Vietnam

Vietnam, SE Asia

Months ago, we booked a flight from San Francisco to Hanoi, and it felt really weird. The Hanoi part. Linda's brother served in Vietnam in 1970, and barely returned to tell the tale. Mark watched the Vietnam War on TV and wondered whether this was "his generation's war." Fortunately, they ended the draft in 1973, a couple of years before he might have ended up with a draft number. It is a country with a lot of relatively recent history, and most of it unpleasant and frightening.

Visas alone were quite challenging, as our itinerary was to include at least 5 countries over 5 months. Linda thought her head was going to explode with all the options / limitations, etc. There might be a separate blog post on the comparison of all the countries' approaches to allowing Americans to visit.

Wanting to see SE Asia, but finding it more challenging due to all the various spoken and written languages, we decided to join a tour group for the first 2 countries, for 2+ weeks, giving us a few less variables to think about for a little while at least, but offset by a forced group experience -- which we historically don't do well with (See Michoacan post). We went with Intrepid Travel, known for tours that are a bit closer to the ground (meaning less insulated) than many.

Mark relieved to leave the mausoleum

The tour started from Hanoi, and we arrived a few days early to explore and to acclimatize a bit. We signed up for a highlights tour with a local guide, and visited a couple of major temples, the ethnic museum, a lacquerware factory, Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, and the prison -- aka the Hanoi Hilton. The mausoleum was quite weird, as they usually are, and there were long lines and lots of people. Ho Chi Minh's body had arrived back home after its annual month-long refurbishing in Russia. We filed past the body, laughing (inwardly) at the young guards flirting with the school girls and also pushing Mark a couple of times for no apparent reason (as in "keep moving"). Maybe they could read his mind. No stopping. No talking. No pictures allowed. (sorry!)

Security measures at the Hilton -- glass, barbed wire. Kind of like Mexico!

It was an equally odd experience at the Hanoi Hilton (Hoa Lo Prison), where John McCain was one of the many Americans kept (and tortured) for over 6 years. When our young guide asked "do you know why it was called the Hanoi Hilton?" (We both internally said "irony?") She told us the literal party line that it was because the prisoners were treated so well (they played badminton! which you could say is tortuous...) that it was like being at a resort. Huh. Mark is notoriously bad at not showing his thoughts on his face. But we were not upbraided nor arrested. Whew. 

This is not the guide's fault, she is monitored and required to say these things. Yes, communism is not about freedom, but control. That said the prison was previously used to torture Vietnamese dissidents by the French. The guillotine was used there as well. Up until 1954!

 

On a much happier note, we went that afternoon to see a water puppet show. It was delightful, a musical performance with stories from Vietnam's folkloric past about dragons, turtles, fish, cats, and phoenixes, [Trivia break! A large group is called an odyssey; a small group is a venture!] as well as farmers, royalty, and planting rice. (Obviously not by the royalty.) An hour of smiles for us.

We met up with the 14-person tour group after a couple of days, and we were the only Americans, which was nice. (Aussies, Brits, Belgian, Irish, Germans, Sri Lankan.) We set out the first morning for Halong Bay, a magical collection of karst islands off the northeast coast of Vietnam. 

The islands look like something from a Bond movie, and they almost were when The Man with the Golden Gun was filmed. (Vietnam backed out of allowing filming, so it was filmed in Thailand instead.)

it was actually chilly...!

We spent a day and night on a relatively small cruise boat, complete with teak cabins, and great food. The chef had great knife skills -- the "net" is made from a single carrot! And enveloped a fish for dinner.

The chef made amazing garnishes! 

After the island excursion, we boarded a 10-hour night train from Hanoi to Hue. It was an interesting experience. There was a guy with a cart selling beers for $1 each, so we bought a few to enjoy as sleeping aids.

We had a fun day of touring Hue by motorcycle, as passengers. Hue was an early capital city of Vietnam, and has a Citadel, built about 1789. Our local guide was not good, completely focused on the number of wives, concubines and children, without any story to tie it all together. Hue was attacked during the 1968 Tet Offensive, and initially US troops had orders to leave the old structure intact (~120 buildings) as historically significant. That changed with the NVA realized this and occupied the Citadel. Many buildings were subsequently destroyed.

incensed!

We had lunch at a nunnery, (none were seen,) toured an incense shop, the tomb of an emperor, another temple, and had a dragon boat ride. (How do the motorcycles keep popping up all over?)

That night we had a dinner at a family's home; she was a very good cook. It was, however, a little disconcerting to see a helmet and canteen on the wall that seemed to be from war days. 

