When we arrived at the sky tower, it became immediately obvious I was in a new environment. The tower seemed to reach up and touch the sky and while the actual building was still under construction, it was nevertheless intimidating. I think the formidable appearance was done purposely as a means to make people aware of its presence while simultaneously ensuring that they kept their distance. Although, the building was right on the corner of the street, its entrance was tucked away from the street and also it had a gate that enclosed it, accompanied by security. The tower contained primarily office spaces and residential units. For me, I felt as if I was in New York in front of a higher-end apartment complex that I was not privy to enter and should turn away from immediately. It had that kind of a presence to the building and when we entered we were immediately met by security and a front desk, which asked us our business for entering the building and that a clearance pass was required. I find this quite amusing and was moderately shocked when the building was not even really occupied yet.
My expectation for the second more modern space was that it would be much more difficult to find traditional things like uncooked rice or fresh meet. I had the image of a space that resembled a very western developed urban area like San Francisco or Seattle with plenty of cafes and moderately taller buildings and in fact the surrounding area did match my description. Subsequently, I thought the mapping would take a great deal of work and time to find all the places, but to my surprise the mapping took much less time than the first one. After walking along the main street and discovering several of the objectives immediately like an oil change place, a Sinh Tố café, and a Sim card vendor, I was immediately relieved. However, after about 20 minutes we got rather frustrated walking down the street so we started to head back toward the Sky Tower and then we turned down a smaller street fairly close to the building. It was there that we begin to find the rest of the places we were searching for, such as the fresh meat, vegetables, and even people playing badminton. At that point we begin to find things a lot easier and in no time we were done.
The thing that was most notable about this mapping project was the close proximity between the Sky Tower and the more traditional space where we found traditional activities such as the selling of fresh meats. This proves my previous point in another blog that the distinction between a modern and traditional space has become obscure and it is difficult to say that this one area is modern while the other is traditional. I feel that it is impossible to draw a distinct line between modern and traditional even though sky tower was closed off by a gate. The future residence of the building will ultimately utilize the surrounding neighborhoods and thus the area must be included as one whole. Subsequently, I feel that the space is very much in transition and that it cannot be labeled as either traditional or modern. This is important because this is how I see Vietnam developing in terms of what the space will look like as it continues to develop. I see large buildings and modern infrastructure, like car dealerships and cafes being incorporated into “traditional spaces,” however, I don’t know if this is the greatest route for Vietnam’s development. For me, it seems as if it is trying to force the issue and trying to appease this sense of wanting to keep culture and tradition while moving forward. I would rather have more distinctive areas of modern and tradition, but I still recognize that the integration is necessary because the residence of modern infrastructure like Sky Tower need it. Nevertheless, I find it tacky and I feel that modernization and development should be something that is carefully plan something I did not feel while mapping. While I, myself don’t have the formula, I hope that a resolution can be reached.
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