Mooncake Madness
Hanoi has been a little crazier than usual this week. Tonight was the full moon festival, sometimes called the autumn festival sometimes called the festival of the hungry ghosts and to some less generous people the “My god why can’t they control their kids festival”. That was certainly the look on Derek’s face tonight as we sat in a restaurant and a babe in arms with an electric lantern on a stick kept swinging it round until the inevitable contact with Derek’s head.
The buzz has been building all week. At work more and more mooncakes appeared as the week went on and their were discussions about what presents the kids would get. The mooncake shops have been supplemented by the appearance of street stalls selling every conceivable children’s toy from Barbie dolls to Rambo type Chinese machine guns in environmentally unfriendly plastic which glow in the dark and make star wars like noises. I know - my neighbours young son was playing with one outside my window at 11.30 last night.
There’s more traffic on the roads and the procession round the one way system has been there every night. Last night I went to the supermarket fairly late on and walked into some kind of kids festival just finishing. The road was gridlocked with the usual crowd of motorbikes waiting for their offspring with the added complication of two large coaches parked outside the hall and several taxis. Then there was an elderly gentleman in a really old and filthy car who was performing a 93 point turn in the middle of all this traffic.
Earlier in the week I was on my way back from work after trying to find the Hanoi Cinema club. Well actually I found it but the staff behind the desk pointed out that it was the wrong time to try and join and it was also the wrong time to get tickets, so I had to come back later. I stopped at the traffic lights and a motorbike pulled up alongside me – very close beside me. I turned my head and found myself looking into the eyes of an old man, he had a thin face and probably no teeth as he was gurning admirably. He stared me squarely in the eye and slowly and deliberately looked me up and down. I returned the favour. He was wearing the green pith helmet favoured by many Vietnamese men, an anorak style jacket and striped cotton pyjamas. No, not the outfits Vietnamese wear which look like pyjamas, these were the real thing. My eyes wandered a little further and caught sight of the bag hanging on the handlebars of his bike. The bag with the yellow liquid and the clear label “URINE” the tube from it disappeared inside the said pyjamas. The lights changed and the incident was over.
I took a detour to have one last attempt at joining the gym at a local hotel. Its expensive by my standards but my fitness has completely gone down the pan now and I need to do something about it. They turned me down by email, so I thought I’d try the personal approach. I pedalled my knackered Chinese mountain bike round the Mercedes and BMWs up the ramp into their multi-storey car park. Got a ticket and took the lift to the gym. A nice man greeted me and showed me the facilities and all the prices. The place was deserted, not a single person using any of the facilities. I said, its very nice, I’d like to join. He offered me a day guest pass, I said no I’d like to join. At first he looked confused, then the lights came on and he said “Ahh, join! Sorry we are full”. It turns out they only allow 100 members and they’ve had 100 since April, so that is it – the gym is empty but its full.
My next mistake of the week was to make contact with a local expat cycle club. Apparently, to do the stuff they do, I need a proper bike which will cost me three months allowance and have to be got in Ho Chi Minh City. They go out at 6am and do 30 kilometres before breakfast on weekdays, longer at weekends. Many of the members have names which sound like Tour de France riders. The bike I’m currently riding has a front brake that causes the wheel to judder when applied, a back brake which does not work at all, mudguards held on with string, gear changers which do not actually move the gears since the cables have rusted solid, a bottom bracket which is bent and a loose chain wheel so the front gears change whenever they feel like it. It feels like a solid iron bedstead, and weighs accordingly. Last week I had two flat tyres and the chain broke. I don’t think it will do 30km at all – even if I could.
The prospect of bike shopping is one I both relish and fear, I’ll enjoy the haggle but I’m afraid of what I might get. I want a mid range hybrid, I can’t afford the sort of bikes the club members have got. The trouble is whilst there are bikes which LOOK like what I want many are cheap Chinese counterfeits carrying famous names. They will break on the first off-road bump or the gear changers will not work after the first three weeks. Its very hard to tell the quality just from a visual inspection, they LOOK authentic. I’ve come to realise this is a skill in Chinese manufacturing. They build quality according to the market the product is going to be sold in. So in Europe and the States you buy Chinese products which are really good. In Vietnam they suck. I may already have said we have had two halogen bedside lamps melt and the webcam I bought lasted two months, now I’m the green man from outer-space – when I can actually get a picture at all. So I need to be careful or very lucky, my budget is about a fifth of the price of a real bike.
Still the mountain bike is getting me around, like tonight we got back from the cinema when I realised I no longer had my mobile phone. I knew what had happened – slide back in the seat when watching the movie, my trouser pockets tilt and the phone slides silently out onto the seat and then onto the floor when I get up to leave. We had stopped in the Bia Hoi on the way home, but they had run out of beer so it turned into a one sided conversation as we sat and were talked at. I borrowed a phone and rang my number, holding my breath. An American voice answered. Jerry, who runs the cinema, had my phone on his desk and he’d be there for another half hour. I left the pub with no beer put my shorts on – my white legs are the nearest thing I have to dayglo clothing and cycled (sans lights) out into the moon festival madness. Pho Hue was just like a weekday rush hour except that many of the riders were wearing Halloween masks, lots of the girls were wearing illuminated little devil horns implying something or other. And lots of bikes also had kids on – all waving their new light up noise making electronic toys. I was passed by a motorbike with an enormous bag of (inflated) helium balloons on the back – I mean enormous it was the size of a small car. I decided to keep up with the motorbikes which fascinated the children and amused the boy racers two of whom passed me more than once. I recovered my phone and made the return journey down Ba Trieu in traffic which was moving like they were on a dance floor. The whole exercise took under half an hour.
