older lady (his aunt I am imagining?) sitting on the stoop intervenes. She rolls her eyes, shakes her finger and interjects with the real price: 2500 VND! The man laughs in embarrassment. He doesn't get away with much around his auntie it seems, but he tries again. After all maybe the foreigner doesn't really understand what the number hai nghin rua amounts to. I give him a 5000 bill and he returns to me 2000. "Five hundred more!" she says over his shoulder. Burned again. It's all a big game and he's been had. Auntie and I nod at each other for our teamwork. He laughs. A drama over 18 cents.

My friends have gone out of their way to make my parents feel welcome. I have befriended people of such quality in my three months here. My good friend Dat is a trained guide and has volunteered three free tours already (the Temple of Literature, the Ethnology Museum and a Temple tour). A colleague invited them over for dinner. Andrew has enlisted the help of his company's drivers. Hung has coordinated their Angkor trip. If ever any of these friends come to Toronto, I will spare nothing to welcome them. Incredible generosity has been shown to me and to my parents. I hope one day I can return the favour.

Honda Wave Alpha

2005-11-14T06:56:00.000-05:00

Just a quick entry to mark the occasion: I now have my very own moto, a red Honda Wave Alpha!

Every Friday for the last month I have been telling people my plans for the weekend included getting off my ass and renting a moto. Another weekend just passed with no moto to show. Today (Monday) I went off to work only to discover that there was no power in the burbs. At about 11am, Stephen and I ran out of work of the unplugged variety and decided to leave early for the day. On the way home I screwed up enough courage and asked him if he would accompany me to the rental place and hold my hand as I signed the agreement.

I tried to keep thinking up questions to ask to delay the inevitable ride off from the shop. I was convinced I would start up the bike, wave goodbye to the shop and promptly ram into three or four oncoming motos. In fact, it seems the little late night lessons with Viet and others have paid off. Or maybe I've internalized some of the (il)logic of the traffic after months on the back of bikes. In any case, it wasn't so bad. What I don't understand yet is parking.

After a quirky veranda cafe on Lo Su, Stephen kindly accompanied me home. I was a little sheepish turning the corner into my alleyway, for fear of being seen by my xe om driver. Thankfully he wasn't there, but I'm sure the news of my appearance on the front of a motobike has already made it through the local xe om grapevine. The truth is though I am in no way ready for my commute, so tomorrow I still intend to meet Mr. Binh at the same time on the corner at 8:30. Anyway, my front room now looks complete with the shiny bike parked in the middle. Nothing makes a more authentic entrance to a Vietnamese home.

Exotica

2005-11-11T22:00:00.000-05:00

Some blog readers out there have been curious why I haven't been including gorgeous food porn shots of my meals in my blog entries given how much of my blog is dedicated to my culinary obsessions. Well, you'll be happy to know that I took my first pho bo aerial yesterday just before tucking in to my lunch. I was sitting at a little rickety table across the street on Vo Thi Sau at my favourite local pho joint. I tried to fluff the scene a bit, arranging the pot of chili sauce and the platter of limes next to it. I got my camera ready under the table, glanced around to see if anyway was watching, snapped the shot and quickly hid my camera. (For superior food porn, feel free to indulge in the Sticky Rice Hanoi food blog. I follow it religiously.)

I am finding it difficult to take pictures in Hanoi. There is no lack of things to capture; it's just that the act of taking pictures pulls me out of my life here and makes me just another wandering Tay ba lo. As soon as I am behind the lens, I am cast in the role of the outsider, the tourist, the voyeur. With a camera in hand, I am no longer living in Hanoi, I am outside looking in.

Last weekend I went to Saigon with Andrew for a three day excursion. It was my second time there, and so I felt freed of having to see the sights, and instead spent my time visiting friends, frequenting cafes, going to nightclubs and of course eating food!

Gastronomic aside: There is a book called "1000 Things To Do Before you Die". If I were to create my own list it would include eating bun mam (stinky fermented fish soup, #11 on the Mimi menu) in its place of origin. Actually I think it is a Khmer inspired dish from deep in the Mekong Delta, but eating it in Saigon's Ben Thanh Market was close enough. There there was a lunch of bun bo Hue (not as spicy as expected), and one of my personal favourites, banh xeo. This was the largest, crispiest, prawn, pork and beansprout pancake creation I've ever seen. It was served with a massive basket of herbs. They were still dripping wet from washing and I thought momentarily about varieties of water-borne parasites before digging in and getting my hands very dirty. Also, several samplings of rare beef salad, che ba mau (three layered bean drink), and fresh nuoc chanh leo (passion fruit juice). My one disappointment was Saigonese pho bo. It seems I've been Northernized. It was too sweet and somehow lacked the deep beefiness of the original.

It wasn't all cafes and eateries though. Andrew and I also spent half a day in Cho Lon (the Chinese district) wandering around back streets and pagodas. It was here and especially in the streets behind the Binh Tay Market that I took some of the best photos I've taken yet in Vietnam: pictures of fish vendors, piles of tropical fruit, mounds of herbs, lines of xe om drivers, cyclos in action, funny market kids horsing around on trolleys and men playing Chinese chess while airing their torsos (a typical scene). Andrew and I both felt a kind of freedom. There was something about being in a new city that allowed us to just be observers.

Back at a cafe in Hanoi several days later I got only puzzled looks from Viet and Hung as they were checking out the pics on my cam. They observed that I seem to have this obsession with fresh produce and people doing unremarkable things like riding motorbikes, selling food, and gathering on sidewalks. Viet commented that a picture of a woman with a conical hat crouching in the middle of traffic with a pile of rambutan, was "very normal". They cannot imagine why I would want to take such photos. These are merely images of daily life. I am wondering what they will say when they discover a picture I took of pomelo skin drying on utility pole down the street. (The dried skin is used to make homemade shampoo. Check out the recent Party Wig posting on Sticky Rice. I guess this would be like taking shots of recycling bins back home.)

Although I enjoyed playing the camera toting tourist in Saigon, I find my attitude gradually changing. The exotic has become part of my daily life. Every day I still see novel things, but so many things have simply become the setting for working, commuting, eating and socializing. Canadian Hanoi expat Claude Potvin observes in his book, Vietnam Chronicles that in fact the exotic is a moment in time. It is hard to put yourself back into that moment and look again at everything as strange.

Meanwhile I am often reminded that of course I am the curiosity. It seems almost every time I'm at my gym (where I am the sole Western member), some guy will work up enough courage to come try out his English on me. As soon as he starts asking me questions (where are you from? do you like Viet Nam? are you married?) two or three other guys will sidle up to overhear it all. And I just came from a little open air restaurant I discovered in my neighbourhood that specializes in bun bo Hue. I became the focus of the whole joint as they inspected my chopstick technique ("You eat well!") and peppered me with questions. The owner tried to explain the ingredients of the soup. They howled in approval when I couldn't understand his English, but understood instantly when he explained the three main ingredients (rice noodle, pork and beef) in Vietnamese.

Xe om

2005-11-05T13:24:00.000-05:00

The other morning I waited at the end of my alley at my regular time for ten minutes thinking maybe my xe om driver doesn't "do" rain. I have developed a loyalty to him so I stayed put, trying not to be too conspicuous. I didn't want to attract the attention of the other local xe om drivers who hang out up and down the street. I almost caused a feeding frenzy earlier this week when my driver didn't show up and I was obviously in need of a lift.

Xe om literally means "hug vehicle" because you hop on the back of the moto and hang on. The name is not meant to be taken literally; such behaviour would definitely raise a few eyebrows. If necessary I reach behind and hold on to the bar behind the seat. Negotiation is the name of the game. It's always wise to get clear on the price before you climb aboard. The price is initially seriously inflated, especially if I am in the Old Quarter because they assume I am merely another tourist. This begins to change when I give them my address (what tourist would ever request to go there?) and start my negotations in Vietnamese. I generally know what it should cost and I can be stubborn!

The drivers are earthy characters. I won't say they are always sympathetic, but always human. However hard the bargaining is, the deal is sealed with an amused chuckle and a smile that acknowledges the game it ultimately is.

On Sunday night I had to use a new driver to get to my dinner destination. To avoid misunderstanding I showed him the address on Nguyen Thai Hoc. His chosen route seemed unorthodox to me, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt given that he's the local not me. Eventually though I realized we were indeed heading somewhere I did not intend to go. I pulled out the address again, waved it in his face and pointed in the other direction. Yeah, yeah he says, the University, on Nguyen Trai.

Okay, so my Vietnamese pronunciation isn't great and the street names sound similar, but it also appears that all the local xe om drivers know where the resident cash cow Tay (Westerner) lives and works. If I am not absolutely clear on my destination (and its pronunciation), chances are they will go on automatic pilot and take me to work - even if I have never met the driver before.

We went through a whole charade of asking for directions, me getting off the bike and threatening to jump ship, etc. Oi troi oi! Eventually I messaged my colleagues to tell them I was trapped on a stray xe om somewhere in Hanoi. I was saved when my Vietnamese colleague called and I stuck my phone to his ear for exact directions. As I hopped off the bike he tried to suggest (with a smile) that our agreed upon price was unfair given how long it took. Right!

The next morning I appeared at the end of my alleyway and my usual trustworthy driver was nowhere to be seen. Instead who showed up but the clueless one from the previous evening? I shook my head and my finger at him and he just grinned back at me. When it was clear I wasn't going to climb aboard again, two or three more xe om drivers pulled up. I had never seen them before but they were all saying the address of my university and my regular rate. It seems all of Vo Thi Sau knows my business. I would not give up my regular guy and tried to tell them as much. The scene got more complex when a woman emerged from a tea shop, crossed the street and started to scold the xe om drivers. It seems she was some kind of local merchant. I had never laid eyes on, but she knew the whole story. I guess she has been watching me every morning. The streets have eyes.

Just when I feeling the drama was getting a bit much, I saw my regular driver crossing the street to my rescue.

It's a weird relationship I have with him. I don't know his name and have never really talked to him. I just call him "anh", older brother. The price has long ago been negotiated so I don't have to go through this whole game every morning. I think I may be slightly overpaying him, but only slightly, and by a margin that is trivial by our standards. What I gain is relative safety (a very cool and cautious driver), and a wordless sympatico. Is it a mutual respect, or just opportunity and convenience? I don't really know and I suppose it doesn't matter, but I like to think my show of loyalty is worth something.

It turns out he does "do" rain and he pulls up after a couple minutes in his usual worn white cap and faint smile. I hop on and without a word we begins the long weave through the traffic to the university.

