the list

Busy, busy. Things have been pretty hectic in Hanoi, but that's mostly because Hanoi is a very hectic place. I'm writing this on the 19th, which is Ho Chi Minh's birthday. We visited his tomb today, which is very much like Lenin's tomb in Moscow, a huge mausoleum situated on a huge open area next to a lake, with great amounts of patriotic imagery all over the place. Indeed, there's a strong sense of similarity between the Vietnamese and Soviet models of state. Most of the propaganda follows the Soviet Socialist Realist model, and the hammer and sickle appears prominently all around town. On a similar note, tomorrow is election day, and there are banners encouraging people to vote all over the place. Gee...I wonder who'll win...

In some respects, the stay in Hanoi is more useful to the purposes of the students' research, but not so much for the film, so I hadn't had any reason to do any taping until yesterday. We went to a place called Friendship Village, which is about 5 miles outside the city to the west. It was established by an American vet in the late 1980s as a school for kids with a broad variety of physical and mental disabilities. We got some wonderful footage and had a good time with the kids there. Some of it may be useful to the film.

Today is take-it-easy day. I'll be logging the footage we shot yesterday and getting a few shots and audio clips of street life in Hanoi. But otherwise it'll be a day of buying and sending postcards, finding a decent bar of soap, and packing things up for tomorrow. Tomorrow we are headed out to Ha Long Bay and then we'll be getting on a train in the evening for an overnight ride to Hue. Ha Long Bay is a well-known natural wonder in this area. You've probably seen pictures of it (see here and here).

I'll end this post with a few random observations that stick out to me so far:

1. The Vietnamese love a firm mattress. Maybe it's just our hotel room, but the mattress feels like a piece of 1/2" plywood with a blanket on top of it. I've heard that a firm sleeping surface is good for the back. Well, maybe on opposite day, because my back aches.

2. You can get anything in Hanoi except what you need. I've been trying to find a bar of soap for two days with no success yet. I also can't find an envelope large enough to fit some greeting cards in. But you can't walk five feet without some pretty aggressive street vendors trying to sell you all kinds of nonsense.

3. Everyone takes dollars, but you're better off paying in Dong. That way, you can be sure you're paying the marked price instead of a suspect conversion.

4. Western pop culture is here, but it's weird. The western-style clothing for sale in the shops looks mostly vintage 1986. Also, yesterday I saw a shop that sells these carved stones that look like small gravestones. They have places for photographs on them, and I assumed they were for ancestral adoration. But then I saw one that had three photographs on it: Ho Chi Minh, Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai, and Britney Spears. Finally, you simply haven't lived until you've heard the Vietnamese easy listening cover of Hotel California.

5. The Vietnamese have perfected the art of the close call. Remember what I said about the insane driving of the motor bikes? Well, today I rode one as a passenger...it's like a cheap taxi service. It was slightly terrifying, but I'm glad I did it.

6. Vietnam War = American War. The Vietnamese call the "Vietnamese War" the "American War." Go figure. After seeing Boc Ho's ("Uncle Ho's") tomb...on his birthday, no less...a few of us braved a visit to a place called the B52 Victory Museum. As you might guess, it's a patriotic war museum that celebrates victory in the war, highlighting especially the wrecked hulk of a B52 that is strewn around the opening area with some VC anti-aircraft guns. You could still see the faint outline of the Strategic Air Command seal on the fusilage, which I remember from my dad's flight suits growing up. To be fair, the museum was just as much about the defeat of the French (esp. Dien Bien Phu in 1954) as it was the Americans. We were a little surprised to see a photograph of John McCain as he was being captured when he was shot down. No pictures of Hanoi Jane, though.

Must go for now. I have to do a gear check and pack before tomorrow's journey.

Stu