The End of Apo?

The late breaking news first arrived by Yahoo Messenger offline messages this morning. I am feeling very connected.

Apparently Hanoi's infamous Apocalypse Now nightclub is down and out after an evening of violence culminated in homicide. It seems it all began with an argument between two groups over a table. A fight broke out in the club, and those involved were kicked out by security guards. The fight then continue outside in the parking lot at 12:30am Sunday morning where one person was killed and three seriously injured. When I asked my friend what the weapon was, he told me "knife, we don't have gun here". The incident was described to me as gang-related.

It also seems that in the investigation afterwards the police discovered that Apo has been illegally selling untaxed alcohol. Several friends told me this was in order to compete with the New Century club across town. Apocalypse Now has been closed indefinitely because of these charges.

I can't find any English language coverage of the incident, but for those who can read it here's the Google cached text of a brief report in Vietnamese in Thanh Nien online.

Giành chỗ trong quán bar, 1 người chết
Vào hồi 0 giờ 30 ngày 14.1, tại trước cửa quán bar Apocalypse Now - “Thiên Khải” ở 2 Đông Tác, P.Trung Tự, Q.Đống Đa, Hà Nội đã xảy ra vụ đánh nhau lớn giữa 2 nhóm thanh niên. Nhóm bị chém có 4 nam 2 nữ, nhóm gây án mạng có 5 nam. Theo thông tin ban đầu, hai nhóm mâu thuẫn nhau vì tranh giành bàn rượu đã đặt chỗ. Hậu quả anh Nguyễn Huy Linh (28 tuổi, ở E8 Phương Mai, Q.Đống Đa) bị đâm chết; các anh Nguyễn Chí Huy (32 tuổi, ở E8 Phương Mai, Q.Đống Đa), Tạ Duy Thắng (31 tuổi, ở 36 ngõ 13 Giải Phóng) và Bùi Quang Hưng (36 tuổi, ở P.Hạ Đình, Q.Thanh Xuân) đều bị đâm trọng thương. Công an Q.Đống Đa đang phối hợp các đơn vị điều tra truy bắt những kẻ gây án. (N.V.C - K.T.L)

Will Apo rise again? Probably. Apparently a similarly violent episode shut down New Century several years ago and it eventually saw the light of day again. In the meantime I've been told that GC will probably experience a sudden influx of "family".

Well now I know why they have those security guards posted conspicuously around the clubs. This isn't the first bit of bar violence I've heard of in Hanoi clubs, though usually it doesn't usually end in murder. In any case, it's not like we don't have periodic club shootings here in Toronto.

Apocalypse Now!

It's not what you think! It's a gay club, not a war movie. Well, not entirely gay, maybe 3/4 and it depends on where you are standing in the club. It looked and sounded like any North American club, except for the 95% Viet crowd and the very stern looking green uniformed cops posted around the club.

I had a blast! By law all clubs are supposed to close at midnight, but I guess the club has "connections" so the music winds down around 1 (yeah, okay so it's not Fly). I'm starting to notice a strange trend though: like any scene it has its cliques, but these groups tend to be keep entirely apart. The guys recognize each other and may even know a lot about each other (through gossip?), but there is little mixing. I know guys in two different circles, and when I tried to introduce them, I was told "It's really not necessary." It's as if people are scared to have too many gay connections; it's like an allergy to community.

The after-hours scene seems to be pho bo at the night market. The streets at 1am are devoid of activity, but when Apo (as it's called for short) lets out, an gay armada of motorbikes sweeps the streets - about 40 motos travelling as a clump towards the city centre, bikes gradually peeling off. Eventually a small group of us arrived at the Dong Xuan Market in the Old Quarter, established ourselves on little plastic stools and ordered beef noodle soup. I'm totally into this and would like to suggest 60 cent bowls of pho be served on little squat benches at Timothy's after the clubs let out in TO. Unfortunately late night rice noodles might not go over on carb-phobic Church St.

It looks like I'm back to food, so while I'm at it let me describe a late breakfast (brunch?) I had with Viet this morning. The Globe and Mail just came out with an article (which I should link to from my main blog page) about Hanoi cuisine. It was called something like "Down the rabbit hole of Hanoi cuisine". Well, it truly feels like a kind of secret world sometimes. The rabbit hole this morning was a den of sidestreets and alleyways which Viet squeezed his bike down with me on the back to this tiny room packed with locals eating bun oc (snail noodle soup). Damn! 50 or 60 cents for this delicious bowl of slightly sour broth with herbs, round rice noodles, a few tomatoes and these little delicate snails of varying sizes. It's got to be about a 5 min. walk from here, but I can't imagine I'd ever find it again.