Monday, 3 November 2014
ExBerliner | Vietnam Issue
Showing posts with label Vietnamese. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vietnamese. Show all posts
Wednesday, 9 May 2012
The Man Who Became Jam and Other Stories
Tuesday, 1 May 2012
Coffee
Recently I visited a whole herd of cafes, and filled myself to the brim with their coffee. Here are some shots from that (rather jittery) experience. I'm still shaking.
Monday, 2 April 2012
Dubstep
They did come (to Hanoi). There was sputtering bass. They did grin. They did dance in jerks like happy marionettes.
Last month I set myself the Easter challenge of eating some things I'd really rather not eat. I don't really have that much to say about them, as their memory still drops me into a gentle, thoughtful silence. I won't be eating any of these things again.
The brain of a pig. It has a light taste, and a disappearing texture. Kind of how you'd expect the idea engine of an animal to feel in your mouth. I managed about half of the left hemisphere. Thank-you to my friend Anne-Marie for introducing me to this meal.
The brain of a pig. It has a light taste, and a disappearing texture. Kind of how you'd expect the idea engine of an animal to feel in your mouth. I managed about half of the left hemisphere. Thank-you to my friend Anne-Marie for introducing me to this meal.
Monday, 26 March 2012
Echoes
Lately I've had a couple of reasons to look through all of the photos I've taken since I've been in Vietnam, and thankfully I can see that from then until now my photography has improved massively. I used to do some strange things a few years back. Like take whole series of photos with 45 degree horizons. I thought they were cool then. Now I know they are unusable.
Maybe everyone goes through these stages. Perhaps it's just something you need to do to get out of your system. Or perhaps the things you did years ago will always seem weird in the light of the present. It's making me look more closely at what I'm doing today anyhow.
Here are some pictures from the past that I still like. Even if perhaps I wouldn't treat them the same way today, and can see several things about them I'd change, I've not touched or tweaked them to satisfy my 2012 self, but left them as they are:
Maybe everyone goes through these stages. Perhaps it's just something you need to do to get out of your system. Or perhaps the things you did years ago will always seem weird in the light of the present. It's making me look more closely at what I'm doing today anyhow.
Here are some pictures from the past that I still like. Even if perhaps I wouldn't treat them the same way today, and can see several things about them I'd change, I've not touched or tweaked them to satisfy my 2012 self, but left them as they are:
Wednesday, 8 February 2012
Enter (the Year of) the Dragon
Vovinam is a Vietnamese martial art, combining Vietnamese wrestling and various eastern martial arts techniques. Born in wartime out of necessity, it continues these days as a popular pastime. In a courtyard under dim tungsten lights I visited a group of students practising this form of combat. My flash could only mete out a few blows before retreating, bruised and out of breath. I scissor-kicked it aside, and embraced the silhouettes.
Saturday, 21 January 2012
UNICEF: Mekong Delta
In November of last year I travelled with UNICEF and a Finnish film crew to Dong Thap province, on the Mekong Delta. We visited various project sites in the region including a local clinic - set up to take care of women's and children's health - and a nutrition group.
Three more from the last page of this lunar calendar. Once again we are in The Realm of Fruit.
Just a night time couple from around the mausoleum while cleaning out my hard drives in preparation for the new year.
At the end of 2010 I had the opportunity to do a job that is still one of the most unique, strangest, and most feel-good I've ever had the fortune to be asked to do. A friend of mine put me in touch with a friend of his who was bringing his girlfriend to Vietnam to propose to her. He wanted photos taken of the proposal, secretly, to surprise her with at their wedding in 2011. He planned to pop the question on The Huc Bridge, which leads across the waters of Hoan Kiem Lake to the Ngoc Son Pagoda. I scouted the area a few days before to work out the best angles and find a good place to conceal myself.
