Let it be known that Allen is THE best finder of adventures in Hanoi! We haven't yet had the opportunity to venture far outside of the city of Hanoi, but he searches and investigates and discovers places that most tourists don't seem to frequent.
His latest offering was to the Lim Festival in Bac Ninh, about 20 km (about 13 miles) across the river and north of Hanoi. The travel websites do say that "thousands of visitors go on a pilgrimage to this festival", but they must be Vietnamese visitors, because Allen and I seemed to be the only people with white skin there. We may have spotted one other person but from the reaction of the people, you'd think we were the only ones. More about that later; I'm getting ahead of myself.
The schedule (what little schedule he could find) said that the festivities began early, so Allen wanted to leave by a little past 7 am on Monday. Having not slept well for 2 nights, I felt that sleeping in may have been more beneficial, as the 6 am alarm blasted me awake. The young missionaries were also invited to come with us, but wisely (I thought) decided they needed a day of rest. I was a teensy bit jealous.
I mechanically performed all the necessary actions to get ready to go and tried to doze for the 40-minute ride in the car, but as we approached the area, I began to realize that we were in for a treat! There was a huge crowd gathering, a lot of music was playing, and we soon began to see COLOR everywhere!! The website I read from said "being a special cultural activity in the North...the Festival has become a part of the national culture and a typical folk song festival that is well-loved..." The costumes that we saw seemed to be the ethnic costumes of Vietnam, or at least of the country people who were there to sing and perform, but they may also have been the different costumes of the different singing groups who were there. In any case, they were beautiful!!
As the only 2 white people we could see in the entire area, we were in great demand in many people's pictures! I was grabbed a couple of times and pushed to where I would do the most good for their photo, and once I had two women cooing and stroking my hair; they seemed surprised that it was so soft and silver/blond/white, I guess. We both had some fun with our celebrity, and we sincerely hope that at some point, when they are displaying or showing their pictures, someone will notice the missionary badges and wonder what they are!!
One of the main features of the Lim Festival is the Quan Ho singing, for which it is famous. From the website: "Quan Ho singing (is) a special folk song... stretching back over 500 years and recently recognized by UNESCO as part of humanity's intangible heritage, Quan Ho is a living historical record of the daily life of Vietnamese people. The beautiful lyrics are of profound meanings..."
The singing was done in a very large quadrant of the hill with a pavilion in each of the 4 corners. Singing was being performed in each of these pavilions--not very far from each other--all at the same time; one type of the singing is called call-and-response singing, where the men would sing to the women and then the women would reply in song. To us it seemed that all the groups who were singing were just performing to the best of their ability, and since we don't speak the language, we don't know if there were questions/replies or what special meanings the songs had. We can say that it was very loud to stand in that area and very exciting to see all the performers and costumes and feel their joy in being there.
This festival took place at the Lim Pagoda on Lim Hill, so there was incense and offerings going on throughout the day as well as the singing.
Along with all the singing, there were booths set up to display beautiful craftsmanship in woodworking and calligraphy.
And outside of the pagoda grounds, around the small lake nearby, was a carnival-type area: rides, games, booths with all kinds of merchandise, etc.
A bamboo framework made an awesome swing! We would have done it, but the line was too long.
Shrimp buns? Shrimp cookies??
Turtles to buy...
Here you can watch them crush sugar cane to fix you a drink while you wait!
I discovered one of my new favorite treats: it's like spun marshmallows dipped in coconut and peanuts and then mushed between 2 sugar-waffles, served on the 2 sticks it was wrapped around!
This is the entrance to the Lim Pagoda, which means it's also the exit. Believe it or not, I have shown GREAT restraint by not putting more pictures in this blog! This was an amazing experience, and I will treasure all the pictures we took...even if it was hundreds. :)
Our Tuesday night was another Game Night, which is turning into a very fun event! We had a LOT of people come this week, mostly young adult age, and mostly much better at ping pong than me or Allen.
Thursday night we had English activity from 7-8, and that always goes long afterwards while we visit with the people who want to practice a little longer.
Friday night we had our Home Evening night and got to know each other by playing Two Truths and a Lie. And then we talked about the importance of looking for the right things in a prospective companion/spouse. After all, it WAS Valentine's Day! It was a fun evening.
Saturday was busy with me baking (banana muffins for today's potluck after church, and chocolate chip cookies because we NEED a freezer full of them!), and then music at 3 and English at 4.
We ditched English early so we could meet with 3 of the 6 senior couples in our mission. When we arrived in September, we were only the 2nd senior couple in the mission, and the first up in Hanoi. Now we have 2 more couples in Hanoi (not counting another senior couple who are the humanitarian aid missionaries) and another couple in Saigon. These humanitarian aid missionaries cannot interact with the regular missionaries, as they are not here for any religious purposes. The newest couple assigned to Saigon was up for a few days, so we took advantage of the opportunity to all go out together, which was the first time the other 2 couples had met our Saigon couple. It was a fun evening.
And we will end with an interesting event that we stumbled into today! As we rode home from church, we noticed quite a few people in costume as we neared our apartment. We went for a walk and discovered that a Cosplay event was taking place at the nearby mall! Imagine Asian Anime come to life! Our kids may know who some of these characters are, but we have no idea!
We will end with a sad tale of the Hanoi air. We have been designated as having the worst air in the world at some point in the last couple of weeks, and we can certainly tell that it's bad.
Yes, it's a cloudy day, but this is pollution that keeps us from seeing more than a mile or so from our balcony. This is one of the hardships of living here and is due in part to the millions of cars and scooters, agricultural burning on the outskirts of Hanoi, and also in part to the burning of offerings like fake money to ancestors that happens during Tet. We just hope that the rain forecast in the next week will help wash the air so we can breathe more freely!
Here's hoping that you're all breathing clean air, especially if you live in southern California!
Our love to you all!
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