Single White Female in Hanoi (22 page)

My crush on Quan is interspersed with brief, seemingly mutual crushes on any number of other local boys. It always seems promising at first. It always comes to nothing. Some hand-holding, a dry peck on the cheek, a tactless and unexpected reference to my advanced age. Never a hug. Embrace a Viet boy (even one that really
is
infatuated with you) and you'll feel a shop-window dummy in your arms. He'll freeze, alarmed and stop breathing. Hugging, particularly with a member of the opposite sex, doesn't seem to be part of the culture.

Trung is a jazz pianist – a friend of Nguyet. He has such unremarkable features that he defies description. ‘Nondescript' is the best I can come up with. Unless he's at the piano I usually fail to recognise him. He goes dead quiet and stares at me whenever I turn up at his gigs. But he always insists I sit in with the band for a few tunes, for which I'm grateful.

The bass-player, who speaks some English, tells me, with meaningful glances, that Trung likes me very much. Nguyet tells me he wants to ask me out. It occurs to me that this could just possibly be the real thing, not just another case of mistaken identity. I just shake my head sadly. It could have been so good – a fellow pianist to show me the culture and help me learn the language, a social group of jazz-playing locals to jam with, a release from the unrequited agony of Quan. But it won't happen, and it's not just because he doesn't speak English.

It's because, cruelly, against all odds, I don't find Trung attractive.

Despite this, Trung has a small but unforgettable role to play in my cultural education. Through Nguyet, he invites me to his house for lunch.

Nguyet arrives at my place to pick me up. She's with the bass-player. Because of some family connection to the arts, Trung lives at a prestigious address in a compound right behind the Hanoi Opera House. But while the address is prestigious, the architecture is toilet-block – a single long block full of dwellings inside a paved compound. It's old, government-built housing, poorly maintained. A rat dashes out of Trung's house as we pull up.

Inside, Trung falteringly introduces me to his father, who shakes my hand and smiles. He can't speak English either. Trung's mother speaks fluently, says Nguyet, but she's away on business in Europe. There's an uncle there too, and his quiet wife. They live next door. And
Ba
– Trung's paternal grandmother. She has the long grey hair and betel-chewing mouth of every
ba
in the land. She nods a greeting at me from the toilet, where she's preparing lunch. I watch her de-stem and wash an enormous bundle of dirty
Rau Muong
. She does this in a plastic basin on the floor of the tiny toilet, which is off the kitchen.

Trung has invited a couple of his friends from the Conservatory – aspiring jazz-musicians. One speaks a little English. We all sit at the piano and soon I find myself showing some chord voicings and improvisation ideas to these eager students. After a while though, I'm lured from the piano by a new family member. Trung's pretty younger sister, Tuyet, has emerged from her loft and wants to welcome me to the house. She introduces herself, takes my arm and leads me over to the carved wooden bench that serves as the sofa in many Hanoi living rooms. Then Tuyet sits beside me, close enough to press the creases out of my silk shirt. She seems to have taken to me strongly. I'm flattered, and having been deprived of intimacy for many months now, I'm not about to discourage her affections, however sudden.

She compliments me on my clothes, tells me how young and slim I look. She seems disturbed by the fact that I'm 14 years older than her, and looks a little disappointed when she learns I'm not American. She asks me what I think of her English.

‘Your English is good,' I tell her. Her English is better than Nguyet's and better than the bass-player's, although that barely puts her at Intermediate level. ‘I'm studying English,' she explains. ‘In one month, I will sit the IELTS test. I want to study at university in America.'

The IELTS test is an international standard designed to assess a person's English. It tests the four skills – Speaking, Listening, Reading, Writing. Non-native English speakers need a good IELTS result in order to study at many English-speaking Universities. It's a stringent exam, especially for Vietnamese, who struggle particularly in the speaking and writing components.

Tuyet wants me to help her pass the exam. I tell her I'll do what I can. I mention a few useful websites set up to help IELTS students. In the next room,
Ba
has set the food on the table and now Nguyet calls us to lunch. I take my allocated place beside Tuyet and at right angles to the father who sits at the head of the table. According to Vietnamese tradition, this position means I'm the honoured guest.

