Hanoi Life

Movies!!

Back when we were avid tournament bridge players, whenever someone's explanation of why he took a particular action was unbelievable, his cohorts would shout out "movies!!" as in it could only happen in the movies.

While TV here in Hanoi is pretty dismal, we do have access to all of the latest films on DVD.  for example, we have seen 4 of the nominees for Best Motion Picture.  Sad to say, we were not overly impressed.

We must admit that we are not critics.  Well, we may be critical, but we have no idea of what a producer or director actually does or what makes a film "great."  When we take photographs, we point and shoot so editing and cinematography are also skills we do not appreciate, let alone possess.

We tend to rate films on a two point scale:  I like it; I don't like it.  Generally we watch a movie to be entertained.

"Little Miss Sunshine" was actually quite entertaining.  We were turned on to it by our friends, Ralph and Lea Basch,who knew the band that provided the music for the score.  We're not sure that a "nice little movie" is worthy of Best Picture, but we did enjoy it.

"The Departed," "Babel" and "The Queen" were a different story.  Put them all together and you have a great cure for insomnia.  The view from here says that "Departed" was overlong, derivative, predictable and way too violent. It somehow managed to be both predictable and incomprehensible at the same time.

"Babel" was also overlong, boring but had the additional quality(?) of being disjointed, seeming to have little or no continuity.

We yield to no one in our admiration for Helen Mirren and she did a great job portraying Elizabeth II, or at least of portraying our stereotype.  The film though was a "mockumentary."  It was overlong(anyone sensing that we are ADD?) disjointed and not very entertaining.

Scorsese is said to be a great director and he should have an Oscar.  So now he has one. 

In closing let us tell you we watched "Breakfast at Tiffany's" the other day and it was the right length, a nice story, although the character of Holly is so much softer than Capote's original, and did we mention we love Audrey Hepburn?  Now there's a film that should have gotten "Best Picture!"

We know, don't bother writing.  Of course it did!

We know much more about orchestras so we will blog on the three concerts we will have seen by week's end.  Oh also, Ira's review of the Wagner Gala in Hong Kong will appear in the New York Wagner Society's newsletter.  We can't wait for our copy to arrive.

Meanwhile, Back in the Jungle

Where does that quote come from?  We remember it from long ago.  What we meant to say was "Back in Hanoi."  We decided that it might be good to get away during the holiday but also felt that, in addition to spending the first few days of Tet awash in celebrations, it might be good to have a few days at home before going back to work.  It can be difficult to come back from a trip and have only a few hours before going to bed and facing the work week.

We found the city has mostly returned to normal after the wild traffic jams and madness of the week leading up to the New Year and the fireworks which were followed by the closure of most businesses for several days.  Some shops, probably owned by people who are visiting families out in the provinces, are still shut, but most are back in business.

Carol has had problems buying shoes because of her big(size 7) feet.  The shoe shops have a lot of merchandise but mostly in tiny sizes although the salesgirls insist that the samples they bring out fit fine.  One of Carol's Vietnamese colleagues told her of a shop where you can get shoes made to order so we took a trip to see if it was true.  We have gone on many wild goose chases in the past, going to addresses that either did not exist or that had shops that were not selling what we were looking for.  This time though, when we pulled up to the address we could see that shoes were indeed the merchandise in which the tiny shop dealt.  The shopkeepers spoke no English so it was up to Ira's Vietnamese and some body language to get our point across.  Carol found a style she liked and a color she liked.  Unfortunately, they were not in the same pair of shoes.  The proprietor's search yielded no better result.  Ira then asked him if he could make new ones to Carol's specs and he smiled broadly then brought out a notebook and tape measure.  The Brannock device is unknown in Vietnam so they trace your foot into the notebook and take a few other measurements.  The shoes will be ready in a month, so we have every hope that they will be good.  If it only took a couple of days, we would wonder how the quality would be there.  You will get a full report when we see the finished product.

We then wandered around the Old Quarter for a while, stopping to buy some oranges and bananas.  Once again the same ethical question came up.  Just because people are poor, should we overpay?  We found a small bunch of bananas that seemed not overripe and asked "how much?"  She asked 20VND which is outrageous although still only $1.25US.  Ira said 6 which may still be a bit high.  She countered with 10 and he wound up giving her 6.  It is easy to rationalize either argument.  Perhaps the tourist should overpay while the expat should not.  Perhaps both should.  The vendor most likely hawks her fruit in the Old Quarter to benefit from tourist trade.  We can salve any pangs of conscience by noting that she wouldn't sell them for 6 if she wasn't making something on it.

