HUE/BECKTON - STRATEGIC VS> TACTICAL [PSYCHO]CARTOGRAPHY (PART THREE)

FINAL PART IN A SERIES OF THREE. READ PART ONE HERE

In the event, i hit a wall. A ten metre fucking thick wall of brick and earth. Then I walked beneath the arch instead of through the wall, which was a more sensible option. Then I hit another wall (pictured). This time there was no massive arch, but an entry fee and tickets and electric vehicles and i wasn't in the mood for any of that.

It was a cool, overcast, February day in Hue, city of walls, and I was at the citadel, the citadel not even noted in Full Metal Jacket, where the rebel army had holed themselves up for several weeks until they were ultimately bombarded out of hiding by American air power. There's not a lot of that in the local histories, nor about the initial atrocities they insurrectionists committed, nor the vicious reprisals they and their sympathisers likewise endured. Instead, the story is focused on Vietnam's Imperial past, the colonial protectorate of the Nguyen Dynasty, the anachronistic monarchy and life at court. I was not in the mood for all of that.

What I was in the mood for, I knew not. Somehow the disparate threads at which I'd been tugging had remained just that- disparate. For once, sticking a map on top of another one didn't really achieve anything other than make a nice picture.  It wasn't even my picture- it was Struan Brown's. The ingredients were there but it wasn't working: the military origins of psychogeography and cartography, the horrors of war aped, in children's play and cinema, but I felt disinclined to pull the pieces together, and I was not quite sure why.

I made a circuit of the inner wall, which amounted to a stroll of just under 2.5 km. This is not long for a walk, but it is long for a wall. As I patrolled the perimeter I tried to put my self in the shoes of one who would have made such a journey before: a guard, most likely, or maybe a penitent. Perhaps a bored concubine looking to sneak back in after attempting to escape palace life, but later having a change of heart. The shoes of the soldier felt small on me, not because soldiers have small feet, but because I'd pretended to wear them as a young boy, under similar circumstances, circumambulating Hadleigh Castle. That magnificent wreck is slowly crumbling into the Estuary after more than seven centuries. Hue's citadel has been around for a much shorter period of time, but it's historical significance is arguably greater.

In Roy Bayfield's book Desire Paths, the author describes: 

"..the finding approach described by Duncan Barford in his blog post  'Inside the Entrances to Hell': "

Perhaps this is what I should have done, instead I wandered around, eyes flitting at materials, looking for something that would make everything fall into place. I didn't find that. Instead I found this:

HUE/BECKTON - STRATEGIC VS> TACTICAL [PSYCHO]CARTOGRAPHY (PART TWO)

PART TWO IN A SERIES OF THREE. READ PART ONE HERE

“Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.”

-Charlie Chaplin

Looking back at the Hue psychocarte from 2014, experiencing disappointment: a pretty picture, but practically useless. A fraction of a battle map, spliced out and blown up, the details blurred and indistinct, all before the overlay… The plan had been to trace a random path through the citadel using the overlay, the route of a dérive, but the streets were barely visible.

"All space is occupied by the enemy. We are living under a permanent curfew. Not just the cops — the geometry" -Raoul Vaneigem, The Unitary Urbanism Manifesto

The roots of the dérive (as opposed to its routes) are supposedly in urban warfare: the “aimless drift” was used as a means of reconnaissance. DeBord and the Situationists were engaged in cultural warfare, and via détournement (cultural re-appropriation and re-purposing) these tactics were being turned back against the state. Like war, psychogeography was a political act. But like the actors portraying Joker and his comrades in Full Metal Jacket, there was also an element of play.

The closing chapter of Full Metal Jacket occurs in 1968/86 in Hue/Beckton. A crazed General, Kubrick, has ordered a platoon to wander through the remnants of a gasworks in search of a Vietnamese woman, whom they are to kill. She is the third and final woman, and the only one not to be presented by Kubrick as a sex object, though is equally disposable. The only enemy whose face is seen in close up- feminine, because the enemy must be emasculated. In the end, after a hard day’s play, the lads wander across the burning landscape, singing a song Mickey Mouse. In spite of yourself, you may just feel an incongruous warm glow inside.

Not only was 1968 a big year for Hue (just as 1986 was a big year for Beckton, although it would be made aware of that until long after the event), it was a big year for the Situationists. Increased militancy amongst industrial workers and students, culminating in a series of occupations, protests and a general strike nearly brought the French establishment to its knees. Though there were numerous socio-economic causes for this period of civil unrest, the Situationist International can take credit for providing some degree of leadership, and its writings strongly influenced the political graffiti of the time, which have provided some of the most enduring images of the period. 

