VU Ky is sitting once again beside Ho Chi Minh. Ho's personal secretary, Mr Vu was at his side when he died on a rattan mat 25 years ago yesterday .
Now he's below him, seated next to ''Uncle Ho's'' chair at the war conference table, beneath a tiny wooden stilt house, hidden in a forest glade that was once Ho's home behind Hanoi.
It's a restful spot, but it's easy in such simple surroundings to imagine the times when all you could hear were bombs, bird calls and Ho's party dogma.
Only the birds are left now, but they must compete with the new sounds of the new Hanoi: the toots and whines of streams of Honda Dream motorbikes. Many of the streets surrounding the park and Ho's mausoleum are now lined with karaoke joints, beauty salons, cosmetic stores and goldsmiths - many less than three months old.
The better-off in Hanoi - under Communist rule for 40 years - say that it is only now that they feel they can flaunt their wealth, to show off a little without fear.
''It's so exciting to see the young people like this . . . it's progress,'' Mr Vu said.
''I used to worry when I would see young girls so open, but now I'm not so frightened, young people are our future.'' Despite the utopian austerity of his surroundings, Mr Vu, 73, does not look back, but forward.