Van Mieu - The Temple of Literature - Hanoi

My favourite place in all of Hanoi is Van Mieu, the medieval Confucian University.



Yes, I know it is something of a tourist hell-hole these days (in fact, I write about it in Destination Saigon), but despite the crowds of tourists and the ever more obnoxious guides, I still love just slouching about the grounds of this exquisite building.



The first time I ever went there, back in 1994, Hanoi was still largely unvisited, and the Temple of Literature was absolutely decrepit. Even then, though, it had incredible charm. The morning we first visited there was no-one else at all in the place, apart from a few sad-faced souvenir sales-girls and a man cleaning the toilets. It seems hard to believe now, when hundreds must stream through every day.



Still, I think there's no better place to go on a grey, rainy Hanoi morning. The last time I went the gardens were filled with schoolgirls reading Chicken Soup for the Soul in Vietnamese. Which is exactly what I'd be doing if I was in their shoes.

Monday Blogcrawl

Vietnamese access to Facebook remains a mystery to me. Occasionally I will receive a flood of likes and comments from friends in Vietnam, and then nothing. Someone tells me Facebook is blocked, someone tells me it isn't. Anyway, this week I had a heap of posts from my VN friends, including lots of pics which made me so happy and so  homesick. Here are some stories about Vietnam that I stumbled upon over the past week:

 

The temple on Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi, from Buried in Cliches blog.

• Vinh Nghiem Pagoda (the obsucre small one in the North, not the huge one in Saigon) has had its ancient woodblocks recognised by UNESCO. I seem to have posted about this story a million times - has it been an incredibly long and drawn-out process?
• The Bangkok Post tells Thai business people to start taking Vietnam seriously.
• An ultra-cool hotel in Dalat. I love Vietnamese architecture.
• They grew too much coffee in Vietnam. Again.
• The turtle found in Hoan Kiem Lake is one of the world's 100 most endangered species.
• Vietnamese sculpture enjoys a renaissance. And Pham Thai Binh looks kinda hunky.
• A great retro recording of David Halberstam, chronicler of the Vietnam War.
• Vietnamese authorities tell people not to trust Chinese fruit & veg.
• Some crazy was keeping children hostage at a kindergarten in my neighbourhood at Ho Chi Minh City!

Monday Blogcrawl

Yesterday we celebrated the Moon Festival in Cabramatta. Sure, it was a little early, but it was lots of fun, and was just about the closest I was going to get to Vietnam without getting on a plane. Here are some items from the net that will help bring you that one step closer:

 The Friendship Village in Hanoi trains youth at risk

• An excellent video showing you how to make Pho at home
• PBS has a nice piece about Vietnamese priests serving in rural America
• It seems that the Vietnamese government is really cracking down on press freedom, and Committee to Protect Journalists investigates why
• Hanoi street food from the Medical Observer
• If you're in Australia, here is a handy list of suggestions of what wine to have with Vietnamese food
• Quinn Ryan Mattingly has a beautiful photo of backstage at the circus in Saigon
• There's a Luxe City Guide to Ho Chi Minh City. And while you're there, check out the beautiful Giac Lam Pagoda
• Some people seem to think taking the hard seat on the train to Hanoi is a romantic thing to do, and The Age brings us one such story
• MGM Grand is building a casino in Vietnam
• There was a gay-themed drama performed live in Ho Chi Minh City, according to Gay Star News

Monday Blogcrawl

Always yearning for Vietnam, with half my heart constantly there. Here are some things that caught my eye over the past week:

Vietnamese fishermen arrested for illegally fishing Thai waters

• I'm always mystified by the empty real-estate in Hanoi, and the trend continues. Nhan Dan tells us that some developers have been suspended over improper actions in Hanoi's Old Quarter
• Michael Jackson's dad is no longer building a tourist park in Vietnam
• Vietnam's ruling elite is still deeply troubled by any criticism, and Voice of America explains why three political blogs have been singled out for condemnation by Vietnam's Prime Minister
• Arts Expo Malaysia will feature some works from Vietnam this year - from Vietnam.net Bridge
• Thieu Tran is a Vietnamese-American who has created a one-man show about his experiences. Bring it to Australia, Thieu!
• Thanh Nhien tells us about a leather tanning firm that has been poisoning the Saigon River for years

