Chapter 19 - Hanoi, Vietnam

-TO ALL READERS (INCLUDING VIETNAMESE CENSORS) THIS SITE IS INTENDED STRICTLY FOR HUMOR. I HAVE NO SUBVERSIVE INTENTIONS AND I DON'T WISH TO DISPARAGE YOUR WONDERFUL NATION IN ANY WAY.

To the readers: It is raining outside and the television in my room only has one English speaking channel. Therefore, writing this blog is the only thing I have to do today. Its a long one so, if you're still interested...get comfortable.

I can't say that Hanoi is a nice city. It is a city that is astonishing, but definitely not nice. If you were to paint Hanoi you'd start with a grey canvas because,from top to bottom,the place is shades of grey with splashes of color. Maybe that's the communist love affair with concrete, or maybe it was just the weather.


Now lets discuss the soundtrack to Hanoi. Does anyone remember the old tabletop game called "Operation" where you had to extract little bones from a plastic man? Whenever you touched the wrong part there was a horrible beep/buzz sound that made my skin crawl. Increase the volume of this sound to that of a car horn, then imagine thousands of these buzz/beep horns running ALL THE TIME. That's the soundtrack of Hanoi. The millions of motorbikes running around Hanoi beep CONSTANTLY. It seems that rather than develop traffic laws and signs and such, the Vietnamese just drive anywhere they please beeping CONSTANTLY to let others know how bad they're driving.



Now lets talk about the traffic. Who remembers the old educational movies that show how bloods cells move through the circulatory system? They fly around at high speed and when they reach an intersection all the blood cells just bump around one another until they get to where they need to go. This is the traffic pattern in Hanoi. In some places two-lane streets converge converge with each other and there are no traffic signals or stop signs to impose order. You have to see it to believe it.

-BEEP-BEEP-BEEEPBEEEP-

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP

Walking is also a harrowing experience. At one time there were sidewalks for pedestrians, but they've been filled up with parked motorbikes and foodstalls. You must walk in the street with the traffic. At first I tried to go hopping forward, sideways, and backward to avoid getting hit, like in the game "Frogger." (what's with all the childhood flashbacks Brian?) This is the wrong approach. To safely get through the street you have to take a slow constant pace and like magic, the motorbikes weave their way around you. Its best to just close your eyes and just do it.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP

BEEP-BEEEEEP-BEEEEP (annoying isn't it?)

Part of the reason why it was so crazy in Hanoi is because of the Tet New Year. This seems to be their equivalent to Christmas in the western world. These little orange trees are carted around all over the city and sold for the Tet holiday.

BEEP-BEEEP-BEEP

BEEEP-BEEEEP

BEEEEEEEP

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP

BEEP-BEEP

______So you get the picture. Enough about the traffic._____

I went for a walk around town to see some of the historic communist sights. This is appalling to the motorbike taxis. They can't imagine that a tourist would want to walk anywhere and they harass the hell out of anyone who tries. Every twenty feet a guy is standing next to his bike. As you approach he says something like "You want mo-to-bike?" So I politely say "no". In Thailand that would be enough to end the conversation. Not here. Next they start following you asking "where you go?" or "I take you for tour, one hour, cheap." They are relentless. If you get rid of one, there are three more on the same block who start up the same game. I started to realize that they don't consider tourists to be humans. Instead they look at me as a big fat cow full of milk, and everyone wants to grab at my teats and squeeze some milk from my wallet. They just don't get it. This is NOT good sales technique. Its harassment and I was losing my sense of humor. I started to similarly regard them, not as humans, but as stray dogs begging and snapping for a handout. I think this aspect of Vietnamese culture will always hurt their tourism industry. If anyone reading this has had similar or different experiences please comment.

_____OK Brian, take a breath and finish the chapter._____

This is the Ho-Chi-Minh museum. If anyone didn't know, he is their George Washington character who won them independence and is now revered like a god.

This is their equivalent to Russia's Red Square. That building that looks like the Lincoln memorial is the Ho-Chi-Minh memorial.

Here's an interesting tidbit: Before Ho-Chi-Minh died he wished to be cremated. In honor of this, the Vietnamese had him preserved like a piece of wedding cake, painted up with makeup, and he sits in a plastic box for everyone to look at. For a month out of the year they ship him back to Russia to get a makeover.

