lacquered smile's by plancarpin

Hanoi - Vietnam, Hà Nºi I shot this pix at Tay Phuong Pagoda, 27 km west from Hanoi, on the road to Mai Chau. This is a bit out of uisual tourism tracks. A couple of old ladies have their teeth lacquered. The reason for blackening the teeth is coming from an ancestral vietnamese belief that only wild animals and devils have white teeth...

Uploaded: Aug, 14 2008 | Taken: Oct, 17 2007| Viewed: 44 times  | 7 votes Camera: OLYMPUS OPTICAL CO.,LTD | Model: C3000Z | Exposure 10/1000s, ISO 100 | FLength: 19mm | SW: v353u-74

aufgehts - Aug, 14 2008 09:08pm Amazing! Do you know what they lacquer the teeth with? Very interesting custom and so foreign to most of us... pesu - Aug, 16 2008 04:08am Your portraits are as excellent as your landscapes - or even better??? plancarpin - Aug, 16 2008 05:08am Petra and Jill, thanks for your comments! to reply to Jill's question about the way to lacquer (vietnamese use the verb Nhuom meaning "blackening", sorry I do not have the proper accent for the O on my keyboard..) : it is sometimes said by error that black teeth are coming from the abusive use of betel nut chewing. In fact this is coming from a long and complex process, starting when the girsl is around 7, and then repeated every 2 or 3 years. You can find further scientific infos on the following link: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118552380/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0 last but not least, this prevent for dental caries... do you want to try??? ;-) petruta - Sep, 13 2008 03:09pm It's a vietnamese?! :)) It looks like a happy romanian villager, without the black teeth ... You made her laugh???? plancarpin - Sep, 13 2008 03:09pm yeah, she's from north of Vietnam... she was living in Sibiu, the life before! ;-)