Hanoi: Cocktails of the city

Paul Chai
The Sydney Morning Herald

Laidback: A busy night in Hanoi's old town. Photo: Alamy

Hanoi's best bars serve a winning mix of art, music and cocktails.

Charming retro boltholes, creative cocktail joints and great bar food - Hanoi has plenty to do when the sun slinks away behind the city's ever-present haze.

The northern Vietnamese city was dealt a blow last year when the much-touted new art-and-bar space Zone 9 - a south-east Asian take on London's Shoreditch - was closed after a fatal fire. But when one bar closes, several more open or relocate. New laneway bars are popping up in Tay Ho, Zone 9 favourites are moving to new digs, and the city's bia hois continue to slake the thirst of the city.




Dangling glass bottles at Bar Betta. Photo: Vegan Beats/Google

Here is a selection of the hippest, highest and handsomest places to quench your thirst.
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FOR COCKTAILS

Bar Betta (34c Cao Ba Quat, Ba Dinh) is a rabbit warren of rooms stuffed with old gramophones, tin toys, walls plastered with old vinyl - and Edith Piaf warbling in the background. It's lovingly retro, like many of the cocktails on offer. Or you can choose from the specials.

Summit Lounge at Sofitel Plaza.

A Litchi Rose comes on like a floral boxing glove, the wine selection is one of the best in town, and by day drinkers have their laptops for companions. But this Hanoi hipster haunt is more play than work in the evening. Climb the stone staircase, through the forest of dangling glass bottles, to discover the rooftop party.

Tucked away in a West Lake laneway, Do Luych (19B Ngo 12, Dang Thai Mai Street, Tay Ho) is full of mismatched furniture - the CD cabinet is a shower cubicle - and has a classic cocktail list (the whisky sour is a standout).

Drinkers can choose to watch the bartenders work in the front bar in among the coloured lights, fake trees and a baby grand piano, or chill in the tiny back garden.

It's a relaxed, arty space with jazz on the stereo, where locals can buy a bottle of spirits to keep behind the bar and anyone can grab a banh mi when hungry.

Best described as warehouse-chic, Tadioto (24B Tong Dan Street; tadioto.com) is a bit of a blank canvas, an alternative art space that evolves to host readings, gallery openings and art events, all with the backing of a well-stocked bar and competent bar staff. It recently moved near the Opera House after its Zone 9 outlet was closed down.

FOR FOOD

Bare bricks and ottomans are packed three storeys high at 88 Lounge (88 Xuan Dieu, Tay Ho) on the shores of Tay Ho. Behind a screen of live bamboo, waiters in crisp white shirts bustle around the large wooden tables and lush furnishings amid prison-grey concrete walls.

88 is a sophisticated affair with a big wine list and a small-but-spot-on selection of food. Delve into a board of paper-thin cold cuts including salumi, sopressa and Serrano ham, with a side of olives, cherry tomatoes and cornichons; a cheese plate is piled generously high, and open sandwiches are served with fries and salad.

It's an expat crowd ,but it's new, bold and lots of fun.

Don's - A Chef's Bistro (16 Ngo 27, Xuan Dieu, Tay Ho; facebook.com/donsviet) is a popular rooftop bar, atop the fine diner of the same name.

This kitsch bar gives you a view of Tay Ho with neon lighting, up-lit glass tables and swivel cane chairs - as well as a live band. The crowd is friendly and fun, and Don's margarita is as lethal as Hanoi's traffic. Downstairs, the Canadian expat, chef and owner, Donald Berger, offers a quieter (and altogether bluer) space for those who would rather partake of dinner than drinks; his take on local rice paper rolls give the street vendors a run for their money.

FOR VIEWS

The Hanoi haze almost looks appealing 20 floors up with a pineapple ginger margarita in hand at the Summit Lounge (Sofitel Plaza Hanoi, 1 Thanh Nien Road, Ba Dinh). Rattan chairs, brightly coloured pillows and glowing lamps make a lounge of the balcony area, while inside boasts big couches.

And it's not the tequila talking - those really are giant swans gliding along Tay Ho (West Lake) as avid swan-boaters paddle around Chua Tran Quoc pagoda, said to be Vietnam's oldest. The tapas menu trots the globe, but go local with cha ca skewers, turmeric-covered fish pieces, or chargrilled lemongrass and chilli chicken.

Tucked away from the traffic, the Sunset Bar (Intercontinental Hanoi Westlake, 1ANghi Tam, Tay Ho; ihg.com) sits at the heart of the hotel's overwater rooms offering a commanding low-level view across the lake to Ba Dinh.

Tiki torches light your way along a bridge to a man-made island of rattan chairs, day beds and red lanterns. There's a barbecue in the corner, but most of the well-heeled crowd just grabs a seat and faces the waning light; then you get dive-bombing bats for company.

The signature drink is a Hanoi Breeze, a punch mix of lemongrass, fresh mint, dark and white rum, and a dash of soda.

FOR AUTHENTICITY

Taken en masse, bia hois (any street, anywhere) are the most popular places for a drink in the city. Plastic chairs so low they feel like practice for the squat toilets and similar kiddie-sized tables are about the only adornment to these no-frills beer bars but that's OK when your lager is ice-cold, fresh daily and cheap. It's a simple brew, low in alcohol and quite likely to run out - and it comes with some equally simple and fresh local food (though quality varies).

The writer travelled at his own expense.

TRIP NOTES

GETTING THERE

Malaysia Airlines has a fare to Hanoi for about $835 low-season return from Sydney and Melbourne including tax. Fly to Kuala Lumpur (about 8hr) and then to Hanoi (3hr 25min). See malaysiaairlines.com. Australians need a tourist visa for a stay of up 30 days.

EATING THERE

Street eats are the way to go, so grab a banh mi at streetside stalls andbia hois. For a sit-down meal in the old quarter, visit the venerable Cha Ca La Vong, 14 Pho Cha Ca, dinner from $40. The house special is fish, grilled at your table.

STAYING THERE

Just outside the city centre but close to the Tay Ho bar scene is InterContinental Hanoi Westlake, 1a Nghi Tam, Tay Ho, with rooms starting from $240. Do some tai chi by the outdoor pool, dine at Cafe du lac or indulge at the breakfast buffet. See ihg.com.

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How to go #FAST at the Cooler Lumpur

I visited Kuala Lumpur 3 times, but this time is a special occasion. The British Council Vietnam invited me to attend a Literature and Arts Festival - the Cooler Lumpur (such a witty word-playing! I like it). The main theme is #FAST. There will has many panels, and my panel bear the topic of [PANEL] Rock, Paper, Scissors: Cultural Censorship and the Death of Ideas. It will be at Sunday 22nd June 4.30pm - 5.30pm, Black Box, MAP.  The general questions as following:

What happens in societies in which censorship is a norm? Is creativity stifled or does it still find a way to thrive? What happens to new ideas, to controversial ideas, to dangerous ideas, to necessary ideas, if they aren’t ever allowed to surface - be it in literature, art, music, or film? This panel will address those issues of censorship that go beyond the usual stories of government heavy-handedness and instead discuss how the years of conditioning has affected our cultural landscape.

