The Awakening of Hanoi

TO find the Mai Gallery in Hanoi, you must first walk down the bustling avenue of Le Thanh Tong, a street filled with flower stalls, neighborhood shops, sidewalk cafes and the ubiquitous roar of hundreds of motorbikes streaming in the direction of the century-old opera house. As you turn down Phan Huy Chu, one of a maze of narrow alleys in the Old Quarter, the throngs of teenagers leaning against parked mopeds with their cellphones cupped to their ears quickly disappear. Instead, squatting on the sidewalk stirring steaming pots of soup laced with noodles, pork and cilantro, are elderly women, their faces hidden under traditional farm-field conical hats, chatting among themselves as they give you a quick, inquisitive glance.

(I happened to mention that Charles Saatchi, the noted British collector, was beginning to feature young Vietnamese on his Web site, said, “Charles Saatchi? Oh, I got an e-mail from him several months ago asking me if he could link my gallery Web site. But I had never heard of him. Is he famous?”)

Read the full article in The New York Times here.

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Isabelle Huppert by Juergen Teller

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