Sunday, January 04, 2009
driving in hanoi - 1
where sidewalks are apparently passing lanes.
xanawu . 00:04 . comments (1)
Saturday, January 03, 2009
so good
seems to be a cheaper version of
this was a super popular place on doi can, but as of yesterday has been replaced by a skater shop of all things. poo.
xanawu . 10:45 . comments (0)
'tis the season
christmas isn't traditionally an important holiday, but the commercial aspects are gaining popularity among young people (how trendy). christmas lights everywhere, kitschy decorations... best of all: you can order a santa to come to your house (by motorbike, of course) to personally deliver presents for your kids (with the price varying on the quality of present you want). amusing to see several vietnamese (and hence, skinny) santas zooming by on honda waves on the evening of dec 24.
xanawu . 10:26 . comments (0)
Monday, December 15, 2008
(re) facing mecca
article in the economist about re-building and expanding mecca from the current capacity of 900,000 to 1.5 million worshippers.
among those approached for the project are two respected British architects, Norman Foster and Zaha Hadid. a slight controversy arises since Lord Foster is not a muslim; should he win the commission, he would have to implement his plans from a distance, since non-muslims cannot enter the holy city.
on a similar vein, I saw body of lies yesterday. not recommended.
xanawu . 21:30 . comments (0)
Sunday, November 23, 2008
chinese food
Really great article in the New Yorker about a restaurateur's quest to re-invigorate Chinese cuisine in Hangzhou, while using all-natural ingredients.
“Sourcing our ingredients was a nightmare at first,” Zhou said. The buyers spent months driving out to remote villages, meeting farmers, and trying to set up a network of suppliers. They commissioned peasants to rear free-range chickens and ducks, to feed pigs a traditional diet of grain and vegetables, and to sow their fields according to the solar terms of the old agricultural calendar. Through word of mouth, they found people who were prepared to gather wild lily flowers, to catch paddy eels and turtles. “But we were groping in the dark,” Zhou said. “And sometimes the peasants deceived us, passing off factory-farmed pork as home-raised meat, or using chemicals on the sly.”
The scare about Chinese produce has reached Vietnam--there is one particular story going around about a chinese factory processing dead chickens and dying them to look like they were roasted. There's a mixed perception of Chinese goods here: on one hand people don't want to trust the Chinese, but on the other it's a more developed country so some products are viewed as higher quality (clothing, for example). Strange for me to see China as a *more* developed country, for once.
The past decade or two have seen other changes in the way Chinese people eat. As recently as the early nineties, many Chinese lived on a diet of fresh seasonal produce bought from street markets. Supermarkets, refrigerators, and processed foods were rare. Since then, urban sprawl has encroached on arable fields; street markets and small restaurants have been swept away as cities are redeveloped; and Western fast-food chains have opened branches all over the country. Meanwhile, firms such as Carrefour and Tesco have persuaded the middle classes to shop in supermarkets, and processed foods have become widely available. And as the Chinese demand more meat, to supplement their traditional diet of grains and vegetables, there has been a dramatic increase in intensive animal farming.
I've been wondering how food is processed in Vietnam, and how far along it is in its industrialisation. Eggs are nice and yellow, like the free-range ones you get in Canada. And chicken, well, it's usually tough and scrawny. I'm guessing these are 'good' signs? It is also clear that grocery stores are a recent concept--it is far more common to see fresh foodstuffs on the street and in outdoor markets.
Now that I think about it, how's this for a development indicator: frequency of farmer markets. Here is my ranking, from most to least:
Vietnam > China > Thailand > Canada/US
xanawu . 10:41 . comments (0)
Friday, November 21, 2008
honda wave
100cc honda wave alpha. I'm renting it from VIP Bikes, which is run by an NGO (Blue Dragon) that focuses on disadvantaged youth. VIP Bikes trains street kids how to do motorbike repairs on the bikes they rent out (included in my contract is a monthly service). hence a shiny new bike and supporting a good cause--for 950,000 VND per month.
and my helmet is from Protec, a company owned by a road safety NGO called Asia Injury Prevention Foundation (sales from Protec are supposed to fund AIPF).
what can I say? Hanoi is full of do-gooder NGOs.
xanawu . 10:41 . comments (0)
Friday, November 14, 2008
bike repairs
I like how bike repair dudes put a manual bike pump on the side of the road to advertise their services--though such a pump is never actually used. this guy, for example, clearly had a line coming from an electric compressor somewhere.
tube patch + re-inflation: 5000 dong.
xanawu . 12:34 . comments (0)
Sunday, November 09, 2008
where I live
this is our house: the white one with the red brick balcony on the 3rd storey. in hanoi it is not unusual to have very narrow houses, but built tall (used to be that taxes were paid by the width of the front)--in our case, we have 5 floors, with 2 rooms on each.
this is my room on the 3rd floor:
living room on 4th floor:
1st floor kitchen and bike storage area:
some of the bikes--I just rented a new one! it's the bright yellow one, of course. more on that later.
xanawu . 08:28 . comments (0)
Thursday, November 06, 2008
freedom (oslo vs. hanoi)
tilegnet arbeiderbevegelsens-pionerer
frihet-solidaritet
(dedicated to the pioneers of the labour movement: freedom solidarity!)
Hà Nội - mùa đông 1946
("Winter 1946": in reference to the French re-occupation of Hanoi after Ho Chi Minh had proclaimed independence in 1945)
xanawu . 09:20 . comments (0)
Saturday, November 01, 2008
and not a drop to... shower with
it's been raining for the past 2 days, apparently the worst since 1984. and by murphy's law, I of course live on what seems (to me) the worst-hit part of the city. this video is from early in the day, when I first tried to get to work:
it only got worse later. nowhere to stand without being submerged, and all the shops busy trying to sweep water out of their businesses. those who had given up just stood around watching the chaos. I'm amazed at the number of people who still insisted on driving their completely submerged motorbikes, only to be stranded minutes later.
(I did make it to work in the afternoon, but when I made it back in the evening, there was a taxi floating down the street, with drunken on-lookers laughing)
this would all be a bit more tolerable if weren't for the fact that we now have no running water in the house. not such a great thing after wading in, well, everything you can imagine is on the streets of hanoi (ahem, I saw a big rat float by my house this morning).
xanawu . 11:04 . comments (0)
