At my grandfather's house in Hoan Kiem

My visitors in Hanoi were this time both my Mum and Dad ! After meeting for a coffee at their hotel, the first thing we did was to undertake a family pilgrimage to the former house of my grandfather.
At the beginning of the 20th century, my great grandfather left France to venture for a better life in what was then "Indochina". Meeting them on the boat, he first worked in food catering for the French army, before slowly rising the social ladder to become a quite high-ranking civil servant in charge of communications. With his wife and only child, my grandfather André, they enjoyed a golden life in Hanoi and occupied for a few years a beautiful Mansard-style pavilion on the edge of Lake Hoan Kiem.

While in Myanmar, I was told by a young Vietnamese couple from Hanoi that the building was quite famous and now served as the headoffice of the daily newspaper "Hanoi Moi" (News of Hanoi).
So... we took our chance and knocked at the door ! And as strange as it seems, it is thanks to a few words exchanged in German that the office manager let us in. This guy had learned German during his military service. He then led us to the editor-in-chief's office and here we find ourselves, drinking tea in the international press conference room, decorated by a huge and somehow intimidating portrait of Ho Chi Minh. The room, by the way, must have been the former living room of my great grandparents. Different times, different decorative styles !
Since the editor-in-chief could not speak english, he fetched a young journalist, Chi, who played the role of interpreter for all of us. After sharing our family story, we were given a comprehensive tour of the building. The editor-in-chief was knowlegeable about it, and insisted on showing us every little part he thought had not changed over time, from the lamps of the ceilings to the terrace or the window frames. The building is now a heritage monument and cannot be substantially modified. As for the press activity, it hosts 62 journalists and a total of 200 workers. Previously, and probably while my greatgrandparents were living at the first floor, it also hosted a French newspaper named "L'Avenir du Tonkin", the first French-speaking newspaper in Vietnam, published between 1884 and the 1940s.

We finished the tour with some semi-official pictures in front of the building. And with contact exchange. This gave me the opportunity to meet again Chi a few days later, eager that I was to know more about the life of a young female journalist in Vietnam...
Thank you "Hanoi Moi" for this open-mindedness and hospitality, despiste some darker sides of the French colonial history.Read more