P.S. This week I learned his name is Binh. He and his family live down the alleyway directly behind my house.

The Bird Flu Social

2005-10-31T10:08:00.000-05:00

Generally I have a busy social life here, but sometimes I feel suddenly quite alone. The last three days it seems everyone has been busy with their lives. I like my little house, but there is hardly a thing to do there, so sometimes I just wander the streets of Hanoi. Mind you that's not a disagreeable thing to do; it would be hard to exhaust the pleasure of discovery.

Last night I resorted to one of my longer strolls, but the evening began instead at a social at the residence of the Canadian Ambassador. The occasion was not Hallowe'en (which it was), but avian influenza. I received an invitation by email last week for an information session and status report on the possibility of the pandemic. I have not been worrying a lot about the issue these days (I have smaller fish to fry), but it was a creepy experience. After they went through some of the basic info, they described the possible impact of such a pandemic. I won't go into the details because there is no point getting all panicky. Let's just say it sounded a bit apocalyptic. The good news is that we were told the government here is actually very well prepared. Most of the discussion in the question and answer period revolved around two issues: the supply of Tamiflu (none) and evacuation plans if it ever came to that. I had that eerie feeling you sometimes have in "interesting times", the suspicion that maybe what you are experiencing may in retrospect be judged of great if not historic significance. I know that sounds grandiose, but there I was in a room with people some of whom are coming fresh from the avian influenza conference held last week in Ottawa for health ministers from across the globe, and here I am receiving their report and recommendations in one of the big hotspots.

Anyway, I think of myself as being fairly philosophical and sanguine about things like this, and don't intend to dwell on this. I made my appointment for the flu shot today, but there aren't a lot of other preventive measures one can really take (beyond common sense - I guess I will have to pass on raw duck blood).

The evening was surreal for another reason too. I realized that this was the first time I'd been in an entirely Western crowd in over two months. That's not to say that everyone was white, Canadian society being what it is, but mostly. I've gotten so used to being a (very) visible minority here. I go whole days without seeing more than a couple Westerners. I am used to being stared at and having children stop their sidewalk ball games to yell "hello". Furthermore, I'm not really up on the expat scene; my circles are mostly Vietnamese.

In contrast this felt very familiar. For once I could understand the jokes and cultural references (for instance our probable fate upon return being quarantine isolation in Scarborough), and I was very happy to see butter tarts amongst the incredible spread provided. At the same time, I felt a bit of a culture shock. The one thing I could have done without was our stiff and reserved form of socializing. Hardly a soul talked to me. Eventually a kind looking older woman approached me and asked me how long I'd been in Hanoi and what I was doing. After explaining I finally got around to asking her if she was involved in a project or some sort of work in Hanoi. "Not really", she replied, "I'm the ambassador's wife."

Eventually I left feeling ambivalent. There was nothing to mediate between the cosy world of the ambassador's living room and world of Hanoi waiting for me out the door. The familiarities of a Canadian crowd had a certain comfort (despite the topic of the evening), and yet I felt I had little place there in the expat world. Instead I wandered out into the chaotic streets of Hanoi where I feel alive and engaged yet still an outsider. I took a very long and meandering route home. I think it took me two hours: past the brooding Lenin statue looking out over a spontaneous soccer game; along a street consisting entirely of sidewalk hotpot restaurants with low tables and plastic stools; past the lantern and paper offering street; into the myriad crooked crowded streets of the Old Quarter. Eventually I emerged into Ly Thai To Park where kids were breakdancing, and on to Hoan Kiem Lake where a crowd of woman were doing an outdoor aerobics class. I bought a banh my pate (warm pate, cold cucumber and hot chili on baguette) to supplement my dinner of hors d'oeuvres, and eventually settled in at a street cafe to cure this bittersweet feeling with a mia da sugar fix (iced sugarcane juice with lime).

Notes on the Middle Kingdom

2005-10-22T23:06:00.000-04:00

I just saw Jon off in a cab to the Beijing airport for his flight back to Toronto. I will hop in my cab in two hours to return to lovely Ha Noi. I've taken a two week hiatus from my blog to spend time with Jon and focus on China. It was very difficult to say goodbye again. It will be four months until our next reunion in Ha Noi, Laos and Bangkok. In any case, we had a great visit together. Now I've got to try to capture some of the experience in writing as well.

It's a strange experience coming to China from Viet Nam. I couldn't help but always be comparing the two countries. I think some of the things that Western travellers experience as foreign and "typically Asian" (like the two-wheeled traffic) were not novelties for me. Instead the contrast with Viet Nam highlighted other things.

Two weeks ago I arrived in Beijing and wandered around until Jon arrived a day later. I was struck by how modern and First World the city appeared. I got to see more of the suburbs than I wanted that first day because the cab driver took me to two wrong hotels before I realized he was cheating me and I fired him. Frankly, the suburbs looked like a larger version of North York. Some of the more charming areas downtown near my hotel could have been mistaken for shopping streets in some North American cities, if it weren't for the Chinese signs and the bicycles. On the surface it seemed so familiar - and yet, I felt so helpless. I will never again take for granted the use of the Roman alphabet in Vietnamese (quoc ngu). The lack of shared writing system in China complicates communication enormously. We had to walk out of many restaurants without English menus; food glossaries in phrasebooks are of little use in China. In addition, there is surprisingly little English spoken even in the capital. You can get by much easier in Viet Nam with English. Viet Nam is a country of 80 million and the future of the country lies to a great extent in its ability to forge connections with the rest of the world. With one billion people, China is not so much a country as a universe and so the need to engage with the "outside world" must seem less pressing. If anything the onus is on the rest of us to learn Chinese, and you certainly feel this reversal in this mammoth nation.

In any case, in China I experienced a paradoxical feeling of First World foreignness. Viet Nam appears much more exotic than China. There is not one street in Ha Noi that could ever been mistaken for a Western city. The plastic stool restaurants, the yoked vendors with their conical hats, the sea of motos all prevent that. However, there is a sort of impenetrability in China despite the familiarity of its modern face.

And then there is the scale of things. I don't just mean it's obviously large population and land mass. I mean the massive boulevards and highways, historical monuments, towering modern buildings, sea of pavement that is Tiananmen, and the most absurdly large train station one could ever imagine (pulling up to Beijing West Station was like docking into the Death Star - but without the evil connotations). And then in dramatic contrast, there are the hutongs. These neighbourhoods are are like an alternate world. You could crisscross Beijing by either of these networks: the god-sized grid of boulevards and monuments or the intensely human-scaled world of the hutongs with their courtyards, gateways, tea houses, and street markets. There is such a disconnect between these two scales. Sadly the hutongs are quickly being ripped up for modern mega-projects in preparation for the Olympics. Apparently there is a Chinese expression: "If the old doesn't go, the new won't come." I guess that was the excuse of the Cultural Revolution as well. Again this is in contrast to Viet Nam, which as far as I can tell does not share this view of history. Hanoi feels as if it developed by accretion over the ages, not through a series of grand statements and violent obliterations.

Enough of my musings. Here are some of the highlights.

Beijing: First day at the incredible Forbidden City. It takes a full day and even then there were sections we didn't get to. Unfortunately the haze was bad for pictures. How did this survive the Cultural Revolution intact? The grand ceremonial plazas and imperial gates were spectacular, but my favourite part was actually the maze of little courtyards and gardens at the back where the court lived and worked. The haze on the second day at the Temple of Heaven was even worse and obscured the buildings, but lent a kind of mystery to the gardens surrounding it. We walked back from the Temple through Qianmen District with its little laneways and shopping alleys, around the Qianmen Gate and into Tiananmen Square. The Square affords some great views and is a must-see, but the vast featureless expanse (not to mention its history) felt oppressive to me. Stalinist architecture at its best! Great Peking Duck for dinner. The next day we intended to go to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall, but were instead "Shanghaied" by our tour operator into visiting the Badaling section. It was still spectacular but I could have done without the cheeseball circus at the bottom (what does tossing tomatoes at black bears have to do with ancient China?). A day at the Summer Palace. The haze was gone, but unfortunately the main palace building was closed for renovation (damn the Olympics!). One of my favourite days in Beijing was our last day after our return from Shanghai. We rented bikes, rode to the Lama Temple (Tibetan holy site, ceremonial home of the Panchen Lama), back through the alleyways getting as disoriented as possible in the hutongs. We ended up at Jinshan Park and then followed the walls of the Forbidden City around to the entry gate in time for a military parade. We were lucky enough to stay in a historic hutong guesthouse which had once been the residence of an official in the Qing court.

Xi'an: Took the overnight train to Xi'an. We wondered if this was a mistake when we arrived at the intimidatingly huge Beijing West Station, but in fact the train was easy to figure out and well run. The main reason for visiting Xi'an is to see the Terracotta Warriors which are truly stupendous. It was also fascinating to be in a place which was once one of the great centers of the world: the first center of a unified China, and in a later era, the first (or last) stop on the Silk Road. The Silk Road influence can still be felt in the Muslim Quarter. I'm always a sucker for any old district with laneways, hole-in-the-wall noodle joints, and street vendors. We were lucky enough to visit the Great Mosque during a call to prayer and watched as the Hiu elders gathered in their white skull caps. Also an afternoon at the Large Goose Pagoda.

Shanghai: We overheard a lecture in our hotel in which millenial Shanghai was compared with its other great boom era in the 1920s and 30s. The time is now for this city which is in a constant state of metamorphosis. Shanghai felt like a (much!) larger version of Chicago. There are so many parallels: the Bund felt like Michigan Ave. facing as it does on a park and waterfront; both are showcases of architecture, from the vintage early 20th Century, City Beautiful and Art Deco to the experimental modern buildings; and both cities share a home-grown gangster mythology. We stayed at the top of the Bund in the largest hotel room in history in the beautiful Pujiang Hotel which dates from the 1840s and feels like the 1920s. The neon on Nanjing Ave. is spectacular at night if you can stand the "lady-bar" touts and "Rolex" sales creeps, but Huaihai Road is really where it's at. My favourite: our day in the Old Quarter, which felt paradoxically like entering a Chinatown. The Yuyuan Bazaar was a bit Disneyesque, but it didn't take long to get away from it all and get lost in the maze of old Shanghai alleyways, which were once a notorious nest of opium dens. We ate at a little fried beef noodle shop. Our noodles were about 2 minutes from dough to bowl. We also wandered around a flower market, a insect and (pet) bird market (yeah, yeah, I know...the bird flu!) and through the French Concession. Another day we made it up the Jinmao Tower in Pudong.