Via http://radicalgraff.tumblr.com/post/143899675528/be-realistic-demand-the-impossible-may-1968

Ultimately, the status quo prevailed, state power managed to suppress the protestors, and returned stronger and more resilient. Likewise, in Vietnam, the Tet offensive was ultimately crushed by the combined ARVN and US forces, and the rebel forces were expelled from all the major urban centres they had assaulted. In Europe and the USA, 1968 is often remembered as the last gasp of the counter-culture, a glorious failure. In Vietnam, the Tet offensive was a dress rehearsal for 1975, and victory for the revolutionaries (who, predictably, went on to impose their own repressive regime of state power). Ho Chi Minh’s forces succeeded, perhaps, because there was a coherent strategy in play, one which would outlive its progenitor.

Fire at the Albert DockVia http://www.invisibleworks.co.uk/ghosts-london-blitz-aerial-maps/

Tet is rapidly approaching, 49 lunar years having passed since the infamous offensive, and the Battle for Hue. 31 years have likewise elapsed since the Battle of Hue was recreated at Beckton gasworks. Both of these are prime numbers. The 49^thBoulevard was also the previous name given to Pham Van Dong Street in Hue. The time (and the cosmic numbers) is right for some kind of intervention. Yet without a coherent strategy- in this case, my psychocarte- there can be no opportunity for a successful operation. From the outset, the superimposition of a Hue map atop a map of Beckton (or perhaps the other way around) seemed like the best place to begin.

Sadly, it's been done before: here is Struan Brown's interpretation of Beckton overlaid on Hue. One cannot be startled by the fact that this has been done prior to it being imagined by me, but what is perhaps surprising is that Struan was actually a class mate of mine at the University of Greenwich. We studied together on the Landscape Architecture masters programme in 2014 (both of us had also been Greenwich students in 2013, but during different semesters). I have no memory of seeing this before, but was suddenly beset by a strange fear that I was experiencing cryptomnesia, the phenomenon of experiencing a memory as an original thought. 

Image by Struan Brown via http://struanbrown.blogspot.com/2013/12/beckton-gas-works.html

Perhaps of greater concern was the possibility that, having previously seen this image, the map of Hue had been buried in my subconscious, and that its presence there had subtly compelled me to find its origins. My journey to Hue, less than one year later, was not only on a whim but also somewhat serendipitous. Originally, I had obtained a job (via an agency) as an English teacher in Hanoi. Whilst booking the flights, I discovered it would be much cheaper to fly to HCMC and travel up to Hanoi independently than fly directly. On informing my agency, however, it transpired that this would not be acceptable to my prospective employer (I would have missed some "essential" part of the induction process whilst travelling from HCMC to Hanoi), and a new course of action was decided. Instead of teaching in Hanoi, I was told to meet up with a group of newly-qualified TEFL teachers in HCMC and travel with them to Hue, a city I believed I had never heard of.

It's hard to recall what was influencing my decision making processes at that time, the whole period prior to my departure is a miasmic blur. My memories of this period are a series of weird vignettes, mostly of one-on-one conversations with people who's lives are going to be somehow disrupted by my departure. There's no truth in them, really,: I've spliced and edited them back together too many times, there were filters on the lenses, and they're remakes anyway. 

PART 3 TO FOLLOW

49 WALTZES FOR THE FIVE BOROUGHS

There must be something magical about the number forty nine. Barely with the digital ink dry on the previous post- Dérive 49 - when this beautiful image appeared on one of the feeds to which I subscribe. The original impression of this image, pinned from cosmopolis49waltzesfortheworld.com, was a little small, but was annotated with this explanation:

John Cage's Graphic Score The innovative and influential American composer John Cage created a graphic score called “49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs” as a tribute to the ever- changing city of New York. He superimposed 49 triangles on a map of New York City, using chance means to determine the locations of each angle. The listener or recorder was invited go to the apex of each angle and listen to or record the sounds of the city in that place. *Rolling Stone Magazine, 1977.

There have been many iterations and interpretations of this score since its inception in the 1970s, and it presents an inspiring approach to urban exploration as both a productive and receptive exercise. The website http://49waltzes.com/ features an archive of geo-referenced waltzes as uploaded audio/video footage.

