Rain in Hanoi

How many autumns does it take Hanoi to understand rain? The bright old friend looked at the soggy street and asked me that. Rain in Hanoi as a challenge of heaven and earth. All weather forecasts seem to have been wrong for a long time. That’s why there are jokes about weather forecasting. The story that the wife of the weather director never brought a raincoat to work. He said it’s usually sunny. Wear your shirt for nothing. And he said that it’s bad luck to bring a raincoat. Colleagues at work will laugh their noses. The syllogism infers that the women who get wet in the rain on the street are often the wives of meteorologists.

Illustration (Source: Internet). Using protracted rains on the third and seventh days of the month of Ngau turned out to be an accurate forecast for thousands of years. At least me and my old friends believe so. In the old Hanoi, there was only one public high point where children could play. That’s the Long Bien bridge year round, the piles are painted and repaired. On the bridge, you can have a panoramic view of the old town with brown tiles and white walls. On a rainy day, the pink tile roofs look like they’ve been on fire. The turbid river below his feet was flowing. Surrounding the bridge abutments are rotten firewood and the water is as black as horns. Nearly fifty years ago, I often invited my friends to the bridge on rainy days like that. Now, looking back at my friends, the hair is already more than half gray. Oh well, it seems that during my childhood, the streets called me to wake up sweet memories. The city suddenly turned into a miniature in the embrace of the tolerant rain. Hanoi rain in the old quarter is not sad. There’s no reason to be sad. The city bathing after sweltering days seems to be blooming. People’s eyes are happy and less anxious than usual. The streets are empty of shops and restaurants. Vehicles on the road are also less aggressive. The old people were free to invite each other to drink. Just for a cool reason. My friends often find very surprising and reasonable reasons to drink. Sometimes the reason is just “the wind is coming”. The torrential rain throughout the week can be considered a “reason agent”. Find an empty restaurant overlooking the street. Phung Hung Street at the beginning of the even number is such a place. The door of the shop looks straight to the bridge leading the train to the slope of Long Bien bridge. One of the most majestic stone structures left over from the French colonial period. More than a hundred years, the row of soft iron railings riveted with rivets still has no aesthetic competitor in the city. This section of the bridge is associated with memories of me and my friends at the University of Civil Engineering forty years ago. That’s where you hop on and off the train for the first few months of school. The city suddenly had an unexpectedly calm corner. The sound of the rain could be heard clearly on the stone wall hanging with a few green ferns. Sparrows gliding and jumping on the pavement in search of prey. The arches at the foot of the bridge have been sealed with stone since the day that all Hanoians left the mountainous economic zone to live temporarily. A humorously optimistic dreamy journey of Hanoi residents ends in the arches of no passport. Neither is electricity. It’s strange that quite a few children are born to the grinding sound of railway wheels coming out of their heads. Who are they? Now out on the street can not know. Hanoi again received stray children without discrimination. Like rain evenly distributed throughout the streets. Stop the rain. Fragile yellow lily flowers sprinkled on the quiet Cua Dong street. Suddenly autumn…