A long-awaited reunion Hanoi - Vietnam

Wow, where should I start here? In addition to the unmistakable nature of North Vietnam, the largest caves in the world and endless rice routes, the last month was a huge mixture of adventurous events, almost constant foolishness and the task of finding out how a relationship develops with a lot of familiar and loving people.

The thought that I would see Malte (my best friend) about 17,000km from our home in the busy city of Hanoi again after 4 months came to me five minutes before I arrived at our hostel, where he was already waiting for me. like a stupid dream. But actually, the rascal was sitting in front of me, writing something in his travel diary and looking up at me with a big grin. It was exactly the longed-for reunion that I had been imagining all along. The familiarity of the hug, his voice and the way he talks and acts, just beautiful.

Eva (my best friend and ex-girlfriend after a relationship of four years) was supposed to arrive two days later, so Malte and I made a plan to explore Hanoi in the first two days so that Eva could be given a little highlight tour. Our attempt to eat a vegetarian diet was a complete failure, especially on the first day. While the language barrier in Sri Lanka, India and Nepal usually did not cause any problems due to the widespread use of English, here we encountered a much larger wall. Despite broken Vietnamese words, Google translate, and art of gestures that are second to none, in a desperate attempt to keep the meat out of our food, we only ended up with more meat than everyone else.

Malte and I talked about every topic imaginable and spent five hours with nine hot drinks in a café where the owners began to suspect that we never had any intention of paying for the many drinks and were just waiting for a good moment to leave. and chatted about our findings and (pseudo) wisdom from the last four months. Our exploration tour continued through the market streets of Hanoi, or the old quarter, which are so present in quantity that they almost completely replace supermarkets here. Especially in combination with the junk shops or Vietnamese kiosks that sell just about everything else. The markets, which largely consisted of a display area for animals, the slaughterhouse, the processing routes and the final sale, often left little room for appetizing smells and appearance. And yet the way all food was sold locally and transparently was appealing. We wondered whether this treatment of animals, although at first glance cruel, was better than that in Europe. Exactly the same thing happens there, if not much worse, or more and more concentrated. So is it perhaps a good thing to face reality, to see all the processes involved in how a chicken becomes chicken fillet, to evaluate your own handling of meat differently and to become immediately aware of this process behind each piece? Maybe. It helps to reconnect the concept of the living animal and the meat sausage and to realize that there is always real life behind it.

After a long discussion about this, we came to the conclusion that we saw people half-heartedly pulling chickens out of a cage that was far too overcrowded by their legs, without considering any pain the animal would suffer, whirling them around at will, and possibly stepping on their feet so that they wouldn't run away and then kept them headfirst in boiling water until they stopped fidgeting without even batting an eyelid, so that here again we cannot answer the question of right and wrong handling.

As well as? People here have a completely different understanding of the life of an animal. We Europeans are increasingly inclined to believe that the lives of animals are becoming more and more important. We keep them as pets for the sheer joy of their existence, have debates about whether it is ethical to kill an animal, and feel compassion for the animals in the meat industry. This type of socialism, which focuses so much on the general welfare and equality of all people, and also increasingly transfers this ethical idea to animals, simply does not exist here in Vietnam. There has never been the idea here, let alone the consensus, that animals have rights or are even equal to humans.

Ultimately, all I can say is that this concept of dealing with meat would probably have a big effect in Europe, as it comes up against the animal rights we have been taught before our eyes and triggers an internal contradiction that is prevented by the non-transparent meat industry. Here, however, the visualization of meat production does not change consumption at all. After Hong Kong and a few other East Asian countries, Vietnam is one of the countries that consume the most kg of meat per capita per year. Whether we are perhaps more progressive in our thinking because of this is perhaps a superfluous or pointless question. Ethics and morals are not objective, quite the opposite. How can I objectively talk about progressiveness when my ethical ideas are implemented better here, but the countries used for comparison use a completely different ethical basis. Of course I can say that the development of Hartz IV into citizen's money is a further development, but that doesn't mean that the neoliberals agree with me. Exactly the same with handling meat. Do we perhaps assume that our understanding of animal rights should be universal and if so, why? Why does the Vietnamese have less right to assert his ideas? We act on completely different bases and who has the right to judge which is more valuable. Is his belief wrong or bad just because I have a different one?

If you look at the history of humanity, various moral concepts and views have come and gone like trends. Why should it be any different with our understanding that self-realization is so important while equality is just as important (actually a contradictory fusion of liberalism and socialism). If you look at all the other trends, the chances that this is exactly the kind of trend that will happen are damn high, and wouldn't that perhaps also mean that the assumption that our beliefs are right is wrong, because people who previously thought about their supposedly correct and true beliefs, which then disappeared again? You can see that over the last two hundred years, humanity has become more and more socialist, more peaceful and more equal globally (even if Europe was the driving force and at the same time its greatest enemy). But whether that means we are on the right path is not possible when we talk about the constructs and ideologies created by these people. Or is it because the ideas of right and wrong are just as non-existent in nature as animal and human rights?

Far too many questions in my steaming head and the answers are so far away.

We definitely watched a puppet show, which was definitely for tourists, but was still the wildest and best Casper'le Theater I've seen so far. The stage design, the attention to detail and the staging were simply great. In the evening, after regretting booking a common room with single beds, we decided to secretly sleep in one so we could cuddle like we used to :) I'm so incredibly happy to have this kind of friendship with Malte!

I drove towards the airport at 5 a.m. to meet Eva and was really excited as I waited for her in the arrivals hall. I think Eva was the person I missed the most, I don't mean to say that I love her more than my mother, father, Malte or Lara. With the other people, I was just more used to not seeing them for a longer period of time. When I saw Eva with the self-made sign with her name on it, she came running towards me and in addition to lots of noises of ecstasy and laughter, there were also one or two tears. After a 10-minute hug, she handed me the thing, which I only realized the moment she appeared that it was actually the thing I had missed the most.

German bread...

Not just any, but a homemade sourdough bread from my brother... and a Gouda in one piece. The happiness reached Himalayan Snickers levels and I was over the moon with the taste. Thank you Michi, your bread was phenomenal!!!! So our group was reunited. We strolled through Hanoi with Eva, making nonsense and babbling, teasing and scolding each other because we couldn't show our joy and affection with love alone, and chatting our hearts out over dozens of coconut coffees.

Finally we went to a restaurant, which showed me a facet of food that I hadn't known before, let alone knew it existed. To celebrate our reunion, we went to a 3-star sushi restaurant, which was actually affordable given the Vietnamese prices. The small plate of sushi that each of us got was the best thing I have eaten so far. I could have just eaten your plain rice or the ginger, every single ingredient was so good. Still, we felt quite out of place in our functional travel clothing as we sat down next to the dress- and suit-clad wealthy adults and had to hold back our giggles.