We arrived in Hanoi after a month in Malaysia, relieved to be somewhere new.
We hadn’t even left the terminal when I noticed a three-year-old child running away from her mother, out of sight, heading toward the bathroom, by herself. My eyes darted between the little girl and her mother, making sure to keep eyes on both as my nervous energy began to rise. Somehow, not even this child’s mother seemed to be bothered and I started wondering why I was the only one freaking out. And in that moment, I started to sense this was going to be a place that challenged how I viewed the world.
Head fully on a swivel
Because we couldn’t check into our Airbnb just yet, we ended up getting a hotel in the Old Quarter. Immediately, my vigilance and awareness are cranked up to 11. There are cars, motorbikes, pedestrians, carts, all crowding through tight streets and narrow sidewalks. Stepping around parked motorbikes, but being careful not to get hip swiped by a side-view mirror passing by. It’s nothing but pure chaos, and I could feel my body growing more tense, head fully on a swivel.
It’s one of the most chaotic pedestrian experiences I’ve ever had and is punctuated as I step past a tee-shirt stall proudly flying a white shirt with bloody letters smeared across that reads: I Survived Ha Noi Traffic.
Nearly sandwiched between a truck and a bus
The next day, we check into our Airbnb on West Lake, a few kilometers north of the Old Quarter chaos. Since we were located in a small back alley neighborhood, I decided to rent a motorbike.
As I take the bike out into traffic, I find it’s both exciting and challenging in a way I hadn’t anticipated. I’d driven a motorbike in a Mexican beachtown, but there was never traffic like this. While 2 wheels are clearly an upgrade over 2 feet in terms of versatility and range, the trade-off is that 2 wheels offer virtually zero protection. And with the streets and freeways as chaotic as the pedestrian experience in the Old Quarter, my hypervigilance on this bike is also turned up to 11. I had no other choice because it’s the difference between getting sandwiched between a truck and a bus (which almost happened) and making it home in one piece.
That t-shirt I saw back in the Old Quarter was beginning to make a lot more sense.
How is this chaos not killing …everyone?
Over the next several days, my brain went into overdrive. It had to understand: how is this so chaotic, and yet it still works? When I saw these roads through my American, rule-based eyes, the only conclusion I could reach was that these roads are dangerous. But the more I paid attention, the more I started to realize that the road wasn’t reading as dangerous to anyone but me.
For example, at every intersection, motorbikes gather in front of the buses and cars, like sediment matriculating through rocks. And then, even before the light actually turns green, everyone bursts off the line at once. It reminded me of drag racing with friends back in High School. First off the line, first to the next light, first everywhere. But here in Hanoi, as everyone clears the intersection, I notice that nobody is racing to the next light. Everything just flows and finds its place. There’s no sense that anyone is even remotely thinking about being first.
The horns aren't what you think
I found it particularly interesting to see how Hanoi motorists use their vehicle horns to communicate, rather than to reprimand. A long press or two short taps don’t mean “go dumbass” or “hurry up”; they simply mean: “on your left” or “coming through”.
I saw more people get cut off in traffic in one week in Hanoi than in decades in the US, and yet the only traffic accident I saw was a single-vehicle accident where a woman was driving too fast in the rain when she slipped and overturned her bike. When people were in traffic together, there seemed to be a collective understanding. A collective belief in one another that everyone would do what was right to maintain the flow.
So I started to wonder: if no one is managing this, there are no rules, and everything seems so disorganized and chaotic, what’s actually holding this together?
What "going with the flow" actually means
Over the next few weeks, as I became more comfortable on the motorcycle, I started to notice a few things.
First, like water moving down a mountain to the ocean, no drop tries to rush in front of another. Everyone gets there when they get there. The challenge is staying in the flow. That is what going with the flow actually means.
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”
—Lao Tzu
No one is concerned with arriving first. The goal seemed to be simply arriving safely. It makes logical sense that arriving at your destination uninjured is better than not arriving at all.
Second, everyone on the road gets a turn, as long as the flow keeps moving. Whether you’re an 80-year-old at a major intersection wheeling a cart full of fruit, a 15-year-old on a scooter, a garbage truck driver, a bus, or a tourist, everyone has the opportunity to get through. Even with the chaos, it’s not managed. It just flows.
What is starting to reveal itself is that the idea of “going with the flow” could actually mean recognizing that there is wisdom in the crowd. The collective wisdom has its own intelligence. So instead of thinking I know what’s best for everyone simply because I know what’s best for me, it’s about submitting to the wisdom of the entire movement. Because in Hanoi traffic, if you don’t go with the flow, you will get hurt, and will likely hurt someone else in the process.
Management vs. Agreement
At this point, I was starting to wonder how this all worked to begin with. A traffic tsunami that looked like pure unadulterated chaos, but was still, effectively, working. How?
It was as if traffic across the entire country functions as a team. Everyone's pace is consistent and predictable, which makes it easier for everyone to navigate the road.
You don’t actually need traffic lights for traffic to move safely. You just need conscientious motorists paying attention.
There’s room for everyone on the road, even in the chaos. Everyone gets a turn, so long as the traffic keeps flowing.
The Hanoi Model
Just take a look at this video. It’s worth watching a few times and moving your eye between the buses, cars, bikes, and pedestrians.
This is a 16-lane intersection. In just about everywhere I’ve ever been on earth, there would be a traffic light here. But if you notice, there is no light. The video speaks for itself, and we found intersections like these from Hanoi to Danang.
There are three key components that allow this to work.
Shared Agreement: No one negotiated how this is all supposed to flow. But everyone is in it, managing it, moving through it. Keep moving, stay predictable, and trust that the person next to you will give you room to do what you have to do.
Collective Arrival: The goal here is for everyone to get there, not just for someone to get there first. And when someone becomes self-interested, they immediately begin creating havoc throughout the rest of the system and on everyone around them.
Conscientious Attention: Everyone is aware of what everyone else is doing. Not measuring anyone up to gain an advantage. Just assessing, so they can continue to move through the world and everyone can keep flowing.
You’ve probably experienced a version of this at some point in your life or career. A moment where everything just clicked and moved. But whether you realized it or not, a lot of that depended on whether the people around you were operating from the same agreement.
That’s basically how Hanoi gets along. And it’s available to anyone willing to ask: what agreement are we all operating from here?
How to bring the flow home
So how do you bring the Hanoi model into your life? There are a few things you can do.
Pick Your Line: Before you get to the intersection, you have to know where you’re going, because the uncertainty is what creates the hesitation, and the hesitation is what creates the accidents.
Slow Down: Contrintuitively, the person who moves the slowest wins. Believe it or not, the person who will never get hit in this traffic chaos is the 80-year-old woman pushing her overloaded fruit cart. Why? Because her speed is consistent and her movement is predictable, allowing everyone else the opportunity to maneuver around her, and allowing herself the opportunity to keep moving forward.
Keep Moving: Stopping is what breaks everyone. When you stop, you might avoid one thing, but someone else piles up behind you, and others around you have to recalculate their trajectory and yours to accommodate your sudden change. It ends up being selfish. If you’re in the flow, you’ve gotta go.
Trust the Flow: The flow is collective intelligence. Your job isn’t to manage it or survive it. It’s to understand it, join it, and allow it to carry you to your destination. Because when you do, the whole thing moves around you, and you are able to move with it.
The lessons Hanoi traffic has to teach are clear, and they can be applied virtually anywhere in your life. The road doesn’t care who you are, where you’re from, or what you’re driving. It only asks that you participate.
The question is whether it’s more important that you arrive first, or that you arrive at all.
Trust the flow! i love that!!!