I have been interested in South East Asia since my mother introduced me to the books of Pearl S. Buck and Han Suyin when I was in about grade 7 or 8. I was also fascinated when I was young by the boxes at the door of Wesley United Church in Thunder Bay which had signs on them saying, 'If your nylons run, let them run to Korea.' They said that the poor Koreans after the war could not afford glasses and that these old nylons could be turned into glasses. This seemed odd to me, but to this day I have never looked into the matter. Before going to China this time, I read two memoirs, The Cowshed and A Leaf in the Bitter Wind, written by people who lived through the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. They were well written and gave me at least a sense of what life was like in those horrible times. I had a more real connection to Vietman. I was a junior counsellor at Sherwood Forest Girls' Camp in Deer Lake, Minnesota during the summers when I was in grades 12 and 13. For reasons I won't go into, the very mention of that camp makes some members of the VdeV family collapse in tears of laughter. But for me it was an introduction into the Vietnam War or, as the Vietnamese now refer to it, the war against the United States. A few of the senior counsellors had boyfriends who had enrolled in university specifically to avoid the draft and the second year, one of them had married her boyfriend mainly to further decrease his chances of being drafted. The news we listened to all through the late 60s and early 70s was of that war and the protests against it in the States. Then in 1975 I taught ESL to a group of young Vietmanese men who had climbed the wall of the US Embassy on the day the Americans pulled out of Saigon and been airlifted off the embassy roof. Then I saw so many movies about the Vietnam War and read Tim O'Brien's, The Things They Carried, etc.etc. So I decided to celebrate my 70th year by going to China and Vietnam. I couldn't believe I was actually going to do it until I got on the plane for Guilin. I can't say I was excited. I felt almost more resigned. But the week in Guilin had gone well.
When I got off the plane in Hanoi I was stunned. I had thought Guilin was hot and humid. Jay could not believe that I was not prepared for such heat. Hadn't he told me the Philippines were unliveable? Hadn't I looked at the location of Vietnam on a map? Yes, but... On a positive note, the driver from the Hanoi Culture Hostel finally raised his hastily written sign with what looked a bit like my last name on it and I pulled my bag over to where he was. For a brief moment I had cursed the fact that I still didn't have a phone plan for Jay the Thumb, the iPhone 4S that Jay gave me years ago. Where was the ride I had organized? How was I going to contact the hostel? He had been on his cell and not realized that the passengers were already through the gates. We drove to the hostel through a sea of motorcycles such as I've never seen before but was going to see all over Vietnam.
The Hanoi Culture Hostel, like all the hostels I've stayed at in Asia, is located in the central hub of the city, not the really tonie tourist section where the high end hotels are but close to it and most of the parks and sites that are touristy. This one was at the intersection of aluminium street ( there's a lot of aluminium in Vietman and it is pounded into as many useful items as you can imagine) and exotic spices and herbal medicines avenue. At least that's how I identified it in the maze of narrow motorcycle mad streets in Hanoi. I get lost easily, but I have never been so confused as I was there. I made it to the night market but panicked getting back to the hostel and feared I might end up walking all night, which was stupid because the two were near each other, but as is always the case, I took the right route last. The next day I made it easily to the lake in the centre of the old part of Hanoi and walked happily around it. A girl, Kee, approached me to ask if I would talk to her a bit and help her with English. I was on my way to the Women's Museum so I asked her if she would like to join me and help me find my way. We spent the morning there together; she explained a lot to me and I corrected her English. Women are recognized as having contributed a lot to Vietnam's history, not just in the wars against the French and Americans. Kee's family lives in a village near Hanoi, and she is in university in the city, but her grandparents are what are referred to as tribal people from the north of Vietnam. When we looked at pictures of women from that area, I commented on the fact that the women's teeth were black. She said that her grandmothers both had black teeth which they had to colour about once a week and that she thought they looked beautiful that way. Another of her grandmothers' tricks that she tried to tell me about but that I didn't completely understand was the use of betel leaf and slaked lime. We parted around noon because she had classes in the afternoon, but we exchanged email addresses and have written each other a bit since. She can't refer to me without a title; she has chosen grandmother. This reminds me of May who also has trouble referring to me without something before my name. I think the culture of both the Philippines and Vietnam are family oriented and it's just natural for them to want to refer to people in an inclusive/family way. Our guide, Hoang, on the bike and boat tour always referred to us as 'My Family' when he wanted to gather us together. The day I left the hostel, one of the boys who worked there volunteered to drive me and my luggage to the hotel where the tour was meeting, so I got to drive through Hanoi traffic on a motercycle. It's not as dangerous as it looks. Vehicles are practically touching each other and honking but there doesn't seem to be much road rage. Speeds are not fast and a honk that would get you the finger in Canada is really more of a signal that you're there and consider you have the right of way; most of the time people seem to sense who does and who doesn't have the right of way and as long as you proceed with conviction at an expected speed and in a predictable direction, all goes well. I wouldn't want to be the driver, but with a boy who knew what he was doing I soon felt at ease and enjoyed moving along looking at the narrow buildings, the action on the sidewalks and the large snarls of electrical wires that hang low from poles that seem too feeble to hold them.
Kee at the Women's Museum
An entertaining group of women near the lake in Hanoi on the day before Hallowe'en.
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