Really difficult questions. However, I hope I will have a good communication with other panellist, Malaysian-Irish born author Marc de Faoite and Malaysian film director Dain Said as well as our moderator, Mr. Kateljin Verstraete. They seem having so many thoughtful ideas about the topic of panel as they send us via emails.

I also bring some copies of my translated book from "Xe máy tiếu ngạo", it bears an English name - "The Wandering Motorbike". Thanks Jacob Gold for translating and writing the preface for it.

Riding for Inspiration

(Vietnamese title: Đi xe máy như một cảm hứng, from the book "Xe máy tiếu ngạo")

The motorbike, more than just a means to travel and leisure, is a symbol of freedom, youth, and the inspiration of the open road. Of course, the big-engine bikers now roaming the vast highways of the world must appreciate those riders that came before them, who, through the ways they rode, and the reasons they rode, turned this machine into a cultural phenomenon.

Although it may not be the exact birth-point of this trend, one place to start is with Che Guevara, who at age 23 journeyed across Latin America accompanied by his friend Alberto Granado. Their trip, far from two South American boys on a joyride, became a journey through which they discovered their ideals. Over nine months, they covered a distance of some 8,000km, riding their 500cc Norton across a series of countries with a shared language and a continuum of cultures. After a first attempt in early 1950 on a motorized bicycle, the motorcycle voyage important here began in January of 1952, using a well-worn ‘39 model that they named La Poderosa (“The Mighty One”). From their experiences, Che would write the famous Motorcycle Diaries, recording what he saw and heard, as well as his vision of a struggle for social equality. Che became a symbol of revolutionary youth, and his motorcycle journey came to be regarded as the wellspring of his universal dream, in which all young people might engage, provided they invest a bit of material and a great deal of heart. Granted, they were forced to abandon their bike in the middle of the trip after it broke down, but even so, the spirit of this most liberating of vehicles set the tone for the rest of their adventure. We still wonder at these committed revolutionaries, who resolved to set out on the road carrying little but themselves, and yet who managed to achieve great distances, and great things, out there on the road of history. Who knows how much of this destiny was inspired by their old rattletrap bike, so unlike the thundering legend born from the minds of historians and the weavings of our popular imagination.

Che on a his bike in 1950

Che's La Poderosa 

 The travels of Che and Alberto were meant to get them a firsthand look at the society of the mid-20th century, a corner of the world at the outset of the Cold War, when the US saw Latin America as their “backyard.” The pair gave medical treatment to patients with leprosy and tuberculosis, both considered incurable at the time. They did this without fear or care for their own suffering, treating the sick without gloves or quarantine, even playing soccer with them. Their revolutionary inspiration would go on to sweep the continent in the years to come. When their bike broke down, the patients that Che and Alberto treated fashioned them a simple raft to float down the Amazon River. Che had left behind a romance and the swell life of a future doctor in order to further his commitments. Che’s girlfriend sent him 15 dollars in order to buy a swimsuit for her should he happen to visit the US (and come to the US he did! Here is Miami, the end of the road)^[1], but Che gave the cash to a poor farming family he came across. That is something truly too romantic, to imagine riding our motorbikes from Vietnam to Japan with money in our pocket to buy a kimono in Japan, but could we imagine ourselves giving away that cash on the street instead? Che and his friend were not aiming for urban luxury, but for “the people at the bottom of the city, the beggars. Our noses would breathe the same air as the miserable.” The motorbike was the first object of a roadtrip that was at once ecstatic and, in its time, as yet unaware that it bore early witness to the most important story of the twentieth century: people’s liberation.

The cover of Che's book

Che with Alberto on the raft Mambo-Tango

Verso, the publishing house that first brought out The Motorcycle Diaries, called it “Karl Marx’s Das Kapital meets Easy Rider.” At another time, in another sense, Easy Rider^[2]— an American film made in 1969—also dealt with the subjects of youth and rebellion.  The final years of the Sixties marked a sharp change in the lives of  young Westerners, with its hippy movement, rock music, drug use, and protests against the war in Vietnam. Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper starred as the film’s two protagonists, clad in leather jackets, an American flag emblazoned across Fonda’s helmet and chopper as they travel across the Southwest and Deep South of the USA. The pair embody an “On the Road” generation a la Jack Kerouac, and they are looking to find something beyond the empty materialism which, to them, embodied the conventional American Dream of the era. The film seems merely to depict the misadventures of two drug dealers bound for the South, but it also affords us a look into America’s dark corners and insecurities. The tagline of the film expresses its spirit of hopelessness: “One man went looking for America and couldn’t find it anywhere.”

Audiences fell in love with this movie for the realism with which it treats these rebels’ lives outside the law, their hallucinations and shattered inspiration. This in the context of that simultaneous corruption of old values and explosion of new needs which defined the “baby boom” generation (the generation born after WWII, when the birthrate surged). More than that, this generation demanded acknowledgement and a confirmation of its own values in an era when America was bogged down in the quagmire of Vietnam and the escalation of the Cold War.

Che's journey map . The blue line was by motorcycles. The red was primarily by planes.

'

One scene from the movie in 2004 based on the book  Che's 'The motorcycle diaries'  with actor Gael García Bernal as Che and Rodrigo de la Serna as Alberto.

It was not random that the motorcycle became a defining feature of this youthful generation’s way of life. From Jack London’s ragged “iron heeled” shoes^[3]  at the beginning of the 20th Century, to the automobiles of Jack Kerouac and the other Beat authors in the years 1947-1950, to the motorcycles of the new generation, all were chosen on a shoestring budget, but with more than enough passion. Now, admittedly, the Harley-Davidson chopper featured in Easy Rider was by no means cheap. In fact, it was a top-of-the-line model, a rare species of machine in the same class as a yacht or a sports car… After the commercial and artistic success of Easy Rider (which grossed 42 million dollars), there were countless movies, songs and lifestyle products inspired by the film. All of them, however, partook of a common denominator: the imagine of a lone outlaw riding his bike into the distance. All of this, however, remains difficult for Vietnamese audiences to interpret, given the fact that for nearly all of us, the motorbike is the main vehicle for everyday, routine getting-around.

