[story time] My family home in Hanoi in the 90’s

I never met my maternal great-grandfather, but I was told his story last year. He was born into a poor family in the country. At that time, every village had a teacher, called Ông đồ. Only wealthy families could send their children to the village teacher. My great-grandfather worked for this teacher and while tending the garden, he was able to listen to some classes. He was very intelligent and was able to assimilate the lessons himself and learn to write. When the teacher noticed, he gave him some private lessons for free. His resourcefulness was such that years later he was able to buy his first piece of land in the village – and then houses and farmland in the whole village. Which he gave to members of his large family. When he became very rich, he bought a family house just for himself, his wife and his eight children in Hanoi – and sent his children to the best French schools of the time.

This house was a typical Vietnamese house, composed of several small houses. The main house served as an altar for the ancestors but also as a place of residence for the parents. The houses were reserved for children and staff. There was a huge kitchen, a bathroom and a Turkish toilet in another corner. In the middle of the courtyard was a small Hòn Non Bộ, a tiny garden/pond that reproduced landscapes in miniature.

My grandmother was the penultimate child, born into wealth, endowed with great beauty and overflowing curiosity. While all her siblings were gradually giving up school – too useless because they were too rich – she and her little brother, the last of the family, were the only ones who continued to go to and love school. My grandmother was the Vietnamese version of Snow White. Her nickname was “Son” (lipstick) because her lips were as red as lipstick. Her dream was to continue her studies in France with her little brother – and that dream was about to come true…

However, in 1954, North Vietnam declared itself independent. Between 1953 and 1956, a “land reform law” took place to re-dispatch the land. The “rich” of the former regime were dispossessed of their property one by one (while my family did not work directly or indirectly for the former regime). Thanks to family members who participated in the revolution before 1954, my family was spared. Although the land and the village in the countryside were confiscated, they could still keep part of the house in Hanoi. I think that this period traumatized my grandmother forever because all her life she always needed to have a stock of food and goods – for fear of losing everything again.

In the end, the poor girl never set foot in France (she wanted to leave in 1944 but because of the Second World War and then the events in Vietnam in 1945, she missed the opportunity). She also always kept in mind the importance of studies, that’s what saved her – because her brothers and sisters were having a hard time making ends meet – while she was able to get by a little better by becoming a math teacher. It was at work that she met my grandfather, who was a math and physics teacher. My grandfather – from a normal family – kept his generosity all his life. He fed his students for free, even during the most difficult years – much to my grandmother’s dismay.

My mother’s childhood was not easy either – marked by numerous exoduses and bombings. The Hanoians were sent back to the countryside for two years to escape the bombings, but the children in the countryside abused Hanoian children. They lacked absolutely everything, the conditions were deplorable. I think that’s why my parents always made sure that I didn’t lack anything – and always reacted very effectively to the slightest attempt to harass me at school.

My birth, bad luck, falls during the currency changeover period. My father was still in the army, and was short of food. My mother was very weak and had no time to exchange the old currency for the new one. To save the family, my grandfather had to accept a position in the Congo, whose conditions were even worse than in Vietnam at that time (he risked his life and health), in exchange for an attractive bonus: $100, which allowed us to feed ourselves for a year. That’s what saved us and mom still talks about it today.

In spite of these difficult conditions, I was always spared from all this and had a happy childhood. Because when you don’t know that abundance can exist, as long as you have something to eat and a roof over your head, that’s already happiness. That’s why many people ask me if the communist era was hard or not, I always answered that I had excellent memories of it. Everyone was poor, everyone had so much rice and so much meat, but everyone had a job. We all had the same can donated by China, the same comforter sponsored by the USSR. The only possible criteria for social distinction was “who has a TV” and “who has motorized transport” when most of them were walking or cycling.

So for the first years of my life, I spent my time in this family home. It was rare at the time for a son-in-law to come and live with his mother-in-law, but on my father’s side, the paternal family apartment was too small to accommodate our little family so it was easier for us to move in with my maternal grandparents. After the death of my great-grandfather, the big house was divided as follows: the biggest house for the eldest and his 4 children. They were all married with children so each family was entitled to a large wooden bed in a corner of the house. Even now in the alleys of the old quarters of Hanoi, completely hidden from the sight of tourists, hundreds of families still live together in a small space. Each couple (and children) are entitled to a bed…. and earplugs. No privacy possible. No private bathroom possible, the toilets are shared with dozens of other families. So imagine the compulsory confinement in these conditions! It is unfortunately not possible to renovate these spaces because the whole area has been classified by UNESCO. Moreover, negotiations are impossible with these families who hope to scrape a little money in exchange for a much larger apartment against their 4m² in deplorable conditions.

So let’s come back to my family home: fortunately my grandmother was entitled to a small house (which she paid for, on the state, but the rent was very affordable), one of her brothers was able to rent the remaining house. The other cottages were sold, and my grandmother’s other siblings went to live with their in-laws.

