African and Caribbean music in Hanoi

Naby reggae concert in Hanoi

A few years ago probably most Vietnamese people in Hanoi had no idea what reggae was and we also didn’t care if Jamaica was in America or Africa. And in fact even now a lot of Vietnamese people still don’t have a clue (not we are dumb at geography but Africa and Caribbean are just physically and “mentally” too far from Vietnam).

However, the modern trend of globalization is creating changes in the fastest manner! In Hanoi now we even have an African reggae band! How marvelous is that! Also we have to acknowledge a lot of efforts from the cultural institutes, especially the French speaking community such as L’Espace or the Wallonie-Bruxelles Delegation, for bringing many African acts to Hanoi, so that Vietnamese people can start to get used to a “new” taste of music.

Beautiful tropical beaches of Phu Quoc Island

Sao Beach in Phu Quoc island, Vietnam

Phu Quoc has been famous among travel experts as the most beautiful island in Vietnam (obviously the biggest island of the country too). Although it has been a long-time tourist attraction, the island is quite under-developed and the roads here are such disasters. Either they have not been built at all or just half-way built and no one is actually working on building them. However, the beautiful beaches compensate for it all. And actually the road trip may turn out to be a memorable adventure.

(More info about the island, accommodation and things to do at the bottom of the post)

Updates on my life in Saigon

Saigon at Night

Image source: www.citypassguide.com

Once again I’m leaving my city Hanoi to look for a new adventure elsewhere. Poland, then India, and the next challenge now comes from my own country. Yes, the destination is called Ho Chi Minh City (or Saigon), a city in the South of Vietnam, also the biggest city of the country. I remember sometime ago a Saigon friend said to me that “Hanoi seems like another country to me”, I think I can now tell him the same thing “I feel like a stranger here in my own country”.

This is not the first time I’ve been to Saigon, but the last time was already 3 years ago when I was just a visitor touring around the city. So much fancy about Saigon then! Taller buildings, wider streets, friendlier people, better services, etc. But things have changed so much since, and especially when you live here it is a lot more different and more REAL than when you are only a tourist.

HanoiTweetUp – finally faces are put to names!

Finally!

After such a long time of waiting and being jealous with the tweeters in Saigon for their brilliant SaigonTweetUp, we, Hanoi tweeters, have eventually succeeded in having our own HanoiTweetUp, which was a great chance to network and to “put faces to names” as described by @AC220.

I would like to say thanks loads to all that showed up and to all that supported by spreading the news.

It was just great to have “face to face conversations with no 160 character limitation” (described by @hegroup)

And below is the list of people who came to the meet-up (randomly arranged):

HanoiTweetUp – Meet up your TWITTER friends

HanoiTweetUp

Tue 10 May, 6.30pm
SouthGate
28 Tong Duy Tan, Hanoi 

25 earliest comers are offered 25 free draft beer from South Gate

and 10 earliest comers will win 10 tickets for two to L’Espace concerts on 12 May and 27 May!

Non-twitter users are all welcome and hopefully you would join our diversified twitter community after the HanoiTweetUp!

The English Accent

After watching the musical “My Fair Lady” last Saturday, I feel like writing something about the English accent

Yeah, English is originally the language of Britain so probably only British people are supposed to be native speakers. No offence or sarcasm(!) That was just what I referred from a very fun statement by Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady: “In America they haven’t spoken (English) for years”.

That fun quote reminds me of the time when I tried to establish my own English accent.

When I was at my 1st and 2nd year at university, I was not very satisfied with my Vietnamese English teachers, thus, I decided to “invest” in some English centers to have the chance to talk to native speakers. Thanks God (or not) I have the ability of a parrot that allows me to imitate quite correctly the accents of my teachers. And I happened to have so many American teachers, I followed their accent and felt very comfortable. During that time people could recognize the American accent very clearly when I spoke English.

But then one day..

Some fun conversations with the people I met in India

Below are some fun conversations I collected during the time in India living among people from so many cultural backgrounds. Well, just for fun, totally random!

1. In Delhi: me talking to a Japanese guy:

- Japanese guy: I don’t like food here. Too spicy.
- Vietnamese girl: Oh, really?! I’m used to spicy food now. I love chicken curry!
- Japanese guy: Oh so you need to go to Japan to eat chicken curry! Indian food in Japan is much better than here!

Travel in India, Part 1: Jaipur – the Pink City

A group with 8 people from 6 countries

Let me open this blog series about my travel in India with one affirmation: I desperately love traveling in India! Despite all the bad luck confronting me during those 3.5 months I enjoyed traveling here to the limit! (you can read about my bad luck in the previous post)

In this blog post, I’m gonna show Jaipur, capital of Rajasthan, also known as “the Pink City”. This was my first trip outside of Delhi, I went there with a group of 8 people from 6 countries. This was quite a funny fact since wherever we went to people kept asking us the same question “why are you from so many countries traveling together?”.. “Well, it all starts with AIESEC..” (loooooong explanation!)

A song about Hanoi

Hanoi with its classic beauty has always been the endless inspiration for many song writers and composers. No other place in Vietnam has ever been mentioned in such large amount of Vietnamese songs. And not only Hanoi born composers wrote about Hanoi but Southern composers also expressed their love to Hanoi with numberless lovable melodies. One song by An-Giang born writer Hoàng Hiệp had become so popular to Hanoians that many of us got the habit to call it ”Hanoi’s song” for a very long period of time..

The song was chosen to be the official rhythm of Hanoi TV Channel everyday in many years and was loved by so many Hanoians. Although we don’t listen to it often nowadays any more we always feel deeply touched whenever the melody’s played and then find ourselves mumble along the rhythm ”Wherever we go, Hanoi always stays in our heart..” And below comes the beautiful melody of “Nhớ về Hà Nội” (Memory about Hanoi) by singer Hồng Nhung.

India is a strange country..

So up to now I have been living in India for 2 and a half months. And I’ve just decided to go back to Hanoi in mid-December, which means I have only 3 more weeks left. I’m pretty sure that I will be very sad when leaving.. About 2 weeks ago, I talked to a Serbian girl, and she said “India is a strange country. Can you tell anything here that is better than your country? For me, no, nothing! And I can complain whole day about what I don’t like here, but above all, I still love to stay”. In this term of meaning then India must be the strangest country I have and will ever visit.. Too much bad luck came upon me in the last 2.5 months but I have never really wished to leave..