But then I notice, to my dismay, that the vegetarian dishes I was promised all have meat in them. The vegetarian soup has pork in it, the fried vegetables have small pieces of brown meat through them, the tofu dish has fish sauce in it. My options are boiled rice and
Rau Muong
.

Trung's father, as head of table, serves himself first. I feel the eyes of the table on me as I decline dish after dish. The bass player and Tuyet try to convince me to eat some meat, as though it was an idea that had just never occurred to me. I start to feel very self-conscious, and finally wonder whether I shouldn't decline family meal invitations from now on. Through the translators, the family ask the usual questions: ‘How many days a month do you eat vegetarian?' and, on learning I'm not Buddhist, ‘If you are not a Buddhist, then you should eat meat, no?'

Just as we're about to tuck in, Tuyet asks if there's anything I would like.

‘Do you have any chilli sauce?' I ask, fatefully. She disappears into the kitchen for a while, then comes out looking anxious. There's a conversation in Vietnamese, she grabs some cash from the teak sideboard and heads out the door before I can tell her not to worry. Her lunch sits steaming and untouched in her bowl. I presume she's popped out to grab a vendor, until I hear the revving of a motorcycle.

So now I'm sitting at a table, the guest of honour, with a family I've never met before. My neighbours on either side and across the table are non-English speakers. I've declined almost all their culinary offerings and now I've inconvenienced Tuyet, who has had to go to buy chilli sauce. This means that I can't start eating until she gets back.

The family eats noisily. I wait with my bowl of rice and greens. Ten or so minutes pass, Tuyet hasn't returned. I try to look involved in the conversation, which is all in Vietnamese. My stomach is rumbling loudly and I feel I'm starting to fade. Tuyet has obviously gone to the market. I notice I've been toying absently with my chopsticks and decide to unhand myself of them.

I lodge the sticks upright into my pile of rice, and leave them there, pointing jauntily towards the ceiling. I put my hands in my lap and lean forward to feign interest in whatever the hell they're talking about.

But they're not talking anymore. They're looking at me – or rather, at the bowl in front of me. Trung's father raises his voice and addresses the table. He looks nerve-wrackingly serious. Alarmed, I scan the faces at the table for one that can enlighten me. My eyes settle on Nguyet. ‘Carolyn, Carolyn,' she's saying urgently. ‘You must not do like this. Please! Take out the chopsticks.'

The father has actually gone a bit red in the face. He's looking at me in amazement. The bass player tries to explain.

‘It's very bad luck. It mean death.'

‘Death?' I've removed my heavenward-pointing chopsticks.

‘Yes – offer up to the ancestor like this.'

I've just committed the biggest faux pas of my expatdom. I'm pretty confused, but I have some small idea that the Vietnamese are very superstitious about death. Natassia has told me never to take white flowers to a house, because white is the colour of death.

It may be a coincidence that I'm never invited back to Trung's place. But it won't be the last I hear from his sister Tuyet. She returns a short while afterwards unaware of my breach of etiquette. She asks me for my email address before I leave.

A few days later I receive an email from her telling me how nice it was to meet me. She wants to meet up regularly with me so that I can help her with her English. In conclusion, she leaves me with the following thought.

‘I hope we can be best friends.'

This perplexes me so much, I don't reply.

The newspaper gig drags on. The general level of morale in the room is very low, not only among the foreigners in our corner, but also among the ranks of reporters. It occurs to me that the vast and depersonalising architecture may contribute to this but Bill, my Aussie mate, blames it partly on resentment by reporters towards the foreign staff because our wage is around twenty times theirs.

I'm slowly getting to know the Vietnamese reporters. Bich Mai, the individual responsible for the nightmare of 525/Bicycle manages to churn out a similar
tour de force
each week. She's young and tiny-waisted. She strikes me as rather brainless and becomes a classic bimbo when she's in the vicinity of the other guys on our editorial team. As soon as she comes within two metres of them she starts giggling, flicking her hair and flattering them. The guys lap it up.