After Tet, we noticed it was time for the gladiolas, as most vendors seemed to have them in stock.  Carol is a particular fan of this flower, and the red blooms look very good on our dining table.

On our last day back we decided to visit the Museum of Ethnology, a wonderful place devoted to the 54 ethnic minorities that make up about 14% of the population of Vietnam.  there are artifacts, costumes and pictures describing the daily lives of these people.  There are also replicas of their houses around the grounds of the museum.

For the Tet celebration, the museum presented a variety of games and shows of the ethnic minority people.  We enjoyed an outdoor water puppet show, the bamboo dance and we also  watched visitors playing some of the games.  It was a great afternoon and quite different from our usual Sundays.  And now it is time to go back to our routine.  We have a busy week ahead with Ira teaching a new law class, Carol returning to UNIS and three concerts on which we will report, including an opera by Benjamin Britten.

For now it's back to abnormal.  We think of all of you often and enjoy your emails. 

Remembering

February 20 was the birthday of Charles Barrows, my father.  He would have been 92!  Thanks to a lifetime of smoking more packs of Phillip Morris than he would admit to, he died of lung cancer at age 56.  Now both my brother Dick and I have lived past that age.

Even after more than 35 years, there are still some strong memories that remain.  Dick and I nicknamed him "Marvello" because of his high intellect and his infallibility.  We still talk about the tour of a ship at the Merchant Marine Academy when he repeatedly corrected the young officer who was guiding us.  In every instance "Marvello" was correct.

Another nickname was "The Beacon" for the glowing orange cigarette end that descended the stairs when we would get home late.  He never turned on the lights, but walked down slowly, guiding us with that pulsating light.

What have we inherited from him?  What have we learned from him?  Well, neither of us have ever smoked cigarettes.  We may have a tendency towards impatience.  Dad was not very patient, except when he was taking apart a car or building a bookshelf.

Ira has gotten the gene for baldness, but neither of us have his genius for math, science or building things.  Tools filled our garage, from hammers, saws and pliers to the Shop-Smith, a combination drill press and rip saw that he used to manufacture all sorts of furniture.  I had a bookshelf Dad had made when he was in his teens and it was none the worse for the years.

What else?  Oh yes, Dad was not one for being a passenger in a car.  I can't recall a time that Mom drove when Dad was in the vehicle.  He could drive for hours without needing, or at least without accepting relief.  On one memorable trip to Florida, we had four licensed drivers in the car but Dad drove most of the way.  Actually, I drove about 100 miles, Mom did not drive at all and Dick drove minus a few feet as he was permitted to back the car up to a gas pump.

Our lives changed when we lost him way back in 1971 and we can only wonder what he would have been like had he lived to be old.

Shanghaied!!!

During Carol's Tet holiday from school, we decided that we would spend the weekends in Hanoi and go away for a few days.  Cathay Pacific had a special deal to Shanghai so that a flight from Hanoi connecting in Hong Kong actually cost less than flying to Hong Kong.

We had visited Shanghai back in 1998 and were anxious to see how the city had changed.  Things happen quickly in China and Shanghai is no exception.  It is now the city with the largest population(over 14 million) in the world and has developed as a banking center which is beginning to rival Singapore and Hong Kong.

The flight from Hanoi to Hong Kong is less than two hours and after a short layover, we had another two hours to Shanghai Pudong airport.  The airport is over a half hour from the city center where we had gotten a special package at the Portman Ritz-Carlton, the same hotel where we stayed on our previous visit.

Chef Gu, our friend here at the Sofitel Plaza, is Shanghainese, so we asked him to recommend restaurants that we might enjoy.  It was not clear to us what he wrote down, but it turned out that it was an area with buildings that had been converted into restaurants and shops.  Because of the Chinese New Year, many of these were closed so after we wandered for a while, we decided to take a taxi down to the Bund, which is the main street by the river where many upscale restaurants are located.

What we hadn't counted on, in this huge cosmopolitan city, was that taxi drivers have NO English and that "Bund" means nothing to them.  Our repeated cries of "Bund, Bund!!" were greeted by blank stares.  We were finally able to find someone who understood a bit of English and could advise the driver where to go.  While there may be no expectation of finding English in any particular place, we found it surprising that in a city that must have millions of non-Chinese visitors that the name in English of the most popular destination would be unknown to taxi drivers.

