Week 2 Assignment: Map

Last Saturday, my project group mapped out the area around Hồ Đắc Di Street. We were tasked with cataloguing the locations and prices of various social and economic necessities that locals utilize in their daily lives. When we arrived, the bustling intersection seemed to be indistinguishable from others that I had been to. However, as we pressed deeper into the neighborhood I became aware of the many unique qualities of the Hồ Đắc Di area. The old Soviet-era apartment buildings with their improvised balcony-extensions lined the local lake of Hô Xã Đàn while looming in the background were the newly-constructed, extremely decadent, capitalist-era apartment buildings. The contradiction between the rich and the poor was very salient. Numerous modern cafes and tourist-oriented shops seemed to surround and conceal the impoverished slums that make up the core of the neighborhood. Opposing the newer buildings on the other side of the lake stood old French buildings left behind from the colonial-era. I realized that this neighborhood is more than just a place to live; it is a museum spanning hundreds of years of Vietnamese history. However, musing about such academic matters is not often a high priority for average Hồ Đắc Di residents who are just trying to make ends meet.

I believe the most important aspect of our assignment was capturing, if only in a crude way, the essence of daily life for a resident of Hồ Đắc Di. Being that we are only amateur social cartographers, the map is not as accurate as it could be. Nevertheless, I learned a lot from our experiences last Saturday. At first, I thought that the apartment buildings overlooking the lake were in a very serine and peaceful location. However, it’s only a quiet peace for the minority that can afford it. I personally would not want to live in an area with such a large gap between the rich and the poor. I would feel like I was looking down from some sort of Ivory Tower in those apartments. I know living elsewhere just hides that contradiction and that no matter how we First Worlders live it is at the expense of the world’s poor. Still, I wouldn’t be able to take seeing it day after day despite how enjoyable the lake and coffee shops are.