(Miss) Taken Identity
After getting through the border guards, the scammers, a 2-hours van ride jammed in with luggage and 16 other backpackers (not to mention one glorious 20-yard walk across the border, leaving China behind among palm trees), I was in Hanoi, the Vietnam capital.
I've been hesitant to write anything thus far about Vietnam, because I don't quite have anything coherent to say about it – yet. It's infuriatingly disappointing but so tantalizing with potential and sparkling with moments of brilliance all at once. I've met more hustlers here than I've had anywhere, but I've identified more with them than I'd like to admit.
Vietnam has always been portrayed as a woman – a raped girl or an innocent virgin or a self-interested creature combining equal parts craft and mesmerizing allure. Does suffering harden a country and is a hardened country more equipped to overcome suffering? Which comes first – the suffering or the hustle? I see the effects of the wars on the attitudes of the people, but I also see something comforting in my kinsman-ship to these people.
Suffering: I've met cyclo drivers pedaling for 30 minutes over 5 kilometers to earn a dollar, women bent in the muddy rice fields from dawn til dusk, crippled mothers and their crippled babies, hands outstretched for lint and change, old women with baskets I can never lift on their shoulders, walking for miles to sell a few misshapen fruits... I've met wearied smiling souls, fated with sufferings by the lines on their faces and the crevasses on their hands, enduring because that is the only thing they've learned to do...
Hustling: I've been charged more than three times the prices in certain areas, lied to about the availability of common conveniences (e.g. a bus route from one part of the city to another), manipulated into collusionary outfits (e.g. a taxi or bus will stop at a specific hotel or restaurant or shop with no other viable alternatives nearby), given the runaround on the true details of services (e.g. hotel rooms, transportation options, etc.), and at times, ignored or accosted because I am a foreign Vietnamese.
In their eyes, I am not a Vietnamese person – and really, what right do I have, coming back with my Western eyes, demanding equal treatment from those who have suffered so? How do my Western standards of hospitality and transparency hold up, when I come back not to be part of Vietnam but to take advantage of her, to use my foreign currency and obtain cheap services bought by the sufferings of past generations, to live a carefree existence on beaches and under palm trees, to have downtime in a country where leisure time is a luxury?
It is so easy to get, to obtain, to borrow and buy and grab, attractive girls here. They all want a foreigner – go to a club and how they grind and sweat and perform their machinations for the glances of a foreigner, for a nguoi Tay or a Viet-Kieu...
I quibble with the stall vendor doling out soup because she charged me 4,000 dong more than the local person, about 25 cents.
It does not come down to numbers or even words – it shows through the eyes. The different flashes of recognition and judgment and questioning, swallowed deep in those dark pools and reflected in the stares. I see it around me – perhaps because I understand the language, or that I carry with me my personal biases – but those eyes hold in them all the innumerable pieces of my identity, taken and scattered into the ebb and flow of innocence running wild.
Liked this entry and felt a strange sadness in reading it.
Posted by: Christine | January 26, 2006 at 11:31 AM
it's weird.. you know how a mother hen refuses her chicks if she smells a human or some strange scent on them? i feel that way about the attitudes of vietnam towards the vietnamese in the diaspora.
Posted by: j.fisher | January 27, 2006 at 08:14 PM