~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

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In new Vietnam, a look of old times

HANOI - When President Clinton attends a Vietnamese production tomorrow evening at the Hanoi Opera House, he will be stepping back through time in a city that is among the most beautiful in Asia. After entering the ornate French-colonial building, which is a smaller version of the opera house in Paris, the president will probably stride up the red carpet that covers the Italian marble staircase and sink into a crushed velvet chair in the VIP box overlooking the horseshoe-shaped theater.

As he gazes across the orchestra and the lights begin to dim, he may glance at the ceiling fresco of clouds painted by artisans flown in from France or at the gilt-molded insignia above the stage adorned with the number 1911, the date when this jewel of Hanoi architecture was completed. But the president's night at the opera will be as interesting for what he doesn't see as for what he does. Hidden behind the stage in this vestige of French colonial power stands a plaster bust of Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnamese Communist leader who forced the French out after 95 years of rule and frustrated the American military in the war that followed.

As Clinton spends the next two days in Hanoi meeting Vietnamese leaders and seeing the capital, he will pass hundreds of buildings left by the nation's former colonial masters, France and China. Amid the arching tile roofs reminiscent of Beijing and the lovely balconies that recall Paris lies an implicit lesson: The buildings still stand, but the foreign regimes that inspired their construction were vanquished long ago. Clinton is scheduled to arrive in Hanoi tonight for a three-day visit heavy on symbolism and designed to cap a rapprochement between the two wartime enemies.

On Saturday night, he is scheduled to fly to Ho Chi Minh City in the south - a bustling commercial hub known as Saigon during the war - that contrasts sharply with this quiet, leafy city of lakes and parks in the north. More than most other buildings here, the Opera House symbolizes Hanoi's colonial past and its growing sophistication. When it opened in 1911, the theater drew ridicule from some critics who saw it as pompous and extravagant. One French academic called it "a pretentious caricature," according to Gwendolyn Wright, author of "The Politics of Design in French Colonial Urbanism."

After the Opera House fell into disrepair, the Vietnamese government began renovating it in 1995. The theater now serves as a cultural magnet for the capital's small expatriate community and well-heeled Vietnamese who can afford concert tickets that range in price from $4 to $7. Taking in a performance is one of the delights of visiting Hanoi. The event begins to take shape with the arrival of the musicians - young Vietnamese men and women who roar up to the theater on motorbikes with cellos and violins slung over their shoulders in carrying cases.

Around 7:30 p.m., the audience begins to arrive and chats beneath smoked-glass lamps outside the hall as a breeze blows through the palm trees nearby. On the steps, one can hear theater-goers speaking French, Vietnamese, German and English. Someone from the Austrian Embassy - the guest conductor this evening is Austrian - pulls up in a sleek, black BMW and parks right in front of the theater. Employees from the United Nations International Drug Control Program roll up in a white Toyota Land Cruiser. The Hanoi Philharmonic Orchestra takes the stage before 8 p.m. and plays a program that includes crowd-pleasers such as Ravel's "Bolero" and Jean Sibelius' "Finlandia." Though the woodwinds struggle at times, the string section excels, earning warm, sustained applause from a house that is three-quarters full by evening's end.

As the concert concludes, a young woman in a green "ao dai," a tight-fitting traditional Vietnamese dress with flowing white pants, arrives on stage to present the conductor with a bouquet of flowers. The Opera House is intimate and seats just 600 people - 200 fewer than the entire French population here when it was built. Nguyen Trong Binh, a violinist who is in the audience this evening, is grateful to have it as a place to perform and feels a connection to the architecture. "The theater itself is great," says Nguyen, 31, who also teaches at the Hanoi National Conservatory of Music. "We look at French style and we feel like it's very natural for us."

While the Opera House has been renovated, most of Hanoi's other French-colonial buildings have not. Pressed for living space in a city with a metropolitan-area population of more than 2 million, people have subdivided many of the remaining villas, which are in various stages of decline. Le Trung Ha, 57, lives in a renovated garage with his wife and two sons in what looks like an Art Deco home from the early part of the century. His family shares the first floor and one bathroom with 11 other people. Le, a retired driver for the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry, admires the architecture, but can barely stand the lifestyle. "We have to share the water supply, the toilet," says Le, as his pet chickens squawk in a cage he has built for them in the remains of the colonial-era courtyard. "Everything is in common." An emerging elite class in Hanoi is having it both ways, though. As more young professionals branch out into the private sector and work for high-paying foreign firms, they are building expensive new French-style villas with modern amenities.

A couple of blocks from Le's house stands a four-story villa with balconies, louvered doors, wooden ceiling fans and remote-controlled air conditioners. One of the owners is Nguyen Minh Anh, 42, a pianist who practices Bartok on a baby grand piano in his fourth-floor studio. Nguyen and his wife, Le Hang, who runs a law firm and has a law degree from Harvard University and another law degree from Germany, spent $140,000 on the land and construction two years ago. Their goal was to build a house that would incorporate convenience and colonial charm. "It's very simple, but I like it," says Nguyen, as he points to the molding in his upstairs studio, which opens onto a balcony overlooking the street. "It's very popular for people with high incomes to build this kind of house." Although Hanoi's colonial architecture was designed to imitate France, most people here see it as an integral part of their city's identity.

Philippe Papin, a Frenchman who has lived in Hanoi for a decade running a historical and archaeological research center, says one reason that Vietnamese feel close to the homes is because many designed and built them. And despite more than nine decades of French rule, Vietnamese don't seem to associate the architecture with imperialism. "After Dien Bien Phu, many of the generals came home and moved directly into French villas," says Papin, referring to the 1954 battle in which the Vietnamese defeated the French. "The Vietnamese won, so there was no problem; it belonged to them," says the 33-year-old, who is married to a Vietnamese.

Across town from the Opera House stands the Temple of Literature, a symbol of the heavy influence of Chinese culture here. For many centuries, the temple educated the nation's scholars and government officials who studied the teachings of the ancient Chinese sage Confucius. The temple, a walled compound of lush lawns and topiary, was built in the 11th century after more than a thousand years of Chinese control here. On the edge of a green pool called the "Well of Heavenly Clarity" stand dozens of stelae with the names of graduates in Chinese characters, the written language of ancient Vietnam.

Today, though, when young Vietnamese visit the temple, few can make out any of the carved characters. Teaching of Chinese declined during the French occupation. And today the foreign tongue of choice in Hanoi is neither French nor Chinese, but the language of the visiting president: English.

By Franck Langfitt - SunSpot.net - November 16, 2000.