Well,
I’ve finally got around to writing another blog. My main excuse is that I’ve
started studying – it’s a part-time online TEFL course that will keep me very
busy for the next ten months. The induction course was conducted over twelve
days at the British Council school in Kuala Lumpur. The school is spitting
distance from the Petronas Towers (it would have to be a long spit but, well,
you know what I mean). The towers look absolutely amazing – especially at
night.
They
kept us fairly busy on the course but I survived. All went well apart from one
little glitch on my written assignment. The tutor meant to write ‘You have looked at pron (short for
pronunciation) …’ but she misspelled it and actually wrote ‘You have look at porn …’ I rather wish she’d been a little more
careful - that sort of thing can get you in trouble y’know.
Now
I’m back in Hanoi and studying as hard as I can manage. I have to pop in to
work most days of course but I get to the climbing wall a bit and I’m still
playing badminton on the street (we’ve
found a better place now).
*****
There
are a fair number of mausoleums in the world with the remains of past leaders
in them. There’s Mao in Beijing and Lenin in Moscow for example and in Hanoi there’s
Ho Chi Minh. HCM is highly revered in Vietnam – more so than any other
political leader I can think of. His mausoleum seems to be something of a
shrine for the Vietnamese to visit - there were far more Vietnamese in the
queue than tourists as far as I could see.
The
queue was quite long – about 1km - but moved at walking pace so we got in
fairly soon. The actual chamber though is just a walkway around the glass
cabinet guarded by four soldiers in white uniforms, rifles and bayonets. You’re
not allowed to even smile and I suspect they’d use those bayonets if anyone did
something silly. So, I walked past in sombre fashion and stayed in one piece. HCM
looks like a waxwork but is in fact embalmed. He goes to Russia for a month or
so each year to be restored I’m told.
Cameras
are forbidden so the best I could do was take a pic from the outside. The square outside is a really popular spot in the evenings when people walk vigorously up
and down (and even backwards) for fitness. Keeping fit is a public thing in
Hanoi. From about 6am there are folk out exercising in groups, but you’ll see
it at all times of day. Elderly folk are often the keenest and can be seen
walking vigorously and swinging their arms, doing Tai Chi or playing badminton.
*****
Everywhere you go you will find people lighting fires in the streets. Often up against walls or trees. It looks a little dodgy to me. At first I thought it was just a rather handy way to get rid of your rubbish, but I have been informed that it is in fact, offerings. Burning ‘lucky money’ is thought to provide money for dead ancestors eg. to buy them a house, car, food. About 20,000 dong (1 dollar) will buy 1 million lucky dollars so they do OK up there. It is only necessary on the 1st and 15th of the lunar month however.
*****
I
can now say ‘Toi khong thich an thit cho’
rather well. (I don’t like to eat dog.) I like to get this point firmly
established with any Vietnamese who want to take me out for a ‘traditional’
meal – just in case. I went for a meal with my neighbours, Hanh and Khoi,
recently. On the way Khoi asked me ‘Have
you ever eaten leeches?’ Have you
ever been asked that? It was a first for me. I quickly pointed out that this
was not something that I would consider eating – too much blood. I prefer
my meat well-done. As it turned out we had a variety of rather tasty dishes
including mince in glutinous rice with sausage meat on the side, samosas and shredded
shrimp pasted onto a sugar cane (and then cut off).
I bought my first dragon fruit the other day. They’re quite nice.
*****
Giving
flowers is a bit of a minefield I discovered. A few months ago I had my cooker
rings cleaned by our in-house cleaner. She doesn’t usually clean my flat so I
thought I’d buy her some flowers to say thank you. It all seemed perfectly
reasonable. So, when she had finished, I gave the flowers and off she went. She
came back 10 minutes later with the landlord and the flowers in a vase. He said
they would look nice on my table and gave them to me. I sensed something was
wrong so I just took them and said thank you. I closed the door and wondered
what had gone wrong…
I
have since found out that flowers can mean a few things … marking the
anniversary of the death of a family member or a suggestion that you might like
to marry. In this case though, she probably just thought that I wanted a vase.
I hope so. I have been told that a nice envelope with about 20,000 dong is the
usual way to say thank you in these parts. Must remember that …
*****
I’ll
leave you with a little Health & Safety – Vietnamese style. I watched this
chap from my living room window the other day – he’s about 6 storeys up and
hanging from a rope ladder. He swung across to the air-conditioning unit and
climbed on top of it. The other chap hanging out of the window pulled the
ladder away and then threw it back when all was done. Those units have been
there a while and I imagine the brackets are getting a bit rusty but he looked
as cool as a cucumber.
*****
Bike
photo of the month
The black block bike. These blocks are sold to
people to put in their little stove which they use to cook food or brew up on
the street.
Oh,
and I have to show you this one …
