Lanterns and Moon Cakes

Two weeks ago, Vietnam celebrated the Moon Festival.  Businesses set up stands to sell moon cakes the month before the holiday.  Moon cakes are a mysterious confection of baked dough--some are filled with, to my mind, horrible things like black eggs, while others have meat and dried fruit, reminiscent of Christmas fruitcake mied with mincemeat pie.  Vietnamese people in Can Tho like to exchange moon cakes obtained from far away provinces. 

And then for three nights, children went up and down my street carrying lit lanterns and getting cakes, a bit like an early Halloween.  Some people even floated small floats decorated with candles and flowers on the river, akin to the Harvest Fesival in Thailand that takes place on the full moon during November.

The Lasting Devastation of Napalm

My friends and I spent a somber three hours in the War Atrocites Museum in Saigon.   The following photos are from an exhibition by Japanese and Vietnamese photographers taken in the US, South Korea, and Vietnam. 

The lasting impacts of napalm cross borders.  What scientists invented this horror?  And what people allowed it to be used?  

While the US victims have received some compensation, no compensation has been provided to the Vietnamese victims.  And the genetic legacy of this terrible war continues.

 

Eight year old Do Duc Duyen jokes around with his mother after breakfast.  Duyen's instinct for living has enabled his parents to overcome their difficulties, and he continues to givem them strength through hís joy in life. 

Nguyen Hoai Thuong wants to touch a flower.  She was born in 2008 to Mrs. Tran Thi Cam Giang,
living in Cu Chi District in Ho Chi Minh City. 

Mr. Nguyen Van Binh, born in 1964, in Vinh Long Province.  He sufers from Recklinghausen disease.

Dan Loney has many symptoms related to toxic chemical exposure--numbness, nausea, and headaches.  His wife has suffered several miscarriages, and hís daughter was born with an arm that ends below her shoulder.  She is very beautiful.

Mr. Ke Van Bac was born in 1988, in A Luoi District, Thua Thien Hue.

Mrs. Nguyen Thi Chot ís 62 years old, the mother of 2 children.  Her husband, Nguyen Sat, was a soldier in the old regime and was based near Hoi An City.  One of her children, 38 year old Nguyen Vinh, began to manifest severe health problems at the age of 2, when his legs and arms began to shrivel.  Day in and day out, he lives in a bed.  Hís only interruption comes every 3 days when his mother carries him outside to bathe him.   

Mr. Nguyen Van Loc, with his mother and two sons, in Quang Tri Province.

Pham Viet Tuong was born in 1990 in Quang Nam Province.  Tuong was the best student in hís class
for several years and wơn the silver prize for chess in Quang Nam Province.

Nguyen Hoang Anh, born in 1991, is always eager to learn.  He lives in Ho Chi Minh City.

This is the radiant face of Thuy Linh, whose miraculous legs have helped her overcome
being born without arms.  She is a gifted painter.  Linh's grandfather,
a helicopter pilot, handled Agent Orange from 1962-1970 and pased away from
leukemia in 1972.  Now Tu Du Hospital in Hoa Binh village is caring for Linh.

Dan Jordan is officially acknowledged as a victim of Agent Orange.
His son (above) has congenital deformities of his hands. 
Dan Jordan and other veterans took the lead in the class action law suit
against the chemical company that produced Agent Orange. 
The suit was settled in 1983 for $180 million.  



Ms. Pham Thi Vuong ứa bỏn in 1978 in Quang Ngai Province. 
At age 27, she is only 0.8 meters tall and weighs only 12 kilograms.  
The lower half of her body is paralyzed. 
She helps support her family by making and selling crafts.

 

The Hills Are Alive. . .

A part of our orientation for the Fulbright Program entailed a bonding trip to Mai Chau, a mountainous region located in Hoa Binh province, about 135 km from Hanoi.  It is home to the black and white Thai who are related to the Thai who settled in Thailand.  In speaking with our guide, I discovered that basic numbers and animals were the same as in Thailand! 

At the Mai Chau Lodge, where we stayed.

 

The wooden houses on stilts with wooden tiled roofs looked a lot like the old style in Northern Thailand.  The Mai Chau area was definitely the prettiest place I have been to in Vietnam.

 

We also took a trip through a Flower Hmong village nearby--very picturesque because of the lovely and colorful outfits of the flower Hmong women!  While Misoula has a fairly large settlement of Hmong refugees from Laos, they are not of the Flower Hmong group.

 

 

Flower Hmong ladies having their hair straightended in the village beauty salon.

This is in the living room of one of the houses.  Note the use of beer bottles around the bottom of the house walls to help let in light.

Cooking over an open fire.

Corn storage above the kitchen.

A basket backpack for gathering corn.

Eating a hardboiled egg for breakfast.

 

Hmong family shopping for new shoes.

The outdoor sewing room.

Good protection from skin cancer!





Field Trip to Co Loa

During my first visit to Hanoi, I had the wonderful opportunity to travel out to the Co Loa archeological site with my Vietnamese language classmate Teagan McGillivray and her professor Dr. Nam Kim, who are both at the University of Wisconsin.  Co Loa is in Vietnam's Red River Delta near modern-day Hanoi.  It may have been the seat of an early state-level society during the Iron Age. 

Teagan is taking core samples of the ancient city wall to research which crops were grown back then.

I seem to find kitties wherever I go.  My new motto is that cats and dogs are friends not food!   This motto is an especially important message in Northern Vietnam, where cat meat and dog meat restaurants abound!

Fulbright Friends and Adventures

I finally found my password and so am blogging again!  Here are some of my friends here in Vietnam.

Rakka and Ashley are the Fulbright Ph.D. students here in Vietnam this year.  I am lucky enough to have both Ashley and her husband James living down the street from me, while Rakka, who is working on the epidemiology of dengue fever in the Mekong Delta, lives in Hanoi!

 

Here I am, leaving Hanoi, with Diane (who specializes in higher education) and Pam (who is a legal professor), and one of Diane's Vietnamese contacts.  Diane and Pam live in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).

Here, James and Pam sip some rice wine as a part of a bonding experience in Mai Chau village, outside of Hanoi.  We also had a nice walk in the countryside and through a village near Mai Chau.

 

Our farewell dinner in Hanoi, with Miss Thu Huong, the assistant in charge of the US Fulbright Scholar Program in the US Embassy in Hanoi.

 

I took James and Ashely shopping at a wonderful papergoods shop in Saigon two weeks ago.  We even had a chance to taste some lovely Vietnamese noodles with fresh herbs and fried spring rolls on top!

Last, but not least, is my friend and colleague at the Mekong Delta Development Research Institute, Dang, who recently completed his MSc in Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland.  Dang went with Ashley, James, and I and the English Teaching Assistant peering over his seat, Kate, to have dinner with the vice-consul and his family in Saigon.  Way too much fun was had by all!

 

Here, Dang and I join an international businessman, Jake, at Bobby Chinn's restaurant in Saigon, after our official Fulnright dinner.  Bobby Chinn has more than one tv show on cooking and makes delicious grapes encrusted with goat cheese and nuts--yum!