Hue, Juarez of the east?

I've been cultivating an observation since arriving in Hue: that it's eeirily similar to north central Mexico. I hard to put in words exactly, more of a feeling. The heat is part of it, and, as I noted earlier, Hue is surprisingly dry though still far from arid. The street culture seems very similar to me as well. The kid who keeps walking by the hotel lobby asking if he can shine my sandals (yes, he expects to shoeshine a pair of Tevas *!?*) is like a slightly less aggressive version of the kids in Juarez that run up to your car and clean your windows or walk down the sidewalks trying to sell you gum.

There are other similarities, but the one that seems most salient to my little theory is the weird similarity between the local flavor of Buddhism and Hispanic Catholocism. A short, non-exhaustive list:

1. Shrines EVERYWHERE. No matter where you go, there are little shrines lurking in trees, corner shops, hotels and restaurants, out in the middle of fields. And their construction is almost identical to those you see in the southwest and in Mexico...little houses on posts, for God incarnate.

2. Nuns and orphanages. What's up with nuns and orphanages? Are they the only people who are willing to take in parentless and cast-off children? Nuns take in orphans; it's a human universal.

3. Jesus and St. Christopher. The personal iconography is the same as well. Taxi drivers have prayer flags hanging from their rear view mirrors (instead of crosses) and Buddhas or bodhisatvas on their dashboards (instead of Jesus or St. Christopher). Everywhere you turn, there are little Buddhist pictures that look almost no different than the Sacred Heart of Jesus or Virgin of Guadalupe pictures on candles in Mexican restaurants.

Shifting subjects, a little camera geek stuff for the camera geeks out there. Despite the aforementioned wonders of the HD camera we're using, I'd just like to complain for a second about how tough some of the shooting situations are here. The contrast between out in the sunlight and inside a window-lit room here is something around the order of 11 or more stops (that's a lot). And if you have a window backlighting your subject, it's practically impossible to get the shot. It's really crazy, because you'll be shooting f11 with 1/32 neutral density one second and f2 with 12dB gain the next. If that last sentence meant absolutely nothing to you, imagine trying to take a shower with only two water temperature options, 40 degrees or 140 degrees. That's what it's like shooting in Vietnam.

And then there's the sound. This is one noisy country. There always seems to be some random noise going on that's blowing your audio. Some common culprits: Construction (blame three years straight of 8% or greater GDP growth). Fans (always present, always running...thank the lord). Loud kids (this just comes with the territory of our subject, I suppose). The language barrier (noise in the psychological, rather than auditory, sense). The audio work for this film is going to be a bear.

Thanks for reading.

Stu