I’m again at Café Cuối
Ngõ which I can easily call my favourite café in Hanoi, Vietnam and maybe the
world. In an Instagram post last summer I titled “a place as bittersweet as the
coffee it serves” and still today there is a deep melancholia/nostalgia paired
with happiness that overcomes me if I come here and that so deeply characterizes
all of my time and my relationship with this country. In Vietnamese there is a
word “nhớ” that means at the same time to remember, to miss, to long for and in
a way to love, to care. I think it describes it perfectly. As a tribute I thus
wanted to look at the place in detail. That is why I am here.
Cuối Ngõ means the end
of the lane, and truly it takes a knowing person to find the place. It is
around 400m into a small alleyway that leads away from the big road along
countless small shops, marketplaces and a lake that a small green and yellow sign
at the corner signifies the next even smaller lane that eventually lead to the café.
At the entrance of the café there is a head-high arch into the back yard in which
the café is situated. It is vividly decorated with sino-vietnamese signs and a
lionhead that are covered with moss and plant vines from above. There is a sign
asking everyone to turn off the motor and push the bike into the yard where
they are parked: We enter a place of quietude.
Besides the café house,
the yard is surrounded by a home (maybe of the owner) and a smaller house with
storage and the toilet. The café consists of a small ‘outside area with four
tables and a bigger inside with 10 tables. The tables are knee high, the stools
half the size and all the interior is wooden. The café is at the same time open
and contained – there are no windows or doors to the outside, but curtains made
of bamboo that veil a clear entrance. The interior is extremely cozy with a
living room atmosphere.
The rough is directly
juxtaposed with the beautiful: The walls are grey or brownish with stains of
use – even holes are left deliberately. Their surface is densely covered with a
collection of paintings and photographs that each would deserve its
description. There is abstract art, and pictures of photos, there is no clear order,
but still the pictures seem to assemble and converge to a holistic collage. Lamps
hang from the high wooden roof: One is a bird cage, one a bottle, the others are
covered with different sized baskets – only half of them actually work tainting
the room into a low, but warm light. Different kinds of flowers grow on each of
the tables.
The one painting shows
the cover of an artist whose lyrical heritage seems to deeply inspire and fill
the place: Trịnh Công Sơn. Often compared to Bob Dylan’s music in the US, Trinh
Công ‘Nhạc Trịnh’ talks about the life in the old Vietnam, in which a lot of the
people seem to find themselves. His music plays silently in the background and
people listen. They listen and sometimes they sing along. No other music would fill
and complete the place in this way.
The people that
actually come to this place is surprisingly young. 9 people sit around the room,
8 of which seem to be in their 20s. Maybe they are longing for this feeling of quietude
and belonging in the stressful city? They experience the nhớ that I am feeling.
I don’t remember or miss this ‘old Hanoi’ or times in the ‘quê hương’ (‘hometown’,
as the elder maybe do), but I seem to be able to understand it when I am here.
And I can wish myself into such an idealized state. As compared to other cafes
in the city, a surprising number of people come here alone. They read and text,
some work with their laptop, which almost seems strange in this place. A big
number however also just sits, enjoys and talks. However, most of them do not
face each other in pairs, but the middle of the room. All of them follow an advise
that is posted on the wall: “Nói nhỏ, nói sách” – “Speak small/with low voice,
speak clean”. It feels like a small subcommunity, both signified by a feeling
of belonging and shared common norms. In a way I feel connected to everyone in
here and know that I could talk to everyone, even tough not many people actually
do communicate with each other. The coffee they serve
here tastes strong, it tastes deep and true. It’s drunken with small sips over
an extended time. It serves the experience and is not directly in the centre of
it. But again, it feeds into the feeling that is created – a place as
bittersweet as the coffee it serves.
Finally, from an analytic
perspective, this café is of considerable significance because it seems to be a
window into an idealized form of traditional being that penetrates the national
consciousness and therewith reflect and constitute a certain common identity. However,
I need to think more about this in order to make a qualified statement. Hopefully,
the coming months in which I will read and think about national identity will
help me to sharpen the thought-tools to explore this finding deeper.
