Hanoi Revisited..Part One
It's 39 degrees outside, but that did not stop today being a ferocious day of walking, seeing and doing..it was the sort of day my darling girls used to dread when traveling with me.."Just around the next corner.." I had direction and I had drift, the perfect combination of a few ideas and none and this is how it went..
Early morning I headed to the Mausoleum of Ho Chi Ming, and through a series of well ordered queues, in the frying heat..thankfully Uncle Ho is kept very cool in his mausoleum. My glasses had become hot so I wasn't wearing them when I entered, and because my eyesight is so pathetic I swear that when I entered the tomb room the body was glowing from within..I thought "Holy crap they have lit the body from within, how incredible, and yet what an intrusion".Of course when I got closer I could see it was only the effect of the waxy skin under the lights..but how odd..Uncle Glo..
To the Museum and what a trip that is! A museum devoted to all thing revolutionary as interpreted by contemporary art, nothing like the 'by the Little Red Book' museums of Ho Chi Minh City, no this one was all out crazy stuff..I passed a couple who were saying "If you didn't have a guide you wouldn't know what it was.." so I eavesdropped on a guide and figuring that he didn't either I opted for the absorption of the transcendental and just took in what I could..some of it being rather pointedly obvious..like "This installation is about the misuse of scientific discovery"..ok enter dark room, get disco music and flashing lights..then a brutal montage of the ill use of chemical weapons from the second world war to present day and end it with the footage of the Columbia disaster..huh? The underlying sentiment seemed to be .."See you bastards, it will all come back and haunt you.." but equating the disaster of the Columbia Space mission to years of chemical annihilation? Not so sure, but an effective use of film as medium.
Other installations were visually pleasing but message unclear, I liked the red circus tent with the oil paintings. Red is very spiritual for Confucians and significant for communists, so I was unsure as to the meaning of it all.
I visited the one legged Pagoda, or the one stemmed Pagoda, the French blew it up in a parting memento but the Vietnamese rebuilt it, which has great significance , as those of who actually hired a guide could authoratively tell you. I preferred the Puegot car and the wooden house of Ho Chi Minh.
More evocative than a rebuilt Pagoda..
It was by now more boiling than it had been earlier , getting to near record boilingness a respite was called for, and I was hungry!
I visited KoTo, 'know one, teach one' an active, as opposed to charitable, organisation that rehabilitates and trains disenfranchised youth in KOTO's kitchens and restaurants to international service and cooking standards. Breakfast of poached eggs with salmon on toast was excellent and truly enjoyable with a fragrant Earl Grey tea. Gastronomic satisfaction for a good cause..healthy living at its finest..
Then it was over to the leafy grounds of the Temple of Literature, shady and hushed halls of ancient engraved tablets of wisdom, balanced on the backs of sculpted tortoises. People come here to pray for success in academic matters, and if I had not been so hot I may have sent off a prayer for my next semester of study as it is in Languages of Asia and something that Confucius would understand a lot easier than me right now..
After a stroll towards the lake I took a cab back to the hotel for a brief break and prepared myself for part two....can so much be done in one day?
Early morning I headed to the Mausoleum of Ho Chi Ming, and through a series of well ordered queues, in the frying heat..thankfully Uncle Ho is kept very cool in his mausoleum. My glasses had become hot so I wasn't wearing them when I entered, and because my eyesight is so pathetic I swear that when I entered the tomb room the body was glowing from within..I thought "Holy crap they have lit the body from within, how incredible, and yet what an intrusion".Of course when I got closer I could see it was only the effect of the waxy skin under the lights..but how odd..Uncle Glo..
To the Museum and what a trip that is! A museum devoted to all thing revolutionary as interpreted by contemporary art, nothing like the 'by the Little Red Book' museums of Ho Chi Minh City, no this one was all out crazy stuff..I passed a couple who were saying "If you didn't have a guide you wouldn't know what it was.." so I eavesdropped on a guide and figuring that he didn't either I opted for the absorption of the transcendental and just took in what I could..some of it being rather pointedly obvious..like "This installation is about the misuse of scientific discovery"..ok enter dark room, get disco music and flashing lights..then a brutal montage of the ill use of chemical weapons from the second world war to present day and end it with the footage of the Columbia disaster..huh? The underlying sentiment seemed to be .."See you bastards, it will all come back and haunt you.." but equating the disaster of the Columbia Space mission to years of chemical annihilation? Not so sure, but an effective use of film as medium.
Other installations were visually pleasing but message unclear, I liked the red circus tent with the oil paintings. Red is very spiritual for Confucians and significant for communists, so I was unsure as to the meaning of it all.
I visited the one legged Pagoda, or the one stemmed Pagoda, the French blew it up in a parting memento but the Vietnamese rebuilt it, which has great significance , as those of who actually hired a guide could authoratively tell you. I preferred the Puegot car and the wooden house of Ho Chi Minh.
More evocative than a rebuilt Pagoda..
It was by now more boiling than it had been earlier , getting to near record boilingness a respite was called for, and I was hungry!
I visited KoTo, 'know one, teach one' an active, as opposed to charitable, organisation that rehabilitates and trains disenfranchised youth in KOTO's kitchens and restaurants to international service and cooking standards. Breakfast of poached eggs with salmon on toast was excellent and truly enjoyable with a fragrant Earl Grey tea. Gastronomic satisfaction for a good cause..healthy living at its finest..
Then it was over to the leafy grounds of the Temple of Literature, shady and hushed halls of ancient engraved tablets of wisdom, balanced on the backs of sculpted tortoises. People come here to pray for success in academic matters, and if I had not been so hot I may have sent off a prayer for my next semester of study as it is in Languages of Asia and something that Confucius would understand a lot easier than me right now..
After a stroll towards the lake I took a cab back to the hotel for a brief break and prepared myself for part two....can so much be done in one day?
Comments
Post a Comment