Above all, out of all our means of transport, the motorbike remains the cheapest and most mobile. Try to imagine how it would have been if Che had used a car instead: perhaps his rendezvous with destiny out there on the road would not have been quite the same as what took place when he rode that rusty motorcycle. The look of a rider exposed to dust and fumes, wind and fog, rain and snow, is absolutely different from that of one who sits behind a steering wheel. The motorbike’s route also weaves more readily through the curving narrow streets and sharp corners of life, from the indigenous villages of the high Andes to the vice-filled backlots of Lousiana, places that a four-wheeled car restricted to highways just cannot access. For the real-life motorcycle journey which inspired revolutionary ideals, as much as for the purposeless joyride in the movie, it was the longing for free horizons that first inspired their youthful protagonists. The changes they experienced on the road were just what they were expecting. Their lack of concern for accidents and risks stands in exact opposition to our modern consumer society, which strives to sell its members the very latest solutions for safety and convenience. The funny thing is that both Che and Easy Rider would become highly commercialized icons, exactly the opposite of what launched either onto the road. Today we can see Che everywhere, on posters, t-shirts, and coffee mugs. Easy Rider became shorthand for a style of life and fashion similar to that of the English rock stars splashed across the era’s entertainment pages. The idea of finding life’s values somewhere “out there,” and of a life that asks people to confront notions of their own dignity, freedom and happiness, faded beneath all of that beautifully-branded printing and display.

Even Barbie becomes a easy rider.

In Vietnam, there’s still one form of seeking inspiration through the motorbike ride, and that’s the phượt, i.e., the far-ranging camping trip. You can still find them wandering the mountain roads, the youths of Hanoi or Saigon who have veered away from the 6 million other bike riders piled into their respective cities, joining together in small groups for a few days of exile. Sharing in the same global-culture symbolism of the motorbike discussed above, they head out in search of vast landscapes, wild and unclaimed, things that the big cities of Vietnam don’t have.

Many Western tourists, appropriately enough, are introduced to Vietnam in the manner of Easy Rider, according to the old Vietnamese traveler’s maxim, “Wherever you stop is your home, wherever you fall is your bed.” Of course, every traveler seeks out the truly extraordinary, but some of them do so with pen in hand, checking off the bullet points of a “must-see,” list, the so-called “Bucket List” having become a familiar concept in today’s society. Clever tourists also embrace this practice in order to efficiently ply the roads of Vietnam as highlighted by the Easy Rider touring brand in Sapa and Dalat^[4]. For Westerners, one of the good things about this kind of travel is that they don’t need to fuss over the Vietnamese repair manual for their ride. There is no need to communicate; the Vietnamese mechanics who handle the vehicles take care of everything. Truly an “easy” motorbike for cross-cultural exchange!

Let us return to the urban youth of Vietnam. They also want to try out their ability to conquer nature, of course at a very “modern” level, something that city-dwellers have lost. Those very beautiful, bright and swanky bikes, often custom built, costing hundreds of thousands or a million dollars and sold to actors Tom Cruise or Jet Li to ride, seem incapable of sharing in those legendary bike journeys past through this dusty world of life. Among the crowds of motorbike riders, often frantic, often flaunting the laws of traffic and the code of civilized conduct, dragged into a chronic fatigue day after day, month after month, on their ordinary commuter’s motorbike: how many of these people think of the two wheels beneath them as a source of inspiration?

(c) Nguyen Truong Quy

Translated by Jacob O. Gold

---

^[1] Che’s final stop on his grand tour was a stint as a dishwasher at a Miami hotel, in order to raise money for a return ticket to Buenos Aires. This detail of Che’s biography closely mirror’s Ho Chi Minh’s own brief sojourns in Boston and New York City.

^[2] In the original Vietnamese, the author follows the English with his own loose translation of the film’s title in parentheses:  “tay lái dễ chơi”; loosely rendered back into English “easy-playing handlebars”

^[3] This is a reference to Jack London’s socialist-dystopian novel of 1908, The Iron Heel.

^[4] Established in 1994, Easy Rider Motorbike Tours allows tourists to travel various popular routes through Vietnam, alone or in groups, on the back of a motorbike piloted by a tour guide. Since its popularity has grown, many imitators have sprung up (often started by former employees of the original), leading to bitter rivalries among various “Easy Riders.”

The Man Who Has Got Vestibular Disorder

(Vietnamese title: Người mắc chứng tiền đình, from the book "Dưới cột đèn rót một ấm trà" / "Next to the lamppost, pour a teapot" (Tre Publishing House, 2013)

The cover of the collection of my short stories in Vietnamese

The editors in Hanoi who remember the golden era of printed books there must know Lam. He used to be a famous editor who was extremely well-handled in serious themes of literature. But there was only one time, as Lam said, unexpectedly, he had a extremely tough manuscript. The matter started when his boss assigned him the manuscript about scholar Hoang Phong in order to publish a book which memorizes fortieth anniversary of the day he passed away. Lam disliked the historical genres, however, his boss insisted on doing this book. He said to Lam, “this is the political duty of our publishing house, so you have to take part. I know you have ever done some books like this before. I could not be sure if assigning this task to some young guys.”

The boss reassured Lam that this manuscript was a FAQ type with five hundred brief articles, “It is just easy to do. You will not have to do the hard work at all, but just check if its information is true as well as correct some spelling mistakes. The author has well experienced in his major, so no need to worry.”

The first step Lam had to do was going to meet the author to take his handwriting manuscript, then type it into a file for designing the printing layout. The boss sent Lam a message, “I  have already called to Mr. Luy. Should visit him in evening, he usually goes to the library to study all his daytime.”

The address, Lam needed to visit, belongs to an old domitory of ministerial office, which were waiting for clearance. He had been to such kind of old places to get the manuscripts. However, he still did not understand from where the authors can their inspiration when they look out of windows to see a messy of clothes hang rope, water buckets and water pipes?

Lam groped his way along the dark corridor to the flat at the end. He rose one hand between the iron bars of the front door, knocked onto the old faded green wooden door behind it. “Who’s there?” An old man had a frowned bony face appeared when door was opened. Lam told his name and the reason to come. The elder immediately changed his attitude, beamed with an excited voice, “Oh, Mr. Lam, Mr. Lam. Come in, come in. Please, please.”

The flat was ramshackle, its furniture were dusty. Lam sneezed. Because he did not bring his hankerchiefs, he used his forefinger to wipe his nose by stealth then intend to clean it over the side of his waist but Luy rose his hand to shake it. His cold, dry hand kneaded Lam’s forearms. “So kind. So kind. So young. So young.” Lam did not know if this man wanted to repeat his every words twice. Lam pulled his hand back, it’s still quite sticky. Mr. Luy had a wrinkled face and wore too formal for staying at home. He had a smelly breath.

The elder pointed at one pad of A4-size papers which is placed neatly on the table. “There, there. I had placed it already. Placed it already.”

