Thứ Sáu, 29 tháng 4, 2011

THE REPLACEMENT FOR A TASTE OF HANOI

Nguyen Truong Quy

This essay would like to find a connection between the urban environment and the cultural environment of Hanoi. Hanoi today has been developed on the structure of an old city during many centuries, mainly 20th century. Its cultural definitions, which go tightly with economic-social development, are in the battle of old and new parts.

People usually consider Hanoi as a subject has a specific aesthetic school. So that school, the ‘taste’ of Hanoians, how changing in the biggest urbanization and enlargement in Hanoi history?

This essay is extracted from my latest book Hanoi is Hanoi, Tre Publishing House, 2010.

PRELUDE OF A MODERN CITY

… “Today morning, I got cold at the street at 6 am! The sky was bright and pale, the city got up cheerfully while a plenty of trees seemed waved by the exciting voice of thousand birds. Wrapping my body by a warm coat, I thought I still was in Paris… in a sunny morning.” The short lines look like picked up from a French romantic novel which full of happiness and longing for the discovery. That lovely city is Hanoi in a November day of 1928, under the eyes of Jean Tardieu, the son of the first head principal of Indochina College of Fine Arts (Hanoi Letter, send Jacques Heurgon). Of course, when cite here, we beware that he is a position of colonial class to write those nice words. But we have to admit that since a very long time, we don’t have a Hanoi where birds are singing in a bright sky like before.

A Hanoi girl, oil painting by Victor Tardieu (1870-1937)

Painting of Victor Tardieu in University of Indochina, now is Hanoi National University

Continue reading the words of that “colonial man” – a bachelor in French literature – we find Hanoi as a heavenly resort in this world, with streets have shady green tree lines, colorful regional quartier, the cheerful noise of clogs that girls wear make when they walk on the stone pavement as a symphony in ascending and descending sol. In this charming landscape, the Red River – the main river in Hanoi and the North of Vietnam – opens a wide horizon like a backdrop, just few sailings of some boats surf over it or the Long Bien Bridge, the only bridge at that time.

Hanoi was gentle or charming, perhaps due to a clean atmosphere like above description. Hanoi became the dreamland to come and love as the suddenly thought of below poet:

…Go, go, I’ll take you to the pub

There has a bit Paris to make me be a poet

Or Hanoi midnight

I am a crazy guy

Holding you in my arms but remember you the next days…

(Serenade, Thanh Tâm Tuyền)

West Lake, the largest lake in Hanoi, circa 1954, from Life magazine.

Hanoi was competed with Paris; Hanoi had a midnight to remember when the poet was sad. But that is Hanoi of last century, Hanoi in the mind of expats and exodus ones. In 1954, when French has lost the Dien Bien Phu Battle and had to retreat from Indochina, Hanoi has only 530,000 people on an area of 123km2. Hanoi now has a population of 6.5 mil., including an old province – Ha Tay, large 27 times the area in 1954, become the most crowded ever in its history. On one hand, this event proves the advance of urbanization in a developing country which pours invested capital in a top head center. On the other hand, it strongly shows the attraction of a historical city.

The change of Hanoi, if say big words, means the rising; but with someone, it contains the disorderly, messy and inconsistent problems. There is a hot atmosphere in mind of community: How is tomorrow of Hanoi? Historical heritage of this city has a power let people usually look back. They are afraid of Hanoi will become any ugly city, so in the way they love Hanoi nowadays has an extreme of “Hanoi-style thinking”. But does that extreme is enough to keep Hanoi will beautiful like some previous period when at least has the fact to count, not the in an amorphous future? What still exist from poetry years that mentioned above, gradually become some quite surfaces of Hanoi’s lakes and play the role that turn down any fury. Could they turn off the fury that is affecting Hanoi’s mind this early 21st century?

A SUPER EXPENSIVE MATERIAL PLATFORM

If we see back the urban plan for the capital since 1990s, we will see many big plans were made, but the most difficult and also weren’t done point, is define a CBD (Central Business District) to keep balance with historical center which built by French and sooner. With the ‘big head’ city like Hanoi, building a new big CBD that including many skyscrapers seems acceptable for community, and furthermore, offloading for old center is too narrow and not suitable for radically growing traffic. Building the administrative center is not difficult because it quite separates with life in the downtown; meanwhile CBD requires good transportation system and tight connection to downtown. Lacking of capital and many economic depressions in neighbour area as well as whole world let these ambitious plans collapse. Like Saigon, Hanoi return the method that put trading skyscrapers into old French quartier, where has coherently squared streets, but sequel make traffic jams as well as damage the infrastructure, i.e. cable and drain system.

Planning for traffic system of Hanoi, 1981, with the consulting of USSR experts but was not deployed.

Nowadays, after leaving the idea which use West Lake (the biggest lake in Hanoi, around 5km2) as the core, the new trend is develop the front layout of Hanoi in two directions: along the banks of the Red River and the highway to the West of Hanoi. In fact, building new urban plan in these areas is easier than improving the messy ghettos in some old bad-structure districts. For example, the cost for opening a new road (Xa Dan Street in Dong Da district) is around one billion US dollars may score a Guinness record! The unimaginably expensive result of opening new roads in old areas is one of reasons made investor, in this case is state, be so afraid and move the target into other ways. We can see the evidence through the cost system that the state declared is always lower than the cost in free market. So it means much more attractive when choosing not so far places which are cheap, easy to deploy new infrastructure. But as every new urban area in developing countries, there are majority high apartment buildings that have neither different nor interesting.

Xa Dan street – costs one billion US dollars, includes small narrow houses like the matchboxes.