One of her many specialities is percentage breakdowns that don't add up to 100 per cent. Today I'm subbing a story that investigates ‘Reason of road accidents'. The breakdown is as follows: By passengers, 1.3 per cent, Overspeeded, 19.7 per cent, Drivers not pay much attention, 12.1 per cent, Unsafety Equipment, 16.3 per cent, Illegal passing, 1.4 per cent, Drunked drivers, 6.8 per cent, Drivers run on wrong road's part, 15.3 per cent, Other reason, 32.8 per cent.

I add up the figures. The total is 105.2 per cent. I call Bich Mai over to my computer. She sashays over in her tight jeans, turning into a tittering coquette on sight of the guys around me. They smile and tell her how cute she looks today. I sigh and sit her down beside me. I run my index finger across the screen. ‘The total is 105.2 per cent.'

‘Yes?'

‘Mai – you can't have more that a hundred per cent. It's not possible.' She looks directly at me for a second, her expression unreadable. Then, with an unconvincing smile, asks me, ‘What is problem?'

‘The problem is – at least one of these numbers,' I jab irritably at the screen, ‘is wrong.'

‘Yes?' she does the look again. Is it puzzlement or dislike?

‘In foreigner paper, we like it to add up to one hundred.'

‘So, I think … I think you must change one.' She gets up to go. I grab her by the arm, try to be civil.

‘Mai! wait – don't go yet. You must find out which ones are not correct, so I can change them.'

She hums quietly to herself for a few seconds, scanning the screen. ‘This one!' she cries, suddenly inspired. I follow her finger to the screen. ‘Yes,' she affirms, ‘“Other Reason”. You can change this one.' She rises. I let her go.

For a long time at
National Economic Review
, I'm merciless on reporters who do this. And in fairness, it's not just Bich Mai. Figures are tossed randomly around like old dog-chewed tennis balls. This is one of the most prestigious publications in the country, yet neither the reporters nor their overseers cares if percentages don't add up. The censors don't care either. They're just there to run the red pen over any war references, or investigations that impugn the government's credibility.

As I learn more about Vietnam's recent history I come to understand this looseness with numbers. These people have been fed nothing but lies and distortions by the media for two decades. It's an open secret that just about every figure they've ever read in the national press has been confabulated. They simply have no respect for statistics, and they presume no one else does either.

Besides Bich Mai sits Bich Ngoc, whom my spellchecker insists on renaming ‘Bitch Knob.' She's pregnant, expanding rapidly, and sits munching sugar cane all day. The spat out pith forms towering mulch structures in the paper bin beside her. I rarely see a story with her name on it.

Opposite them sits a tear-jerkingly attractive male reporter called Duc. Early on, Aussie Bill encouraged me to ask him out for dinner but I've realised he's not remotely interested in hanging out with a foreign woman. Duc doesn't seem to have much of a grip on spoken English. He answers ‘Yest' to all my questions, which I presume means ‘yes', although he does it even when the correct answer is no. This doesn't stop me from finding excuses to call him over to my desk whenever possible so that I can lament his impossible beauty close up.

But he's one of the two qualified journalists in the place and he can actually write. His stories strike me as reasonable stories written by a journalist struggling with a foreign language. Duc is unrelated to ‘Malcolm' upstairs. Despite actually being qualified, he gets paid the same wage as the others.

I quickly learn who the censors are. They're the most humourless characters in the room. Chanh sits some way from the foreigner enclave and avoids all conversation with us. I've never seen her smile. Occasionally she submits a woeful piece of copy which Alistair insists darkly we salvage. She's ‘Malcolm's' sister-in-law. When I finally try to chat with her I discover why she avoids conversation. She can barely speak English.

Her fellow stooge is a reserved, earnest guy called Nam. He sits right near me and smells repellent. He also submits an occasional story, and his efforts can inflict almost as much misery as a Bich Mai effort. But he's quite gentle and odour aside, harmless. He's a party man through and through. Rumour has it that he wants to run for a seat in the National Assembly in the forthcoming five-yearly elections.

