Jonty Skrufff's Blog

“Hanoi’s club scene right now is dire; there’s no other word for it.  There’s simply no infrastructure in place to support a decent nightlife here at present.  The cops closed down the only decent club- New Century- about a year ago following a drug raid and fragmented the scene well and truly.”

Though New Zealander Giles Cooper heads up CAMA one of the few party promotion crews currently operating in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi- he’s refreshingly candid in his assessment of the city’s current nightlife scene.

“A couple of reasonable small venues have opened up but they tend to get filled with fancy boys and girls purely there to be seen; it seems no-one really gives a toss about the music,” he continues, “That’s not to say there isn’t good stuff going on from time to time (CAMA events of course) but it’s slim pickings.  Probably the biggest problem is the supposed official shut-down time of 12am.  It’s pretty hard to get cranking properly before that time, isn’t it.”

CAMA (standing for ‘Club for Art and Music Appreciation’) was set up by Giles and founding partner Nick with Hanoi Minsk Club adventurer Dan Dockery joining more recently to help fulfill their mission statement ‘to make something happen’. Dan, a pony tailed, charismatic, larger than life biker who’s lived in Vietnam long enough to be married, divorced and to learn Vietnamese, is as unimpressed as Giles with Hanoi’s current scene.

“Most Vietnamese clubbers look for a chance to ‘be seen’, they’re generally more concerned about being seen in the right place, drinking the most expensive liquors with extravagant trays of fruits over the table,” he says.

“Whilst people enjoy to ‘let their hair down’ most of them have little idea at all about music. Throw a techno beat behind Aled Jones, Chelsea FC or unheard of Danish bands like Michael Learns To Rock and they’re pleased as punch.”

“To be honest, the state of Hanoi night-life right now is in temporary forced retirement with a view to going back to work in the future. However a long lay off is expected,” he chuckles.

Both promoters admit that the club scene in Vietnam’s other big conurbation Ho Chi Minh City is significantly more developed, though both equally prefer staying in Hanoi, with Giles singling out its ‘grimy, unpredictable character’ in particular.

“Though I wonder if we’re a bit too negative about the scene here,’ he laughs, “We want people to come here after all.”

Visiting Cama’s Myspace page, immediate idiosyncrasies stand out including their mood setting of ‘pugnacious’ and club motto of ‘trouble- music-more trouble’ though Hanoi, despite pre-conceptions turns out to be a remarkably trouble free zone.

As the capital of Vietnam for almost 1,000 years (the millennium is next year) it’s best known to Westerners as the heart of USA defeaters North Vietnam and a distinctive military presence remains tangible today. One of the city’s key tourist attractions is the prison where John McCain was locked up during the war and immaculately dressed soldiers- old and new- are highly visible on the streets.

Hanoi also boasts countless fabulous pagodas and lakes and picture postcard French boulevards populated by strutting designer Dolce & Gabbana clad youth and old ladies carrying food dangling from poles across their shoulders. And it’s on the streets where Hanoi’s greatest danger lies, namely its traffic; threatening life and limb to both pedestrians and the hordes of apparently suicidal motorcylists navigating a traffic system that’s as near to total anarchy as anywhere on the planet. And one that bizarrely seems to work.

Dan, who occasionally organises motorbike tours for tourists, admits he’s had a few knocks, though explains that the first- and last rule of thumb is to go with the flow- to never stop, This applies to pedestrians too, resulting in individuals routinely- and terrifyingly- stepping out in front of screeching buses, criss-crossed by bikes, buses and cars (literally) moving in all directions. Drink driving is also a major issue (countless locals sip countless beers on countless pavement bars from dawn onwards- even Singapore Airlines offers free beer automatically on boarding planes) though traffic is so heavy that speeds are thankfully slow.

Touristic talk aside , I’m in Vietnam to DJ at the Heineken Green Planet Party @ Viet Soviet Friendship Palace, apparently the first large scale dance party Hanoi’s ever seen. Heineken are confident up to 2,000 local Vietnamese kids will pack into the hall, which they’ve decked out with a spacious circus style tented arena, fringed with bars, LCD monitors and Heineken hostesses, gorgeous girls in Santa outfits (it’s just before Xmas) whose main job appears to be looking gorgeous.

