Collected Letters from Vietnam to the Guardian Weekly

(2005-2014)

Breaking up is hard to do (with a xe om driver)

I have to change my route to work. I just don’t have the

heart anymore. Every morning I drive out to the lane and

there he stands, in the shade beneath the branches of the

kapok trees, his head hanging on his chest, like a wounded

soldier in a heart wrenching portrait, entitled—“Man as

Bucket of Misery.”

As I pass by, I try to catch his eyes, just to be cordial. How

could I pretend he’s not there, after all we’d been through,

all those mornings we rode together, through the dusk,

dirt, smoke and the city lights.

And of course, he knows I’m coming. He knows I will slow

down and holler ‘chao anh’ (Hello Big brother)! He will have

recognised the sound of the engine but he will look away as

I pass lest I see the hurt (maybe even the tears) in his eyes.

He, in case you are wondering, is my ex-xe om driver, a

man, who due to some broken limbs (mine), I depended on

for the last three months. As a result of the income I

generated, he, no doubt, grew to depend on me, too.

Recently, I noticed he had upgraded his brand of cigarettes

to a superior variety.

Come rain, come shine, together we drove over the

causeway, around by the Mausoleum, along the banks of

the murky Red River and down the salubrious boulevards

of Tran Phu.

He was a careful, courteous and sensitive driver. He never

drove too fast—or braked too suddenly. He would slow

down as we passed pretty ladies, so I could ogle them from

head to toe.

He went to the trouble of learning some English phrases,

my favourite being: “Where to, sir?” He told me that during

the next Tet holiday I would be an honoured guest in his

house.

He thought this summer would last forever. Perhaps, we

both did. But alas, one fateful morning, weighed down by a

heavy heart, I realised, I could drive my motorbike again. I

wheeled my not-so-trusty two-stroke out of the gate, and

drew a deep breath. I knew it would be awkward. I knew it

would hurt.

As I approached, I saw him glance out of the corner of his

eyes. He had been laughing with his friends, looking

forward to another day in the saddle, making a few dollars,

a decent day’s wages for most. Little did he know when he

rose that morning that the gravy train had left town.

Should I have given one month’s notice? Offered him a

severance package?

And now, every morning, as all the other xe om drivers

head off with their regular passengers he is left, in the

under the branches of the kapok trees, no money in his

pocket and nowhere to go, a future as bleak as it is

uncertain.

So that’s why I can’t take it anymore. Tomorrow morning, I

will turn left and drive the long way round to work. Just to

spare his feelings. So he can begin again.

In future, I hope there will be other foreigners moving to

the street. He will coo them over one morning and they’ll

hop on his pillion, and he will smile sweetly, and say,

“where to, sir?” And they’ll laugh at that one, especially if

it’s a woman, and being new to Hanoi, she’ll pay double

what an old skinflint like me ever did.

It will be the start of a beautiful friendship, until she

plucks up the nerve to buy a motorbike of her own.

Dang Thai Mai, Hanoi, August, 2005

To beep, or not to beep? In Hanoi that is the

question.

The ceaseless cacophony created by the horns of 1.8m

motorbikes, 200,000 cars and countless trucks and buses

bewilders most visitors to Hanoi, who might well wonder

why drivers feel the need to urge on the ungovernable sea

of traffic.

As someone who from time to time gesticulates madly over

someone needlessly beeping behind me, it would seem

hypocritical to curse the beeps while tooting myself. So I try

to keep my beeping to a minimum. Frail-looking 80-year-

old women on rickety bicycles are high on my list.

My neighbour beeps rather than press her doorbell; her

diminutive maid scuttles out to open the gate. The buses

barrelling down the roads beep at anything that moves.

Edgy old men beep when no one’s in front of them. Middle-

aged dads teach their kids perched between their thighs

how to make the bike beep, a valuable lesson for the

future. Get-up-and-go young corporate women beep

outside bakeries, while shouting “bánh bao!"

