Mixtape Hanoi #8: Passing through Hang Buom street

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WHO NAMED THE RIVER? WHO NAMED HANOI? WHO NAMED THE ROADS AND FAMOUS STREET CORNERS?

Every road, every river, every person seems to have a name. A name frames deep memories of one’s roots and roots. A name, whether clear or vague, has a meaning behind it that few people know…

Amidst the hustle and bustle of everyday life, Hang Buom – a name that evokes wind and waves – seems to contain some traces of a riverside city. I was curious to find the answer, the way people want to explain the name of someone they just met for the first time.

If Hang Duong is a sugar restaurant because there are rows of sweet apricot trees, Hang Than is simply a charcoal store (what complaint sounds like lamenting?) then Hang Buom, which evokes the bulging image of The sails out to sea, the cool taste at the mouth of the sea, is there a story?

Talking about a street corner, but reminding me of the shape of a river. And what does a river have in common with a street? Just as a river flows out wanting a direction, the street also flows out in many directions, carrying with it so many people coming and going, so many joys, so many sadnesses of people in this world.

Amidst that endless flow of years and years on the old street where the brown sail is only a memory, the house at 22 Hang Buom is like a vortex in the river, swirling into it all the ups and downs of history. There are all the life stories, street stories, stories of the past, of today, of the European and Asian rains, of the Kieu Hoa market people and even of urban residents.

I still remember the first time I stepped into the house at 22 Hang Buom on the first day of summer. Even though it was almost unbearably sunny, it was still beautiful here, but that day it suddenly started to rain. I, like a passerby, walked through the wide open gate with layers of carved patterns on the roof. Sitting looking out at the wide sky under the trees, with an old friend. A Hanoi girl, a Hanoi friend, in the deep space of Hanoi.

Wide and strangely airy. And quiet, and slow, like time and space have truly become one. Is Hanoi a calm rainy afternoon? Or is it the silvery atmosphere of history, culture, and old things that makes me feel like I’m slowing down? I felt myself drifting away, like a person sitting in a boat quietly admiring the scenery along the banks.

When we look at a street, a roof that has existed for more than 2 centuries, we are looking through layers of time and their changes.

From the house on the street where sails were sold, from a bustling Chinese club decades ago, from a kindergarten whose childhood has now reached its twilight years, through many changes, the sails The row of sails left behind is perhaps just a sail in the poetic ideas that naturally develop…

The rain dissipated, the sunlight sparkled again through the windows and sky. People who come and go, quietly, in a hurry, or calmly? The house and I are unknown. The house remained like that, as if accepting a surprise visit, perhaps to shelter from the rain, visit an exhibition, or simply out of curiosity.

Life still flows and continues as it is. Like the way a street, or a house, embraces all its historical depth. It turns out, the conception of the new takes place in the very moment of what has passed and what is to come.

And we, in the present, past, or future, keep drifting away in some unknown worries. It’s strange, when we know how to name a river, a street, know how to number a house address, but we rarely know how to call or name the flow of thoughts, of encounters, of everyday joys and sorrows?

“I want to go to the place where the water and colors mix, where the four seasons have turned into autumn” – Che Lan Vien

Hang Buom, Hang Than, Hang Luoc…, how many other streets do I never know the name of, have never visited, or come and go, passing by like a stream with no end in sight? But I don’t need to know, you don’t need to know either, curiosity will lead us to the addresses and meetings we need. It’s okay if you don’t know much about your country, and it turns out it’s a beneficial thing, because you can live with the mindset every day like a guest, a guest “floating on the river, across the street”.