In order to obtain a profile of life in urban Viet Nam you only have to live in a hem like ours and observe life as it goes on around you. All of Vietnamese urban life is encapsulated in this small hem as it pulsates with births, deaths, marriages, family squabbles, local gossip, eating, cooking, feeding babies, taking children to school, repairing a washing machine, tuning a motorbike, tearing down an old house to build a new one, running evening classes in math, history, English, hawkers crying out and signalling their presence at all times of the the day and night. If you sit in this hem long enough I estimate that you will see it all, what ever “it” is.

This morning there was a simple wedding ceremony a few doors down from our house. It was nothing pretentious and was held in the tiniest house in the hem. I like this family, the father quite often drives us about on his motorbike, particularly when we have guests and need a few extra bikes (remember Michi when you broke his footpeg off?). So I wandered down and caught a few images and I was welcomed and invited to sit down and nobody thought that I was being intrusive, (except maybe for the professional photographers).

Click on the thumbnail for the usual pop-up slideshow.

(I will go down to the Internet cafe opposite their house later (see image 1) and watch the reaction when they realise these images are on the Internet).