Teenagers in football shirts beep with extra loud horns

they’ve installed to scare the bejesus out of anyone in front

of them. There is a fine for this offence—about $4.20 in

Vietnamese dong, which is less than the cost of a

customised horn. Some sound like police sirens, and a

local entrepreneur is reportedly planning to make horns

with animal noises—no doubt the sound of a bleating

sheep or lowing cow would add a bucolic edge to the urban

jungle.

Everyone beeps when the lights go green. Lots of people

beep when the lights are red—just to keep the rest of us on

our toes. Taxis flash their lights while beeping, to let you

know they’re driving on your side of the road at high speed

towards you. No one knows who is the last to beep at night

but each morning a motorbike passing my house beeps

before my alarm clock does.

Sitting in a café watching the traffic pour down Ly Thai To

Street, I meet an American. He enthuses about Hanoi, but,

no, in the end, he says it’s not for him. “Too much beep-

beep,” he says, shaking his head mournfully. All around

us, thousands beep in blithe defiance.

Dang Thai Mai, Hanoi, 2007

In Vietnam, you’ll never eat alone

In Vietnam you’re never alone—or at least you’re not

supposed to be. More to do with the enduring teachings of

Confucius than communist Camaraderie, I’d wager, but

generally Vietnamese equate solitude with loneliness. In

Hanoi, where there’s a population of over six million and

three to four generations frequently live under one roof,

this attitude seems refreshingly tender, as if people could

never tire of each other’s company.

Perhaps that’s why no one seems to know quite what to

make of the lone foreigner. Backpacking on your tod

around Europe, you might hope to be considered

enigmatic, but in Vietnam you’re merely a lost soul, one

who foolishly flew the family nest.

When I step into a popular restaurant in the Old Quarter of

Hanoi and ask for a table for one, waiters smile

sympathetically. The restaurant is full of boisterous

punters, clinking glasses of beer-on-ice or knocking back

shots of supposedly medicinal liquor. When it comes to a

knees-up in Vietnam it’s definitely the more the merrier. As

if to comfort me, the waiters protectively huddle around my

table. One expresses his immediate concern as he hands

over a menu. Why are you eating alone? I often eat alone, I

say. I like it. He shakes his head and informs me there’s a

local expression that advises against this as it will “cause

me pain”. He says this while clutching his heart and

grimacing, so as I peruse the menu I can’t help but ponder

cardiovascular health. Eventually I opt for a banana flower

salad and some fresh spring rolls. Surely two innocently

vegetarian dishes can’t be instantly fatal.

As I wait for my food staff take turns to come over. It’s not

entirely charitable. I know each one wants a little

conversation time to practice their ropey English. But I had

been hoping for a bit of ‘me time’, so I take out my

notebook and pen. “Where are your friends?” asks another

waiter, blithely ignoring my hint. “I don’t know. Tonight,

I’m just taking it easy.”

He smiles as if he’s just heard the lamest excuse uttered

aloud and perhaps out of genuine concern, for the rest of

the evening he never strays far from my table. He asks

what I’m writing. I tell him I’m working, or trying to, and he

winces. “Làm một mình cực thân,” he says, before

translating, “To work alone will cause you troubles.” (I

wonder does that mean I should try and find a writing

partner, somebody to high-five with after particularly

insightful or witty sentences.)

After dinner I drive home to discover my landlord standing

at our shared gate. He insists I come in for a drink. Inside I

can see his wife is unimpressed as he ushers me to a seat

and cracks open a bottle of whisky with eager relish. The

penny drops: He’s using me as he’s only allowed to drink, if

he has company. You can chalk that one down to good old

fashioned Communist camaraderie.

Ngoc Ha Village, June, 2003

Hard-headed Hanoians

It’s compulsory for motorcyclists to wear helmets in

Vietnam and the vast majority of Hanoi’s bike-driving

population complies with this four-year-old law, which is

enforced by traffic police standing on street corners dotted

around the capital. The minority who fly in the face of the

directive are mostly teenage boys, or young men, with

carefully coiffed hair-dos, or glamorous women (of all ages)

with freshly-styled locks, all of whom risk on the spot fines

for the sake of fashion.