Presumably, the use of triangles corresponds to the time signature of the waltz, 3/4. It's strange though, that the pieces are not combined, that they can only be listened to sequentially. Surely the pieces should bounce around one another, perhaps an excerpt from each on every beat?

I was also remound (I know, I know, reminded, but this is a pet grammar project of a former mentor, Madamoiselle X) of the wonderful Vi Hart who has produced (amongst other things) a fantastic video about twelve tone composition. I've provided a link to the video which begins at the most relevant point, though if you have time I recommend enjoying the full thirty minutes https://youtu.be/4niz8TfY794?t=24m46s

Apparently Cage's vision was of other performers, listeners or or record makers to make transcriptions for other cities, simply by as"assembling through chance operations a list of 147 addresses and then, also through chance arranging these in 49 groups of three". It seems auspicious that this piece came to my attention as I begn to explore Huế's forty-ninth borough.

Some final words:

"Wherever we are,

what we hear is

mostly noise.

When we ignore it,

it disturbs us.

When we listen to it,

we find it fascinating."

-John Cage, The Future Of Music: Credo (1937)

DÉRIVE 49

The lessons progress. Whilst slowly I learn history and folklore, superstition and language, my explorations need to continue using what I do know, to analyse what I think I can see... and these explorations need to be mapped.

Where am I?

I live on the fringes of Huế, Vietnam's former capital. As the rest of the country expands and develops, Huế's outer boundaries encroach on the outlying settlements but gently, in keeping with the unhurried pace that pervades the ancient city. Where its northeastern edge rubs up against the southwestern outskirts of Phú Vang district is Vỹ Dạ, the ward within which I am housed, otherwise known as  Bốn Chín.

Bốn Chín is Vietnamese for 49, referring not to an arbitrary numbering system for the ward, but rather detournement by the locals of the previous (arbitrary) name of the ward's main street. A pity that it was not Boulevard 41, since bốn một would make me smile.

The narrow street widens abruptly, after the lights. Big buildings- flophouse hotels and builders yards, in the main- set back from the road by ten metres or more. There's not a lot of soul, the people are detached from the promenade, the eyes of the empty international clinic stare impassively at passing backpackers on motorbikes.



Towards the bridge, another bottleneck. The wide street narrows as it approaches câu Vỹ Dạ, crossing this little tributary of the Perfume River. Across the bridge, the city's western district, but to the right, steps invite a brief dérive, a step out of time. Another narrow lane, low buildings serve as cafés, an old woman selling sand and cement. before again collapsing to show an expanse of sky, and the causeway separating the other side of Vỹ Dạ from the "western" district.

Atop the water, aquatic "ferns", perfect for hogfeed, imprison a vessel intended for the next world, a ghost boat for an ancestor to sail the rivers of hell.

This white man walking gets a lot of attention, principally from xe om motorcycle taxi drivers. It's a novel experience, after so many months of being another road user, not sticking out like a sore thumb. I only cross via the causeway at night, when the unilluminated left side affords a glimpse of oblivion, distant flickering neon of the far north bank suggesting something beyond.  

Drinking coffee with condensed milk, thinking about where this leads. I didn't even know the name of this corner of the city, the corner in which I live, until a casual conversation about the whereabouts of Côn Hen (Mussell Island) revealed that I'd been sitting in Vỹ Dạ for the past four months. But this gave me an idea. I have to approach the psychogeographical analysis of this city from as a curator-cartographer: I will make maps from the testimony of its residents.

Wandering back across the causeway, the theatre of water puppetry still looked grim, in spite of the intense noon sun. Looking at the above photograph now, the theatre would not look out of place amongst the ruins of Hô Thủy Thiên, yet it is apparently open. I did catch a performance of this baffling though highly entertaining traditional art form in Saigon, and endeavour to visit this place soon.

Across the causeway and onto Nguyễn Sinh Cung made for a far more interesting stroll than the walk along PVD. Running parallel to Phạm Văn Đòng, NSC is narrower, and with greater levels of human traffic. Like the best (and worst) of Huế's streets, the shopfronts spill onto the pavement, an there is a great conflation of public and private space, guarded over by ancient treees, many of which house ad hoc roadside shrines. There's also an attractive, colourful pagoda (pictured) and a pretty decent market, as well as the best fried rice in the city. I made a note of the turning to the bridge to Côn Hen, with a view to later mapping my route.

After the market I hung a left onto  Tùng Thiện Vương and followed a very narrow concrete lane lined with small coffee shops, barbers and bakeries before turning once more, this time towards the canal. A small lane led alongside it, bereft of businesses, and some construction work was in progress to reinforce the concrete embankment. No-one stopped to offer me a lift, or indeed paid me any attention. Eventually arriving home, I began to make a map with a red biro.

