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There have growb a lot of legends around the Vietnamese New Year celebrations. Today we say good-bye for one week to the kitchen god Ông Tao or Tao Quan as he is also called, to go to heaven. After his appointment for reporting to the Jade Emperor he will return...
In 2009, a census was held in Vietnam. All more than 22 million households in the country were interviewed, among others also for education and the housing situation. The result is a thick book with nearly 900 pages of statistics, tables and figures, sorted by provinces and districts, cities and...
Actually the Ngày nhà Giáo (Teacher’s Day) on November 20, is a very nice tradition. Unfortunately, today the character of this day has changed significantly since its inception in the year 1982. Even during my own schooldays in Hanoi (1998-2001) we have only competed to see who brought our class...
When I woke up at 5 in the morning with Hang, the mother had already been to the market and prepared the breakfast. The whole village was up early, because we wanted to say goodbye to the emigrants. A few uncles arrived for breakfast for a visit, so there was...
After lunch it finally was the time, Hang’s father had found his way to the house of Bo’s grandmother to pick us up. It seemed to me like two worlds collided. Hang’s father sat there, a lanky man with working hands in his discolored shirt in the middle of this...
This visit to the Vietnamese countryside is a good example that one has to determine very little when planning travel in Vietnam as an individual. At Bô’s I had promised my favorite student hang to visit them in the summer holidays on her village, because otherwise we could not see...
There is still a topic that is very dear to me, even if I couldn’t manage to finish it in Vietnam. The most influential, the most impressive and thoughtful days of my year were the ones I spent by various lucky and unlucky coincidences in several Vietnamese villages. I was...
…schools often are nothing more than shacks without electricity or sanitation. Cathrin’s Blog: Zwischen Traditionen und Moderne