But even though the bulk of the masses don headgear, if

you look a little closer you’ll notice plenty of drivers haven’t

buckled the chin strap while others have fastened it so

loosely the helmet is sliding off the back of their head. Then

there’s the odd commuter who will defiantly secure the

buckle over the top, just so you know he’s too cool for

school, even in his thirties.

Many of the huge number of motorcyclists, who strap a

helmet on good and tight, seven days a week, rain or shine,

may also not be overly concerned with safety judging by the

proliferation of low quality made-in-China products on sale

around town, some of which cost as little as 50,000

Vietnamese dong. You’ll spot dainty young women wearing

flimsy helmets with Hello Kitty or Winne the Pooh

decorations and equally dubious products with special

holes at the back for ladies sporting pony tails. Young men

are fond of equally dodgy looking helmets with Premiership

football team emblems. Tough guys just wear baseball

caps. Less tough guys wear helmets which look like

baseball caps. Men of a certain vintage may still prefer

something with a military motif, or a beret.

More important than stickers denoting safety standards are

commercial modifications such as clip-on visors, which

keep the blistering sun off the fair of face on sunny days.

More eccentric variations seen around town include a

helmet with a ladybird theme, wobbling antennae and all,

and a helmet with Viking horns worn by an expat, who

hurtled through the traffic like a bull set loose on the

streets of Pamplona.

After my own humdrum helmet went missing from the

office parking lot, a security guard dismissed my fears

(founded by stats such as 11,500 people died in Vietnam

due to traffic accidents in 2010). “Don’t worry,” he said

with a giddy twinkle in his eye. “It’s dark—the cops can’t

see you!” Noticeably, during the recent Tết holiday (Lunar

New Year), as the traffic police disappeared from the

streets, so did the helmets. All of which tells us that for

many wearing a helmet is less about protecting one’s

noggin and more about avoiding a fine.

The other day as I sashayed through the midday traffic

towards a downtown noodle stall with my Kiwi colleague

riding pillion, a man on a dusty motorbike almost clipped

my front wheel, while wearing the rarest of sights: a full

face helmet.

“Bloody nhà quê1!” shouted the irked New Zealander in

garbled Vietnamese, before muttering in my uncovered ear:

“They’re a liability with those helmets.”

To everyone but themselves that is.

Hoang Hoa Tham Street, Hanoi

Going under cover in Ho Chi Minh City

It’s 35 degrees Celsius outside but in the basement car

park of your apartment block you see a Vietnamese woman

wearing jeans, ball-gown-style gloves and socks with high

heel shoes. A curious ensemble set against your sandals,

shorts and T-shirt. “Are you cold?” you say with a cheeky

grin as she clambers onto her Honda scooter. She points 1 A derogatory term for a person from the countryside, akin to “county bumpkin” or “red neck”

skyward and, even though she’s also sporting a facemask

and sunglasses, you can tell she’s wincing at the very

thought of the sun.

You often drive through blistering midday heat from your

home to Ho Chi Minh City’s main downtown kernel of

District 1, nowadays a mishmash of illustrious French

colonial period buildings and glitzy 21st century office

blocks with plenty of more rudimentary “lego-deco”

architecture in between. Along the way you pass women

wearing wide-brimmed hats under their crash helmets and

baggy blouses with extra-long sleeves. One of the more eye-

catching products designed for any sun-fearing fashionista

on two wheels appears to be a trench coat version of the

burkini. And no matter what everyone’s wearing, when

traffic lights turn red, nearly every motorcycle and scooter

swerves for the side of the road in search of whatever shade

can be found.

You are pure-bred Irish (read: genetically engineered to live

in a damp cottage by a peat bog) and yet you’re the only

one soaking up the rays while waiting for the light to turn

green. It’s only when your sunglasses slide off your sweaty

nose that you begin to question your judgement. Then

comes the day when you wear a black T-shirt and can’t

decide where to go for lunch. You drive around absorbing

heat until you’re convinced you can smell singed hair.

You’re either smouldering or delusional. That night you

notice what looks like an inchoate mole forming on your

right cheek. You search malignant melanoma on Google.

Now, every day before you start your motorbike, you wince

at the very thought of the sun.

