Hanoi, a city around lakes.
The Huc Bridge in Hoan Kiem Lake ©www.popcinema.org
Hanoi, a city around lakes.
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At the weekend, the streets around Hoàn Kiếm Lake are full of people, engaged in all kinds of recreational activities.
A rich human conviviality dominates, it is the confirmation of a country with an intense civilization.
Unlike other Asian nations, Hanoi's malls are snubbed; the road is the heart of the community.
The authorities agree, and they close to the chaotic (euphemistic) traffic, the boulevards next the lake.
At midnight, they reopen, and the first timid flow of cars and motorbikes appear; a surprise immediately materializes. The avenue becomes a motorcycle circuit: some guys challenge each other in a high-speed race. They have no helmets, with another person in the back seat and, above all, they do not care about who move around. First, there is the lights of the headlights, then a deafening noise, then the motorbikes bank dangerously. The effect is the sparks caused by the kickstand in contact with the asphalt.
It happens in the centre. In an area guarded by bored and indifferent policemen.
In Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục Square, dozens of people watch ecstatic, too close to the crazy rush. They are insensitive to risk, an uncertain car or a suicidal aspirant passer-by would be enough to make a misfortune happen.
It is foolishness, but it is one of Hanoi's human and fun aspects.
These warlike challenges have a cultural and social background.
Let's start with a book: Dumb Luck A Novel by the Vietnamese writer Vũ Trọng Phụng (1).
Written in 1936, the young novelist, died in 1939 at the age of twenty-seven, narrates about Vietnam still under French domination. The author describes the thirties with biting criticism, using an extremely modern, bad, traditional and meanwhile linguistically progressive ironic language.
Dumb Luck A Novel is current; many narrated elements are visible - logically historicized - in today's Hanoi.
A soothsayer foreshadows the future of Xuan, a young reckless, orphan, layabout but astute and smart. The prediction is excessively optimistic, impractical given his status, yet it will come true in every details.
During the reading one question is a must: would Xuan's life have changed even without divination or does divination push Xuan to change it?
“It seems that the boy had hollowed out a small hole in the washroom wall in order to spy on his uncle's wife while she bathed. From that day onward Xuan lived on the streets, subsisting initially on a diet of wild plums and minnows that he caught in the Restored Sword Lake. He sold roasted peanuts and newspapers on streetcorners, ran errands for a theater troupe, and hawked Tiger Balm aboard the trains. Moving from unskilled job to unskilled job ...” (2)
The lake of the Restored Sword is Hoàn Kiếm Lake. The vagabond Xuan wanders alongside the lake, trying to live day by day.
The description of life on the lake is the same as at present. On the shores on the adjacent streets, lively boys are busy in chores to pick up some money. Some trades are even identical, such as selling roasted peanuts. Others have disappeared and replaced by more recent industriousness, such as the tattoo artist present in the nights to draw henna.
Xuan's rebellious boldness is the equivalent the unconscious clandestine runners.
The idle police observe, or, always lazily, orders, from a van, to move the motorcycles from the square. The policemen are similar the hilarious officers 1002 and 1003 of the novel, forced, by a decision of the civil administration, to spend their working time to make imaginative fines to collect what is required by the government.
The Huc Bridge in Hoan Kiem Lake ©www.popcinema.org
The lake shows its colourful beauty both day and night; the Red Bridge, the Ngoc Son Temple and the disturbing and solitary Turtle Tower rise majestically.
The fame of Hoàn Kiếm Lake is amplified by its ancient and incredible legend.
King Lê Lợi - as happened to King Arthur with Excalibur - owed strength and power to a special sword from the Dragon King. Thanks to it, the king had gained independence from China. One day the king was on a boat in the lake. Suddenly a big turtle materialized, grabbed the sword from his belt with his mouth and plunged into the deep water. The search was useless. Lê Lợi surrendered, he accepted the idea of not finding it again because returning to its rightful owner, the Dragon King. (3)
The legend has a profound meaning. The sword is still there, in the lake, perhaps hidden in the Turtle Tower.
The king, the hero, renounces his energy (sword) in favour of Hanoi. The Vietnamese will fight with determination for their freedom. With the sword in the lake, the power was transferred to the Vietnamese population.
In 1955 the tragic war broke out against the United States. The apparently most militarily and politically muscular country in the world. Vietnam was poor, lacking adequate structures, with a weak army, fatigued by the struggle for independence with France. A theoretically unequal gap. Yet, that small nation multiplied its potency exponentially, like King Lê Lợi, until victory.
