Can Hanoi be forever?

So this is the first real post on OMIH since January 2007.

Since then there’s been a great deal of change both personally and geographically.

To recap I was in Nicaragua, then spent a year in the UK then did the VSO thing again – this time 12 months in Cameroon. I got older. I got single again.

It seems like somewhere in a parallel universe there’s a me that stayed in Hanoi.  Certainly, the fact that I’m moving back suggests he made the right decision but I’m not so sure.

Though Nicaragua didn’t work out – oh it was gorgeous. A return trip home meant a year spent seeing my nieces and more time with the family even though it taught me that being overseas was selfishly where I really wanted to be.

Then Cameroon showed me that it wasn’t overseas I hankered for. It was Vietnam.

So, as I type, I am two weeks away from my return journey.

I’ve a job to go to – editing an online news site. So this time it won’t be another NGO position – though I remain keen to do some level of volunteer work.

But I’ve thought a lot about *which* expat I am going to be. I have neither the cash nor the inclination to be an SUV-driving, compound-dwelling type.  On the other hand, in truth, I’m wearying of the short term “voluntourists” and their penchant for self publicising good deeds.  That said, I have gained extra respect for the grass root NGO lifers who survive on job satisfaction rather than big org expense accounts and funded overseas trips.

I also don’t want to be that expat who works just to pay a bar bill.  Alcohol actually looms large in this internal dialogue. There are times when I reason I should be more sociable which subsequently means drinking more. Other reasoning suggests being more sociable doesn’t necessarily equal more drinks.

I have, at least, come to terms with being an expat.  There was a time when I hated the word and the kind of people it suggested to me. Movie and TV expats are never favourable characters.

Somewhere along the way though I think I’ve wised up.  I now know that those expats wearing suits are at least as likely to be contributing to Vietnam as the NGO crowd. Probably more so.

As part of that change in me I wonder if I can even communicate as I did in OMIH before. Can I be as open as I once was?  Or does that ability leave with the naiveté?  What stories do I have to tell now that there’s no longer anyone to look after but me?

Meanwhile I’ve realised I’ve been unconsciously blocking Hanoi. In a bookstore today I couldn’t bring myself to buy the city guide.  I’ve had online access to TV chefs Bourdain and Stein’s trips to the area and I find I can’t watch them.

I suppose I need to discover it all for myself.  I don’t want to get there and think…yes, just like they said. I want to walk around old haunts mentally noting what is new, what is gone and what has changed.

In particular I hope to surprise myself with those bits I had absolutely forgotten.

I think a lot too about the temperature and humidity and how I will deal with it. Of being wet with sweat or hiding in an air conned bedroom almost too heat fatigued to get up and face another hot day.

But am I underplaying or overplaying its significance to how I will live?

Occasionally I remember little snippets of language. Today buying shirts I mentally reasoned I could get them copied in Hanoi and wondered if I could find an entirely cotton cloth. From somewhere I remembered the words (but not the spelling so I won’t..) for one hundred percent.

I have friends there who will remember me.  But what of the staff in the bars, cafes and restaurants I frequented?  Will my return be a big deal – or am I already forgotten?  What about the kids who were with me at KOTO? What of old colleagues?

I will need friends because, in truth, I am trying Hanoi out for “forever”.

As my home.

Of all the places I ever lived Hanoi worked best. Nowhere else made me happier.

Though it’s hard not to wonder… was it specifically the city or were there other factors too? Perhaps they are the critical factors – quite impossible to recreate.

Can this first love turn into something more enduring? Am I expecting too much?

What I do know is that right now the thought of returning – of actually physically being driven into the city on my arrival – is more than I can begin to imagine.  Just like leaving KOTO used to be.

But I can just about conjure up the mood I used to feel biking around Hanoi’s streets.

The street is, of course, tree lined and while much is in shade the sun streams through in vivid patches. Ideally the blossom is out and that intoxicating smell fills the air completely.

And I’m smiling – just as I am in all such memories.

So can Hanoi be forever?

At this point I honestly don’t know.

But it feels like it’s time I stoppped messing about. It feels like it’s time I found out.