Good Day Vietnam

Our 5-week holiday is in wrap-up mode as we look forward to the next semester at Baotou Teachers' College.

The Vietnamese zodiac celebrates the Year of the Cat (whereas in China it's the Rabbit), and here are a couple of the felines floating on the river in Hoi An, a World Heritage City in the south. In the background you can make out the 16th century covered Japanese Bridge, a city landmark.

Not to be outdone, canines have a shrine in the Bridge, attesting to either the dog as a sacred animal to ancient Japanese or that the Bridge was built in a Year of the Dog (take your pick).  

The three most popular home shrine gods are (left to right) for longevity, prosperity, and happiness.

Temple worship includes prayers, altar gifts (fruit and Oreo cookies are popular), and lots of incense. Large incense coils hang from the ceiling with yellow cards noting special prayer names and dates. 

And the market was full of all kinds of wonderful things, including ducklings.

We're at the bottom of a dragon bannister at the citadel in Hue, which was the capitol of Vietnam from 1802 to 1945. 

Here's the moat and entrance to the Hue Citadel, with a large picture of Ho Chi Minh at the entrance to this forbidden city (reminiscent of Mao overlooking Tianamen Square).

Folk singers reminded us of those on a boat trip where we released our votives on the Perfume River to bring us a year of prosperity. 

Back in Hanoi, where the Cột cờ gave the city's name to the Tower of Hanoi puzzle which stuck in Daniel's mind.  The connection doesn't get local attention -- a marketing opportunity not yet developed.

Hello Hanoi

Hanoi celebrated its 1000th birthday last year, so we had to check out the center of the world in this city of 6.5 million. 

Don't let this quiet scene fool you because in Hanoi's Old Quarter the noise is second to none and the motorbikes rule the streets.
The mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, where he's on display just like Mao in China, ensuring these comrades will be around for a while.

Even though he hasn't been around for over 40 years, billboards like this of "Uncle Ho" abound. This street vendor let the tourist carry her bananas.

Women performing traditional music at the Temple of Literature -- now where would you find a Temple of Literature in the US?

We really enjoyed seeing with city with our friend Elizabeth, who's been living in Hanoi for the last five years teaching at the Diplomatic Academy. She just finished editing a book of Canadian women's literature translated into Vietnamese which will be introduced by the Canadian embassy.
We toured Ha Long Bay which has thousands of limestone karsts and isles in various shapes and sizes.

We spent overnight on one of these boats and visited one of the floating fishing villages which dot the area. 

Some of the islands are hollow with enormous caves; the French named this Grotte des Merveilles, but on the English-speaking tour it was the Surprising Cave, as we indeed found it.

It's all a matter of perspective, as this Vietnam-centric globe proves.

New Year in Hong Kong

Hong Kong bills itself as "Asia's World City," and it's easy to see why.
The Chinese New Year fireworks over Victoria Harbour were spectacular with many number 8's in the sky, especially auspicious since in Chinese "8" sounds similar to the word for wealth and is visually similar to the word for happiness.

Happy Year of the Rabbit.

The air was full of incense and prayers as we followed the throngs visiting one of the Buddhist temples.

And Hong Kong was festive with orange trees covered by red envelopes for money.

A taxi driver told us the hill where we stayed was full of spirits, and we discovered why.

We met up with one of our teaching colleagues and took a walk in the waters of the South China Sea.

 Followed by a great pub lunch of fish and chips.

Leaving Hong Kong for Hanoi.

Hello from Hong Kong

We arrived in Hong Kong Jan. 26 and made our way to Tao Fong Shan, http://www.tfss.org/.  We'd been told it was an affordable church-linked guesthouse, but realized when we got here that it is especially Lutheran.

The center was founded in 1930 by a Scandinavian missionary and today continues to work with inter-religious dialogues and the study of religion. This is Christ Temple, an octagonal structure reminiscent of the two temples leading to the Altar of Heaven in Beijing.

We're staying in this mountain-top guesthouse which comes with a great view, a labyrinth close by, and the Lutheran Theological Seminary up the hill.  

Hong Kong is definitely not like our part of China, and there's a lot of talk about one country, two systems. This poster prohibiting spitting and littering, among other things, caught our eye. 

