INTERACTIONS WITH LOCALS—

                Although I have lived in Thailand for more than three years, I have actually done very little travel within Asia.  I went to Japan, I have been to Malaysia, and I have traveled and lived within Thailand.  Therefore, I pretty much compare all interactions with a new SE Asian people to my experience with Thais.

I found Vietnam to be… a lot of work, by comparison.  If the person I was dealing with didn’t speak English, it was highly unlikely that I would be able to communicate my wants and needs effectively.  Honestly, even if they DID speak English, it was a bit of a crap shoot.  Now, you may think that not being able to speak a common language would, duh, mean that you can’t communicate.  However, in Thailand (if you don’t speak Thai and they don’t speak your language) you are generally still able to get your point across through a mixture of pointing and miming and sometimes just repeating the word in English over and over while smiling.  I don’t know why that works, but it does.

Vietnam has a huge coffee culture and there were many times that I would see on a menu that they had both a latte and a caramel macchiato listed.  Therefore, logic dictates that I should be able to get a caramel latte, right?  Wrong.  Even if I was in an upscale restaurant with wait staff that spoke impeccable English, I was not once able to get a caramel latte.  When I would ask for one or even point to the latte on the menu and ask for caramel to be added to it, I may as well have switched to speaking Latin.  They would look at me like I had sprouted horns.  One server, bless his heart, really did try to get me one.  It most definitely had caramel in it.  From the looks of it, about four pumps worth.  All settled at the bottom of the glass.  Thinking back on it, I couldn’t say for sure if it had any coffee in it.  But caramel, yes.

“When I was in ‘Nam…”:  My last night in Vietnam, we all went to this new “Korean” restaurant.  It was actually a bingsu restaurant, which is a Korean shaved ice dessert.  They did have food, but it was more of an aside.  “Oh, perhaps we should also have some food besides shaved ice desserts on the menu.”  I was happy to see that in addition to pho and chicken “nudgets”, they had bibimbap.  The waitress couldn’t speak English, but the menu was numbered and in English and Vietnamese.  Four of us pointed to the bibimbap and indicated that we each wanted one.  Also ordered were two large plates of French fries and a hamburger.  My friend tried to communicate that he wanted no lettuce or tomato on his burger, only ketchup.  Although she nodded as if she understood, we all knew there would be no alteration made.  Of the seven orders of food, we ended up receiving one bibimbap, one plate of fries, one “ham”burger (literally, a slab of ham cooked into gray oblivion on a roll—with lettuce and tomato), and an order of Korean sushi (kimbap), which we didn’t order.  The kimbap was really good.

After I realized that no more food was going to be coming out, I tried to hail one of the 20 servers who were standing around doing absolutely nothing.  Although I made eye contact and gestured over quite a few of them, none came to our aid.  When we eventually got the check, it was very wrong with multiple items that we hadn’t ordered (or received) and the items we did order (and didn’t receive).  After we paid for the items we had actually consumed, we finally went for dinner.  At a different restaurant.

In Thailand, the locals are pretty shy about speaking English or interacting with “farang”, unless they live in a high tourism area or are trying to sell you something.  In the classroom, one of the focuses is just getting the kids comfortable speaking and willing to make mistakes and know that it’s ok.  Vietnamese are not even remotely shy about interacting with the foreigners.  They like to follow you around closely as you go about your business and flex their English.  Behavior that would result in the police being called back in The States.

“When I was in ‘Nam…”: One evening, I was walking along the Huong River taking photos and waiting for the lights of the bridges to come on.  I accidentally made eye contact with a young woman.  Upon noticing I was a white foreigner and therefore must speak English, she engaged and asked to have a conversation with me.  I had been in the country for a couple of weeks now and was just about at the end of my rope with being followed around and being asked questions.  But the English teacher in me felt the pressure of nurturing her desire to practice the language she was learning.  The compromise I made with her was that she could follow me and ask me questions while I took photos, but I wasn’t going to just sit on a park bench with her, which was what she wanted to do.  In fairness, she spoke amazing English.  Her name was Huong (same as the river) and she was a university student in Hue.  She asked intelligent, well-formed questions and not just the usual chit-chat that I am used to.  I didn’t even need to pidgin my English for her.  Her friend, Nga, joined us and we had a pleasant walk up and down the riverside while the sun set.  As nice as it ended up being, in the future I will probably pretend to NOT speak English (won’t go with French or Russian, though—that could backfire)…

AIRPORT SECURITY—

                The reason I bring this up is purely anecdotal.

“When I was in ‘Nam…”: While in Vietnam, I flew domestically four times. Of those four times, my bag was rescanned and opened twice.  “Why?” you may ask.  I will tell you…

I collect a few different things while I travel.  One of the items is sand from beaches that I go to.  Eventually, this sand will go into apothecary jars with nicely printed labels, but for now it’s a collection of Ziploc baggies in an old cookie tin.  Sometimes, I find myself at a beach unexpectedly and without a bag to put sand in.  An empty water bottle is handy in a pinch.  Solid and sealable.

I had gone to Nha Trang for a couple of days to visit friends.  Obviously, I collected a small bottle of sand while I was there.  Thought nothing of it.  Never been an issue going through security.  As my carry-on bag passed through the scanner (and was put BACK through), my first thought was “I should have taken my liquids out.”  The woman asked me to open my bag and I did so without hesitation, fully prepared to remove the regulation-sized bag of regulation-sized toiletries.  Not what she was interested in. 

Here’s how the conversation went…  

“You have sand in your bag.”

“Yes, I collect it.”

“Throw away.”

(Our flight had already been delayed two hours without notice for a 40-minute flight and it had been a fairly frustrating couple of days in Nha Trang.  Normally, I would have just acquiesced to the requests of an airport security guard, but I knee-jerk reacted this time.)

“Why?  Why do I have to throw it away?”

“It’s dirty.”

“Yeah, and?” (Remember, it is in a tightly lidded water bottle.)

“Put in checked bag.”

“I don’t have a checked bag. This is my only bag.”

“You like?”

“Yes, I collect sand.”

“Ok, keep in bag. Don’t open.”

Of all the…  Seriously??  What did she think this strange white girl with sand was going to do?  Take it out in flight and cradle it?  Open it and start throwing it around the airplane?

This scenario was actually repeated when I flew out of Hue…  By then I had a water bottle AND a small bag of sand.  The horror!