Living with The Cart – An Update
Posted: April 15, 2012 Filed under: Food and drink, Hanoi, ho tay, nghi tam, tay ho, The Cart, Westlake, work | Tags: cafe, Hanoi, ho tay, nghi tam, tay ho, the cart, westlake, work 3 Comments »
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Back when I used to work at KOTO, they fed me most days – it was part of the deal, there never was a more spoiled VSO volunteer than me.
Most of the time that meant delivery to the old Thuy Khue training centre but occasionally I’d be at the restaurant so I’d find a table and order. I never enjoyed it. I always spent my time wondering how long it’d been since table 12 ordered, or was table 5 not enjoying their dish and that glass of wine table 3 received – I thought they’d ask for a beer etc etc.
Normally everyone was just fine and staff were far more capable of keeping tabs on it all than I was. All I added was an on-edge layer of nervousness.
Substitute KOTO in 2004 – 2007 for The Cart 2009 – now and up till recently I was still a little jumpy. It’s intensified as The Cart Nghi Tam, just two minutes from my house, sometimes feels like an overspill of my living room. After all it’s often where I go just to spend time with my hardworking wife.
But what’s great is just how the place now feels like it’s matured. Staff recruited in the wake of opening the branch are proving to be stars. None more so than Hung the former Blue Dragon kid manning the front desk and Doan our baker.
Hung (seen here modelling the KeepCup) is a star, an honest as the day is long and with deceptively good English. I wonder sometimes – did he get that? – he did. Doan, our baker, arrived having worked overseas – the fresh bread he makes has taken the place to a new level.
We’d always envisaged the cafe as a Nghi Tam community place. Too small for a hangout but maybe somewhere to meet up. We’re making new friends as a result of being open – good to see some of our customers doing the same. They too look more comfortable there and we now know a little more about each other. We’ve become part of each other’s routine.
Loan continues to work seven days a week but gratifyingly not quite as many hours. Sister Trang is an irreplaceable member of staff and, as she’s holding down two jobs, we keep trying to lure her full time but her other post is public sector and in Vietnam that’s still considered the most solid career going.
My wife has a very Vietnamese anti-marketing stance. Businesses build. Promotion is expensive. It’s actually suited us and while it may be rooted in a traditional pho-stand sensibility it goes well with modern social media thinking. We’ve tried to avoid any hyperbole on our website. We’ll say it’s fresh – you can decide if you think it’s tasty. Word of mouth has so far promoted a very sustainable growth. From the very outset there’s been a plan to flyer all the local NGOs but, ultimately, we haven’t needed to.
Staff capacity is building at pretty much the same rate as demand and that’s fantastic.
Oh and The Cart Au Trieu has had a little love too. At first the new place stole a few of its customers but now they’re both performing consistently. Although we also know that summer is coming and they’re long and hot and frequently not quite so rewarding. It’s all about spring and autumn in expat land.
Finally it was my 41st birthday yesterday (I was very moved when the flowers below arrived from colleagues) – which is always a good time to reflect. Post Tet holiday, which seems like years ago now, has been a rather stressful period – for a number of reasons I’ll go into another time. But it feels like we’re getting a grip on it all.
Investing our thought and time in The Cart will be an ongoing process – but with it settling nicely, happily it’s one less thing to worry about.
How long can Vietnam keep this up?
Posted: April 9, 2012 Filed under: change, environment, family, Hanoi, News, Reflections | Tags: development, environment, family, growth, Hanoi, pollution 2 Comments »Most of my columns for the Word Magazine can be found online – including this most recent one, a tribute to my colleagues at the British Council.
But a couple have only previously appeared in print. This is one of them…
***
Judging from newsreel footage, back when “all this was bicycles”, Hanoi wasn’t just quiet it was pretty slow moving too.
Not at all surprising when you figure that heat occasionally nudges 40 degrees in the summer. Vietnam doesn’t seem like it was meant to be fast.
But scooters replaced pushbikes and now cars replace scooters. Air con means people can work faster, harder and longer.
Those cars are now blocking streets. To deal with this we’ll soon get more car parks, wider streets and fly overs. Alongside these will be trams and increased public transport. Hanoi is expanding – it needs more housing, more shops.
Hanoi is to become a city made of cities.
My Vietnamese parents in law used to live in the countryside. They now live in the city. They didn’t have to move to achieve this.
Still, for the those with a nostalgia for “their countryside” there are wildlife restaurants. While the kids increasingly pay lip service to green causes, many affluent oldies are still paying top dollar for civet and pangolin. In 2010 Vietnam’s last Javan rhino was shot. No one really believes Vietnam’s tigers and elephants can survive.
Since the end of the American war Vietnam’s population has doubled.
Over the past decade, Vietnam’s carbon dioxide emissions have grown by 136%. That’s faster than any other country on the planet. Over the same period Vietnam’s oil use grew by 82% – beaten only by increases from China and Qatar.