 “Yes, let me bring home to read it then forward to my boss. Please sign the confirmation of transfer the document for me.”

 “No need, no need.”

 “You should sign it, please, according to the procedures.”

The elder carefully used a pen to sign the paper of confirmation which Lam had prepared. Lam said goodbye him, and the response still included two repeated phrases. “So you come home. So. You come home”. Suddenly, Lam thought it could not be a stutter because he made the punctuation very clearly.

**

The pad of manuscript in which Lam expected that each article was just about half-page in fact took two pages. No wonder why it was so thick. Thousand sheets of paper. Two full packs of A4 paper. Its content was exactly the same as the political propaganda lectures with the so obvious frequently asked questions which readers do not have any answer but agree with that totally. “The young Phong was born in a family which has a patriotic tradition from thousand years…” Lam chuckled, crossed the words “tradition” and “from thousand years” out. If everywhere was such wildly exaggerated like that, it would be so shitty. Lam clucked, thought, ‘oh well, if the boss wanted to do quickly, I should follow that way to shorten it’.

Of course Lam didn’t waste his time to read that hand-writing manuscript. He hired a person who retype it into a file as well as ordered a painter to design the cover, then started editing the content. It turned out that the phrases such as “from thousand years” had been spread out in the manuscript, but after hours of working with  them, Lam did not feel silly anymore. He even felt good like a hard-working gardener who just expected to see a decaying leave to make the work was not so boring. Lam quite satisfied with himself when reducing the content to around seven hundred pages, making each article be a page and a half. “Of course, it will be cut more, also should save some parts for the boss’ cutting’, he told himself when handed over the edited draft to the head of editing board.

Lam treated himself with three off-work days in a trip with a group of his friends to Moc Chau for photographing the rapeseed flowers. In the middle of cheerful party at his relaxing place, the boss’ call turned everything off. “What the hell have you done? Come back, come back. Too bad. Too bad.” Lam did not know whether his boss had been affected the syndrome of repeating every words twice by Mr. Luy.

The manuscript after editing had a density of comments and notes by the boss. “Exactly the same as page 72 of the book The Celebrity of Thanh Province”, “Not a single comma different to the article about Truong Hoang Phong in the book The Collection of the North Central Area Literature”… Lam could not say any word but was so threatened by the thought of why he had cut and mixed the content so carefully like a woman with her totally new face after plastic surgery, the boss still tracked the original content like the husband know the awful truth about his wife.

 “You are an editor, you must know those original books, huh? Two third of this one is plagiarism. Too bad.”

 “I read the books but too long ago, none of them are my major subjects neither. Also you said that we have just need to do a little correction…”

The boss gave Lam an eyesight then looked down the manuscript. “What I said is under the general policy. You as an editor, still need be as sober as a judge and more adventurous.” As sober as a judge? Adventurous? Lam intended to reply him angrily but gave up. Anyway his boss was sitting at the leader’s chair whose was responsible for publishing content, so obvious that he would not let Lam do the job carelessly.

 “I think if it is too bad we should stop.” Lam stepped in. “It may be worse when would ruin the reputation of our company.”

 “No! We still do it. Even it has the drawback as said, but the good is his labor of collecting the data. People are very interested in this book, because around this anniversary they haven’t seen any publishing house prepares to launch a book about Truong Hoang Phong yet. We print books with a tactic, you understand, don’t you?”

People means who, Lam knew what his boss referred but when thinking about the way to correct the manuscript, he felt very upset. Perhaps understood Lam’s hesitation, his boss explained further. “Do you understand my meaning of being adventurous? You should use your talent same as what you have done with the last books, you should add the graphics, statistic data, references, rewrite the subtitles, and make the layout more lively. I believe that you are too good to solve it. Let’s go back your room to do again, chop-chop, go.”

Now, how to say to Mr. Luy remained a much more tired matter to Lam. With a respectful person at the same age as Lam’s parents, the issue of changing the integrity of Mr. Luy’s work was not easy at all, even worse, explaining him why it has to cut down so much. Lam had prepared himself for the worst case.

The first step needed to be done was how to call Mr. Luy. Lam could not call him or meet him at any try. His flat was locked since a week ago.

**

Lam hold his breath when walking into the hall of the library reading room. The high pillars supporting the ceiling dome did more enhancing the stressfulness of the atmosphere. The librarian, who had a bothersome face, put Lam’s membership card into check-in machine before returned it back to him. Suddenly, Lam’s cellphone rang. The librarian scowled at him. Lam rushed to open the door, stepped out, then closed the door very quickly and as quietest as possible but it still made a creak due to the rusty hinge. Lam took the cellphone out of his pocket, his face was flushed, he could fell the librarian’s angry stare like an arrow pierced the back of his neck. Lam’s boss just called again and reminded him that he had to discuss with Mr. Luy very carefully, in order to keep only the good evidences.

Lam turned off the cellphone’s voice carefully, then pushed quietly the door. He has hold the breath even harder this time. But the librarian seemed not to remember the previous impolite noise, she was reading something disinterestedly on the computer’s screen.

The stressfulness of Lam turned out unnecessary. Recently, Mr. Luy’s flat was running out of clean water, so he moved to his brother’s home. And the library was nearly the place where he spent his all day. Lam invited him went to the café behind the library. The elder did not order anything but pulled out a small military water bottle and slightly put it on the table in the surprise of both Lam and the waitress. She turned away very quickly, wagged the order papers with a smirk.

Mr. Luy nodded when listening to Lam’s explanation of cutting the length of manuscript. Then Luy said, still in the pace of repeated phrase twice. “Yes, you please modify. Whatever for the most brief. Whatever for the most brief. Then be OK.”

This time his words had been added a couple of phrases, it seemed an effort to change information. His corporative attitude was so doubtfully flexible made Lam has some  precautions. “The matter is, my company intends to add  some graphics representing the life route of Mr. Hoang Phong. By doing that, it helps the young readers could approach your writing content more easily. I will send you the draft before putting in the final one.”

 “Perfect. Perfect.”

Why he was so easygoing. With what just gained, Lam stepped up further. “We want you to make a bibliography. Surely you have referred many historical documents. There are some paraphrases that are similar to some previous printed books.”

 “Nah! I don’t need refer to anything. All is in my mind. Had accumulated for decades.” Mr. Luy changed his voice’s tone into acid way.

Oh, it turned out that he had stuttered just only when agreeing. Lam sniggered, “Not a big deal.”

 “Research books which have the bibliography are also better. If we have the source of evidence which are appropriately trustful, you will only get more benefits. That is my opinion of editing. You should consider.” Lam said with a cold voice, tried to make a signal in order to let the elder understand.

