Shopping is an experience, and one of our favorites, but it’s hardly the only way to engage with culture wherever we are. There’s performance, generally of some historically culturally relevant art forms, like the Apsara dance in Cambodia. There are galleries, often showcasing work with a modern gloss on traditional forms and techniques. And there’s plenty of random WTF.

Let’s do some of each.

Water Puppets

Like Cambodia’s shadow puppets, Vietnam’s water puppet shows have a rich, deep history. Unlike Cambodia’s shadow puppet shows, which suffered a genocide-induced time out and had to be recreated from scratch, Vietnam’s water puppet shows have been performed continuously since the 11th century, when bored farmers took to flooded rice paddies to entertain their neighbors.

Like many traditional performance arts that have survived to today, the water puppet repertory has hardened into canon. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. We saw what happened when the Cambodian shadow puppets offroaded into farce. Or tragedy. It’s a fine line.

Hà Nói’s water puppet theater is the Thang Long, which has been in continuous operation since 1969, and in its current location right on Hoàn Kiếm Lake since 1991. It’s a lovely theater and a very professional production. Front row seats were a ridiculous $8 USD each.

There’s a live band, which also provides the dialogue, and the show opened with an instrumental piece. The band was really good, but the highlight was the woman on the left who appeared to be playing a theremin.

What she was actually playing was a Vietnamese instrument called a Đàn Bầu, a one-stringed zither. The notes are created based on where she plucks the single string, and moving the buffalo horn shaft on the right bends the pitch. It looks like a theremin, because it’s hard to see the single string, making it seem like her right hand is floating in air and creating the sound. And it sounds like a theremin because of the pitch bending.

Pictures, obviously, are not up to the task.

The other pleasant surprise from the band was locating the ringing, bell-like sound, which was coming from a woman sitting right in front of me wielding… tea cups. I was so close to her I was uncomfortable taking her picture, but I scraped this, so you can get the idea.

I’ll confess to some nerves after the Cambodian Shadow Puppet Fiasco™, but there was nothing to worry about. The performances were charming.

Here’s some dragons dancing. And spitting.

Some spritely phoenixes dancing, without spitting. Dragons, am I right?

An agricultural fantasia, with plowing, planting, and the traditional slapping of the water.

And finally, a hapless fisherman.

The puppets are operated from behind the curtain on long bamboo rods, so you never see the puppeteers. Until the very end. A thoroughly enjoyable experience.

Plastic Dinoland

This was our big gallery experience. The Japan Foundation in Hà Nội staged Plastic Dinoland by Japanese artist Fuji Hiroshi. There was plenty of hoorah about the artist’s commentary on plastic waste and consumer culture, but mostly it was dinosaurs made from toys. Inherently, objectively, awesome. Not much to say. Enjoy.

Lotte Mall Aquarium

We had to go back to the hypermarché at the mall. It was hot. The mall had an aquarium. It was air conditioned. We went.

We went to the mall aquarium, and it was good. It was not the very best aquarium we’ve ever visited. But it was good. Well curated, well laid out, well maintained. But it wasn’t special, except that it was a surprisingly good aquarium in a mall, which is, I suppose, its own kind of special.

Other than a mind boggling fish feeding station, it was notable perhaps only in its obvious preference for painterly fish. Almost the entire collection looked like it had leapt off an Olde Style Asian painting, no matter what part of the world it actually came from.

So there’s nothing mind blowing or revelatory about the pictures or the experience. Except that aquariums are cool and fish are cool. Kind of like a slippery art exhibit.

No one has ever accused us of undersharing.

The main attraction: fish!

I mean, who doesn’t love they some Grooved Razorfish. But what is up with these guys?

The Hall Of Painterly Fish

Fish Feeding

Sister Ray

A Smack Of Jellyfish!

Sometimes I think the internet doesn’t need AI to hallucinate. I searched for the collective noun for jellyfish and the internet returned smack. OK. Sure. Fine. Here’s an entire smack of jellyfish, all in one tank.

What We Missed

There were also experiences we chose to skip. Train Street was one of them.

Train Street is one of Hanoi’s iconic images. If you just Google “Hanoi” and click on images, Train Street will be right there. Since we didn’t go, here’s a picture I scraped.

So what’s the big deal? It’s a really narrow street fronted with coffee shops, where you can sit inches from a train as it zooms past. People have been injured. Stupid people, so it’s OK. But still. Hà Nội is such an otherwise placid locale, you need to jack up the adrenaline by having a near-death experience.

Pass.

The other experience we chose not to experience was the Hoan Kiem Extravaganza. It’s a multimedia retelling of the story of the Golden Turtle god and the theft and return of his magic sword, Heaven’s Will. We were at the lake one night during the performance, much of which occurs on the bridge to Turtle Island and is visible from the shore.

It was an attractive concept specifically because it would clearly be cheese-stuffed, but what we saw was plenty, without feeling the need to immerse ourselves in it fully. It was a little riper than we’d expected.