We're all capitalists now!

  Hanoi, Vietnam
Friday, October 20, 2006

Spent 11 days in Hanoi, which was about double than we had intended because I was ill with heatstroke for 5 days. It is an incredibly active city, always something to grab your attention. Very hectic, it is one of those places you are forced to toughen up very quickly, there always being someone trying to sell you something.

Hanoi Opera House

Despite being a Socialist state, Hanoians to a man seem to be going the other way and embracing the market in the hope of reaping it's potential benefits. It is a prime example of the fact that capitalism is really the only natural social order. Everyone seems to have something for sale, either tangible or as a service. Every square foot of the city seems to be a suitable place for some sort of trade to take place - a local phrase is "Take two women and one duck and you have a market".

A visit to the Museum of Ethnology confirms the human instinct to make money in order to survive or improve one's lot. There is a very humbling exhibition on life in Vietnam during the 1980s, when the country was incredibly impoverished, strict rationing was in place and ownership of basic goods such as bicycles was a luxury and even required a license. It seems that, generally speaking, the only people who lived comfortably were high-ranking Party members and military officials. Because the market was so closed, economically liberating policies still some years away and the importation of goods being severely restricted, poverty and malnutrition occured on a massive scale. The point is that the response of many citizens to this position was to try and create for themselves a little extra on the side from what the State was providing. They harvested their own crops, maintained their own livestock, made their own clothes and other day-to-day goods, primarily to provide for themselves but, once they had achieved that, to sell to others for profit. And this is what advocates of Communism refuse to acknowledge - not everyone is going to put the same effort in as everyone else. So how do you reward those who work harder? The natural human spirit, whilst putting importance on values such as community and togetherness, will generally favour looking out for number one. Why should a person rely on others to provide for them when they can do a better job themselves? The result is that supposed Socialist states, such as Vietnam and China, are so only in name. Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox now but, suffice to say, the Vietnamese have taken to trading with ardent enthusiasm.

Mani disrespecting a fertility statue

The time I haven't been ill has largely been spent sightseeing and wandering the streets. We visited several decent museums, one of the most interesting aspects for me being exhibitions that detail aspects of the Vietnam War, known here as the American War. The Women's Museum gives an impression of the quite prominent role women played, both on the front line and as an auxiliary. There is also some harrowing evidence of the torture some women experienced at the hands of the Americans. The Military Museum has an impressive collection of American aircraft and tanks that were shot down, as well as the guns that were used to do this. The Prison Museum, nicknamed the Hanoi Hilton, housed US servicemen during the war, though the establishment is at pains to point out the luxuries enjoyed by prisoners at this time!

Me with captured US helicopter

We had a day-trip to the Perfume Pagoda, apparently the most important Buddhist site in Vietnam. Its a mission to get to, the only way to approach it is via river - an hour's trip that sends your arse to sleep. You've then got to get to the top of the mountain, though you do have a choice on how to do this as a cable car will get you there in under 10 minutes. Mani and I decided on the trek, about 45 minutes but ridiculously steep in parts and enough to convince me of the imminent need to stop smoking. Once we reached the top and I had recovered, the other members of our tour group (who almost all rather lazily took the cable car) in the meantime having generously crowded round me to see if I was, as appeared, about to drop dead there and then through exhaustion, we were able to go into the Pagoda. Now, a Pagoda is basically any temple, and in this case, a mounstrous cave in the mountain. Almost indescribably peaceful, it is somewhere that seemed very appropriate as a place of worship.

Perfume Pagoda

After nearly two weeks, its overdue time to leave Hanoi. Fun, lively place but somewhere I could happily not come back to - the hassle factor from the traders is quite high and the streets are so stupidly busy it can be hard to relax.

As to the Vietnamese themselves, I'm finding them a mixed bunch. Some are friendly and interesting but others are irritating and rude. The one common characteristic is that everyone seems outgoing.

Time to leave - next stop is Sapa in the north.