Phil: Sunday in Hanoi

One of the activities that has become a regular part of Gail's life here in Hanoi is tai chi. My wife who has always tended to sleep-in mornings is now going to tai chi at 5:30! Of course she says she is usually in bed by 9 most nights too.

This morning I joined her for tai chi. I've done a little qi gong on retreats and tried tai chi once or twice but basically know none of the moves. So it was an interesting experience participating today. Experienced practitioners are placed on the four corners of the group so that we neophytes have someone to watch no matter which way we turn. One problem, I found, is that if I followed one person's moves and then turned and had to follow another, the second person was doing it just a little differently which would throw me off. Of course, the bigger difficulty is that there is just too much to imitate at one time: complex foot and leg movements combined with complex hand and arm movements. I finally settled on just following the lower body and even that was a challenge.

After the tai chi, group members massage each other's backs. But actually it is more like being pummeled down one side of the back and then down the other. It seemed to be a bit much for me, as I've had very tight back muscles and lower back pain since then. Tomorrow I think I'll try tai chi without the massage.

We listened to the MU- OSU football game live over internet radio this morning. It's just amazing that we could hear the game half way around the world.

After the game, we walked to an ethnology museum, which has displays about the different ethnic groups in Vietnam. There's also an interesting restaurant at the museum. It is part of a social service network that trains "young people from dysfunctional families" to work in food service. We had a "traditional Hanoi beef pho" (see my previous entry explaining pho), fried spring rolls and barbecued pork, and deep fried shrimp and sweet potato pancakes. It was all excellent!

One of the more interesting sights, though, was on the streets. Men had set up barber chairs and were giving shaves and haircuts right on the sidewalk.




The streets are filled with proof that capitalism is alive and well in Vietnam, even if the government is still socialist. Besides the barbers, we saw small 2-3 person factories for steel fabrication and charcoal making. There was a shop selling used cathode-ray computer monitors. (Did you even wonder what happened to your old monitor?) And, of course, there were a variety of coffee shops, restaurants, beer halls and food markets and internet cafes. I wonder what Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Ho Chi Minh would think of it?