Released in Sunday Vietnamnews, 17/8/2010

by Di Li

New Zealand journalist, Dan Kirk, during his second visit to Viet Nam, said to my surprise "Ha Noi develops so quickly!" I was initially surprised to hear tourists from countries such as the UK, the US and Germany say how surprised they were to see the speed of our city's development. 

But the more I think about it, the more I recognised that we are also surprised at the pace of our city's transformation. Sometimes we discover a new pedestrian foot-bridge, where the previous month nothing had stood, or a new road, flyover, building or new urban area. I've lost count of the times, while travelling in Ha Noi, that I've felt as if I'm visiting another city.

However, as we build more, and continually develop the city, we pay little attention to any master plan, so Ha Noi is left with a disjointed, morass of unplanned urban sprawl that lacks public utility.

Except for some old streets like Hang Ngang and Hang Dao that still retains historic architecture, some areas that were developed under the French colonial period, such as Nguyen Gia Thieu, Nguyen Du, Thien Quang, Yet Kieu and Tran Hung Dao streets, and the My Dinh urban area that has adopted the bland modern architecture of Singapore or Seoul, the remainder of the city is crowded with tube-shaped houses. Here, anything goes architecturally, with a jumble of different styles cheek by jowl.

Ha Noi is a city of "villages in streets and streets in villages". An Italian friend, Demetrio Ferry, a teacher at the Dante Culture and Languages Centre, said "There is no city like Ha Noi, where people can see peddlers with bamboo carrying poles on their shoulders walking at the foot of modern high-rise buildings."

This is the so-called "village in streets". Urbanisation has now swallowed up most of the villages on the outskirts of Ha Noi, and transformed many of these villages into urban suburbs. These ‘villages' no longer have bamboo groves, wharves and traditional communal houses; instead they have been replaced by a forest of concrete houses.

But urbanisation in Viet Nam has left an interesting juxtaposition. However, some of these villages have been swallowed wholesale by Ha Noi and remain undigested. In the city's Tay Ho, Thuy Khue, Lang and Co Nhue areas, there remain hamlets with old village gates, gardens and ponds.

The people living in these villages retain the old habits of previous centuries. They still maintain their rural characteristics: watching life go by (a thing that many city dwellers now don't have the time for); greeting everyone they meet in the village; and asking lost strangers if they need help finding someone's house.

Just a few kilometres, stand crowded high-rise buildings where people live in giant "match boxes" only meeting their neighbours at elevators and garages. Security in these blocks of apartments is not assured by beady-eyed neighbours but by dozens of cameras. Neighbours are separated by thick wooden doors with spy holes. Even neighbours in a same floor do not remember others' faces.

Like many other foreign visitors, photographer Barnaby Steel, repeatedly uses the term "street life" during his talk at the British Council. Street life in Ha Noi supplies inspiration to many foreign artists, not only Barnaby.

"Ha Noi residents do almost everything on pavements: shopping, eating, drinking, cutting hair, health and fitness routines, playing football, throwing out rubbish, even peddlers take noon naps on pavements," he says.

"It's a really interesting facet of life, Hanoians really use their city," says Bart Cornille from Belgium, adding that "Ha Noi is the greenest city in Orient."

Foreigners seem to enjoy walking about the city, taking in the happiness, anger, love and hate of local residents which play out on the street like an unscripted soap opera. However, one form of street life that Westerners seem to enjoy which we never fully appreciate is street art.

In the past, I met magicians and minstrels in the parks and public gardens in Ha Noi. Today, we no longer see them, partially because audiences have higher demands now, but more likely due to the fact that they're banned from performing in public places. If you're lucky, you might just catch an old painter sketching in a park, and that's about it. 

We're not acquainted with street art. If someone begins an artistic street performance, they'd more likely than not be considered an untalented hack or mentally ill, and anyone indulging in such a performance would be regarded as a fool. Therefore, the artistic outdoor spaces in Ha Noi are only reserved for serious-looking statues, and the public would have to wait for major anniversaries to enjoy art performances around Hoan Kiem Lake. — VNS