Moldy March has arrived already in Hanoi & it’s still January. Here is a room-by-room guide to combating mold.

General:

If you want a mold-free home, you’ve got to keep humidity below 60% inside your house. In addition to this, most molds cannot grow in temperatures under 21 degrees Celsius. Your two most important tools to combat mold are therefore the air con and the dehumidifier. If you don;t have either, keep the air circulating with fans, as mold grows when the air is still.

Dressingroom/Closet:

Keep your wardrobe doors open while you’re at work to encourage ventilation.

Don’t hang too many clothes up in one wardrobe as this will encourage mold will grow. Space your clothes out along each rack

Stuff dry newspaper inside your leather boots and shoes and store them in the driest room of the house

Direct sunlight kills mold and mold and mold spores. On sunny days, take your clothes and shoes outside and air them out

If you don’t have a wardrobe heater, place a lamp inside your wardrobe and turn it on for a few hours to dry your clothes out

Bathroom:

Wipe down the walls and floor of your shower after every use.

Keep the bathroom windows open while you shower to allow steam to escape and to prevent condensation

Laundry:

Avoid hand-washing as clothes take so much longer to dry when you wash using this method. Ideally, you want to wash and dry your clothes as fast as possible during periods of high humidity

Don’t ever hang wet clothes inside as this will exacerbate your mold problem

If you absolutely must hang your clothes inside, choose a room with excellent ventilation and keep a fan running and window open. Ensure the room is closed off from the rest of your house.

Put your clothes through an extra spin cycle in the washing machine to remove as much excess water as possible

Kitchen:

Wipe down all surfaces with eucalyptus oil. It smells great and it fights mold

Check under your sink for any leaks, and fix them immediately, no matter how small they are

Use the exhaust fan every time you cook to prevent condensation from forming on your kitchen walls

Leave cupboard doors open to encourage ventilation

Check and clean the drip-tray under your fridge

Loungeroom:

Move all furniture a few centimetres back from the walls

Leave the curtains open to allow sunlight in. Mold prefers darkness

Clean your aircon filters 

Vacuum rugs and carpets regularly, as dust particles host mold

Not sure what to buy your Vietnamese friends for Tet? A wallet or purse is a winning idea. It is believed that a new wallet is likely to attract money to the owner in the coming year. There’s one catch, though. In order for the wallet to be lucky, the giver must put one red-coloured banknote inside. This would be a 50,000vnd note in local currency, but any currency is fine, as long as it’s red in colour.

Anything red, yellow or gold is also suitable for a Tet gift, including foods and flowers. Think red wine, red roses, chocolates wrapped in gold foil, red dragonfruit…..red or yellow scarves…..you simply cannot go wrong with these colours at Tet.

We’re moving into Year of the Rat (in Vietnamese, there’s only one word for mouse and rat, so you can take con chuột to mean either) so anything bearing a picture of a mouse or shaped like a mouse could be an ideal gift. Even Mickey Mouse merchandise is ok.

Knives and clocks are no-no’s as gifts. Avoid anything black. Gift wrapping is optional – it’s more of a Western thing. If you’re not sure what to buy, be conservative. Tea, coffee, alcohol and chocolate are always well-received Tet gifts.

Wondering what to Christmas gifts to  buy for your VN friends? Before you hit the shops, it’s good to know what’s on the taboo list. We discovered some gifts (apart from the commonly known ones like scissors, clocks and knives) that you really shouldn’t buy Vietnamese people:

Chrysanthemums: these are only bought to put on the altar  and should never be given as gifts

White flowers of any description (white flowers are reserved for the funerals of people who die before they are married)

4 of anything ie 4 coasters, 4 cups etc. Instead buy a set in these numbers: 3, 5 or 10

Anything black – it’s the colour of death

Fruit hampers are a great idea, but never include bananas – not sure why. Anyone who knows, please write in and inform us!

In case you haven’t noticed, it’s wedding season in Hanoi and one of the busiest streets at the moment is Hang Than – aka Wedding Street. We spotted these amazing fruit sculptures last week and of course had to find out what they’re for. The bird-like sculpture is actually a phoenix, and the scary-looking one is a dragon. Before a wedding takes place, the groom’s family takes these 2 gifts to the bride’s parents’ house and they formally ask to the woman’s hand in marriage and settle of a wedding date. This practise is merely a formality these days, for both families would have already consulted fortune tellers way before this ceremony takes place, in order to choose the luckiest date for the wedding. 

• white wine 3 bottles
• cloudy apple juice 500ml
• elderflower cordial 250ml
• lemons 2, then juiced
• vanilla pods 2, split down the centre lengthways
• golden caster or granulated sugar 200g
• soda to serve
• ice to serve

• Put all the ingredients into your largest pan, then bring very gently to a simmer. As soon as the liquid reaches simmering point, turn off the heat and leave the mixture to infuse as it cools to room temperature.
• Once at room temperature, decant into a large glass drink dispenser, jug, or back into the wine bottles, and chill until ready to serve. To serve, fish out the vanilla pods, pour into tumblers with lots of ice, and top up with soda water, if you like.

