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My Hanoi
Hanoi is one of the new global cities of the 21st century - a bustling centre of international trade and tourism, in competition with other fast growing cities of South East Asia and the burgeoning South China region. Growing urbanisation has led to a boom in construction: market reform and globalization have caused an influx of Western consumer goods.
My Hanoi is the story of Tran Thuy Linh, whose family has lived in the flower village area of Hanoi for generations. Seen through Thuy Linh's eyes, the programme profiles a city in a period of dramatic change - emerging from colonialism and the still painful memories of the Vietnam war, through socialism to the current free market era where a younger generation is asserting itself as a force for change.
Thuy Linh's father describes how it used to be: "I came here in '54 when the economy was mainly agriculture and Ngoc Ha was a flower-growing village. Each house was separated with a garden surrounded with banana trees and hibiscus. Today houses stand next to one another and people even fight for the separating wall. Today there isn't even a metre of land left. People fight for it and grab it all."
As in many other cities the world over, modern development has brought a faster pace of living, and traditional values have gone by the board. Thuy Linh's father reminisces: "Over there was a pond where our grandfathers grew lotus and willow trees. And in that lotus pond our grandparents made tea in a very fancy way. At night they opened lotus petals, put tea leaves inside and closed them. At dawn, they got the tea out and it was infused with lotus fragrance. Then they used the dewdrops from the lotus leaves as water for their tea. That's how our grandparents drank tea."
Thuy Linh remembers how it used to be when she was younger: "If only we could have kept this village as it was in the '60s or '70s it'd be wonderful. I remember in my childhood it was still very beautiful. At the entrance to the village was a kapok tree, a village communal house, a pond and flower gardens on both sides. Houses nestled among flower gardens - unlike today, where they stand next to one another."
Professor Vu Khieu explains that many of Hanoi's problems arise because it has been urbanised from an agricultural base. "Original Hanoians account for only 15-20%. The rest come from other areas, from the countryside and from the war. They have brought with them their rural life style to Hanoi. People raise chickens and pigs as if they were in the countryside. Many French villas are divided and shared by several families and cooking is done in the same room. This is the problem; but it will change as we modernise."
Thuy Linh complains that, as in other cities, nature and greenery have been lost in a welter of skyscrapers, apartment blocks and traffic. "No one wants to return to the old days but the pressure of today's life is awful. And people have to pay dearly for today's abundance - sometime even with their own happiness. People today don't even have time for reflection. I can't imagine how people will live in the 21st century. They may get what they wish for, may have great material success, but I think people will be very lonely."
The tomb of the man who established Ngoc Ha village has been buried beneath a hotel development and, Thuy Linh explains, children today don't learn about the history of the city. It is important to preserve and appreciate what it left of the old city. "But will young people love Hanoi enough to bring better things to it when they're armed with such little knowledge and understanding of the place they are living in? Will they think of preserving Hanoi's identity?"
Thuy Linh doesn't think of Hanoi as a woman, but as a man. "People always compare Hanoi with a girl but I think of it as a man. That man could wear an elegant suit, a handkerchief in his pocket, a felt hat on his head when it's neither rainy nor sunny, carry a walking stick. It means he has a lot of unnecessary things but without them, it wouldn't be him... To me, there's only one Ngoc Ha and one Hanoi, which can't be defined in space or time but can only be felt by love and in the heart. I believe if the Hanoian spirit still lives on in some people, Hanoi will be preserved and will survive."
TRANSCRIPT
Read the full transcript of My Hanoi
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