I have no idea how much I love this city. I just know that. I want to live in Hanoi for the rest of my life.
My family moved to Vietnam when I was 13 years old. At that time, I could not speak Vietnamese, I had no friends. I was bullied at school. For a long time, I got depression. I was hard to communicate with others. I used to stay alone in my bedroom, cried and worried about every single thing. My house was next to 83A Tran Quoc Toan, a building full of roses, I usually stayed by the window, looked at the roses garden.
My sickness became better when I was 15. My psychiatrist said that I had to learn how to love, how to share, how to feel my world. In somehow, I really wanted to change. I wanted to understand myself, my parent, the place I was living.
The first time in my life, I had played truant in order to spend time in the class. I caught the first bus I saw even I had no idea where it would take me to. I chose the position beside the window. And this was also the first time I had felt that Hanoi was so beautiful.
Hanoi was a girl who I was living with for a long time but I never paid any attention for her. She was more than you can imagine. She was gorgeous but elegant. She was soft and had mild flavor. I loved sunshine on the leaf, I loved the fresh air in Quang Ba stress, I loved the best black coffee which is sold in the pavement, I love the boisterous in the market. I loved the imagine of grandma selling roses in a bicycle. I loved the sound, the smell of this city.
I never looked at Hanoi so carefully as that time. And I was amazed, everything seemed to be so familiar but strange. Suddenly, I realized Hanoi is my home, and people never refused the home. I had to get acquainted with it, learn how to love it. But I thought I had already loved Hanoi for a long time.
by: Jolanta Dimsiene