Anyway it midnight and I’m going to bed. The dog is quiet and there is no siren. Instead it is the turn of the cat and my neighbours new toy, which he is playing with with great delight just a couple of feet from where I’m sitting.
The buzz has been building all week. At work more and more mooncakes appeared as the week went on and their were discussions about what presents the kids would get. The mooncake shops have been supplemented by the appearance of street stalls selling every conceivable children’s toy from Barbie dolls to Rambo type Chinese machine guns in environmentally unfriendly plastic which glow in the dark and make star wars like noises. I know - my neighbours young son was playing with one outside my window at 11.30 last night.
There’s more traffic on the roads and the procession round the one way system has been there every night. Last night I went to the supermarket fairly late on and walked into some kind of kids festival just finishing. The road was gridlocked with the usual crowd of motorbikes waiting for their offspring with the added complication of two large coaches parked outside the hall and several taxis. Then there was an elderly gentleman in a really old and filthy car who was performing a 93 point turn in the middle of all this traffic.
Earlier in the week I was on my way back from work after trying to find the Hanoi Cinema club. Well actually I found it but the staff behind the desk pointed out that it was the wrong time to try and join and it was also the wrong time to get tickets, so I had to come back later. I stopped at the traffic lights and a motorbike pulled up alongside me – very close beside me. I turned my head and found myself looking into the eyes of an old man, he had a thin face and probably no teeth as he was gurning admirably. He stared me squarely in the eye and slowly and deliberately looked me up and down. I returned the favour. He was wearing the green pith helmet favoured by many Vietnamese men, an anorak style jacket and striped cotton pyjamas. No, not the outfits Vietnamese wear which look like pyjamas, these were the real thing. My eyes wandered a little further and caught sight of the bag hanging on the handlebars of his bike. The bag with the yellow liquid and the clear label “URINE” the tube from it disappeared inside the said pyjamas. The lights changed and the incident was over.
I took a detour to have one last attempt at joining the gym at a local hotel. Its expensive by my standards but my fitness has completely gone down the pan now and I need to do something about it. They turned me down by email, so I thought I’d try the personal approach. I pedalled my knackered Chinese mountain bike round the Mercedes and BMWs up the ramp into their multi-storey car park. Got a ticket and took the lift to the gym. A nice man greeted me and showed me the facilities and all the prices. The place was deserted, not a single person using any of the facilities. I said, its very nice, I’d like to join. He offered me a day guest pass, I said no I’d like to join. At first he looked confused, then the lights came on and he said “Ahh, join! Sorry we are full”. It turns out they only allow 100 members and they’ve had 100 since April, so that is it – the gym is empty but its full.
My next mistake of the week was to make contact with a local expat cycle club. Apparently, to do the stuff they do, I need a proper bike which will cost me three months allowance and have to be got in Ho Chi Minh City. They go out at 6am and do 30 kilometres before breakfast on weekdays, longer at weekends. Many of the members have names which sound like Tour de France riders. The bike I’m currently riding has a front brake that causes the wheel to judder when applied, a back brake which does not work at all, mudguards held on with string, gear changers which do not actually move the gears since the cables have rusted solid, a bottom bracket which is bent and a loose chain wheel so the front gears change whenever they feel like it. It feels like a solid iron bedstead, and weighs accordingly. Last week I had two flat tyres and the chain broke. I don’t think it will do 30km at all – even if I could.
The prospect of bike shopping is one I both relish and fear, I’ll enjoy the haggle but I’m afraid of what I might get. I want a mid range hybrid, I can’t afford the sort of bikes the club members have got. The trouble is whilst there are bikes which LOOK like what I want many are cheap Chinese counterfeits carrying famous names. They will break on the first off-road bump or the gear changers will not work after the first three weeks. Its very hard to tell the quality just from a visual inspection, they LOOK authentic. I’ve come to realise this is a skill in Chinese manufacturing. They build quality according to the market the product is going to be sold in. So in Europe and the States you buy Chinese products which are really good. In Vietnam they suck. I may already have said we have had two halogen bedside lamps melt and the webcam I bought lasted two months, now I’m the green man from outer-space – when I can actually get a picture at all. So I need to be careful or very lucky, my budget is about a fifth of the price of a real bike.
Still the mountain bike is getting me around, like tonight we got back from the cinema when I realised I no longer had my mobile phone. I knew what had happened – slide back in the seat when watching the movie, my trouser pockets tilt and the phone slides silently out onto the seat and then onto the floor when I get up to leave. We had stopped in the Bia Hoi on the way home, but they had run out of beer so it turned into a one sided conversation as we sat and were talked at. I borrowed a phone and rang my number, holding my breath. An American voice answered. Jerry, who runs the cinema, had my phone on his desk and he’d be there for another half hour. I left the pub with no beer put my shorts on – my white legs are the nearest thing I have to dayglo clothing and cycled (sans lights) out into the moon festival madness. Pho Hue was just like a weekday rush hour except that many of the riders were wearing Halloween masks, lots of the girls were wearing illuminated little devil horns implying something or other. And lots of bikes also had kids on – all waving their new light up noise making electronic toys. I was passed by a motorbike with an enormous bag of (inflated) helium balloons on the back – I mean enormous it was the size of a small car. I decided to keep up with the motorbikes which fascinated the children and amused the boy racers two of whom passed me more than once. I recovered my phone and made the return journey down Ba Trieu in traffic which was moving like they were on a dance floor. The whole exercise took under half an hour.
Anyway it midnight and I’m going to bed. The dog is quiet and there is no siren. Instead it is the turn of the cat and my neighbours new toy, which he is playing with with great delight just a couple of feet from where I’m sitting.
posted by Marvin.. at Saturday, October 07, 2006
1 comments
