Some travelers see things differently than the rest of the tourist crowd. They manage to overlook most visited sites to go beyond must-see places and dig out daily moments, showing what makes the local people what they are. That is exactly what German independent filmmaker Stefan Siebert did. He traveled to Vietnam in 2015 and brought back some images that show different points of view from what travel guides usually display.
A Daily Life
In his video Vietnam 2015 / Blackmagic Pocket and available on Vimeo, Stefan Siebert shows the daily routine of the Vietnamese. It all starts with some exercise: hiking in the streets (a favorite in Vietnam), stretching, energetic moves. People are waking up! Then comes work: garbage collectors, woodsmen, masons, couturiers… At the market, one gets food for the day. In the fields, peasants are getting back to work. The day goes by, and the night falls over the country. In the city, motorcycles and scooters drive around, like an engine ballet.
Northern Vietnam
Stefan Siebert filmed all those sequences in the northern part of Vietnam. He doesn’t say anything about it in the description of his video but it is quite obvious for a viewer who knows Vietnam a bit. First, there’s the general ambient of the video: foggy, barely sunny, it shows what northern Vietnam looks like during fall and winter. People are wearing scarves and coats, a feature that is pretty rare in the south of the country, known for its tropical climate! The video also shows elements of traditional costumes such as colorful embroideries from Hmong tribe, and headdresses of Dao people. The few landscapes recorded in Siebert’s video look very northern as well: terraced rice fields and green valleys. Eventually, the last sequence of his piece features Hanoi, the capital city, with its narrow streets bordered with trees.
That video will definitely make you want to travel to that gorgeous region! If you want to know more about northern Vietnam, have a look at our Destination pages.
Check out Stefan Siebert’s Vimeo page.