We had read an article by RW Apple, the late New York Times writer and bon vivant, about dining in Shanghai, from the little noodle shops to the palaces of haute cuisine so we knew a bit about the scene prior to our arrival.  We were mostly inclined to Chinese food, so were not planning to try Jean-Georges, the Shanghai branch of New York chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, which serves upscale Western cuisine.  We opted instead for Whampoa club, which is in the same building, 3 on the Bund.  Apple had indicated that Whampoa Club's high-class improvisations on down-home Shanghainese cuisine were wonderful, but that the service was somehow not up to the same level.  The restaurant, like the others on the Bund, commands a view of Pudong, the area across the river with the exciting skyline.  While it does not quite match up with Hong Kong, it is still quite a sight.  Ira was able to figure out that "Pudong" means "east of the Pu River" as the word "dong" in Vietnamese also means "east."  Our meal included a wonderful dish of juicy, flavorful black cod in crispy spring onions.  We were told that the dish required extra preparation time but it was well worth it!  One problem for drinkers, not to say we are problem drinkers, is that the price of wine is quite high in Shanghai, so that even modest bottles are rather pricey and lists begin at a higher price than those in the West or even in Hanoi.  We actually had no problem with the service other than the fact that as our cod arrived, we were told that the kitchen was closing and we should order dessert if we wanted it.  It would seem that at Western prices, a restaurant should incorporate Western ideas on service.  No matter.  We didn't want dessert and a different server offered us the opportunity about twenty minutes later so who knows.  Ira spent many years in the US working in restaurants, so he has his own ideas of what service is or should be and it occasionally differs from what we actually encounter.

Using our previous stay as an excuse, we asked for an upgraded room at the Portman Ritz-Carlton and got a large room on the 30th floor.  We wish someone would tell us what is the thing with the duvet??  We are used to having a top sheet and a blanket so that we can control our temperature during the night.  With the duvet, you can choose between baking and freezing, yet most hotels seem to prefer this sort of cover.  When you factor in the round-the-clock fireworks that were going off all over the city, it did not afford us a restful night.

Shanghai may be a world-class city, but it does not have a lot of tourist attractions.  We decided to use our two days to gain a leisurely view of Shanghai, eat some dumplings, for which the city is famous, shop and people-watch.  Our first stop was Nanjing Road, the vast pedestrians-only area that has many shops and restaurants, all of which were mobbed with people.  We saw very few Western faces and were the  object of much curiosity, especially among the children, of whom there were many.  One young girl wanted her picture taken with Carol, and we were happy to oblige.  We noticed quite a few ethnic minority people among the throngs, but the majority were well dressed young and middle aged Chinese people.  Of course, the fact that they are Chinese does not mean they are locals and we saw quite a few of them gazing at maps and guidebooks.  At least they have the language while all we can say is "hello" and "thank you."

We skipped breakfast, hoping to find some noodles or dumplings to hold us until dinner.  We wandered the streets, going in and out of a variety of shops selling all kinds of food and clothing.  No big bargains, just the same as in the US, cashmere sweaters for 200-300$ and some cheaper goods as well but which we were well able to resist.

We noticed a sort of food street and decided to try our luck.  When Carol noticed a busy place with a huge rack of bamboo steamers filled with dumplings, we went in and found a table.  After we sat for a few minutes, someone pointed outside, indicating that we had to pay first and get a ticket to give the server.  Ira, speaking no Chinese, managed to get in line, point to the rack of steamers and hold up one finger.  Upon payment of 10 yuan(7.6 or so to the dollar) he got a ticket and came back to the table.  It took a while, but finally a girl brought us the steamer with 10 hot pork dumplings.  Very delicious!!

Many of our trips have been carefully orchestrated, with sightseeing and dining all planned in advance.  We hoped to free lance a bit more this time, so had no reservations and no schedule.  We had heard of an area that had contemporary art galleries so we had our concierge write the name down in Chinese so we could give it to a taxi driver.  When we got there, we could see that all of the galleries were closed for New Year's, so we had the driver take us to the Shanghai Museum instead.  This is an unbelievable place: four floors filled with artifacts and art.  We particularly enjoyed the areas of the ethnic  minority tribes and the ancient bronzes.  Bronze! Now there's a thing for you!  How did these people with no computers, mobile phones or toilets figure out how to mix copper with tin(we looked it up brass is copper and zinc) and cast these pots and sculptures and tools?  Next to mixing chocolate with peanut butter, it may be the greatest achievement of mankind!