 “I… I, I don’t agree with putting the blame on me from you…”

So ridiculous. Lam shot the last goal. “We had invited Professor Vo Trinh to expertise it and write the introduction, you know.”

Vo Trinh was the student of Hoang Phong, he was recognised as the successor on the career of this scholar. Lam’s last words seemed effective. Luy’s face chilled out, his lower lip shook. He was not a kind of typical conservative person that is easy predictable. Perhaps he understood his condition quiet well, so he softly answered. “Oh, Mr. Trinh. Too excellent, too excellent. Yes, about the book I just said so. Just said so. Of course I know it must have the editing. Editing is necessary. Necessary. Birth attendant. Birth attendant.”

So two “sides” went to agreement that the author would have corrected himself where were edited, then Lam would receive the final. When he left, Tran Luy hold his hand, shook it. The cold feeling liked a dead body. Lam pulled his hand back, wished him gave up sooner.

**

Lam’s boss was very satisfied with the arrangement Lam manage to get. After over a week of working all day and night to exhaust, the final version came to finish neatly. The next step was asking Prof. Vo Trinh write the introduction for it. While he was over ninety year ago, it’s quite difficult to meet him, even more difficult to ask him to write anything. However, with a miracle help that always happened unexpectedly in Vietnam, thanks for an old schoolmate, Lam’s boss hooked up with the professor’s son and got the introduction two weeks later, right on time to print. Glancing over it, Lam felt nothing impressive, it seemed the author of the introduction wrote a piece of memoir about past time which was published somewhere, and not even being relevant to the book. But when it’s in so emergency situation, he was reluctant to transfer the file to the printing house. Anyway at last he could treat himself a relaxation.

One night, Lam had his eyestrain after reading the another manuscript on the laptop screen. He closed it and went to bed. His neck was stiff because of sitting too long. Just put his head on the pillow, his mind was reeling, his eyes were dizzy like just was hit on the temples. All his body liked in a bad game of inversion that could not be stopped. Lam tried not to scream, while a wave of nausea swept over his throat.

Doctor quickly had conclusion that Lam had got vestibular disorder due to degenerative cervival spine. “Having the symptom of stroke.” The disease was not strange but Lam did not expect it to come so soon. He wondered whether it came from the stress after he edited the last book. His annual leave eventually became a convalescence. Lam was isolated from laptop as well as cellphone. Books were obviously banned. After two days, Lam was so bored, sought the cellphone by stealth. Caught by the wife, she nagged him. “Do you want to live as usual, huh?” Lam felt annoyed, but also thought that there was nothing except some bullshit emails or messages, then he gave up.

The drugs by prescription were quite effective. On the one hand, they inhibited the nerve impulses that made him calmer. On the other hand, Lam felt himself move more slowly.

Three days after sending compliment books to Vo Trinh, Lam received a phone call. Extremely bad news. It turned out that the book had so many mistakes about time and people. The professor insisted on disagreement of publishing the book. His boss swore loudly. It was clear that the professor’s son had promised to forward the manuscript to him. So what did that introduction aim for? “By any chance was it not written by the professor?” Lam asked. The boss was frustrated, kicked the chair down noisily. Lam thought, it’s lucky when the boss did that task by himself, otherwise he would be blamed on it unhappily. Contrast to his usual sensitiveness, at the present Lam’s feeling was just stable. He was also surprised about this weird stability, perhaps thanks to medicine.

As been released from tons of stone, Lam was so happy when the boss took responsible for bearing burden of solving the “after show party” of the book. The boss’ traditional way was sentimental and thorough, put the “people” factor on top of everything same as his message at the meetings with partners as well as authors.

Although Lam had known his boss’ super ability of well-mouth, he wasn’t surprised when the boss called him to tell about the reaction of Tran Luy. That old man blamed him and the publishing house for interventing in the manuscript. The boss’s voice sounded quite resentive, “You prepare the manuscript which has the confirmed signature of that old bitch. Hey Lam, I don’t expected him could treat us that way. Without us, his manuscript was never so decent like that.” His voice was somewhat a bit out of tune. Lam thought, his boss said that he unexpected at the present, why the boss did not listen to his persuading of not continuing this manuscript. Simply, his boss was also achievement addicted.

As a result, a trilateral talk was carried out at the residence of Vo Trinh. It’s the first time Lam met Vo Trinh in person.

He has a saggy face with the tiny eyes did not express any clear feeling. Only his white wavy  hair was lively exactly as what Lam had seen on the pictures or TV. The daughter was next to him, this woman had a thin face with dry lips. As a habit, she lifted her pair of eyeglass, put the note-book on her lap, holding the pen in hand as standby firing guns. Five people sit around the table, under pallid light of the lamp, and between all the old bookshelves, it looked like a scene of a Dutch Renaissance painting. Tran Luy never looked at Lam anytime, he subserviently sat a bit behind Vo Trinh. Lam stared at him attentively, just found his boss to be reasonable when choosing Tran Luy’s manuscript. Suddenly, Lam felt so fed up.

After the overture full of politeness of Lam’s boss, Vo Trinh recognized Tran Luy was restless. He blinked, said quietly. “Mr. Luy, say it.” Unlike the dilatory stutter as previously, Tran Luy said without any stumble as he had prepared well before. When he said, “The publishing house has to be responsible for repairing and reprinting the book”, Lam interrupted, “But you, you had…” His boss pulled Lam’s arm in a hurry and jumped in. “Yes, I absolutely understand the problem that the book remains controversial. However, I would like to get your opinion, Professor.”

Vo Trinh’s voice was low but quite clear with a cold tone. After giving some appraisals to encourage the author’s skillfulness, he said, “I said like that not to put you guys into bad condition. However, for the safety, sorry, the perfection of the book as well as being retorted by no one, you must reprint it.”

 “Yes, that’s right.” Tran Luy’s accompanied voice was very ridiculous.

While sitting inside the taxi, the boss sighed deeply. “Hundred millions dong threw away for nothing. You are the editor, you have to be responsible for finding the way sell it and draw back the money invested.”  Lam pretended to hear nothing, his eyes closed.

**

Two months since the book was printed, still two third of the copies were in stock. The signs from bookstores were not positive either. Meanwhile, the feedbacks of newspapers, which said about this new style biography book, were not different from the press release that Lam had penned very detailed with the careful approval of his boss. It meant hard to lost the direction and policy. It was regarded as a sort of propaganda book which is hard sold like all books in the same genre. So nobody felt too pessimistic.

Lam’s vestibular disorder didn’t happen anymore, only issue is that his reactions were not fast enough. Sometimes, he felt himself in a slow motion.

Every night, Lam was forced to go to bed early. His wife confiscated his cellphone, allowed him to use it only eight hours in daytime.

