Elitist folk music

Hanoi music scene

I spent about 6 weeks in Hanoi and its surroundings in 1996, recording almost all the music I could get hold of: traditional music, European-style symphony orchestras and string quartets, street musicians, a Catholic church choir, Buddhist ceremonies, pop song competitions, the sounds of the streets and factories, car and bicycle traffic, karaoke bars, nightclubs, weddings, music college students, composers of electroacoustic music, drinking songs in restaurants, the sound systems of public loudspeakers, cockfights, Tai Chi exercises, traditional opera and folk opera of the communist variety - I had conversations with performers, conductors, officials, casual acquaintances - the effort of my research can be seen in the tape transcripts that I attach to this entry.
Nevertheless, I can remember that the longer my stay in the capital of Vietnam lasted - despite all the helpfulness, openness and hospitality of the people I met - I became more and more unsettled. I realised that Vietnamese society and mentality could not be measured with the coordinates of my Western and European way of thinking. 6 weeks plus preparation and follow-up time and further research and enquiries was not enough ... I always had the feeling that I was only scratching the surface and only reporting prejudices.
I decided to write my travel reports from this foreign culture from an extremely subjective point of view, to start less from possibly misunderstood facts, but much more from my feelings, longings - in other words, to listen to the echo that the impressions in Hanoi left on me. Of course, this approach was met with astonishment by the German broadcasters and editors - it did not fit in with their expectations and journalistic practices. For the first and not the last time in my career, I was caught between two stools ...

Protokolle Geräusche
Protokolle Musikaufnahmen

Cast & Crew

Director
Uli Aumüller
Narrator
Jürgen Jung
Editorial Jounalist
Wolfgang Korb, Wolf Loeckle