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Here is a picture of Miss Ella pointing to where she was born in Bac Giang, Viet Nam. We found this map in the Museum of Ethnology in Hanoi. One of the kids in our group is from an ethnic minority so his parents wanted to visit the museum to learn more about his background, and we wanted to check it out too. It was a wonderful museum; very quiet and well planned out. There were English translations on all of the displays so we really did learn quite a bit. One of the most interesting parts of the museum was outside of the actual museum building. On the grounds they have replicated houses that each of the different minority groups live in. There are true sized models that you can walk in and get a feel for how these people live. The museum also hosts a small water puppet show which wasn’t playing when we were there, but we were able to see the pool that they perform in.
As we were walking around the grounds (without stopping because Ella was happy as long as her daddy; who was wearing her in a front carrier, didn’t stop moving,) we encountered a very friendly group of people. They were older folks, sitting around the snack shop and we were descended upon once they saw Ella and learned that she was a ‘Vietnam baby’. Well, she got the royal Vietnamese treatment, complete with clucking and clapping and cheek pinching. It was absolutely heart warming. I had heard so much about how the Vietnamese respond to babies and this was one of the strongest reactions that we had gotten. They were genuinely overjoyed to sing and play with her; men and women alike were smitten and it did our hearts good to witness her receiving so much attention. I really miss Viet Nam.
Related Links:
Views of Viet Nam
Its so funny that you describe the clucking with babies. I grew up doing this will all babies and didn’t realize it was different from Americans would do until now. Its pretty cute when the babies figure out how to make the same clucking noises and cluck back.