Shanghai is an easy city to get around.  We mentioned that the taxi drivers have NO English.  Not the usual rudimentary English but none at all.  How is it that in Hanoi, a much less sophisticated place, all drivers speak enough to get you from here to there and they know the English names of the most common destinations, but in Shanghai, nada, zilch, bubkes?  At least the cabs are plentiful and cheap, with the meter beginning at 11 yuan and progressing slowly so that even a long ride is only a couple of dollars.  Notwithstanding the cheap taxis, we felt we had to experience the subway.  Actually the system is called the Metro with a subway, as in England, referring to an underground walkway used to avoid marching through traffic.  The station at People's Park is vast and we must have walked half a mile to get to the ticket windows.  Ira fought his way through the crowds and managed to buy tickets for the line that would take us back to the hotel.  The trains are clean and fast and the station announcements are in English so that we had no problem finding our stop.  When we came out of the station, all that remained was to figure out in which direction we should walk.  Carol remarked that the sun usually sets in the West so that "follow the sun" was the way to go.  Ira was unsure, as things should be upside down in China, or was that how it works in the Southern Hemisphere?  Oh, if we only had a drain to see which way the water goes around!  We finally used Carol's navigational system and got back to the Ritz-Carlton without incident.  Ira did have to buy a custard tart, hot and eggy and delicious which he devoured on the spot.  Sometimes Ira speaks loud enough for passers-by to overhear him.  Occasionally(actually more than occasionally), he makes a joke. More often than they should, people actually think Ira means what he says.  Starbucks has many outlets in China and Shanghai is no exception, with a coffee shop appearing every block or so along the route.  Ira mentioned "I know we are going the right way because here is the Starbucks!"  A man who spoke English rose to the bait and we had a small laugh after he told us that there was more than one Starbucks.

We booked a table for dinner at Laris, another of the places at 3 on the Bund as we need a nice  restaurant where we could wear our nice outfits, especially Carol's velvet ao dai.  First we decided to "get high" by having a drink at the Grand Hyatt, located on the 87th floor, said to be the bar with the greatest altitude in the world.  The view is fine, especially when you are looking down on the TV tower that is one of the tallest structures in the world.

Our meal at Laris was quite good as is the view of the river looking towards Pudong.  Carol's whole red snapper was the highlight of the meal, though who can argue with seared foie gras or duck two ways?  Did we mention that wine prices are high, no matter what floor you are on?

On our last day, we consulted the concierge who steered us towards the Jade Buddha Temple and the Yu Yuan Gardens.  We found the temple quite crowded as at New Year everyone visits temples and pagodas to burn incense, worship and honor one's ancestors.  In China as in Vietnam, older people are respected and revered just as they are in the United States, NOT!!  There was a waiting line to get in.  A scalper, yes just like at a rock concert, offered to take us to the front of the queue for 20 yuan each, rather than the 10 yuan face price, but as the line moved swiftly, we opted for the ticket window.  Photographs are not permitted in the chamber housing the Jade Buddha, but elsewhere in the complex, no problem!  We strolled around and saw many icons and artworks before finding a taxi and showing him the card with Yu Yuan Gardens marked on it.

There was a lot of traffic and our driver was not in a good mood as he picked his way through it, honking madly all the way.  When he could, he drove fast and when he couldn't, he honked and muttered to himself.  When we got near the gardens, he let us off and gestured towards a sign pointing towards the entrance.  We could not quite figure out where the entrance was but we noticed huge crowds of people walking around the area.  They were all laughing, talking and, most interesting to Ira, eating!  We were quickly enveloped by the crowd, which must have numbered several hundred thousand people.  Ira found a stand selling skewers of meat and he just had to have one.  After that, we kept wandering towards what we hoped would be the entrance to the gardens.  along the way we were stopped by some young girls who wanted a picture with Carol because she was "so beautiful!"  We are perhaps a bit naive as we are rarely suspicious of people, even in big cities where con artists and pickpockets may congregate.  Of course, if we do get fleeced, we will still have a story.  Actually, we feel that if they are good enough to trick us, they deserve whatever they can get from us.

One skewer for Ira is like one peanut for an elephant.  When he saw a stand selling what he hoped were the famous soup dumplings, he had to have them.  He somehow managed to get to the front of the line to buy tickets and with the help of some locals, he thought he had ordered the famous  Shanghai treat.  Now, to get to the servers!  People push and grab and shout and walk away with a plate of dumplings or even one of fried tofu.  Which was going to be Ira's reward for being shoved and elbowed?  Success!!! He came away with delicious thin-skinned treats, filled with tender pork and bursting with hot rich soup!

We had so much fun walking, talking and sampling food that we wound up skipping the gardens and walking down to the Bund for some people watching instead.  Just like the boardwalk in Atlantic City, the Bund is the place where everyone walks, noshes, looks at the river and enjoys a day out.  Children are everywhere, dancing and skipping and laughing and sometimes staring at us.