Well, there is so much more, but I'm sure I'm testing the patience of even my more faithful readers. Also, I am no longer in Beijing. I am now in the little internet cafe behind my house on Vo Thi Sau. There is nothing like returning to make a place feel like home.

The Group

2005-10-07T23:29:00.000-04:00

Here's where it gets really taboo - writing about "the group". I don't know how it works in other social spheres here, but at least in the gay world the basic social unit is the "group". In the West we have more fluid circles of friends, overlapping networks whom we introduce and mix together. The groups here are very tight knit and well-defined, almost like family units. You aren't part of various circles of friends - you are a member of one group only . The problem with us foreigners is that we socialize differently so we really confuse things.

Two weeks ago I got in big trouble. I was congratulating myself for what I had assumed was a successful cross-group introduction. Viet and Huan seemed to chatting it up just fine at Apocalypse last Saturday. It was only later on the moto ride home, that Viet started to lecture me about respecting "group" privacy. I was guilty of two transgressions: 1) it seem I had identified Viet's workplace in passing to Huan; and 2) I had mentioned to Huan that I was going on a day trip to the countryside with Viet's group the following day. Huan let Viet know that he knew about both of these things in conversation.

I can understand that in a society as conservative and gossipy as this, it may be wise to keep your workplace and your connections in the gay world as separate as possible. The second transgression I just don't understand. I can't pretend I always comprehend the dynamics here. Sometimes I feel like I am peeling back layers of an onion and not getting to bottom of things. Why should it matter if people outside your group know you are driving out to the country for the day?

Although foreigners don't tend to be part of these "groups", I find myself pretty much accepted by one of them. Viet's group has done so much to include me that I feel like one of the guys. Last weekend was a perfect example. Seven of us met for dinner out on the dyke road near Nghi Tam. (It was an odd dining experience because we went out for "Western" food Viet style. The meal consisted of some cuts of very rare beef rolled up with bacon with a bit of crumbly cheese on top. Also included was a green salad with French dressing. Of course there were the Vietnamese touches that made it interested: all the beef was dipped in a lime chili condiment, and we also ate grilled stomach, etc. I imagine it as the flip side of North American Asian fusion. Despite the Western theme there wasn't a white face in the place, except mine of course. I was surprised I liked it so much. I would go back, except that a thousand other Viet delicacies are calling me!)

The dynamics of the dinner conversation were typical. In general most of the conversations occur in Vietnamese and I let them wash over me. If there are group decisions to be made, they are invariably in Vietnamese, so from my perspectives things just sort of happen and I figure it all out later. I don't mind. Most of the guys speak some English, and two or three speak it really well. They are my interpreters and sometimes conversations float back and forth between the languages. I also have these interesting relationships with the guys who speak no English whatsoever. We cannot communicate, but we've spent enough time together to feel like friends. Two in particular are terrible flirts. I am never sure what they are saying to me, but I can often read the innuendo by gesture and expression. Of course, two can play that game and they often look helpless when I toss something back their way.

After our Western fusion dinner, the guys decided they would all gather back at my little place on Vo Thi Sau to hang out. I am often simply informed that I will be hosting. This is fine though, because in fact I have to do very little except let them in. On the way back our pod of motos passed through the Old Quarter. Viet went off in one direction to buy fruit at the market under the Long Bien bridge, someone else stopped at a store to pick up little creme caramels, and Hung and I found a little place selling che (cold sweet soup with lotus seeds). They wouldn't let me pay for a thing.

Instead of sitting around on my living room couches and chairs, the guys toss every available cushion on the floor and stretch out on the tile floor. The Vietnamese are very comfortable on the ground. They seem immune to the back aches I get when lounging on mats.

So here I find in the midst of this Vietnamese group and accepted as part of it all. I often can't believe my luck.

And yet, I'm not an insider. The guys have invented a name for me, that sums it all up. I am Tay Nha Que. Tay is the word used for Westerners. Nha que is a (derogatory) term used for country folk - especially those who come to the city and maintain their country ways (it can have a real edge in certain contexts). Although I'm from the city, I have these strange ways and am hopelessly naive from their perspective. And I must seem awkward. I don't know how to do things right: I can never get the footholds down when climbing on the back of a moto, I can't peel jumbo shrimp properly when eating hotpot (they take over and do it for me), I have been caught storing bananas in the fridge, and I eat yoghurt in the morning (not to mention once after dog meat!). They roll their eyes: tay nha que, tay nha que! As a Westerner, shouldn't I be more cosmopolitan? Instead, I come off as parochial, as a Western village boy. They never use the term harshly. It is always a gentle tease and is accompanied by a smile and a chuckle. Thankfully, they put up with me.

Goat Testicle Wine

2005-10-03T11:16:00.000-04:00

Are you blog readers out there actually all that interested in my descriptions of food? Well, I don't know what the attraction is to reading about food when you can't eat it, but there must be something to it. After all, think of the Anthony Bourdain phenomenon, not to mention the Food Network (and how many of us actually cook those recipes?). And if you think I'm obsessed, try reading a blog called Sticky Rice which is dedicated to Hanoi food discoveries.

I don't cook here at all, unless you count inserting cheese in baguettes. I don't have the pots, pans and utensils and I don't know where to buy things here (nor do I have the time). And it's hard to justify cooking when there are the most incredible food adventures around ever corner and every meal costs about a buck. Instead I eat all my meals out. This is part of the reason I am always talking about my meals.

The highlight last week was my goat dinner on Wednesday night. Huan took me out to a famous place called Nhat Ly. It's a smokey open air affairs on the 2nd floor of a non-descript building near St. Joseph's Cathedral. Each table has a hole in the middle in which they place a pot of red-hot coals. The first course is barbequed goat. There are two types: a red meat, and a white meat which is apparently breast. They looked like two totally different species to me. You grill them over the coals and then wrap the morsels up in rice paper with herbs, green banana, star fruit, vermicelli, scallions, etc. and then dip the whole thing in a creamy sauce. The next round is a goat hotpot. Traditionally this is drunk with some kind of ruou which is a kind of rice wine. Huan asked me if I was interested in the variety with fresh goat blood. I politely declined. At this point he just ordered another kind in Vietnamese and that was that.

It wasn't until the flask was empty that he asked me what I thought of it. I loved it. I expected it to taste like sake, but it tasted closer to an earthy whiskey or mezcal. It turns out it is called something like ngoc duong, which is in fact rice wine flavoured by goat testicle.

I mentioned this at our communal library lunch the next day, and this seemed to result in a kind of male bonding with all the male staff in the library. Goat is considered a male food which is associated with virility, like dog and snake. A kind of Viagra meal. Immediately they wanted to know about the rest of my evening. Maybe I was looking a little worn out from a late night? A whole series of bawdy jokes ensued. My usual (female) interpreter shook her head and refused to translate. It turns out the word for goat de also doubles for horny.

My other recent favourite meal was at the Hom Market which is about a 20 minute walk from my house. I thought I had already eaten my lunch when I wandered in and discovered these little bars where you sit down on a plastic stool and point at fresh salad rolls you want. Most of them contain dried spicy beef jerkey. Some of them were rolled in lettuce and tied into little packets; others were rolled up in rice paper. After 7 or 8 of these, the woman made me a drink from fresh passion fruit. I sat there with a big grin on my face.

Red River Blues

2005-09-26T10:07:00.000-04:00

I went out with L. for the second time recently. The first time we went for bia hoi and billiards. This time he met me at my new place before we set out for dinner. L. is the student from Hai Phong Jon and I met three years ago while watching the Hanoi circus perform outside at a stage on Hoan Kiem Lake, and we kept in touch ever since.

L. is poor and has no moto, so he asked if it was okay for us to do things on foot. I thought maybe we could first have a beer at my place, but he did not seem very comfortable there. He entered tentatively, and was surprised that I would not be sharing with roommates. He also asked about my rent. I've since been told by expats that it is usually best not to answer the rent question. It's a question that pops up and a truthful answer just creates an awkward situation (despite the fact that rent is cheap by our standards). The prudent answer is: "I don't know. The company/university/employer pays for it."

There are some okay hole-in-the-wall joints in my neighbourhood but if you are making a night of it, it's best to head north towards the centre for a more dynamic dining experience. L. suggested bun bo near the Hang Da Market. Hang Da bun bo kicks ass, but it ain't close. It was about a 40 minute brisk walk. I worked up a big appetite in the process. Now it's hard to walk more than about 30 seconds in this city without the pith helmeted xe om drivers draped over their bikes (sometimes lying horizontally across them) calling out to you. We considered taking a moto taxi to cut the journey short, but L. didn't think it was necessary. I assumed he was more comfortable being able to pay his own share of the evening. So we walked to the noodle house.

After dinner we sat around a cafe on Bao Khanh drinking sua chua ca phe (a yoghurt, coffee and crushed ice drink). It was all quite pleasant until his phone rang and his whole demeanor changed during the ensuing conversation. I asked him if everything was alright and he said yes, and we continued our conversation for a few minutes until he could bear it no longer. It turns out his younger brother T.'s girlfriend had just called to let him know that there was trouble. T. is a bit of a bad apple it seems and has developed a gambling problem already by the young age of 21. Every year or so T. gets in way over his head and loses a fortune. My friend L. usually tries to protect his mother from the shame and burden of it all by finding a way to dig his brother out of his debt. This night's newly acquired debt was 30 million dong (approx. CN$2200). This in a country with an average monthly income of approximately CN$60. With this amount L. could buy two motos. L. was too disturbed to go on. He excused himself to go find his brother whose location was unknown. I don't even want to think to what kind of shady characters were looking for him. I hoped on a xe om and headed home.

Over the next few days I told this story to a few friends. The response was always cynical. Vietnamese and expat friends worried that this was all a set-up, a fabricated story and that I should expect to get a call in the next couple days asking for money to help bail out the brother.

It's not like there isn't reason to be cautious about scams around here, and I appreciate the advice I have been getting from friends. But how do you strike the right balance and avoid the pitfalls of naivety and paranoia? It's true that the set-up in this situation seems classic, but what about the fact that I have known L. for three years (albeit mostly through email)? There is also something to intuition. L. is incredibly warm and generous with me, and has always been concerned that I am experience only the best of Viet Nam. He frequently calls me "brother".

