-^-for posterity-^-

wow

this is the first time i have ever really been able to learn about hanoi. every other time i have come up here i have been bogged down by work and have not been able to roam around the city with the goal of understanding culture and history. with this group things are different.

two days ago we went to the current home of uncle ho. this was the first time i had the opportunity to visit this historic site and i had been interested for quite a long time. the building is large, square and gray. you go through a number of security checkpoints and eventually end up walking down along the edge of the square where uncle ho declared independence from the french. inside the building the atmosphere is extremely serious. this is arguably the most holy site in all of vietnam. uncle ho looked peaceful and had skin of glowing yellow.

we then went to the ho chi minh museum built by the ussr. the museum takes the shape of a concrete lotus that has lost all of its natural grace. we walked through the museum and learned about uncle ho's teachings and how the ussr felt he fit into the global socialist movement.

yesterday we went on a smallish bus to a variety of craft type villages. in the north, competitive advantage has been going on for centuries. different villages will specialize in different crafts, whether it be killing pigs or making silk. we visited a pottery village, a silk village and a wood cutting village. they were all quite interesting and the art was wonderful and the group was interested and we smiled and enjoyed life and diversity.

today, in the morning, we went to a meeting to introduce different ngo's that are based in hanoi. they talked about what it was like to be working for an ngo in a foreign country and we compared everything and hopefully understood things and life and living more clearly. possibly not.

we then went to the temple of literature. this is the traditional center of educational power for vietnamese culture. this is where, for 900 years, students were admitted into doctoral programs. all of the graduates names are written on large, gray stones mounted on turtles.

we then went to the temple of vietnamese fine art. we saw paintings depicting everything from the horrors of war to the beauty of family.

to include all of those places in one post will attest to the intensity of our schedule. i would like to write more but am tired.