Christmas and New Year's aren't really celebrated in Vietnam. Though that's not really true. On Christmas Eve, we had a great night with colleagues and students doing “Vietnamese” stuff: a lot of drinking, cheering and eating dog. That's right, I ate a dog. Morally repulsive but by that stage my taste buds weren't objecting and didn't get tickled negatively.
The big festivities happen around Tết-holidays. For the non-Asians here, Tết is the Vietnamese equivalent of Chinese (Lunar) New Year and, depending on the lunar calendar, falls in the end of January or early February. This year it will happen on the 13th February, when I'll hopefully be in Hong Kong.
The month of December has been quite uneventful. Working took a great deal of my time. Watching the Vietnamese football team lose against Singapore in the SEA-games (Olympic Games for South-East Asia) and a couple of hours later finding all the Vietnamese celebrating their second place position by racing down the street and waving flags was quite amusing.
I grudgingly had to accept three little kittens into our house and found them violating my room, computer and bed on more than one occasion. I threatened my flatmates multiple times that I would eat one of them. But hearts and minds – and I these damn felines won over mine.
After working for almost six months I can honestly say that I enjoyed my time here – with some ups and downs. Almost everybody that I meet that lives and works in the capital of Vietnam has the same experience: the good days are great and plentiful, but the bad times suck monkey balls. Traffic starts annoying you or maybe the people. Rolling blackouts, corrupt cops or the government blocking websites (such as Facebook!). It could be the language barrier, the culture or the smog and pollution, the irresponsible behavior of some or just simple boredom.
Living in Hanoi is easy, until you want to get stuff done. Sometimes I started doubting myself: I lived in South Africa before, I have been to some difficult countries and area's of the world, why do I have troubles in Vietnam? It's safe, plenty of stuff to do, other Western people to meet and mingle with. Not all is what it seems to be.
The American magazine Business Week published a list of “Hardship Posts” in 2009: places in the world where living is difficult because of climate, crime, pollution or other things. Apart from the usual suspects (Lagos, Nigera; Jakarta, Nairobi, Mumbai) surprisingly Hanoi and Saigon also make the list ranked 11th and 9th respectively. Read the article.
So it's not all in my head. But then you have the days that the sun is shining, the people are smiling and traffic just eases along. There is so much to be found in this city, so much history. Little temples, parks or lakes tucked away behind huge hotels and apartment buildings, alleyways that lead to cozy and beautiful courtyards, crooked houses and broad tree-lined boulevards. Many times it felt I was discovering new things everyday. Like somebody once told me: this city is all about the details.
I'm going to miss Hanoi and Vietnam, I'm going to miss the friends that I made here, both tourists, expats, students and colleagues But it feels good leaving when the feeling is still good.
Thanks for the great times and a big hug to everybody!
