Today (Saturday 5/19) was the 122nd birthday of Ho Chi Minh.... We went and watched the celebration this evening at Hoan Kiem Lake in the Old Quarter of Ha Noi. Before I get to that, let me update everyone on the past couple days....
Yesterday We went to the Water Puppets show. This is considered the most prestigious and honored cultural event in Viet Nam. Puppeteers must go to 5 years of university training and then must complete a multi-year apprenticeship before they are allowed to perform before an audience. http://www.thanglongwaterpuppet.org/homepage.asp
Today was our vietnamese cooking class.... it was fantastic!! Everyone learned a lot. I now know how to create the vegetable spring rolls that my wife and I had every day when we were here. I learned all the things I have been doing wrong... and that was a lot. The most interesting part of the class was the description about the "balance" of the food... the "ying and yang." All dishes need to balance hot with cold, spicy with mild, salty with sweet, etc.. Before we began our class, we started with a market tour. There are three types of markets in Viet Nam. First is the "moving market", these are the ladies with baskets on bicycles or the two baskets balanced on their shoulder with a bamboo shaft. The second kind of market is called a "frog market", these are very small street vendors selling mostly fresh vegetables, meat, and seafood. They are called frog markets because they are illegal. When a policeman comes by, they disappear until he passes. These markets are cash only... under the table... they do not pay state taxes. Our chef/guide told us that many police ignore the frog markets because their wives like to shop there.... they are very convenient. Lastly is the large market where there are many vendors and you can get anything... and these vendors pay taxes... it's the legitimate market. We cooked a ton of food... I asked the owner what she does with all the food we couldn't eat. She said that many of the ladies that work for her will take some home and then she feeds the neighbors, which explains why the neighbors were watching us... we paid for (& cooked) their dinner. Another interesting point about the vietnamese... they eat seven meals a day, breakfast, after breakfast snack, lunch, after lunch snack, then they take a nap and then.... after nap snack, dinner, and finally after dinner (late) snack.
After we got back from the cooking class we took a brief break/nap and then headed to the lake for dinner and birthday celebration. Dr. Duerr and myself took my daughter Alexa and two other students (Courtney and Kelli) out to dinner at the Hanoi Soul Cafe (3rd floor). We had taken the group there the night before and the manager/owner was very very very appreciative. I think we may have paid his rent and employee payroll for a couple months. We had dinner (Pho - pronounced fur). During dinner they were getting all set up down below for the big celebration. The Hanoi Soul Cafe has three balcony's that are truly the best seats in the house. A few folks tried to sit out there and the manager would not let them, he told them they were reserved. As we went to leave we asked if we could sit out there and watch, he said "Of course, you're VIP"... that was cool. I think we'll be back in two years for our VIP box seats to Ho Chi Minh's Birthday Bash!
Lastly, I promised a couple "shout outs" to some of our students for some of their achievements:
Alex - riding the gondola at Ocean Park (Hong Kong) while being scared of heights.
Emily - for actually going caving in Ha Long Bay while being scared of enclosed spaces
Courtney - for trying a clam, a shrimp, cabbage, and fried winter melon, while having numerous 'food fears'
Alyssa - walking over to check out the roasted animal (which is NOT a pig) while being vegan.
Pictures from today: http://bwilson.cs.georgefox.edu/GEED365/May-19/album/
A 2.5 minute video of the street around the Hoan Kiem Lake after the birthday celebration is over: http://bwilson.cs.georgefox.edu/GEED365/HanoiStreet.m4v (~74MB)
Good night everyone.
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