Why I Love Hanoi

I will confess that the first time I visited Hanoi I hated the place.
It was back in the dark days of 1994, and we visited the capital city right in the middle of winter. It was grey, drizzly and filthy, with abysmal food and shocking service. We were gleefuly overcharged by sullen shopkeepers, fleeced and robbed by cyclos and taxi drivers and forced to pay bribes to sneering, smelly policemen. Even the bus driver that took us back to the airport on the way out managed to cheat us, leaving us with that last bitter taste of Hanoi. I swore I would never return, and I never did until 2006.
A friend of mine from Australia had fallen in love with a girl in Hanoi, and they were living there. It seemed churlish not to fly up and see them, and when I did I discovered a wonderful city that had made some remarkable changes for the better. The food was good, the nightlife was fun, and, though it was again the middle of winter, I found the foggy cool a wonderful respite from Saigon's endless heat.
Hanoi has turned into a little treasure, the kind of place you could easily while away a lifetime. I could stroll along Hoan Kiem lake for days, and I adore the shopping in Hanoi, the wonderful arts and crafts that are so distinctively Vietnamese - my house is full of such things these days.



And I think that is a clue as to what distinguishes Hanoi - the interest in aesthetics, in the small details that beautify a place and make it charming.



And I love the cramped, crowded nature of the city.



It has none of the sprawl of Ho Chi Minh City. In the winter months at least, you can comfortably walk around Hanoi and really absorb the city and its little pockets.



Of course, Hanoi taxi drivers and cyclos are still notorious brigands, but I am hopeful that someday some competent government tourist authority will take that little problem in hand.
Until then, enjoy the walking.

Lu Dongbin

This pic was taken at my friend's Taoist Feng Shui Fortune Telling business on the West Lake in Hanoi - a place that I talk about in my book, Destination Saigon. It is a statue of Lu Dongbin - a figure I didn't know much about until I encountered him in my friend's shop.
It seems that Lu Dongbin is something of a Patron Saint to practitioners of the Taoist arts.
He is also one of the most commonly appearing deities in the world of Chinese folk religion, though he is almost completely unknown to non-Chinese. It seems that in the early part of the 20th Century the cult of Lu Dongbin was particularly popular in Southern China, which explains his presence in so many temples in Hong Kong, and among the Chinese diaspora abroad.
Interestingly, a fable about Lu Dongbin is retold in Liao Fan's Four Lessons - one of my favourite books:

"Lu Dongbin was being taught the art of transforming iron into gold. They would use this gold to help the poor. Dongbin asked his teacher,"Will the gold ever change back to iron?" Li Jung answered, "After five hundred years, it will return to its original form." Dongbin said, "In that case, I do not want to learn this art for it will harm those who possess the gold five hundred years from now." Li Zhong said, "To become an immortal, one must complete three thousand virtuous deeds. What you have just said came from a truly kind heart. Your three thousand deeds are fulfilled.""

Traveller (Sydney Morning Herald, The Age) review of Destination Saigon

Destination Saigon, by Walter Mason
Allen & Unwin, $24.99
Reviewed by Bruce Elder,
Traveller, Sydney Morning Herald & The Age
Saturday, 13th March 2010

When it comes to evaluating and commenting on the nature of a soceity, there is no substitute for the thoughtful objectivity of an outsider who has fallen in love with the place.

This describes Walter Mason, an Australian who followed his Vietnamese partner, settled in Ho Chi Minh City in the mid-1990s and has since visited the country 11 times.  He understands Vietnam with a level of wry fascination and when it comes to the idiosyncrasies of the culture, he speaks the language and can ask a local exactly what is happening.

Consequently, this interesting and well written book, apart from being an engrossing narrative of life in Vietnam, is full of useful and practical insights.

For example: "If you are ever looking for a hotel in Hanoi, I recommend you check the room before you agree to the tariff.  Rooms with windows can be rare in the city, so it is easy to disappear into a black hole of a room with no circulation and ample damp, and quite possibly fall asleep for days, waiting for a dawn."

And one of my favourite insights: "for a foreigner, getting a legitimate massage in Vietnam can be quite a difficult thing and I had heard horror stories of notorious goings-on even in five-star hotel spas." Do you really want to know more?

An example of quirkiness - and this is what helps make this unusual book so engrossing - is Mason's description of a leprosarium, in Binh Dinh province, that the local tourist authority has tried to turn into a tourist attraction: "As leprosariums go it is quite nice, situated gorgeously by the ocean, replete with coffee shops and restaurants run by the lepers themselves." And then, with just the right level of eyebrow-raising, he adds: "But as a tourist attraction I think it's a abit of a tough sell."

Mason obviously loves the country and it's people.  In many ways, this is his love letter to Vietnam.  More than a guidebook, it's a story full of insights that will help visitors to understand the unique cultures of Vietnam.