Hanoi felt to me like China in 1986 or 1987. The country was just opening to the rest of the world and was intoxicated with the possibilities of the future. It may work out better here than in China, because the country is smaller and the government less paranoid (Vietnam has the proverbial easy-going tropical attitude as against the uptight snow-bound northerners in China.)
Still, I got the full bureaucratic treatment when I went to Tien Son, about 15 miles outside Hanoi. Just as in China, I had to have tea with everybody. I ended up looking for my family as part of a group of ten! Eventually I found the right family. They work incredibly hard but were willing to accommodate all of my strange requests--except for one thing. The Nguyens have a field in front of their house that would have been perfect for the Big Picture. But Ha refused to move the furniture there. In this way I learned that in Vietnam it is considered extremely bad luck to move the beds through the front gate, because it only happens in case of death or divorce.
We decided to cram everything into the front yard. I invited everybody in the extended family so nobody would get jealous--it also made a good photo opportunity. Then I drove them all crazy waiting for the sun to stop playing hide-and-go-seek in the clouds so the light would be right.
In the end, I was sad to leave. The Nguyens are good, decent people. They don't have much and they know it. They are not necessarily content, but they accept and make the best of it. At the end, Ha's sister-in-law offered me her baby, to take back with me to my home in Hong Kong. Then the local obstetrician told me that Quin, considered the pretty girl of the village, wanted to come, too. Instant family!
