Small world alert: Through friends, Liz met a Ugandan woman who recently moved to Vietnam with whom we have several friends in common in Kampala. One Friday night, we went out to meet her and her husband at a bar. She brought along a friend, a British aid worker in from Chiang Mai who supervises a Vietnamese marine coastal management project. We started talking and he said that he and his Thai wife used to sell locally-manufactured quilts in the Chiang Mai night market. Turns out, I bought a wall hanging (still on display in my parents’ house) from him in the summer of 1991 when I was backpacking through Southeast Asia after taking the Bar Exam. Small world, indeed.
I recently finished a run and was walking down the street looking to find a taxi. A woman was walking the other way carrying a mesh sack over her shoulder. She would walk up to passersby or shopkeepers and gesture at her sack asking them if they were interested in its contents. Then she almost bumped into me and I got a look into her sack. It was filled with live scorpions, dozens of them crawling all over themselves. Not sure why I’d ever need a bag of live scorpions. But, if I do, I now know where I can get them.
Speaking of the animal kingdom, I have had a few up close and personal encounters of the vermin kind in my office. The other week, I returned to work after a short break to find that a rat had gnawed through my bag to get to a banana I had stupidly left behind. Next, I noticed a few fecal gifts on my desk. Well, if that was how they were going to play it, game on. Before I set out for lunch, we set a sticky trap baited with a cookie on top of my filing cabinet. An hour later, back in front of my desk, I heard a shuffling squeak, turned around, and saw a rat glaring at me, stuck to the board. After removing my rodent friend, we set out a new board. Within 30 minutes, two additional rats had been captured. We don’t need an exterminator, we need a pied piper. It was like the movie Willard. The next time someone tells you how cushy we foreign service officers have it, ask them how many rats they caught on their desks today.
Hoan Kiem at night. Hanoians are increasingly affluent and most teens have access to a motorbike or at least to a friend who has a motorbike. At the same time, there are few places to go to on that motorbike. So what to do? Like small towns throughout the US, you cruise. And what better place to cruise that to Hoan Kiem lake in the center of town. If the weather is nice on a Saturday night around 11 o’clock the circuit around the lake is packed, and I mean packed with kids sitting on their scooters. Hundreds of them. One, two, or three to a bike, just sitting there looking out over the street. Then, suddenly, on some unknown signal, a bunch take off, off on another circuit. Just like a herd of wilderbeasts following a leader they all move in union. And then they stop and park. And start again.
Vietnamese wedding. Earlier this year, my Vietnamese language teacher invited Liz and me to attend the wedding of her brother in-law. First, we joined close family members at the actual exchange of vows. We were the only Westerners crowded into the downstairs and front yard of an urban townhouse. Several neighbors stopped by to see what was going on. Though excited to participate, I was hoping to blend into the background, sort of like a fly on the wall. Instead, we were seated at the head table, with the parents and family elders. More like an elephant in the middle of the room. Still, it was a great chance to practice Vietnamese and see wedding traditions up close. Many of the bride’s older relatives were farmers from Nghe An province (Ho Chi Minh’s place of birth). They would ask questions. I would try to figure out what they asked and then respond. Not sure if we actually had a meeting of the minds, but they got a kick out of my attempts. The bride and groom wore western garb as they posed for photos with family (and a special photo with us). In the background, we watched the wedding video, containing several sets of photos of the couple – in traditional garb, playing instruments, in the park, in front of a sports car. It must have taken days for all those photos. While running in the park, we often pass couples taking their wedding shots – brides changing from dress to dress, grooms in tuxes, hair gelled into place. Photographers and lighting assistants running around, primping the bride in the heat. Then a couple of sweaty American joggers pass by to ruin the picture.
The actual wedding party was at a nearby restaurant, with several hundred guests. Unlike western weddings, there was no elaborate cocktail hour or mingling of relatives and friends. Instead, the waitstaff placed large plates of food on the tables for communal dining. We ate quickly while the bride and groom drank celebratory toasts on a stage in front of the room and then walked around greeting guests. From time to time, our neighbors would lift up a glass and we would all take a sip in honor of the newlyweds. One hour later, it was over. Everyone said their goodbyes and hurried home by 6 pm.
Nutz. Hanoi is not a late-night town. While there are plenty of restaurants, bars, and outdoor beer venues, most shut down by 11 pm. I’m sure there are clubs and other venues that I don’t know about, but, really, there aren’t that many places to go if you want to dance. Hanoi used to have one giant dance club, but it was closed right before we got to town (darn). Now, if you’re a young upwardly mobile Vietnamese looking for a place to strut your stuff you go to “Nutz,” the bar at the Sheraton. Seems a little funny, but it’s true. The Sheraton sports bar turns into one of Hanoi’s top clubs on Saturday evenings. Unlike bars in Bangkok, this one featured many young Vietnamese women AND Vietnamese men. A few older white guys (not me, I was with friends in the corner) wandered around looking bewildered wondering why the women weren’t all over them.
It was a young crowd, in its early 20s. Men in jeans and patterned shirts. Women wore low rise jeans or shorts. A few women smoked, which is quite rare for northern Vietnam. Some of the men wore shades despite the dimmed lights. I was curious to find out their backgrounds. Students? Probably with wealthy or well-connected parents. Too young to have their own money. The music was mostly Techno. People danced at the bar, danced in the aisles, danced with their friends. A few made it to the dance floor. Everyone was having a good time – even the security guards who checked our bags at the door and patrolled the premises throughout the night. Not sure why the Sheraton, of all places, became the gathering place for the young and hot, but so be it.
Liz turned 33 and we hosted a birthday party at “Five”, a new bistro/bar in the middle of the old quarter. This being Liz, the room overflowed with friends from the Embassy, her job, and from around town. We even had a special guest from the States, Liz’s good friend from her FCC days, John Giusti. People drank a lot of wine and stayed late. As is usual with Liz, she also became quite close with the owner of the restaurant, who now loves her. She’s well on her way to becoming queen of the Hanoi expat social scene.
