New Development Space: KĐTM Đền Lừ

Last friday my project group mapped out the new development area around KĐTM Đền Lừ. Quite frankly the experience was depressing and made me think about development in a new way. While I've read alot about the negative consequences of development before, walking through this "neighborhood" allowed me to experience it first hand, and I was actually fairly surprised by what I saw. 

• empty streets (but not cleaner)
• luxury cars
• lack of goods
• spread out
• abundance of parks in the non apartment residential area

It wasn't the sort of carbon copy suburbia that you would see in the US where every house is the same. Rather this area consisted of run down high rise apartments, empty streets, a lake with no benches, a giant sports center and a gradual transition into single family houses and finally more traditional space. The area immediately around the apartments was the most depressing to me. I would love to know the stories of how people wound up in those apartments... but they felt like totally dehumanizing places. They were incredibly tall with no elevators and steep ramps to bring your motorbikes up to your room.

While some goods were available near the such as trà đá and bia hoi, they lacked the vibrant social aspect of the city. At three in the afternoon they were completely empty... I think most residents were out to work.


The area near the lake and sports center was interesting to me. On one hand the lake was beautiful and was the one of the only place where we saw lots of people hanging out. On the other hand it was not designed to encourage relaxation. There were no benches (one entrepreneurial food vendor had brought out plastic chairs but you had to buy something to sit), no places to put boats into the lake and no wide open areas to play on. There was a gigantic sports center on one side of the lake, but it was completely empty while boys played soccer in the roundabout right outside its gate.

The non apartment residential area was probably the place I liked most of the places we went. In many ways it reminded me of where I live back home. It was a housing district where each of the houses was individual, much like my neighborhood. There were plenty of trees, and several really nice parks. There was an elementary school and vocational school hidden among the maze of streets. The streets were fairly large and inhabited by a fair number of cars. By reminding me of home it  forced me to reconsider what I value in a living space. I've always liked the peace and quiet of purely residential areas, but compared to the life of Teng Sung this area felt dead. It annoyed me that I had to walk  20 minutes to get to a street where I could buy necessities, while at home I think nothing of having to drive to the store. It made me realize that even the sides of development I cherish come with real trade offs. The peace and quiet of a residential neighborhood with parks are only obtained with the loss of street life and a reliance on cars.

Finally after nearly 2 hours of walking we arrived at a real Hanoi street complete with goats being slaughtered, shoe shining and yummy xôi xéo. Yet even on this street we couldn't find all of the things on the list that we had found so easily in the traditional neighborhood. I really don't think I would like living in this area very much. I think It would be quite depressing, especially knowing that so many wonderful places exist in Hanoi.

Han Thuyen/Hang Chuoi: The Neighborhood

On saturday we mapped the neighborhood around Han Thuyen and Hang Chuoi streets. Within the four blocks we mapped we were able to find everything on the list Gerard gave us as well as many other things. A few words that came to mind when walking through the neighborhood were:

• Beautiful
• Relatively green
• Calm(er), but still lively

There were many things I liked about this neighborhood. First there was the fact that you could conduct most things you needed to do on a daily basis in such a small area. There were two fruit and vegetable markets, many pho places, places to fix your motorbike, a school, a doctors office, shops selling all sorts of things, two temples and a park. If there wasn't an actual shop for something it was still provided. There was a place where keys were cut on the sidewalk and every other week someone came by to sharpen knives.  Back home I have to drive to get good quality fresh produce, drive to get my knifes sharpened, walk 15-20 minutes to get to a park, etc. etc. Here most everything could be done by walking less then 5 minutes.

Kid Climbing in the Elementary School Gate

Another thing I really liked about the neighborhood was how much character it had. A full block of Trang Bat was completely devoted to the sale of birds, bird cages etc. In the neighborhood there was a cat cafe (see photo below) and a cool dried flower shop. Each of the houses were different and had cool plants covering them. The neighborhood was close to the big theater in Hanoi and the independent movie theater where we watched Mai's America.

Cats at the Cat Cafe

However what struck me most was how green the area was. Unlike the part of Thang Xuan near the university, the streets in this neighborhood were lined with trees. Many houses had trees as well and there was a park and tenis courts within walking distance. I'm not generally a big fan of cities because there isn't enough greenery, so seeing so many plants really made me happy.

