This morning I arrived at Reunification Park, formally known as, and sill commonly referred to as, Lenin Park, at exactly 6:25am. I paid the entrance fee of 4,000VND, equivalent to roughly 20cents USD and walked around the lake taking pictures of as many activities as I could until 7:30am. I was in awe of all of the activity going on, as well as impressed by the number of people in the park that early in the morning. I would estimate that the number of people in the park was easily over 2,000. I only saw 2 other westerners during that hour, but oddly nobody seemed to notice me taking pictures, except for 2 men who insisted that I take pictures of them working out and show them the pictures.
Overall it seems like this park turns into its own little world with a unique community and culture, which comes together just after 5am and is completely gone by 8am each morning. The activities I observed included, but are not limited to the following list: palates, ballroom dancing, running, soccer, martial arts, meditation, fishing, badminton, yoga, volleyball, lifting weights, checkers and eating breakfast at small cart-cafes with hundreds of plastic chairs. There were also many people, especially young men, working out on permanently installed outdoor gyms, which have simple work out machines such as ellipticals, leg presses, pull up bars, benches for sit-ups and other simple non-electric work out stations, all of which were being used and had people waiting for their turn.
Nearly every space was being used for something, whether by a single man standing on his head on a bench or a lawn being used by 100 dancing women, no area appeared to be unused. It was especially interesting to me to take notes on who seemed to be participating in which activities and with whom, for example many middle aged men were running alone, women in their 30’s-50’s seemed to be mostly involved in palates, usually in groups of over 100, and led by a young man, people of all ages, but especially men in their 40’s-60’s were playing badminton on marked courts with nets, and the oldest members of the community, likely in their 80’s and 90’s were mostly in groups of around 50-150 people ballroom dancing with their husbands, friends, or alone. One of these ballroom dancing classes appeared to be all men, dancing alone. The youngest people their, 5-15 year olds, were playing soccer, watching their parents or playing with their dogs. Men in their late teens and early twenties seemed to be mostly grouped together around the weight sets and doing various stretches or core exercises such as pull-ups or crunches.
When reading an article about public space, written by our very own professor, Cari Coe, it stuck out to me that Lenin Park, the very place I spent my morning at, was discussed as being very high value property that the government has considered selling to build expensive homes or businesses or to build an amusement park. I can easily see why the people of Hanoi would strongly resist such a change, as thousands of them, ranging from babies to people in their 90’s, spend their mornings there, participating in social activities that they might not otherwise have access to. By observing men and women of all ages participate in these various activities this morning, it is clear to me that public spaces, specifically large parks such as this one, greatly impact people’s participation in their community, and in democracy by getting them to speak up about their rights to use these spaces. By spending most of their mornings participating in hour long classes such as palates, dancing or yoga, at little or no cost, I can only assume by how much most of these people appeared to be enjoying themselves that this part of their day contributes to people’s overall well-being and health, both physical and mental. I can’t imagine where else in this city would be able to accommodate so many people doing such a wide range of activities at such a low cost.