What to say about the Old Quarter of Hanoi? As a Hanoian, I used to take it for granted. I had the Old Quarter on my side, in each of my childhood’s journeys. Every late afternoon, I would walk along Nguyen Huu Huan street, starting from exiting Tran Nhat Duat street, which runs along the Red River dyke. My journey was always marked by familiar landmarks: The Children Palace, State Bank, “Peacock” garden, “Toad” garden, Metropole hotel, The Opera House, and finally the History Museum, on the street where we lived. Like most children of my time, I went directly home and didn’t spend much time exploring the neighbourhood of the Old Quarter. I was more likely to be absorbed in the fictional world and anecdotal stories of war heroes in my favourite novels. The old town only appeared as a mysterious idea. It began at the beginning of the journey, with the streets “Hang Mam,” “Hang Muoi,” “Lo Su,” and so on. For me, these are particularly intriguing names – those small streets cut through Nguyen Huu Huan street at square angle. Growing up, I learned more about the geography of the Old Town and realized that I was walking through it, to the East. What I can remember is that the dynamics of the Old Town spread to that boundary, and I would usually be distracted for a moment from my heroes and immersed myself in that bustling atmosphere. That part of the Old Quarter shows a familiar attraction that both fascinated me and simultaneously made me somewhat indifferent. The Old Quarter was somewhat like a part in my novels, attractive and fictitious, evoking exploration but at the same time, mysteriously, preventing direct access.
Growing up I seldom travelled to the Old Quarter, even the Hoan Kiem lake, which was just a kilometer away from home. Everything was within walking distance: school, friends, our informal football pitches, anything. That ended when I entered high school which was situated next to the West Lake. This opened a completely new horizon for me. My journey now took an alternate route, a bit further from the old town to its South and West. Every day I would stride along Trang Tien street, beginning from the Opera House, passing by the Hoan Kiem Lake, straight to Trang Thi street until I reached Cua Nam (the “Southern Gate”), then along Dien Bien Phu street, through the Flag Tower on my right and the statue of V.I. Lenin on my left, towards Ba Dinh Square. Crossing past the shores of the Lake, everything suddenly seemed to grow bigger and larger, from the tall “Sau” tree on the boulevard of Trang Thi, to the gigantic flag tower on Dien Bien Phu street. The statue of Lenin on the opposite side of the Flag Tower was, of course, also colossal in size. My new school was also much bigger, and located on West Lake, which was far larger than my old Hoan Kiem Lake. On my way to school, there was always something smaller, more ancient and familiar on the right-hand side, and on the other side was something bigger, more contemporary, more “Western.” On one side was something very old and full of life, and on the other side something more massive, dignified and ideological, like the old turtle tower on the right and Mr. Lenin’s statue on the left in my daily itinerary.
If the first part of my high school’s itinerary followed the southern and western edges of the Old Quarter, my daily route since 12th grade would be followed along its Northern periphery, with the Quan Thanh street on my way to school and Phan Dinh Phung street on my way back home. It was due to the fact that we moved house to the other side of the Red River. We now lived in a two-story house with each floor of one hundred twenty square meters, a breakthrough from our old house of only fourteen square meters, which had accommodated the six of us. Both our house and the geographical distance from home to school grew longer, and my journey through the city extended across the two sides of the river. The busy Old Town was located at one end of the bridge, while at the other end was a quieter, more spacious, unfamiliar, and somewhat strange place. Beside coming home, I didn’t know what else to do to entertain myself in my new neighborhood. At noon, my two friends and I would find ourselves in a small video game parlour at the intersection of Hang Non and Hang Thiec streets, sometimes during our skipping class-time. At other occasions we’d spend the spare time between school and the supplementary courses at the house of one of those two guys, who lived in Duong Thanh street, just right in the corner from the video parlour in the Old Quarter. When I needed football shoes, I would go to To Tich street. As for food, we could just indulge ourselves at any street corner. My best friend lived in Gia Ngu street, in the middle of the market of Hang Be. Each time going through that market to visit him, the mixed smell of food and garbage, combining with the heat, gave me a slight unpleasant headache but at the same time a familiarity that I just needed. That way, I gradually “invaded” the Old Town, as the Old Town “invaded” me, naturally and inattentively, as if I grew up in it. The Old Town was there, providing food, services, pleasure, without being noticed and applauded. If the French Quarter – where I grew up – was full of buildings with clear, outstanding architecture and distinctive in its formal expression, then the Old Quarter was a formless object, a chaos that did not need to be noticed. A fictional Old Town like in the novels became an obvious reality, bit by bit.
