Author Archives: The Transchachters

Hanoi’s West Lake

The sun setting over West Lake, in front of our new apt. A view from the kids’ new bus stop

We’ve been moving along West Lake (Hô Tây), the largest of Hanoi’s seven major lakes. Most of our daily commutes to school, cafes, stores, shops, etc. go around the lakeshore loop. The area we live in is also called West Lake, a peninsula that juts into the lake with three major roads and a network of alleyways off alleyways. (We have yet to figure our our new address because though the apartment is right off the lake’s loop, which is relatively new, we’re officially on an alley off of a major alleyway. So we have three addresses, with the official number marking the house address but also the alley off the alleyway: 96/94/12.) Once a land for cultivating house plants, flowers, and lotus flowers, the peninsula has become an expat area. The original diplomats and backpackers who lived here must’ve taken the name West Lake too literally. I’m sure there are other reasons this is an expat community (such as location, new housing stock customized for expats, etc.), but meh, I’d like to think of the expat community as being unironic.

Not too long ago, the lake experienced massive fish die-offs for a few consecutive summers. Fish of all sizes, from small to large, lifelessly surfaced to the lake top. The government had to deploy the military and line up trash truck after trash truck to take the corpses away. The haul weighed in the tons. Conspiracy theories emerged to explain the dead fish: a disgruntled contractor who didn’t get some bid or another dumping toxic chemicals to enact revenge upon the corrupt official in charge of the lake and contract. Then there are the Chinese who are always doing something harmful or another to the Vietnamese–continuing jabs, with the occasional devastating uppercut, to the face of their slighter, though more agile, southern neighbor for over a thousand years. Pollution, however, seldom seems to be an explanation. But the runoff from construction sites that one sees on a daily basis is a more convincing reason. God knows what else is being dumped or running into other parts of the lake.

One of the most scenic and charming aspects of the lake is the dedicated anglers who are working the lake at all times of the day and with all kinds fishing styles. The men in front of our apartment net two or three fish a day that weigh from 4-7 lbs. I’ve recently learned that all of this fishing is technically illegal–that the police will repossess not only any fish caught, but all fishing gear and tackle. Initially, I thought that this was a reasonable government measure to prevent residents from being harmed by the toxic waste that killed the fish in recent years. Whatever the conspiracy theory, there have been unsuccessful attempts to increase the lake’s oxygen levels–not necessarily getting at the root of problem, though the fish have been restocked and seem to recover remarkably well. But I’ve come to learn that the government and police prohibit fishing not for people’s health, but because there is a company whose contracted, exclusive fishing rights need to be protected. This is a smaller-scale case of the government playing a direct hand in helping corporations, creating profit for the official(s) doling out the contracts–rather than working for the benefit of residents, be it for their health or daily sustenance.

Before the loop around the lake was built, some of the land right off the lake was unused swamp land. Rumor has it that the government had to build a road because residents were illegally dumping dirt under the cover of night, by the truck loads, to extend their property. The Vietnamese residents who resided on the unpaved lakefront have experienced skyrocketing real estate prices. Inland, there are swaths of land that are occupied by small shops and restaurants, businesses set up by people squatting on the land. Either there is no paperwork for the land or the land hasn’t been zoned for development–yet, these family and local businesses tenaciously operate between towering luxury apartment buildings and malls.

Postscript: Directly across the lake from us is the Lotte building, which houses an incredible Korean grocery store, a department store, restaurants, a kids play area, etc. A multi-storied air-conned building that addresses multiple wants and needs. It has become our destination on weekends with stifling heat and pollution. Reluctantly, I have to admit I’ve become that parent that I’ve never wanted to be: a parent who takes their kids to the mall to while away the weekend.

The View from Our Old Hanoi Apartment

Seven weeks living in our apartment, we were booted by a new management company who wants to renovate the entire building. Our building was directly across from the grandson of Pham Van Dong, who was North Vietnam’s prime minister (1955-1976) and postwar Vietnam’s (1975-1987). We never met the family in the white house, but often heard, from the driveway/alley just to the home’s right, the comical squawking of two macaws who always seemed to be bickering with each other or bitching about their confining cage. There’s also a black vintage Mercedes Benz that hasn’t moved in quite a while–an immoiblized memorial, I imagine, to the grandfather’s glorious days.

