Dortmund

Journalist Hung Nguyen Viet from Vietnam is guest in the Ruhr and reports on his impressions thanks to the Goethe-Institut.

Hung Nguyen Viet from Hanoi, Vietnam will be a guest in the Ruhr for one month. Thanks to the Close-Up journalists’ exchange programme organized by the Goethe-Institut he will be feeling the pulse of the “Pott” region’s people. The first report of his impressions was translated into German by Nadine Albach:

The flight from Hanoi lands at Frankfurt Airport. I hardly have to push my luggage and I’m already at the train station. The ICE train races to the Ruhr valley, past modern cities and green countryside. After two hours I arrive in Dortmund – part of the 2010 Capital of Culture and home of the famous BVB football club.

In the erstwhile industrial city where coal and steel polluted the environment, traces of this past can only be found in museums today. Everything is very green and clean. Dortmund has successfully transformed itself into an economic centre of the service provision, IT and logistics industries.

I am especially impressed by the clean and lovely shopping street with its many shops, restaurants and cafés, which is always full of people. As I stroll along I ask myself whether Germany – or at least Dortmund – was left untouched by the financial crisis. The fashion shops look just as good as those in Paris, Rome and New York. On the other hand, there are also many discount and one-euro shops.

Even though it is October, the autumnal weather feels relatively warm and pleasant to me. The tables and chairs of the cafés invite one to sit outdoors, drink coffee and observe the goings-on. The coffee tastes delicious, a cup costs between two and four euros; appropriate for German standards, but for Hanoi, where a cup costs 50 cents, it is expensive. I see many older couples walking hand in hand. Perhaps it is similar to Vietnam, where people of the older generation are more true to one another than those of the younger. Yet, at night, the cafés and bars are the world of youth. When it comes to restaurants, bars and cafés, Bochum is the place to be. It’s the location of the Bermuda Dreieck, a highly frequented shopping and entertainment centre. At nighttime, the luxury of the shops, the flickering lights and the crowds of people are dazzling. I also notice the many Halloween decorations.

I am impressed by the fact that thousands of people are sitting in the cafés and yet it is so quiet. They only speak loud enough to understand one another; the ambience is warm and romantic. If you wish to understand why the Ruhr is Europe’s Capital of Culture, you need merely come here for a cup of coffee.