For our dinner, we decided to use RW Apple's article and go to Xin Ji Shi, which he describes as a boisterous local place, serving the best slow cooked pork and other delicacies.  We got a taxi to take us to the area where it was located and guess what?  It was the same place Chef Gu had touted us on with the many shops and restaurants housed in old buildings.  This time more places were open although we could not locate the one we were seeking.  Fortunately one of the security men was able to point us in the right direction and, after a bit of searching, we found it.  We were ushered upstairs to a table and given a menu in, of all things, English!  Everything looked good although red cooked pork was not on the list.  Carol somehow thought that one of the chef's specialties "Grandmother's pork in brown sauce" was the dish in question.  Why is she always right about these things?  It was rich and fatty and the sauce had just a touch of sweetness.  With such a dish, we felt that whole steamed sea bass and crispy dry fried string beans would match well and we were not wrong.  Did we mention the price of wine in Shanghai?

Shanghai was quite the place back in the 1930's and it is quite a place now as well.  While we love living in Hanoi, an outing to a faster paced city is exciting and fun.  We could have gone to the beach but this is more our style. 

One thing about five star hotels.  It is easy to become accustomed to them and then to criticize the service at which we used to marvel.  One night we were not given our chocolates at turn down, one night we got them at 3 in the afternoon, after they took over four hours to make up the room.  Finally, our car to the airport had somehow not been ordered, although the manager was able to get us one in a short time.  We have noticed a bit of a decline in service over the past few years.  We are not complaining, just sayin!

Tet Family Style

It was very gratifying when Ira received an invitation from his former colleague, Ms Lê, to join her family for a meal on the 2nd day of Tết.  It is a great honor to be invited into a Vietnamese home and so we looked forward to the occasion. 

Lê and her family live towards the south end of Hanoi, off the large street Kim Ngừu, in a lane off of another lane.  It was easy for the taxi to locate the place and we had only a short walk when we got to her lane.  Her family lives in a new five-storey home, in Vietnamese style.  Her grandmother and her married sister also live there, in a addition to  Lê and her parents.  Her father is a doctor, as is her sister, while her mother is retired.

After a few minutes downstairs, we were called to the third floor kitchen for the festive meal.  Mẹ  cưa Lê(Ms Le's mother) went all out and prepared a number of traditional foods.  We had of course bánh chưng, the square glutinous rice cake filled with bean paste and pork.  this was the first time we found it to be actually very tasty!  We also had spring rolls, chicken, giò which is kind of a pork pate, soup, vegetables with beef, noodles, bamboo soup and a couple of other dishes.  We had a good time sampling the various foods and chatting with Lê and her parents. 

After the meal, we viewed the photo albums of  Lê's sister, Thủy, and chatted some more before taking a taxi back home to rest up for party #2.

Our next stop was at the home of Ms Hai, a young(at least to us) lawyer who worked with Ira at EPIC.  On his first day, she had sent him an email, offering to help him find his way around the company and inviting him to have lunch.  From time to time they had lunch, often with other colleagues, and discussed work and current events, Ira practicing his Vietnamese and Ms Hai using her English. 

When we returned from our trip to the US in August, 2006, Ms Hai was no longer working at EPIC, having landed a good job with GM-Daewoo.  She and Ira were not in touch very often but he was surprised and pleased to receive an invitation for the 2d day Of Tet.

We went out to her parents' home, where we met Quang, her fiance.  He is a painter and promised to invite us to his studio to view his work.  We also met Hai's parents who could not stay for the meal as they had to visit family as is the custom during the Tet holiday.

We then sat down to a traditional meal of banh chung, nem(spring rolls), chicken, and beef with mushrooms, all of which Ms Hai had prepared.  It was fun to chat with Quang, who had visited the US back in 2002 where he was painter-in-residence up in Vermont.  His reaction to cold and snow was quite interesting.  Remember that Vietnam rarely has any snow at all and that only in the far northern regions.

All too soon, the evening was over and we were exchanging New Year's greetings and promising to see them at their wedding in March.

It was exciting and gratifying to visit these two families during Tet and to know we were much more welcome than the Americans who had "visited" during the Tet holiday of 1968!

Je Te Plumerai....

Play on words, folks!  It is not easy to be inspired 24-7 and Ira has these "thoughts" randomly running through his head, some of which he chooses to share.  OK, we all sang the French song "Alouette" when we were young(We are sure that we once were, though we can't recall those thrilling days of yesteryear too well).  One verse was "Je te plumerai la tete" so since we have just begun to celebrate Tet....

