Southeast Asian Solipsism

This morning I ran to the beach, and it was hot, hot, hot.  I stupidly forgot water and had to walk some on the way back; however, I felt happy I'd done it despite rush hour traffic.  After breakfast I had a MASSAGE that was perfect because it took out all the cricks that I'd gotten from running!  While the others were fiddling around, I went looking for a book store and saw this fish atop a structure at the edge of the river - garish, hideous thing, it made me wonder about Hoi An's being a World Heritage Site...

Here is a woman who was wheeling in her fishing nets.  Seems the women are hard at work all day long, fishing, rowing, growing and selling, but whenever I see the men, they are generally sitting in the cafes, drinking coffee or beer!  

At midday I went out to photograph while the others slept or stayed in the air conditioning.  I love the rusty, almost Italianate texture of this building, but of course, as one colleague warned me, photographs are terrible at midday...

This was a little cafe, neatly set up with bread on the tables, a blue tarp over the top for shade, and nobody there!

I'm sure you know by now how passionate I am about graffiti, and here it is, to my delight but probably to the utter dismay of UNESCO.

We went into this temple, established for/by the Fukian Chinese.

This is a depiction of the woman with the lantern who led the Chinese over the rough seas to their home in Vietnam.

This is at the center of the temple  where they Chinese worshipped Tian Hoa, the lady in the center, and beneath her is the sculpture of her brought from China.  She is helped by two spirits who helped her see and hear.

Here is the Chinese Tien Hoa close up.  Fascinating, eh?

This is the seeing spirit; please note the bulging eyeballs.

Here is the hearing spirit; again, note the bulging eyeballs and the covered ears.  Go figure!

These mothers (all holding babies) represent each of the twelve things that babies learn in their first year; there are guess how many.  TWELVE.  Don't ask me what the 12 things are that babies learn, but they DO need to sit up, crawl, eat, throw spoons, throw tantrums and, my roommate reminds me, throw up.  There you have at least 6; I am certain that those of you who consider yourselves specialists in parenting (I'm thinking about you, my dear Lisa, parenting specialist extraordinaire), can fill in the rest.

Here's the peculiar thing.  When we left, I noticed this statue of Guan Yin, the goddess of mercy, just in case, I suppose...

The ceramics museum had loads of broken bowls and didn't really resonate with me; however, it did have the center of the building open to the elements, as was the custom.  Also, I might add, it is the custom in Penang, Malaysia.

This is a roof line made by the Dutch who were here in the 16th and 17th century.

We have been in the old town of Hoi An where the Japanese lived, and this part was separated by what is called the Japanese Bridge which has a temple inside it.  On the other side of the bridge were the Chinese who moved right on over to the Japanese side, rebuilding things to suit their taste as soon as the Japanese left   in the 1630s because the Japan was closed off to trade at that point.

Here is the side of the bridge and some strange man's head.  

Here is a sign that was the OLD name of Hoi An, and it came from the Chinese who came in 17th century, asking, "Is this place the city?"  And so, Fai Fo comes from that question, but if I were you, I'd check that out with a Chinese speaker.

This is a puffy cloud whether you like it or not, and you don't even have to ask someone who speaks Chinese to confirm this!

I couldn't resist the bike leaning against the wall.

Several of us bought these skinny ice creams on the very pointy stick.  When you get down to the middle of the ice cream, the pointy stick is jabbing against your tonsils - not a very pretty design OR sight, for that matter.

How about this bicycle with a plant in its basket, packages on the back and graffiti above it?

As we walked over the bridge to the new city, there were photographers taking photos of this little couple just married.  Think it'll last?

These two circles are a depiction of eyes in the shape of octagons or flowers with the symbol of yin yang in the center.  They are a trait of Hoi An, and they stem from a legend about a peach tree at the foot of a mountain in China where 2 gods got rid of even spirits by tying them up with bamboo and letting tigers eat them.  The Chinese emperor ordered people to put these symbols on their houses to ward off evil, all according to our "expert" from Da Nang who spoke to us today and was paid FAR too much money for the rather superficial information he gave us!The new town is all lit up like a Christmas tree, as is the bridge over to it.  It really is a spectacle.

Lanterns for sale, lanterns for sale - reminds me of that wonderful book Caps for Sale.  These are all over the new town, and the round ones are Chinese while the oblong ones are Japanese, again, according to the expert whose name was Dung, pronounced ZOOM.  Now, who doesn't trust a man with a name like "Zoom"?

Just so we know that all is well with the world, this photograph shows that even the Vietnamese spend their evenings doing what comes naturally - watching the boob tube.  What IS happening to the minds of human beings?  I also saw many young travelers walking along the streets holding up their iPads as cameras, viewing the passing scenes through the screen that functions as a "lens" for that camera.  This is troubling to me.  We now have a screen between us at ALL times, and nobody really communicates or converses much anymore.