Hanoi: Smiling and watching

Perhaps I am just lazy – but if there’s one thing that characterises my blogging style it’s a lack of research.

It seems to me that in Vietnam, and perhaps specifically in Hanoi, it’s hard to find an absolute truth on anything.

When you first arrive it’s easy to feel that it’s your duty to educate your readers – most of which you imagine to be back home hanging on your every word.

Those facts that newby expats and passing-through-backpackers write – Actually Ho Chi Minh wanted to be cremated…everyone still calls it Saigon… baguettes are a welcome legacy of the French.

I’ve no reason to doubt any of those and yet, this being Vietnam, I find it easier to simply describe what’s in front of my eyes. It may or may not be representative. It may be distortion of the wider picture. I am not saying any of it is typical – I am just saying I saw it.

Absolute truths are hard to find here. I know so very little that you might as well think of it as nothing.

I loved this recent post from Sticky Rice. Not just ten years of food but ten years of asking questions. Meanwhile I’ve spent my shorter time just watching and, for the most part, smiling.

When I do ask questions even locals seem confused.  There are official truths, polite truths suitable for foreigners, the real, the legend and plain old fashioned differences of opinion.

The more I do know, the harder I find to write it down and the more sensitive I am about getting it wrong. Pictures seem easier. The camera can misrepresent but it doesn’t lie.

Neither the blog nor its style is liked by all. That’s fine. The longer I write the more it becomes personal. A space for my thoughts. Less about a place and more about my perspective on it.

As Hanoi nears its 1,000 birthday it remains as place of contrasts, not least the love it or hate it attitude it provokes.

Whatever. For it to be here, for it to function, for it to be growing at such an incredible rate defies logic. Maybe I’ll never truly understand the place. Maybe I’d love it less if I did. Perhaps that would break the magic.

Hanoi has survived a 1,000 years and yet I can’t even begin to imagine what it might look like in another ten.

So all I can do is grab a coffee and just continue to watch.