We were treated to lunch at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club with a marvelous view of Victoria Harbour. The half-size Little Mermaid scupture on the left was a gift from Denmark.

At the Flower Market we joined thousands who were shopping for new year decorations. The bamboo plants for luck are next to the five-generation fruit plants, auspicious when the entire family gathers to celebrate.

A tram ride up to the Peak.

Goldfish pond next to the Museum of Tea Wares.

An hour on the ferry and we were in Macau, originally a Portguese colony. The icon of the city is the Ruins of St. Paul's, a cathedral built in the 1640s and destroyed by fire in 1835.

But like all parts of China, the new and the old go together as in this view from Mount Fortress (a military defense structure built in the 1630s) targeting a lotus-shaped building (one of the many casinos that will relieve you of your HK$, Chinese RMB, or MOP$). 

Greetings from this part of China, as we continue to enjoy our winter holiday.

Xi'an

After Beijing we headed west to Xi'an, an ancient capital of China at the eastern end of the Silk Road and now most famous for its terracotta warriors. Each statue is unique and larger than life size -- Daniel doesn't quite measure up.The terracotta sculptures from 210 BC depict the armies of Quin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China. About 8000 warriors are estimated to be here, and we were impressed by how much is yet to be excavated.

Xian's city wall is the oldest and best preserved in China. First construction was 194 BC, although the current city wall was started by the Ming Dynasty in 1370, almost 14 km around and 12 m high. We wobbled around the wall on bikes, admiring the spring festival decorations. The caption reads "White Glazed Porcelain Pillow with Dark Design of a Beauty" -- beauty not comfort. Prosperity is a theme for the upcoming Chinese lunar new year, so Starbucks offers up green tea as well as espresso tea lattes. Longevity is also a big theme in China, especially for the new year Spring Festival celebration, and traditional Chinese calligraphy is a fine art form in Xi'an. It's working for this artist who was eager to explain his one-stroke creation.

A Wedding

We attended our first wedding in China. One of our teaching colleagues was getting married close to Xi'an, so we were excited to be there. And everyone was very kind to the special foreign wedding guests. Weddings in China combine elements of the west (white gown, exchange of rings) and east (red for good fortune, paying respect to parents). Here's the first bridal outfit, completed with a sash from fabric that matches their wedding quilt.

The bride arrived at the groom's home with her head covered, harkening back to the traditional custom of a groom not seeing the bride's face until their wedding day. All the lion statues on the procession route had their faces covered in red as well to prevent them from seeing the bride, and of course we drove to the sound of firecrackers (to keep evil spirits away).

The courtyard of the groom's family was transformed to an enormous kitchen where women from the village prepared food for the guests. The coal-fired cauldrons were steaming.

Diane sharing the kang with some of the older relatives; the kang is a family bed heated by an outside fire piped under the platform, and a very cosy place to be.

About two hundred guests were served in a couple of settings. The wedding meal was elaborate, with about twenty different dishes served in a tent put up for the occasion.

Bride and groom make their bows to the guests with with their parents watching on the right. The woman on the left is the hostess who presides over the ceremony, and the symbols on the wall are double happiness representing weddings.

The happy couple circulate among the dinner guests to serve a celebratory drink and receive red envelopes containing money. Congratulations and best wishes to Li Ye and Zhang Huifeng!

Burr in Beijing

We took a 12 hour train ride from Baotou to Beijing at the start of our winter holiday to find the crowds light but the weather chilly.

After watching the sunrise flag ceremony at Tiananmen Square we filed by Chairman Mao's mausoleum (where he's been on view since 1976) and spent the day in the Forbidden City, accompanied by one of our students, Xue Jiao (Nicole).

Forbidden City detail, the largest and best-preserved cluster of ancient buildings in Beijing and home to the Ming and the Qing emperors.

The Summer Palace, a short trip on the new and efficient underground, is full of palace temples, gardens, pavilions, lakes and corridors.

Daniel even took a stroll on the now frozen Kunming Lake that occupies three-quarters of the park.

Climbing the steps to the Temple of Heaven we wrapped up our days in the capitol after enjoying the Peking acrobats and sampling the Peking duck.