We weren't able to meet in person beforehand so all of the planning took place by email. I seem to have mislaid the blueprints of the mission, but they looked exactly as you'd imagine; photos taken from several angles of the bridge and my hiding place, shaky arrows pointing to circles drawn in red around key points, notes such as this - "stand on this side, facing this way, NOT HERE" and "I will be inside this bush". Exciting it was. The day arrived and I think I was as nervous as the boyfriend. So many things could go wrong. I put on green clothes, drove to the lake and hid in the bush. I crouched. I waited. I got a text telling me they were on their way. I waited. I got another telling me they'd stopped for a coffee. I sweated. Tourists inside the pagoda who could see me from the back stopped and stared at me. Thinking that, envious of my view of the bridge, they might climb over the wall and crouch beside me with their cameras, I looked back at them in the most unhinged way I could manage. I got a text saying "we're on the bridge". I turned and there they were, wearing the clothes they were supposed to be. They stopped in the centre and took photos of each other. The girlfriend started to wander out of the red circle I'd drawn on the plans and towards the temple. The boyfriend skilfully and successfully shepherded her back in place. He distracted her and rummaged slowly behind him in his bag. I started taking photographs.
We weren't able to meet in person beforehand so all of the planning took place by email. I seem to have mislaid the blueprints of the mission, but they looked exactly as you'd imagine; photos taken from several angles of the bridge and my hiding place, shaky arrows pointing to circles drawn in red around key points, notes such as this - "stand on this side, facing this way, NOT HERE" and "I will be inside this bush". Exciting it was. The day arrived and I think I was as nervous as the boyfriend. So many things could go wrong. I put on green clothes, drove to the lake and hid in the bush. I crouched. I waited. I got a text telling me they were on their way. I waited. I got another telling me they'd stopped for a coffee. I sweated. Tourists inside the pagoda who could see me from the back stopped and stared at me. Thinking that, envious of my view of the bridge, they might climb over the wall and crouch beside me with their cameras, I looked back at them in the most unhinged way I could manage. I got a text saying "we're on the bridge". I turned and there they were, wearing the clothes they were supposed to be. They stopped in the centre and took photos of each other. The girlfriend started to wander out of the red circle I'd drawn on the plans and towards the temple. The boyfriend skilfully and successfully shepherded her back in place. He distracted her and rummaged slowly behind him in his bag. I started taking photographs.
As someone who can be something of a glutton, one of the many great things about working for a magazine is all the food I get to eat. Here is a selection of some of the dishes that recently met their doom twixt my jaws in the interests of illustration. Allow me to list the fallen, the lost (in no particular order): oysters, clams, high-class vegetarian offerings, blood, kimchi, spicy chicken, spring rolls, and (not) the nest of a bird. Rest In Peace O Toothsome Fuels.
Tuesday, 3 January 2012
Go Go Japan
On one of the last weekends of 2011 some Japanese bands came to town. Thanks to Dan for asking me to crawl around the stage and pit, and thanks to him, Steve and Giles from CAMA for putting on another great night of live music. Including...
Electric Eel Shock:
Electric Eel Shock:
Sunday, 18 December 2011
Some of the Rest
It was an interesting, hectic end to the year, but now is not the time to write about it. Now is the time to eat cheese with the family back in England, drink of ye wine, see friends, and rest. Here are some outtakes from the last few weeks:
Some images from meanderings around and through a rough square drawn above the ground, in pencil, onto an area of Hanoi's old quarter.
Monday, 7 November 2011
Ooooh-wwAAAH! HAHAHA!
While you are asleep in the early morning there are some people who are very, very awake - and they are laughing at nothing. Next to Hoan Kiem Lake, beneath the statue of Ly Thai To, a man named Le Anh Son is instructing a group of perhaps 200 people in the art of Laughing Yoga. First comes the warm-up, with moans, lip-smacking, bug-eyed mouth exercises in the key of 'ooh' and 'waaah', and a snaking chain of back massaging.
Sunday, 6 November 2011
The Last Blacksmith
On the corner of Lo Ren Street in Hanoi's Old Quarter is the workshop of Mr Nguyen Phuong Hung. Lo Ren, in Vietnamese, means 'blacksmith', and although many years ago this would have meant that the entire street was used for the trade, now Hung is the only one left. On a coal fire, his irons grow red hot. Once they are ready, Hung places them on an anvil and sets about them with a sledgehammer. His forearms are massive, coal-streaked hams.
Thursday, 13 October 2011
Body of Water, Toxic and Timeless