The problem with caution is that sometimes the cost of such protection is greater than the risks. I might be willing to lend L. $100 or $200 (but not $2000) if he asked and if I really thought it could make a difference. Call me naive. I might never see it again, and there is a risk that I'd be taken advantage of. On the other hand, what is the cost of shutting down on people and closing your heart to the possibility of real need? That is probably a cost paid by many an expat. I think I would rather lose a couple hundred dollars. It's only money, not integrity.

Five or six days went by without hearing from him. Finally I text messaged him to see how he was doing. He texted me back from Hai Phong where he had gone to be with his family and try to pick up some pieces. He thanked me for thinking of him and wrote to me saying, "You always help me in hard times. Your support means a lot to me."

Village Life

2005-09-24T06:00:00.000-04:00

Even though I have another five months left, I feel like my weekends here are numbered and so I have to make my best of them. I have a list of day trips I want to do. Perfume Pagoda was one. I was thinking of doing Tam Coc and Hoa Lu yesterday with a little travellers' cafe. In the meantime my new friend Hung invited me for a tour of the Red River countryside on the back of his black Vespa. I couldn't resist.

He picked me up yesterday morning at 8:30 for a bun rieu breakfast in the Old Quarter. Breakfast here are generally savoury so it's not unusual to eat something like crab noodle soup in the morning. That wasn't enough so we also ordered some kind of herbal omelette and a sweet bean thing in syrup to follow up. (Gradually I'm becoming more street vendor literate. They usually only sell one or two things which they advertise with Vietnamese only signs. If I don't know the dish I'm too timid to dive in and order. I usually like to know what I'm eating and how to eat it. But after six weeks now I'm building up a repertoire of street foods names.)

Back to the Vespa. We crossed the muddy Red River - it looks as wide as the Mississippi. Looking north we could see the famous Long Bien bridge built by Eiffel (of Tower fame) in the 1890s. There are only chopped up segments of the original left because of heavy bombing during the war; the bombed bits have been filled in. Apparently the Americans would bomb it in the morning and the Vietnamese would be rebuild it by the evening. Apocryphal? I dunno.

It was heavy traffic on a Saturday morning because all the migrant countryfolk were returning to their villages for the weekend (whatever they get of it). It's a fascinating mix of traffic: trucks, cars, motos, bikes, homemade tractors, horse pulled carts, and water buffalo. There was also a big green moving bale of hay. It was weaving in and out of traffic. The hay was so big you could hardly see the wheels of the motobike or the driver. It looked like some Jim Henson creation bobbing around the highway.

Our first destination was Chua Dau (Dau Pagoda). This is a very significant pagoda complex tucked away in a humble village. It is not as spectacular as some of the complexes around but happens to be the first Buddhist site in Viet Nam and dates from the 2nd Century. Little remains of the original buildings because it it is built of wood, but it has an ancient feel nonetheless. It is currently under renovation. Before entering Hung and I were invited for herbal tea with some of the pagoda caretakers who were sitting in one of the collonaded areas. They don't see many foreign tourists, mostly just Vietnamese, and so were fascinated by the guest from Ga Na Da.

Our second stop was Chua But Thap. This pagoda is merely 800 years old, but most of what you see is 17th or 18th Century. Although not as important as Chua Dau it is much more spectacular: beautiful rooflines, courtyards, relief carvings, and statuary. In the middle is a building with a huge Reincarnation Wheel (more like a pillar) which pilgrims gather around once a year to rotate.

Before visiting a temple complex dedicated to the kings of the Ly Empire, we stopped off at a village known for its wood block prints depicting Red River village life (boy with flute on water buffalo, domestic scenes and fanciful animals scenes like the mice wedding procession, and a classroom of toads). At the Museum of Ethnology last month I had read about a famous master artisan who is largely responsible for keeping the tradition alive. I asked Hung if the man is still alive. He nodded and pointed to the old man from who I was buying five prints (40 cents each). I was in the master's living room.

On another note, today I finally had bun cha. This is one of the classic dishes of Hanoi (up there with cha ca, bun rieu, bun thang, and of course pho bo). Bun cha is only eaten at lunch and you can usually tell who has had it because they reek of garlic. The place I ate was thankfully light on the garlic. This is a hard dish to describe. You eat it out of two bowls. One has diluted fish sauce, the other has a broth with little minced pork patties. It is served with a big plate of vermicelli and a massive heap of herbs. It's a mix and match meal, nothing like the premixed Southern style bun dishes we get in Saigon-style restaurants in North America. Each mouthful is a different combination of all the elements. I've got to start taking aerial photographs of my meals before I eat them, but I would look (even more) like a ridiculous tay ba lo if I did.

Zero to Sixty at the Library

2005-09-18T01:53:00.000-04:00

Some of you may be wondering how on earth my sabbatical work here in the library is going. I haven't written a whole lot about that except for a few things about my commute and my experience singing for librarians. For those of you who aren't wondering about the state of libraries in Viet Nam and care primarily about descriptions of food, pagodas and Karst landscapes, you may want to skip this posting. I promise I will get back to those things. (For instance, my recent lunch of large snails from West Lake stewed in lemongrass, lime leaves and chile-tamarind sauce deserves attention.)

Well, I really wasn't sure what to expect of my work here. My initial emails with a librarian here were very promising. There seemed to be so many areas of overlap between my expertise and the vision of the librarian with whom I'd been in contact, especially in the areas of information literacy and the development of reference services. Just before I came I was informed that this librarian had left for the World Bank. Even before I arrived I sensed a vacuum left by her departure. (As an aside, why does the World Bank skim off the most talented, the most visionary and create a brain drain from the very infrastructure they are trying to develop?) In any case, the projects we agreed several months ago I'd be working on include: the introduction of reference services, the development of information literacy instruction, and my participation in a programme to teach English to librarians from across Viet Nam (this last project is now complete).

I was warned by several people that things move very slowly here, and not to expect huge changes. I was told to take whatever goals I have and only expect to accomplish half of them. It helps to be laid back and able to roll with the punches. At the same time I was also told that other changes can come suddenly and things can be implemented overnight before you can stop them. Changes come in these two flavours: glacial and decisive. My first few weeks gave me a feel for the glacial. Now things are moving full steam ahead.

The English for Librarians training is now over and I have turned my attention to the development of library services. This is proving to be fascinating and frustrating at the same time. The Library Director has been pushing for me to run a workshop on reference services. In theory this is a great idea, but I have come to question the purpose of this. There seems to be an assumption that all that is needed is a staff training, a desk and a schedule. On paper this will indeed look like a reference service, and the management is all for anything that looks like a Western-style library. The problem is that reference services cannot be introduced in a vacuum. Public services only work in a service culture. There must be some kind of shared understanding between users and staff about what constitutes a service. It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem: you can't expect reference questions to appear without an expectation of service from the user. And it's difficult to justify a new reference point without a prior demand. One solution is to get library skills embedded somewhere in the curriculum so that the demand is created.

My Australian colleague Stephen and I are of like minds and we regularly escape to the campus guesthouse for iced black coffees (den da has become my drug). We do our best thinking there, but often we get all worked up and then return to the office and feel a kind of inertia set in. It is very difficult to initiate anything without an ability to communicate with the Director (no English) and without clear reporting structures. At times our suggestions are greeted with the dreaded smile, nod and "okay". What this means is: Yes, I acknowledge what are you saying and affirm your existence, but I reserve the right not to respond directly to your idea.

All this changed last Thursday. We got a call from an Australian woman who is deeply connected on campus and who was in discussion with the Dean of a new programme about partnering with librarians to teach information literacy modules for her students. The idea is not simply that we would provide a few classes, but that we would be fully integrated into the entire two year programme. For those of you not up on the current state of academic librarianship, curriculum integration is one of the holy grails of the profession. So you can imagine our surprise after weeks of brainstorming incremental changes with Stephen, we are presented with the end goal. Not only is the idea big, but it is to happen immediately. We caught wind of this last Thursday and already less that a week later, Stephen and I have taught over 300 students.

The problem is that this did not come from a library vision - and this is where it gets interesting. This idea came from an Australian-educated Dean who was deeply influenced by the role of Australian academic libraries in teaching information literacy. She wants to do the same thing here but the library administration doesn't quite seem to get the whole concept. This is one of those cases of leapfrog development. Ideas that took a long time to develop elsewhere in the world get implemented without any of the intermediate steps. The question is, how necessary are these intermediate steps, or can we go skip straight to the last page? So far the answer seems, no, we cannot just skip to the end. This project appears to be opening up many cans of worms.

To begin with Vietnamese education is still deeply Confucian when it comes down to it. One could describe the model crudely as a "banking theory" of education. The teacher invests knowledge in the students who learn by rote. The knowledge is later reproduced by the students in examination. Education is not about transformation, but about reproducing ideas and traditions. Libraries in Vietnam have not traditionally been about independent inquiry, but about storing and protecting ideas. Most libraries here have closed stacks and the role of librarians are generally as bookkeepers.

The library here is very progressive by these standards. We have open stacks which is still a radical idea in most of Viet Nam. But in the process of planning a library class, we discovered that in fact there is a regulation that requires students take a library orientation and pass a test before being allowed to have a library card. Unfortunately it appears the orientation sessions and tests are usually just offered at the beginning of term. God forbid that you actually identify a need to use the library half way through the term.

We've also discovered that innovative projects that create new work are sometimes frowned upon unless they are accompanied by some sort of "personal incentive". You can't get something for nothing. And collaborations with other units are a questionable idea because that might involve a loss of control or at least the optics of that. We get the feeling that our partnership with a dean is seen suspiciously because it looks like we are doing work for her and she has co-opting the library's agenda. It will be challenging to convince the library that this partnership actually benefits the library and is helping us achieve goals such as the creation of reference services.

So you can begin to see how this curriculum integration project is ruffling some feathers.

The other fascinating thing Stephen and I are discovering is that book ownership seems to be a highly charged matter. The library unfortunately has no acquisitions budget. Everything has been acquired by donation. (And you should see some of the crap that "generous" libraries think is appropriate for donation to the developing world. How about "Choose Your Own Adventure Books", Minitab software manuals from the late 80s, and copies of old state tax regulations? I also came across a Jane Fonda Workout book, but somehow it seemed appropriate to have Hanoi Jane's later career represented on the bookshelves.) Despite this sad situation, it appears that departments have traditionally had their own separate acquisitions budget for their own departmental resource centres. If only this money were pooled to become the library budget. On the other hand, the background here is that probably most professors can't afford too many of their own books and so the departmental collections function the way the faculty's private office collections do in West. After all, a nice new academic title can easily cost $100, and that is actually about a month's salary for instructors. (We recently learned that the workers installing metal screens in the library were making about as much as some of the university's top administrators. Everyone has some kind of sideline in order to survive.) So maybe departments began pooling resources out of necessity. And I can't imagine any library in the West letting students take out a book on loan that was worth a VP's monthly salary.

