N Vietnam 2012 - Day 3, Part 1 - Hanoi

"First you're an unknown, then you write one book and you move up to obscurity." - Martin Myers

***

N Vietnam 2012
Day 3 - 26th May - Hanoi (Part 1)

I set off early once again, since this was to be my only full day in Hanoi.


Temple exterior


The first dogs I'd seen in Hanoi


Pho Hang Thiec


Japanese schoolgirl look


Another street

The receptionist at the hostel had recommended a bun cha place, but it wasn't ready yet so I had something else for breakfast.


Vietnamese ngor heong guan qiang (fried stuff), bee hoon, Asian basil

By this time, it was easier to just accept that I was inevitably going to be swindled, andnot ponder equity issues.

Normally I would've been alright with stools, but my thighs were still sore from all the walking I'd done on the first day. Luckily the service at this street food stall was good - the vendor noticed I was uncomfortable and put the stool on the five foot way's step for me (so it was higher), and took my umbrella from me too.


"We can print anything! Ask here!"
I was tempted to ask if they could print "me love you long time"


Kebab stand. Notice that it's 20,000 VND despite being a foreign food. This should clue you in as to how much I was being overcharged.


Another temple's facade


"Free beer
Free breakfast
Free internet
Free wifi
Free tour information"


"Propaganda poster & painting. Old propaganda & posters"
Appaently "propaganda" doesn't necessarily have negative connotations here


Ngo Huyen


Mix & Match: Pho/Bun/Mien/My + Bo/Ga


Woman eating noodles in mystery soup which looked more interesting than normal pho. It looked like Vietnamese Laksa.


Another temple. I was able to enter this one.

They were cleaning up after what were presumably morning prayers.




Framed Buddhas


Altar


Altar closeup


Another altar. Note the biscuit tins.


Rack for giant fans (?!)


Calendar in the Chinese style


Photo of nuns (?) on the wall


Another altar with monks' photos

At this point they were done cleaning up and were turning off the lights (before 8am?!), but I was done anyway.

This temple was a good fascimile of a Chinese one (with interesting touches like biscuit tins), and not just a Third Rate knockoff.


Odd menu: "Pillow - Sea Crab
Saltyfried
Sweet Friedcakes
Shrimp crabhacao
Meat pie
Vegetarian pie
Fried sound nem
Beer of oh fferentkinds
Icee tea
beve rage"
Notice the spacing issues again.

I then visited the Saint Joseph Cathedral.


Black Cathedral. Note to self: do not build a Neo-Gothic Cathedral in the tropics. At least it had no moss like in Lugo


No French. Hurr hurr.


Outside walls, with fleur-de-lys


Three Wise Men


Grove


Relief

The interior had 19th century stained glass, which was okay. Other than that it was a pedestrian cathedral, with its only noteworthy feature being that it was a colonial building and in the tropics. Since it was pedestrian, dark and I saw a no photography sign, I didn't bother.


Benedict XV needs to Force Lightning his photographer, who always manages to catch him in such creepy poses.


No cameras from 1910 inside the cathedral.

I was still a bit peckish, when I came across a vendor of sweet fried stuff:


Vendor of sweet fried stuff


Tea. This was the most outrageous attempt to swindle me yet (see end of post).

It was very crispy and good (the round one had mung bean inside) but OH THE HUMANITY.


"Free call when you order"

I then made my way to Hoan Kiem lake, this time by morning.


The sad pavilion: lonely, blackened, with no access to it.


Woman with a plastic bag on her head (???)


At night there'd been the LCD marquee below it

By the lake, I got emotionally blackmailed into buying postcards. They were supposedly 150,000 VND for 10. The vendor was a 38 year old whose 2 legs were supposedly missing (he was on a tricycle-like contraption; maybe he was a victim of Agent Orange). Trying to evoke pity, he debased his humanity, pointing to his missing legs. In response, I objectified him and bought his overpriced postcards (which weren't that nice, even, and were slightly worn). After this transaction, I felt dirty inside and resolved not to debase both myself and another human being so (at least during this trip).

I gave the legless vendor US$20 and he tried to give me 200,000 VND in change (cheating me of 50,000 VND). In the end he gave me 230,000 VND and claimed he had no change. Right.


Red Bridge and Ngoc Son Temple


Some communist monument


Temple Entrance


On the Jade Mountain temple (Ngoc Son Temple - somehow it's not translated into English)


Another set of gates


Pillar with "writing on a clear sky" in Chinese characters


Taishan plaque


Yet another set of gates. Apparently the lady on the right was cold.




The lake


The sad pavilion


Again, another set of doors. You'd think they were regularly under attack.


