All Things Absurd: A Montage

One of the best aspects of living in Hanoi is the absurdity of daily life.

The extreme cultural differences and my awkward attempts to navigate life here accumulate to one ridiculous existence. For example, the fact that I (all 5'1" of me) tower over people or that I am somehow now on Viet Nam's national women's Gaelic Football team being neither Vietnamese, Gaelic, or knowledgeable of the rules. Or the fact that utility bills are collected by random women on bicycles who ring your doorbell unexpectedly at 10pm and demand to be paid 1million dong for something written in Vietnamese on a 'bill'. Or that I spent most of lunch yesterday at work discussing with my Vietnamese co-workers the linguistic complexities of blink vs. wink and wobble vs. jiggle.

I am starting to get desensitized to some of the things I found wonderfully ridiculous before. So for your viewing pleasure and to remind myself of the reasons I am here, I present to you the following images.

This is how I look most of the time while traveling the city.

Viet Nam's recycling and waste management system: wooden carts and lots of grunting.

Everyone has business cards here. You're nobody without one.

People put anything and everything on the back of their bikes- like this women with a collection of giant red dog pinatas.

Sometimes pointing to random words on the menu doesn't work out as I would hope.

I frequently dish out millions of dong.

Goal #439: get my picture on one of the ubiquitous 'Star' tables in cafes around the city

So much activity

In my last post I went on for a while about Traditional Medicine. (I’m learning all sorts of interesting facts about wildlife trade in Viet Nam so prepare yourself for more posts about that). Reading a report on TM I came across this statement: “In traditional medicine systems, the prevention of ailments and disease are considered to be as important as the cure.” In this post I would like to tell you about the amazing phenomena that is Viet Nam’s culture of exercise.

EVERYONE DOES IT! The busiest times are before 7am or after 9pm when it finally gets below 95 degrees in Ha Noi. And there’s such a range of activities. From the old couples practicing Tai Chi by West Lake, to the middle-aged couples learning to tango on the street to the delightful sounds of ABBA, to the youngsters playing soccer in the park. Even in my own life I’ve suddenly become really active. 1-2 times a week I’m playing Frisbee, riding my bicycle around town, and I’ve recently taken up badminton with my friend Jonathan, a very popular sport among Hanoians. Oh, and I might be a member of the Viet Nam women’s Gaelic Football team in an upcoming Southeast Asian competition….more on that later…

I think my favourite activity to watch is the women’s jazzercise groups that spontaneously emerge in floral exercise pajamas and do a lot of synchronized hip thrusting and shaking. Some day I’ll get up the courage to join one of these ensembles. Then look out Flash Dance- I’m taking it to the streets Ha Noi style.

I googled "excercise Hanoi" and this video came up. It's so accurate and includes Bahamen's only slightly less well-known hit "Who let the frog out"

The Healing Power of...star anise?

I’ve noticed that every floor in my office building has a bowl of star anise sitting around. At first I thought it was for decoration, or at most, potpourri. Then I found out it’s supposed to prevent the spread of swine flu. Very comforting.

How? you might ask. Well, the thinking is that star anise is one of the primary ingredients in Tamaflu and so by inhaling the essence of anise, we absorb some of the healing powers into our bodies. Apparently the faint aroma of black liquorice wafting the halls and offices of TRAFFIC and WWF is enough to stop the pandemic that has infected more than 3600 people in Viet Nam.

Ok, sarcasm aside, the star anise raises an important point- many cultures still use traditional medicine as a primary source of health care. The World Health Organization has estimated that 80% of the population of developing countries still use traditional medicines. Viet Nam is no exception at around 75% of the population depending on traditional medicine- or TM as we refer to it in the language of acronyms. TM made of plants and animals is huge with TRAFFIC because of the use protected wildlife like endangered tiger bones, rhino horns, and pangolin scales. Interestingly enough, many of the contraband wildlife medicines are meant to be used for ‘male enhancement.’ My friend working in WWF recently came back from a TM filming trip that included tanks of floating seal and other penises. She reflected on the homoeroticism of it all and concluded that one day she will use Asian men’s fear of homosexuality to campaign against wildlife consumption. You know, she brings up a good point….

