Working the graveyard shift in Hanoi

At midnight on a weekday a couple walks out of a convenience store on Hang Bong Street in Hanoi’s Old Quarter. Nearby, three people are eating ice cream and yogurt they had just bought at the store. Hang Bong is one of the capital’s most crowded shopping streets, but at midnight, when it is time for businesses to shut down, it goes quiet. Only three 24/7 convenience stores and a few hotels remain open afterward.

Some 200 meters from the convenience store, Quoc Huy, a hotel receptionist is at his desk waiting for two Filipino guests. The hotel car has picked them up at the airport and is headed back. Huy will help them check in at around 3 a.m. Guests arriving at 2 or 3 a.m. is pretty common in October, the peak tourist season.

"It’s like we don’t want our guests if we close at midnight," the 24-year-old said. Working along with Huy are three other receptionists of similar age.

The bar where Masayoshi Kimoto works continues to take orders from customers at 1 in the morning. The 32-year-old Japanese man is the manager, bartender and chef of a Japanese restaurant on Kim Ma Street. The place offers all sorts of services his compatriots are used to back home, like massage, sauna, a manga reading room, a karaoke lounge, and rooms with single beds in case they fancy a nap.

Kimoto said this kind of place is becoming popular in Japan but still rare in Hanoi. Places like these are good for single people with a fondness for nightlife. But the city’s midnight curfew is a challenge to his business.

Kimoto has lived in Vietnam for more than three years. He starts working at 10 a.m. and usually ends at around 2 a.m. when the last customer pays their bill.

Not too far from Kimoto’s bar, some delivery men are loading trucks with newspapers at the back of a printing press on Tran Quang Khai Street. After they are loaded, the trucks leave for various places in the north.

Tuan, one of the men, has grown accustomed to this job over the last six years. "We deliver anything the company tells us at any hour," he said.

After a straight 24 hours of work, he gets a day off before he returns for another shift at 3 a.m.

At roughly the same time Nguyen Thai Phuong (2nd, R) is getting ready to board a flight from Hanoi to Da Lat. The flight attendant has to get up at 2 a.m., put on make-up, attend a meeting, and review security and medical safety information before the flight.

More than half of Phuong’s flying hours are after midnight, and she depends on coffee to stay awake. Phuong, who has been a steward for four years, said: "On international flights, many foreign passengers suffer from disruption of their circadian rhythms, and flight attendants have to remain heedful of that. We check the cabin every 15 minutes and the toilets every 30 minutes to see if anyone needs special help."

She gets a 45-minute break between flights. Her circadian rhythms and daily routines have been disturbed due to the late night flights. She gets home from work when everybody else in her family is up for a morning run, and goes to sleep when they leave for work.

Duc, 43 (R), and his colleague work at a construction site on Dai Co Viet Street at 2 a.m.

Their job is essentially to clean up after construction work is finished, including filling up holes and reinstalling electric wires. People like Duc have to work when everybody else has left the site.

He starts working at 11:30 p.m. when his wife and children are sleeping at home on the city’s outskirts.

When his shift ends at 5:00 a.m., Duc and his fellow workers return home for breakfast and immediately leave for their next construction site.

Ha, 35, pushes her trailer every day from 5 p.m. to collect trash on several streets in Hai Ba Trung District. The garbage truck comes at midnight and she dumps her trash in it. She also follows it to pick up any trash that may drop on the street. Sanitation workers like Ha do not question their late night working hours, realizing only at that time "the public will not feel bothered."

When her work finishes at 3 a.m., she returns to her small house eight kilometers away. She also works part-time in a sewing factory.

Nguyen Van Bien, 30, drops a passenger off on Kim Ma Street. His 12-hour shift runs from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. He enjoys working late at night because the streets are not congested. He usually gets a lot of passengers between midnight and dawn, mostly in downtown. The 24/7 convenience stores are his go-to place if he feels hungry.

Nguyen Ba Su (L), a technician, checks a winch hook used to lift beams at a bridge construction site in Cau Giay District at 1 a.m. Construction teams work overnight when traffic is thinnest.

Su said: "It’s morning by the time we finish work. When we get home, people are out for their morning exercise."