Despite all of this, the library here has made some great strides. It is easy to get frustrated and yet I have to remind myself that the modern academic library that they want, cannot just appear out of nowhere. There are all sorts of issues that the institution must work out for itself. And maybe in the end, the institution that will evolve will in fact be different from what we are used to. But clearly they want changes, and I guess my role is to poke around and challenge and raise some issues so that the library can move beyond its current state.

Perfume Pagoda

2005-09-14T11:37:00.000-04:00

I'm falling behind. I've got a list of things stories and I feel I need to document if I can ever find the time.

At the top of my list is Perfume Pagoda (Chua Huong) which I visited last Sunday. Perfume Pagoda is actually a collection of pagodas on a mountain 70 southwest of Hanoi. It is considered Vietnam's holiest Buddhist site. The 2nd and 3rd lunar months of each year (February and March) are pilgrimage season. There are prescribed times for pilgrims from each region of the country. It's hard to imagine that it would be a meditative experience at that time of year. From the sounds of it is madness. This time of the year is however very quiet.

The pagodas are stunning, but really it is the journey that is most impressive. The ritual journey begins in the small village of Ben Duc where you board a little aluminum boat for a one hour row on the Yen River through a spectacular Karst landscape (looks like a Chinese brush painting). The fantastic 18th Century Thien Tru Pagoda lies at the bottom of the mountain, but the journey continues with an hour and half hike up the mountain to the Huong Tich Grotto. Legend has it that pilgrims have been going to this cave for several thousand years, although the shrine was built in 1575. Well, enough said...I'll let the pictures do the talking.

A couple things though. First, it was strange to be amongst the tourists again (the Tay ba lo as the Vietnamese call them - Western backpackers). I see them downtown but I have no real contact with them. I probably seemed a bit aloof at first and kept my distance. Eventually I got to talking to them and in fact they are were all very interesting people. It made me realize what a very different reality I'm inhabiting compared to my tourist experience three years ago. I have learned so much and ended up interpreting things and signs and other various cultural phenomena to them. And yet I remembered how wonderful the tourist experience was. There are many expats in Hanoi who have never bothered to go to Perfume Pagoda or Halong Bay. Ironically sometimes you have to grab your camera and jump on the little Sinh Cafe tour bus just to expand your horizon, even if it makes you more conspicuous and pulls you (further) out of Vietnamese society for a time. Also there was a Viet kieu in the group, a Vietnamese-American returning to see the places and people of his long distant past. It's always fascinating watching Viet kieu on these tours interacting with the locals in a kind of benign avuncular way - distant and at the same time warm and sympathetic.

Another little experience I thought I should mention: on the way to Ben Duc we passed through a long strip of dog restaurants. Outside one of them was a cage with a small dog running around yapping at passers-by. I didn't find eating dog that disturbing really, but I must admit the sight of the live dog was a bit challenging.

Pho Vo Thi Sau

2005-09-10T12:08:00.000-04:00

At work I've arranged to work Monday to Thursday and leave Fridays for a bit of sight-seeing and some Vietnamese lessons. Last week though I was asked to come in Friday for the closing ceremonies of the English for Librarians program since I helped teach some sections of this program. I hesitated, but I am very relieved I went. I had no idea what was in store.

It turns out my colleague Stephen and I were big celebrities in the ceremonies. They even called us up to the front to deliver impromptu speeches in front of the University President. Being asked to deliver a speech out of the blue probably ranks up there as one of my least favourite things, but somehow it all worked out. After the speeches and photo-ops there was a banquet dinner. Stephen and I were seated at the table of honour with the Library Director, two members of the Board of Governors, and I was next to the President. They brought out platters of steamed fish, tamarind shrimp, salt-cooked chicken, braised beef, green papaya salad, etc. The top administrators were far from stuffy. In fact, they were very relaxed and a lot of fun. They insisted on pouring glass after glass of beer, and were not even beyond an occasional bawdy comment.

At one point, the President asked where in the city Stephen and I were living. When Stephen said Pho Ba Trieu, they exchanged knowing glances. Apparently it is famous for its "massage" parlours. But when I mentioned my new address on Pho Vo Thi Sau, the President looked up and said, "Ah, yes, the Black Spot!" And so I learned that my own cute little house is located in what was in only recent memory the drug hotspot of Hanoi - kind of like the Hanoi version of New York's Hell's Kitchen. But just like Hell's Kitchen, this area has been cleaned up. I won't say it's been gentrified, because that seems to involve Starbucks moving in - although I have discovered a really great pho bo joint across the street. The main street has a lot of workshops with metalworkers and mechanics, but there are also a few cafes, sidewalk restaurants and a bia hoi (beer garden). They cleared out the infamous "black spot" by putting in a couple small lakes. One of the lakes is a stone's throw from my house, and every evening at dusk, neighbourhood women gather at its side for an aerobics class. My house is down a cute little laneway. I love the network of laneways. There is a little courtyard a few steps from the house where neighbours gather for badminton and children run around. Vietnamese neighbours are notoriously gossipy and they notice every coming and going. I'm sure my appearance has got the rumour mill going. One morning I walked out and 3 little girls looked shocked. "Tay oi, tay oi, tay oi!" they screeched after me (tay ="west" or "westerner" and oi is something like "heh").

My house is three storeys, but I only really use two. The top floor contains a room with a little family altar (all houses have these), a laundry room and a large porch for hang drying clothes. The middle floor has a bedroom and a living room, and the first floor has a room to park motos and a large kitchen. Last night Viet helped me organize a little housewarming. There were 8 of us: 5 Vietnamese, 1 Israeli, 1 Australian, and me. We made baguette sandwiches and bought a big jug of draft beer from the bia hoi across the street.

The only downside so far is the rooster out back that likes to greet the dawn at 5:45 each morning. It feels nice to be settled. As much as I enjoyed staying with Andrew, I never had much of my own space to relax. Now I have a place to chill out. Next on the agenda: a moto and a gym!

Jazz at the House of Big Sing

2005-09-08T12:05:00.000-04:00

Nha Hat Lon. That would be the Hanoi Opera House. Literally it translates to the House of Big Sing. Learning new words can be fascinating (and often hilarious). So many new phrases are funny little interpretations, metaphors and juxtapositions when you translate them literally. (Then there are the wild transliterations of English words into Vietnamese characters. Today I saw "The Importance of Being Earnest" on a shelf in the library by the author Oxca Oaido. If you know how to sound out the Vietnamese characters, these spellings are ingenious and effective.)

Anyway, I digress. Last night I spent an evening at the famous Nha Hat Lon. The French built the thing in 1911 (?) as a smaller scale replica of the Paris Opera. It has a stately yellow and white presence at the end of a boulevard near the bottom of Hoan Kiem Lake. I've been dying to get inside the building; for one thing it's acoustic are legendary. So I was thrilled when my friend Chien offered me free tickets to a concert by a Finnish jazz group called Trio Toykeat. Chien suggested I meet him and his friends on the step of the Opera House at 7:55 for the 8:00 show. I suggested 7:45 instead, which he seemed to think was unnecessary. I guess I'm still getting used to Vietnamese time, which is a lot like Latin time (or drag time for that matter!) . The boys were completely unconcerned to be chatting outside at 8:10. The show actually started at about 8:20. It was an interesting crowd streaming by us as we waited on the steps. In my neighbourhood and at the university I can go a whole day only seeing one or two Westerners, but it seemed the whole diplomatic community had shown up for the occasion (after all it was sponsored by the Finnish embassy).

The building has been restored and is in beautiful condition. The foyers are pure marble, but inside it has the size and feel of the Elgin Theatre in Toronto - red velvet seats and Victorian looking boxes. The show was great too, but I'm not sure what the Vietnamese audience made of it because much of it was experimental. My friend Chien had about 8 of his friends present. I thought they had been enjoying it, but the truth came out just after the intermission when most of them decided to excuse themselves: karaoke was calling! Chien admitted that he couldn't really get into this kind of jazz. He was trying hard to learn to listen, but his ear wasn't yet accustomed it. I guess it's the same trouble many in the West have learning to hear tonalities and musical structures so foreign to us. To be fair, the karaoke was also part of a farewell party for one of Chien's best friends who is leaving for five years of study in Japan today. In any case, I decided to stay and hear the second half. Also I needed an early night to get home and unpack my bags in my new house. I will get to the story of my house soon I hope.

Lenin Park

2005-09-03T09:13:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was a big holiday weekend here. September 2nd is Independence Day and this was the 60th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence by Ho Chi Minh in Ba Dinh Square. This is an intensely patriotic country, and every house hangs a flag for the holiday. Nonetheless, anyone who can tries to get out of town for the holiday weekend, because the city becomes a bit of a zoo. Originally my plans were to go to Hai Phong with a friend (his hometown), but his studies got in the way and our plans were abandoned. Plan B was to witness the big military parade down at Ba Dinh Square - until I discovered it was called for 7am. A colleague at work recommended I make my way down there at 3am. If he was joking he has a very dry sense of humour. In any case, I was told that if I wanted to go I'd have to walk; the xe om drivers wouldn't even try to get close because of gridlocked traffic. Needless to say, I decided to sleep in and pass on the goosestepping orgy.

Later in the evening there were firecracker displays at 5 locations in Hanoi. Andrew and I were out and about and didn't really intend to wade out in the chaos but got swept up in it. Before heading to pick up a friend of his on his chopper we had to stop by a building where he works. It's a huge posh marble building with a mall full of high-end designer stores and grand fountains at the entrance. He had some business to do and when we stepped out onto the terrace to leave we were faced by a sea of gridlocked bikes. Gradually the crowd edged into the building grounds and began to discover the marble fountains. The security guards seemed powerless. Instead of retreating to the top of the building to watch the fireworks from the roof, we waded out into the crowd, somehow crossed the intersection and into Lenin Park to watch the spectacle. I don't care about fireworks so much but it was great people-watching. Hanoians seem to overcome their reserve in large crowds.

