The housing in the North is very different from the South and here is the guide’s story:
“People in the North earn money to save and people in the South earn money to spend so the people in the South never have any money for big things. People in the North save their money so they can build these very tall houses which is the evidence of doing well in life. An extended family lives in them and since there are no elevators the younger families live on the top floors and as you get older you move down until the real oldsters are on the ground floor.
Since land is so expensive in Hanoi the style became to build these houses tall and very narrow and now even in the countryside they build them in the same style.”