Starting out walking to the Jade Emperor Pagoda, the hustle and bustle of the waves of motorbikes paired with the accausting heat we hadn’t felt in a few months felt familiar to our first feelings when we arrived in China. However, there are some differences between Vietnam and Chinese scooter culture.
The most obvious is evident at first glance: helmets. Most, if not all, scooter drivers and passengers in Vietnam wear helmets, whereas it is much less common in Shenzhen. Oh, and they all typically go the same direction in the lanes, unlike in China where you have to look both ways to cross a street, no matter the direction of the typical traffic pattern. Crossing the street on foot also differs between these two scooter-filled streets. For one thing, HCMC had many scooter lanes alongside, but separate from, four-wheeled traffic lanes. This turned what would be a six-lane street crossing into 8 or 10 lanes to Frogger across. Except, moto drivers in Vietnam anticipate a pedestrian’s path and go around you, so you just have to step out into the street and start crossing to cross safely. There was an instance our first evening when we were trying to wait for a break in traffic to cross the street and a Vietnamese man came up beside us on the curb. He gave Jim the head-nod and stepped off into the sea of bikes that flooded the intersection. Just as he had motioned, we followed into the street and navigated safely to the other side. It was like the Red Sea had parted and we crossed on dry land.
We had the honor of visiting Vietnam during Tet, Lunar New Year celebration. This meant that the cities and towns were adorned with fresh flowers to welcome the new year, and people were buying and selling beautiful flora on nearly every street corner and in every park we came across. It was also amazing how people could delicately transport everything from a small bouquet to a mid-sized tree all on their motorbikes! On the day of Tet, the prices drop as the vendors try to sell the rest of their goods because at 2:00 in the afternoon, the garbage trucks go around and collect all of the unsold fresh flowers to start fresh for the new year.
Once we reached the Jade Emperor Pagoda, we found a refuge of silence. Incense wafted through the small rooms, turned corners and carried messages. Some people rubbed the figures in the pagoda and then ran their hands through their hair, some were praying, holding several sticks of incense, some rang the bells held up by seemingly ancient ropes, and some brought offerings of fruit to add to the already overflowing altars.
We followed up this Taoist temple, with Buddhist inscriptions intertwined throughout, with a stop by the Notre Dame Basilica… I know, I know, how did we get to Paris so fast?! We have seen a lot of churches in Europe and the ND in HCMC fit right into many of our experiences there: tall spires accompanied by scaffolding for renovation. The influence of French imperialism is still very evident in Vietnam, in everything from the architecture to the cuisine, and this was our first taste of it.
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