Hanoi, Vietnam

Thursday | November 20, 2014

I awoke early today in the Metropole Hotel in downtown Hanoi, which was a good thing because I was able to take advantage of the high-speed Internet to post yesterday’s blog, complete with about 25 photos. (That is especially important because Internet service on the ship is all via satellite, complete with bandwidth limitations.)

After a lovely buffet breakfast in the hotel, we boarded our bus – with the same guides as yesterday – and set off to explore Hanoi once again. Having left the Old Quarter, we drove a short way to the Temple of Literature. (Once again, we were amazed by the thousands of motorbikes that are parked along the sidewalks of Hanoi.)

I even explored a different way of getting myself there. 

The Temple of Literature was built in 1076 and remained active until 1802. It was used as a university throughout that time, but now the main university in Vietnam has moved. Each year, 3000 students graduate and take a specialized exam, but only two of them get high enough grades to receive the title of doctor.

The temple is heavily influenced by Confucius, who heavily influences all religion in Vietnam, even though he was Chinese. The Vietnamese religions are a combination of Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism. Strong explained to us that the mantra of Vietnamese religion is that “Family reputation is more important than destiny.” When one does something to disrespect the family, he is brought to the temple and required to pray those words 1000 times.

He also explained the different levels of society, with civil servants at the top of the pyramid (earning the highest incomes too). Merchants are at the lowest level of society – together with actors and prostitutes. The reason for this is because merchants prey on people and try to make a profit, often trading in deceit.

While we were there, we were privileged to see a high school graduation ceremony.

Another observation about life in Hanoi: there seem to be badminton courts on almost every block, often with kids and adults playing, while others sit on benches awaiting their turns. It reminds me of basketball courts in Harlem. So, if this is such a part of the culture in Vietnam, why doesn’t this country dominate the world in badminton – or does it?

Our next stop was the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum complex.

The body of Ho Chi Minh is presently “on vacation” in Russia. Apparently, he is sent there for two months every fall to be “touched up.” In reality, no one knows whether the body of Ho Chi Minh does lie in his mausoleum. And certainly, no one knows whether it is sent to Russia to be worked on every year or whether the mausoleum is closed for other reasons.

Strong explained that Ho Chi Minh is the revered and respected by all people in Vietnam, even those who do not necessarily agree with his politics. At age 20, Ho Chi Minh went to France and Russia to develop his theory and diagram a plan for the liberation of the Vietnamese people. In 1945, at the end of the Japanese occupation, he declared the country independent, leading to the 1946 Franco – Vietnamese war. Shortly thereafter, in 1949, the communists took over the country and supported Ho Chi Minh; of course, these were the communists from the Soviet Union, not the ones from China. The French quickly tired of battling the communists and departed in 1954. Fearing the spread of communism, the United States intervened and, the rest is history.

I must pause to add an important reflection about our guide, Strong. Not only was he intelligent, informative, and fun, but also he was refreshing and irreverent. As we stood outside Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum, he referred to Vietnam’s “puppet Senate” and explained that party leaders decide the country’s elections two months in advance. Voting, he said, is a joke, in which one member of the family brings the families ballots to a local party office. Then, the ballots are destroyed before they are ever opened or counted. As Strong went on and on, we moved away from him for fear that the soldiers would shoot at him for such treasonous speech! But he went on to explain that whereas 20 years ago, he would have been arrested and imprisoned for such talk, the government largely allows it now because there are so many millions of people in Vietnam and they have given up on trying to silence everyone. He distinguished, however, speech versus the written word. While the government turns its head when people speak ill of it, they take a more aggressive approach when such thoughts are reduced to writing.

Ho Chi Minh was single and, even though the government built him a huge palace, he never lived in it for that reason. Rather, he preferred to enjoy a relatively modest house next to a lake inside the palace compound.

Later, in 1958, for his birthday, the people build him a now – famous “house on stilts,” to remind him of his boyhood home, which had to be lifted off the ground so the animals would not get in.

In the palace grounds, women tended to the plentiful roses, while Strong picked one and proposed marriage to one of my friends .

Soldiers patrolled the grounds,

Also inside the palace grounds, is the One Pillar Pagoda. Held up by a single pillar in the center of an elegant square lotus pond, it is said to represent a lotus flower growing out of the water. It was constructed between 1028 and 1054 and, besides serving as a serene garden setting, is said to promote fertility.

We then returned to the Ancient Quarter, where I did some shopping on Silk Street, before we enjoyed a wonderful lunch in the courtyard of a local restaurant, The Green Tangerine. These restaurants, and the courtyards, trace the French influence in the country. One might equate them to sitting in a garden restaurant in New Orleans, Louisiana.

We also noticed that outside many homes and shops, there were birdcages with songbirds in them. We asked why we saw so many songbirds, and not many dogs or cats. We were told that “we don’t keep dogs or cats as pets – we eat them.” And that’s why they keep birds as pets!

Our next stop was the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology, A unique center providing insight into Vietnam’s 54 very distinct ethnic groups. The museum endeavors to preserve cultural heritage, while promoting the country’s socio-cultural diversity. The exhibition hall features over 15,000 artifacts and aims to showcase the many cultural practices and civilizations across not only Vietnam, but also all of Southeast Asia.

There are also several small houses in the outdoor grounds that replicate houses of various Vietnamese ethnic groups, including the Hmong group, which has a large community in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Our guide explained that the Hmong were helpful to the Americans in the mountainous areas of the North and therefore needed to be evacuated when the war ended.

At one point, I thought I spotted an octogenarian Vietcong who was coming out of the woods to surrender to us.

Some of the sculptures are quite interesting and perhaps need a bit of explanation. For example, this one depicts a bicycle cupboard with fish traps, such that a fisherman may use to come home after a hard day of fishing.

Other sculptures need no explanation.

Finally, we boarded the bus for the three-hour trip back to Ha Long Bay. The traffic was virtually identical to what we experienced the day before, complete with cars headed at us the wrong way, and women nicely dressed riding on the backs of motorcycles. But undoubtedly, the highlight of our drive was when we got pulled over by a team of police officers and our driver was ticketed for “driving too close to a water buffalo in the street.” This was the guilty fellow. (Of course, it was a ploy for cash from the driver of rich tourists.)

After a short tender ride back to the ship, I enjoyed a pizza and a well-deserved rest in my own bed.