Tales from a lakeside
This lake of legend is flanked by crowds of tourists, busy cafs, and memories of the Ho Hoan Kiem metaphor
The taxi driver was surprised when we told him that we wanted to go to Hoan Kiem Lake and return, and no, we didn’t want to look at the shops or go to any of the small cafés around the lake. He must have thought we were weird, as three of us—my friends Vicky and Harpreet and I—sat in a cab that drove us through the early morning traffic of Hanoi. The light was yet to emerge, and we had been able to see the stars when we woke up.
My last visit to this city was nearly two decades ago, when Hanoi seemed to be the sleepy cousin of Ho Chi Minh City, as Saigon was called after the Vietnam war. Hanoi now possessed some of the energy and bustle of its southern cousin, and once we were on the road, at the traffic lights we saw Vietnamese locals on motorcycles, their faces covered with handkerchiefs, keeping their engines revving, the ao dais of the women drivers fluttering gently in the light morning breeze, the bikes ready to vroom the moment the lights turned green, as if they were late for an appointment.
Hoan Kiem Lake is considered to be the city’s centre, although the city has now spread in every direction. We reached the lake at a time that was considered fashionably late, but we did not miss any of the action, and we were not disappointed.
We saw the lake in its morning glory, with people walking briskly alongside it. It was late autumn, and there was mist in the air, making the scene look like a fading canvas. The side streets along the lake had stalls selling pho, as the beef noodle soup is called. A large poster covering two storeys of a building showed Ho Chi Minh, or Uncle Ho, the leader of North Vietnam during the long war, with a child.
The trees which shrouded the road from sunlight were festooned with large red fans and lanterns, and a scarlet, lacquered bridge called The Huc connected the pagoda at the northern end of the lake with the circling road.
There is a legend about the lake which neatly encapsulates Vietnam’s fierce resistance to outside aggression. It seems that a few hundred years ago the Vietnamese emperor Le Loi received a sword from the heavens, and used it to defend the Vietnamese from the Chinese Ming dynasty, which threatened their independence. As his descendants did against the French, the Americans, and indeed the Chinese, Le Loi defended Vietnam. The aggressors were repelled.
Ho Hoan Kiem is a metaphor yearning to express the Vietnamese spirit—defend yourself forcefully, but once the war is over, discard that weapon of aggression. To be sure, Vietnam has a large army and, indeed, its streets have police officers in uniforms that make them look like off-duty soldiers, but along the same streets you see the now ubiquitous form of folk art—toys made from discarded aluminium cans of Coca-Cola and Heineken. Once seen as the symbol of American designs on Vietnam, the can with the mascot of Western capitalism abroad has been beaten and reshaped into miniaturized Jeeps, cars, aircraft, and other toys sold on the streets for a few dollars.
At the northern shore of the lake lies Jade Island, where the Ngoc Son temple stands, to celebrate another victory, over an army sent by the Mongolian emperor Kublai Khan around 700 years earlier. The temple is shaded by trees.
And in the middle of the lake is a turtle tower commemorating the legend. Called Tháp Rùa, the tower is lit up at twilight, and the lake shimmers, reflecting its glow. The lake also hosts large turtles, and the Vietnamese consider seeing them an auspicious omen.
Lakes have inspired poets in Vietnam, but often those poems are full of pathos, like ballads of partings and despair, rather than joyous union. In Tieng Ái Ân or The Voice Of Love, Huy Thông wrote:
I want not to set foot on forlorn lake
To watch the orb of day slowly disappear,
And stand in awe of dusk stillness does take
To hear the echoes of my love’s voice clear.
Luu Trong Lu writes in Khi Thu Rung Lá, or When Fall The Autumn Leaves:
My heart is like the cold lake in fall
Reflecting moon in the midst of night
I wish the days more slowly flight
Yet, mindless, you care not at all."
Unrequited love it is, Eliot-like lament it may not have, but there is a certain poignancy to those words, a heaviness and pathos, revealing melancholia and yearning, of a time lost, time that won’t be reclaimed.
Salil Tripathi writes the column Here, There, Everywhere for Mint.
Also Read: Salil’s previous Lounge columns
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