The Vietnamese

I’ve been in Vietnam for just over a week now and I have a taste for it. So let me take a minute to bring you here with me and talk not of the sights, not of the sounds or the smells but what makes a country a country, those who make the beautiful architecture which lines the roads which they have paved, those who make the sauces which taste so good and say the words that expresses who they are, the people who live here on the earth that we call Vietnam.

Eighty million people live in this country, which is just a little smaller than Japan and a little bigger than Italy. The cities are scattered all around the place with the capital Ho Chi Minh (as they call it, Saigon as we like to call it) to the South and the second biggest city Hanoi in the North.

No matter how many our lives intertwine with others; no matter how important that may be in our lives the fact is that we all have our own separate paths.

I’ve given you a taste of the people but let me give you a spoonful of what I can see when I close my eyes and think of Vietnam.

They rise early, about five normally, unpack all their goods to sell in their houses with open fronts to make a shop. They never sell just one particular thing, you can buy a box of crackers, you can buy toys for your children or t-shirts for the folks back home. Of course there are a few supermarkets and clothes shops but they are few and far between, especially out of the big cities, most of the people are shop owners selling whatever they have got their hands on. Once the communist rule ended many were jobless all they had was their homes, so the front of their houses were taking away and an open shop was put in its place, they live in the back and the shop is in the front. If it is a particularly big building then a hotel is made and despite probably never being able to get to its full capacity even in peak season as they are so many the family still all live in one room to utilize the space and when I say the family I mean the grandparents, the parents, the children and maybe an uncle or aunt. So to every three shops there is a hotel, all with an open front, no window no door just a space, and a shutter to lock up at night. Their days are long; they set up shop and sit by the little café which is next to the hotel. The tea tables and chairs (which actually are children outside furniture) are next to the mini hot dog stands with a women mixing up the rice and noodles for breakfast, lunch and dinner. If there are no chairs to sit on and enjoy your noodle soup, they just perch on the curb of the nearest street. There seems to be no specific hour to have lunch, dinner or breakfast everyone is on the street eating at all hours, even though they only have about one meal a day, no wonder they are so tiny. The restaurateurs are enticing people in, the little old ladies are teaching their daughters the tricks of the trade, age is no matter here, and everyone is doing something. The women mainly walk around with 30/40 books tied up with ribbon balancing in the air. Even the traffic doesn’t seem to die or go in one direction, no one is never indoors.

If the curb is not free for sitting on, they use their extremely subtle bodies and crouch, literally crouch for hours, on their heels. They gather for small chats to share ones day in this way. It’s a long day for them only stopping when there is no one to sell a drink to, to take on a tour or to drive the tourist home. If they get tired they go to sleep balancing on their bikes. It seems that they only take time out to visit the temples and pray.

What I have just described is the cities where the tourist is their money, their initial straight face is soon to crack into a smile, teeth or no teeth, and it starts off serious because of the concentration of trying to understand what you are going to say next. It’s difficult after you’ve been here not to doubt their genuineness, sad as it is but most of the time even 90% of the time that smile or eagerness to help is from the heart. Of course they want you to use their services, buy their products or thank them in cash but it’s their living sometimes you just have to understand that.

The countryside is spread out around the rice paddies in the South. In the highlands it’s around the streams, and farming their small plots of land next to their tin shed. But it’s the same as the city, the children finishing school by one in the afternoon and standing around in a daze at nap time and getting livelier towards the evening after a good nap. The clothes hang on the line outside their houses waiting to dry, and the little tea houses still line the dirt tracks which in turn are followed by shacks that are these people’s homes.

The women seem quite strong in the society in the society, not in status but in their role in the work force and at home, the usual story. You see women which would be the typical picture on the postcard to send back home, wearing their pointy hats with two bucket like bags hanging either side of a bamboo stick balancing on her shoulders, looking heavy enough to break. They wear a silk like suit which to me reminds me of pyjamas, more often than not all the women are covered from head to toe. This is not because of religious reasons as you may think, but because they don’t want to be tanned, they want to have paler, whiter skin like us, they even where masks around their faces which I thought it was because of the pollution, but in fact it’s to cover every last inch of their face. How ironic, on the beach you see all the westerners sunny themselves to extreme to be tanned and the Vietnamese are covered head to toe in 30 plus degrees heat to keep them white. In every shop next to the sunscreen there is whitening cream, which helps your skin to get paler.

Vietnam where the children know better English than the average Jo, the men sit on their bikes lined up next to a dozen others of which are all his mates and the women smile sweetly to say hello or to get you to buy whatever they have on offer. You can barter with practically anything here; sometimes they make you feel bad for doing so. The people are lovely, really nice as with everyone; unless you’ve known them for centuries (and even then it can be difficult) you never know how to take them. Maybe its best just no to read people to much, they have to do what they have to do and vice a versa. No matter how many our lives intertwine with others; no matter how important that may be in our lives the fact is that we all have our own separate paths. After my little episode the other night the words rung true what my mum always says ‘don’t be too trusting’ but also I think sometimes you’ve just got to take people with a pinch of salt, take it on the chin but realize at the end of the day they are just people, trying to live. And that my friends are my thought for the day, if it made any sense at all.

It’s very early in the morning, I have not been able to sleep and have an island tour in an hour and a 20hr bus journey to come, wish me luck with the weather. No doubt I will update you soon.