March
21, 2003
Dear Family and Friends,
With the possible exception of Yangon, Hanoi is the least westernized of all the
Asian cities I have been in. I have not
seen any McDonalds, Pizza Hut, or Burger Kings.
The closest to Starbucks is Starbeans.
Apparently KFC does have a presence in Vietnam, although I have not
encountered them. I read that when KFC
first came to Vietnam,
in a leap of marketing brilliance that transcended common sense, they proposed
an "Uncle Ho" burger, noting that Ho Chi Minh looked like the Colonel. Officials coldly pointed out Ho was a General. KFC sticks to chicken.
Further introduction of western culture is not apt to happen
soon either. The Vietnamese have
borrowed a page from the Parti Quebeqois.
Daily now, squads of police are wandering around the Old Quarter
demanding the removal of any sign where English (or French) is more prominent
than Vietnamese. The locals display the
usual derision reserved for such silly bureaucracy, and a crowd always gathers,
people snigger, the police mostly try to look very serious and important. Some shop owners are resigned, some angry,
and yet others try to schmooze the police.
All the while a rant blasts out of loudspeakers. It is all quite festive.
I have been staying for almost two weeks in Hanoi's
Old Quarter, in the same hotel, the Ngoc Minh, where Lorraine, Carole and I stayed last year. The narrow streets of this area are lined
with small tourist hotels, souvenir shops, travel agencies and restaurants. Motorcycles, cars, pedal rickshaws, bicycles,
street vendors, tourists, and locals zigzag and dodge as they compete for space
on the street. It is not possible to
walk on the sidewalks; all space on them is taken up with parked motorcycles,
people sitting and eating, kids playing, or grandmothers knitting.
Each evening between 7:00PM and 9:00PM a poor deranged woman
strides back and forth, back and forth, in the middle of the intersection next
to the hotel. She raves on and on in a
loud angry voice, berating someone or something. The people, rickshaws, motorcycles, cars,
bicycles, all simply swerve around her, totally ignoring her real or imagined
plight.
Hanoi
has a wonderful mix of architecture, Vietnamese, French, Chinese. But I find myself watching the people with
fascination, quite ignoring the backdrop.
All businesses of a like nature tend to be concentrated on
one street. Thus you find wooden bowls
on Bat Dan Street,
china bowls on Bat Su, leather on Hang Da, threads on Hang Chi. There are 36 old, specific, streets for
products as diverse as shoes, tin, sugar, mats, fish, herbal medicine, sandals,
pickled fish. Hang Ruoi Street was reserved for clamworms.
It is very common to see paper being burned in the streets. This is done to ensure good luck. Consequently, on Hang Giay Street you can buy paper for
just that purpose. Counterfeit US
bills in $100 denominations tend to be very popular and you can buy them in
great wads and burn to your hearts content.
As you would expect, the American initiatives in Iraq
are viewed very suspiciously here. I
have seen no real overt anti-Americanism, but if you have difficulty getting
someone to understand your need to find a WC, asking for "Washington City" will get you to the toilet
straightaway.
In spite of its professed egalitarianism, Vietnam remains very much a man's
world. Although one sees women in
virtually all professions and situations, a tour guide explained that there are
still some people who will go back inside if the first person they see when
they step out of their house in the morning is a woman. To see women first is considered a bad omen
for the day; so they go back in, burn some US greenbacks and try again. Likewise, in spite of how important it is,
many businesses are reluctant to have 'first business' of the day with a woman.
Food is generally very cheap here. A cup of Vietnamese tea on the street is
usually 5 cents and locals pay about 50 cents for a meal of noodle soup. Draught beer is sold on the street for
fifteen cents a glass. On the other
hand, if you want a western coffee with fresh milk in a restaurant, the cost is
$1.50. But even at that, a western meal
will still cost less than $6 or $7.
Other than another trip to beautiful Ha Long Bay, and a one
night stay on Cat Ba Island while there, all my time in Vietnam has been spent in Hanoi.
I am soon to leave on a train for China
and thus ending my Vietnam
visit. I hope you are all well and look
forward to seeing you soon.
Merv.
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