One day I offer him a cigarette. The brand is 555, a British cigarette made in Singapore. At just over US$.60 a packet, they're the most extravagant smoke in the land, but worth it at twice the price. Nam goes to take one, sees the packet then shakes his head vigorously.

‘No!' he barks with uncharacteristic pep. ‘I do not smoke capitalist cigarette'. I apologise and back off as fast as possible. Later in the day he approaches me at my desk with a packet of locally made, government-owned Thanh Long cigarettes. ‘Here. You smoke this one,' he orders, lighting one for me. Almost immediately the tobacco starts to pop and spit. ‘This is good cigarette,' he enthuses.

I murmur and nod. In order to keep the smouldering tobacco from leaping out of its paper tube I have to hold the cigarette upright. To take a drag I have to position my head underneath it. Nam looks pleased as he turns and walks back to his desk. I can't help but like him.

I juggle my three jobs easily. Four classes a week at Global, three days a week at the newspaper and a couple of classes at the UNCO school. Most times, my
xe om
driver to work is Quan, which means I wake up each day full of sensual anticipation.

One of the UNCO classes is a beginners' class at the Kung Fu campus where I first met the tight-lipped Ly. The students won't speak, just stare at me with expressionless faces. Their bootlegged textbooks sit in front of them, always open on the right page.

After the first class the students complained I spoke too fast, which surprised me since I'm practised at the slow, clear speech beginners need. Students often compliment me on my ability to be understood, which I attribute in part to the fact of my fairly neutral accent. In the next class I slowed down to a Quaalude-haze speed. They complained again. For the third class I emitted a legato drone comprising about one painstakingly enunciated syllable per second. It sounded like a performance by the Theatre of the Absurd. The students liked it but asked Ly to ask me if my pronunciation is normal since I seem to have a strange accent. By now I'm utterly baffled.

In the next class I ask students how long they've been learning English.

‘How long have you been learning English?' I ask a young woman. She shakes her head.

‘How-long-have-you-been-learning-English?'

‘nguh…, nguh…, nguh…' This is the Vietnames equivalent of ‘errrrm'. I wait. No answer. I try again.

‘How-long-you-learn-English?'

She stares at me panic-stricken, cocks her head towards me for a repeat.

I walk up to her and repeat the question more quietly. I don't want to embarrass her. It's useless. The girl beside her pipes up. She's a friend. ‘She learn English only three year.'

I walk away shell-shocked. I ask tight-lipped Ly about it. The students have never heard a native English speaker. They've learnt lots of reading and writing and truckloads of grammar, but the only spoken English they've heard has come from the mouth of a Vietnamese English teacher who has no more idea of what real English sounds like than they do.

By week four, I've modified my teaching approach, focussing on pronunciation and intonation, writing everything on the board. The students start to respond.

By week five all is lost.

Minutes into the lesson, the padlocked fire-door beside me at the front of the room breaks into song. It sings in a drunken baritone. The song has the unmistakeable boom and bluster of the Russian patriotic song, although sung in Vietnamese. Over the next ten minutes, the singing gets louder and louder as other male voices join in. The voices create an enormous amount of reverberation. I deduce this to be because they're singing inside a cavernous wooden hall on the other side of the door.

I pull a face at the door and raise an eyebrow at the class, but incredibly, they're ignoring it completely. It's as though I've gone mad and for my intellectual swansong my brain has chosen a programme of drunken military music.

To keep teaching, I have to shout. The singing continues for the duration of the lesson.

And the next lesson. And every following lesson for the remainder of the course. It's a weekly gathering. By the next week the invisible war vets are dancing too, judging by the thumping and pounding on the other side of the firedoor. And clapping out of time. I shout ever louder above the din and the students continue to act as though nothing is going on. The scenario is so absurd, so unmistakeably Vietnamese that sometimes I fear I'll break down and cry with laughter.

When I ask Ly if I can be transferred to another classroom she explains there isn't one. She doesn't seem to want to discuss the problem either. It seems likely that I've hit the boundaries of permissible topics of discussion. This singing is a war thing. As a foreigner, perhaps I'm not expected to understand.