We left Hue the next day on a bus, winding precariously through the mountains down into Da Nang and into Hoi An, a quaint and lovely old town on the coast of the Eastern Sea (aka South China Sea to most). The mountain trip was the first time we saw a Vietnamese landscape that was what we expected from watching TV in the 1970's, green and crenelated hills flanked with wispy clouds.

Lovely Hoi An

Our great guide, Jolie, showing the Japanese bridge(s)

Hoi An was generally spared from the impact of war and has several very old buildings. The town is known for custom clothing and shoes. Mark got a custom shirt, and a pair of water buffalo sandals. (Cue Bob Marley... "Buffalo Sandals...")

Mark getting measured

And we took a cooking class, Mark with Lara

We then flew on to Ho Chi Minh City, which the locals still call Saigon. The War Remnants Museum was quite sobering. It had an exhibit on how the world (and many Americans,) protested the "American War." Sigh. There was an excellent display of photojournalist work, a memorial to the many who were killed during the war.  

Not mentioned earlier was that in Hanoi, there are 9 million people, and 6 million motor scooters. That are all driven by crazy people. Saigon is even worse. While we have reasonable spidey sense about all the directions one can get whacked crossing a street in Mexico, this is a whole different league, due to sheer numbers and speed of vehicles.

We went the next morning to the Mekong Delta, on a boat trip (large and small). 

The highlight was the lunch of a fried whole elephant ear fish (!). We showed people how to dig out the fish cheek, they were impressed. Or slightly skeptical. Not sure which.

After 9 days in Vietnam, the next stop was Cambodia. To be covered in another post!

2019 November - December

Barber Shops - A Vanishing American Tradition

From Mark's Curmudgeon Corner (a new blog sub-segment)

Somewhere around 1999, between jobs, I thought about applying for a grant to write a book about barbershops. My general idea was that with the advent of Supercuts and the like, another American institution was going to go the way of the Passenger pigeon. Or very soon, the vaquita in Mexico. Hopefully not our democracy (ok, it’s a republic), though Agent Orange told a group of teenagers recently that the Constitution, Article 2 says he “can do anything I want."

Barbershops held a high place in my growing up years in Oklahoma City. One barbershop, that is - Murray’s. Located at the corner of SW 44^th & Walker, kitty-corner from my elementary school, Lafayette, and next door to the tiny store where I sold the pop bottles I collected walking to and from baseball practice in the summer. I converted my loot into MAD magazines and bottles of Grapette soda. I had to hide MAD from my confiscatorial mom who thought MAD was evil. The bottle deposit was 2 cents (and went up to 2 for 5 cents when I was about 9!), and I am sure that looking for those bottles (thanks, you litterers!) is what inculcated me with the thrift store bug.

Murray was larger than life to me as a small kid. He had I think 2 chairs. They had razor strops on the side, which he used when someone got a shave. I do not recall anyone other than Murray cutting hair. There was the requisite stand with comic books and hunting and fishing magazines (no girly stuff as far as I know – it was Oklahoma!) Above it was a small black & white TV, which I remember as always having baseball games on – clearly not that accurate since that was only several months per year. And also, in the summer, a window unit air conditioner, straining away against the Oklahoma heat.

Mark as Jimmy Johnson

Each haircut brought sartorial apprehension. I always thought I would look bad after the haircut, versus today when I am happy just to no longer look like Jimmy Johnson, with a shrubbery atop me pate. 

And then there was the itchy hair down your back. I know I regularly complained about going to the barber – not because of Murray, an adult who treated even little kids with respect, but because it was just a little short of going to the dentist. Yet I remember it fondly.

After the rescue cut from Murray

So, the weekend before our 1^st grade pictures at Lafayette, I decided I could cut my own hair. I took a pair of scissors to my crewcut and got ‘er done. My mom came home, shrieked, dug in the closet for a baseball cap, and planted it firmly on my head. Good news – I was allowed to NOT go to church that Sunday! Woo hoo! This never happened unless you had been run through with a red hot poker or had some dread disease (a cold did not count).

Barbershops were generally closed on Mondays, but my mom called Murray and he came in and basically shaved my head, the only way to rectify my handiwork. Later that day, the school photo was taken, memorializing in perpetuity my self-shearing.

Mark (and his hair!) 2nd from left with brothers Bruce & Dan flanking

Fast way forward. When I was in my senior year at Oklahoma, I decided to let my hair grow. I was working at a hippie health food bakery, and no one even noticed, except my dad. He was extremely not happy about it and stopped helping me pay for school my last year. 

