Hanoi Miscellany

I'm in the cafe above the Hanoi Cooking Center drinking espresso. I'm the only one here. Behind the Cooking Center is Bookworm, and while I tap at the keyboard I can peer into their second-floor window and watch people browse the used books. Hello, book-lovers.

I took my camera out for another walk today. Even on a misty, overcast day like today, it's amazing how much beauty this city holds.



I pass scenes that fascinate me: an old man holding an extravagantly plumaged fighting cock, smoothing its feathers with obvious pride and affection. A religious(?) ceremony in a pagoda: two young men sitting on their knees facing each other, an older woman in brightly colored silk robes dancing to traditional music waving sparklers over them. I want to photograph everything, but I don't know the etiquette here and I'm too shy to stick my big Western nose where it doesn't belong. I content myself with taking pictures of inanimate things.



Scooters shoot past me wherever I go. Young women on the back look over their shoulders and giggle at me. I'm reminded of how different I am.

Different or not, I'm slowly making local friends. Kiên, a young Vietnamese man, works at the House of Son Tinh. In Kiên I've finally found a local who is happy to share his love for his home country and his hopes for the future. His girlfriend is leaving Vietnam for Singapore, but he will never leave.

Kiên describes what Vietnam was like before it embraced capitalism. "To buy anything, you needed stamps," he told me over rice wine one night. "There were no big houses in Hanoi because you needed stamps to buy bricks, and the government only gave you enough stamps for 15 bricks a week. You couldn't even build a house for your dog. It didn't matter how much money you had, not that we had any."

Change started in 1989, he said. No more stamps. A free market. The effects are plain to see: growth here is explosive, and Kiên takes obvious pride in it. "But what would Hồ Chí Minh say about the new capitalistic Vietnam?" I ask. Kiên gives his head a quick shake. "These are different times."

And then he tells me about the American war, a topic I've been careful not to broach with anyone. Yes, people were angry -- very angry -- for a time, he says. But not now. Time has passed. "If your father killed my father, it doesn't matter. You and I are friends now." I'm humbled by this man's heart.

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On my walk today I passed a furniture store. In the window was a sofa that, in shape and color, reminded me of the sofa I owned in Seattle -- a sofa that still waits for me there. I felt a sharp pang of homesickness, but it passed as I walked. My old life will always be there, I remind myself. My new life is here, now.