Word: hanoi
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Vietnamese artist Nguyen Trong Niet, an 85-year-old painter who has lived most of his life in a rundown flat in Hanoi's Old Quarter, proudly says he painted Muong Kuong Market years ago in his living room, which is also his bedroom and kitchen. The vibrant lacquer brushwork of the piece exquisitely captures the bustle of market day in a Vietnamese village. The Vietnam Museum of Fine Arts, the country's national art museum, thought so too. Officials there snapped up the painting for their collection, and for the past 40 years, Niet's work has been hanging...
...could hear the howls from three blocks away. But I still gasped as I walked into the sprawling Dong Xuan live-animal market in Hanoi, Vietnam. Dogs, many with open wounds, cowed in the corners of tiny wire cages stacked five high, as restaurateurs and butchers haggled over slaughter prices. Monkeys, chickens, and lizards huddled in cages scarcely larger than their bodies. In one cage, two young rabbits silently shook in fear as a python was placed in alongside them...
...real opposition appears to have less to do with the environment and more to do with Vietnam's fear of its neighbor on the country's northern border. Nationalist groups accuse Hanoi of caving in to pressure from commodities-hungry China by allowing the mining project to go forward. Bloggers are whipping up fears that the influx of Chinese workers is part of Beijing's long-term strategy to occupy their country. Banned pro-democracy groups, which are happy for any opportunity to criticize the authoritarian government, call the mining venture an "ill-begotten scheme." Earlier this month, a dissident...
...Hanoi government says it is listening to concerns but it appears to be unmoved. Dung recently declared bauxite mining a "major policy of the party and the state." Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai reaffirmed the government's support, and several local provincial officials were on hand at a recent mining conference to defend the project, arguing that despite the presence of the Chinese workers, development will benefit the impoverished ethnic minorities who live in the region...
...Hanoi has been calling for increased investment, and is even more desperate for external cash infusions now that its economy has flatlined. Vietnam has also racked up a massive trade deficit with China. As more Chinese companies venture across the border and sink millions into new investment projects, Hanoi can't dictate all the terms. Nor can they just close the spigot. "The Vietnamese have to be careful of what they wish for," says Thayer...