History in Hanoi

I had a later start today for my second day of sightseeing in Hanoi, as yesterday I had tired myself out by setting off early and walking around all day. From my hotel I walked to the Temple of Literature, once the first university of the country, named Quoc Tu Giam (Imperial Academy). The university was built in 1070 at the time of King Ly Nhan Tong and is dedicated to Confucius. Students would study here for three to seven years, with a particular focus on discussing literature. The literature studied were the Confucian authoritative readings of the Five Classics and the Four Books, the former being five ancient Chinese books edited by Confucius and the latter being four books selected by his disciples as principle teachings of Confucianism. To enrol in the university, it was necessary to pass a regional exam. Successful students would go on to take a national exam. Those who passed this were entered into the Dinh (royal) exam, which was written, marked and graded by the king himself. In the third of five courtyards within the grounds are eighty-two stone stelae slabs set upon turtle’s backs, engraved with the names and birthplaces of 1,307 graduates of eighty-two royal exams, taken between 1442 and 1779.

The first two courtyards contain gardens and in the third is a lake; there are several gates to pass through to reach the central buildings, a sign of importance in Chinese architecture. In the fourth courtyard is a sanctuary where Confucius and his four closest disciples are worshipped; in the fifth courtyard are the buildings where studying took place. Here, I listened to a performance of traditional Vietnamese music and looked around the exhibits, which included a display of the humble black robes worn by students, the decorated blue silk robes worn by directors and vice-directors of the university and photographs of visits by Ho Chi Minh to the temple in the early 1960s.

Throughout the grounds young Vietnamese people were being photographed or photographing each other. There was a party of boys in suits and girls in ao dai, the long, tight-fitting silk tunics worn over silk pantaloons that is the traditional costume of Vietnamese women. I guessed that they were a school class that had assembled for graduation photos with a professional photographer. Besides this, young couples and friends would pose under trees or beside walls and take pictures of each other with their phones or digital cameras. These weren’t tourist photos; the setting of the temple was just an attractive backdrop for their photo-shoots. I have seen this sort of thing a lot while I've been in Hanoi. Later in the day I was to visit the Museum of Ethnology and here, of all places, I kept bumping into two dressed-up women in heels who used the backdrop of model village houses for posed photographs. Very bizarre.

In the afternoon I wanted to see some of the city’s museums. In hindsight I think it is better to do museums in the morning- my concentration was waning today. Firstly I went to the military museum. I’m  not sure why I did this- I feel like I have seen so much military history in my recent museum visits in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and no matter how interesting the Vietnamese wars are, I had no interest today. I went in because I happened to be passing, but I didn’t think much of the museum as there was very little information in English; it wasn’t a scratch on the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. After a while, the defiant, nationalist tone of the museum started to wear me down and I felt sick looking at photographs of scared-looking captured enemy soldiers and the battered steel helmet that was on display with the title ‘Evidence of the failure of the French’. Upstairs was an exhibition of ‘heroic Vietnamese mothers’ with walls of unsmiling portraits of haggard old women adorned with medals because they had lost so many family members to the French and American resistance. In the grounds was a sculpture made from the wreckage of shot-down enemy planes. I hate war, I thought.

I went to the Museum of Ethnology for something lighter. After watching the water puppet performance yesterday I had been wondering how important ethnicity is in contemporary Vietnamese society, and I hoped that the museum would provide me with some insight. Of a population of 86 million (2009), there are 54 recognised ethnic groups in Vietnam. By far the largest is the Viet, making up 86% of the population; the other fifty three are smaller minority ethnic groups. The museum is mostly made up of exhibits showing the agrarian lifestyles of some of Vietnam’s ethnic groups such as the Hmong, Tho, Muong and Yao, including clothing, tools, weaponry, toys, puppets and musical instruments. Vietnamese ethnic minority groups maintain very traditional lifestyles, as I saw in Sapa last week, but in the past twenty years there have been developments in agricultural production, due to mechanisation and the influence of scientific technology, and also in education and healthcare. Market economies are developing in these traditional communities and standards of living are improving. Some families are even becoming rich. No doubt tourism is involved in this, particularly in Sapa.      

Tomorrow I will fly back Ho Chi Minh City. I’ve been away for two weeks and some of it has been quite wearing, notably climbing Mount Fansipan and feeling ill for several days afterwards! It was great to see Sapa, and I have now been to two more cities- Vientiane and Hanoi, as well as visiting some important historical and natural sites in the Cuc Phuong national park. It’s been a funny trip; I’ve stayed in youth hostels, campsites and five-star hotels along the way and have experienced both luxury and hardship. It will be good to be back to my own bed!