One City, Two Worlds: Our Hanoi Story

This is Te Ho, a large residential neighborhood along the banks of Hanoi's largest lake, Ho Te, also known as West Lake. As recently as 30 years ago, this was considered slightly outside the main city, an area of lotus fields, gardens, and farms. And some of that still lingers today. The locals here get up early. This is 6 a.m. In the early morning, Te Ho feels like a regular Vietnamese neighborhood waking up to a new day. But in a few hours, it'll become the center of Hanoi's large expat community, and the vibe will change completely. Our lives in Hanoi are split between two places. We are renting this house in Te Ho, but we actually own a condo 10 kilometers away in this modern housing development called Time City. One of the reasons we're keeping this condo is so that our son can go to school there. School begins in two weeks, so we need to go there today to buy some school books. The contrast between Te Ho and Time City is quite interesting. If you had seen Vietnam in 1991, the first year that I came here, you wouldn't have even imagined a place like this existing. Opened in 2014, this was marketed as Singapore in Hanoi. And while it doesn't quite have Singapore's level of development, I mean, for God's sakes, just take a look at some of what this place has. It hardly feels like we're in Hanoi! We bought a condo here in 2017, just three years after it opened, and lived here for four years. In 2021, we were called back to the U.S. for family reasons, and we downsized our original condo, got a one-bedroom, with the intention that my mother-in-law was going to live there for many, many years. Sadly, she passed away last year. And when we came back to Hanoi, we inherited the condo. We lived here for four years. I hated it. This is not what I'd come to Vietnam for. When we came back, we decided, alright, we're going to make life easier for Daddy by renting a house in an area that's more open, has more greenery, but maintain the benefits of Time City by holding on to our condo, and more importantly, schooling our child here. The thing is, now that I don't live here, I can appreciate some of the things that I didn't appreciate before. One thing I always appreciated, however, was this place. As travelers and expats, we're drawn to the exotic. Conical sunhats, bicycles, the things we think of as quintessentially Vietnam. But for many Vietnamese people, Time City is a life they aspire to. It's ironic that Te Ho, with its lotus ponds and its French-style villas, is now filled with expats and foreign businesses. Meanwhile, Time City, with its sleekness and modernity, is built for Vietnamese families. You would think it would be the other way around, but my wife and I actually find it easier to find good, authentic Vietnamese food in Time City than around here. So which of these is the real Vietnam? Obviously, the answer is both. Speaking personally, I don't want to live in no damn condo. I like the architecture, the greenery, the village feel of Te Ho. But I'm really glad we have a foot in both worlds.