I have been to Lenin Park for a morning run twice now. Apparently the park used to be a huge swampy dump but it was transformed into a leafy park centred around a large lake with several islands. It's quite a sight really early in the morning. The Vietnamese are health conscious and the park is packed at 6am when it is still cool. It's a weird kaleidescope of activity. Many people just walk or run the circuit around the lake, but there are also spontaneous aerobics classes (women only), ball-room dancing, lots of badminton, volleyball and even fishing. But my favourite are the old men and women doing tai chi like moves. I say "tai chi like" moves because they are completely idiosyncratic and are, I'm sure just made up on the spot. The tai chi improv often looks bizarre and comical. Then there are the teens practicing their breakdance/hip hop moves. It's hard to believe that these gangsta types wake up at 5:30am to practice their grooves. Last week I was trailing another runner making a loop around the lake when suddenly he broke into some kind of airborne kung fu move. All this frenetic morning activity evaporates quickly though. By the time my bus passes by the park on the way to work, it has mostly emptied out.

Well, no posting of mine is complete without a food update. Every day is a culinary adventure, though some dishes have just become absorbed into my routines. For instance, breakfasts are either pho (beef or chicken) or my new obsession: banh my trung, which is just a simple baguette stuffed with an omelette, cucumber and chili sauce. Yumm! And I could have both if I so desired for under a dollar. But there are two meals that are particularly noteworthy. Of course they were both meals introduced to me by Viet. He's not a foodie at all, but just keeps taking me to one brilliant (and dirt cheap) place after another. Sunday night 5 of us went again for lau (hotpot) at another one of these sidewalk joints. Hanoians say that hotpot season has begun since it is now "cool". I would never call a humid 32C cool, but any old excuse is fine by me. My first lau was all beef; this time it was almost everything but beef, including: clams, live jumbo shrimp (the lid was covered so I didn't have to watch them squirm), various types of tofu and greens, mushrooms, chicken, frog legs and pig brains. Frog legs were not new for me, but the brain was - very soft, tastes like liver. The broth was incredibly rich by the end when we added the noodles.

The other discovery was tonight on the way to the linen store to buy sheets for my new house (more on that later), when we stopped by a hole-in-the-wall specializing in eel. The main speciality was mien luon, which is a glass noodle soup topped with deep fried eels strips (no bones thankfully) and garnished with bean sprouts, lime juice, and chili sauce. I was starving and so had to follow it up with a bowl of chao luon (eel congee). I think the time has come for a really good Hanoi themed restaurant in Toronto. Saigonese restaurants are a dime of dozen, back home, but what about the poor neglected art of eel soup, sour snail soup, cha ca and bun cha! All I need is a little old Vietnamese lady to take me in as a cooking apprentice, and maybe a few silent business partners.

Pho Co: 36 Streets

2005-08-31T11:28:00.000-04:00

No it's not another soup. Pho co is the name of the old quarter, literally meaning ancient streets. It's also known traditionally as the 36 streets. Somehow the latter name seems like a lie. The number suggests a limit, as if you would exhaust the area by counting them off. In fact, pho co embodies a kind of infinity within. Over the last two weeks I have wandered around here many times. The area assaults the senses and boggles the mind.

Several times I have met friends after work for an iced coffee with friends at the Au Lac cafe behind the famous Hotel Metropole. It's all very genteel and beautiful sitting under the canopy of trees and taking in the French architecture. But when I wander north into pho co, the streets change and begin to meander off defying any sense of direction. The Vietnamese I have met cannot speak of the city in terms of compass points as we do in North America. In fact, they don't seem to be able to point out things to me on a map either. There is no use for me to say I am staying south of Hoan Kiem District. The city is a place they known by intuition, not by a rational mental grid. (See the article "Paradoxes of Discovery" which I have linked from my blog sidebar.) I have only just begun to wander around without a map for the first time. If I get lost, I can always hop on a xe om and direct them to my address in Bach Khoa. But getting lost is half the fun. It is during those times I feel I experience the infinity of the district. There is a richness of detail, of both architecture and human life: the unexpected pagodas, street vendors, hidden alleys, market streets, and sidewalk cafes.

At the same time, I worry that the area has lost something in the three years since I was last here. Each street is still named after an ancient guild or trade that once operated there. There is a chicken street, a paper offerings street, a tinsmith street. (Here's a list of the meaning of the 36 streets.) Over time, the trades of the streets have changed and the names are no longer reflective of the businesses, but even just a few years ago the old quarter was still like a giant department store, with neighbourhoods of merchants and artisans engaged in the same trade. I remember a bird cage area, a sunglasses street, a gravestone street and a candy lane. Somehow these themes seem less striking now than I remember them in 2002. The businesses are more mixed and more gentrified.

On the other hand, the changes have also brought about some improvements. I remember being constantly harassed by street vendors hawking gum, maps, travel guides, and lottery tickets (not to mention marijuana and opium) . They were very aggressive and Jon and I came close to being assaulted by a desperate map vendor. This irritation is mostly gone, although if you linger too long on a corner looking at a map, the xe om and cyclo drivers appear out of nowhere to offer their services. I was told today that most of these vendors were shipped back to the countryside during the ASEAN Seagames hosted by Hanoi several years ago.

But how many of the irritants are part of the overall flavour? Tonight I sat on little plastic chairs at a sidewalk cafe. Suddenly a jeep swept around the corner followed by 4 or 5 motos and screeched to a halt directly in front of my curbside seat. Stern looking green uniformed police jumped out and confiscated all the tables and chairs (including the one I was sitting on) and screeched off again just as quickly. It was a very abrupt and alarming experience. Apparently the street's sidewalks were not designated for patio use. Of course the messy life on the sidewalks are half the fun and charm of the old streets of Hanoi, chaotic as they may be.

Cell phones, Gyms & Dog Meat

2005-08-29T10:04:00.000-04:00

I now have two Ha Noi weekends under my belt. It's hard to believe it's only been two. I feel like I've been here months now. Yesterday I took a motobike taxi (xe om) home from the outskirts of town where I played my first game of ultimate frisbee (a kind of frisbee football). It was a long and chaotic ride (the driver complained: xa qua, xa qua!) and lasted perhaps 20-25 minutes. I thought how much I have acclimatized, when I was hopping off the bike I realized that I spent the entire journey text messaging people on my phone with one hand while I hung on the back of the seat with the other. This is significant for at least three reasons: 1) I am no longer phased by the traffic; I was mostly oblivious to all the swerves and near-misses as I typed away; 2) I have at least a dozen friends and contacts in my cell phone already; and, 3) I have succumbed to the epidemic of texting that has swept Asia. This must be the most networked city on earth (or is it just Asia?). Everyone knows everyone, and once you have contacts in a few different groups, you are quickly known to entire networks. People don't seem to leave home without their cards which they hand out liberally. Ha Noi has been called a city of villages and perhaps that explains it. Everything is everyone's business.

Maybe because of this intense interconnectedness people aslo erect social partitions in order to try to protect their privacy. In a previous post I think I mentioned how the gay community is composed of groups. People are members of these groups and are identified as belonging to one. I haven't had much luck getting people to mix between them. It's paradoxical: people know everything about each other and yet pretend they've never met. I asked a group of Vietnamese guys what is the fascination with text messaging. They said it is popular for two reasons: it is cheaper than calling, but it is also a way to communicate without the risk of being overheard. It's a way of networking, but keeping silent at the same time. Maybe this is the consequence of living in a very densely populated society and one in which people live much more communally than we do in the West.

I'm realizing how taboo my blog is. Here I am publicly writing about people. If this blog were discovered by Ha Noi, I'm sure it would be social suicide. If I can find a way, I might make it accessible by invitation only (stay tuned).

Back to my weekend... Viet picked me up on Saturday morning and we spent the day riding around. Viet just treats me like one of the guys, and so I find myself with a guide of Vietnamese life. The great thing is that he doesn't even think about it. In fact, he often doesn't even tell me where we are going until we are there. So Saturday he took me to a Vietnamese gym out in the outskirts of Ha Noi.

I wasn't prepared for the sight, but it seems neither were the other guys prepared to see the likes of me. The gym was just one small room crammed with equipment and people working out. There were very few woman, and almost all the men work out topless. These guys were in very good shape. Let's just say it was distracting. I know I'm a curiosity as a white guy outside of the tourist areas, but generally people don't make much of a fuss (except perhaps little kids who gawk). In the gym though I seemed to have created a stir. The entire gym stared at me as I walked in and as I worked out.

After the gym, Viet's friends met us at a dog meat (thit cho)restaurant. Dog is generally only eaten in the second half of the lunar month when it is considered lucky. Eating it too early can bring bad luck. And it is mostly eaten by men, since it associated with virility. I would have been happy with just a taste, but dog meat is a multi-course meal. It is eaten with a mixture of fresh herbs, vermicelli noodles, and dipped in shrimp paste (mam tom). Frankly it wasn't my favourite. It was a bit gamey and grisley. Probably the lemongrass grilled pieces were the best. I wasn't that fond of the little sausages of dog intestine stuffed with some kind of nut. They tasted a bit like liver. Even though it wasn't my favourite meal so far, I must say though that it really was not a disturbing experience. It felt quite normal. Just not my favourite. The restaurant happened to have a little pet toy dog running around. It was definitely not the kind for eating (dog meat comes from a special breed which is farmed), but still I don't think it had any idea of the irony of its situation. I just hope it has been trained not to eat scraps off the ground.

The Working Week

2005-08-26T02:53:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted in a while. I was on a roll with a post per day, but then my first working week hit. So no, I haven't fallen off the edge of the world, I've just been busy with the routines of daily life. I guess these routines don't seem as worthy of note either, even though daily life here is always full of surprises and discoveries.

At the moment I have been helping my colleague teach some units of a English for Librarians program. This program brings together about 40 or 50 librarians (mostly young women) from across Viet Nam for English language training. Most of the program is simply language learning, but Stephen is responsible for teaching three classes a week in which they discuss library issues in English. These are the units I have been helping with. Stephen warned me that they are intensely curious about us (and especially me since I've just arrived) and so I decided to start things off with a presentation on Toronto. I took dozens of pictures of landmarks and street scenes in Toronto before I left. I was to give this on Wednesday, but at the last minute we got booted out of the classroom with the projector so we ended up having to improvise something for an hour. Our solution was to let them indulge and ask us questions - not necessarily library related. Thankfully the fact that I am not married with a family at the ripe old age of 36 (gasp!) had already circulated thoroughly through the grapevine so I wasn't pestered by this perennial Vietnamese question. Still, here are some I got: "Do you think Vietnamese women are beautiful?", "Do you know how to say I love you.?" (I did much to their surprise.) "Do you think you will find a nice Vietnamese girl while you are here?" A friendly bit of advice I got from one of the lecturers at the university, is never let them get hold of your cell number, especially if you are single. You will never hear the end of it.

