The Chalk Wall

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I already mentioned the graffiti, but there was this one wall across from the American embassy that was just COVERED in white chalk writing.  The guards around the embassies (and also just the police/military throughout town) were dressed in very official and very hot(warm)-looking green suits and had LARGE weapons.  Like, AK-47s and batons.  Anyway, the wall.  It was mostly just plain old text, straight up handwriting, and much of it was in Vietnamese, and some was in English too.  The most memorable one I saw in English was something very close to “Change is I can!”  I’m guessing that was something about Obama, but I’m not totally positive.

 

There were also music notes and staff and a clef somewhere on one.  And close by, there were a lot of mathematical equations and some physics.  I thought it was interesting that both math and music showed up.  Everyone that saw us looking at it probably thought we were crazy.  I asked Nguyen if he could make out what any of the Vietnamese stuff said, but apparently it was REALLY sloppy and didn’t make much sense, or some of it was in other languages, so I didn’t get much from him other than what was in English.  But anyway.  I wished we had a wall like that somewhere that I’d been.