More on “Framing” Vietnam

When I get back to campus on the 12th of January classes will have already begun. I have arranged for a colleague to show a film to my Understanding Vietnam class and pass out the syllabus. In working out that syllabus I followed chronology and convention in dividing up Vietnamese history, but also in the [...]

Street Scene

Went out and shot a bunch of pictures the other day and have been thinking about the process of “framing” Vietnam, of putting my experiences here into various sorts of contexts and relationships, especially with my life as someone from outside the culture. This concern is particularly important because I’m about to return home and [...]

Blustery Evening

It’s a blustery evening in Hanoi. I’m sitting in a cafe near the cathedral drinking tea and watching the world go by. I’m much looser, less brittle, than on my last trip, who knows why? But I’m definitely living in calmer psychic weather, even as the leathery leaves of the trees along the street whip around and [...]

Flickr Photostream

I’ll be adding to this Flickr set over the next couple of weeks. With luck, I’ll figure out how to get some good shots with the new D90.

Hue Spring Rolls & Lotus Tea

Cathedral

I went into the cathedral here in Hanoi for the first time yesterday. I’ve photographed its exterior before, but was never drawn to go inside. It’s Gothic interior is restrained and there are large stained glass windows in the nave. Below is a picture from my first walk in the city on Christmas evening, then [...]

Cafe Nau Nong

I am well and truly here, now that I have had my first cup of cafe nau nong–literally, hot brown coffee–at a cafe beside Hoan Kiem Lake. On my first morning in Hanoi, almost fourteen years ago now, I stumbled out of my hotel and found a small cafe, where I had my first taste [...]

Bird Song and Truck Horns

Slept for twelve hours and now feel much more human. The sun is just coming up in Hanoi and I can hear birds singing in the trees below my hotel window and the first tentative truck horns of the morning. Vietnam is full of wonderful birds, big singers with wild plumage to dun little sparrow-like [...]

Hanoi

Arrived after a day and a half in transit, my back aching and my legs a little wobbly, but in good spirits. I’m staying in the same hotel as last spring and it feels as if I’ve hardly been away. On the drive in from the airport — through the Red river swamps and paddies [...]

On My Way

I’m sitting in the Syracuse airport waiting to get on the plane to JFK and thence to Anchorage, Taipei, and then Hanoi on Christmas day. It’s snowing, but they are keeping the runways clear and the flights are running on time or just a little late, so I don’t have the sense that I’m going to [...]

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