One midnight, his fix line rang noisily. His wife answered the call, she hold the phone then woke him up. She covered the speaker, said to him. “You boss. What the hell is that ridiculous office calling at the midnight!” Lam did not mind her crumbling, picked up the phone.

 “I have to go, the boss called that there were works to do in the office.”

 “Are you insane? Ignore him, even if who died, let it be tomorrow. You must take care of yourself.”

Skipped her crumbling, Lam took the motorbike driving out of the house.

Lam did not dare to tell his wife where he would meet the boss. At first, he also did not understand why his boss told him go to the karaoke shop, although he knew the boss love relaxation of singing. However, it’s rather weird for cheering when the sales of books had slumped.

Lam was too surprised when seeing his boss sat drunkenly with a cognac bottle. He sat alone in the karaoke room. The screen showed up the lyrics of a depressing love song. Portrait the lover on the beach… “Sit. Sing. Drink. Hey Lam,” he said.

Lam did not know how to ask him, and the music was too loud. The boss push on the remote controller to play the next song. “Sing.” The boss put the microphone on Lam’s hand. Reluctantly, he sang.

 “You sing well. But must sing with all your heart. And stand up to sing.”

After drinking a half of cognac bottle, the boss questioned him, “How do you think about that scandal?”

Recognising the bewildered look on Lam’s face, his boss got angry. “What the heck did you do at home today?”

It was revealed that at the end of today, there’s online article mentioned about some books which violated the publishing rules. According to that article, the book about Truong Hoang Phong by Tran Luy although did not have any mistake on the content but used some non-official references. The conclusion of the article included a statement of an administrative official saying, “If those books had the signs of violation, they must be withdrawn.”

Lam read the news on the smartphone of his boss, then he was stunned. Last glasses of cognac made him could not think coherently. “So… is there any problem, boss?”

The boss just smiled mysteriously, he put the smartphone back on his trouser’s pocket. “Let it be. Just drink then go home.”

Accidentally, everywhere they said about the book. An e-newspaper published the statement of Tran Luy in which he had blamed to the negligent working procedure of the publishing house as well as the editor It seemed there was being a dethroned campaign towards the pubsling house, paralleling with a wave of supporting it as a brave company, or a victim of the plagiarism method on researches which had happened for years. No matter what, the book was sold-out so quickly, even there were the fake copies.

The book eventually proved the boss was right. Although Lam found it was so boring that he never introduced to his friends, it received a prize from on association of historical research and one prize of ‘the book of the year’. Tran Luy also was regarded as a significant researcher, even some papers called him as a ‘Hoang Phongism expert”. However, recently people often saw him groping along the sidewalk of the national library, his hand clung to the iron bars of its fence with inanimated widened eyes.

The book also ended Lam’s editing career. They did not see him sit musingly beside the piles of manuscripts any more. He often went travelling around the mountainous provinces or went abroad. Just last week, in a very first day of year, I met him in a café, and had him tell the above story. His fingers which used to touch numerous of manuscript pages, now holding the camera so professional. “Nowadays those scandals are to familiar with the pop celebrities. You think my boss made it up but I don’t. That guy was such a coward,” he said. He does not looks like a man who had the symptom of stroke, he smiled a smoky smile, winked his perky eyes, “My time is over. You are deserved the title ‘the people’s editor’. You publish essays frequently, so must bring me some your new books!”

(c) Nguyễn Trương Quý

The "life" of a motorbike (Đời xe máy)

Up to this point in my life, I’ve been through four motorbikes. I’m certain I won’t be stopping there; nor do I want to stop! Motorbikes these days are far more affordable than they used to be. With the globalized production of consumer goods, things aren’t made to last, and bikes don’t run well for very long, because the faster they break down, the faster people go buy new ones, and the faster that producers can turn around their inventory. And so, your new bike will only chug along for a few years before breaking down and “asking for some cash.” Inevitably at this point, every time you look down at the street, it will seem to be filled with an endless parade of beautiful people, gliding past your window on the latest models.

The word-of-mouth when talking about a rich person, though, is, “he’s already bought one.” “One” here refers to a car, but never to a motorbike. Too bad for the motorbike, which was also worth a fortune back in the day. To tell the truth, where I’m concerned, a motorbike is still worth a fortune. Should I happen to lose a bike, heaven forbid, I would really be shocked. To lose a bike is to lose money, to lose something that has stuck with you for some time, but also, it foretells the succession of days to be spent finding enough money to buy a new bike, and then fretting over which type of bike to buy. And many are the lengthy stories about legal procedure: you have to report the loss to the police, worry over the registration papers, and depending on which district you live in, you’ll have to go out to Hà Đông, or up to Lý Thường Kiệt, or across the bridge to Gia Lâm^[1] (in Hanoi, vehicle registration is assigned according to your area, and at different locations)…

I am also like many of my acquaintances, who’ve a mind to buy a bike that’s inexpensive, safe and doesn’t guzzle gas. Although it’s not necessary that the bike be super-durable, frugality is clearly the order of the day. The only time I’ve deviated from this thinking was two years ago, when in a fit of inspired spontaneity I bought a Vespa PX150. This was the most advanced of the “classic” Vespas. I call it a “classic,” but in fact it was manufactured between the years 1980-1990. And I call it “advanced,” but at that time they were basically loud, heavy boxes of metal.

Why I bought that bike I no longer remember, I only know that it looked fun-loving, like a sign of good taste. The only drawback was that the bike’s hand-clutch bike caused me no end of fear and misery, whether from near-deaths on the road or the impossibility of getting the thing started. This bike also needed constant paint touchups to look nice and new, otherwise it would start to get scratched and dusty until it looked like nothing short of scrap iron on wheels. I also remember that first day when I drove it from the place where I bought it back home; I had to sweat over the machine for half an hour in order to re-start it after once stopping in the street. I felt helpless before this dead hunk of metal, the reason being I did not yet know the machine’s tricks. I felt as frustrated as a boy whose girl has suddenly gone all sulky on him, and when he asks why, she says, “you of all people should know!”

But the bike did have some strong points. First of all, it was very elegantly designed, manly and modest. Driving it wasn’t as zippy as a newer bike, but you had to hand it to them, they knew just how to arrange the seat and handlebars so that your back didn’t hurt every time you sat down. You’ll notice the Honda motorbike, for example, with its seat sloping to the front; whenever you hit a bump in the road, it always throws your body forward as though you were planning to leap from the bike at any moment. The Vespa seat was always flat, horizontal, allowing the driver to sit up as straight as an English nobleman taking tea. Secondly, it made the owner stand out, for better or worse. Thirdly, one didn’t have to register it^[2], and thus avoided wasting three days going to apply for a license plate. Fourth, it was cheap. I spent less than twenty million but I still owned a bike from Italy—the country of motorbike prestige. And yet I could throw the motorbike on the sidewalk without locking it up and come back later to find it intact. Thieves also couldn’t carry it off because it was too heavy!

