We arrived in Hanoi yesterday afternoon and it feels great to be back in Asia after so many years. In a manner, Vietnam is a mythical place in contemporary culture. It is the place where the Vietnam War took place and the sage of many great products of contemporary culture, such as Full Metal Jacket, The Quiet American and Tour of Duty. It is interesting actually being in the place where much of this drama has taken place.
It is, by the way, not surprising that the Vietnamese themselves prefer to call it the The American War. The attitude of the Vietnamese towards the war is interesting. One of the teams in our expedition is researching possibilities to provide tourism opportunities for Australian veterans of the war. I was at first surprised by this because in Europe people are still not comfortable with Germans participating in commemorations. The Vietnamese do not hold these these deep grudges and are happy to accommodate the former enemies. Somebody told me that this is because in Vietnam, happiness equals money and holding a grudge against the former enemy would impede people from becoming happy.
Room wih a view
My hotel room is quite nice. I have a tiny balcony with a great view over the city. It is located in the Old Quarter, the only part of Hanoi that the Americans did not manage to fully destroy in their senseless bombings.
The city here is full of life and we are right next to a typical Asian market – lots of fresh food, exotic animals for consumption and lots of cheap suff.
Everybody that I have spoke so far is amazed and enthousiastic about this place. Why is this? What makes a city like Hanoi so appealing to westerners?
I think it is because in Hanoi and similar places around the world, life is less regulated. People in these places accept things that the average Westerner would loathe: noise, chaos, smell – full onslaught of the senses.
In the so called developed world, everything that somebody gets annoyed about needs to be regulated – either formally or socially. In the so called developing nations people are more accepting of chaos, which is what makes this place so magical.
Tomorrow starts the first day of study – it is time to start doing some work!