But as silly and backwards as some of it seems, like seal penis and star anise, maybe there’s something to be said for TM. I come from a culture that spurns most homeopathy and holistic healing as new-age hippy BS. But how do botox injections and the hundreds of oxy-cyclo-benzo-etc-etc chemicals we fill our bodies with appear to the average Vietnamese person? In Viet Nam, the government implemented a policy to equally support TM and western medicine. Imagine that! Federal support for nature’s Viagra!

Here are some facts I found interesting...

In Viet Nam, there are :

• 48 hospitals and institutes devoted to TM practices only


• >240 TM departments in central and provincial governments


• >900 TM health centers


• 1500 TM remedies are licensed by the Ministry of Health for trade

EPIC TRANSPORTATION FAIL

This has been the week of bad bike karma.

As you all know, I recently bought a bicycle. I was starting to feel like a legitimate inhabitant of this city, as I wound my way through the market-filled alleys and carried large bags of food in my front basket. Then, the other day while riding my bike home from work, the front brakes fell off. Literally. Fell. Off.
I had to ride the majority of the trip during rush hour using my significantly less effective back brakes- an exciting trip to say the least. This is an irritating setback, especially since I just bought the bike, but I have faith it will all work out, although I’m not too sure about the return policy of the random guy on the street I bought the bike from….

Setback number 2. I finally brought my motorbike home from work to practice driving it at night when the streets are empty. Last night, after enjoying an iced-tea with the three men who live nearby who invited me to sit and watch Vietnamese TV with them and say things to me in Vietnamese I don’t understand and then laugh, I decided to take my motorbike out for a spin. 20 minutes down the road, it ran out of gas and I was stranded with a dead motorbike and only $4,000 VND in cash (the equivalent of $0.25). In my defense, it’s hard to tell how much gas you have when there’s no fuel gauge. Fortunately, my friend Jon and his boyfriend came to my rescue with a plastic water bottle full of gas and saved the day! In the end, I only had to spend about an hour waiting and playing charades with the security guards at the hotel/night club I happened to stop at about why I was loitering- and I learned a valuable lesson:
ALWAYS CHECK THE GAS.

Din-din!

In an effort to settle into our new lives, and supplement our daily intake of grease and noodles with some fresh veggies, the girls of house 139A have signed up for a the Ha Noi version of a CSA (community supported agriculture). Every week we get 2 kg of fresh ORGANIC vegetables from local farmers that Julia picks up at the blind massage place near our house. It's great, although just like CSAs in the States, we do seem to end up with large quantities of random vegetables. For example, the baseball bat-sized bitter melon- I'll have to work on a recipe for that...

We have successfully made a few dinners with our fresh mystery greens, brand new rice cooker, and the two frying pans that came with the house. Tonight we made fresh spring rolls (nem)! It's actually not that hard. For a high production value short on how to make spring rolls, check out this video that Julia put together. The Food Network would be proud! (and please note my very 'graceful' tasting at the end)

A Trip to See Uncle Ho

Sept 2 was the National Independence Day of Vietnam- and Jon's birthday, Happy Birthday Jon!! This marked the 64th anniversary of the day in 1945 when Ho Chi Minh and his nationalist/communist Viet Minh declared Vietnam's independence from France (and from the Japanese occupation during WWII).

Ha Noi was all decked out in red banners and flags. Everyone got the day off so I spent it getting lost in the city on my bike. A perfect use of a free afternoon.

In continuing efforts to become Vietnamese I decided it was a good time to visit Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum and museum just down the street from my house. I got on my 'USA Army' bike and pedaled my way through the throngs of traffic and Vietnamese tourists that had sojourned from all over the country to come see the final resting place of of their beloved Ba Ho (Uncle Ho).

The plaza was impressive in that overbearing way with excessively large and angular buildings that I tend to associate with communism. I think the Vietnamese tourists were as intrigued with me as I was with the mausoleum. I was even approached by a group of 5 or 6 teens who asked to each take a picture with me. I was sweaty and smelly and greasy- so of course I said yes.

If a visit to Ba Ho didn't reinforce the fact that I am living in a communist country, I recently heard from a writer friend that a couple of Vietnamese were imprisoned for political blogging.

I'm starting to consider using code words, like communism = pho.