So in this large space (finally large for a child but with my adult eyes, I find it quite small), we were almost exclusively between cousins. At that time, the city was very safe, we could play in the courtyard as well as in the street without any supervision, there was no traffic and no crime anyway. I spent a lot of time in the main house with my cousins. In the old houses, the doors were wooden planks – so during the day everything was open on all sides. It was better that way because we didn’t have fans, the electricity was off all the time, and it was too hot. Each of us had a fan and the mothers rocked their children, fan in hand, every night before going to bed.

At 7 p.m., all the children gathered in front of the only television available – in black and white – to watch the cartoons. Which were produced and donated by the USSR. The few dialogues were in Russian with a Vietnamese double overlaying this voice, with a lot of delay. This kind of single-voice lining is still used on Vietnamese TV nowadays – and JB really doesn’t understand how we manage to distinguish the dialogues, assign them to the right characters with so much delay and that monotonous voice. What he didn’t take into account is that we have years of experience in front of the TV with this mono lining ! ah ah !

In the main house, below the altar dedicated to the ancestors was a large cupboard. I discovered its existence only when my cousins had to take out their winter clothes. This cupboard was so large and open so infrequently that we all decided to meet there to take a nap – on the clothes and blankets stored there. We got yelled at afterwards, but it was such a magical place for us that we watched out for every change of season so that we could enter it again.

As we were among cousins, we shared many things, including the treats prepared by our moms. It is thanks to them that I was able to vary my eating habits. When I was little, I regularly vomited and ate so little that I was diagnosed with level 3 undernutrition (the worst level, there is no worse than that). In addition to a few health problems, I was very small and thin compared to children my age. In addition, I refused all the dishes I didn’t know, even if it meant vomiting with the first spoon. But when I saw my cousins greedily eating other dishes, I asked to try them too (without vomiting out of pride because it was me who asked to taste them). Once, after seeing adults eating a strange dish many times, I asked to test it too, to be like the grown-ups. The taste was atrocious, but out of pride, when my father asked me if it was good, I said I liked it. He was so happy that I was testing new things that he left everything else to me. And shared it with me every time he bought this dish. Out of pride, I had to eat it every time in spite of the awful taste – and I ended up liking it. Now it has become one of my favorite dishes !!! It is “nem chua”, marinated pork meat.

Being civil servants and gifted in foreign languages, my father and mother were sent abroad in turn to be trained. My mother in India, USSR and Finland and my father in Grenoble. Thus, at only 5 years old, I was able to do a mini world tour: spending 6 months in the USSR, in Moscow, 6 months in Grenoble and 2 weeks in Paris (we took the train between the destinations). It was while coming to France that I realized that I absolutely had to study in France.

My grandparents fought a lot – coming from different social backgrounds and not having the same vision of life. When my mother was offered an apartment in Ba Dinh district by her ministry (because we were part of the struggling families), my grandfather joined us and my grandmother stayed in the family home at 40 To Hien Thanh Street.

A year before this move, when I absolutely wanted to have a little sister, my parents gave me Loulou, a very special dog – with a wolf’s head and the tail of a Japanese dog. But after the move, finding myself alone in a neighborhood with no other children my age, with only a dog for company during my long days after school, I asked again for a sister and that’s how my little sister was born when I was 8 years old.

Loulou was not happy with the arrival of my little sister, whom he found too noisy. He showed his displeasure many times but never tried to hurt my sister. On the other hand, as soon as a stranger spoke to me, he would appear out of nowhere and bite him. Even though I never fed Loulou and never walked him, he always considered me his main mistress. I regret that I never took a picture of him or with him because the only memory I have of him is in my head. I don’t even remember exactly what he really looked like, how tall he was. He was very smart and very picky about food, just like me. You could give him a bowl of rice with meat and he would sort and eat only meat. When I was 9 years old, something horrible happened: Loulou disappeared overnight, and the most likely hypothesis is that he was kidnapped by the assholes who supplied dogs to restaurants. Imagining my Loulou being scared and dying in terrible pain still traumatizes me to this day, so I will never be able to have a dog again in my life.

My cousins still live mostly in the main house, but everything has been renovated, each couple now has a private floor with a private bathroom. My grandmother sold her small house to buy a larger house in the suburbs of Hanoi. After her death, my uncle inherited the house and still lives there with his family. I still sometimes think about this family house, where I spent my childhood, where I wrote my first letters in chalk in the courtyard, where I first tasted Vietnamese blackberries… I talked about those few childhood memories that came back to me in Cienfuegos in Cuba and Key West in the United States..

I am very grateful that my grandparents and parents spared me the details of the difficult conditions we were enduring. For me, everything was fine and everything was rosy. I had no weight to carry and could live my childhood as a child deserved to live . I don’t know if the children of the future will still be able to live carefree days like I did. And to fully appreciate simple little joys: like that nap, hidden in a big cupboard full of clothes?

It is up to us to offer them this carefree attitude.