Hanoi street scenes, Nov 2013 - 22
(more details later, as time permits)
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Among the many things that become apparent as you get older: events that are seared into your brain as a child (e.g., 9-11, the Challenger explosion, the first manned landing on the moon, JFK's assassination) are utterly meaningless to the next generation. Also, countries that we were raised to think of as "enemies" morph into this generation's "friends".
In that vein, I planned my various recent visits to Russia, Cuba, and Vietnam with a certain amount of trepidation; I assume the current generation of university students feels the same way about visiting Iran and North Korea … but if my just-finished trip to Hanoi is any indication, things will almost certainly be different for the generation just now being born.
My visit to Vietnam was relatively brief and localized, so I make no pretense of having seen the entire city of Hanoi. let alone the country. I was attending a computer conference that was held in the Hanoi Hilton (an irony that was utterly lost on my fellow attendees), and during my brief periods of free time, I wandered around the vicinity of my hotel, right next to the Hanoi Opera House, in what used to be known as the "French Quarter."
I also went on one "guided tour" during my visit, so I've seen one or two of the obligatory temples, and I've seen the enormous, impressive Ho Chi Minh mausoleum. I took some photos of those scenes, but I really don't think they're any different than any of the standard tourist photos that you can find all over the Internet, so I haven't bothered to upload any of them. Instead, I've focused on what can best be described as "street scenes" in the neighborhood of my hotel …
… and if you've ever been to Hanoi, you probably have a good idea of what I mean by that: as soon as you walk out on the street — any street — you're overwhelmed by the massive number of motor scooters zooming along in all directions. I was told that the cheapest (Chinese) motor scooters cost only 0-400, but most of the ones you'll see are sturdier machines made by Honda and Vespa etc. Some carry a solitary rider, but most of them have two … or three, or four, or more … people crammed together. Some of them (including the driver) are carrying on a cell-phone conversation, others are laughing at some private joke. And many of the passengers are young children, sandwiched between two protective parents, or sometimes standing in the front "well" of the scooter, grasping the handlebars and looking bravely into the onrushing crowd.
Someone told me that a law was passed a few years ago, mandating that all scooter drivers and passengers must wear helmets; and from what I could see, the majority of the rider/passengers respected the law. But there were quite a few without any helmets, and this seemed particularly common for the children — arguably the most vulnerable of all the riders. But what almost everyone did have was a bandana/kerchief of some kind, presumably to diminish the effect of the pollution and noxious fumes surrounding everyone on the street.
Of course, not everyone is riding a motor-scooter; there are bicycles, too, as well as the usual collection of cars, taxis, buses, and even a few rickshaws. And there are pedestrians, too, all of whom seem remarkably fearless when it comes to walking across the street in the midst of traffic zooming at them from every conceivable direction. To a visitor, it seems like a giant exercise in Brownian motion — utterly random movements, with few (if any) collisions. I guess visitors to New York City feel the same way about our traffic and our pedestrians …
In any case, what you'll see in this Flickr set is a collection of such "street scenes." I did my best to "freeze" the action by taking multiple photos, shooting at a fairly fast shutter speed whenever possible, and "panning" my camera along with the motion of the scooters … but at best, they provide only a silent glimpse of what really exists as noisy bedlam. If you truly want to understand what it's like, you'll have to get on an airplane, and visit Hanoi yourself...
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