Eventually the need to get a real job and use my degree meant getting a haircut again. By now my hair was down to the middle of my back, a luxuriant mane. The nice lady (I went to a salon, not a barbershop this time) kindly braided my ponytail and cut it off in one fell swoop. It lived in that state for nearly a decade, sitting on a bookshelf, until I lost it in the war (my personal euphemism for losing things in a divorce, I hope that is not offensive to people who know what real war is.) I should add that when I showed up in class post-haircut, my students (I was teaching College Algebra at OU) booed me. Sigh.

Somewhere about 1997 I went into a real barbershop in San Leandro, California, on my way to work one day. It was a classic tiny 1960s strip mall thing, next to a donut shop. I had never been in this one, though I tried most of the ones I could find in San Leandro. I chatted with the man who cut my hair, told him I was working in Hawaii selling coffee, and he started telling me stories of his time in the military in Hawaii during WW2. In particular, he had more than one tale about getting into beefs with local mokes because soldiers had money to spend and local girls liked that… and the mokes did not. He also told me he was in the shop that day because he was helping his buddy, the owner, who had family in town and was taking the day off.

When the haircut was done, the barber handed me a green plastic comb, imprinted with “Happy Birthday from Bud.” I thanked, him, though it was not my birthday. I went back a few weeks later and the owner did not know who this "Bud" was I was talking about. Cheeken skin! (that’s Hawaiian pidgin for goose flesh). I came up with a few explanations but am sticking with my favorite – an encounter with a spirit barber. I use the same “Bud” comb every day now, for good luck.

When we moved to Oakland also 1997, we had a neighbor, John Cerrone, a true curmudgeon, and funny as hell. I am guessing he is 80 by now. He often walked his dog by the house, a pug, and proved the maxim that people often look like their dogs. He grew up in Boston, he still has a very heavy Boston accent, which he uses to full effect talking about his old friends, people with names like Johnnie and Rocko, who you don’t mess with. I used to see if I could overwhelm him with homemade Bolognese, or homemade cannolis for Christmas. It was a ton of fun. What has this to do with barbers?

John "Carmen" Cerrone, inspiration for Shampoo??

John was a hair stylist in San Francisco starting in the late 1960s, his trade name was Carmen, his customers were famous. He is the person who convinced Joan Baez to cut her hair short (and then did it). He “hosted the likes of Sassoon and Paul Mitchell,” who took his ideas. He was also devastatingly handsome back in the day. He had me scan some of his pictures from then…I showed them to some of the other neighbors, who were speechless (reference walking the pug, above). He sent me a video of him giving Robert Duval a baldy way back when. Life is better than fiction if you pay attention.

So – how does all this have anything to do with our travel blog? (Cue Holy Grail: “He’s going to tell! He’s going to tell!) 

Living in Mexico on and off now for 2 years, I have had many haircuts in local shops where my not-so-great-yet Spanish makes me wonder what I will get. I have landed on a local place, Joe’s Barber Shop in Ajijic. I first saw the name on a float they were sponsoring in a desfile for Guadalupe through town. As I told son James when he and Mattie were visiting, you have not had a real haircut until you have a Mexican haircut.

Why? To start with, no one is in a hurry. They use scissors as well as clippers. They use a straight razor to trim up all the sides and such. I usually get the corte y barba, which means I get a beard trim and shave (with hot towels). Yes, here in dangerous Mexico, I expose my throat to a young Mexican man with a straight razor. I should also say, look at the young Mexican men and the care many of them take with their coifs. And after an hour, it costs 130 pesos (80 for pelo only) plus tip. Deal of the week. 

(Note: current exchange rate is 19 pesos per USD)

From Joe's facebook page...EN SERIO!!

Once again – Viva México (and barbers!)

2019 agosto

CDMX FOOD

Mexico City, CDMX, DF, Mexico

Probably to the relief of folks following this blog, this is the last of our Mexico City posts!

Did we say Mexico City is HUGE?  (see earlier posts).

And you can find ANY food, in just about any price range.

(Well, except Linda couldn’t find SPAM for sushi on New Year’s Day, but likely just because we didn’t know where to find it.)

Turkeys!

Got amazing fresh tuna here

We stayed near Mercado de San Juan, which is a famous “gourmet” market. It was pretty amazing. They had everything. suckling pigs stacked like cordwood, a deer hanging by its hind legs, every fish known to Mexico. Many edible insects. Amazing produce. Pinatas AND prosciutto!!! We made many trips back to the cured meat booth.

Got your goat!

Pigs, lots of em

 Morels the size of a fist!