Hall


Pavilion


Hall from Pavilion


About the temple


Altar - with butter cookies. I found this even more amusing than the biscuit tins previously.


About Tran Hung Dao, one of their national heroes. Apparently he is "a pride of Vietnam in particular and of mankind in general". Unsurprisingly, I'd never heard of him before.


Inner altar. The green guy is "Tuong Than Quan De". Not Guan Yu.


Atheist temple

There was also a section on the Hoan Kiem tortoises (according to the Vietnamese, this is a unique species of tortoise; according to everyone else, it's not).


On the toirtoises


Preserved tortoise




The China was childlike in its decoration.


Gate house


Tortoise and sword. This depicts a Vietnamese legend:

"According to legend, Lê Lợi had a magic sword given to him by Kim Qui, the Golden Turtle God. One day, not long after the Chinese had accepted Vietnam's independence, Lê Lợi was out boating on a lake in Hanoi. Suddenly a large turtle surfaced, took the sword from Lê Lợi, and dove back into the depths. Efforts were made to find both the sword and the turtle, but without success. Lê Lợi then acknowledged the sword had gone back to the Golden turtle God and renamed the lake Hoan Kiem Lake (or Ho Guom), "The Lake of the Returned Sword"."


Dragon with bagua


Tower at entrance


Gates


Open book celebrating the 1,000th anniversary of Hanoi (it was founded in 1010 AD)


Some people claim that the Chinese languages cannot be given romanised alphabets because of homophones, but the experience of Vietnamese shows that it can be done (besides which, people communicate verbally in Chinese languages without any trouble). I suspect the motivation for their insistence is protectionism - having mastered such a fiendishly difficult writing system, they are eager to preserve the value of their investment by keeping it difficult for others to learn it.

Breakfast cost me 30,000 VND.

For sweet fried stuff, I was quoted the princely sum of 30,000 VND. Recall that it was for this amount of food:


On hearing the 30,000 VND quote, I snapped. I offered 20 (which was still ridiculously generous) but she countered with 25, which I grudgingly accepted.

Why they told you to work at maths in school

Links - 24th June 2012

"If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married" - Katharine Hepburn

***

Must a Food Critic Know How to Cook? - "More than a few times do I hear some food bloggers complaining (not directed at us): “He/she doesn’t even have training in the kitchen. How dare s/he be a food blogger?”... In 1994, Catherine Lim, renowned Singapore novelist/writer, wrote a political piece which was published in The Straits Times, criticizing PAP and how the party was–and still is–disconnected with the people. Then-Prime Minster Goh Chok Tong responded, if she wants to write a political commentary, join a political party. Must a political commentator be in politics?"

Alleged vice ring boss a successful entrepreneur
That's redundant

Research Shows That the Smarter People Are, the More Susceptible They Are to Cognitive Bias - "“people who were aware of their own biases were not better able to overcome them”... Perhaps our most dangerous bias is that we naturally assume that everyone else is more susceptible to thinking errors, a tendency known as the “bias blind spot.” This “meta-bias” is rooted in our ability to spot systematic mistakes in the decisions of others—we excel at noticing the flaws of friends—and inability to spot those same mistakes in ourselves... the driving forces behind biases—the root causes of our irrationality—are largely unconscious, which means they remain invisible to self-analysis and impermeable to intelligence. In fact, introspection can actually compound the error, blinding us to those primal processes responsible for many of our everyday failings"

Beware the creeping cracks of bias - " The belief is that progress in science means the continual production of positive findings. All involved benefit from positive results, and from the appearance of progress. Scientists are rewarded both intellectually and professionally, science administrators are empowered and the public desire for a better world is answered. The lack of incentives to report negative results, replicate experiments or recognize inconsistencies, ambiguities and uncertainties is widely appreciated — but the necessary cultural change is incredibly difficult to achieve."

Does sitting on cold surfaces give you piles? - "Studies suggest if you read on the toilet you are likely to stay there for longer than you realise, encouraging you to sit and strain"