They seemed to delight at comparing me and Stephen. Stephen is taller. Mark is older. Stephen is a more experienced teacher. They also like comparing our accents. Stephen had prepared me for one thing: the Vietnamese love sing for each other and sing together, and it is not unusual to be asked to perform on the spot. No wonder there are karaoke bars everywhere. Sure enough the question came: can you sing? I pretended to be shocked and unprepared, but then I came out with a short little aria from Mozart's Don Giovanni. They were all quite surprised (and oblivious to the fact that I had forgotten the lyrics and was ad-libbing faux Italian). I then followed it up by a verse of the Irish folk song Down by the Salley Gardens. I think I will live to regret this. I have had several follow up requests already, and they have even suggested an evening out at karaoke. God forbid!

On Monday I still intend to give my presentation on Toronto, and another later in the week on York University Libraries as a case study of an academic library. Later yet I will give more detailed presentations on library services.

Despite all of this, I feel underemployed. After the English for librarians program is over I think they would like me to improve the English of the library staff and somehow introduce library services like reference and information literacy instruction. There are two big (related) problems. There is no collections budget to speak of and they are mostly dependent on donations. Consequently the collection is not particulary relevant to the curriculum and the students don't see the importance of the library to their education. I've got some ideas about some strategies, but at this point I'm still trying to figure the place out. The management style is very hands-off. That's great if you want to be left alone, but I'm not sure what happens when you try to initiate change.

I'm very sorry to say that my initiation into the cuisine of dog meat has been postponed. I went out with Tuan Anh (the one Jon and I befriended 3 years ago) last night and we went to a bia hoi joint, but thit cho was not on the menu. Instead we ate squid, fish fried rice, and drank draught beer. Afterwards we went to a rooftop patio for an iced black coffee (I'm cutting back on the sweetened condensed milk) and eventually to a pool hall. I really like Tuan Anh. He's very generous and always concerned about my experience in Viet Nam. He's also fun and loves the bia hoi scene. At dinner last night he invited me to come to Hai Phong for the day to see his home town and visit his parents on Sept. 2nd which is Independence Day. I'm honoured but wonder whether I should stay in Hanoi that day to see the huge celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

My First Commute

2005-08-22T10:01:00.000-04:00

Today was my first real day at the university. I went in for a visit last week on the back of a moto taxi (xe om), but this time Viet said he'd pick me up early in the morning, take me for breakfast at a street stand, and then taxi me on his bike for 8:30. I woke up worried to the sound of heavy rain because i don't have the kind of full length poncho style raincoat that is appropriate for moto transportation. Thankfully the rain let up by the time he rang the bell. Breakfast was at a little open-air corner cafe where we ate banh my sandwiches with pate and pork fat (yeah, I know), cold soy milk, coffee (nau nong), and some kind of beef stew. Then we headed out...

Well, I thought commuting to York was bad! This was possibly the most memorable commute of my life (with the exception of the blackout in TO). We headed down the most direct route from downtown but hit a traffic jam - thousands upon thousands of motos buzzing and snarling and buses in between spewing out exhaust. We weren't going anywhere so we doubled back and headed west to try another route. Same story. It seems the rain caused the roads to flood and this snarled up the whole city. Viet tried to negotiate smaller routes and alleys, but this didn't work so we went back to the main boulevard. Many of the frustrated moto drivers decided to ignore the divider and use the opposite side of the street going into ongoing traffic. Of course this was dangerous, so instead a whole stream of motos (us included) hopped onto the unusually wide sidewalk. God forbid there actually be pedestrians using the sidewalks! This approach got us to the next roundabout which was snarled with a very pissed looking cop in the middle shouting at people.

In the middle of this sea of motorbikes, I hear my name. This is extremely unlikely in this city of how many million where I know maybe a dozen people. It was Stephen, my Australian colleague from the library at the university. After idling alongside for a few minutes, it occured to me that I should just switch bikes and and let Viet turn back and avoid this mess. Eventually Stephen and I made it to the campus which had been completely flooded by the rain. The students were wading barefoot into the campus in a foot of water. The library was an island, the water lapping right up to the building. Luckily Stephen's bike could cut through it and I somehow I arrived relatively dry. The water had drained away half way through the day. I'm told this is not a usual commuting experience, just an unfortunate first impression.

The rest of the day was very pleasant. I spent the time preparing one of my presentations to the English For Librarians course I'll be participating in. There was our communal lunch on the rooftop, and then naptime! All the staff find a little corner to curl up and doze off. There are no cots so I just pulled up six chairs and made myself a little makeshift bed. Then I went to the first class just to meet the students. Later the whole class was invited to a nearby house for a little goodbye celebration of a library staff member who will be leaving to study computer science in Korea on scholarship. We all sat around on the tiled floor eating tropical fruit and spicey beef jerky.

Meanwhile during my doze I had received a text message from my friend Tuan Anh. Jon and I met Tuan Anh three years ago while watching the Ha Noi circus perform outside at Hoan Kiem Lake in the celebrations leading up to New Year's Eve.) Tuan Anh was texting me to ask if I'd join him at a bia hoi patio on Thursday for draught and dog meat. I thought about it a minute and responded in the affirmative. There are so many signs for thit cho throughout the city that it seems quite normal. I don't intend to eat a lot, just a taste maybe. I actually met Tuan Anh at a bia hoi patio yesterday after I called him from Lenin Park. It's like a Vietnamese beer garden with lots of snacks. But I draw the line at con meo (cat).

Apocalypse Now!

2005-08-21T01:24:00.000-04:00

It's not what you think! It's a gay club, not a war movie. Well, not entirely gay, maybe 3/4 and it depends on where you are standing in the club. It looked and sounded like any North American club, except for the 95% Viet crowd and the very stern looking green uniformed cops posted around the club.

I had a blast! By law all clubs are supposed to close at midnight, but I guess the club has "connections" so the music winds down around 1 (yeah, okay so it's not Fly). I'm starting to notice a strange trend though: like any scene it has its cliques, but these groups tend to be keep entirely apart. The guys recognize each other and may even know a lot about each other (through gossip?), but there is little mixing. I know guys in two different circles, and when I tried to introduce them, I was told "It's really not necessary." It's as if people are scared to have too many gay connections; it's like an allergy to community.

The after-hours scene seems to be pho bo at the night market. The streets at 1am are devoid of activity, but when Apo (as it's called for short) lets out, an gay armada of motorbikes sweeps the streets - about 40 motos travelling as a clump towards the city centre, bikes gradually peeling off. Eventually a small group of us arrived at the Dong Xuan Market in the Old Quarter, established ourselves on little plastic stools and ordered beef noodle soup. I'm totally into this and would like to suggest 60 cent bowls of pho be served on little squat benches at Timothy's after the clubs let out in TO. Unfortunately late night rice noodles might not go over on carb-phobic Church St.

It looks like I'm back to food, so while I'm at it let me describe a late breakfast (brunch?) I had with Viet this morning. The Globe and Mail just came out with an article (which I should link to from my main blog page) about Hanoi cuisine. It was called something like "Down the rabbit hole of Hanoi cuisine". Well, it truly feels like a kind of secret world sometimes. The rabbit hole this morning was a den of sidestreets and alleyways which Viet squeezed his bike down with me on the back to this tiny room packed with locals eating bun oc (snail noodle soup). Damn! 50 or 60 cents for this delicious bowl of slightly sour broth with herbs, round rice noodles, a few tomatoes and these little delicate snails of varying sizes. It's got to be about a 5 min. walk from here, but I can't imagine I'd ever find it again.

House Hunting

2005-08-20T08:36:00.000-04:00

The theme yesterday was house hunting. Andrew has been in Saigon on business for a couple days and he returns today or Monday. I really feel like I need to move on soon before I overstay my time. So yesterday I had two appointments to look at some possibilities. It's been a great way to get to know Ha Noi better because I'm seeing new districts and getting a feel for Vietnamese neighbourhoods - clearly not something one experiences as a tourist.

First I met with Lam. Thach referred me to him. We went to lunch and iced coffee, and then weaved our way through the traffic on his moto, through the embassy district and beyond. Through friends he had heard of a house for rent and had arranged with the landlady for a viewing. It was not easy to find. Most people seem to live in little alleyways off of larger streets, and even smaller lanes spindle off of these. The house was in one of these networks. We had tea and longan fruit with the landlady and her daughter and afterwards a tour of the 5 story house (only one room a floor, but still more than I'd need!). The price dropped from US$500 to $400. It's a possibility but I'd still like to be a bit closer to the centre and on a more direct bus line to the university.

After meeting Lam, Dat picked me up at the Daewoo Hotel (holy posh!) and we skirted around to the east side of West Lake to meet a woman he works for who is well connected and may have some housing ideas. This side of the lake (the largest in a city of lakes) has a series ancient villages that have been swallowed up by the city but somehow still retain their charm and identity. The village we were in was full of narrow streets, gardens and pagodas - very quiet and peaceful, a sanctuary and refuge from the busy streets of the city. Dat's friend was not home yet so he took me to an ancient pagoda and monastery complex nearby. In the past, I've just assumed the pagodas here were essentially Buddhist if somewhat eclectic. Not so! One temple was Taoist (dedicated to the Jade Emperor) but with Buddhist shrines, and another was dedicated to a local historical/mythical figure whom people revere (a cross-dressing woman who fought the Chinese occupiers!). Dat explained how all these beliefs, gods, goddesses, practices, myths and traditions all bleed together. Vietnamese religion is highly syncretic. It is so complicated to follow the various strands. Buddhism is only part of the picture. He then explained the significance of the trees and plants of the village, their uses and meanings in Vietnamese culture. Everything is imbued with spirits and Dat explained half a dozen legends, tales and creation myths.

After I explained what areas of the city interested me, Dat's friend said she would be in touch about the possibility of a small house near the Temple of Literature. Finally I have a few leads.

Pho Bo Mornings

2005-08-18T23:58:00.000-04:00

At this rate, I'm going to come home with a flat little tummy. The food is simple, delicious, satisfying but they don't know about supersizing yet. I'm never in danger of overeating. I have to resist turning this blog into a prolonged meditation on food. Everyone knows I'm obsessed by food - esp. Viet food. It's an unavoidable topic.

