Look both ways

Hanoi is a city experienced, and perhaps lived in, looking sideways. Streets are the canvas for almost all daily interactions--breakfast at 5 am, pedicures all day long, card games, automobile repairs, painting. It is like being an uninvited guest at some one's barbeque--people milling about everywhere, tantalizing and sometimes offensive smells, and yet you somehow always feel in the way. Sidewalks serve as parking spots, roadways, makeshift restaurants. The streets are dirty and for good reason--the trash can seems to be a piece of modernity yet to make its way to Hanoi. There is a habit of washing one's mouth that includes gargling a good amount of water and then spitting it out onto the street, the gutter, your foot. You are constantly at war with the cars and motorbikes and the rule is move forward--they will drive around you, but never move backwards--they will hit you. Sometimes there are stop lights but they are never obeyed and drivers would prefer to hit you than slow down or stop. This is all done while the driver is balancing his wife, mother and two children on a motorbike made for two. Women walk the streets balancing a long stick with two baskets on each end and are just as territorial about their space as the drivers. You never know what will be in the baskets--bananas, vegetables, doughnuts, car parts. Smoking is a popular habit and not just the conventional pre-rolled cigarette. Men, young and old alike, pack bowls attached to the three foot pipes and take one hit at a time. The apparatus resembles what we know in the west to be a water bong, minus the bubbler on the bottom. These men resemble the opium smokers of ancient China.

Handicrafts line the streets as far as the eye can see. When my family lived in Korea in 1988, we lived far from the center of Seoul, and had to travel about two hours outside the city into the country to reach our apartment. Our excitement on the weekends would be to get on a local bus and pick a different stop to get off at each time. There was one stop that when you exited was full of stalls that sold shoes--slippers, high tops, heels, loafers--shoes. We quickly dubbed this stop shoe heaven and vowed to find it again. As this game had less memory than logic, we never again found this wonder. It has been almost 20 years of searching but shoe heaven has once again reappeared and this time it is in Hanoi and it is grand. Each street is a heaven unto itself--shoes, art supplies, car parts, herbs--each street is devoted just to the selling of this one thing. Treasures lie everywhere in Hanoi if you look hard enough--two bananas for a quarter, a sesame doughnut for thirty cents and three big carrots for just over fifty cents. I am constantly reminded of how much we pay for things in the States. Our meals are becoming more basic as we master cost and location in Vietnam's markets--baguettes, yogurt, cheese, peanuts. The challenge to keep yourself full of good food while not spending too much money or getting bored is a daily adventure.

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