Seeking 1950s Vietnam

Today, the Sai Gon of the 1950s is unnoticeable unless one looks closely. Many of the older buildings in the area known as District 3, near the city's center, show the remnants of French colonial architecture with their walled gardens and colorfully shuttered windows. However, such building are few and far between.
The Continental Hotel, where Graham Greene supposedly penned The Quiet American, still sits in the midst of downtown. However, the downtown had to be digitally altered to appear realistic for Philip Noyce's film based on Greene's book. These days, as one nears the Continental, any daydreams of reliving the past are drowned out by the over-loud techno music coming from nearby clothing shops. The newer Caravelle Hotel towers over the area that used to be named Duong Tu Do, Freedom Street. This street was "Main Street" during both French and American occupations.
All in all, the effects of Vietnam's government embracing globalization ( and its monetary benefits) are seen in the innumerable construction projects around Vietnam.

But the people, the sounds, and the atmosphere characterised by Greene and others in the 50s and 60s are still evident, if one looks closely.

Vietnam is the setting for this post because it is the setting for The Quiet American, but more than likely, any so-called "developing" country has a similar dynamic between the ageless and the modern. I know this to be the case on a much larger scale in China and India.

The aura of history is evident in several places.
Walking though any of Sai Gon's markets, one gets the feeling that they are witness to a timeless institution. People are hawking their wares in an economy based on cash and specialization. Market life has a rhythm which is foreign to me. Of course, there are the foreign smells: the raw meat, the over-ripe fruit, and the odor of live chickens. But there is also the intuative nature of the business. That is to say, there is the atmosphere of everyone going about their business, doing what needs to be done in order to live another day. This kind of day-by-day outlook is prevalent in Vietnamese culture. There is a earthiness to this style of life.

In the Quiet American, Greene's antihero, Thomas Fowler mentions sending out for ice. This is a highly visible industry in today's Vietnam. Large blocks of ice are rush delivered on motorbike. The drivers race against the tropical climate to get their ware delivered before it disappears. Selling ice in a culture of fresh food and little refrigeration is evidence of the way an industry rises from a need. That sense of the practical intertwined with the cultural is at the heart of the attraction of Vietnamese street life.

There are still some aged French style villas in District 3, an area of the city which also sports streets named after Frenchman (as in Pasteur Street). Indeed, a lot of the newer architecture seems to have been constructed using French blueprints. The way to tell the originals is by the amount of water stains the tropical climate has endowed upon the building's walls.

These are just a few examples of how history is evident in today's Vietnam. Surely there are many more. Here is some further reading if you are interesting in Vietnam's buildings.