A Different Path, part 2

This is the second part of this story. Please read my first part before reading this one.

The People

One of the best things about Vietnam is the people. There are no people more hospitable, warm, friendly, and welcoming that the Vietnamese. Everyone from small children to elderly adults will smile broadly and greet visitors with a cheerful "Hellooow," even while just passing in the street.

University students will often approach English speaking foreigners in parks and on street corners and strike up a casual conversation. They don't want anything but a little bit of time to practice their English. Their conversations will almost always center around the following questions: "Where are you from?" "Are you here on vacation or do you work here?" "Are you married?" "What do you think of Vietnam?" and "Where have you traveled in Vietnam?"

On a few occasions, I have been walking down the street and men I have never met will motion for me to come over and have a coffee with them. Drinking coffee or tea during the earlier hours of the day and a beer or a shot of rice wine in the later hours is a huge social custom in Vietnam. Cafes flourish all over the country and often people will meet and order a coffee or juice and sit and talk for an hour or more, their cups or glasses long since emptied of whatever it was they ordered to drink. People meeting and getting to know each other will often have a coffee together to break the ice. Many friendships and romantic relationships are formed in cafes.

The Vietnamese are very slow to anger. Very seldom do you see people cussing and yelling at each other or using profane gestures as is often done in the West. Even as crazy and irrational as the traffic can often be in Saigon, drivers are easy going and patient with one another. If a driver does something out of line, another may say something to him or her that is very soft, such as, "You should be more careful when you drive. You could get hurt if you keep driving like that." This is quite a contrast to what one would say in the US. It is considered very poor form to show anger in public.

A Better Life

Contrary to what many people think, the Vietnamese live very happy lives. In fact, Vietnam is the happiest nation in Asia (Nielsen). However, Vietnam is an emerging nation and is still very poor. The average worker in Vietnam earns US$85 per month (US Dept. of State). The people take education very seriously and see it was a way to improve their financial situation. Many young men and women will come to Saigon or Hanoi from the countryside to study at the universities, where the most popular majors are economics, finance, and engineering.

Students in Vietnam's secondary schools attend classes for many hours a day, usually six days a week. As I pass by a huge high school near my house on my daily walks, parents are lined up on their motorbikes to pick up their children as late as 9:00 PM every night except Sunday.

Learning English is also seen by the Vietnamese as essential to improving their lives economically. In most schools, students begin to study English in grade 6 and continue through grade 12. Generally (though of course there are exceptions), only university students learn it well enough to become conversant. Many people will also learn English fairly well at one of the many language schools found throughout the larger cities.

Off to the Market

The Vietnamese love to go to the markets. If you merely mention the word -- "market" -- to most Vietnamese, they will perk up and say, "Oh yeah, the market! Let's go!" It's not just a place to buy goods. It's a cultural and social phenomenon to be sure.

I have visited many markets in Vietnam, but never fail to find them intriguing. There is always something interesting and different in every market. Visitors to Vietnam who don't venture into the markets are failing to experience a major part of the culture of Vietnam!

There are some famous markets in Saigon, such as Ben Thanh, a symbol of the city of Saigon, and Chọ Lơn (“Big Market”) in Chinatown. Some markets are temporary, in that they are there at a certain time of the day, or only on certain days of the week. If it’s a temporary daytime market, for example, if you were to go to the same location at night, you would never even know there had been a market there that day.

In addition, at night, on the outside of the more permanent day market, one will encounter a “night market.” The night market is not just an insignificant affair, but rather an event unto itself. Many locals love the night markets as much as the daytime ones. People will set up temporary facilities, mostly tents and lighting, and continue to sell their wares well into the night. But in the morning, likewise, you won’t see any evidence of the night market.

The Food

I am amused when people ask me, "What do you eat over there?" My answer is, "Some of the best food in the world!" I think the most misunderstood cuisine in the world must be the Vietnamese. I must assume that people imagine the Vietnamese sitting around eating snakes, snails, worms, pig intestines, and insects.

Well...they do.

However, this is only a small part of their diet. The rest of it is absolutely delicious and is one of the healthiest diets you will find. A large percentage of the Vietnamese diet consists of vegetables and rice. Meat is eaten, but in much smaller quantities than in meals in the West. Also, it is quite common for the people here to go days without eating meat at all, especially around Buddhist holidays and certain days of Tet.

Larger cities like Saigon and Hanoi are jam-packed with places to eat. It's hard to walk a single block without passing several eateries, which may range from larger restaurants to street vendors who will set out three or four plastic tables a few chairs for passers-by to stop and have a bowl of soup or BBQ pork and rice noodles. At the larger restaurants, you can order from a full menu of 100 items or more. Selections range from the common: chicken, beef, or pork to the exotic: fried coconut worms, congealed blood, cow tongue, pig feet, and wine-pickled cobra.

Food in Vietnam is incredibly cheap; a full meal including a main course, rice or noodles, vegetable, and drink can be had for under US$2.00. In most smaller restaurants, tipping is very uncommon, though it is appreciated by the wait staff.

In addition to the traditional cuisine, one will encounter KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) franchises all over Saigon. They are enormously popular with people of all ages. I have seen entire families, from small children to grandparents, sharing a nice, greasy box of fried chicken in these establishments.

The evening hours invariably bring a unique set of sounds to the streets and alleyways of Saigon. Men and women will push small carts with food items and call out the names of their wares in an almost songlike fashion. Boys will walk for miles every night beating what sounds similar to a cowbell, announcing to the locals that they have noodle soup (called Hu Tieu) for sale. When you hear the bell, if you want some soup, you’re supposed to run out and pay the boy, then he returns to the place (usually a nearby cart or perhaps their house) where his mother or maybe older sister will prepare the soup and have the boy bring it back to you in a bowl. When you are finished eating the soup, he will return to collect the empty bowl.

There is always something interesting waiting just around the next corner in Vietnam!


Part 3 coming soon.