“The Chemist’s War” Against Bacchus - "The Temperance movement blamed alcohol for many societal ills - such as crime, murder and prostitution - and its membership was overwhelmingly (and unsurprisingly) women who were sick of their husbands coming home drunk when they weren’t permitted to join in on any of the fun. Hell hath no fury like a group of sober women scorned, and the Senate finally caved... alcoholism rates soared in the 1920s, as did crime, thanks to the meteoric rise of bootlegging and organized crime... The Treasury Department also demanded more methyl alcohol be added - up to 10 percent of total product. It was the last that proved most deadly. Alas, while the feds managed to successfully kill an estimated 10,000 people, they were unable to quell America’s passion for booze"

sexual norms - "Sufi mystics adored the beauty of male youths, with their downy cheeks, as a pathway to adoring the beauty of God and some men adored young men for more sensuous reasons. At the same time the effeminate man who had sex with other men was scorned and stigmatised... abstinence was an important means of birth control just about until the invention of the pill. 'I have a headache tonight, dear', was a way middle-class women refused to have too many children... Victorian sexual silence had its advantages for some - close female friendships were celebrated, even when women longed to kiss and hug each other all night - because society thought they weren't sexual... as the recent BBC film The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister shows, some of these women were having passionately sexual relationships"

the importance of forgetting - "Those with total recall often have difficulty making decisions, and more readily miss understanding the overall point of a book or lecture - because they get enmeshed in an undistinguishable mass of irrelevant details. Forgetting, it turns out, has enormous value for concise understanding and for emotional health... The emerging data provide the first scientific support for Sigmund Freud's controversial theory of repression, by which unwanted memories are shoved into the subconscious. The new evidence suggests that the ability to repress is quite useful"

Ultra-Orthodox Jews Shun Their Own for Reporting Child Sexual Abuse - NYTimes.com - "While some ultra-Orthodox rabbis now argue that a child molester should be reported to the police, others strictly adhere to an ancient prohibition against mesirah, the turning in of a Jew to non-Jewish authorities, and consider publicly airing allegations against fellow Jews to be chillul Hashem, a desecration of God’s name."

Foot Health: Happy Feet or Fashion Footwear Failure? - "According to the latest statistics provided by the American Podiatric Medical Association (APMA), 63 percent of women reported heel pain as a result of wearing uncomfortable shoes. Women were also more likely than men to suffer as a result of painful shoes. Despite these numbers, the APMA reports that a shocking 82 percent of women say they are willing to sacrifice the health of their feet for fashion"
... women

OK Go - White Knuckles - Official Video - YouTube

Bacon Shell Tacos (AKA “Bacos”)

Daily News on the World of Sweet, Sweet Bacon. - "If you have to ask “why bacon?” then we’re glad you’re here. Bacon Today was founded on the simple principle that a world of bacony goodness exists out there for all to discover and enjoy. Here’s what we believe:
The most versatile meat on the planet deserves some respect.
Breakfast is not the only meal for bacon.
Fashion, Art, Music…all industries seriously devoid of bacon.
Bacon is a treat for all the senses.
Frozen bacon should not be used as a weapon (although it happens).
As some folks have said — it’s the candy of meats!"

Meet-An-Inmate.com: Website reveals America's prettiest prisoners and lets you date them - "Even though these men and women are in prison, it doesn't mean that they are bad individuals. The majority of these inmates are fun, loving, clever, reliable, sexy and very passionate"

FHM Models 2012: The Top 10 - FHM Models 2012's top 10 strut down the runway
They're quite ugly...; "Seems like all we have is a mix of Filipinas, Thai trannies and plain Janes with bad boob jobs and cosmetic surgery"

Food for thought from Tyler Cowen - "'Cheap, quick food–including its embodiment through our sometimes obnoxious agribusiness corporations–is the single most important advance in human history. It is the foundation of modern civilization, and the reason why most of us are alive'... As Matt Ridley once said, we’ve tried eating local before. That was called the Middle Ages"

Man calls police, pickets restaurant’s all-you-can-eat policy - "he was cut off from an all-you-can-eat fish fry after he said he had 12 pieces at Chuck’s Place restaurant in Thiensville, Wisconsin... If this sounds like a familiar scenario, it’s because The Simpsons already did it. In the 1992 episode “New Kid on the Block,” Homer Simpson sues a seafood restaurant after being banned from the all-you-can-eat buffet for consuming “All our shrimp! And two plastic lobsters”"

Dogs Feel Your Pain - "Yawn next to your dog, and she may do the same. Though it seems simple, this contagious behavior is actually quite remarkable: Only a few animals do it, and only dogs cross the species barrier. Now a new study finds that dogs yawn even when they only hear the sound of us yawning, the strongest evidence yet that canines may be able to empathize with us... revious work has shown, for example, that when dogs look guilty, they may not actually be feeling guilty"

Sister of Alleged Romney Target Has ‘No Knowledge’ of Any Bullying Incident - "The older sister of Mitt Romney’s former high school classmate said she has no knowledge of any bullying incident involving her brother and the GOP presidential candidate... "The family of John Lauber is releasing a statement saying the portrayal of John is factually incorrect and we are aggrieved that he would be used to further a political agenda"... “If he were still alive today, he would be furious [about the story],” she said with tears in her eyes."

