Puppets,pipes,paper,and potatoes

Hello all,
One of the things I most wanted to see again in Hanoi was the water puppet show. I know that sounds a bit wacky for a, um, senior citizen to go 9,000 miles to see a puppet show but this is a truly unique experience.

Over a 1,000 years ago rice farmers in the Red River delta would put on shows using the flooded rice paddies as a staging ground. This experience is recreated now in a theater in the old Quarter of Hanoi. Puppeteers stand behind a bamboo curtain in waist deep water manipulating a series of rods, ropes and pulleys that are attached to wooden puppets standing from 16-40 inches high and weighing up to 35 pounds, The stories they portray are about the folk life of rural Vietnam-agriculture: fishing, children playing, boat racing, and popular myths. My favorites were: the 4 dragons -who actually spewed streams of water and fire; boys fishing but not ever catching fish instead one boy 'caught' another in his basket; a small boy sitting atop a water buffalo and playing his flute; swimmers who go faster and faster (in our performance one of the boy puppets lost an arm); 3 boats racing ,and the story of the magic sword and the golden tortoise.

We have spent several days walking throughout Hanoi's Old Quarter. About 600 years ago different guilds set up in the city and their division of the streets remains today, It is a place full of life with constant noise: the revving of motor bikes, tooting of horns bleating, the hammering of tinsmiths, the sawing of wood, the whirring of metal when cutting a pipe, the screeching of keys being made, the whacking of sugar cane and pineapples, the twittering of birds in bamboo cages. Then there are the smells: sidewalk restaurants line every street where families and customers pull up a child size stool and sit and eat- this goes on all hours of the day, Chinese herbs piled up in peck size plastic bags-some smelling of oranges and cloves and others like rotting fish. The scent of incense being burned before home and street altars, flowers arranged in huge bouquets pimped out in layers of bright red and orange tissue paper.

The streets are narrow and the side walks often impassable because of parked motor bikes and business conducted on the sidewalk: cooking ( hence the above mentioned restaurants), manicures, pedicures, haircuts, and eating lots of eating. This necessitates walking in the street which is always risky business as the motor bike is king of the road and the pedestrian a fly to be shooed out of the way.

So why do it? It's the best way to absorb the heart and soul of this city. It is a wonder to wander down streets named for the merchandise sold there: wooden bowls, ceramic bowls, fish, animals, brushes,appliances,cloth, silk, sugar, shoes, coffins, altars, incense, candles,jars, paper, pipes, potatoes, rice, leather, and on and on.

Of course, today there are streets that sell just computers, or business machines, jewelry and tourist trinkets, ready made clothes, and more new shops getting ready to open. Today we saw a street of art galleries -all very modern and, well, artsy. That seems to be a sign that things are changing- which is another reason why we wanted to come back here before it turned into just another 'must see' on the tourist list.

Wait, wait, there's more but not tonight. My body clock is so messed up. My 7pm is your 7 am. i really have turned night into day and vice versa. So later.......Carolyn

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