We’re finishing our last days in Hanoi and very soon will be on our way back to Washington. It’s hard to believe that three years have gone by since we stepped off the plane at Noi Bai airport. Over the past ten years, we’ve been very fortunate in our postings. We have lived in great cities, worked with interesting people, and gotten to experience different cultures. In Thailand, Uganda and, now, Vietnam, we’ve come to feel at home and it is sad to say goodbye. (cue violins)
As I look back on our time in Vietnam, I decided to do a quick list (ok, in hindsight, not so quick) of some of my favorite things and some of my not-so-favorite. In actuality, the positive has far outweighed the negative, but, if I’m being honest, I can’t say every day has been ponies and rainbows. But, I think that is life in any city in any country, though the specifics, no doubt, are different. Anyway, here are three things I like and three things I don’t like about Hanoi.
Three things I like about Hanoi . . .
Children: Except when sitting next to me on airplanes, Vietnamese children are remarkably happy and seemingly well-behaved. Everyday, as I head to or from work or to meetings, I see grandfathers carrying children across the street, grandmothers following little kids to feed them spoonfuls of dinner, parents buying balloons or treats for their kids. We have photos of little girls in long braids and little boys in new suits running through Tong Nhat park during Tet. Kids use the sidewalks to learn how to ride tricycles or bikes. Across the street, pajama-clad big sisters lead a group of younger siblings and friends in a game of tag. When it gets cold, parents love to clad their children in anthropomorphic winter coats. The streets teem with little tigers, bears, and dogs.
Streetlife: People have small, unairconditioned apartments. Vietnamese like crowds. Put those two together and you have a city with a very vibrant streetlife. So, visitors have a great opportunity to see details of everyday activities that we miss in suburban USA with houses behind fences and backyards. In addition to the child-rearing described above, we often see pajama-clad women heading to and from local markets in the early morning. Mini-markets dot the inner city, with shoppers haggling with vendors all the time. During the day, market women carry fruits, vegetables, and flowers on their bikes or over their shoulders to local street markets. Throughout the day and into the evening, groups of men (with the occasional woman) sit on plastic stools quaffing a brew at the local bia hoi (beer stall). Other groups dot the sidewalk enjoying noodles, soups, grilled meats etc.
When things cool down at night, the park across the street becomes an urban whirlwind of leisure activity. Under the (not-so) benevolent gaze of one of the few remaining statues of Lenin left in the world, neighborhood boys play soccer, groups of teens practice break-dancing moves, matrons bat around a badminton shuttlecock, and little kids zoom around in electric cars. At the same time, other groups of boys practice bike tricks, hawkers sell tea and snacks, and senior citizens gather for exercises.
Buildings: Hanoi architecture presents a wide variety of building styles, materials, and design. Large, new office towers and luxury hotels pop up over smaller commercial buildings or homes. Zoning is a foreign concept and in many areas, rows of varied colored and multi-storied residences pile up on each other. Fascades almost never match the neighbor’s with traditional Vietnamese or Chinese carved shutters next to wrought iron next to sliding glass. Some owners add a floor or a wing as they save up the money, leading to some buildings looking like a child’s building block creation, with top stories wider than those below. Other buildings have a whiff of Dr. Seuss and seem to alternate floors towards and away from the street as they get higher. Almost all buildings are extremely narrow, no matter how tall, with blocks full of structures jammed together like a compressed accordion. I don’t mean to criticize. Particularly from a distance (say across a small lake), it creates a beautiful kaleidoscope of colors and textures. Many home-owners take great pride in their houses/buildings, with beautiful exteriors that they maintain wonderfully. There is always something to catch the eye or make you wonder how (or why) they built something the way they did.
In the Old Quarter and the French Quarter, hundreds of French colonial buildings and traditional Vietnamese tube houses (named for their long, thin structure) remain, often with their original yellow fronts and dark green window shutters. Higher floors, in particular, often remain unchanged, with occasional art deco flourishes such as curved stone or wrought iron porches and circular windows. Flowering plants droop down over rust colored roof tiles. Most blocks have small neighborhood temples, often in ornate Chinese designs. On larger streets, pagodas attract crowds on special days or right before national exams.
. . . And three that I don’t
Traffic: The downside to development. While incomes grow and the city modernizes, road infrastructure has not. Every year the number of motorbikes on the roads in Vietnam increases by 20%, but, guess what, the width of the roads in Hanoi has not kept pace. And that’s not even starting on all the cars that now clog the thoroughfares. I honestly think that Hanoi has more Bentleys (yes, Bentleys) than D.C. And that’s representative of many newly rich urbanites who buy cars primarily status symbols. Despite the many narrow lanes, you see many more 8 cylinder behemoths than subcompacts.
And the behavior on the roads . . . . Maybe I’m just a big sissy or one of those old folks shaking his walking stick in impotent rage, but, man, after 3 years, I still can get riled up with some of the shameless antics drivers pull. The glare you receive when you encounter a motorbike going the wrong way on the sidewalk. Boys weaving in and out of traffic at high speeds are accidents waiting (and sometimes not waiting – I’ve seen 3 dead bodies -- to happen). Every day I am amazed parents who clearly treasure their children place them on front of scooters (what I call rocket launchers) without helmets. Though many of our Vietnamese friends brag that the lack of traffic laws allows drivers to use their creativity to respond to crowded streets, I’ve also noted a complete inability to respond to rain or trains, causing intractable back ups. Like the scene from the parade in Animal House with the band being led into the wall and piling up as the members keep trying to walk through the wall, Vietnamese motorbike drivers never back up, even when trapped in an intersection in a thunderstorm. This inability to think in three-dimensions completely shuts down areas of the city.
Hygiene: If you don’t care for public urination, Hanoi is not for you. Now, I understand differing cultural norms. Still … Public urination and occasional defecation? Many men view every tree (or sign or wall or bus stop) as a possible urinal. I remember running in the park and turning the corner to see a man squatting with his pants down reading the newspaper like he was at home behind closed doors. Our friends who have served in India correctly note that they have witnessed more public bathroom visits than we. But, India is really, really poor. Vietnam is now a middle-income country (if newly) and Hanoi is increasingly prosperous. Yet, parents continue to hold children over the gutter, when they clearly could just take them into their homes or a store. .
Disorganized development: The flipside to the architecture discussion above. I fear that Hanoi will soon follow Bangkok and Hong Kong as the modern takes over. Worse, I fear the Hanoi will follow the Chinese path with traditional neighborhoods replaced by cheap, featureless office-blocks with no character or personality. Every day, we encounter new construction sites. The day before a small shop or a house. Now, a gaping hole. And many of the buildings going up today will come down in 10 to 15 years. Too often these new buildings are functional at best and eyesores at worst. Many mar the beauty of Hanoi, leading to traffic, dust, and disorder. Though the local government apparently has a plan, I have seen little thought given to historic preservation. As Hanoi has developed, families opened stores in the front rooms of French colonial buildings and Vietnamese tube houses. To advertise their wares, many have installed large, modern and ugly signboards that cover up the beautiful buildings behind them.