Tet, the Lunar New Year, is a big holiday in Vietnam.  Families gather and eat traditional foods, visit pagodas and give gifts, including "lucky money."  There are small envelopes into which you put money and then hand it out to people, especially children.  Actually, Mr. Phuong, the man who delivers our concert tickets gave us an envelope, as did Sofitel Plaza.  Ira's Tet shopping included buying a pack of the envelopes, known as li si in case we needed to give anyone some luck.

As it happened, Carol's new velvet aó dài came with a defective snap, so Ira was deputized to ask the hotel laundry to replace it.  On the way downstairs, he encountered one of the private maids who works for one of the people in an apartment on our floor.  He was able to explain the problem to her and she was able to fix it within the hour.  She would not take payment, but Ira was able to get her to accept an envelope with lucky money. 

The private maids work very hard.  Ms Ngoc, whom we know from last year, has several clients here at Sofitel and there are at least two others who work for some of the residents.  We have full maid service six days a week, but some people require more.  The private maids do laundry, sewing and sometimes shopping and cooking as well.  Ira likes to practice his Vietnamese when he meets them and also gets their advice on what fruits are in season, the weather and prices at the market.  Ms Lơi,  who fixed Carol's áo dài, lives outside the city and has a 1.5 hour commute on two buses each way.

On Friday, the last workday before Tet, Carol had a Professional Development Day during which the staff did yoga, TM and a variety of other activities that are somehow supposed to make you a better teacher.

Ira's law class did not meet on Friday so he went on a short reconnaissance mission into the center of town, to see the postings on various restaurants as to their hours during the holiday.  He stopped for a quick lunch at Mannekin Pis, a Vietnamese cafe that features Belgian beer.  Starfish Brasserie, the Bethlehem, PA, restaurant owned by Ira's brother Dick and Dick's Wife Sue, is now revamping its  beer list to include a large number of Belgian beers.  Mannekin Pis named for the famous statue in Brussels of a young boy urinating(I guess their sense of humor is quirky).  The statue is clothed in a variety of outfits, depending on the season.  Perhaps it is a measure of the lack of major tourist sites in Brussels, but it is probably first on the list of "must-sees."  Hanoi's version has a statue, but a limited list of brews.   Ira had a Chimay Red to accompany his spicy squid lunch.

Sofitel Plaza is the tallest building in Hanoi and is the best place to watch the Tet fireworks display.  There are four venues around the city and from the rooftop lounge, you can easily view all of them.  The fireworks begin at midnight so it involves staying up late and fighting the crowds, but we managed it well.  Ira went up early and secured a spot near the railing.  Don't look down!!!  Carol arrived about fifteen minutes before midnight.  There was a large crowd, mostly fashionably dressed Vietnamese including many small children.  The Vietnamese are quite fond of children and bring them everywhere, often late at night. 

The view from the roof is spectacular and we should really go up there more often to see the city in perspective.  There was a lot of traffic for New Year's and the lights of the motorbikes and cars stretched as far as you could see.  There were  pedalboats out in force on Truc Bach Lake and a couple of tourist boats on West Lake.  It was great fun to see all of the activity.  Some people like the beach or the mountains or the forest, but give us a city every time!

New Year's Eve was a great celebration and we look forward to reporting on the Tet parties to which we have been invited.  For now we can say "Chuc Mung Nam Moi"  Happy New Year

My Funny Valentine

Valentine's Day is just beginning to catch on here in Vietnam.  They have the main ingredients necessary for the holiday to become popular:  men and women.  Actually the third ingredient, money, is more abundant these days, so look for an upsurge in the spending for Valentine's Day in the coming years.

In the US, Valentine's Day is a huge restaurant day, with most places selling out.  It is a big card and flowers and candy day as well.  While Vietnam has not yet reached this point, the "ngay tinh yeu" or "Lover's Day" is definitely a day to be reckoned with.

Most hotels and restaurants have some sort of special menu that they feature and it appears that they are very well attended.  We decided to go to Le Beaulieu, the French restaurant of record in the Hotel Metropole.  Le Beaulieu has been one of our favorites ever since we "discovered" it back in the summer of 1994 on our first visit to Vietnam.

Chef Didier Corlou was in charge of Le Beaulieu in 1994 and remained in place until last year, when he became more of a chef emeritus and consultant.  His replacement, Boris Cuzon, is a young man from Brittany who has kept up the high standards of his predecessor.  We met Boris in the Met Pub on his first day in town and we have become quite friendly with him over the past year.

