I arrived in Hanoi in early October. It was a very warm Wednesday morning and there must not have been any rain in a few days because the skies were dark gray and filled with smoke caused by air pollution. I had forgotten what all that unfiltered engine exhaust smells like. It smells like you are standing in the middle of a forest fire. After a few hours of breathing the thick air I remembered the smog filled summers of my own childhood growing up in the northeast of the United States. Yes, our air quality was close to that bad. It was visible and considered normal.
While the air pollution of Hanoi and other Asian cities is discouraging, we know there is a way to clean it up. We know it doesn't have to be this way and sooner or later the people and the government will decide it is in their interest to change it.
The city as a whole is a teeming mess of humanity. It is so chaotic it works like clockwork.
Motor scooters dominate the traffic. There is only one rule for pedestrians, drivers and scooter riders in Vietnam - don't hit anything. Put another way: Never yield. Other than that stop lights, traffic lanes, speed limits, crosswalks and all the rest are optional.
Somehow, since everyone is dedicated to moving forward without hitting something or someone, it functions largely without incident.
Every inch of the city is used for work and most of the work seems to involve selling things or fixing things. Overwhelmingly, the retail space is dedicated to selling merchandise of various kinds to tourists. It's Old Orchard Beach, Maine at the size of New York City. Then there are the repair shops and street food vendors. Some food sellers have shops and some set up shop on the sidewalk. Customers pull up tiny plastic chairs and sit just inches off the ground while eating homemade pho.
Officially Vietnam is a communist country, but in the 1980s a decision was made to loosen up the rules governing commerce and Hanoi now looks like a giant marketplace where capitalism has been let loose without regulation.
As competitive as it appears to be, many of the residents of Hanoi seem extremely content to accept what life has to offer them without too much worry about having enough. There is stoicism and grace in how they carry themselves and how they interact with others.
Much of what is for sale in Hanoi relates to the Vietnam of the past. These vestiges of an agrarian lifestyle however are side by side with modern technology. Everyone has a cell phone. The internet is widely available. WiFi connects everyone. The phone company welcomes you to the city with a text message promising great service. I have been working from Vietnam with the reliable connectivity of my local coffee shop.
Vietnam is an emerging country. Its gross national product has been growing at rates above expectations. Students in the university system are studying subjects like information technology as they prepare for the careers of the future. As they replace an older generation, and as the nation's leadership also ages out, Vietnam will be positioned for dramatic growth if the population demands it and the government responds. One assumes that in a communist system change will move more slowly, but events around the world show the desire for rapid change can be hard to contain.
Only one week into my journey to different regions of the world I have seen first hand how dramatically technology has completely changed the way we live - and the way we have organized ourselves. Borders seem old fashioned. Countries seem old fashioned as a means to divide the planet. The flow of information from cell phone to cell phone - no matter where those phones are - makes it increasingly difficult for power centers based on geography, religion, or custom to sustain if the people see there is a better way.
The lifestyle I witnessed in Hanoi highlights the contradiction.
A man uses old hand tools to repair a metal part - or a door hinge - but in his pocket there is a device that connects him to the world. People earn a living by cooking pho on the sidewalk, but their customers order rides from Grab - the Vietnamese version of Uber. Are we in the past or the future? Is the country backward, or exactly where it wants to be? Answer: It is transitioning to the future.
Credits:
© Dean Pagani 2019