Los Tacos! Mark's fav

Mark is a big tacos el pastor fan…marinated pork cooked “gyros style” with a pineapple atop the spit, deftly sliced with a wicked sharp knife into tacos at the speed of light. We probably tried it at 4 different places, Mark’s favorite being the cheapest actually! Five admittedly small tacos for 38 pesos (less than $2 USD).

 

We stopped in at Churreria El Moro, the famous churros place served with thick hot chocolate sauce…fast service, tasty, and nice tilework on the wall.

Christmas / Three Kings Rosca de Reyes cake! This tradition comes from Europe, and is similar to the New Orleans’ King Cake, but Mexico’s version is better! (sorry!) Filled with a creamy filling, light and airy cake.We could eat this year ‘round. Three Kings is also when kids get presents, presumably from Da Kings. In Ajijic, they have 3 king statues which lurk in the central plaza, and slowly creep up (with help) to the creche, arriving on January 6.

Naughty Panque de Nata...Yum!

Panque de Nata Cream sponge cake: we did a LOT of walking CDMX. And often we passed this amazing smelling bakery that usually had a line in front of it, a good sign. Wow, buttery, rich body but not too cloyingly sweet. If you timed it right, you could get a warm one as soon as it come from the oven. Heavenly.

Pujol's famous smoky take on street corn...great

moles -- joven y viejo

Pujol is one of the Top100 restaurants in the world! As most of you know, Linda is a bit food-obsessed and loves to go to creative restaurants. And this one at Mexico prices! (Take THAT, French Laundry!) Known for creative, and fusion approaches to traditional Mexican dishes, Pujol was a very good experience. The service was excellent, the décor high end, simple Danish 60’s modern. Favorite dish: baby corn that was presented in a cloud of smoke in a calabash shell. Very cool. But the Mole Madre that was about 2000 days old and the amazing tortillas were highlights, too.

Hilton Hotel bar drinks: Ok, we know. But across from our apartment was a Hilton with a lobby bar. With lots of gin. Mark misses his good martinis, so this was a treat! The instructions we gave the barkeep were for the martini to be “as dry as the Sonoran Desert,” which he thought was funny. Being a Hilton, they also had a huge Christmas tree in the lobby, which was nice to see since we were living from our suitcases.

Mark with tears in his eyes

Winston Churchill’s: a New Year’s Eve treat for Mark, Linda made a reservation at an English-themed restaurant known for prime rib and yorkshire pudding (superb). And an excellent wine list. Mark was giddy. Our waiter seemed somewhat tickled at how happy Mark was.

Truffle mountain!

What other food-related experiences were most memorable?

• The food included in the chile class (see earlier post).  

• Christmas Eve “linner” at a Roma’s Sartoria Italian restaurant…Great pasta, with tons of truffle shaved over; excellent wine and cocktails, free bubbly and an extra dessert! (Waddled home, though via a nearby traditional bakery.

• 

  A headlamp is a key cooking utensil!

  Attempting to cook holiday season meals in a kitchen the size of a small walkin closet, and outfitted very sparingly (we helped upgrade equipment a bit, and Linda travels with a chef’s roll of utensils).

We’ve seen a lot of press about Mexico City being a hot food destination. We would absolutely agree, (and we only really scratched the surface,) and it doesn’t cost anything near Napa Valley prices!

2018 diciembre / 2019 enero

The Muralistas of Mexico ... and New Hampshire

Mexico and Hanover, New Hampshire

Dartmouth Orozco

While we were at grad school in New England, we discovered there was a well-known, and controversial (at least back when they were made) set of 24 mural panels in Baker Library, created by a Mexican artist named Jose Clemente Orozco (1932-34). They cover a history of Mesoamerica, from the Aztecs to the then-modern industrial society of the 1930s. Even with no training or background in this art, we found them striking – they tell a story you can start to follow, without knowing all the players or facts. Even better that they upset certain folks of the Dartmouth Establishment back when they were created.

We don't have a favorite! (Guadalajara)

We had a brief introduction to Mexican muralists during a tour of Guadalajara, but Mexico City is knee deep in murals from some of, if not THE greatest muralistas ever – Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros, Juan O’Gorman, Jose Orozco, and Dr. Atl. So we made it a part of our 3-week sojourn in DF to find many of these public works of art, and to try to learn more about the stories they tell, and the people who created them. 


One thing to consider is that muralistas were also moralistas of a sort. They had a story to tell, based on facts but like any history also imbued with their take on what it all meant.

Diego's version of Posada's Catrina

Mural painting in Mexico started in the 1920s, after the Mexican Revolution, generally with social and political messages. It was supported by the Mexican government as a way to unify the country in post-Revolution times. Even before the Revolution, Jose Guadalupe Posada created the now-famous image of Catrina, which graces much of Dia de Muertos art. Posada was making fun of the European influence on Mexican elites at the turn of the 20th century.