Often, the silence is deafening - "Sharia law is far from monolithic and consistent; there are four prominent schools of Sharia in Sunni Islam and one major school in Shia Islam. But despite the inconsistencies, there is consensus within all schools regarding the necessity of the death penalty for apostasy and sexual “crimes” including homosexuality, on the need for women to be veiled, and on different treatment under the law accorded to men compared with women as well as Muslims compared with non-Muslims... if you are fighting Islamism or Sharia law in Iran, Egypt or Afghanistan the debate is not framed around racism and Islamophobia... 32 Forced Marriage Protection Order applications were made for children under 16 in Britain last year. At the Islington court, “five or fewer” orders were made to protect children between the ages of 9-11. The Centre for Islamic Pluralism reported of a 15-year-old girl in Pakistan who was tricked into marriage over the telephone with a 40-year-old man from Sheffield, who had the mental age of a four-year-old child. “The Home Office refused to recognise the validity of the marriage but the Islamic Sharia Council in Britain accepted it”... What multiculturalism does is shrink the space to breathe and think and live for anyone deemed part of the ‘Muslim’ community and hands over masses of people – citizens – to the Islamists. Also this viewpoint doesn’t see that this is not about identity but politics and power... staying silent about Sharia law and Islamism won’t stop racism, it will only exacerbate it leaving countless people under the influence of Islamism – separate and unequal. And it also leaves the playing field open to the far-right to scapegoat and blame Muslims and immigrants for Islamism’s crimes. It’s important that there be a vocal opposition to Sharia and Islamism from a rights and egalitarian perspective"

Portraits of Celebrity Impersonators and their Asian Doppelgängers - "For his project titled All Look Same, San Francisco-based photographer Howard Cao photographed celebrity impersonators in Las Vegas and then had Sugar Digital do some post-processing magic to transform their race. The result is a series of images that is meant to ask the question, “Would celebrities be as interesting to American culture if they were Asian?”"

AntiDuckface - "you know that face you make when you're about to take that perfect picture of yourself for the internet?
you know, the pose where you push your mouth out in that sort of weird half-kissy-face to make it look like you've got big pouty lips, a super-defined jawline, and model-quality cheekbones?
it's called "duckface."
because, you know, it makes you look like a duck
STOP DOING IT.
IT ISN'T SEXY.
YOU LOOK STUPID.
REALLY, REALLY STUPID"

New blog picture - 22nd June 2012

Delicious cookies

Maneki-neko

(you can train cats to do SOME things after all...)

N Vietnam 2012 - Day 2, Part 3 - Halong Bay: Thien Cung Grotto

"If Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at the age of 22, it would have changed the history of music... and of aviation." - Tom Stoppard

***

N Vietnam 2012
Day 2 - 25th May - Halong Bay: Thien Cung Grotto (Part 3)

We then went to one island to view a cave.

There were floodlights on some islands, but they are only used one day a year - during a festival.


Island


Pier


"Ha Long Bay - Natural Wonder of the World"


On the Thien Cung Grotto. "Thien Cung" translates as "Heaven Palace". It's probably 天宫 in Chinese characters.


More effusive self-praise.


"If any organizations or individual violate this regulation they will be punished according to the current law of the Vietnamese Socialist Republic"
Punishment is a moving target


There was very strange music playing as we mounted the stairs

The interior of the cave was lit with funky colours.


Some might consider this vile, but I was alright with it.

The cave ceiling looks like the ocean floor because in the past the cave was flooded.




Notice the guy with the monitor at the bottom


Light streaming in: the cave had been discovered when a fisherman had run after a monkey (who scampered into the cave)


I think this was one of the many fanciful anthropomorphic formations


Panorama


Penguin Dustbin


Panorama 2


Cave HQ. Besides a photo booth there's "desk of appraises" and "the ideas box"


After a while I tired of the fanciful and contrived anthropomorphic formations, but this was mildly amusing: a breast and a phallus




Outside the cave

On the way back down to the jetty, I bought a 7-up for 20,000 VND. I knew it was a ripoff, but it compared favourably to the tepid US$1.50 drinks on the ship. And it was cool too (even if not cold).


I don't know why they were throwing rocks into the sea (from the boat on the right)


Parking sign on island (???)


UNESCO sign on window


AST tours: "Affable, Safe, Trustworthy"

We then drove back. The rest stop was expectedly amusing.


The back of a book. I hope their Vietnamese is better than their French.


The French premium: 110,000 vs 80,000 for the same book - "The girl in the picture" (on Kim Phuc)


Look at the altar and see the words "香烟" ("cigarette")


"Alova Gold Cruises.com. we care about your trip"
The fact that they have to point that out...

