#I am including the Thai foreign workers in this list because they need to come home too | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lookatthedawn · 8 years ago

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Ha Noi

At Nobai International Airport they quickly stamp my passport and welcome me into Vietnam. I descend an escalator and see the American lady I had been in contact with for over a month. The poster in her hands have my name nicely spelled in red but it's not hard to spot a tall American among the Vietnamese. She takes a double look at me, even though she knows I am a 50-year old college student. Her kindness and consideration shows the minute she meets me and asks about my flight, how tired I am and whether I need to use the bathroom since the ride to the hotel will take about an hour. She chooses one of the cabs in front of the airport and speaks in, what seems to me, fluent Vietnamese. She says it still needs work. Rides from airports are funny. I remember many of them and they all feel anticlimactic, somehow. It's no fault of airports, taxi drivers or the nice people who volunteer to pick you up. It's just that no reality can live up to the hype I create in the days before traveling or picking someone at the airport. When I meet someone who has been away I want to know everything about their trip, I want to see, through their eyes, the ruins of Pantheon, those Swiss Alps, I want them to give me the goods, right away, because I have thought so much about them there, seeing beautiful things, living their beautiful lives and I'm also so glad to be with them. When I am the one arriving at some place, there's a moment of ennui, in which I'm like, okay, I'm here, now what? Then I look around and go, oh, ah, look at that! In retrospect, I see that my understanding of what I see is very superficial. It's like seeing a woman wearing a yellow hat. You notice it, but a local might know that when Meg wears the yellow hat, that means she's going to work in her garden or maybe that she has just got her favorite hat back from Susan. Does that mean that she and Susan are back on good terms? The foreigner sees Meg and the yellow hat but knows nothing about it. He sees things at face value. I see the Ceramic Mosaic Mural, for example, but don't quite understand the significance of the project -- I had never even heard of Ly Thai To -- and it takes me a while to really appreciate it. I am lucky because the person who picked me up from Nobai Airport is full of knowledge and practical wisdom, which she imparts to me on the ride to the hotel. She tells me she finds New York City too slow compared to Hanoi, which surprises and scares me. I thought I was coming to a quiet capital, in a quiet country, with people quietly practicing Tai Chi on parks, but I guess not. What I see from the car, though, is farmland and developed highways. Well, at least for a while, that was all there was. Suddenly more houses and business appears and in a matter of minutes, we are in the thick of things. Thick is the right word here because traffic in Hanoi is heavy, loud, and to foreign eyes, extremely disorganized. We arrive at The Artisan Hotel. Many businesses in Hanoi, hotels included, have a narrow facade, among similar business also with narrow facades. When you enter the place, you're surprised to find that it's roomier than at first impression. The Artisan Hotel sits squeezed between its siblings, but once inside you realize that there's plenty of room. I step out of the taxi, look for my suitcase and find it gone. In one minute the whole list of things I brought in the suitcase -- namely clothes, shoes and books -- pass through my head and I realize that I can survive without them. The important stuff -- documents, phone and credit cards -- are nicely tucked inside the bag I am carrying. However, it's a terrible omen to lose your luggage upon arrival anywhere, and I look around in panic. It turns out that, as soon as the taxi stopped, the Hotel's helpful doorman had opened the trunk and taken my suitcase inside. This little event should've told me much about the Vietnamese, but I didn't take it as a behavior norm as I see now. The Vietnamese don't ask if you need help. They just help. They take your luggage, they place chopsticks in your hand, they put rice in your bowl. They take to heart the saying, "see a need, fill it!" The receptionist is friendly and speaks English. She checks my reservation, then asks one of the doormen to show me to my room while my friend awaits to take me out for a little walk. She takes me to Lake Hoan Kiem, which is busy with people selling food, exercising, playing sports, playing checkers, or just taking a stroll like us. She teaches me how to cross the street, which you do by bargaining with the drivers. "You have to choose the best moment and just go. Don't hesitate, don't stop, because if you do, then they don't know what to do with you." She couldn't have said it better. Once I did freeze when I saw a motorbike coming toward me, and that sent the driver into a panic. If I stop they get lost, but if I keep going, they know how to swerve around me. Actually, that's what they do all day. As we walk she tells me a little about herself and about what to expect of my internship at The Gioi, but mostly, she tells me about Vietnam. I've always found that the introduction we have to a place is rather significant. My friend clearly loves this country and has a keen eye for history and cultural nuances. Through her eyes, I see Hanoi as an exciting place to be, where there is so much happening. Here nobody cares about Trump's last tweet or the most recent scandal from Washington. Life is what people make of it, and they are rather busy minding their own business in this side of the world. My friend presents the Vietnamese as a friendly people, hard and dedicated workers, practical, but at times, naive. I had read the text she sent me, an important volume about conduct in dealing with superiors and colleagues while in Vietnam. One of these recommendations was to treat people with more respect than they deserve, but speak of yourself with less respect than you deserve. "They'll ask your age as soon as they meet you," she tells me, "not because they're rude, but because they want to be polite and address you in the correct way. If you're older than them, they'll call you elder sister, if you're younger, younger sister." In a way, it's like traffic; they need to know where you stand, to better place themselves in relation to you. Maybe that's part of what it means to be in a socialist society. My friend shows me banks where I can withdraw money, the post office, and the public library. She stops at a small postal agency where she urges me to buy a map. This is the first purchase I make in Vietnam and I couldn't have spent 20 thousand Dongs better. We walk to the Opera House, while she tells me about the French influence in Vietnam. For a long time, the Vietnamese people were not allowed to attend events at the Opera House, which sits prettily in the center of a plaza. Along the street leading to the Opera House, which would become a hallmark in my wanderings because of its decorations, we stop at L'Espace, the French Cultural Center. We get a pamphlet with all the events for this summer. I have never heard of the performers, but enjoy the tastefully decorated center and it is nice to stop for a few minutes in the air-conditioned place. Hanoi combines heat and humidity to a sickening level. My friend doesn't seem as bothered as I am. Sometimes my blood pressure falls to a threatening level. For the past forty-eight hours or so I neither slept nor ate well, let alone taken a shower. I'm sure that it is my interest in this new and exciting place that keeps me going. My guide, however, who is more than two decades older than me, seems perfectly fine. Around 7:30 pm, local time, we dine at a very Western restaurant, but not so Western that my vegan sandwich would come together. It comes separated, bread, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, and it comes in abundance. Even though I am hungry, I cannot finish it.

#Hanoi #Vietnam #Ho Hoan Kiem Vietnamese #traveling #internship

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