As a reading teacher and student of phonics I’m fascinated. The written language of the Vietnamese has a unique feature: diacritics. These are the 5 symbols over the vowels that indicate tone, and four vowel modifications indicating pronunciation. With these vowels included, and several of our consonants removed, the Vietnamese alphabet has 29 letters.
At first it seems very complicated, but the notation tells an educated reader or speaker exactly how to pronounce and inflect the word, and it very much matters.
Consider Pho, which in the US is widely mispronounced and means noodle soup…
(Pho lessons…)
(So I’m going down to the Pho to get some Pho with my favorite Pho? Be careful!)
The word Ma, depending on its diacritic, can mean – mom, horse, cemetery or ghost. And so on.
Vietnamese music developed in parallel and reflects this dynamic sing-song language. In order to create the sounds that wobble and bend, and rise and fall, they need flexibility. Variations within a single note – bends, slides etc mimic the variations in a given vowel.
Mr. Khanh laying it down
Their instrument design, for example the guitar fret board, also provides this flexibility
Vietnamese guitar
Interestingly their scale also has fewer notes in a scale, 5 versus 7 with no B or E. The scale of 5 notes is meant to reflect the elements (fire, water, earth, metal, and wood.)
Pay attention class
Meanwhile Mac and I are struggling to get the right sounds on hello and thank you
In the AM we visited the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum. Located in Ba Dinh Square, the site of the 9/2/45 declaration of Vietnam independence from the French. Very much like our Capital Mall but decorated in early-Lenin…
Hi Chi Minh’s Mausoleum
The site was filled with crowds of uniformed school kids smiling at us and yelling “hello, where you from?”
Hello, Where you from?
We viewed Ho’s 79 year old body which has lain in state since ~1969. He looked like power, and was pretty well preserved. Apparently he’s been sent away to Russia to be re-embalmed every year and they close the mausoleum for three months. Q suspects it’s just a story and the body is a wax sculpture (he said this very quietly).
Changing of the Guard
The site includes the Parliament, the Presidential palace, and Ho’s mountain “stilt-home.” Ho refused to live in the luxury of the colonial Palace.
French Colonial Presidential PalaceUncle Ho’s Stilt-House
Next, JuJu and I spent an hour in the Hanoi home of Hong My, a national hero of Vietnam. He was one of the only North Vietnamese MIG 21 pilots to shoot down an American F4 Phantom in the war (he also shot down an F101 Voodoo reconnaissance plane).
He was later shot down himself by Dan Cherry – who retired as a Brigadier General. He is now close friends with both pilots and the subject of a book “My enemy my friend” by General Cherry.
What a character! 80 years old, dressed like a gangster, totally ripped, and a major flirt. He walked us through his training in Russia, the dog fights and strategies. His chute failed resulting in two broken arms, three crushed vertebrae and the North Vietnamese peasants searching the jungle for days for his recovery.
Hong My (Red Beautiful)Hero of the Armed Forces
Pho on the street. Amazing but a bit hard on the knees.
Street Pho
Next stop, art lessons with Mr. Tuan – a renowned professor and lacquer artist. After a tour of his studio and some lessons on technique, we were coached through some lacquer painting. I think JuJu killed her Peaks photo but you be be the judge.
A work in progress Mr. Tuan’s Dahlias Lacquer tutorialWharf Cove, Peaks Island MEJuJu’s Wharf Cove in LacquerMr. Phong’s kindergarten art class
An amazing breakfast! If you’ve never had the massive buffet at a high-end Asian hotel it’s a bucket list item.
At 9am, with a decent night’s sleep, we walked for a couple of hours through the old quarter of Hanoi. We poked through street after street of clothing, vegetable, flowers and butcher stalls with colors, scents and strange sights too many to describe. Such variety.
Communist Flags on a street of Pure Capitalism All 5 SensssAll 5 ElementsJuju in her Happy Place
Fun fact….when buying a fresh chicken, look at their feet. Dirty feet and gnarled claws indicate a free range chicken, clean feet means it’s been factory raised. Additionally, lift the wing to look for signs of injections. When it comes to chickens, the Vietnamese are strictly anti-vax!
While Q was explaining how to buy a chicken the vendor snagged the creature by the neck and quickly slit its throat collecting the blood to make pudding. Juju is not so sure she is open to trying the pudding.
Gnarly claws, a good sign
We then sat for a traditional Vietnamese coffee (also tried a salt and a coconut coffee) with 3 times the caffeine of arabica. Rocket fuel. We learned that the South was a coffee culture and the North favored green tea. There was also discussion of a specialty coffee that was treated by feeding beans to “weasels” and harvesting their poop (something may have got lost in translation here)
Weasel poop coffee…?
Q taught us more history including the secret Indo-China war that occurred after America’s departure. In 1976 Pol Pot attacked a newly unified Vietnam from Cambodia (supported by China), China also declared a direct war in the north. Unified Vietnam, supported by Russian weapons and money was victorious in both.
A peace between Russia-supported Vietnam and China (really a detente between communist super powers) was eventually reached. As part of the settlement both sides agreed to purge the event from their history books. Q’s father was a young officer and was effectively awarded his Party membership in exchange for his silence.
