Members of society can become worked up over many different types of things, be it Americans about Ebola, Kurds about the Islamic State, or Vietnamese about their public space: and when the people become upset, governments usually intervene. The Vietnamese are an old people with many longstanding traditions and practices, their capital city, Hanoi, is even over 1,000 years old. One relatively new addition to Hanoi is the Reunification Park (formerly known as Lenin Park), which was built in 1958 by student volunteers (Coe, 5).
In recent years, the government has twice attempted to make altercations to this park, located in the center of the city. Once in 2007 with the goal of turning the park into a mini Disneyland (Wells-Dang 97) and again in 2009 when a joint partnership between Singapore and Hanoi attempted to build a hotel, nicknamed the SAS Hotel (Coe 7). The community was very upset by these proposed developments, and was successfully able to pressure the government into canceling these plans (Coe 18).
In my personal experience of spending time in public parks in Vietnam, I have noticed a number of interesting activities that take place; most notably older Vietnamese people exercising in the park in the morning. However never has it been as present as at the Reunification Park. Below are a number of images of what I found to be unusual forms of exercise taking place at the park in the morning.
I believe that this park, and the ability to exercise within its limits unite the Hanoian people. When something was done by the government that would jeopardize their public space, it caused outrage among the people and spurred enough protest to change government action. The park united the people in order to let them pursue a common cause, and that, in my mind, is a sign of a healthy society.
Coe, C. A. “Civilized City:” How Embedded Civil Society Networks Frame the Debate on Urban Green Space in Hanoi, Vietnam. 2014.
Wells-Dang, Andrew. “Political Space in Vietnam: A View from the ‘rice-Roots.’” The Pacific Review 23.1 (2010): 93–112. CrossRef. Web. 1 Aug. 2014.