If you are looking for the core, the essence, the heart of Hanoi, you will find it in Old Quarter. This is a square kilometer of many interesting: elegance, grace and friendship. No other place I have visited – with the possible exception of the ancient MedinainFez,Morocco– presents so many challenges to a foreigner’s understanding.
Most of time, I enjoy the brother and irritations of the Old Quarter. For two months in the summer of 1998, I lived on its northern edge and spent part of everyday losing myself in the frenetic ambiance of its narrow, shop lined, oddly angled streets determined by the traffic of feet and wagons over the course of centuries.
Before I came toVietnam, I read as much as I could about Vietnamese history and customs; while those studies helped prepare me for what I saw, my real education came from walking the streets of the Old Quarter. One cannot feel the texture of a country’s customs merely by reading. Although an outsider can never get inside another culture, the visitor can pull back successive curtains, revealing new scenes as he enters a new reality.
The Old Quarter is unique. This is especially true of its food. Vietnamese food in the West has a reputation for lightness and intensity of flavor, a tribute to immigrant chefs. Food in the Old Quarter bears little resemblance to Vietnamese food inLos Angeles,New York,Paris,MontrealandLondon. One of favourites is “Banh Goi”. A around wheat-flour “tortilla” folded over a bit of meat and vegetables in the shape of a half moon and fried into a Vietnamese “taco”. Several served with salad and a beer cost US$ 1.5; they seem familiar and comforting which is no doubt why I return again and again the shop at 29 Luong Van Can.
Vietnamese – especially those living in the north have made a virtue of necessity, learning to use whatever foods were available during centuries of invasion, flood, drought and barely sufficient yields of staple crops. After the bleak hardships of the French and American Wars, many Vietnamese returned to the traditional foods of their regions; food that can starle a Westerner. Dog meat is particularly common out on theRed riverdike. Then there are various members of the insect family. I mention these as a reminder that the language of food has a vast vocabulary.
My favourite streets in the Old Quarter are Hàng Mã, Hàng Quạt, Hàng Thiếc. Hàng Mã and Hàng Thiếc are among the few streets that retain their ancient trades, giving them perhaps a deeper historical feeling than other streets such as Hàng Đường, which now sells mostly ready to wear clothing.
Hàng Mã sells colorful votive paper “ ghost money” and other paper objects, such as houses and motorbikes, that are associated with the cult of the ancestors. Vietnamese burn these votive papers in temples, pagoda and communal houses as offerings to the dead on the first and fifteenth days of the lunar month. In Vietnamese culture, the dead continues as family members. Vietnamese burn votive paper on the sidewalks in the evenings to communicate with parents and grandparents no longer living. The rising smoke is a language the dead can understand.
Not only this quarter, many other quarter brings their interesting. And if you find yourself on Bát Đàn at eight o’clock in the evening, stop into Café Quỳnh, sit down and order a beer or lemon juice – the quietest place in the Old Quarter. You can wath children play, you can wath the action at the “phở” kitchen across the street. You can sit silently in the heart of the oldest part of Hanoi and consider whatever amazing journey has brought you to this place, worshipping in your own way the God of Luck.
