Mieng Trung aka Central Vietnam

Hoi An is an old city in Vietnam that was a center of trading among countries like Japan and China beginning in the 1600s. Walking around down there is, as one of my classmates described, like walking around in a Hollywood set from Crouching Tiger. The town isn’t too big and the main drag huddles around a section of the Thu Bon river for a stretch of only a few blocks. The town seems dedicated to creating custom made clothes for tourists, and you’ll find a good 15 different stores all displaying the same items, from the latest fashion in men’s p-coats to women’s sarongs and silk blouses. Just about any item in one’s personal wardrobe can be made in this small city, and for a fraction of the price, a facsimile of any piece of clothing in Vogue can be made for around 100$ or less, much less.

Other than learning Vietnamese, Hoi An was the main thing on my mind before coming to Vietnam. I figured the reality of our study abroad program would be keeping us busy engaging the more serious aspects of Vietnam: culture, history, politics, and the language. As of yet I haven’t been surprised. I found my time in Hoi An to be something quite different—Disneyland, only with more mannequins. Upon speaking to the clerks, I found that just about anything I wanted could be made in a couple hours, but not without alteration. The process truly takes two days. One could expect a suit in an afternoon, but the result is hit or miss.

I intend to fashion a whole wardrobe and it will be good. I need a week there to do it justice, but I can’t help but feel a little guilt in all of this. Here I am, just a tourist looking for a cheap way to live the American dream. My mother grew up in this country, but is this the country she remembers?

Vincom Towers near Hanoi's Old Quarter

I was walking through Vincom today and it reminded me of when I was small walking through Finsherman’s Wharf as a 12 year old biking down Embarcadero alone. It’s an odd feeling, somewhat liberating and yet somewhat predictable. Walking around in a Vietnamese shopping mall made me feel—as much as I hate to admit it—at home. There’s the sense of something new waiting for you just around the corner, in a foreign country’s mall, just like I feel walking past street performers in the Wharf. You’ve seen a man get out of a straight jacket, ride a unicycle, swallow a sword, and hold a one-armed handstand at least once before, and yet it never gets old. There’s always the expectation of seeing something new in the personality of the performer, akin to seeing a novel shoe design or smelling a new fragrance on the displays in storefronts. The Vincom towers also made me feel like I belonged, somehow, to this place, this new pocket of gentrification in an ancient city. The escalators and bright lights were old friends whose tricks never failed to pique a small grin on my cheek.

But I only feel like this in Vietnam. This doesn’t happen to me when I walk through some suburban mall. Back home, in America, I pass by food courts and see all the bastaradizations of ethnic cuisine: orange chicken, margarhita pizza, burritos. In Vietnam, there’s the structure common to all malls, and yet with an extra feeling of exclusivity that hasn’t existed in America since the 40s, if not the 30s. The vast majority of Vietnam still hasn’t experienced consumerism on this level, even after hosting these corporate flagships for over a decade. Only a small proportion of people in Vietnam will ever find it reasonable to pay almost two million dong (US $100) on a striped dress shirt. They cost at most US $5 at any normal suit-and-tie store on some busy street. And so here I am, looking at prices and thinking about how outrageously expensive these items are, and then realizing that these prices are quite average for clothing back in the states. They are in fact nothing near the prices you’ll find walking through Westfield mall on a Tuesday afternoon.

And so it makes me feel big to meander through aisles of goods that I probably would never buy, but tell myself I could…if I wanted to. Pay the same price back home.

Interview with the Art Forger

            In the fumes of acrylics, the painter sat with his legs crossed, palette encrusted with a months worth of colors placed conveniently to side. When he’s not sleeping, eating, or having cigarette, Hoan spends time forging paintings on commission. For a mere 40 to 50 dollars per canvas, Hoan and a team of five others create forged paintings for sale in the heart of the Old Quarter. Passing the store front, you’ll find Gustav Klimt’s “The Kiss,” a public display of affection which you’ll find is common around Hoa Kiem’s lake, only steps away. Hoan named his store after his wife, and the business has been afloat for 4 years.

            Ask any curator, selling art is difficult. No artist wants to be part of the buying and selling of their work. Some describe it as akin to selling ones child. Hoan didn’t seem to have any qualms in this respect. At least two hundred of his paintings surround him in stacks against the wall and on the sidewalk, waiting for someone to choose one like albums in a used music store. Hoan acknowledges that his storage method may not be best for the paintings. He says he’s saving up to rent a bigger place so that he can properly store his paintings. As it is now, the paintings are exposed to the hot and humid Hanoian streets, crowded with honking motorbikes and tour busses.

            Hoan says he loves painting and he always has since he was a small child. He only wishes that some day his business will make him enough money to start painting original works, but he admits this will be sometime from now. I hope he gets the opportunity soon.