There is no respite. Each day seems hotter than the last.

The day after you discover that dry season will last for six

months you swallow your pride. You put on linen trousers,

cover your face with a scarf and slide a baggy white shirt

with long sleeves over your t-shirt—the line will be drawn

at socks with sandals. On the way to town, you ride under

the unforgiving midday sun, and, yes, you are hot but at

least you’re not burning, and when you see a red light up

ahead, you swerve to the side of the road in search of

whatever shade can be found.

Ho Chi Minh City, November 2012

Pulling rank with pronouns a family affair

On the occasion of a death anniversary in honour of my

Hanoi-born wife’s auntie in Ho Chi Minh City, two distant

branches of a family tree come together to put the

Vietnamese language’s strict conventions regarding

pronouns through its paces.

When conversing, Vietnamese clans stick rigidly to kinship

terms so everyone at the table will know what generation

they belong to and who is washing the dishes (helpful hint:

it’s probably going to be the youngest adult female). But

inter-generational dynamics can get a little knotty,

especially when second marriages come into play with

extended families. On this particular occasion I am

introduced to my mother-in-law’s half-sister’s husband’s

step-daughter. To my 38-year-old eyes she looks like a bac

(elder auntie) or maybe even a ba (grandmother/

grandaunt) but I’m told to call her chi (older sister) and her

septuagenarian husband anh (older brother) even if it feels

a little discourteous (like saying “Hey sis! Hey bro!” to

someone’s grandparents).

The husband, who is sipping locally produced red wine on

the rocks, is the oldest man in the room by a stretch but

according to his in-laws’ family tree, he’s not even on the

same branch as the most senior individuals at the dinner.

Enjoying the view from that perch is my wife’s father, who

the septuagenarian must refer to with more than a hint of

weariness as chu (uncle).

As the commemorative feast begins, the pronoun-themed

sideshow continues when a 35-year-old man, who is

apparently my ‘nephew’, frogmarches his 10-year-old

daughter in front of me and demands that she says ‘chao

ong (granduncle)’ to me and ‘chao chu’ (hello uncle) to my

four-year-old son, who is too busy throwing a tantrum

under the table to acknowledge the greeting. As my wife is

the eldest child in her family, her sisters’ son must also

refer to my son as anh (older brother) even though he’s

much younger, which tees us up nicely for the local

proverb, “As small as a potato but call by rank.”2

As Vietnamese people often talk in the third person, a

person’s “ranking” often becomes their identity in the

context of family affairs, for example, a mother will refer to

herself as me or ma (mum) when talking to her kids. This is

clearly helpful when meeting distant relatives you may or

may not have met. Once, at another large family

celebration in Hanoi, my wife told me to go over to pay my

respects to a middle-aged woman as she was the head of

my father-in-law’s extended clan. So, what was her name?

My wife shrugged. She couldn’t remember and it didn’t

matter: “Just say ‘chao bac’ (hello grandaunt).”

Away from households, Vietnamese also prefer to use more

familiar sounding kinship terms. Once direct questioning

2 “Bé bằng củ khoai, cứ vai mà gọi”

might have been the norm, but nowadays when two

Vietnamese people of a similar age and background meet

for the first time, they may try to infer from looks or

conversation which person is older. But they can get it

wrong. My wife has expressed genuine annoyance when

discovering someone she called chi (older sister) for years

has turned out to be the younger person.

Matters are also unlikely to be straightforward for less-

than-fluent Vietnamese speakers. In an effort to show

deference to a regular customer, the 40-something-year-old

owner of a French-style bakery I used to frequent in Hanoi,

started to greet me by saying, “Chao anh” (Hello older

brother but in this scenario it’s more like ‘hello young

man’) to which I initially replied, “Chao em” (Hello younger

brother). A loose translation of his response could do Dr.

Seuss proud: “Older brother you cannot call me younger

brother as older brother you are much younger so call me

older brother too.” By elevating my status then immediately

pulling rank, he had put our respective pronouns in place.

After that it seemed easier to order coffee from one of my

‘younger sisters’. As you were, older brother.

Ho Chi Minh City, May, 2014