The ridiculous yellow mansion on the left was recently built. The photograph deceptively glosses over the mansion’s stains of moisture and crumbling concrete walls. Its audacity feels outdated and insecure: still reveling in French colonial taste and the gaudiness of baroque excess. All so impractical–most evident by all the shutters that never open. A cavernous, closed existence on the inside. On a daily basis workers come out to the balcony on the right to dry some clothes on a cheap aluminum clothes rack. They look minute and out of place given the house’s scale and architecture. Living in such a behemoth space must have been unsustainable and unbearably lonely–particularly after its owner, the former CEO of ACB bank, was imprisoned. Recently, half of the mansion has been divided and turned into a spa and home stay. The opening party was a karaoke dance extravaganza that was as loud audibly as the house is loud visually.

What I’ll miss most are the lotus ponds to the left. They abut an amazing Buddhist temple. The ponds exude a peacefulness and the lotus’ cliched hope that beauty can and will arise out of muck and mud. But Hanoi developers are quick to dash such hopes, as the ponds are slated to become parking lots. Only in Hanoi, it seems, is it possible, literally and metaphorically, that cars will replace lotus flowers.

No Vintage, Only Murakami Characters

Allison and I went vintage shopping for a dress-up-a-decade theme party. Hanoi is vintage challenged because of the socialist history, which means a lack of flannels, polyester, zoot suits, brimmed hats, platform shoes, etc. It was a fruitless exercise, that would have been better suited for Saigon, where vintage stores thrive from the city’s own flow of retro clothes, as well as imported materials from Tokyo and Taipei.

To our pleasant surprise, however, we found an abandoned office complex at 60S Thổ Quan that had been taken over by squatters. These were young people who had already been booted out once, but had returned, in a more official capacity, and were setting up all kinds of shops and cafes. They were hip, well-coiffed, and tattooed (one sees tattoo in the capital in a way that one didn’t see a few years before). They scrounged up a rack of oversized t-shirts or basketball jerseys. Some made their own jewelry, while others were busy at a hip-hop dance studio. There were cats at multiple stores, the more unfortunate ones were leashed.

I began to notice that there was a collective intensity and passion for studying Japanese in multiple stores and cafes. And then it dawned on me that I might have walked into Hanoi’s version of a Murakami world. The soundtrack supported my theory: Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and some bebop jazz. Bookshelves were filled primarily with the Japanese writer. Now it’s a matter of figuring out these aspirations…at the very least to not lose a cat.

The Glamour of Everyday Life

One of my favorite photographs Allison has taken. We went on a discovery walk in an unknown part of town–exploring a vibrant alleyway (Thổ Quan), and found a compound of wannabe Haruki Murakami characters (more on this later). But this picture for me, captures the complexities of Hanoi: the details, objects, openness, and need for respite of everyday life. The desire for glamour is merely a veneer to daily rituals and ways of life: prop your feet up and chill with a friend. No pretension even if you’re a stylist. Beauty be damned.

Adjusting to Daily Life

We’ve been living in Vietnam for 7 weeks. Life here is both exciting and challenging. Living abroad without kids, I remember the highs and lows–the thrill of making it work and the loneliness of being far away from family and friends. Here, meeting people has been effortless. So many families at the kids’ school are working for their governments or for the UN on 3-5 year contracts. Everyone has been somewhere else and knows a new home is on the horizon. Young children, I’ve learned, don’t always understand the that high or low of the moment is only temporary, that friends and loved ones await at home, and that new friendships are on the horizon. We’re weathering new challenges at school, new challenges at home. Here they are happy and delighted, eating meat in an outdoor restaurant in our neighborhood. What they don’t know yet, is that we’ll be moving next week. We’re being relocated by the insane development that is the new Hanoi. Fingers crossed~!

Waiting for the Bus in the New Hanoi

The kids are waiting for the bus on their second day of school. Standing beneath the flag of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam they look across at the gilded gates of the new mansion across the street with an Audi parked out front. A view of contradictions. Later in the day the streets will be packed with worshipers flocking to the temple for the new moon.

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