Week 4 Assignment: Freewrite

This last weekend was very memorable for me. Due to Vietnamese Independence Day, we had four days off from school. While many UC students chose to take trips out of Hanoi, I wanted to spend the holiday in the nation’s capital city. As an advocate of national liberation movements and proletarian revolutions, Independence Day in Vietnam means a lot to me. The glorious triumph of the Vietnamese people over the French colonialists is a source of joy for me. The bus on the ride downtown was absolutely packed. Jesse and I talked about politics, history, and philosophy as we made our way to the city’s central area to see the fireworks. The bus let everybody off a few blocks from Hồ Hoàn Kiếm, the mythical lake where one of the nation’s first independence fighters, Lê Lợi, supposedly gained the power to expel Ming Chinese troops from Vietnam and establish an independent state. I had never been in a more crowded place than during that two block walk to the lake. There were people on all sides of me. The pressure and human body heat was intense. After the fireworks show, which was impressive due to the explosion of firework shells a mere 100 feet off the ground, I again waded through a gridlock of people, motorbikes, and cars. At one point I turned around to see what was grabbing on to my shirt and saw a chain of high school girls using me as a rampart against the waves of human bodies. Eventually Jesse and I made it out of that mess, ate pho, drank orange juice, and went back to our university. It was an exciting and emotional night for me.

Friday I went to an arcade with Eliza, Peter, and a Hanu student named Dung. While Peter demonstrated that he was clearly best at arcade basketball, Eliza proved herself the most skilled at riding the mechanical bull. I discovered a racing game from on of my favorite animes, so the arcade was very worthwhile. Afterwards Dung drove us around and we ate dinner.


Saturday I went to the Museum of Ethnology with a few of my UC and Hanu friends. Learning about the many ethnic minorities in Vietnam was very interesting. The replicas inside the museum were very intriguing and I took many pictures but the main attraction was the replicas of dwellings outside. The most amazing one was the replica of a stilted house with a pointed roof several times higher than the building itself. Because I could not think of a single logical reason to do this, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was just an exaggeration meant for tourists. Nevertheless, it was fun to climb and drink tea inside. One of the most interesting building replicas was the Vietnamese longhouse. It reminded me of certain Native American longhouses, especially ones I remember seeing when living in Pennsylvania. The similarities got me to think about the kind of environmental and economic factors that would lead totally different societies to construct almost identical dwellings. The trip to the museum was enlightening and fun. I will definitely be back.


Sunday we went to ceramic village. I was disappointed in the tourist-oriented structure of the so-called “village”. Though attempting to make my own ceramic bowl with Dung was fun, it felt more like Disneyland than traditional Vietnam. In any case, I was happy because I purchased several items as the village’s market for decent prices.

All things considered, this last weekend was well-spent and just as fun as the previous, more stimulus-driven, weekends. I do regret not being able to see my language buddy, but she had to go back to her hometown for the weekend to see her family.