An Australian-Englishman's Daily Dose of Life in Vietnam

"Life out here tends to make me feel like a jigsaw piece in the wrong box."

Part I - Stupid is as Stupid Does

I wouldn't say I'm an altogether stupid foreigner, living out here in Hanoi. Though sometimes I have been deserving of this label, if it is your actions and not your intellect that defines you.

It occasionally gets stitched on my forehead by locals who mostly assume I haven't a word of Vietnamese. It is a fair assumption. I'm not fluent by any stretch, but have been here for nearly four years and happen to worship a local girl, which all helps.

I'm often slapped with a 'stupid' sticker in circumstances created by my own childish frustrations with the tiny, gnawing discomforts out here, despite the obvious fact that these are to be expected when you've marooned yourself on what may as well be a different planet. It also tends to happen when I've simply failed to understand what is being barked at me by a frantic, middle-aged man in a military uniform in the street, a surly soup lady or a shop worker who is fed up with my incessant bargaining. Hanoians haven't had much practice at listening to foreigners butcher their language either, which makes it extra difficult to convey my half of an exchange in any one of six differing word tones, from word to word. Only the truly disciplined immigrants master the local dialect and uniquely grueling pronunciation process. Hence why conversations with Viets often feel like trying to play tennis on a court with lines that are always moving mid-point, or with a rule book book that is being re-written with every play depending on the mood and whim of the umpire.

I've come to learn that many of the exchanges between people, especially middle-aged people, in Hanoi are frequently like a game. Depending on the context this game could be a noisy, frantic sport to which the rules are a total mystery to me, or a more measured, calculating chess match. Someone is always trying to be heard over all others, considered the more correct, the more funny, the most helpful or simply the superior in the exchange. Sometimes asking for directions on the fringes of tiny country towns on my motorcycle has turned into a mildly heated contest between four to five people; all tussling to be the one who provides me with the definitive route to the nearest petrol station. I have trawled through online journals and spoken extensively with my native, Hanoian friends to try and understand this. Even if to merely to grasp why I have formed these perceptions of Hanoian people. It helped, a little.

It's a society built on centuries of Confucianism, an old-fashioned pedagogy, working and domestic matriarchies, governmental and social patriarchies and very top-down perceptions of authority, power and knowledge. Every pronoun used is reflective of one's age and sex in relation to the other person speaking. Hanoi, and wider Vietnam, is a place of layers. Hanoi is an impossibly complex fusion of countryside Vietnamese, urban Vietnamese, Chinese, French and now international influences, histories, economic approaches, religions and traditions. None of which have any bearing at all on my Australian-English background forged in the quieter suburbs of Sydney and later, London. Hence why I seldom feel like anything but a jigsaw piece in the wrong box out here.

Having said that, I am almost always made to feel heart-warmingly welcome. Whether I'm a shock arrival into tiny, enchanting villages lost in the last tribal valleys of Vietnam's mountains or sat in a lake-side cafe in downtown Hanoi. Vietnamese hospitality, curiosity and warmth is almost uniform. Especially in the countryside.

I also love it here. I've relished feeling like, and sometimes inevitably looking like, the elephant in the room. Give me this sensation over the bland, effectively economically gated communities of expats who seem to want to create home, here. Instead of relishing, embracing and experimenting with the lit firework in your lunch box that daily life in Hanoi can be, so many of my colleagues and acquaintances have simply insulated themselves in exported hipster culture, chain coffee shops, craft beer, burgers and 7-Eleven styled conveniences. I don't judge it. I've often found comfort and joy in these little vestiges of the outside world. It's hypocritical, but in a broader sense I simply don't get it. Flying thousands of kilometres to engage yourself for 90% of the time, in a form of faux Western culture, is my own standard of “stupid”.

Sometimes the stupid label is just outright rudeness, xenophobia and very occasionally, racism shining through. Most of the time, it is pretty well earned by my own actions, petty discomforts, hangups, sulkiness, naivety, a misguided sense of adventure and or linguistic inadequacies. If nothing else I've learned to laugh a lot more at myself, in general and when Viets do. I've also tried to condense these little moments into anecdotes for my friends, in a vein attempt to somehow justify my long absences from home. It's an expat syndrome, according to my Father. As if time somehow stands still when I'm not in London and people are chomping at the bit to be entertained with well-spun tales of exotic, far-away places.

Hence my friend's mercilessly crafted invitation to try and entertain her last Christmas.

I felt a little like her dancing monkey.

“Have you found yourself Jim?” Fern said with ripe sarcasm.

She smiled, locked me in with her eyes and sipped her red wine with a grin. The fire crackled beneath its grand, wooden mantle piece. An unnervingly large, hairy dog yawned as it dried in the glow of the towering flames. Two men ranted about Brexit and trade tariffs in the corner. Snow was falling softly beyond heavy, hardwood door of the pub. I was home.

I hadn't found myself in Vietnam. What I had found was nearly impossible to explain.

I had nearly found death. Several times.

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