Moon Cakes

Cake Kiosks outside Vincom Towers Mall

The lunar calendar is different from the whatever-it-is calendar we use. I don’t know why and I’m not going to try to explain. Its enough for you to know that they overlap and we’re now in a period with an (August) moon festival which is celebrated each year with the giving of moon cakes.

The more sophisticated of our Vietnamese colleagues turn their noses up at the cakes, relating them to a bygone era. The festival itself was supposed to be a children’s event but it has become one of those things taken over by adults.

I knew nothing about any of this until new shopfronts began appearing all over Hanoi. The dowdy peanut shop, stationers or electrical cable shop suddenly acquired an extension in red and gold which protruded another metre into the street. Shining glass counters stacked high with red and gold boxes or bags appeared and surrounding trees were strung with fairy lights and Chinese lanterns. To see one or two shops so converted would be unusual enough but literally dozens of shops have been modified. At a modern shopping mall near our house a whole row of kiosks appeared overnight all dressed in the same livery.

When it started, about three weeks ago, the pavements were packed with shoppers. Crowds pushing and shoved to get served at the most favoured vendors. Less favoured locations a few metres away, and apparently selling identical produce, were deserted – that’s the way it works here, reputation is everything. Sales continued well into the evening and beyond the times when Vietnamese businesses usually close. Teams of extra staff could be seen sitting on pavements and in doorways furiously assembling the red and gold boxes into which the moon cakes are carefully packed, desperately trying to keep up with demand.

Given that we’ve been told city folk don’t go for the cakes (its more of a country thing you know) yet everyone buys them and everyone gives them to all their relatives I wonder where they all finish up? Certainly they seem a bit rich for the kids, I tried one, they look like ornamental mini pork pies. A decorated pastry crust and a rice based filling with a hard boiled egg yolk at the centre. The filling is sweet not savoury and it’s the quality of the filling that differentiates the good from the indifferent.

I’d been meaning to get some nighttime photos of these shops and finally got round to it on Saturday night – there being nothing else on this week. It was after nine and despite everyone telling me it is now Autumn the temperature was still in the high twenties. I was sweating and getting sticky before I got to the end of the road.

I stopped to watch the rats at the end of our alley, we noticed a few nights back that they use the electricity cables as their own mass transit system. If you stand and watch for a few minutes you can see dozens of them, they hurtle past - far more confident than any tightrope walker - moving up a level or branching off as they reach a pole. They obviously use these routes regularly - there’s no hesitation at junctions.

On the main road the Saturday night parade of motorbikes was in full swing, motorbikes all with two people on and many wearing their best outfits. They cruise the main streets of the one way system, a couple of friends chatting as they weave through the traffic, three or four couples riding side by side laughing and calling to each other or pairs of lovers - the pillion passenger hugging close to the driver. Occasionally the hugging is very obviously very intimate and one wonders how the driver is managing to stay on the road!

I took some photos by the shopping mall and then moved on towards the old quarter where I’d seen the most spectacular displays. But the festival is nearly over and the cluster of shopfronts I really wanted to photograph had already gone, as had the lights. The street which had been teeming with people two weeks ago was dark, quiet and closed.

Walking back in a wide circle which brought me down the side of Lenin Park gave me the opportunity to study more closely the small terrace of shops at the end of Van Ho II. They are tiny, maybe three metres square and not even two stories. More like one and a half – there’s a loft over each shop which is not quite high enough to stand up. The terrace backs onto the park wall, so they only have the one room. Most of them are either tailors or hairdressers. What had not been apparent to me before was that the owners actually live on the premises. At this time of night the steel grills are pulled part way across the entrance and the families sit on the floor watching tv and cooking on a gas burner, children get ready for bed, presumably in the loft. It does bring home that Vietnam is a developing country and not everyone is riding the crest of the economic boom. That said all of these small spaces contained a tv and at least one motorbike, dragged off the road overnight and parked next to the hairdresser’s chair or the tailor’s sewing machine for safe keeping.

By the time I got back into our alley all the grills and shutters were closed and the houses silent and in darkness. Startled I jumped to one side to avoid a young woman on a very quiet motorbike who emerged from a side alley without any lights, she braked hard to avoid me. We didn’t make that much of a commotion, but it was enough to disturb one resident. I slunk back to the house in the shadows, hoping no one saw me as THE dog began its machine-like bark.