THIS week, I made a lightning visit to Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. Of course, I am old enough to remember that, in the recent past, there was a North Vietnam and a South Vietnam; that the French had been a colonial power over the country; and that the Vietnam War took place in fairly recent times.
After all is said and done, Vietnam is now a united country under a socialist regime that we call communist.
Vietnam has a history of wars — against China with whom it shares a border; against the French colonial regime, which lasted until the 20th century; and then the Vietnam War against mostly United States and allied forces that fought to stem communism in Vietnam, but lost.
Hanoi is now the capital of Vietnam. The name is more accurately spelled Ha Noi: “Ha” for river, as it is located along the Red River and its tributaries; and “Noi,” for it is between the rivers.
Vietnam was a country with its own rulers from its beginning. They had kings and emperors, the most famous of which came from the Nguyen dynasty. When the French colonized Vietnam by force in the 19th century, they nominally kept the local royalty in place.
Hanoi is a city of more than 8 million people. It has a huge lake, the Hoan Kiem Lake and a West Lake. Despite the wars and other tribulations, it has kept its French colonial architecture, along with tube houses (very narrow multistory buildings typical of Vietnam). It has the Old Quarter, where the streets were individually known by the particular artisans that worked there.
Traffic is becoming like Manila traffic but not yet at its worst. There are all kinds of vehicles, but mostly they are bikes, motorbikes zooming all around just like Manila. Twenty years ago, they were bicycles that people pedaled. Now only the cyclos, or pedal bikes with passengers, mostly for sightseeing, are using human power. Pedestrian lanes are not quite respected. The light may turn green for pedestrians but one has to watch out that some bike or car will ignore it and come at you. Yet we noted that pedestrians would just go on despite the menace, so we did the same and survived.
Hanoi is a city with many little parks and open spaces with trees which make it look green and inviting. There are sidewalks, but many of them are occupied by parked motorbikes which reduces pedestrian space. Parking seems to be a problem with cars taking over the sides of some of the wide boulevards. Hanoi is a city with many boulevards with trees in the middle. With the lakes, the parks and the boulevards, it is an attractive city with many areas of residential colonial architecture. It also has public buildings in the same style like churches and the opera house.
The Old Quarter is what every visitor to Hanoi has to see. It is a busy and crowded place offering hotels, spas, restaurants and all kinds of goods, from Vietnam silk to bespoke tailoring (a dress or suit in 10 hours) and souvenirs. It also has numerous coffee houses as Vietnam has positioned itself as a coffee-growing specialist along with cocoa. So, there are chocolate shops, too.
Considering that this is a socialist country, it is noted that many are small businesses run by individual proprietors making a profit for themselves. So, it has its capitalist side of doing business for oneself.
The Vietnamese are very much like us, like most Asians; they are friendly and cheerful enough as they go about their work, meeting tourists and being part of an independent nation that is doing very well economically. We import rice from Vietnam. They have a fruit industry that produces huge mangoes, dragon fruit and bananas big-time. My guess is that their food security is in place.
Their restaurants feature the Vietnamese abundance with their signature dishes of barbecued pork, spring rolls, lots of seafood dishes and rice.
The Hanoi Airport is 45 kilometers from the city via an expressway. It is huge, busy, comfortable and accommodating. Modern times have come to Vietnam.
There is much more to see in Vietnam aside from Hanoi. There is Ha Long Bay, a Unesco heritage site, and there is Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) in the south.
The museums in Hanoi show how dedicated and hardworking the Vietnamese are. The History Museum shows how they went through uprising after uprising against colonial powers until finally gaining their independence. The Women’s Museum makes known the women leaders of the revolution against colonization by commemorating women who from the ages of 14 and 15 became guerrillas, some of the women leaders paying with their lives by execution or dying in the battlefield. Others who survived became high officials in government, making Vietnam a gender-equal country.
There is much to learn from Vietnam.
