The streets are alive with the flapping of Vietnam flags

Suddenly one Saturday morning they all appeared. Every house, shop, and even the buses had red flags. The yellow stars shone across Hanoi. In England, the only explanation for this would be some national illusion that we might win the football. In Vietnam, we looked to the Voice of Vietnam.

Not yet fluent in Vietnamese (ahem to say the least) I turned to my Vietnamese friends to explain. Apparently that morning the Voice of Vietnam, not much heard around central Hanoi (disturbs tourism to wake people up at 5am) boomed out of loudspeakers and ordered everyone to put out their flags.

But why? The Central Committee are coming to town. They also warrant: new flower beds around the lakes, huge statues reading "Dai Hoi X" - Central Committee Congress 10, balloons making Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum look eerily like a Quiditch pitch and talent shows featuring monkeys standing on their head.

See this I don't really understand. A big government meeting in Britain might warrant a banquet, and some limousines, and basically too much money being spent - the aim: to look rich and important. But what exactly is the Central Committee's aim with the acrobatic monkeys?