Living in Vietnam means that I am constantly straddling the murky line between formal and informal. On the surface, Hanoi seems like a city where anything goes: incessant two-way traffic occurs on narrow roads with lanes drawn only for aesthetic purposes; hawkers litter the myriads of alleyways that mark the seams between the city’s numerous fragments, selling anything from bras to tasty bowls of bun cha. Pavements here are a lot more than just pedestrian walkways; they are homes to parked SUVs of the wealthy, as well as café-sua-da-sipping locals and Chinese chess-playing seniors. Once you leave your apartment, you have nowhere to hide – not in this densely constructed beast of a city filled with street life. In urban Vietnam, public spaces are public, in every sense of the word. And I love it: finding democratic public spaces occupied by all walks of life in a country under authoritarian rule, no less.
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“Doy muon mot cai,” I stressed and pointed at the spring rolls as I kneeled next to a food stall on Hang Ma. “Những gì???” was the response from the vendor. I attempted to enunciate the Vietnamese words with deliberation but it clearly did not register.
Damn.
I thought as a native speaker of Cantonese—a tonal language, like Vietnamese—I would have a distinct advantage over the average foreign expatriate; after all, many Vietnamese expressions and vocabularies are inherited from millennia of Chinese occupation.
Wrong. Just because I can spot the difference between an up accent and a down accent does not mean I can correctly pronounce words that begin with ng and nh, such as ngu or nhi.
Such is the life of a southern Chinaman in Vietnam: everything seems so familiar yet inaccessible at the same time.
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Working as an international development professional in this formerly-socialist (at present it is only communist in name) country also means that I get a full frontal of its bureaucracy. Public sector agencies in Vietnam, much like ones I have come across in Latin America and other developing nations, are characterized by not-so-subtle exchanges of winks, handshakes, and envelopes stashed with American dollars. UN and World Bank projects all reserve budgets for informal payments (note: bribes); cash is required whether it is a request for a meeting with the minister or government data needed for a public needs assessment. This highlights the irony of development efforts in Vietnam and elsewhere: in order to help craft better living conditions for those who are less-privileged, we have to enrich those who are (at least partially) responsible for the pervasive socioeconomic injustices. Necessary evil? I do not dare answer.
Relaxation spots can be found anywhere in Hanoi.
I know what you mean about the feeling of always being watched. Delhi is very much like that. People everywhere. Going there in May got me thinking about how different cultures interpret the idea of a ‘city’, and how socioeconomic factors such as rural to urban migration, levels of education and availability of jobs interact with that to give that city a unique ‘feel’. Delhi is a chaotic, dirty and weak agglomeration of humans – but everyone seems to just get on with it.
Sounds like Hanoi is vastly different from that and what one finds here in Europe. I can’t wait to come and visit.
Hopefully by then your Vietnamese will be up to scratch, too…