February 18, 2024
A fairly uneventful but longer than expected flight landed us in Hanoi. With the flight taking almost 4 hours, you realize Kuala Lumpur is much further away that it looks on a map. After clearing immigration and customs, we met our tour guide named Son and his driver named Tuan. We left the airport and headed to the old section of Hanoi, passing scenes of rice fields and old ramshackle buildings with rusted roofs. An old rusty bridge spanned a mile wide river, the Red River, as we entered the city’s old section.
Son, born in 1974 at the end of the war, immediately started teaching me the local language and my first test brought brought tears to their eyes. Sounding very much like the word, “boy toy”, I was instructed to repeat it. Apparently the way Americans say it, it means something very foul. Spoken properly (or by native speakers), it means, “dearest father-in-law”. The Vietnamese say it using a timing pattern and complicated accenting that foreigners can’t seem to match. These two guys have found their perfect audience. So Teresa, feeling much much better now, and I will be heading out shortly to explore the neighborhood where I shall extend my greeting of, “Hey y’all. Boytoy!”
Next up? Finding a local bail bonding company.
We exited the hotel and entered a category five super typhoon. Haiyan. And not in the calm eye of the hurricane but the eyewall. Raging-storms eyewall. Horns honking, cars and trucks racing, scooters, millions of them, like summer mayflies. Compared to the coiffed slick easy mall environment of KL, this was the exact opposite.
Our guide, Son, warned us and told us to face the challenge of Hanoi pedestrianism with bravery. And eyes closed, ears shut, and lips sealed. You must become one with the maelstrom and flow. “Keep moving”, Son warned, “And never hesitate.” Use your outstretched arm, palm open and facing up, like a Jedi mind trick to part the rushing waters of traffic.
He was right.
We “Moses’d” our way across two torrents of scooters, buses and cars and found calm, if there is such a thing in Hanoi, along the shores of its ancient central lake.
Away from the chaos of motorized traffic, we were still surrounded by storms of people, rushing in every direction. Occasionally, we found pockets of old people in choreographed groups dancing to Bananarama. Is this some sort on Feng Shui, I asked myself.
I yelled out to Teresa in the din that we needed to find a bar. Not knowing where to go I checked Google Maps but found nothing nearby. I did see a Catholic Church nearby and knew there must be bars around there.
We worked our way to the cathedral and found a busy square much to our lack of surprise. Google Maps showed a bar across the street and we started searching. We couldn’t find it.
After making a second pass and attempting to read indecipherable signs, I looked up. Our bar was one level up. Now, how to get there.
I asked someone and they pointed to a darkened alley. We entered and found an open doorway with stairs in the background. I started up the stairs with Teresa following, uncertain that this was the right direction. At the top of the stairs a pair of closed doors.
I opened the doors and found a quiet and dimly lit bar. Nirvana, finally. But first, to enter, you had to climb under/around a set of metal spiral stairs that led further up.
Asking the bartender if we could get a drink, she pointed to an exterior door that opened to a rusty steel ledge overlooking the cathedral square.
Stepping outside, we found two empty bar stools and quickly claimed them.
A few quick and initial observations from being in Vietnam for a couple of hours.
• Most people are young and born after the war ended in 1974.That’s all in the past and they look optimistically towards the future.
• They hate China and have been at war off and on for over a thousand years.
• Korea is their friend and ally against China. The economic growth is primarily due to Korean investments.
• Chinese is not a preferred language to learn. Korean is and so is English. American English is learned from YouTube videos more so than in school.
• KPOP is king.
• They have no interest in coming to or visiting America because getting a visa is expensive, uncertain and difficult.
• Buildings in the old city area in Hanoi have multiple floors. There are no lobbies.To get to stairs or elevators you have to go into the back room areas (“employees only”) of other businesses.
• Always look both ways in all twelve dimensions when crossing the street.
February 19, 2024
Fun fact: The hotel’s restaurant, located on the ground floor of the atrium, is playing muzak that sounds familiar. It’s all folk music from the late 60s, like the Mamas and Papas, but sung in Vietnamese. Another consequence of our military “visit”, I suppose.