The geographical distance from the Old Town gradually grew with time. Home and school found themselves at the two ends of the city when I went to college, crossing the boundaries of the Old Hanoi. But the Old Town was still there, in the middle of any distances, as a referential point in my mental map. There were many ways to go to school, but I usually included a certain segment of my childhood itineraries, on the edges of the Old Town, be it the Eastern edge of my earliest journeys along Nguyen Huu Huan street, or the South side along the lake, or at the West side on Hoang Dieu street. Hanoi to me was an extended Old Quarter. Even on my bike, I rarely needed a map to navigate my journey, I could just keep going and the destination would be reached at some point, just like wandering in the streets of the Old Quarter, which existed in my mind map as a fictional spatial point.
The older I got, the later in the day I would reach the Old Quarter. Every night, after our night design class at Truc Bach lake, my college friends and I would go through the Old Town on our bike, intersecting its streets. The most travelled route would be the North-South axis of the Quarter, along Hang Duong and Hang Dao street. We would have crossed that street thousands of times. It was during this time that I began to notice the form of the Old Quarter: its facades, roofs, balconies, its shadows. The shape of the town – stripped naked from layers of motorbikes, merchandise, and people during the daytime – became distinctive during the night. Each house and street corner seemed to be an object of contemplation, placed under the golden light from the street lamps like a work of art under the spotlight in a museum. The streets suddenly became unfamiliar and seductive, leading me from one surprise to another at every turn. It was only by walking wearily through those roads that I gradually became familiar with the neighborhood again, and gradually began to “own it.” In the night, the street became more “real” in sight, and rendered the busy life of the day a fictional past. In the daytime, its streets and wards hosted a diverse array of events and possibilities that were unpredictable, like the different plots of the novels of my childhood. At night, they became clearer, more visible and palpable for the observer. The Quarter became more “real.” But at the same time, in the silence and emptiness, each person would fill that space with their own fantasies. Spending the night in the Quarter was an illusory experience, for the streets and places themselves became half-real and half-fictional.
The older I am, the further away I am from the Old Quarter streets, and the further away I am from Hanoi, and this distance allows me to appreciate more and more the values of the Old Quarter. That’s when I know that the soul of the Old Quarter has always been in me, so much so that I can clearly feel its absence, or rather its existence, while searching unconsciously for what is not there in other cities: the warm, bitter smell of the hot tea on the street tea shops, the swaying bamboo yokes on the shoulder of the vendor women, the crystal-like “night sun” particles slipping through the leaves of the almond trees from the street lights, to finally settle against the narrow streets. I have lived both in and on the edges of the Old Quarter and also both close the very distant from it. I have lived through all the years and the seasons. I have walked it night and day, drinking it in its small lanes, eating it in the early morning at sunrise after weary night of walking. The Old Quarter, through the stretch of time and the remote contemplation of space, suddenly becomes an inescapable, nostalgic reality, reinforcing my understanding and appreciation of its particular and nuanced character. On every quick trip back home, I treat myself to a night street corner, in order to reload material for that nostalgia while I am away, like in the song “Hanoi on the return” of the compositor Phu Quang:
“ Oh Hanoi, every time my heart is broken
I hurried back
Get myself even just a bit of night shadow on the familiar streets…”
Hanoi, and particularly the Old Quarter, is like that. It is a piece of fictional reality, and therefore can only be perceived by abstract metrics such as haste, darkness or a feeling of familiarity.
Tuan Manh Nguyen
Dien Bien, July 2nd, 2019
