I woke up without an alarm at 5:45am and was out on the streets by 6. Hanoi is a different kind of busy early in the morning; there are markets that only exist that time of day, business men and women sitting on tiny chairs eating cháo, but easily the most entertaining spectacle are the […]
Think Again Before Drinking a Cà Phê Sữa Đá
When I fist started writing this post, I wanted to talk about coffee farming in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. There certainly is no lack of interesting things to say about it and no doubt I could pull a couple of graphs from our class readings to help illustrate my point, but then I realized […]
Why Is Grandma Rice Smiling?
During our brief visit to the Mekong Delta, our class visited a woman who makes rice paper. I would say it’s more like a lifestyle than a career; she has been doing this work for seventy years, since she was a fourteen year old girl. She was just about the most friendly looking old lady […]
A Child’s Playground Amidst Crowded Aisles and Smelly Fish
Without knowing what to expect, I wandered into the market feeling venerable with only a few guiding questions: What roles do children play in the marketplace? Are they helping their parents with small and simple tasks, are they there simply because that’s where their parents are and they don’t do anything in particular, or are […]
Letting the World In
One of the annoyances I’ve experienced as an aspiring anthropologist are feelings of regret that cultures are changing at such an alarming rate and clambering to embrace western ideals and practices. I feel selfish for not wanting systems that have existed in other countries for perhaps thousands of years to disappear for the sake of […]