In Hanoi in stores and stalls selling Vietnamese books, there were a lot of familiar titles. See below for photos.
Tag: Vietnam
Vietnamese banknotes
Whenever I visit a foreign country, I try to collect one each of all the bills and coins in use; my husband also likes to have a set of his own, so I assembled one for him this time too. Nine different bills! Six polymer and three paper.
Since the coins aren’t worth much, I didn’t run across any in use. I did see some at a stall selling postcards, stamps, and other items of interest to tourists, but they were glued on to a dirty old cardboard “collector’s album” with some undoubtedly fake/replica ancient coins and some random, beat-up coins from other countries (including an American penny next to a label that said it was a nickel). No thanks.
Since the Wikipedia article on Vietnamese banknotes doesn’t let you see the images of the banknotes (you have to click a bunch of links to another site), I’ve scanned mine and posted them below.
The 200k note shows Ha Long Bay, and the 100k note shows a gate at the Temple of Literature in Hanoi, two locations I’ve now seen in person.
Embroidered flag patches
This is the current state of my collection of embroidered flag patches. (They’re all about the same size and quality now, yay!)
The ones in plastic bags are all ones I just bought in Vietnam.
These are all flags from countries I’ve visited (except that I haven’t been to Malaysia, the Philippines, or Mexico overnight, and one is the Buddhist flag).
China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, Japan, Korea
India, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Buddhism, ,
Laos, Vietnam, Singapore, Philippines, Thailand,
Cambodia, Myanmar, Myanmar (old), Malaysia, Indonesia,
UK, Spain, Portugal, France, Hungary, Germany
I also have flag patches for cities and states I’ve lived in, plus the US, plus a variety of other embroidered patches for sites, places, brands, and institutions.
I would like to have flag patches for:
- Italy (+ Vatican City)
- Honduras
- UAE (no overnight visit)
- England
- …any other countries I visit in the future!
Small little bowl from Vietnam
This bowl came from a shop called Maroon (156 Hang Bong St).
The price was VND 88,000 (about S$5.50).
They had a lot of other pieces with a similar glaze.
It’s impressive that the shop has custom-printed shopping bags.
On the other hand, nobody really proofread them…
interior design – glhtware – homeware
– Wooden furnitures, sofa, curtains
– Giftware, homeware, ceramics, silk,
Lacquers…
Six Little Princes
I’m fascinated by books that transmit knowledge and culture across language barriers, which is why I have whole shelves of familiar books in unfamiliar languages. (I’m not crazy; I’m erudite! At least that’s what I keep telling myself.)
One of the books I own in multiple languages is The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
Above are copies in Lao(atian), Khmer (the language of Cambodia), Vietnamese, Portuguese, the original French, and Italian.
I bought the Lao and Khmer copies at Monument Books in Vientiane in 2015; I just recently bought the Vietnamese one at one of the three Artbook locations in Hanoi; I bought the Portuguese one in Porto, Portugal, in 2004. I unknowingly kicked off the habit of buying Le Petit Prince in other languages when I bought the Italian one in Italy in 2002. I probably bought the English version between 1999 and 2004.
The French copy is the one I used when I was a senior in high school. The book, designed for students, includes a glossary at the back, but I added footnotes.
Do I have an English translation of Le Petit Prince? Yes, but it’s not in the photo because it’s in a box with a bunch of other books we don’t have shelves for. There is more than one such box.
UPDATE: I have seven different English translations of The Little Prince and I have made a post comparing all 10 English translations!
Vietnam (November 2016)
My husband attended the APLAS conference and the workshop that followed. I went along for fun.
See below for photos from this week-long trip (about 200 of them).
