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A NIGHT OUT IN MY DINH Tasked with spending a dusty night out on the town in My Dinh, Douglas Pyper casts off his downtown shackles and gets a taste of the high life. Photos by Aaron Joel Santos
suppose you know nothing at all,” says the editor, “about the new centre of Hanoi out in My Dinh?” “Not a damn thing, boss,” says I, “save they’ve a tidy stadium out there.” “Here’s for your education, then.” A few minutes later a couple of files appear in my inbox: All Roads Lead to My Dinh, Office Moves Offer Rare Chance to Entrench Downtown Hanoi, My Dinh: The Next Frontier. “Head office wants 900 words on the new centre of Hanoi in the next 48 hours. Here, take this.” She passes me a worn dust mask. “You’re going to need it.” Browsing the drab news articles makes me dread going to My Dinh. Unwanted words and phrases pop out: modern, developed, high-rise, new administrative hub, highest building in Vietnam, city’s size tripled, reduce population density, urbanisation process… My Dinh is starting to seem like a hub of buzzwords and catchphrases. If the boss reckons I’m going to trawl through dry texts on city planning to pen a hack-piece on grade A office space and international schools, she’s got another thing coming. I pick up the phone and dial head office.
THE HIGH LIFE “Nick, it’s about the My Dinh piece. The editor thinks we should change focus.” “I’m pretty busy right now, can I call you back?” I hear the sound of women’s laughter and clinking glasses in the background. “Just a quick one. How about we ignore the development aspect and focus on entertainment? You know, what can you do for fun in My Dinh, where can you eat, drink, shop, sing, get laid — that sort of thing. The editor has her heart set on this. All we need are expenses and the go ahead from you to make it happen.” “Ok, ok, I’ve got to go, just keep it clean.” The last thing I hear is a loud guffaw, cut off by the sound of champagne popping as the line goes dead.
BEYOND EDEN The pamphlets fail at the first hurdle. All roads do not lead to My Dinh. From the original centre of Hanoi, there are 11km of highways, sky trains, roadworks, overpasses, underpasses and bridges to get lost in before you even get there. Following the high-rises and passing under the massive raised highway known as Duong Tren Cao (The High Road) symbolically marks your transition into My Dinh. Biblically, you are brought out by The Garden, the area’s most famous mall. In The Garden, all entertainment is electronic. On the first floor your feet, back and bum can all receive absent-minded care and attention from massage machines. Upstairs in HeroZone, a massive arcade, games like Tekken 6 and Street Fighter Alpha 3 — combined with company funds — will keep you entertained for a few minutes.
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In HeroZone you can electronically throw basketballs into hoops, punch your friends, smash rats with hammers and drive motorbikes with a blissful disregard for traffic regulations. So much for the Old Quarter. To its great credit, though, The Garden does have shops where you can buy plain cotton underwear and T-shirts. No dragons, no nylon, no sequins and at reasonable prices — a real shopping Mecca. My new underwear is making me feel hungry so we head back into the night in search of food. The area around The Garden is architecturally modelled on Europe. Blocks are uniform and akin to tenements, with wide pavements and corner cafes that put out iron seating and Parisian tablecloths. The cuisine on offer is also international, with Korean, Japanese and Italian snuggling up with the usual pho houses. Korean seems to be most common and Nha Hang Han Quoc Han Cook seems too good to say no to. Cheap, decent food is served in a clean, air-con environment, and four hungry funseekers get well fed plus a bottle of soju for VND320,000.
THE FUN OF THE FAIR With soju in its veins, our gang of four heads back out into the night. If this is to be the new centre of Hanoi then it must have entertainment, otherwise it will remain a dust bowl of stalled construction projects, a useless extravagance like a cocktail without garnish. Thankfully, My Dinh has a sprig of mint in its mojito. For those seeking fun, weirdness and a night out, that sprig is the area around the stadium. It’s a perfect synergy of Vietnamese sensibilities and a developed world space. The grassy embankments separating the sides of four-lane roads are packed with people picnicking among the trees. On a Wednesday night at 9.30, the area is buzzing like a European park in summer as people put the only real public grass in the city to good use. The enormous section of road by the stadium is taken over as a space to fly kites and eat candyfloss. It’s like a massive ad hoc kite festival; did I mention it’s in the middle of the road? There’s also a funfair. Inside is a selection of rides for kids, a roller skating rink, and a Flying Motorbike ride. Known as the ‘Wall of Death’ in other parts of the world, it’s that fantastic show where a daredevil rides a motorbike around the vertical walls of a massive barrel. It’s not running tonight but is supposed to be in action every weekend. The only question is whether they do it on a Honda Wave, a Minsk or a Honda Dream. Back out on the street, most pavement spaces have been taken over by mobile karaoke joints. Here you can sit down, order a drink and sing the occasional song. We sing Hey Jude. The group of university students after us sing I Feel So Good When I Ride in My Tank. The screen for visuals
is propped up on the back of a cart with the neon sign of the Keangnam Landmark Tower floating ominously over the top. As the authorities drive by, the music ceases and the screen disappears — suddenly we’re just any other café half on the pavement half on the street. Two minutes later we’re ready for another song.
LATE AND LIVE As the clock creeps towards midnight, now seems like a good time to up the ante. In the stadium a new live music venue called 02 has recently appeared. Affiliated to Khong Gian Am Nhac, a music space famous for slick advertising and sick ticket prices, this new venue seems to enjoy equally large amounts of investment. The sound system is good enough for a small outdoor festival and more than capable of making you unable to hear the person next to you. The lights, too, are of international quality, while the screen behind the performers is a cinema size LED screen, the kind of equipment you’d find at a Bob Dylan or a Radiohead concert for 60,000-plus people. There’s something of a divide between the equipment and the performance. A guy, his shirt unbuttoned to reveal his impeccably smooth chest, is singing to a backing track — his silky, shiny shirt didn’t come from The Garden. When he leaves, three girls take to the stage. Immediately the customers are more animated. The male customers stand and pump their fists in the air while their dates smile on. When they look over, I too pump my fist in the air, eager to bridge the cultural divide. They look away quickly. When the dance routine is over the men drop back down like HeroZone machines that’ve run out of coins. Perhaps they knew what was coming. The MC announces the “DJ Programme”. But there is a massive twist: there is no DJ. Instead we watch an Avril Lavigne music video on the big screen. Then we watch two more. It really is a lovely screen, but the avant garde concept has gone over my head. Unable to relate to the programme I turn my attention to the waitresses. In a nice touch they’re all wearing black rimmed glasses. Perhaps it’s to imply intelligence or sophistication befitting a club for live music shows like those we’ve just seen? Or maybe they’re just big Joe Ruelle fans? I try telling them that I’m a famous journalist, then resort to lying that I edited Joe’s latest best-seller. The weird grins that come back make me realise it’s time to leave. On the way out, some of the more desperate door staff want to take their picture with me. They’re very excited, but not as much as me as I insist on some inappropriate photo hugs. It seems then that a Tiger infused fog descended for next thing I knew I was in my room. It was morning. A camera full of vaguely rock star poses and a wallet of receipts – the notes for A Night Out in My Dinh.
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