The old woman in the shade of her town house courtyard does not wish to be photographed. In response to my gesticulated request her lips purse, head shakes and right hand ascends; palm pushing out in flat dismissal. I signal my respect for her decision and walk away.<\/p>\n
This is Hoi An, where I find myself for the second time in two years. Some may recall how my devil-may-care parking in 2014 led to the impounding without warning of a\u00a0hired motorbike. They may also recall my likening this remarkably picturesque town – port and capital to the Cham dynasty who\u00a0ruled these parts between the tenth and seventeenth centuries – to Totnes in Devon. That\u2019s why the lady\u00a0refused my request when her counterparts in any city outside Hanoi or Saigon, or in any rural village of the Central Highlands or far north, would not only have acceded but thrown in a dazzling smile. This lady of Hoi An, by contrast, has been snapped too often by passing farangs she\u2019ll never set eyes on again. Assuming she set eyes on them in the first place. I\u2019ve lost count of the times I\u2019ve seen fellow farangs\/gringos \u2013 in Asia, Africa and Central America \u2013 take sneak shots then scurry off. What do they do with those pictures? Have their friends round and\u00a0bore them\u00a0to death?<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve written before, with illustrations, on ethical aspects of street\/travel photography. When it comes to pix whose subject is\u00a0a clearly identifiable individual or small group – I’m not speaking here of general street or market scenes, where all is fair game unless you’re in Pyongyang – I\u2019ll sneak a\u00a0shot myself from time to time, subject to two criteria. One is\u00a0that there\u2019s a good reason for doing so: and\u00a0not having the balls to ask \u00a0<\/em>doesn’t cut it. Good reason means the moment must be seized or lost forever; a situation less common than snap-and-run photographers seem to think. My second criterion is that I won\u2019t capture someone in a way that shows them in any light I<\/strong> <\/span>wouldn\u2019t want to be seen in. I don\u2019t say there could never be exceptions to these rules: I\u2019m a street photographer for God’s sake! I have to leave room for the possibility of a\u00a0situation in waiting where I would<\/em>\u00a0 see cause to break either or both. But so far I haven\u2019t encountered it.<\/p>\n (March 19: <\/strong>a\u00a0day after writing these words it belatedly occurs to me that I have indeed broken both rules: here<\/a><\/strong>. But since I was the victim of the would-be thief, I won’t be losing sleep over that breach of etiquette.)<\/span><\/p>\n Nor is this an\u00a0entirely ethical issue. Unless they get very lucky, those snap and runners will go home with scores or hundreds of thoroughly mediocre \u201ccandid\u201d street shots. As I said in that illustrated essay, far more often you get the better picture by asking. It\u2019s not rocket science. In this cleaner situation you get to choose angle and distance, to position the subject if that\u2019s appropriate, even to use off-camera flash if you have it \u2013 and these days I make a point of having it, for reasons I’ll go into another time. Best of all, most Asians haven\u2019t lost the ability to throw to order the real deal: that magnificent, life affirmative here I am! <\/strong>of beaming humanity.<\/p>\n Hoi An not excepted. Yes, you\u2019ve more chance of being fleeced here than anywhere in Vietnam bar the Big Two, Dalat and larger Mekong towns. But though I saw more farangs in my first fifteen minutes here than in the previous fifteen days, this is also a workaday town. The market where I and thousands of other palefaces love to stroll and snap draws even\u00a0greater numbers of locals in search of the best fish, vegetables to be chosen with care – you don’t get to world beating culinary status by being sloppy about raw materials –\u00a0meats and live stock. Contrary to first impressions, Hoi An \u2013 where in 2014 I turned up at a refuge for those disabled by ordinance dormant for decades, and by Monsanto’s nice little earner, Agent Orange \u2013 is no museum.<\/p>\n (Did I say palefaces? Farang<\/em>\u00a0 is better. I\u2019ve twice seen black westerners, exceptions proving the rule. Both were men with white girlfriends. I wanted to ask about their experiences \u2013 word is, they get a cooler reception here \u2013 but couldn\u2019t figure a way in. What I can say is that one of the two, at a Danang seafood restaurant where the waiter ignored sir and made eye contact\u00a0only with madam, sat back with the world-weary insouciance of one to whom this was routine.)<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a thing. As I stepped off Yellow Bus #1 from Danang into the hustle of Hoi An bus station the other day, the xe om <\/em><\/strong>rider who grabbed my suitcase wanted 100k when I told him the name of the hotel, two klicks out of town, I\u2019d booked that morning online.<\/p>\n \u201c40 thousand!\u201d<\/p>\n I raised four fingers to underscore the point, at which he came\u00a0down in small decrements \u2013 85, 75, 60 \u2013 to a \u2018last price\u2019 of fifty, but I was having none of it. My forty was no opening bid, but exactly what I\u2019d be paying; to him or another rider. Don\u2019t ask how I arrived at 40k but once I\u2019d decided on it, that was all\u00a0I\u2019d pay. I dare say a Viet tourist would have paid twenty, and a local fifteen or even ten. Often in SE Asia the asking price turns out to be twice the \u2018fair\u2019 one but all bets are off in a place like Hoi An.<\/p>\n \u201cOK, OK, Forty thousand dong.\u201d<\/p>\n He handed me a skid lid and with some difficulty hoisted my case onto the seat behind him, leaving just enough room for my\u00a0pert derriere.<\/p>\n As we pulled into the courtyard of Han Thuyen Homestay I realised my smallest note was 500k; \u00a315 in actual but at least a ton in real\u00a0terms. (I\u2019d discussed precisely this contingency a week earlier with friends met by incredible coincidence at Lao Cai.) Though apologetic as I proffered the note I was not at all concerned when he crossed the road \u2013 on his bike of course: Viet riders only\u00a0dismount if it absolutely can\u2019t be avoided \u2013 to get change from one of the shops opposite. No matter how fierce the haggling, a price once agreed is sacrosanct. Sure enough, when he returned it was to press into my hand four hundreds, one fifty and one ten. A deal’s a deal<\/p>\n I\u2019d have stayed north had the weather held: loved Hai Phong, Nam’s third city, where I saw just one other farang in two days. That was a young Frenchwoman, with\u00a0enormous backpack, who stopped me outside the long distance bus station to ask if I knew where to get the ferry for scenic Cat Ba. I didn’t, but had a town map so\u00a0between us we got the answer. I thought it a shame she was straight in and out. In the face of stiff competition, Hai Phong’s the friendliest place I’ve yet found (see my pictures<\/strong><\/a>) in six trips. I was inordinately\u00a0chuffed though to discover that some women still travel alone. Back in the day, with the feminist thing yet to kick off, I saw lone women crossing Afghanistan and India with class and verve. They didn’t have Kate Millet and sure as hell didn’t have Facebook; just bags of attitude. I felt like hugging Mmselle but she looked like she might knee me in the go-nows if I tried.<\/p>\n Anyway … the weather didn’t hold in the north but while Vietnam occupies roughly the same area\u00a0as the UK, its long and narrow shape – straddling north-east and south-east Asia – give very distinct and predictable climates. An hour by air from Hai Phong brought me to sunny Danang. Two days later, and another hour by rickety bus, got me to Hoi An. I’ll probably use this as a base for motorbike explorations of the outer regions\u00a0over the next week or so. Then, alas, my thoughts will turn to the long flights back via Guangzhou at month’s end.<\/p>\n Meanwhile expect further posts.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The old woman in the shade of her town house courtyard does not wish to be photographed. In response to my gesticulated request her lips purse, head shakes and right hand ascends; palm pushing out in flat dismissal. 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