In the soft, moist Vietnamese evenings, local families would set up tables and chairs on them. To me, a North American, they were like children's toy tea tables and chairs, the kind of thing you would find in a kindergarten, too small for my North American frame. The families would gather around them for meals. The mother would have cooked on little stoves; camp stoves in my eyes. Each family had a tiny feeble kerosene light. The flickering flames were scattered among the murmuring families like fireflies; babies and children were everywhere. Kids fetching and dumping basins of water darted around in the dusk. Women gossiping. Older men reservedly sat and watched the scene and us Westerners going by. Everything took place at ankle level. To walk down the sidewalk was like wading through a riverside campground.

The streets were long, mostly silent black rivers. The chief sound was the whirr of the rubber tires of the bikes and cyclos, the Vietnamese pedal-driven tricycles with the metal seats for two between the front wheels. Because of their shape and backward inclination, whenever I got into one of these seats, it felt like I was getting into one of the gondolas-for-two that were characteristic of the rides at a North American amusement park, like the Ferris Wheel and the Octopus.

I experienced one memorable and indelibly etched-on-my-memory scene when I came out of a modest hotel, stood for a moment and then walked to the curb. I was just walking outside for a few moments. But my movement was misinterpreted. Before me stretched the flowing black river of the street; the cyclos, bicycles and some cars rushing by like schools of 'fish' riding on top of the flowing black water. I was aware of the freshness of the evening air, the smooth hum of the road and brighter lights of the hotel marquee behind me and the twinkling lights on the sidewalks reaching into the distance on either side.

Then one, and then another and then still more other cyclos slowly drifted towards me and nosed in at my feet. I had the distinct impression that I was standing at the edge of a vast black pool of water, and the 'carp' had noticed me and were nosing into the shore in a semi-circle in the 'water' in front of me hoping for some food. The reality was that the cyclo drivers had spotted a North American exiting a hotel and walking to the curb; they had thought they might get a fare. But frankly, the reality was nowhere near as interesting as the romantic image of that Hanoi evening that has remained with me for the better part of a decade.

Every single one of the sinewy but rail-thin Vietnamese cyclo drivers was looking at me with a big smile on his face. I was embarrassed and did my best to explain that I was just out for a breath of air and was sorry that my behavior had misled them. A few cyclo drivers spoke some English and the message was received and scattered among the other drivers in Vietnamese like so many bread pieces being spread out among fish. They accepted the information and became attentive to the couple of drivers who could speak to me in English, looking for a little diversion from their evening patrol for customers. The little conversation, composed mostly of the kind of well-intentioned quips that one says at times like that, were shared among them, until they grew bored and began to drift off, one-by-one, like fish looking elsewhere for a potential sources of food.

I have a set of briefer snapshots as well, quick flash memories of reflective moments at various points in Vietnam: walking for the first time into the famous rooftop restaurant of the Rex Hotel, and imagining for a moment that the tables were filled with the ranks of military brass who occupied Saigon at various times of its more recent history. Standing at the foot of the 1954 replica of the 'One Pillar Pagoda' built a thousand years ago by Emperor Ly Thai Tong to resemble the Lotus blossom in his dream that contained his soon-to-be-born son and getting a sense of an enormous antiquity of Vietnam as a country. Standing in the morning on the street corner as the street was filled with the sudden surprise of a huge flock of high-school girls silently gliding past me on bicycles like a white cloud of settling birds, each with her dark hair in a bun and dressed identically in a fluttering white ao dai, the 1932 redesigned national costume of Vietnam: a long dress with a mandarin color worn over long pants. I was taken by the beauty of the sight. Walking through the restored monumental portal of the Confucian 'Temple of Learning' the National College founded in 1070, under the Ly dynasty, to train potential mandarins in a five-year course to qualify as local administrators and reflecting on the high level of respect the Vietnamese have always had for knowledge.

These are the memories I carry around with me of Hanoi. And while I know that that Hanoi has changed greatly, I like to think that the qualities of the people whose culture is preserved in these images have preserved them as the lasting qualities of the country I have come to deeply appreciate over the decades we have worked in Vietnam as TDH Canada.

I welcome your comments on this article.
Brendan Cavanaugh