development's not all bad (maybe)

I was drinking beer via Skype with thầy Thư a few weeks ago, and he commented that my blog posts are painting a resolutely bleak picture of the course of development in Hanoi. This gave me pause. I like to consider myself a relatively optimistic person, not just able to see the glass of bia hơi as half full, but also able to rest contentedly in the knowledge that a full glass is but a shout of "bia em ơi!" away. So I set myself the challenge of finding an example of positive change in Hanoi in the last year.

This will probably come as a shock to no one, but my example revolves around bia hơi. Over the last four years or so, bia hơi's have been closing at an alarming rate. This sort of change is driven by the same skyrocketing land prices that are closing places like Cafe Lâm, combined with the aggressive enforcement of policies intended to eradicate street commerce. My sentimental favorite, the Việt Hà on Lý Thường Kiệt opposite the Melia closed long ago, followed by the Việt Hà on Tông Đản (moved to Hàng Bài and since closed at that location, too), and recently by the great old bia hơi Hà Nội Vân Hồ. For a while, it seemed all we were left with were the cavernous beer gardens along the lines of Hải Xồm. Perfectly fine, of course, but not exactly what I think of when I think of "real" bia hơi.

For "real" places like the bia tươi Heninger place at 60 Lý Thường Kiệt, which depend entirely on sidewalk seating, policies against street commerce were a virtual death sentence. For a few years there, I assumed it had closed entirely. But last summer, I happened to meet an old friend (Ricky, I wish you well wherever you are) who suggested that we celebrate our reacquaintance at the same location where we'd shared far too many beers back in the early 2000s. My first few sessions there last summer were still punctuated by impromptu street comedy. The informer would call, the servers would rush out, chairs, tables, and half-eaten plates of chả nhái would be whisked away, and bemused customers would be left standing on the sidewalk as the police arrived, grumbled, and eventually left empty-handed. But now, even this perfunctory attempt at enforcement has ended, and on any night of the week the tables and little plastic stools (we're talking old school here, no chairs allowed; and let's not even mention the toilet) flow out to occupy a good third of the block west of Quán Sứ. And this is not the only example: the Việt Hà on Hàm Long has retaken control of the street opposite the lovely Catholic church, there's a nice cluster of small sidewalk bia hơis down at the end of Hoa Mã... I could continue this list of revitalized bia hơis far longer than I should.

So while we've lost many of the real bia hơis forever, those that managed to survive the lean years of 2004-2007 now seem to have been able to renegotiate their right to carry on that great Hanoi tradition: selling beer on the sidewalk. The question remains, though: why this positive development? I tended to chalk it up to the inevitable waxing and waning that characterizes Vietnamese law enforcement: laws are made, for a time enforced, and then relaxed as ordinary people reassert their own notions of justice and equity. For my friend Thư, though, the answer was to be found in the current financial crisis, and a conscious government decision to relax the enforcement of laws that might restrict even further the ability of ordinary people to make a living in hard economic times. In the end, we differ primarily in our idea of where the impulse is coming from, I'm a little more bottom-up, he's a little more top-down. But the way I figure it, my analysis holds out a more hope that an improving economy won't necessarily bring the end of sidewalk bia hơi as we know it. Maybe I'm an optimist after all.