The person who sold me this bike was also a mechanic familiar with the Vespa PX. He told me that I could expect to ride it for up to a year; if I kept it past that and continued to maintain it through the years to come, then I might as well become a member of the Vespa fan club. Driving a very... “vintage” bike like this, the clatter of the engine starting might deafen the neighbors, and one is never sure whether bystanders are looking on in hate or pity, admiration or derision. All the same, those who love the special music of the vintage motor are a class unto themselves. Just like the kind of people who go nuts for pre-war music, a vintage bike suggests a sense of the past recreated, of black-and-white movies like Roman Holiday with Gregory Peck driving Audrey Hepburn through the cobblestone streets. The motorbike is a site of time past, both a preserved cultural space and a means of dwelling there. Vintage bike lovers still preserve their machines, even if they only retain the outer shell with a new or reprocessed engine. Maintaining a vintage bike may invite a million headaches, but it is not without its mechanical pleasures: removing this, grinding down that, feeling out the calibrations of various metal components from the pre-digital era. Just looking at how the entire structure comes together is a thing of beauty.

 But my temperament was not patient enough to stick with the upkeep. I panicked as the frequency of repairs began to mount, so as the deadline of my “challenge” approached I started planning the resale. The guy who bought my bike was none other than the guy who sold it to me. And my only mementos are a few photographs and the original ignition key that I forgot to return with the bike.

After all, only one’s earliest bikes, or one’s most bizarre, are significant enough to remember. Now, however, one scooter follows the next, each carrying us quietly, safely onward (just as we would have it; uneventful transit being our greatest wish), leaving us truly unabsorbed by those aggressively tricked-out bikes, whose custom exhaust pipes scream like they’re trying to burst the eardrums of everyone in town. Today’s bikes idle meekly in the shadow of the automobile; there’s a single playboy about town who wants to ride on a mere $7,000, cheek-and-jowl with the two-wheeling masses flooding the streets in an endless congestion. The life of a motorbike is no longer the measure of “social mobility” that it once was.

Nguyen Truong Quy

Translated by Jacob O. Gold

---

^[1] These are various locations across Hanoi: the western districts, the center of town, and east of the Red River, respectively.

^[2] This is because motorbikes with engines under a certain size do not require registration. 

The Wandering Motorbike (Preface)

Title: Xe máy tiếu ngạo (The Wandering Motorbike)

Author: Nguyễn Trương Quý

Translator: Jacob O. Gold

Center for Southeast Asian Studies

Ann Arbor, MI 48104

Translator’s Preface

            Nguyễn Trương Quý was born in Hanoi in 1977. A graduate of the Hanoi University of Architecture, Trương Quý’s successes as an essayist and, most recently, an author of short fiction, seem to derive from his application of an architect’s sensibility to the pages of his prose. Each essay seems a guided tour through spaces of nostalgic memory, social description, wide-ranging cultural references, and bitingly humorous invention. A true architect, his decorative motifs, as much as his supporting thematic columns, stand in service to a balanced whole. And just as an architect designs buildings that will join the living fabric of the cities in which they are built, Trương Quý’s works are inimtately bound up in the life of the rapidly-evolving city that inspires them: Hanoi.

            Trương Quý began to make a name for himself by publishing essays in various online and print publications, and his first essay collection, Tự nhiên như người Hà Nội (“As Natural as a Hanoian”— a half-joking reference to Hanoi’s sense of its own culutral refinements), was released in 2004. This was followed by Ăn phở rất khó thấy ngon (“It’s hard to find a good bowl of phở”—that is, Vietnam’s famous beef noodle soup) in 2008, and Hà Nội là Hà Nội (Hanoi is Hanoi) in 2010. Xe máy tiếu ngạo was published in 2012. This translation project is the first time that any of Trương Quý works have appeared in English, or any other language outside of Vietnamese. Trương Quý has also translated several English-language works into Vietnamese, most notably, Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire in 2011. The author’s first collection of short fiction is slated for publication sometime in 2013.

            The concept behind The Wandering Motorbike is simple yet effective: use the motorbike as a guiding theme through which to explore the changes that have taken place in Hanoi, and in the lives of its residents, over the past thirty years. It must be mentioned here that the motorbike is perhaps the most iconic feature of Vietnamese modernity. There are over 2 million registered motorbikes in Hanoi, and more than twice that number in Ho Chi Minh City (also known as Saigon). Before the economic and, to some extent, social liberalizations of the Dổi Mới (Renewal) Policy were launched in 1986 (paralleling Deng Xiaoping’s similarly sweeping reforms in China), Hanoi was a city of bicycles, streetcars, and oxcarts on the road, dispensaries and ration books in place of grocery stores, and little if any access to consumer goods. Trương Quý belongs to the generation that came of age just at the cusp of Vietnam’s massive socioeconomic transformation. He is old enough to remember what came before, and young enough to be excited about what the future holds for Hanoi (he seems particularly fascinated with the projected completion of Hanoi’s first subway line several years from now). Trương Quý’s intermediate historical perspective means that he can more impartially weigh and compare the past and the present: on the one hand, savoring the simple pleasures that stood out among yesteryear’s material deprivation, while on the other, jabbing at the frivolity and conspicious consumption that seem endemic to today’s new wealthy classes. At the same time, this is not a collection of charicatured social types. Trương Quý is a master at conveying the compact, yet acute, daily dramas of children and parents, husbands and wives, boyfriend and girlfriends, office workers and their bosses. He also takes advantage of the inflows of global media now available in Vietnam. In addition to quoting from Vietnamese novels, poetry, and cinema, Trương Quý muses upon Easy Rider, Roman Holiday, The Wild Ones, and, interestingly, The Motorcycle Diaries, whose protagonist, Che Guevara—as Trương Quý reminds us— has become as much a fixture of Western t-shirts as the pages of Marxist hagiography. And of course, the super-protagonist of Trương Quý’s work is the city of Hanoi itself: its famous boulevards and twisting mazelike alleyways, its famous cafes and scenic lakes, its Old Quarter and its nouveau riche proto-suburbs.

