Nguyễn Duy Mạnh | Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

An Editorial by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
Self-Portrait by Nguyễn Duy Mạnh

Hanoi, August 2023

I’m up before dawn and Lake Trúc Bạch is covered in a blanket of misty rain through the floor length sliding doors. The French inspired iron bannister welcomed the cool shower after so many scorched and damp summer days. By the time my taxi turned up, I needed a decent umbrella. The taxi driver dropped me off at the East end of Phố Núi Trúc, where he thought there was a place opened early enough for a bowl of Phở, but everything was still shut as though the rain was too much. There I was under the tight eaves in front the silent roller door missing Shani, my German Shepherd, missing our walks in the middle of night in the rain. Our footsteps felt as though they were stepping on clouds drowned out by the heavy downpour.

Phố Núi Trúc is like any other narrow tree lined streets in the Old Quarter, they are all about a five minute walk from one end to the other. My feet led me West towards the other end of the street. There it was, the tiny eatery was steaming up the window with the smell of beef broth.

After a few missed calls to my date at 7am, I ordered a bowl of phở tái nạm at a quarter past. The clear broth and thinly sliced pieces of fatty gravy beef and blanched slices of raw beef brought me back to the bowls of phở my mother made so far from her hometown. Outside, the rain came down heavier. The bowl of noodles cost a bit more than a few Australian dollars paid for my unexpected sense of calm “call a taxi” I thought, but a man in a sky blue polo caught my eye, he was waving his arm and shouting something or another. “He needed help” I thought, there was no one else around on the sidewalk in front of countless grey aluminums shutters, the man in blue standing there was an odd feature against the light traffic on a Saturday morning. I approached him in my 10 thousand Dong bright orange raincoat slash poncho “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you from over there.” “Xe ôm, em cần xe ôm không?”. “Okay, em cần đi chỗ này”. I showed the sky blue top man the address on my Messenger app from the artist. “nhỏ quá, anh không đọc được, em làm cho lớn ra đi”. I took a screenshot of the message and enlarged it for him. “How much will it be brother?.. 80k oh, okay, whatever it might be as long as you deliver me to the right place.” The unofficial motorbike taxi carefully clipped the flimsy safety helmet on my head, fastened the clip of the helmet on the left side of my chin “em xức mùi gì thơm nhỉ?”

On the map, the artist I thought I wanted to meet but  might not be able to ended up on my unplanned calendar. His home in Long Biên is on the outskirts of Hanoi, crossing an old bridge from another time and a bridge built a few years before the pandemic. Once upon a time rice fields were now scattered with gated  communities for the rich. My driver laughed “mình về quê rồi kìa”, thanks to me, he had discovered a completely new territory. At our age, 62 and 52, the first time for anything is a moment of pure joy. 

The artist’s studio down a fairly new and clean alleyway is full of air and filtered light through decorative blocks of bricks walling off the elevated space from the elements. The hem of my pants by now was soaked through, rendered in a deeper green. I took off my shoes, entered the bottom floor which functions as the kitchen and family room. “Em mời chị lên tầng ba ạ”. I climbed the narrow staircase to the right of the front door, heading for the third floor. “Em mời chị mang dép vào ạ.” It’s fine, I have socks. “Không chị à, chị cần phải mang vào, em đã đem lên cho chị.” I slipped my damp sock feet into the pink plastic slippers he had brought up from down stairs. I didn’t know what an artist studio looks like, since I have never been in one. It was my first time, I didn’t know what to think, I didn’t really know where to begin to ask the right question. This was also a rare moment, I am usually in a state rendered with words.

Words have brought me to an interesting point of reflection on art and literature. My midlife is a collection of open doors into a world that is both foreign and familiar. 

Why does anyone do anything? We are all driven by an intangible force like moths to a flame, and a glorious death is our ultimate aim, and we are back to the origin of all living things. We spend our whole life trying to set the concrete of our identity, and art is the tangible extension of our ego. 

Nguyen Duy Manh was born in the year of the rat, he is twelve years older than my son. Quietly spoken, he had invited me to drink a tropical apple tea with the raw lotus seeds he had brought back from his family’s farm, next to it was a plate of guavas and the kind of peanut brittle I love, it was ashamed that I was still too full from my breakfast. I am cocooned on a seat amongst his work benches, each piece of art, in general, takes up to a few months to develop, from an idea to the finished product. Manh sat down on a chair opposite me, in a more precarious position with the staircase on his right and another work bench behind him, where the draft flowed rather freely across his shoulders, limiting the cigarette smoke in my face. The small acts of kindness towards a stranger.

Manh began his journey as a painter, painting seemed to have stopped short of his expectations for more, the artist for a while played with thread, weaving his way towards textured sculptures. Working at a pottery plant, going through discarded pieces of crack pottery ready for the bin led him to his latest venture into sculptures in clay.

Growing up amongst the ox in the rice fields, his bare feet through dry alluvial clay beds, Manh has a strong connection with the impermanent and fragility of life. Clay is perhaps the most apt medium for the young artist.

Humanity served up on traditional blue china plates, peeling back the layers one at a time to find the sweat and tears, throbbing heartbeat of the people. Each cut is more than skin deep. The artist’s job is to go beyond what is on the surface, peeling back the painful masks and disguise. One can hope there’s still a soul buried beneath. 

A society once upon a time was a perfect piece of curated china, now a culture made up of broken pieces of broken lives. The only way forward is acknowledgement. Acknowledgement and acceptance. What better role can an artist play than be the voice for not just themselves but the voice representative of today’s society as a whole.  

Not the mass produced art work all over chợ Bến Thành. Sure, one must sell one’s artwork to sustain one’s passion, but at what cost? It is indeed a fine line. 

“Em đã quyết định bán những tác phẩm của em thôi chị.. ” I remember for a decade in my forties, I was hooked on photography, I felt charging for my services would have cheapen my work. This seems to me now, rather a preposterous notion, it could have been a career path. 

Meeting Manh was a moment of clarity, I had managed to salvage some broken pieces of myself. I was not alone on my journey, serendipitous is my meeting with this stranger. 

Cheers and good luck to Nguyen Duy Manh in the Arts.

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Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm, the blogger, poet, and translator, was born in 1971 in Phu Nhuan, Saigon, Vietnam. The pharmacist currently lives and works in Western Sydney, Australia.