So far I've had pho bo (beef noodle soup) three mornings in a row. Back in TO, this classic dish can be bought for dinner for a scandalous $8 in Asian fusion restaurants on Yonge St. Here it is a humble breakfast, is served from boiling pots on the sidewalk where you sit on kindergarden stools and slurp away. And it costs 60 cents. It's a Hanoi original but is eaten throughout the country. The garnishments are what distinguish the different regions I'm told. Here in Hanoi the style is spare: julienned scallions, a couple leaves of herbs, some chili sauce and a squirt of lime (but kind of more like a tiny orange?).

Last night was ga tan. It was delicious and completely like any soup I've every eaten in North American restaurants. Chicken drumsticks in a broth with bitter herbs (identity unknown), lotus seeds, red raisin-like things and maybe a few chunks of herbal root. Each piece of chicken is dipped in a salty milky looking dip. Very satisfying and sure enough it took care of my upset tummy. I would never have picked out this restaurant, but Viet took me there. You'd think that one of the finest purveyors of this dish in a city of several million would seat more than 6 people at once. A little kid (age 3?) sat with his mother at the end of our table and stared at me with his huge black eyes the whole time. What's this white monkey doing here eating our food?

Okay, I just noticed the last two postings are named after dishes. So I'm predictable.

It was a beautiful cool night (well cool is relative), and after dinner Viet took me for a moto ride around West Lake, by Ba Dinh square with the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, and around the ancient Citadel, which I'd never seen before. It's a significant historical site, but is off limits as a military complex. Over the walls you could get fascinating glimpses of ancient yellow gates and the tiled roofs of pagoda-like buildings. Then to a cafe for bubble tea.

I see I'm back to food again. I must be hungry and it's roughly lunch time. Oh, the possibilities!

Beef Ball Hotpot and Other Curiosities

2005-08-18T03:24:00.000-04:00

Okay, back to the beginning...

The flight was actually much much easier than I remembered. Maybe it helps to dread it to the point where the reality can't help but be better than what you imagined. I think the Xanax sleeping pill Paul B. gave me was a big part of it too. I slept like a baby all the way to Alaska and beyond (I think). I was surprised how fast it all seemed. I hardly spoke a word to anyone on the flight to HK (again Xanax may have something to do with that), but ended up next to a young guy named Du~ng on the flight from HK to Hanoi. We got to talking and it turns out he's Viet kieu (overseas Vietnamese) from Wuerzberg Germany of all places. His English was shaky, but his German excellent since he's lived in Germany since he was 5. This was his first trip back home to VN after 14 years. I hardly have a chance to practice my German in Toronto, but there I was giving my German a workout while flying over the South China Sea. Go figure! We were both so excited when we touched down in Hanoi. I was trying to imagine all that was going through his head returning to a homeland he hardly remembers and to meet his grandparents for the first time in their native city.

After I picked up my luggage I wheeled it out through the exit doors into a crowd of people. I was searching the crowd and praying I'd see James Ha's friend Viet holding a little sign for me. Sure enough, there he was. It’s wonderful to have someone waiting at the other end, especially somewhere so far from home. We took a cab back to his friend Andrew's place. Andrew is an expat Ozzie who has been here two years. He’s incredibly generous and has been an invaluable source of advice and insight.

It’s amazing how all these connections have worked out. James introduces me to Viet who sets me up at Andrew's house and introduces me to half a dozen of his friends. And I guess all my chatting online is paying off. Yesterday I met Dat for coffee, and Thach has been calling at least twice a day from Saigon to see how I am making out. Thach has also asked his friend to help me look for housing. I hope to go house hunting with her tomorrow. She’s got a few places in mind. So I feel well cared for. On the other hand, I feel quite helpless most of the time. I don’t know my neighbourhood well enough to venture more than a few blocks away on my own - it’s a maze of boulevard, alleyways, markets and a buzzing sea of two wheeled traffic - so I’m always depending on someone to ferry me around on the back of their motos. And all the little things take so long to figure out. You take for granted the familiar routines that provide the context for your life until suddenly you are in a radically new context and all the minutiae of your life have to be reconstructed and reinvented from scratch. The expats say it takes a while.

Viet has been especially good to me. My first night here (Tuesday) he called up 6 of his friends (4 Viets, 2 expats) and took me out to a hotpot restaurant in the Ancient Quarter where we ate lau bo. It was dusk as we set out and by the time we got to Hoan Kiem Lake it was sparkling with lights and the pagoda floating on the island in the centre of the lake was glowing magically. We drove up the street Jon and I stayed on in 2002 and past our old hotel, past the bia hoi (fresh beer) vendor where I remember watching the theatre of the street. It was comforting to finally see something familiar. Our destination was near the ancient gate of the old walled city.

(Every ride through the city so far is an eye-popping and often hair-raising experience. There is so much activity; the streets bubble with life. And there is something so distinctive about the look and feel of a Vietnamese city street. It could be nowhere else: the street vendors in their conical hats, the moto traffic weaving madly, the canopied trees, the ubiquitous cafes with their miniature plastic stools.)

As for the restaurant, it was completely devoid of chairs, only grass mats and low tables. We shared a large beef hotpot and chatted in a combination of Vietnamese and English. Only two concerns. One was the big chunks of ice floating in the sweet corn tea we were all drinking, but I followed the lead of the two expats and have lived to tell the tale. The other concern…amongst various other cuts of beef in the hotpot were sliced beef testicles. Actually I was fascinated and it appears it was a bit of a novelty even for the Viet guys. I would have nibbled at one if it had found its way into my bowl but somehow it never happened.

It was great to be surrounded by such a friendly group on the first night. Viet has been great that way, and has been going out of his way to make sure I feel connected.

Today was my day to go to the university. I woke up early enough to find breakfast on the street. The vendors here each sell one thing only, so I went to one place for beef noodle soup, another for a baguette, and a third for a coffee - all within half an hour. The woman running the cafe looked me over and then began her questions. It was at that point that I realized how much I have actually learned from my Vietnamese tutor in the last 8 months. I was able to stumble through a 15 min. conversation with her. All basic stuff, but it felt like a victory for me.

After breakfast I negotiated a ride for about $2 on the back of a moto (xe om) to the university which is about a 20 minute ride south of my neighbourhood. The campus is set off from the street and very leafy and quiet with yellow painted buildings. I was met by one of the librarians at the administrative building and she brought me to the Foreign Office where I made my presence known. Of course it was accompanied by tea. Always tea. Then off to the library for a tour. It was there that I met Stephen, an Australian with whom I'll be working quite closely it seems. I think he's glad to have a English speaking colleague - as am I of course. I'll write more later about my impressions of the university and library. The best part was the lunch. The library staff has its own cook who lays out a communal lunch every day at 11:30 in a little glassed-in rooftop room. I'm looking forward to 6 months of these lunches. The chit chat will be a great opportunity to work on my Vietnamese. My colleagues are so curious and friendly and show such goodwill. We ate rice, plain tofu, sliced potatoes, pork belly dipped in salt and lime juice, and some kind on unidentifiable greens in a soup broth. Very simple but healthy.

Each day my experiences exceed the time (and ability) I have to describe them. I am sure I will always feel like I'm catching up as I am now.

Viet is coming to pick me up on his moto at this internet cafe for dinner in a few minutes. My tummy is starting to notice that it's not in Kansas anymore so he's taking me to a little place that serves an herbal chicken soup called ga tan. He has explained that it's good for what ails you, containing ingredients for the stomach, brain, circulatory system, energy, etc. A cure-all meal for about $1 each. (Now I expect half of you will be thinking I'm foolish given that I'm ground zero for the supposed impending bird flu epidemic, but I've done my research and cooked bird is all quite safe. I've never been a big fan of raw chicken and I guess I'll just have to pass on the experience of fresh duck blood.) Ok, enough for now.

Lesson # 1

2005-08-17T12:36:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm here and have much to tell. In fact, I did tell it all, but lost it all at an internet cafe earlier today. Hence lesson #1: DO NOT compose blog entries while online. Next time I compose in word processing and cut and paste. I had a lengthy detailed description of my first 24 hours. When I went to post I discovered that the connection to the server had been lost and the thing vanished before my eyes. Grrr. Hopefully I will find time to reconstruct it tomorrow after my first meeting at the university. It remains to be seen how long this meeting will be. It's been hard to find time to write these last two days. I'm either sleeping from jetlag or trying my best to accomplish tasks which would otherwise be easy back home. Today's accomplishments: figured out where to buy pho bo in the neighbourhood; obtained a cell phone; bought a plug converter for my electrical devices; and met with the landlord of the guy I'm staying with for now (an expat Ozzie named Andrew- great guy!) to present him with a copy of my passport and visa so that my whereabouts can be reported to the local police (a routine procedure). The meeting with the landlord included a kind of tea ceremony with chit chat, partly in Vietnamese and partly through Andrew's friend Tuan who interpreted for us. The conversation of course included the perennial question: are you married yet. Chua! Yes, I know I'm very old (36!) not to be married, but it's not the same in Canada. I'll get used to this routine I'm sure. Ok this internet cafe is closing. Gotta run. More tomorrow. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this actually posts!

2005-07-22T11:44:00.000-04:00

My dear friend James has been in town for one of his annual week-long visits home. He's what you'd call a professional ex-pat. He's travelled and lived in more places than anyone I know. His addresses in the last couple years include: Pakistan, Shanghai, Saigon, and now he's living in Medellin, Colombia. He's been great to talk to about my upcoming time in Viet Nam because he's lived in Saigon and his family is originally from Hanoi. I've been taking mental notes.

He told me that of all the places he's been, Viet Nam was in many ways the strangest. Not strange in a wacky Japanese game show kinda way, but just profoundly different and often incomprehensible. The first week Jon and I were in Viet Nam in 2002, we felt bewildered by the culture and the intensity of the experience (there is more life on once corner of Saigon than half of downtown Toronto) . The second and third weeks, we thought we had it figured out. And the fourth and final week we felt like beginners again; we had learned only enough to sense the depths of our ignorance.

Last week over drinks at Woody's, James told me that I am more prepared for my time in Viet Nam than anyone he's ever known - but that it's a mixed blessing. Perhaps it is better to go without preconceptions and just experience it. Well, it's much too late for that. I may be obsessed, but I don't think it's out of a neurotic need to plan - just a fascination with the culture, language, food... Besides, if Viet Nam is as truly different as all that, I can't help but be naive in this adventure.

Well, so begins my blog. My sabbatical starts in one week, and I'm three weeks from hopping on my plane. I intend my next entry to be written from Ha Noi.