Following our story last week on Hanoi’s water pollution crisis, we investigated where Hanoi’s tap water actually comes from.  80% of water used in our homes comes from groundwater, and the other 20% from rivers like the Da River, via the Gia Lam Water Treatment Plant, a Japanese-funded initiative.  The ground water has several major pollutants, including arsenic, ammonia and e-coli, while the river water, as we know from events last week, contains industrial effluent. 98% of rivers and lakes here fail to meet minimum water purity standards, according to the Vietnam News Agency.

The good news is that at least water goes through a treatment plant before it reaches our homes, but the bad news is that water treatment plants are on a tight budget, and they apparently don’t have the funds to treat water to world standards. There’s talk that last week’s Da River water contamination was detected by the treatment plant, but management of the plant deemed it too expensive to filter the toxins out of the water, and thus allowed the water to flow onto consumers containing styrene, a carcinogenic chemical.

 Many water supply systems in Vietnam are now privately owned and we can only hope that government officials inspect these facilities more rigorously and impose huge penalties on companies that knowingly pass on contaminated water to residents.

Living in a hot, humid city like Hanoi, we often feel tempted to store all our fruits and vegetables in the fridge to stop them from perishing. While this storage method will prolong the shelf life of many fresh foods, there are some foods that should be kept unrefrigerated:

Melons: watermelon, cantaloupe, honey dew melons etc should be stored at room temperature until cut open. After then, they will keep tolerably well in a fridge for a few days.

Potatoes: don’t be tempted to refrigerate them ever. Just pop them in the pantry, away from light, and they’ll be fine

Garlic & onions: they’ll go mushy if you keep them in the fridge. Store them in a drawer or cupboard. 

Tomatoes: leave them in the fridge and they’ll quickly lose their taste. Keep them at room temperature for best results

Nuts: same as tomatoes

Honey: leave in on the shelf in your pantry. Don’t worry about it – it will keep for ages outside the fridge

Coffee: it’s tempting to put it inside the fridge to extend its shelf-life, but resist the urge. Buy small amounts at a time and keep it in a well-sealed canister

Air quality is a common conversation topic at the moment in Hanoi and the source of a lot of angst too. Where can we get trustworthy and reliable information on the air we’re breathing in?

https://vn.usembassy.gov/embassy-consulate/embassy/air-quality-monitor/

The US Embassy measures air quality at 19/21 Hai Bà Trưng in Hoan Kiem District. It updates reading every hour and uses the following table as a guide:

https://vn.usembassy.gov/embassy-consulate/embassy/air-quality-monitor/

UNIS Hanoi measures air pollution from its campus in Ciputra and posts updates here: https://tso.unishanoi.org/aqi/

For a break-down of air pollutants, visit the German Embassy website: http://hanoiair.de/en_US/

We looked at several websites and apps that claim to map Hanoi’s air quality, like: http://www.fairnet.vn/  but the readings are very inconsistent and often don’t correspond with the readings from trusted stations like the US Embassy.

Thanks to Saigoneer for unearthing this set of vintage stamps depicting colonial Vietnam

There’s a huge range in taxi prices in Hanoi. A trip from Tay Ho to Ba Dinh can cost as little as 70k and as much as 140k and still be legitimate. Companies such as G7 offer fares at the lower end of the spectrum, while a Taxi Group 7-seater could cost more than double.

Sometimes, however, we find ourselves in a taxi with a meter that’s running like a fan. If you’re confident that you’re being swindled, follow these steps:

1. Show no alarm, emotion or any signs that you’re shocked about the price. Keep a poker face and don’t stare at the meter.
2. Tell the driver that you’ve changed your mind about your destination, apologise profusely and direct him to a hotel. If you can’t speak Vietnamese, it pays to always carry the card of a hotel that’s close to your home.
3. When you arrive at the hotel, the porter will of course open the door to your taxi. Kindly ask the porter to deal with your problem. Porters are used to dealing with problems like this and invariably take your side if you’re clearly being scammed.
4. While the porter is assisting you, take a photo of the taxi’s number plate and the driver’s ID card, which should be mounted on the dashboard. This will show the driver that you intend to report him.
5. Pay the taxi driver what the ride should have cost you – discovering you have a scamming taxi driver does not mean you don’t have to pay anything.
6. Email the photos of the offending taxi and driver to the taxi company so that they know they have a dishonest employee on their books. Companies do want to know about shonky drivers, as they stand to lose their operating licence if caught by the transport police.  Reporting scams will help to eradicate dodgy drivers & we will all benefit from that.