But that’s nothing compared to Vietnam’s electricity use – up a massive 227%.
Meanwhile having hauled themselves out of poverty through sheer hard work, Vietnamese ambition doesn’t show any signs of slowing. Those who had it hard don’t want their kids to suffer like they did. If that means youngsters studying seven days a week then so be it.
Kids won’t go hungry but they will face different kinds of pressures. Simply making it to University isn’t enough. It has to be a foreign University. In the right country.
Meanwhile stats show that by the time kids hit their teens their largest outgoing is paying off debt.
That is something they have to get used to. With Hanoi’s housing bubble not yet burst, real estate loans went up by almost a quarter between 2009 and 2010.
Borrow more. Buy more land. Or dollars. Or even gold.
And if you’ve spent all that money on land, you’re going to want to make the best of it. No point having a three storey house when you could have five. Knock it down, borrow more money and build it up again bigger than ever. Five stories this time. Have your builders work through the weekend to get it done as soon as possible. Make them start early and finish late.
If you find yourself richer in 10 years time, do this again.
Little wonder then that Vietnam has a dust issues – up to 20 or 30 times the recommended limit near building sites. A mere half that on busy city crossroads.
Back to the family – mum and dad both have to go out to work now in order to meet increasing financial commitments. Grandparents are needed to take kids to school.
The golden generation that won wars and survived food shortages are now needed to babysit and do school runs. Mums and dads get back late. Stuck at work then stuck in traffic.
It’s a ride, exhilarating but exhausting, and let’s not forget that these are the good times.
But surely it can’t go on like this.
***
You can download the most recent version of The Word here.
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The Alley
Posted: April 1, 2012 Filed under: Hanoi, ho tay, nghi tam, Reflections | Tags: alley, Hanoi, ho tay, house, houses, nghi tam, spring, tay ho, weddings 2 Comments »
Like a lot of people living in Nghi Tam we don’t have a lake view.
Our home is positioned down a back alley, with a left, a right and another left meaning it’s cut off from most of the noise and all of the breeze.
In our L-shaped cul de sac there’s us, another foreign renter and two homes side by side holding two related Vietnamese families. They are the landlords.
Nothing much goes wrong that they won’t fix immediately. We’re aware that our rent might well be higher if we hadn’t settled so well. My wife counts the landlady as a friend. In the past if we’ve mentioned buying something for the house the landlady has offered to pay.
It’s mercifully quiet, or at least it is by Hanoi standards. We’re still woken up by a rooster on a six second snooze loop. It means the last couple of hours of sleep are troubled. There’s actually two birds, one on the roof and one on the ground floor – effectively covering all basis. There’s no place to hide nor sleep.
The other frequent noise is the teenage son who sings. Really loudly. Constantly. Usually Vietnamese ballads but occasionally, for some reason, Whitney Houston.
I’m saving all my love for yoooo-oooooooooooooh
The last couple of weekends have seen a family wedding. Tables lined the alley and a tarpaulin covered it in case of rain. My motorbike was usually the wrong side of the celebrations. Either I couldn’t leave or return. So I’d normally pass the tables on foot – hallo-ing kids lined up to greet the foreigner.
There was the “do” for the wedding, before that there was the an hoi. Then there was a do for the people who couldn’t make the do. And another for those that couldn’t make that one. Relatives chatted into the evening and were up with the rooster chatting loudly again and ready to depart. The alleyway echoes.
We were invited to the Friday wedding event and my wife attended in my absence with Thuy from the corner shop. I was at work.
In pretty much every sense we live very comfortably here. But soon it will get warm and our air conditioner exhausts will collectively fill the back alley with heat.
Soon I’ll be sweating before I find my way down the alleys to the lake front.
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Dinner and drinks with the inlaws
Posted: April 1, 2012 Filed under: family, Food and drink, Hanoi | Tags: beer, bia, drink, family, food, whisky, wine 1 Comment »
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It seems like years since we weren’t mouldy
Posted: March 24, 2012 Filed under: Hanoi, ho tay, nghi tam, tay ho, weather | Tags: damp, Hanoi, mould, nghi tam, weather 2 Comments »
Late last week I was optimistic enough about the weather to look out my thinner blue linen suit. I hadn’t worn it since autumn last year. It was mouldy. A lot of what I own right now is mouldy.
This hasn’t been a winter of layers and hot whiskies, like last year. This has been a year of damp. At worst, water was trickling down the bannister.
Friday it came to a head with a storm with winds that bent the trees and left the roads covered in branches and leaves. Perhaps it was what we needed – since then it’s been fresher. Still cool but not damp cool.
And then we were blessed with a beautiful evening. If the weather is finally changing then we’ll enjoy it while we can. Weather of a different extreme won’t be too far away.
This pic also reminds me that I keep meaning to set up a “As seen from The Cart” Tumblr. This pic, one of many snapped with my phone from my usual seat.