Then Mr. Ang drove us to a tiny, narrow home for an appointment to see a renown professor of traditional Vietnamese music and a maker and collector of instruments – Mr. Khanh.
An education, a private concert (accompanied by his young student), and an impromptu lesson on the Vietnamese violin for JuJu followed. She was vibrating!
No E, No BTraditional Vietnamese Instruments
The Song of the Blind Beggar-Prince
Violin LessonsMr Khanh
In the afternoon we visited a Mahayana Buddhist temple. This branch, the largest in Vietnam, is a hybrid of Taoism (ancestor worship) and traditional Chinese Buddhism. The temple was approximately 1,500 years old.
It was difficult to reconcile Buddhism and reincarnation, with the sacrifices for dead ancestors in paradise on every altar. The offerings were paper coins, cell phones, fancy suits and model houses – and the idea was that these would transfer as gifts in the afterlife through incense.
The building and the grounds were in disrepair and the cacophony of different styles, smells, colors and even forms of the Buddha made it difficult to find any of the promised sense of peace.
Stack o’ BuddhasTao Offerings in a Buddhist TempleColor
Our hotel, the Metripole was an effective U.N. during the American War with many embassies operating from its state rooms. We took a tour of the bomb shelter – horrible, dark and claustrophobic. The history review featured Politicians, Performers and Protesters, all of whom made appearances and continue to – Jane Fonda, Joan Baez (who recorded portions of ” where are you now my son” in the bomb shelter), John McCain, and Charlie Chaplin, were featured.
Most recently, the hotel hosted the meeting between Xi and our geopolitically confused POTUS – a summit communists around the world saw as a giant step in their victory over democracy.
Dinner was at Q’s favorite family restaurant. We had Green Papaya salad, crispy shrimp pancake, steamed morning glory, and char grilled steak with chili-fish sauce. Our treat – dinner for 3 with drinks, $40.
Staying at the historic Metropol – a 100 year old hotel built during the French Colonial period. Stunning, beautiful and with impeccable service – but also some stuffiness.
The Historic Metropole
Our guide Quyen (“Q”) met us today and walked us through a bit of history over egg coffee. Egg coffee is a miraculous, super sweet riff on a cappuccino it stems from a dairy shortage when the Japanese (and later the Communists) killed all the cattle to force dairy farmers into rice production to supply their Armies.
Egg Coffee with “Q”
Vietnam’s modern story is a running, 150 year war of occupation. The French colonialists held cruel sway for a hundred years, driven out by the WWII Japanese invasion force. The Russian and Chinese communist overlords dominated for 30 years after the Paris treaty. Our brief involvement, monetary and military is what they call the “American War” (1955-75), and it is way more important to us than it is to them.
Today Vietnam is Communist in political form and law but with no social safety nets. But it is Capitalist in daily practice and slowly growing in wealth and world influence
Q’s father is a member of the Party (~4% of the population). His job is to occupy an office, drink tea and read the paper. He’s not a fan of the system.
Lessons completed and the weeks itinerary agreed, we were on our own. We started the night with a hair raising one hour cyclo (a bicycle driven rickshaw) ride around the Old French quarter. Apparently there are no speed limits, crossing lanes, or even general rules of right and left. Order is kept through eye contact, beeping and the general idea that if you’re bigger you win. Only two low speed collisions so that’s good I guess. There’s remarkably little yelling and a lot of smiling through the mayhem
Cyclo-Panic
No Rules and 8 million scooters
The tour was followed by a freshwater crab, clam and abalone hotpot in an open street restaurant.
Crab, Abalone, & Clam hot potNoodles!
The proprietor noticed our western incompetence and helped us to dismember the fresh water crab. But we passed on the seahorse and rice liquor cocktail.
I saw the Dead for the first time in 1986 (Bob Weir was 38, and I was 20). I regularly watched Bobby tear it up for the next 40 years – most recently, for two nights at the Sphere last Spring. I was 58 and he was 77.
Mr. Weir at the Sphere
I’m going to try not to over-emotionalize this or act like I have some special relationship. But I learned of his passing tonight – over the Pacific on the way to Vietnam. I was overcome by immediate tears.
“Lay down my dear brother
Lay down and take your rest
Won’t you lay your head upon your saviors breast
I love you, but Jesus loves you the best
And we bid you good night, good night, good night”
Malcolm utterly mesmerized by Dead and Company at the Sphere March 2025.
We depart at 7 PM tonight. From Philly to Seattle, Seattle to Tai Pei, and Tai Pei to Hanoi it’s 27 hours en route. (Yikes). We arrive Monday at 10am Hanoi time (12+ hours ahead of Philly).
JuJu’s stuff
Our packing process has been…. interesting. These shots reflect JuJu’s pile and mine (in separate bedrooms) before our agreed “cut it by 50%” mandate.
Greetings. Justine and I are off on a 3 and a half week SouthEast Asian adventure. We’ll be travelling in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand leaving on January 10th and returning on February 4th. We’re going to attempt to blog – primarily as a record and travelogue for ourselves. But you’re welcome to follow along. We’re still working through the tech so bear with us…
Mac and Juju explore Southeast Asia 