We can go to a point seems very absurd: the value of living environment in Hanoi is very expensive for lame traffic system and backward infrastructure. But this environment still feed a massive population in a quite risky condition. Although the forecasters are afraid of the corruption in the future, no one could promise a really good plan.

See what we did with nature environment in Hanoi. Before 1954, Hanoi had no industrial zone except some single factories located in the boundary of old city. In process of industrialization in Soviet and China subsidy and heavy industrial models in 1960s, the industrial zones were built into ring. However, surrounding ring of Hanoi includes farm lands, handicraft villages as well as water system (rivers and lakes). The obvious result came: these heavy industrial areas with backward technology and wrong economic ideas polluted the large areas when let the waste water come directly to rivers and make many lakes dry.

We don’t know if the investing money during many decades and the benefit could pay well for the price need to clean these rivers. At the present, they are dying. Everyday, two main rivers in the West of Hanoi receive over 800,000 m3 of waste water, mainly from 150,000 factories. A project by Ministry of Resource & Environment says need amount of 3,335 billion VND (250 million USD) to rescue these two rivers.

In 2005, the research showed that Hanoi had 4 times of the legal level of dust in some serious traffic roads in the entrance into the center. For year later, the number is 11 times in these roads and 2-5 times in almost city. Dust comes from industrial activities as well as constructing, cars, motorbikes and garbage which are rapidly growth. In 2007, Hanoi has 270,000 cars and increase 2,000 cars per months, while the number of 2.5 million motorbikes will increase more and more.

With the huge quantity of gas that vehicles spend and the area of street surface is only 2m2 for one car, Hanoi streets soon become a bad environment for people – where fossil fuel is used only for moving very slowly in a short distance and people are stuck on stressful condition of overpopulation.

SOUND OF CLOGS, SOUND OF HORN

In Hanoi Letter, Jean Tardieu wrote about a sound enjoying: He enter a shop of clogs in old native quartier, knock 40 pairs of clogs on the pavement to hear the different sounds. The Western man and Vietnamese people laugh, the native children and old grandmothers are happy when saw the excitement of a white ‘colonial’ man about the sound came from the knocking between wood and brick. The sound of clogs became symbol of peaceful, slow pace of life. It last nearly 30 years, when this sound acted like a memory of a refuge composer. He wrote: ‘how cheerful the peaceful sound of clogs’ (Longing for Hanoi – Hoang Duong, 1954).

Dong Xuan market, the biggest old market of Hanoi, in 1960s. The rhythm of architecture silhouette of the market place built in late 19th century is the landmark of Hanoi urban trade.

Early 21st century, the air of Hanoi sinks in the sound of cars and motorbikes horn and the noise of concrete-made machines in construction site. So people won’t feel strange when some sound artists use the noise as a source. For example, they make ‘noise music’ base on the noise above. This work art is a reflection of a sound life; include level of pollution, habit and the way of communication of modern urban residents. The level of noise in Hanoi streets is approximate 90-100dB, is ironically the level could make you deaf if hear for a long time.

One part of motorbike is the horn which becomes a product sell independently. There is a short street in Hanoi sell horns specifically. If someone wants to add an alarm horn into his motorbike, he can buy very easily! The sound of motorbike and car horns, the noise of engines, ringtones of mobile, nowadays is normal sounds of a ‘peaceful’ life. The loud sound of horns has change the behavior of residents when replace for voices.

In the recipe build the colonial, Indochina became a model of colorful Union and Hanoi became a beautiful experiment to re-create a Paris. When we see the planning map of architect Ernest Hébrard in 1924 and Louis Pigneau in 1943, we will find from the East to the West of city there are chains of boulevard which join to each others by ‘etoile-style’ squares, parallel avenues go together in pairs fairly.

One map of planning for the uptown of Hanoi by E. Hébrard, 1924

Map of urban planning 1943 by Louis Pigneau

Photo: Đỗ Huân. This photo captures a landscape of Hoan Kiem Lake, the heart and symbol of Hanoi.

The nice postcard has two sides about old Hanoi, one side is old native quartier and relics, and other side is the French quartier, framed and is framing an aesthetic school or taste of Hanoians. The break of these images is also the break of that aesthetic school. The sound of clogs is replaced by the noise of horns, the brick tile street houses is replaced by steel and glass block houses, French style villas by kiosque, bicycles by motorbikes… as well as the old images in paintings of Bui Xuan Phai who is the most famous painter about Hanoi become history; these changes are material disappearances. From that material changes, a new spirit was born.

Bibliography

Jean Tardieu.

Hanoi Letter, Phu Nu Publishing House, Hanoi 2006.

Pierre Clément and Nathalie Lancret (chef in editor)

Hanoi – Cycle du Changement, Translators: Mac Thu Huong, Truong Quoc Toan, Khoa hoc and Ky thuat Publishing House, Hanoi, 2003

Nguyen Truong Quy.

Hanoi is Hanoi, prose, Tre Publishing House, 2010.

Vietnam Student, newspaper.

Hanoians breathe the dust 4 times of legal level, 9.2005.

Family and Social, newspaper.

Ring roads of Hanoi have dust at over 11 times of standard level, 18.1.2010.

Vietnamnet.

River Nhue, river Day at the brink of the death, 25.4.2007. (recite http://www.khoahoc.com.vn/doisong/moi-truong/tham-hoa/14505_Song-Nhue-song-Day-co-nguy-co-bi-khai-tu.aspx)

Capital Security, newspaper.

River Nhue, river Day have strong polluted, 25.7.2008.

Planning Capital Hanoi: The lessons from the past, 19.8.2010

Sport & Culture, newspaper.

Review Planning of Hanoi over 100 years ago, 17.8.2010

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