I know the time...it's the day of the week that I forget

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I started the day with a breakfast of pho (pronounced fa) which is chicken soup with rice noodles, cilantro and lime. If I’m going to be in Vietnam, I want my stomach to be here as well as my head. We had a full day of walking around Hanoi – the Military Museum, the History Museum, the Ethnology Museum and the Hanoi Hilton. It was the basic “what you have to see” tour day during which we kept seeing the same people over and over. No surprises. The Military Museum had a lot of “captured” US equipment that Jack was convinced was stuff that was abandoned when the US left Vietnam. At the Ethnology Museum, they had real houses of the minority groups, that we disassembled and reassembled on the site. Included were 2 tombs one of which had the many wooden statues like the ones in the photos. In death you celebrate life.
Things that really surprised me on day 1 in Hanoi.
1. The overwhelming political propaganda. Who reads about a “glorious revolution” every place you turn and believes it? I guess if you say something frequently enough everyone believes it. Since history is written by the victors we read a lot about the brutality of the French and the US and the courage and fairness of the Vietnamese. In the Hanoi Hilton prison we saw recreations demonstrating the French torturing Vietnamese prisoners and photographs of American prisoners decorating Christmas trees. I guess Santa was really good to the American prisoners that year because they were all smiling. Underneath, the propaganda there is genuine pride in having defeated far more powerful foreign invaders, the Chinese, the French and the US and this is part of the core national identity. Quite, frankly it is remarkable that they were able to defeat these countries. Uncle Ho is venerated to the point of being a cult figure. Our “guide” for the first day, Thu, is a 3rd year business major at a university of 16,000 students who wants to be a secretary for an international corporation. After she told me that men and women have equal opportunities, I asked why she didn’t want to be a manager. She said being a manager required too much determination. When we entered the History Museum where there was a large photograph Uncle Ho and she put her hand on it reverentially.
2. Motorbikes, motorbikes and more motorbikes. As someone with zero interest in cars, I had read that there were tons of motorbikes, but I was not expecting the density of motorbikes. I went out to buy a windbreaker and even as a well trained Boston jay-walker I couldn’t figure out how to make it across the street to shop and decided to buy my jacket on the side I was on. Pedestrians simply wade through the traffic and the motorbikes scoot around them. There seem to be clearly understood rules of the road because everyone drives very aggressively but you don’t see accidents.
3. Vietnam is a developing country and appears less developed than China. In Hanoi commerce takes place on the sidewalk. When we left our “boutique” hotel this morning, a woman was washing rice bowls using water from a hose on the sidewalk next door. In many places you can’t walk on the sidewalk because people are sitting at low tables eating, merchandise spills out of the stalls or it is being used as a parking lot for the ubiquitous motorbikes. According to our guide, only 15 years ago the motorbikes were bicycles so things are changing really fast. However a lot hasn’t changed. I’m writing this on day 2 on the way to Halong Bay and seeing people plowing fields with water buffalos only an hour’s drive from Hanoi.
4. The past is the past. The Vietnamese people don’t communicate that they care at all about the war. They talk about the future. Again, I had read that they are “friendly” and for the most part have this to be an understatement. When I went down to the lobby to ask a question, every person behind the desk (and there were 9 people) gave me a big smile and asked how they could help. There is the also the prevalence of the scam artists. The sign at the airport advises tourists to watch out for unlicensed taxi drivers that are “double-dealers and taker-inners”.
5. In the History Museum, there was a big display on the theme of Fascism. Much to my surprise they music was the theme from Exodus and in one corner was a small graphic dedicated to Terezin. I asked Thu if she knew anything about the Holocaust which of course she didn’t. I briefly explained that it was included because it was showed the extreme cruelty of fascism when 6 million Jews were murdered. She asked what the Jews had done to be treated that way and I couldn’t come up with a single reason. As a side note, the museum displays look like what you might expect in a US middle school. We watched people taping photographs to cardboard for display. No high-tech here.
Our lunch was terrific we ordered a half dozen dishes and split them between the 3 of us. By dinner we were exhausted and simple ate at the hotel.

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