Vietnamese police on duty outside the French colonial-era Sofitel Legend Metropole Hotel in Hanoi before the North Korea-U.S. summit. Reuters

By Park Si-soo

The Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi ― the main venue for the make-or-break summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ― is a silent but sturdy witness of Vietnam's painful, conflict-prone modern history.

Opened in 1901 in the heart of Hanoi, the hotel looked down on Vietnamese people struggling with grief and pain under France's decades-long colonial rule. Following Vietnamese independence in 1945, it was renamed the Thong Nhat Hotel (Reunification Hotel) by the Communist government.

It survived numerous U.S. Air Force raids during the 1955-75 Vietnam War. Having a bomb shelter ― built in the 1960s ― in its compound corroborates the hard times Vietnam faced during the war.