| Greetings from Hanoi, We've taken a week off from teaching in the Mekong Delta, for the chance to explore North Vietnam. Hanoi is a surprisingly modern city with a fascinating old quarter. Different streets specialize in different merchandise: everything from tin boxes to jewelry to buddhist altars to tombstones. We took a two-day trip to the spectacular Halong Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and star of the movie Indochine. The fairytale-like limestone formations rising out of the bay were created when a dragon dragged its huge tale through the land on its way into the sea. So they tell us. We spent the night sleeping on a boat with three soccer-crazed Englishmen (they were mighty disappointed yesterday when England lost to Brazil.) We slept on the deck and admired the scenery in the light of the half-moon. Another highlight of Hanoi was the Water Puppet Theater. This artform was developed by farmers to entertain themselves during the wet season, when the rice fields are flooded. Puppeteers stand behind a screen and operate puppets that appear to walk magically on the water -- dragons, buffalo, fishermen and fairies. We have never seen anything like it. We also visited the "Hanoi Hilton" prison, where John McCain's mugshot is still on the wall, along with that of other captured pilots. There's a lovely display describing how well the American POW's were treated, despite their "countless crimes" against the Vietnamese people. Photographs show the prisoners cooking tasty-looking food, reading mail from family and relaxing as if on vacation. Monday we head back down south, and later in the week we'll attend the wedding of one of our students. We're very excited about the chance to participate in a Vietnamese wedding (it lasts two days.) Our project (about 2 hours south of Ho Chi Minh City) is teaching spoken English to adults, a great change from teaching children. We live in a small room off one of the classrooms (and shower with a bucket, but at least the water is warm.) Breakfast each morning is noodle soup with beef, pork and dried fish. Lunch and dinner are often the same soup, so the rare chicken and rice or beef with french fries are a welcome change. Our students range from women who sell sugar cane juice at the market to Viet Cong military doctors. (Viet Cong refers to anyone in the ruling communist party of Vietnam.) Who could imagine we would ever be teaching the Viet Cong? They are some of our kindest students, and took us on a tour of a nearby island, where villagers make coconut candy and grow many tasty kinds of fruit. One of the military doctors is the family physician for the whole island, so we were all treated like VIP's throughout the day. He is studying English so he can go to America -- on a grant provided by the communist govt! -- for more medical training. The students in our evening classes take us out every night to cruise around on their motorbikes (the thing to do in the town of Mytho.) We often end up at a coffeeshop to drink strange fruit juices and listen to Vietnamese cover versions of classic pop songs (imagine Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time in Vietnamese.) One of our best students has become a very good friend. Mai owns a computer game store with three partners. It is filled everyday with young boys playing Counterstrike. It's funny to watch these Vietnamese women raking in money by selling game time on their computers. Mai is marrying an American who lives in Hawaii. Like her, about half of our students are marrying foreigners or Vietnamese who live in America, Canada or Australia. One surprise is that there is apparently a large Vietnamese community in Texas. One student is even going to live with her aunt in Mississippi. The only low point was our first night in Mytho, when a psycho bicycle taxi followed us around town. When we refused to ride with him, the driver threw rocks at us. The drivers and merchants in Vietnam can be extremely agressive, particularly in the tourist areas. That's another surprise -- Vietnam has loads of tourists. You might not picture the cities here as being lined with travel agents, guesthouses, souvenir shops and kids selling postcards, but that's how it is. Still, the countryside is very beautiful and there's plenty of opportunity to observe traditional Vietnamese lifestyle -- water buffaloes plowing rice fields or women in conical hats replanting rice seedlings. We hope all is well in your corner of the world. Sherry and Chris |
| Vietnam - June 21, 2002 Water Fairies & Dragons' Tails |