Traveling around Hanoi
This year, I traveled around Hanoi with my friends for five days and four nights.
From the airport in Hanoi, though, we first went three hours by bus to Ninh Binh and Trang An, which are a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Biosphere Reserve. The areas were striking for the limestone karst they are made of. Many places are unique and have peculiar figures. The rivers, caves, and beautiful landscape attract numerous travelers to take boat rides there or go hiking. There are also many scenic rice fields and plains across the Red River Delta. This environment encouraged the building of many temples there.
We returned to Hanoi. The newer part of town is a skyscraper forest, but the old town was like an antique and was full of cultural heritage. As we looked around the old town, the crowds of citizens and tourists looked invigorated and dynamic. Vietnam has granaries along two major rivers: the Mekong River in the south and the Red River in the north. Because of these resources, Hanoi has been constantly invaded by great powers throughout history. It is natural that it features a blend of various foreign cultures.
My friends and I visited the Vietnam National Museum of History. It had tens of thousands of relics of history from over 500,000 B.C. to 1945. Vietnamese history has been shaped by its geography, including a long S-shape situated from 8 to 22 degrees northern latitude. It has also been influenced by over 2,000 rivers and a tropical monsoon region whose climate ensures abundant fruits, fish and rice cultivation.
We went to the Temple of Literature. Vietnam was conquered in B.C. 111 by the Han Dynasty and was ruled by the Southern Song of China until A.D. 938. Even after its independence, Vietnam built its first college, the Temple of Literature, to instruct students in Confucian thought.
A Vietnam proverb says, “When enemies appear at the door, the women go out to fight.” Vietnamese women were brave enough to act like that. When invaded by foreign countries, such as China, France and the United States, Vietnamese women took the lead in defending their nation. In the Vietnamese Women’s Museum, we saw stories about numerous women warriors.
Then, on my friend’s recommendation, we visited Saint Joseph’s Cathedral, which imitates the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. In fact, France invaded Vietnam during the 19th century and ruled until 1945. This left many French-style buildings in Vietnam, including Saint Joseph’s Cathedral.
Vietnam is a socialist country. Ho Chi Minh’s role in establishing such a system was immense. After traveling to Paris to study, his dream was to free his country. He also remained single for all his life in order to stay loyal to his country. As I visited Ho Chi Minh's tomb and his memorial, I learned more about his history and worldview.
He took filial piety and loyalty, the spirits of Confucianism, as his ruling ideology. But also, he and Vietnam’s leaders and citizens tried to adopt Enlightenment rationalism and pragmatism from France while developing a patriotic spirit from its folk spirituality and Hinayana Buddhism.
These united ways of thinking, even though Vietnam is a socialist state, contributed to an open policy called Doi Moi and led Vietnam to an economic revival. As a result, the country is developing rapidly by attracting numerous overseas tourists and investment companies. Like the Red River in Hanoi, I think that Vietnam’s prosperity will continue to flow for a long time.
Kim Jin-heon is a retired English teacher who published a book titled, "Flower Is Flower."