Boris created Ira's birthday dinner, including foie gras 6 ways, and orchestrated an unbelievable New Years Eve dinner about which we blogged the morning after.  His Valentine's menu was certain to be exceptional, so we signed on even before hearing that the price, which was meant to be $80 US per person was inadvertently advertised at $80 US per couple. 

After an amuse-bouche of pumpkin soup with barely seared scallops, we attacked a slab of foie gras, roasted lobster, champagne sorbet and medallion of veal, before finishing up with a heart shaped confection for dessert.

Carol wore her new velvet ao dai which garnered many compliments from the serving staff of the restaurant, all of whom know us by name and who chat with Ira in Vietnamese.

As prices begin to rise, the more expensive restaurants often begin to represent good value, so we are now "regulars" at Le Beaulieu.  The $16 lunch with salad, fish, meat, cheese and dessert stations may be the best deal in Hanoi.

One of the things we keep noticing is that more and more Vietnamese are patronizing the top restaurants.  On Valentine's Day, we saw several very young Hanoians dining alongside hotel guests and expats like us.

Lest we forget, Chef Boris is now the proud father of a son.  We were pleased to present him with a CD of Mozart for babies.  Listening to Mozart and other classical music is said to develop intelligence.  We both love Mozart.  Well, anyway, we wish you all a Happy Valentine's Day and we will be back at you with a blog called "Tet-cetera" in a few days.

 

The Best of Times.....

Tet, the lunar New Year, is the biggest celebration in Vietnam.  It is a huge time for families to get together to eat traditional food and to wish each other happiness and prosperity in the upcoming year.  There are special foods, special greetings and even special flowers and trees.

Like the Christmas season in the United States, pretty much everything used to shut down for about a ten day period.  Now, as the country becomes more Westernized, more and more businesses either remain open or close for only a couple of days.

Also like the US, there are some people who do not enjoy Tet.  Some philosopher once said of the holidays something like : "Half the population of the country is depressed because they have no family to go to, and the other half because they do."

Regardless, major holiday seasons are a time of great stress and, as a country develops, the stress gets greater.  People work more so have less time for holiday preparation and less time off to enjoy the holiday.  Young people are becoming at least a bit less traditional and wishing to spend their time traveling rather than at the family  celebrations.

This is such a busy time of year, with many traffic jams, particularly on Nghi Tam and Au Co, the main route from Sofitel Plaza to UNIS.  Carol's taxis have to fight their way  through the scads of motorbikes, cars, trucks and bicycles, most of which are laden with the traditional trees, cay quat(kumquat) and cay dao(peach blossom) that are an absolute necessity for all households during Tet.

The main reason for the traffic jams is that the Flower Market is located on this route.  It seems that most of the population of Hanoi travels up to the market to buy flowers of all sorts in all colors and it is quite a sight to see them on their motorbikes totally covered in blossoms riding down the road.

No tree is too large to put on the back of a bike.  So far, we have not seen any spillage or accidents although they must occur, based on the way they drive and the variety of plant life they carry.

"Pre-Tet" is a busy and exciting time, just like walking on Fifth Avenue the week before Christmas.  Tet itself is a family time and with most businesses closed for at least a portion of the week, a quiet time and quite a contrast to the week leading up to the holiday.

We have just learned that we are invited to a small Tet party by one of Ira's former colleagues at EPIC.  Vietnamese apparently never forget and this should be a nice glimpse into a traditional celebration.

Of course, with these last-minute invitations, we had to find presents so Ira had to run down into the center of town to get something.  Ira's Vietnamese "advisors" said that wine would be a good choice, with fruit and flowers as alternatives.  It was easier to get downtown than it is to go up towards UNIS and the Flower Market so a quick bus ride got Ira to The Warehouse where Ms Phuong wrapped up two bottles of French wine in bright red Tet paper.  Of course, shopping made Ira kind of hungry so he stopped off for a bowl of noodles.  Since the little shop was crowded he was forced to share a table with two young women.  Of course, they were amazed to see a Westerner and even more surprised to hear him speaking Vietnamese.  Fortunately, this little place had full-sized chairs, rather than the low stools that are so much easier to get on than to get up from.  The "bowl of noodles" is something that Carol always says she wants for a meal, but it is rarely what she actually winds up with.

The little shopping expedition also included some pastry from Paris Deli for breakfast.  We usually alternate between muesli with fresh fruit, fruit juice and yogurt, or bread with butter and jam.  It does get boring so the odd croissant or pastry is quite welcome.  You don't have to feel sorry for us as we do get bagels with smoked salmon, sausages with fried potatoes and of course our monthly trip to the Melia brunch.

