A Blog to help all those moving to hectic Hanoi, wanting to learn about the culture in Vietnam or simply interested in the opinions of an adventurous expatriate teenager!

Friday 17 February 2012

Look up


This post will mainly be photographs so I apologize for that but hopefully you will find it interesting anyway!

Tube houses are seen everywhere and I imagine are a little inconvenient for putting in furniture. Older people are on the top floor of the house so as to be respected by the rest of the generations of family but the main reason the houses are like this is because of the tax which was placed on Vietnamese houses. The law states that you pay tax on the amount of metres of house which are on the pavement so to avoid taxes the Vietnamese decided to build their houses tall and long.

The Embassy district is where all the ambassadors live quite close to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum and here we see a lot of this ochre yellow colour and there is a large French influence. The French influence is very much seen throughout Hanoi (due to their occupation of the country before Independence was declared by Ho Chi Minh) with many shutters, intricate iron work and house numbers exactly as we see in France.

In town you will most likely be gazing at all the products sold in shops rather than stopping to look up however if you do then you'll undoubtedly spot something interesting. People generally sleep upstairs and have their business running underneath.











(all taken by me or my mother)

No comments: