Walking Hanoi (part 2)

Additional thoughts on happiness and other random stuff from walking Hanoi .

Next weeks post(s) will be about walking the more rural Northern Vietnam smaller cities (Lạng Sơn, Cao Bằng), near the Chinese border. Part 3 (things I really really like in Hanoi) will come in two weeks.

---

I was planning on writing another essay about Hanoi fundamentally different from part 1, focusing on some geeky thing only an urban planner, or a developing economist, would really appreciate, but after another four days here, all I can focus on is just how generous and happy everyone is here. Especially compared to the US and Western Europe.

Sunday I walked 15 miles across the width of city, and I think beyond paying for my morning Phở Bò and bus fare, I didn’t pay for anything else. Food and drinks (there were lots ), were gifts from what, until I literally walked into their life, were complete strangers. Much poorer strangers who bought ME food.

I’m leaving town for a few days, to spend some time in smaller towns in the north and my biggest issue is feeling guilty I won’t be able to go to all the meals, drinks, and events I have been invited to here in Hanoi. Hell, I couldn’t do all of them even if I stayed here. Just too many.

Why such generosity? Why such happiness?

I wrote about the happiness in the first piece being about having community, and perspective. Expanding on that, I think people in Vietnam are relatively happy because they know their place in the Universe. Not in the sense of knowing their limits, but knowing where in the world they fit. And people, not surprisingly, need that. They need to feel some sense of grounding, and to be a valued part of something bigger than themselves.

For all of human history societies have given people natural structures to do that. Like Family. Faith. Community. Race. Place. Gender. Job (more on this in bit).

If you’re a geek like me, you can think of then as N-dimensional shared co-ordinates that give people an address in the universe of meaning. I’m Mr Nguyễn, A Vietnamese from the town of Đồng Đăng, from the X neighborhood, who prays at the Y temple, and with my wife, runs the Phở stand on Z street. That is who I am, how I am seen by others, and how I see myself. I have a place in my community, and in the universe of meaning.

That system, one that almost every culture ever has used, of what I call non-credentialed forms of meaning¹, is still the dominant system outside of the US and Western Europe, and it largely works. Many of these non-credentialed forms of meaning (like place, faith, and family) are far less hierarchical then more meritocratic systems. You belong first and foremost (to the town, to the church, to the family).

In the US however, we have built a society, and economy, that primarily cares about how much stuff everyone has. And how free they are, in the sense of being fully emancipated from family, community, and nation, by becoming whoever they want to be. Whatever that is, and however they define it. What exact patchwork of colors on the color wheel is your parachute?

We’ve replaced the N-dimensional addresses (I’m Yvette, from Yazoo City, and my people come from over in Sunshine County, and I’m a mom of 2 kids, a hairdresser, and member of the Southside Baptist church.), with a two bits of information.

One is how much are you worth. That is a co-ordinate of meaning everyone shares with each other, and everyone understands. It is, in some weird way, the glue that binds the US. The other co-ordinate of meaning is supposed to be self created. And no matter how complex, and weird, it is, should be appreciated by everyone. Even if it can’t be fully understood. You do you, even if I don’t get you.