Showtime is 7.30pm prompt and local scene star DJ Tommy has an initially tough time. Cama guys Dan and Giles have warned beforehand that most Vietnamese youth have no experience of dance clubs at all, and it’s clear from the school disco style U space at the front of the dancefloor that no-one feels confident to get the party started. As Tommy bangs out local pop rave classics (Call On Me type pumping fodder), local hip hop hero K Beatbox eventually saves the day, bouncing onto the stage and calling people to the front. A massive surge results and within moments the whole floor is filled, to the relief of both Tommy and me, watching from stage right. Local hip hop acts and break-dancers pick up the vibe, as the hall fills up tight and even starts over-flowing.

Strongly advised by Giles and Dan to pack a safety backup of crowd pleasers, I kick off my set at 10pm sharp with Andrea Dorea’s thumping classic Bucci Bag, followed by Princess Superstar, Crookers mix of Wiley and Tiegschwarz’s seminal rework of Spektrum’s ‘Something New’. The result (I’m delighted to say) is absolute pandemonium, as hundreds rush the stage, shouting, dancing and screaming. 90 minutes later, it’s 11.30 and the hall is shutting down, with many of the 2,000 revellers already streaming home from what’s already a late night. Hanging round for pictures are 20 or so keener clubbers, all of whom- to a man- are male.

“Despite the fact that several girls now drink, it’s fair to say that most of them don’t or might only in the slightest of moderation. The guys drink and drink in excess,” Dan muses. “Clubs in Hanoi are not necessarily so much a place to meet people; people go out in groups and tend to stick with their friends,” he says.

Despite this, both Dan and Giles (and seemingly all of their male expat friends) are in relationships with Vietnamese females, not least because, as Giles points out ‘far be it for me to make crass generalisations but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that Vietnamese girls are some of the sexiest in Asia.”

“But having said that, it can be difficult to make romantic headway due to language and cultural differences but then that’s true of all men and women isn’t it? “ Giles continues.

“It’s not uncommon to hear Western women complain that it’s hard to get the attentions of men in this place due to the competition. On the other hand, I know more than a few guys who have made it their MO (modus operanda) to mine the under-sexed Western girl vein with rich rewards.”

He’s also quick to point out that local Vietnamese guys pose little threat towards culturally insensitive expats on the pull.

“Aggro is not really an issue here provided you remain respectful,” says Giles.

“You’re far more likely to end up entangled with psycho, stalker girls who still believe in Prince Charming, true love and virginity than you are to encounter violence chatting up someone else’s girlfriend,” he laughs.

Girlfriend talk aside, both guys remain devoted to both Hanoi, and bringing over bands and DJs with Giles clear about what motivates his passions.

“What keeps me in Hanoi? Where to start?” he says, “The food, the weather, the motorbikes, the girls, the lunacy, the lack of a requirement to participate as a functioning member of civil society. “

And as far as putting on parties is concerned, it’s precisely because we do live here that it’s so important to us. We’re not just passing through; we are making lives for ourselves here and  we need to take a certain responsibility for our own needs and wants.  It’s self-sufficiency borne of necessity.  And of course it’s a lot of fun.  We meet great people we wouldn’t otherwise meet, and we get to play in an area that would be much more difficult to break into in an established market,” he points out.

Giles, who’s a business lawyer by day is also cautiously optimistic about Hanoi’s longer term future, both in clubbing terms and generally.

“Change tends to happen very incrementally here and predicting the direction things will take is not easy.  Often times it’s a case of two steps forward, one step back,” he says.

“That said, everything here, including entertainment in general and youth culture in particular, is on an upwards curve and I would not expect that to change.  The vast majority of Vietnam’s 85 million people are under 30 years of age and they are opening up and expressing themselves in ways that are new to Vietnam.”

So why visit Hanoi before Bangkok or Singapore?

“Let’s be honest: Singapore’s a lovely clean sophisticated but boring place; it’s the Switzerland of Asia; hardly a cutting edge kind of destination,” Giles suggests.

“If you go to an event there, you can be sure everything’s government sanctioned, and above board whereas Hanoi in contrast is a chaotic, contradictory place with a lot of energy and uncertainty.  People living here tend to be very enthusiastic about what’s going on because they know very well that options are limited and you never know when an event could be shut down.  Bangkok’s somewhere in the middle and a great place to visit, it’s closer to HCMC than Hanoi in temperament, options and venues.  If it was me, I’d stop in Bangkok on my way to Hanoi,” he advises.

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