Primarily, Hoàn Kiếm Lake is leisure activities for the people. The guys gather in a circle and sing popular songs. Everyone, without exception, can perform on the notes of guitarists. Being in tune is a secondary quality; the main is sharing music all together, friends, passers-by and strangers.
Turtle Tower in the Hoan Kiem Lake ©www.popcinema.org
Hoàn Kiếm Lake at night has a Gothic charm. It depends on the ghostly Turtle Tower. The tower was erected in 1886, in honour of Lê Lợi's magic sword guardian turtle. It is mysterious, impossible to reach, no bridges.
Equally, Gothic are the mice. Such many mice run in the park, on the shores, in the streets.
These mice have something unusual: they are not afraid. They do not care about people, about honest gig workers, about lovers on the benches. Rodents are indifferent to their looks. The Vietnamese treat them in the same way: they do not care about them.
The vitality at West Lake is dissimilar. It also has a different function for Xuan:
“To the west of Hanoi lies a lake, recently into two smaller lakes separated by a single road know as Old Fish Road.
...
The road is famous throughout the country - all twenty million of our compatriots know of it- because it is here that girls or no-so-good family go out with young male college students, law students, and students without institutional affiliation. They come to this road night after night to flirt each other and to transgress the rules of each other's families.” (4)
West Lake is great. On the shores, there are elegant hotels such as Sheraton. The houses have developed architectural structures, more comfortable than the old quarter flats. The lake view is gorgeous. It is the most expensive area in the city. Here wealthy families live, who enrol their children in large, costly and international schools next West Lake.
China has influenced Vietnamese civilization and society. The three Chinese pillars: Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism have also shaped the tradition of Vietnam.
Buddhist temples are everywhere, the most beautiful are those overlooking the lakes. Temples and water unite in infinity, forming a luminous combination; the reflection makes them places of peace and prayer. On West Lake there are several very old, huge trees, developed over the years, composing strange figures.
Tree on the street ©www.popcinema.org
The trees of Hanoi are special. They are free to grow as and where they want, even in the middle of the road: in the confusion of the streets there is everything, and everything without rules, therefore a tree in the mid of a roadway does not give absolutely annoyance.
Temple of Literature ©www.popcinema.org
Confucianism is represented in its magnificence with the wonderful Temple of Literature. A temple dedicated to Confucius and study. Here the students celebrate their successes. The various sections are separated by walls. Inside there are gardens, lakes, statues in a succession of intellectual exaltation. A nation needs an honest and capable bureaucratic class. It should be made up of deserving people. The instruments to identify them are difficult and complex exams. It is the only way to eliminate the recommendations, the nepotisms, the corruption of the rich parents. Thus, everyone, including the sons of poor families, can enter state management.
Xuan is an indigent orphan, pauper but, with cunning and skill (and maybe with the help of a diviner), he manages to conquer a leading role in the radical chic movement of the middle-class Vietnamese of the 1930s: “The Westernization movement cannot exist without my presence, not even for a single day." (5)
Xuan is an example of Confucianism, he overcomes every social classes.
In Vietnam, to the three cultural pillars can be added another one. Which arrived centuries later but spread rapidly until reaching the highest levels of the state: Catholicism.
St. Joseph's Cathedral ©www.popcinema.org
The epicentre is Saint Joseph's Cathedral located in the old quarter. It has two elegant bell towers. The white colour is just a memory. The fault is of the traffic and the smog, Hanoi is the most polluted city in the world, so now, the dominant tint is black.
Black is not a metaphor for the situation of Catholicism in a communist nation. Unlike Western Europe, Catholics actively participate in religious life in Hanoi and Vietnam. The masses in the cathedral are full both inside and outside, with the faithful seated in tiny stools.
The conflict with the United States was long, ended in 1975. Unfortunately, it was also a cruel civil war with southern Vietnam. The scenes in memory of the battles are widespread in the southern capital, Saigon. Hanoi, instead, was mainly devastated by aerial bombardments.