An an intense day of sights and experiences. From Ho Chi Minh’s Shrine to Confucius’ College to Buddhist Temples to endless street markets. We did over nine miles of “march, march, marching” across Red Square and then all the streets and alleys of downtown Hanoi. And the “train street”. A well known tourist spot. Here are some of the scenes.
HO CHI MINH’S TOMB
BUDDHIST TEMPLES AND SHRINES OF HANOI
THE TEMPLE OF CONFUCIUS
THE STREETS AND MARKETS OF OLD HANOI
A quick video of traffic on downtown Hanoi streets. Look left. Look right. And GO!!!
At the end of our many mile tour of downtown Hanoi, we passed by a park a block from our hotel. Son told us that in the morning, at sunrise, there is a group of people that meet at the park daily to practice “laughing yoga”. A form of yoga where everyone in the group starts laughing. I don’t know how it starts or if it’s led by a comedian or not but the idea was intriguing enough for me to sadly miss it. Damned jet lag!
They´re coming to take me away,
Song by Napoleon XIV
Haha, they´re coming to take me away,
Ho ho, hee hee, ha ha,
To the funny farm
Where life is beautiful all the time
And I´ll be happy to see
Those nice young men
In their clean white coats
And they´re coming to take me AWAY,
HA HAAAA
A few observations from a long day. About communism. About the Vietnam War.
Son, our guide, was born in September of 1974. A couple of months before the end of the war.
He told us stories from his parents who lived in Hanoi at the time. They are horrible stories. They include Agent Orange, napalm and hiding from B-52s. Many family members died. His parents hid in bomb shelters, now used as tree planters, on the streets of Hanoi. I could see Son’s revulsion when I told him that I, as a child, went to school two kilometers from the runways American B-52s took off from and their sound taking off, loaded with bombs heading to Vietnam, was deafening.
Son’s parents and grandparents to this day do not like Americans.
We heard his story of victory and how the wealthy were persecuted and their homes taken and converted to housing for the poor. Each family was given a portion of the expensive homes. Not a room but a space about the size of a mattress for a family with children separated from other families by a bed sheet hanging from the ceiling. They all had to cook and toilet outside. Eat the rich, indeed.
Somewhere in the mid 80s they realized this, communism, was a form of insanity. And opened up to other countries, including America, and allowed private property ownership and businesses to start again.
Today, they are a socialist society. They have good free schools and health care. University education is not provided and must be paid for out of pocket. They can own private property and their own business. Capitalism is thriving. Some people are wealthy. The citizens vote for their representatives in the General Secretariat. But the leader of their country is not chosen by the people. Much like the US and the Electoral College.
Bottom line: Vietnam is a dynamic thriving society. Education is highly valued. Everyone seems to be working and crime is low. They can travel freely and everyone stares at their cell phones (except when driving or crossing the street on foot) all the time or preens for good selfies like the rest of the world.
They describe themselves as being irreligious or atheist. Only 2.5% are Christian even though the previous efforts of missionaries are obvious. They pray at temples and make offerings of paper gold for their dead ancestors who need automobiles or better housing in the afterlife.
America should have never fought a war in Vietnam. It only caused terrible death and destruction and delayed the inevitable. Vietnam is a society rooted in family traditions, obligations and communalism. Whether the north won with communism or the south with monarchy was irrelevant. Both of these transient concepts would have been swept away by their deeper beliefs.
The problems Vietnam faces today are familiar. They are still rigidly sexist. Male children are highly preferred. Female children are a quick trip to the bottom of the social rung. But same sex couples and marriage is legal. So change is still happening.
America’s impact is obvious everywhere and in many ways. But it’s slightly out of phase with America in many subtle ways and what Vietnam really wants to become is America.
God help them.
February 20, 2024
A final American-style breakfast before we say our au revoirs to Hanoi. What a place! Next stop, the Gulf of Tonkin. Hopefully without incident.
I really enjoyed the breakfast music version of Sonny and Cher’s, “I Got You, Babe”, sung in Vietnamese.
Anh có em rồi em yêu!