So it’s back to Hanoi I go. A couple of years ago, I felt I needed a change from life in Cork so I decided to go and teach English in Hanoi for 6 months. 2 years later I was still there so it’s safe to say I well and truly fell in love with the place. After working as a Food Safety & Marketing Coordinator in Ireland, where the rules and regulations around food safety are quite rigorous, to arriving in Hanoi, I witnessed a stark contrast. I had dealt with food businesses and restaurants on a daily basis ensuring they were up to scratch with their safety standards, were fully trained and armed with paperwork for any surprise health inspector visits. Hanoi on the other hand….no soap in the bathroom (that’s if there was a bathroom, most often it was just a hole in the ground – sometimes next to soaking dishes) , uncovered carcass being transported on the back of a motorbike and fresh meat laid out on a table in the market in 30 degree heat. This all obviously would have ended in a very abrupt closure back in Ireland. It was so different and I was fascinated.
In saying this food safety has become a concern for many consumers in Vietnam (Ha et al., 2019). In particular people are concerned with the residues of agro-chemicals (Figuié et al., 2004). Often, my boss would tell me that I shouldn’t be buying fruit and vegetables from the market. They were “not healthy” she would say for those very reasons and the supermarket was a safer option. I still choose to shop in the wet market as it was a lot cheaper, it was a 2-minute walk from my front door and most importantly, I really enjoyed the rapport had I built up with the vendors.
Hanoi to me is such an interesting place because it is developing so fast. Even in the short 2 years that I was there, I witnessed so much change, so many more cars, and so many more Western influences. In particular, fast food chains. Often, when I would ask the children I taught what their favourite food was and more often than not the reply was hamburgers, pizza, hotdogs, french fries, etc. etc. When asked about some of their local cuisines, the response was far less enthusiastic. There was only one exception to this and it was Bun Cha. After Obama and Anthony Bourdain dined together in a local Bun Cha restaurant, it was referred to as “Obama Bun Cha” from there on in, so the dish, in general, stirred a bit of excitement. Anyway, maybe their lack of enthusiasm for Vietnamese food is similar to how I felt about my “meat and two veg” dinner as a child. Hmmmmm! The point is though, as Hanoi’s economy develops and global food chains find a space there, it is easier and easier to find a KFC or Burger King or whatever it is you would like. I find this sad, but who am to deny them this food that is so widely available and loved in the West.
In just over a week I will fly back to Hanoi. I wonder will issues of food safety, changing diets or any of these sustainability issues feature in the narratives of the private sector actors I interview. Below are some pictures from my last time in Hanoi.
As Anthony Bourdain said “Vietnam. It grabs you and doesn’t let you go. Once you love it, you love it forever”
