The landing in Hanoi was just the beginning of our journey, but not the start of what would become our life. This first chapter, like the second, will focus primarily on a vacation that in just a few days transformed into a life choice.
Upon our arrival, chaos reigned supreme in the city: Typhoon Yagi had swept away houses, uprooted trees, and the great Red River that flows through the city had overflowed; the country was at the mercy of the worst storm in thirty years. It felt like living in a parallel world compared to the reality we were used to and had left just a few hours earlier. It seemed as if we had landed on another planet: it was as if our HAL, like in that award-winning and wonderful film from 1968 "2001: A Space Odyssey," had decided to overturn social orders and redirect us to a world that was hard for us to comprehend.
Unlike in the film, however, here HAL is not a robot aimed at reversing the human-machine bond, but rather something that works on social customs, upending those we were accustomed to, and at that moment, that place was disobeying, reversing the order of thoughts and feelings—not only concerning nature, which was so different from ours, but also regarding the people. We were immediately surprised when the taxi driver, with somewhat halting English, told us that for them, the typhoon was just a simple storm.
We thought those words were just an excuse to avoid frightening tourists. Instead, from the very first moments spent in the city, we noticed the enormous and illogical difference in how disasters are perceived between the Western world and Vietnamese society; it wasn't a matter of habit or strength: it was the awareness that nature cannot be controlled. The inexhaustible strength of these people became evident to us when we observed the calm with which they spent hours, days, and weeks restoring the city after the violence of Yagi.
In Western culture, after every major tragedy, controversies erupt with everyone against everyone, and spirits fill with anger. The examples that come to mind are many, and here I’ll mention a couple: the earthquakes in Amatrice in 2016 and in L’Aquila in 2009.
Here, on the other hand, those who were not affected by the typhoon closed their shops and businesses to help restore a country on its knees. With their usual smile and great strength of spirit, they rolled up their sleeves and, without pause or hint of fatigue, restored everything in no time.
Hanoi is chaotic and vibrant: the lights and scents fill the air with an almost alchemical magic, and the gold of the ancient Chúa shines like a precious frame that enhances the colors of a painting. However, the people are far from being mere background. As we stroll through the streets, we become aware of the noise made up of voices: the chatter of people sharing meals, moments, and smiles alternates with the cacophony of honking horns. Here, even the horns have a different significance. You never hear a "fuck you" followed by a honk; they are simply positional warnings: the sound of the horn serves to say to everyone, "I am here, pay attention." Indeed, despite the frenetic traffic, we notice that accidents are quite rare, and when they happen, there are no demands for damage payments through pompous insurance claims. A smile, a helping hand to get back up if someone falls, are enough to create the most friendly acknowledgment that exists.
Even our arrival at our first accommodation made us feel the trust these people place in others. No payment, no request for money, just smiles and human warmth welcomed us in that shabby hotel in the center of Hanoi, which had a massage center on the ground floor and guest rooms on the upper floors. Our obtuse Western mindset led us to think they had forgotten about payment, but that was not the case: they had simply placed their trust in us, not as tourists, but as human beings. The genuineness of their attitude was disarming and should not be confused with naivety. The anagram of the words "genuine" and "naive" is merely a linguistic illusion in this country. Money is placed second, considered a means, not an end. From our perspective, this is initially incomprehensible. We fully understood this after a couple of days.
The noises, the scents, the lights of Hanoi confuse our senses, and from the very first day, we decide to turn off our maps to walk aimlessly, to observe places and people, to capture the glances and smiles that we would not have noticed with our eyes glued to our phones. We would walk in search of the authenticity of these places, hungry for encounters and smiles. It would not be a tourist experience, but a traveler's one. After dropping our backpacks at the hotel, we ventured into the city. It was there that we met Thien in a park. He was there, with three other Vietnamese boys, playing soccer on the asphalt with a deflated ball. As good Italians, we approached to exchange a few passes with them, and within minutes, the passes turned into a little game with two makeshift goals. The intensity of the match was high; we played as if it were the Champions League final, oblivious to the blisters and the fact that we still had 19 days of travel ahead of us. We probably didn’t even realize how much time we still had, as that day felt like it would last an eternity. We were already in love with those places, and the way we communicated with the people was romantic: Thien and his friends spoke essential English, so we filled at least an hour and a half with gestures and smiles. At the end of the game, each of those boys hugged us as if we were brothers, and Thien mustered the courage to ask us, "See you tomorrow at 5 pm?" Our hearts filled with joy upon hearing those words, and we confirmed the appointment for the next day, just like when we were children, where meeting up didn’t require a WhatsApp message, no cellphone was needed to reunite at the youth center after school—just the trust of a promise made. It felt like I had returned home, to my Gerola, where missing an appointment with friends was the greatest pain of all.
Leaving the little game behind, we decided to continue on our way. Often, the right path is not the one traced by the eyes; it is the one dictated by the soul, but we were not yet able to understand that. We then stumbled upon a crowded street, which is a misnomer. It was actually a railway, a track running through the center of the city, with establishments on either side. We decided to stop in one of them, as some guys invited us to enter. They were smoking a strange, long chillum. We had two beers and waited for the train to pass, which arrived on time despite the incessant rain. We managed to communicate with these guys through gestures, and they invited us to play arm wrestling with them. It was then that I understood the incredible strength in their arms, as I quickly lost to one of them who weighed at least 20 kg less than me. My gym training was useless against the strength of a worker, a boy who every morning at sunrise goes to work on the street with his brothers and mother. Surprised by their strength, the boys laughed at our astonishment and continued to challenge us until their mother scolded them, as it was already 9 o'clock and they had to close the place. Disheartened and a bit embarrassed to be asked to leave, they decided to offer us two beers to apologize for the inconvenience. We, still bound to our Western conception, rejoiced at those free beers, not yet realizing the greatest gift they were giving us: kindness.
We also noticed something else right away: the commercial establishments they managed were essentially homes where they lived with their families. In Vietnam, due to both a strong work ethic and culture, restaurants are always family-run, as are shops. They are not interested in owning the most beautiful or busiest establishment, but in scraping together enough money to reach the next meal. It was the first time that Mirko and I began to talk about the differences in desires of those people compared to our own. They do not have a tendency toward possession; they do not know envy: they live.
We left the establishment and decided that that night we would have a colossal binge. We met some of our Italian friends and spent a lovely evening together. When they left and we were alone, the night took a particular turn. After wandering around and spreading our barista euphoria to all the establishments in Hanoi's Old Town, we spotted the word "tattoo" on the wall of an old building through the pouring rain. Once again, no words or gestures were needed to decide to enter the shop. The guys, despite it being 4 a.m., tattooed us while telling us about the world of Eastern tattoos, and we, in order to bargain, pretended to be Western tattoo artists on vacation—a terrible lie, of course, but it must have amused them, as they gave us a nice discount. Tired, drunk, and tattooed, we descended the stairs of the building convinced we were heading home. Instead, at the foot of the building where the tattoo shop was located, there were five boys sitting at a table drinking a green concoction. They welcomed us like deities, and we gladly accepted to sit at their table and share a drink. By now, the fears of possible dysentery had been washed away by the fumes of alcohol. We shared two hours of broken and poor English, but their eyes were enchanted by our stories from home. We communicated more through gestures than words, something that we Italians are quite good at. When we decided to leave them, they invited us to spend some time at their place the next day. We then returned to the hotel for a bit of well-deserved rest.
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