Pre Tet includes many "tac duong" or traffic jams.  Ira finds them fun when he is not trying to get anywhere in particular.  Carol likes them a bit less, especially when the ten minute ride takes an hour and a half.  Ira walked around in one such snafu, chatting with the people in the cars and on the motorbikes, reminding them that walking was actually faster than riding, on this particular occasion.

It will be so strange in a day or two to find the streets totally empty, with no traffic, no flowers and no kumquat or peach trees.

Films R Us

One of the worst things here in Hanoi is the TV programming.  We do not have a dish so we are locked into whatever the cable at Sofitel Plaza has to offer.  Of course TV should not be one's primary form of entertainment and even though we used to schedule our lives around "M*A*S*H" and "What's My Line," we are better off reading a book or playing chess or doing Sudoko(we have no idea but Carol's father, Earl does).

That said, TV is a comfortable form of entertainment and is easy to operate.  Here at Sofitel Plaza, we benefit from hotel services that are far beyond the usual apartment services.  However, our cable TV is geared to hotel guests, so it is heavily weighted towards news channels and a smorgasbord of languages.  Entertainment shows are difficult to find and Star TV, the Hong Kong based channel, thinks that people enjoy seeing tycoons with bad hair abuse prospective employees and total non-singers howling in an effort to get a recording contract.

Fortunately, we have access to very cheap DVD's.  Their provenance may be suspect but the price(about a buck) is certainly right.  We can get the latest films as well as all of the classics and full sets of American TV Series.  We are currently re-watching one of our favorites,  "The West Wing," and our friends, Ralph and Lea introduced us to "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

Some of the DVDs are defective while others do not have English titles, but by and large they are watchable, even with the large variance in volume, ranging from deafening to inaudible, forcing us to keep the clicker in hand at all times.

We have a large selection of titles, from "Casablanca"  BEST FILM EVER, well there's also "The Third Man"(Has any author's work been made into film more than Graham Greene?) to "Borat" and "Crash."

Last night we struggled through "The Departed."  We have never liked Jack Nicholson very much, dating back to the days when he was the face of the LA Lakers, taunting our Celtics during the playoffs.  In this film, he played(what else?) a bad guy with a foul mouth.  We did just find out that Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio are not the same person, though we only found this out after over two hours of violence and plot twists.  If this is representative of Scorsese's best work, perhaps there is a reason why he hasn't won an Oscar!  Anyway, it is difficult to know what we will like until it is actually on our screen.

Feel free to send us suggestions as we are always on the lookout for movies that can entertain us for a couple of hours.

Well, if no one can help us, we can always take up Sudoko!

"We came to Hanoi for the wonderful TV shows."  "But Hanoi has no wonderful TV shows."  "We were misinformed."

We Are So Geeky!!!(NOT)

We love our computer!  Really we do! Well at least we depend upon it for our news, communications, information and for part of our entertainment.

It does NOT control us.  We turn it on and off so we control it, right?  Actually, it seems to have a mind of its own and does what it wants rather than our bidding.

There is a website, www.rosymode.com, that is run by a young woman Ira used to work with.  If we had her energy and initiative, we would be...well we wouldn't be ourselves.  The website has all sorts of gifts and clothing at very reasonable prices and Rosy(actually Ms Nga) delivers almost on demand.  When trying to get on the site, we encountered difficulties even though we had been assured that it was working fine everywhere else.

Cookies, even Pecan Sandies and Pepperidge Farm varieties are readily available here in Hanoi.  We don't often buy them but would have no problem eating them.  Why then won't our computer eat its cookies?  We don't overfeed it and yet it won't take them.  OK, we don't ask much of the thing, just that it connects with websites and also that it remembers us on the sites that we use so often, like our bank, Vanguard and The New York Times online edition.  We don't claim to be particularly memorable but hey, it knows us so well! 

We think we have set the browser, IE 7 to accept all cookies and also the aol browser, which we think is the same IE 7 to keep cookies.  It used to remember us without a problem but now each time we go to these sites, we are forced to sign in.  If any of you have a high GQ(geek quotient) maybe you can clue us in.  Something has changed but we can't figure it out.

A nice young IT man came up last week to help with the above problems as well as with Ira's Vietnamese language dictionary.  He did fix the dictionary so that you can look up words in either language, but the cookie problem persists.

It's not that signing in is a big deal, but we like to exert power over our machines rather than the other way up.

Perhaps this is just a sign to show us our total lack of control.  On the bright side, at least we don't own a car!