Travelling to Viet Nam has been a rich learning experience. Here are some impressions and observation
The people: friendly, considerate, beautiful, value and love children. Relaxed, smiling.
The language: a language of many very short words, and a zillion accents above and below the letters. 6 tones (thought Chinese with its 4 tones was tough – ha!). Nice sounding, a bit choppy because of all the short words, but smooth nevertheless. Very little English. One doesn’t realize how disorienting it is to navigate in a city with absolutely no French or English road or building signs, and with words so short that letters often repeat themselves in various street names. (N, U, G, A, I, Y, T, E, Q, H particularly frequent).
The streets: as previously mentioned, a lot of diagonal intersections, frequently with not 4 but 5 spokes. Wickedly full, traffic lights not particularly heeded by scooterists (or is it scooterers? Scooterites? Scootarians? Scooterese?). Yikes! Constant beeping. Toronto has nothing on Hanoi. Some really really cool two-toned bladabladabladablada horns. Rick wants one, but not if I get to one first! Always busy, sidewalks filled with vendors, their wares, little 'restaurants on the move' (carried by women in 2 baskets balanced on their shoulders, stove and all).
Capitalism: an odd presentation, with merchants of identical products all on same block, same street. Can’t imagine how they can realistically compete and make a profit, and not geographically very convenient if ya need paint or some such thing and have to drive across town. On the other hand, would be handy if the merchants all sold slightly different goods, but that’s not the case.
Architecture: a real mix. Lots of butter-that’s-been-sitting-out-for-a-while-yellow coloured buildings. These look like official buildings, as many have the same font of red print, some with sickles, either on banners or in the form of lights. In the outskirts, many 3-4 level very tall and skinny houses, some nice, some not so, in various states of construction
International adoption: So often, Vietnamese women, and sometimes men, would ask about our girls, and reach out to hold their hand, caress their cheek, make them smile, take time to babble and talk and pay attention to them. One even brought us congee from home. Don’t be fooled by the idea that if the Vietnamese loved children, international adoption wouldn’t exist. It’s quite the contrary. One woman said to us how lucky the children are, and that she feels they will have a better life than they could have had here. Is that true? Maybe, if one looks at financial and environmental (natural, not cultural) factors. However, there are losses inherent to adoption: our children lose direct access to their homeland and culture, and often feel displaced no matter where they are. In that way, we are plundering national treasures. That’s something we will strive to mitigate, but will never be able to take away completely. Thus, when we replied to that woman who said Tanje was lucky that in fact, we’re the lucky ones, we meant it! We owe the Vietnamese, and particularly, Tanje’s bio parents, a debt of gratitude.
The feel: 3rd world, for sure, but in evolution. Hanoi: harried, loud, odouriforous, areas of natural beauty at risk, but obvious attempts made to beautify them. Lots and lots of retailers, wall to wall, in every building fringing main thoroughfares.
Hanoi at night:
Tanje's continuing to do well. She is having some teething pain, but once the Tylenol kicks in, she's good to go. She's eating better, and really starting to imitate us. We're looking forward to the trip to Ha Long Bay tomorrow, so won't be able to blog for a couple of days.
Hi Sue, hi Tracey, hi Joanne.