            Bringing this book into English has a second layer of significance for me, the translator. I came to Hanoi for the first time in 2007, working for a year at the official English-language newspaper, The Việt Nam News, through a fellowship organized by the university from which I had graduated the previous year. At that time, my only knowledge of Vietnamese came from the Pimsleur language-learning discs that I had listened to before heading overseas. After my fellowship posting ended, I did not return to Hanoi for four years, although I did work as a journalist elsewhere in Southeast Asia. This past summer (after having completed the Advanced Vietnamese course sequence here at Michigan), I finally had the chance to return to Hanoi, expressly in order to initiate this translation project. The introduction between the author and myself was made by Michigan’s stellar Vietnamese instructor, Nguyễn Thủy-Anh, who is also my advisor on the independent course dimension of the project. My first sojourn in Hanoi had been absolutely wonderful, and for those four years I had honestly been pining for a city that I fell in love with (the fragrance of milk-flowers, described in the sample chapter, was a particular sensory touchpoint for these emotions), yet never knew if I would see again. It was doubly thrilling, then, both to return to Hanoi and be able to speak Vietnamese with everyone there. I was not just returning to the city, I was rediscovering it on a deeper level. With every chapter that I translate here in Ann Arbor, that process of rediscovery advances that much further. My hope is to transition this project from a purely academic and personal challenge into actual matter for publication in Vietnam.

Notes on the Translation Itself

            The essay form employed by Trương Quý is known as the tản văn, or “meandering writing.” The essay form in general has a long history within the greater tradition of Vietnamese letters, and its sub-genres are varied and eclectic. Even before mass print culture exploded with the adoption of Quốc ngữ (Romanized) script during the French colonial period, Vietnamese authors were composing travelogues, religious works, poetic anthologies, and so on. Even today, a newsstand in a major Vietnamese city will carry dozens of daily broasheets, literary journals, and the newer Western-inflected glossy magazines. The tản văn form in particular has its roots in the journal culture that arose early in the last century, when Vietnamese intellectuals were grappling with how to define their identity, and their sense of nationhood, under the paradoxical effects of French domination, which wounded national pride and yet helped forge, and only in part through opposition, a modernized, unified concept of “Vietnam”.

            True to its “meandering” name, a tản văn essay stems from a long-held Vietnamese aesthetic sensbility in which the units of expression, be they paragraphs or phrases, are valued as much for their individual poetry as for their service to the continuous whole. To the active reader, these become like movements in an orchestral work—it soon becomes easy for the mind to establish its own connections. This form is also perfect for the narrative “vehicle” of the motorbike, which, as Trương Quý often mentioned, allows the rider to zoom freely, and with unprecedented speed, from one part of the city to another. What is especially fun about translating, and hopefully, reading Trương Quý’s tản văn is that, in their playful stream-of-consciousness unfoldings, they also reveal a great deal about the author himself. In this book, one is transported to Hanoi, and has enjoys the opportunity of becoming well-acquainted with one of its sharpest citizen-observers, Trương Quý.

            There are several features of the Vietnamese language that present special difficulties for the English-language translator. The toughest of these to handle, but also the most interesting for an American student of Vietnamese, are the instaces of what linguists call “reduplication.” The basic forms of these simply involve following a word with an appended, similar-sounding attachment, to emphasize meaning or for euphonious effect. For example, if mạnh means “strong,” then mạnh mẽ means “very strong.” However, there is a more unique form of reduplication in Vietnamese that could be called “abstract onomatopoeia”. This is where word-pairs don’t “mean” anything in themselves, but can describe objects, actions, sounds, conditions, or feelings, to name a few, all with a multi-shaded range of meanings. These are a class of terms that a fluent speaker understands implicitly, but requires a careful process of internalization for the foreign language learner. Some of the many examples in Trương Quý’s work: Lănh nhăng means that something is vague, unspecified, but also subject to manipulation or avoidance. Chễm chệ can refer to a swaggering, even teetering motion, but also with shaded meanings of haughtiness, or the rocking of a royal palanquin. Uể oải connotes reluctance or boredom, absent-mindedly doing something. Chênh vênh means that something is slightly protruding, or creating an edge of some kind. Here are some more examples from Wikipedia that have not occured so far in Trương Quý’s work:

▪       loảng xoảng — sound of glass breaking to pieces or metallic objects falling to the ground

▪       hớt hơ hớt hải- (also hớt ha hớt hải) — hard gasps -> in extreme hurry, in panic, panic-stricken

▪       lục đục — the sound of hard, blunt (and likely wooden) objects hitting against each other -> disagreements and conflicts inside a group or an organization

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduplication#Vietnamese  Avail. 11-17-12)

       

        As a translator, one realizes that the Vietnamese language has created incredibly compact, richly descriptive terms that English, for all of its extensive vocabulary, cannot easily convey, especially because each of these terms calls up an entire bundle of physical, kinetic, affective and associative properties. The best that one can do is to find the mot juste based upon the context in which the reduplicative phrase is used, or provide an explanatory footnote.

      As a translator, I have made the decision to use footnotes extensively in my work. In this world of hypertext websites and multi-tasking media players, I felt that my readers could handle, and would ultimately appreciate, a bit of non-linearity. This is especially so because I am at the service of the author, Trương Quý, and it is my foremost responsibility to deliver his thoughts, and as best as possible, his style, to an English-language readership. There are many references to Vietnamese artists and writers, cultural features, locations in Hanoi, as well as Vietnamese idioms, the understandings of which are all crucial to the fullest appreciation of these chapters. Also, I couldn’t help but want to share some of the author’s wordplay and his neologisms with my readers.

      Another interesting feature of written Vietnamese what I would call its range of grammatical personalities. Between the 1st and 11th centuries BCE, Vietnam fell directly under Chinese imperial rule. Over the subsequent centuries, Chinese culture— especially the written culture of statecraft, religion, and the literary arts—continued to exert a profound influence on the culture of Vietnam. Under French colonization (as well as Vietnam’s subsequent participation in the Communist bloc of nations), the patterns of written Vietnamese took on a more “westernized” grammatical structure. What this means from a practical standpoint is that written Vietnamese is like an accordion. Depending on the effects that one is aiming for, the language can contract into the ideographic style of literary Chinese, or expand into what is almost a calque of Western grammatical parts. Classic Chinese also provided Vietnam with a high-literary, or more formal, register, especially in terms of vocabulary, known as Hán-Việt  (Sino-Vietnamese). Sino-Vietnamese and “common” Vietnamese can, often do, exist side by side in the same sentence. On average, Vietnamese sentences remain more compact than English ones, requiring fewer “in-between” connector words in order to deftly express equivalent ideas in English. This also presents something of a challenge for the translator in terms of finding the proper balance and tone of the author’s phrasing.

      Finally, there are the cultural barriers between Trương Quý and myself. I am not from Vietnam, or a Vietnamese-American, but I have spent time in Vietnam, and have continued to assiduously study Vietnamese culture and history here in the US, especially in the context of my work here at Michigan. Thanks to my interactions with the author, the advising of Vietnamese lecturer Nguyễn Thủy-Anh, and my own experiences, readings, media consumption, and inner contemplation, I am try my best to create a genuinely Vietnamese space in my mind through which to engage this author’s work. I hope you enjoy my efforts so far!