I might have missed the Jerusalem pride events this year (I heard they still got a stink bomb thrown at them L) but I did join the LGBT community and supporters in Hanoi for their second pride festival ever.

All the colors of the rainbow

Hand made pride flags!

Preparations for the fashion show

The first two day of events happened at the Gothe institutions and included lectures, movies and a fashion show. The organizers did their best to provide a high tech environment, with five laptops, two web cam’s broadcasting live, a high res video camera man and instant translation through ear phones. The translation was meant for the few foreigners like me that joined the mostly local crowd. Unfortunately it wasn’t a very good translation so it was quite hard to follow.

There were intense monsoon rains the first two days which might have kept many people at home, those who did come heard LGBT community members talk about discrimination, gender roles and the fact that everyone asks them if they are married and when will they be married? The truth is I get asked the same question without anyone knowing my sexual orientation. Anyway, turns out annoying people in the crowd that just like to hear their own voice is an international thing, there was some straight guy that works in the medical field who was relentless in his jabbering. I’m pretty sure he was saying some bad things about the community but with the translation I got he might as well have been talking about eating pizza. Then came a sudden power outage to remind us that we are still Vietnam.

All motorbike are created equal

Photography is a dangerous occupation!

The next day I woke up super early to get to the main event, the parade which was supposed to be a bicycle parade!?! I was way too chicken to ride a bicycle across town so I thought I’d join by walking. That turned out to be impossible as people were riding really fast and in fact, at least half of them were on motorbikes not bicycles. So I hitched a ride with a young women. There must have been a few hundreds of us driving down the crazy traffic of Hanoi with cars and motorbikes zooming all around. I couldn’t help but think that the parade might be a homophobic ploy to try to get rid of the gay population, “assassination by motorbike accident”. Luckily no one seemed to get hurt.

Love the shirts! Hate the motorbikes!

I’ve organised a few parades and political demonstrations in my time and I have to say the organizers did one hell of an amazing job. Each participant got a free T-shirt, flag and water bottle. And there were tens of bikes decorated in the colors of the rainbow riding one after each other.

Self portrait from back of a motorbike!

It’s been a long time since I felt that I’ve been to some “underground” event. I felt this in Hanoi pride week, not because they were hiding but because it felt like something new and exciting coming into being in this quite traditional city. While some places in the world like Russia are going back into the dark ages banning homosexual behavior and using violence against the LGBT community (you can sign a petition to postpone the Olympics that are going to be held in Russia here until LGBT rights are returned) , it was great to see so many young teenagers come out in support of gay rights, marching this country forward!