Note I have named the area between PVD, NSC and the two tributaries of the Perfume River The Estates of the Minor Plutocrats. This is based upon my own previous reconaissance and some anecdotal evidence provided by local friends. The area is comprised of wide, quiet streets flanked by large, detached and recently built residences, clearly of considerable worth. Additionally, there are a few schools (including the respected Phạm Văn Đòng secondary school), a local tax office and several sports fields. Though I imagined the residents to be amongst Huế's elite, I have been informed that the real movers and shakers occupy estates on higher ground, beyond the reach of the river's rising waters. Hence, the plutocrats I designate to the minor category, pending further investigation.    

Scracthing away on the brown paper of my notebook with a dry biro required some exceptionally heavy-handed penmanship, even by my own Lenny-esque standards, and I was pleased enough with the resultant image on the obverse to photograph and flip it. Admittedly, rubbing the image with wax crayon did not have quite as dramatic an effect as was hoped, though it's not entirely shit.

The map does not accomplish much, and is not pleasing to look at, but it was a tentative step in the right direction. The city holds many mysteries, and its surface has barely been scratched: and scratching is what I must do. Any city with history is a palimpsest, and the layers  must be teased away. All that scratching does, of course, create further images on the flipside, adding as it subtracts, building as it deconstructs. The work continues.

-

This is connected to an ongoing series of articles concerned with the origins of Vietnamese street names, and the myths and legends attached to them. You can find the story of how this project came to pass at Huế Street Names.

Alternatively, you can look up all articles labelled street names

NO PICTURES

Kim Long is a black slither running parallel to the Perfume River, stretching from White Tiger Bridge to Thiên Mụ Pagoda. There aren't so many street lights, and last night the moon had all but waned, so that the cluster of lanterns outside a non-descript building was visible from quite a distance.

It represented no great mystery. It is not uncommon for local people to set fires outside their property, especially towards the end of the lunar month, so I gave it no further thought until I was almost upon it. Witnessing the large awning at the front of the building to accommodate guests, it was apparent the lanterns had been placed in the street to commemorate a recent death. Suspicions were confirmed as a quick rubberneck caught me a glimpse of a fairly hefty sarcophagus.   

The huge coffin was not to be the most enduring image captured by my furtive, guilty glance. Upon the ground the glowing lanterns I had seen from such a distance revealed that they had been placed in a very deliberate formation: that of the chữ vạn. This is an ancient and powerful symbol, one with myriad associations in both eastern and western culture, but perhaps the one that resonates with westerners the most is in its misappropriation by the Nazi Party.  Chữ vạn is Vietnamese for swastika.

See, even with the knowledge of its provenance- its benign associations with Hinduism and Buddhism and its ubiquity here in traditional Vietnam- it is difficult to separate the sign from the horrors of Nazism. As I put greater distance between myself and that arrangement of lanterns upon the roadside, I felt a strong urge to capture that image, as if this might somehow facilitate a deeper understanding of what it meant.

I dropped my beloved home and said good night, began my return journey, knowing that I would be passing the roadside shrine. The closer I got the weaker my desire to photograph it became. Not because I was second guessing my intentions, although now I have begun to do so. Maybe it would be provocative to post a picture of a burning swastika all over available social media, or maybe it would be seen as an ATTEMPT to be provocative. Regardless, at that time it was a more human consideration that stayed my hand and kept my recently acquired smartphone and attached eight megapixel camera in my pocket.

Cruising slowly along Kim Long, I passed by the house once more. The lanterns still kept their vigil, the burning chữ vạn. On the opposite side of the street, a small column of similar lanterns kept a respectful distance, maybe a gentle beacon to passersby on the Perfume River. The real vigil, however, was held away from the roadside: beside the sarcophagus, three mourners in traditional white, dealing with whatever emotions their recent loss has engendered, waited patiently for any friends or family wanting to offer their condolences, at whatever hour they might wish to pass. 

They were not waiting for a curious tay to swing by an turn their wake into an instagram image.

If a picture speaks one thousand words, our curious little post-millennial epoch must be the most loquacious in all of human history. I wonder how much of this digital record will survive us, sometimes. So, no pictures here today, and at a little under six hundred words, this would barely comprise a snapshot. But let it be a record, nonetheless, to our continuing struggle to understand the inevitable.