Nguyen Trong Kiem, When a child was born ©www.popcinema.org
In Hanoi, the war is constantly remembered at the Fine Art Museum. It is the main museum in the city. In addition to the memories of ancient spiritual art, the gallery exhibits contemporary paintings and sculptures. The art of the late twentieth century could not ignore the violence, the dead, the suffering paid by the population. The artistic works on display are a delight of the alliance between the people and the military; on the contrary of the United States. This harmony was the secret weapon of the Vietnamese, clearly explained by General Ho Chi Minh: “You can kill ten of my men for every one of yours that we kill. But even at those odds, you will lose and we will win." (6)
The two political dimensions come together: communism and anti-colonialism, first fought with the French and then with the Americans, are exalted in the paintings.
Xuan is, with much imagination, an art lover. The tailoring shop in which he works is considered artistic, like the stylists of our nowadays: “... When society reaches the most exalted, the most extreme point of art, the clothes will no longer have to cover anything.” (7)
Pho Sach, The book street ©www.popcinema.org
The love of culture in Hanoi is witnessed by another significant and fascination site. It is a street: Pho Sach, the Street Book.
Pho Sach has opposite characteristics from other roads.
It is short, it is pedestrian, it is clean, it is silent, with orderly pavement. On the sides there are symmetrical and beautiful newsstands. They are book and comic shops. They repeat themselves similarly and alternate with some coffees. It is a pleasant place, an oasis because it is enough to walk for few meters and meet again in a hallucinatory traffic and noise. Hanging out in the shops is fun, there are books of all kinds, a paradise for lovers of the smell of printed paper.
The Street Book, calm, peaceful and decidedly human, has an opposite. It is also a street in Hanoi, but surreal, noisy, and decidedly inhuman: the Train Street.
The train station is in the centre of the city. When the train to Ho Chi Minh City leaves, the locomotive whistles a high acute sound. Soon, it must enter a narrow road. It is Train Street. On the sides, there are houses, the train passes some centimetres from the walls.
The front doors open occupying space on the rails. Looking out of the windows there is the danger being hit by wagons. Motorcycles and bicycles are parked very close the carriages. Hanging on the rails are the clothes to dry, and they flutter violently in the train passage. The misfortune of living on the edge of the tracks has been transformed by the shrewd Vietnamese, into a lucrative crowded amusement park.
The inhabitants of Train Street could be direct descendants of the crafty Xuan:
“Dear Doctors, while the progressive nature of human science is beyond doubt, its ability to save lives does not yet compare to the miraculous power of the Saints." (8)
In fact, the miracle happens. From the garages it is possible to see minuscule restaurants, nice ladies arrange tiny stools and tables on the rails. Tourists are invited to wait for the train by eating and drinking quietly. Exposed there is the timetable for Ho Chi Minh City and vice versa. Fortunately, they are always on time. So, a few minutes earlier, the same kind women, take the chairs, the tables and bring them back into the garage, pushing the curious against the wall to photograph and film the race of the wagons. The space is really limited and after the whistle, the locomotive passes very close to the patrons. Trains are long, it takes more than one minute to pass. It is important do not make sudden movements to avoid running over.
The wagons are far away, the travellers smile a little amazed. It is a simple game, inconceivable in our stations, carefully distant from the security line. Spectators of the dangerous pastime are identical to Saturday night bikers at Hoàn Kiếm Lake.
The travellers are astonished and the gentle ladies slyly - like Xuan in front of the Mrs. Deputy Customs Officer Widow - bring the chairs and tables back on the tracks. It is early for the next ride.
Vũ Trọng Phụng, Dumb Luck: A Novel, original title Số đỏ, Peter Zinoman Editor, 2004
Vũ Trọng Phụng, Dumb Luck: A Novel, original title Số đỏ, Peter Zinoman Editor, 2004
Hoàn Kiếm Lake Its Legends and Temples, Thế Giới Publishers, Hanoi
Vũ Trọng Phụng, Dumb Luck: A Novel, original title Số đỏ, Peter Zinoman Editor, 2004
Vũ Trọng Phụng, Il gioco indiscreto di Xuan, titolo originario Số đỏ, O Barra O, Milano, 2012, Prima ristampa 2019 (translated by authour)
Stanley Karnow, History of the Vietnam War, BUR Rizzoli, Milan, VI edition, BUR History, June 2004
Vũ Trọng Phụng, Il gioco indiscreto di Xuan, titolo originario Số đỏ, O Barra O, Milano, 2012, Prima ristampa 2019 (translated by authour)
Vũ Trọng Phụng, Dumb Luck: A Novel, original title Số đỏ, Peter Zinoman Editor, 2004
