Between the Old and the New - Hue
21 January 2011
1-19-2011 Hue - the Imperial Capital
There is a river outside a wall outside a river ouside a wall outside a smaller river and another wall....and, finally, an inner wall enclosing the Forbidden Palace. Such is the structure of the Citadel of Hue. The old Imperial Capital and the long-living residence of the Nuygen Dynasty. There are several gargantuan chalices weighing a couple tons each and filled with about as much water that symolize the might and abundance of the Dynasty. Though the Imperial family is long gone.....the chalices of Might remain on the grounds of the Citadel, near the main Imperial Palace.
Man-made lakes and elegant rivers still grace the Imperial grounds, and I walk along them though the gray, drizzly melancholy of the cold that has reached here all the way from Hanoi. Perchance, I should just give up running from it. Resistance is futile...
Outside of the Citadel walls, life is bustling in the typical for Vietnam hungry pace. The colourful rain-poncho scooter-riding "bats" [I can't help that association with hundreds of them flying towards me through the rain as I brace myself before crossing the road Vietnamese-style - inching my way perpendicular to the traffic, trusting the attention of the "bats" with every step]. Men are drinking coffee in little open cafes [women serve, but I don't see many amidst the customers], listening to trance-like or vietanmese music. Women in their conical hats walk around selling fruit, weaving their way between the myriad of scooters parked on the sidewalks and little food stands, even in the wetness that is like the fifth force of nature outside.
I walk around the walls of the Citadel looking for an exit. I've circled the 4 possible sides - I'm thinking, I'm almost outside, and the exit should be around here....I'm looking for a familiar street. It's not there. I've been transported ;O) It hits me that there is one more wall to transcend. That I'm actually 2 walls in. I laugh at the realization, thinking just how often that happens with reality paradigms. I think I'm outside of it, just to find that the "outside" is just another facet of the same old "box." Same mind-trap paradigm as before. The question begs itself - just when do we know we are REALLY on the outside?
Finally, I'm to the last wall [at least, the visible kind ;O)], and I ascend to a little bonzai garden at the top of the wall. There is something about standing at the divide - between the two worlds, still being able to see both, and being in neither. Behind me are the dignified remnants of the Imperial grace. Tranquil, elegant, spacious.....and before me - across the protective wall-encompassing river - lies the modern world with its hustle and bustle, with its scooter bats and endless touts....with its rush and largely money-based interaction.... And I suddenly feel a strong desire to stay longer in this quiet garden before the innevitable descent into this world. I'm present to a quiet deja-vu - feeling that I was somehow born in the wrong era.
I know that once I'm down there, amidst the scooters and the mind anaesthetic of cafes and the other modern comforts, the deja-vu shall dissipate - it always does. Yet, just for another moment, I linger at the top of the wall, inhaling the sadness and the joy of walking between the worlds.
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"For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life. "
~ H. Melville