I walked past the Ministry of Culture and there was a crowd gathered around a peculiar sight. There were about 50 coconuts tied to a long table and a television studio set up to film it. After a while a man dressed like a circus gymnast came out to the crowd in a dashing dramatic entry. The confused crowd hadn't been prepared so only about five people clapped. He then did a short interview for the camera that probably went something like this: "Jee, so you plan to break the Vietnamese record for breaking coconuts, why are you doing this? Well Ho, I want to do it for the greatness of the Vietnamese State. I love the state and by cracking coconuts I can give back to the glorious Vietnamese people." (disclaimer: I am not a certified Vietnamese interpreter, this is a guess based on absolutely no evidence)

So the guy starts smashing the coconuts and it seems pretty cool, but then he hits one that doesn't break. It looks painful and he probably broke his hand. He retreats back to his dressing van, and everybody stands around disappointed.

Good story, eh? Something else that was interesting happened as I walked down the street past the World Health Organization building. They had a poster up explaining with pictures how people should wash their hands after handling chickens or chicken meat. For anyone who hasn't been living in a cave, you know that the Avian bird-flu could potentially blow up here in Southeast Asia because people live with, and handle chickens all the time. I found this interesting and got out my camera to share the poster with you all. As I did, a guard from an adjacent building came over and told me to put my camera away. I guess this part of Vietnamese culture isn't to be shared with outsiders, for obvious reasons.

So I mentioned earlier the Tet holiday being similar to the Christmas holiday. Personally, I haven't dug Christmas in a while because its seems to be a celebration of commerce and materialism. I always figured that the capitalist system in our culture was the cause of this because Christmas spending is good for the economy. This is why I was surprised to see so much frantic consumerism here in Vietnam. Hanoi around Tet felt almost exactly like being in a mall on Christmas eve. A common cliche out here comes to mind, "Same Same, but different." I am now totally confused as to what type of economy exists in Vietnam. This is definitely a place in economic transition as they open up their economies to private enterprise. In Vietnam it seems that everyone is the owner of some kind of business. If a woman has a basket, she walks around selling oranges or donuts. If a kid has a spare pair of shoes, he becomes a mobile shoe store. In fact, I'm starting to wonder if the roles have reversed and this Neo-Communism isn't actually better for the creation of small business. The reason is that corporations have almost no presence here. No McDonald's, no Burger King, no Starbucks, and no Enron. The kid selling shoes doesn't have to compete with Payless Shoe Stores or Wal-Mart. Conversely, if I wanted to open up a sandwich shop in America that could succeed, I'd have to get at least $200,000 together to open up a Subway franchise. In Vietnam, all I need is some bread, meats, and a sign. The competitive market forces that Adam Smith wrote about which serve as the foundation of capitalism seem to be more alive here than in corporate America. Go figure.

I found myself walking around seeing evidence of Karl Marx and Adam Smith in the same picture frame. Capitalism or Communism?

Capitalism

Communism

Capitalism

Communism

Capitalism

Communism

Capitalism

Communism

Capitalism

Communism

Capitalism

Communism or Capitalism

These are old communist propaganda posters that I bought as souvenirs. You've got to love the irony.

So anyhow, I found that interesting. Communism (in its original form) seems to be getting replaced by the natural human desire to shop and accumulate stuff. Adam Smith wins. Just think, all of the blood spilled to stop communism might not have been necessary. The human desire to accumulate stuff may be the strongest power on earth. Even stronger than nuclear weapons. Go figure.

Now if we can just get the Jihaddists to understand that.

___________________________

Enough of that economic b.s. Back to the blog.

I took a day trip to Halong Bay. In the summer months you can do kayaking and spend a few days, but in this weather a quick day-trip was enough. Here are the pictures.

This is one of those things that look a helluva lot better in person.

This is a floating village where people seem to live permanently on these floating shacks, with tourist money and fishing providing the economy. The little aqua colored building is actually a school where I saw a few kids at desks with a teacher.
This is one of the stops where you go into some caves.

The caves have colored lighting inside which make them look pretty cool.

Returning to the docks.

So if you got this far into the blog you probably have as much free time as I do. After Halong Bay I took a sleeper train to Hue where I am right now. It has been raining all morning so all I've seen is the inside of this internet cafe. Take care and thanks for reading.