Liberation Day

This weekend is one long holiday here - Friday was the Hung Kings Day (fathers of the Vietnamese nation in, lets say, 269 bc), today Monday is Liberation Day, and tomorrow is May Day. April 30, 1975, Vietnam was officially re-united. I was rather small then, I don't exactly remember the occasion. However today, there was a sort of circus in the middle of the street. The funny thing is they often have concerts and performances there, and they never close the street. So everyone just keeps coming until there is about a half mile of mayhem, and everybody in the front can see the event and everybody else just sits there and breathes motorbike exhaust until the show is over. This time I got there early enough to get seat with a view.

Before it got crowded

After that…

Twirling hoops

Twirling flaming hoops

Bouncing on a stick

Bouncing and twirling a drum on foot, upside-down

Twirling burning bamboo

Trapeze

Euro Bovines

Europe Days 2007 in Vietnam are opening with a decidedly non-conformist herd of cows, currently grazing contentedly in Lenin Park. Cow graffiti must be effective, I think I remember some appearing in Harrisburg once, and I remember some as well in Bennington VT where I used to slip through with a rig early in the morning.. Anyway, cows:

Spring is here

Forever and a day

Yes it has been forever and a day since I posted anything. I am still here, and, like, getting up every morning, eating pho, motorbiking with my fingers crossed and all that, so what does the lack of news mean? I guess I haven’t learned anything in the last month? That can’t be it!

I have seen two noteworthy films recently, the first of which is called (with great originality), Congo River, and it is about the Congo River. It appeals to me on several levels. While it was billed as a documentary, it is less of a ‘facts and figures’ kind of documentary, and more of a ‘here is what happened to me’ kind of documentary. Most of the film involves a sort of river barge version of a matatu, how could that fail to be fascinating?

Apart from that the film is narrated in French, obviously with a lot of local languages as well and I heard all of two words that I remember from Swahili (of the four that I remember), and I was provided with Vietnamese commentary. It was a film, not a lecture, so I thoroughly enjoyed it in spite of not understanding much of the narrative. Languages are addictive, and naturally, ever after the first one they just give you a headache.

An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s film on climate change did actually make it to Hanoi. Of course, most films make it here before they get anywhere else, through the $1 sidewalk DVD sector, but I mean in a cinema. I don’t think there was much about the film that surprised me, outside, perhaps, of that fact that Al Gore’s delivery has been de-woodenized. Maybe it is easier to be engaging when you are facing the establishment, instead of sort of staggering along underneath it.

On climate change, there are a couple ethanol plants underway here in Vietnam, at least one of which will use cassavas. Which is a great idea, I can’t think of a better way to use a cassava! That in spite of reservations about ethanol as a sort of bandaid on a bullet wound, again pushing off that nasty little issue of the actual problem – the bigger is better complex.

Well, I guess the last month wasn't a complete wash. zaijian