What does Yellow mean?

Today I continued to notice that the color yellow has both secular and spiritual connotations. One of the ways that you know where a pagoda or temple is located is that the walls and the gate are painted a yellow color. The trim is usually red; particularly any inscriptions which are in character scripts. Many government building are painted this same hue of yellow although the trim is usually a green or blue. The flag is a red field with a yellow star and the river that Hanoi is on is the Red River. I have been here long enough to know that this can not be some random coincidence but has a meaning; just not yet revealed. If you review some of the photos on line you can check out the color scheme for yourself.

Today continues the important day for ancestors. I thought there was an accident on the way to work; but then it looked like a parade and then I thought it might be a funeral. The taxi driver told me it had to do with honoring the ancestors but with my limited Vietnamese and his limited English he was pretty pleased I had grasped that. Bac Sy Yen had made for us, Cuong and me, a special sweet. It was small balls of dough made from sticky rice with some sugar cane inside and syrup on the outside. It thought it was pretty good but I really can not think of anything that it would be like to help you understand what it tasted like. Cuong said that traditionally that this would be a day when fires are allowed to go out , so food would be prepared beforehand and eaten cold, but that this was not so common nowadays.

I was early and went down to see if I could help and was sent off to see Mr. F. I was halfway there when I realized I did not have a translator and would just have to do with my broken Vietnamese. I was making some progress but I think that about the same time they realized that they had sent me off alone and Huong came to help. This was good since I was trying to figure out how his stomach was doing and trying out my new words that I had not vetted with my teachers yet. Apparently I had a kind of slangy word from the dictionary; once again not very professional but all in all it worked out and he is feeling better.

I have some more writing to do tonight and some slides to produce. This is our half day for me at the hospital since they fellows are supposed to read and work on their projects during this time. I spent some of the afternoon visiting the Temple of Literature which is the over 1000 year old cultural treasure that was the equivalent of the national university. It still is a nice place to read, think and work.

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