Hanoi Ink – Reviews Strange Roots Part 2

PART TWO: Once A Book A Time: the view from 2003

In Part 1 of a 3-part series, Hanoi Ink takes a look at the recently published anthology from the Hanoi Writer’s Collection.
Part 2 of Hanoi Ink’s 3-part series on expatriate literary anthologies in Hanoi looks back to an earlier anthology from 2003, and what the writers did next.

I have never actually been part of a writers’ collective, so any speculations about their inner workings would be drawing heavily on pretty much total ignorance. Having spent rather a long time in Hanoi, though, I do have the advantage of historical perspective on collective literary endeavour by ex patria scribblers here in the capital. And no, I’m not talking about this book.

Enthusiastic amateur historian that I am, after some time scouring my bookshelves and calling up old friends I retrieved a slim volume, attractively and robustly covered in what seems to be some kind of thin brown vinyl with what looks like an old-school four-legged wooden bia hoi stool embossed on its cover.

Once A Book A Time: a Hanoi collection of short stories came into existence here in the capital back in 2003. It presents 16 (well, 17 if you include the charming introductory explanation) short pieces of writing “by people who have (mostly) worked in Hanoi at some point in their life”.

This collection of writers came together within the famous Hanoi émigré salon that formed around the original PUKU café situated upstairs at No. 60 Hang Trong street back at the dawn of the current millenium. Presiding over that artistic and literary demi-monde was one Elliott Samuels, émigré Chch Kiwi, former editor of Time Out, co-founder of PUKU and creator of Mực, the original minimalist Hanoi weekly what’s on guide with its bia hoi restaurant of the week and wry inside humour. Elliott relocated to Tokyo some years ago; he is now mainly known in Hanoi through his regular visits accompanying Japanese bands and spinning tunes in the DJ tent each time the CAMA Collective pull together one of their international music festivals.

Elliot’s co-conspirator in this case was one Connla (the book is mostly a surname-free zone), who as it happens still resides in Hanoi as a writer, editor and general Irish-in-residence. Connla provided the introduction to the collection, its raison-d’etre, or manifesto if you will, which was basically a reaction to the surfeit of cliché in-flight magazine pieces about Hanoi and Vietnam at the time, all conical hats, ao dai, belated Vietnam war insights, pastoral scenes and fruit:

“We need more offbeat literature about a country that grows stories on trees”.

The cover—with its brown vinyl and embossed gold bia hoi stool—was conceived on the old PUKU sofa by Elliot, with the stool contributed by recently departed artist-slash-Zippo-obsessive Bradford Edwards, who also contributed one of the pieces in the collection, about an old café on Ta Hien street which has now presumably been transformed into yet another backpacker bar.

A few other contributors are particularly worthy of mention in a “where-are-they-now” vein.

Caroline Shine’s piece—“Waylaid”—which channels the isolation of an expat arrival in her early months back in 2002, was already billed in the anthology as an extract from her anticipated book “Stranger – Single White Female in Hanoi”.

Fast-forward 8 years to 2011 and her book—minus the “Stranger” in the title—was finally launched a week or so ago in Sydney.

Paul Davis, whose piece on “The Bas of Hanoi” describes the ubiquitous old women of the capital and his “grandmother-away-from-grandmother” in particular, is better known both in Hanoi and Australia as a cartoonist. He was pretty much the definitive illustrator of Hanoi quirks and whimsy, with wire-festooned old power poles a constant background feature. (To be fair, he was also famous in Hanoi as an inveterate borrower of motorcycles). He seems to have gone from strength to strength since relocating to Melbourne a bunch of years ago; his work is regularly featured in Australian newspapers, and he has produced a few books and collections, including recent series drawn at the State Library of Victoria (2011) and of commuters and other passengers on Melbourne’s train system (2011). Apparently he still writes a bit too.

A couple of other contributors still call Vietnam home, including the so-called “Thomas Hinau”, who wrote about the scent-collecting shoe shiners of Hanoi, secretly collecting l’essence de pied as a secret ingredient for the finest perfumes. At this remove “Thomas” can perhaps finally be outed as one of Hanoi’s most upstanding émigré residents, a leading corporate lawyer by day and a music promoter with the famous CAMA collective by night.

Strange Roots will soon be available at the Grapevine Store.

Strange roots: Views of Hanoi – an Anthology from the Hanoi Writers’ Collective
Edited by Andrew Engelson, J. Fossenbell and Helen Kang
Thế Giới Publishers, Hanoi, 2011
88 pages