There was a sign for some company with "Simona" in its name - but the Vietnamese translation didn't have this word at all.

A saw a sign reading "Tuan Anh" and got excited for a fraction of a second, before remembering that it was a very common name.

I saw a "No 1 Cafe". So it's not just an obscure comic strip that used to be in the Straits Times.

I was the last person to be dropped off (after promises to send each other photos via a self-designated coordinator - I still haven't gotten any), so I noticed that the others' hotels were in more lively areas. In contrast, around mine there were fewer signs in English, fewer hotels and fewer tourists. It was more 'authentic' though.

I went searching for something new for dinner. The hostel receptionist recommended a Pho Bo place, but I decided not to have Pho in Vietnam (since I could get good Pho in Singapore) and so expand my culinary horizons.


Dinner place sign


Dinner prep


The stall


Dinner: glutinous rice with pickled cucumber, Chinese sausage, braised egg, pepper, shredded pork and some black sauce/zap on top.

Another option was something that looked like panfried rice cake topped with shredded fish/shrimp (the yellow thing), but I wanted to try the meats.

Dinner cost 50,000 VND. Actually this was the most outrageous ripoff yet - possibly more expensive than the equivalent would cost in Singapore, but it was 8:30pm and it was raining, I was tired and aching etc. To benchmark, Pho Ga at a cafe (with table service and airconditioning) was 55,000 VND. Well done.

When I got back to my room I discovered they'd turned off the aircon because it was leaking. Eventually we got them to turn it on (albeit seemingly at a higher temperature), otherwise I might not have been able to sleep.


Southeast Asia enjoys a perfect confluence of factors, which makes it my most detested tourist destination:

- Hot
- Humid
- Dirty
- Language problems
- Under-developed infrastructure
- Poor presentation of touristic sights (e.g. audioguides, information panels, leaflets)
- People trying to swindle you everywhere

(note that all of these are negatives, but they do not all have the same weightage)

Putting together my database of destinations, I was able to isolate the various factors. For example, when I was in China it was neither hot nor humid, the tourist infrastructure was a bit better, the tourists sights were better presented, I had fewer language problems and people didn't try to swindle me nearly as often. Meanwhile South China had been hot and humid, but with fewer swindlers. The US doesn't have as much history, but what history it has is well-presented. And Japan scored highly in every category except language.

After reflection, my general list of things that annoy me is, in descending order, the humidity, the heat and then the swindlers. However, Vietnam was particularly outstanding in the last, so it was the single most aggravating factor about the country - far worse than any of the others (and possibly all of them combined).

The only advantage of Southeast Asia is that it's cheap, even if you're being swindled. Yet, as I have noted before, there are psychic costs to being swindled. It's not the dollar amount that pisses me off, but rather the fact that I'm being swindled.

Humanist of the Year 2012

"The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them." - Sir William Bragg

***



The Humanist Society (Singapore) presents the Humanist of the Year award for 2012 to Mr Alex Au Waipang (above). This award is given to Singapore humanists who have made an positive impact on the society at large, locally and internationally. It is established in 2011 and its first recipient is local author Catherine Lim.

This year, the event will be held at

Singapore Council of Women's Organisations,
Training Room 2 & 3
96 Waterloo St 187967
23 June, 2012
3PM to 6PM
Entry fee is $10 for members, $12 for non-members.

To register, you can
1) Email us at info@humanist.org.sg
2) RSVP on Facebook
3) RSVP on Meetup

At the same time, the Humanist Society is celebrating the WORLD HUMANIST DAY. This Day is celebrated annually on June 21 as a way to spread information-and combat misinformation-about the positive aspects of humanism as a philosophical life stance and means to affect change in the world. (Source: http://www.secularseasons.org/june/world_humanist.html)

ABOUT ALEX AU

Born in 1952, Mr Au is a prominent social commentator and gay activist in Singapore. His personal blog, Yawning Bread, is founded in 1996 and is renowned today as a treasure stove of sharp, witty analyses. To the local gay community, Mr Au is highly respected for his relentless fight against the discrimination they face in a socially conservative society. He is one of the founders of People Like Us, a local gay equality lobby group formed in 1993. In addition, Mr Au has conducted talks, appeared on television and hit the ground running as a photographer and interviewer. He is a vocal defender of Singapore's secularism and an outspoken critic of religious extremism, pseudo-scientific institutions and creationism.

In recognition of his courageous efforts to improve the human condition, the Humanist Society (Singapore) honours Mr Au with the Humanist of the Year award for 2012.

After the award, members of the Society will be heading out for drinks. You are most welcome to join us.