One of the houses with lots of greenery.

Overall I think if I were to live in Hanoi this neighborhood would be high on my list. It certainly seems like someplace I would be happy.  Of course, I would want to look at more neighborhoods first seeing as I have only been here for a few weeks and don't have a ton to compare it with.

The theater. 5 minute walk or less

Amazing bakery also very close to the neighborhood

Kem (ice cream) near the neighborhood!

Gig reading:

Adhesive Company Sales Representative

After flipping to a random page in Gig and reading a few interviews I was surprised how much I like this interview. To me being an adhesive sales representative sounded like one of the most boring jobs on the planet, but this interview really made me rethink that. Traci seemed so happy with her job… something I think not enough people are. I never realized how much time sales representatives have to spend building good relations with their customers. Playing underwater hockey doesn’t sound like anything I’d ever expect a sales rep to do. The other thing that really surprised me was just how many different things contain adhesive. When I read the title I was thinking that she sold adhesive squares or something, but it turned out that she supplied glues to tons of different companies.

I was also interested by the fact that she was one of the few women in her line of work. I guess it kind of makes sense that it is a male dominated job seeing as talking your clients drinking is part of the job, and its not as socially acceptable for women to drink. However the part about her boss giving her an incredibly hard time when she first started and making her get up extra early kind of disgusted me. It know that sort of discrimination happens in the work place, but it still really bothered me that she had to put up with it… and became friends with the guy afterwards. 

About me/goals:

Autobiography:

Hey everybody, here’s a little bit about myself. I was born in Berkeley California in 1990. My parents are from Wisconsin so all of my family lives back there and I visit them every year. I went to Harding Elementary school, Portola Middle school and El Cerrito High School. I played cello and Violin for several years and really loved it but had to quit in 7^th grade when my school lost funding for orchestra. In 8^th grade I joined the Piedmont Choirs which competes internationally. I went to international festivals in Vancouver Canada, China, Malaysia and Singapore. The things I saw on these tours and the people I met really made me fall in love with different cultures, particularly Asian cultures.

After high school I knew I wanted to study international issues so I chose Eleanor Roosevelt College in UC San Diego which focuses on international scholarship and history. I also decided to major in comparative political science so I could really go in depth into that aspect of other countries. Once at UCSD I had to pick a language to study and I chose American Sign Language because my elementary school had a number of students who spoke ASL and I always loved to watch it. After a few weeks I fell completely in love with ASL, deaf culture and Deaf rights… the language was so rich and beautiful that I knew I wanted to make it a bigger part of my life. I’m now head of the ASL club on campus, minoring in ASL and looking for jobs where I can put my skills to use. I’m really happy at UCSD and know that while I will be sad to leave Vietnam I will be happy to go back to all the wonderful people there that have made my last two years amazing.

Few other miscellaneous things about me: I have one younger brother named Brian who is going into his third year of high school. He’s a real sweetheart… despite being a 16 year old boy. I’m gonna miss him while I’m here. As far as hobbies go I like to unicycle, hike make pottery, write poetry and cook. My favorite color is green and I’m totally in love with turtles frogs and succulents. That’s about it. I look forward to getting to know all of you soon!

Goals for Vietnam:

1. Get to know the amazing HANU students and UC students. I really feel like I have a ton to learn from all of you and will be disappointed with myself if I don’t go home having had at least one good conversation with everyone.

2. Learn about Vietnamese culture history. I’m really interested and there is so much to learn.

3. Learn Vietnamese Sign Language and volunteer at an orphanage! This seemed like a total long shot before I came but it might actually be reality. Soooooooo cool!

4. Learn as much Vietnamese as possible. I’ve never really learned a spoken language before, so I’m afraid this could be quite the challenge. I took Spanish in high school, but all I can really do is say “Yo no hablo espanol.”

5. Travel! See an opera in Vietnam, explore the French district, visit a village where they make pottery, maybe visit a national park…

6. Learn how to cook some Vietnamese food!

7. Learn about the minority groups in northern Vietnam.

8. Challenge myself… learn to do things I normally wouldn’t do, think about things from different perspectives and hopefully come away from Vietnam a better person.

9. Have an amazing time :)