The first modern muralista was Dr. Atl, born Gerardo Murillo Cornado in 1875. Atl, the Nahuatl word for water, believed that Mexican art should reflect Mexican life and values. He convinced President Porfirio Diaz that too many Mexican artists were trained in a classical way which simply mimicked European culture. By putting art large in public spaces on walls of buildings, Mexican artists could be liberated from this approach, while teaching and inspiring the people of Mexico.

Dr. Atl, photo by Tomas Montero Torres

Orozco was from Jalisco

Dr. Atl also did a series of famous paintings (which we were lucky enough to stumble cross in a museum in Morelia) of the 1943 eruption of Paricutin, which literally grew from the earth. He was injured while observing the eruption and his leg was amputated. He was the teacher of another muralista, the aforementioned Orozco, who ironically lost his left hand at age 21 building fireworks. Atl also wrote a short story called La Perla, which inspired a story of similar title from John Steinbeck later, a book which Orozco illustrated. 

Man on Fire

Orozco’s best-known work is a set of 57 murals in the Hospicio Cabanas in Guadalajara. We had a very good tour there, and literally got sore from craning our necks to look at all the works on the ceiling.

Diego's dream of a Sunday afternoon in the Alameda central park

Diego Rivera is probably the best known of the painters. His best known work to us is Sueno de una Tarde Dominical en la Alameda Central. It was originally in a hotel near its present location at the Museo Mural Diego Rivera in Mexico City. The 1985 earthquake destroyed the hotel but miraculously the mural was mostly unscathed, and moved to the Museo. We spent a long time at the “key” to who all the people are in the painting, and if you took the time to place them all, you would have a great start in learning the history of Mexico!

Diego in Palacio Nacional. Amazing.

Rivera was, of course, married (twice!) to Frida Kahlo, and lived for a time in a compound, designed by O’Gorman (another muralista) with Frida and O’Gorman (in 3 separate houses). He has other huge and detailed murals in many places, our favorite aside from Suerte was at the Palacio Nacional on the Zocalo. There is also a huge collection of Rivera murals at the Secretario de Educacion. They are all worth the effort to find them.

Oh boy! O'Gorman!

Juan O’Gorman’s murals in the Chapultepec Castle are vivid, detailed and striking. This is the place from which the Ninos Heroes leapt to their death during the American invasion in 1847. Perhaps his most famous work is the Central Library at Ciudad Universitaria at UNAM. His mosaics cover the 4,000 square meters of the four faces of the building and are made of stones from all corners of Mexico, which O’Gorman traveled extensively to find the colors he wanted. In case you are wondering, his father was Irish (and a painter) and his mother Mexican. It covers pre-Hispanic history all the way to the present, and to see the scale and detail in person is nothing short of jaw-dropping. 

Siqueiros' Torture of Cuauhtémoc (by Cortez of course)

David Siqueiros – He has a definite dramatic style. Interestingly, he fought in Spain against Franco in 1938, and in 1940 he attempted to assist Stalin by assassinating Leon Trotsky, who had been granted asylum in Mexico. Trotsky was a friend of Diego and Frida (and apparently a very good friend of Frida for a while).

Keggy the Keg

So back to Hanover, NH. After the Orozco murals were completed, there was a hue and cry from Dartmouth alumni (the College was all male until 1974) about the controversial nature of the Orozco’s content. It was perceived as critical of institutes of higher learning, and Western civilization.

The "better?" replacement...Hovey 

An alumnus who worked as an illustrator proposed a set of murals, more “Dartmouth in character”, based on an old Dartmouth song, written by Richard Hovey – titled Eleazar Wheelock (founder of Dartmouth in 1769). Among other things, “Eleazar went into the wilderness to teach the Indian…with 500 gallons of New England rum.” The murals, sort of Maxfield Parrish in style, were approved and painted in the faculty dining hall. They are quite interesting, and also basically portray the Indians in ways less than flattering. Dartmouth was known as the Indians until the mid-1970’s when it was replaced officially by the color green, and unofficially by Keggy the Keg. Nowadays, the Hovey Murals are kept on the wall but under wraps except for occasional viewings by the public.

Yes, that's FDR...Pointed commentary, eh? (Orozco)

Why are murals so striking?  Such oversized public pieces of “enduring" art tell a story, even to the illiterate, and make a statement, often controversial, that reflects the times and thinking at that time, while also evoking universal themes: justice, injustice, hopes and dreams. While taking our breath away at the sheer scale of the statement.

2018 diciembre y 2019 enero