Sai
Gon: Beginner’s Vietnamese
By Grover Reidi
I had moved to Sai Gon, at the beginning
of monsoon season, to write a book. I stepped off
the plane in early June to a hot, humid, but clear
day. The second I disembarked, the moisture in the
air hit me like a fist, along with the tropical smells
of dirt, life, and decomposition.
From Tan Son Nhut airport, I rode
a taxi to my guesthouse. We drove along a wide boulevard
with palms along the median. The houses were all tall,
thin structures made of cement and tile. Motorbikes
surrounded the cab, skirting quickly between each
other to gain position, like minnows. Most motorbikes
carried two, three, even four people. A group of three
oil-covered men in tattered jumpsuits rode by, squeezed
onto a brown and tan motorbike, a timeless Russian
hand-me-down.
The boulevard ended, and the cab
turned along narrower roads, more crowded with bicycles
and motorbikes. On the boulevard, the median had divided
traffic clearly. In the city, however, rules no longer
applied. Motorbikes weaved over the yellow lines into
oncoming traffic in order to overtake drivers ahead
of them. Others turned from alleys onto the street
and drove against traffic along the curb until they
reached an intersection, where they’d cut across to
the other side.
Girls in long, white ao dai
rode behind boys wearing slacks and collared
shirts, the girls chastely clasping the bar behind
them or sometimes only lightly touching the boys’
hips. I noticed only a handful of traffic lights,
which seemed largely ignored. The only traffic lights
I saw showed up when the taxi reached District One,
the central district of Sai Gon that housed all the
tourists. Traffic moved at a red light as often as
at a green one.
I stayed in a room in a guesthouse
called Tao Nhi, a fluorescent-lit room for ten dollars
a night with a large bed, a television, and a fan
in the corner.
Changing times zones is a tricky
business. I arrived in the morning. I understood that
I had to remain awake until nighttime or else it would
take weeks for me to adjust. So I brought my bag up
to my room, changed my clothes and fell dead asleep.
I woke up at night to the sound
of rain dumping down on aluminum roofs. I lolled around
my room until the rain abated and groggily left Tao
Nhi. I began to walk around Pham Ngu Lao, the backpackers’
quarter in District One filled with cheap guesthouses
like mine and bars open late. I couldn’t walk easily
on the sidewalks; they overflowed with beggars, vendors,
residents and tourists.
Everywhere I walked, people hollered
at me, selling food or trinkets. Xe om (motorbike
drivers) clapped, snapped and waved at me to hire
them; but I insisted on walking. One xe om,
however, persisted more than the others. He followed
me while asking questions. He went through what I
now recognize as the standard inquisition: how am
I, where am I from, where am I going, what’s my name,
etc. He seemed nice, and I felt hungry; so I asked
him to take me somewhere to eat.
We sat on a sidewalk in District
Four on child-sized plastic stools eating rice noodles
with squid and pork, and drinking Sai Gon Green beer.
Life in Sai Gon spills out into the streets: people
buy, sell, eat, and sleep in the street. I watched
the stream of bicycles, motorbikes, cyclos, pushcarts
and general chaos as the sun set and the night cooled.
I asked Tuan, my xe om, questions about Vietnamese
culture and history as well as how to say basic Vietnamese
words. He always changed the subject, however, to
beautiful women passing by. He would point to a woman
and say “nice chest” or “big island.” A few women
received “bad island” and a very small part of me
was curious how he knew. If a pair of women passed,
he would laugh and assign one to each of us: “your
girlfriend and your girlfriend.” That’s when I learned
how difficult possessive pronouns are for Vietnamese
people.
I continued to pester him for some
basic words like ‘xin chau’ or ‘xin loi,’
but he only taught me ‘anh diu em.’ Great
– I couldn’t say ‘hello’ or ‘I’m sorry,’ but I could
say ‘I love you.’ I imagined the in-depth conversations
I could now have with Vietnamese women I met.
But the food was delicious and the
company, although a bit distracted, was interesting.
I fell in love with Sai Gon that night, sitting in
the street watching an entire world I’ve never seen
before. I wanted to meet everyone who peddled by and
ask them questions. I wanted to eat every strange
food that I didn’t recognize — spiked fruits, puffed
rice, and steaming platters of I didn’t know what.
Tuan suggested that after dinner
“we go to local bar for happy hour.” I thought, “Sure,
happy hour. Cheap drinks, local bar – sounds like
fun.” Most people who aren’t as dumb as cardboard
realize the difference one article can make: happy
hour = cheap drinks at a bar; a happy hour = something
else entirely.
Unfortunately, I fell into the dumb
as cardboard category; so I let him take me to the
edge of the city. When Tuan said, “Beautiful girls
there,” I thought, “Of course, dummy, it’s a bar.”
I imagined a Vietnamese version of Cheers: replace
the bar with a Styrofoam ice box from the eighties;
switch the bar stools with wobbly plastic chairs;
and trade Ted Danson for an elderly Vietnamese man
with a hairy mole, and voila!
Page 1 of 2 Next Page
All contents copyright ©2005 Pology
Magazine. Unauthorized use of any content is strictly
prohibited.
|