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IT'S HANOI'S SUMMER OF LOVE |
Late on shady afternoons, young couples throng to the city's parks, lakes and boulevards for ice-cream, coffee and courtship. This holiday they are freer and more wealthy than ever before. The rickety Chinese bicycles, nylon pyjamas and green army shirts of just two years ago are gone for the new urban elite.
Mooching under the trees, they compare jeans, hair gel and Honda Dreams.But the differences are not merely cosmetic. They mark deep and stark changes in a youth once famed for romance and idealism. Take young Kiem, for example. At 22, like thousands of other young men from poor northern provinces, Kiem came to Hanoi to get any sort of work and get rich, wanting to end his family's reliance on the paddy field forever.
He followed his childhood sweetheart, Nguyet, to Hanoi. Smart and tall and with long eyelashes and hair to her waist, Nguyet swiftly hopped from job to job, working her way up among Hanoi's emerging private retailers. As a labourer on hotel building sites, Kiem found he could not compete for her against the smooth-talking traders and entrepreneurs making thousands. "I met Nguyet one day and asked her straight: 'What is going on?' She told me straight: 'You don't even have a motorbike'," Kiem said.
"So I worked and slaved for a year. I finally took a loan as well and got a second-hand motorbike. The first thing I did was ride around to see her. She laughed in my face. My bike was old and slow and also had pedals. It made a lot of smoke, but was still a motorbike. Nguyet just walked away."But as Kiem is finding, his tale of woe is not unique. This is a time of new realities and new goals for his generation. A recent survey carried out by sociologists for Vietnam's state press revealed young northern Vietnamese put money before fidelity.
Newspapers were quick to sound the alarm: only six per cent of the students interviewed professed faith in "ideal" love. Twenty per cent of young women said the earning potential of a partner was a major consideration, while 17 per cent of students of both sexes said material factors were essential to the stability of a modern relationship. However, male students, most of whom expect to marry before 30, still valued cooking and home-making skills in potential spouses.
Divorce and separation rates, thought to be about one in eight, are creeping up as women feel freer to dump a lazy husband. "Young women in the city now are taking control of the new situation," said international relations student Lien, 24. "They have to be smart and know what they want to make the most of the opportunities."
"There are new realities and, yes, I am happy to admit that I will be practical when I come to choose a mate. You don't want to be with a slouch in these times. It is important to remember that many women seem to be far more entrepreneurial than men. This is their time now."
Meanwhile, Kiem's bike has been stolen and he is working day and night to pay off debts, get a new suit of clothes and some seed money. Then he will take the train home. "In the countryside, people still accept you for what you are."
Source: Adapted from the South China Morning Post, 27.08.95
Vocabulary
// Mooching
- to hang around without anything particular to do, to walk around without any aim Return
// stark
- grim, desolate, absolute. E.g. The stark fact of the matter is that things have changed in that country. Return
// tale of woe
- a sad story Return
// spouses
- a spouse is a person's partner in marriage Return
// throng
- gather; come together; move in crowds Return