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Life in the Village


KenW

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So at 6 or 6:30 I'm out the door.

Walk 200 m to the corner T junction, where I give a wink to the lady setting up her coffee stall on the footpath.

Wave to the lawyer and his stepmother who live on the T junction (perhaps today she'll call me over for a chat - she has lived in Canada and so speaks some intelligible English).

Have a 3 sentence exchange with a driver who waits patiently for his boss to emerge from his plush house.

Get a nod from the grumpy old lady who is setting up a small market stall on the next corner.

Wave to the lady and her father, as she sells bread from a footpath stall.

Exchange pleasantries with an old guy who every morning wears a pork pie stetson hat and walks as I do round these blocks.

Wave and say good morning to a younger vigorous guy who walks every morn.

Say hello to and try to flirt (always unsuccessfully) with a 20-something year old girl going home from market.

Wave good morning to an old retired couple who drink coffee and eat bowls of soup outside their house.

Say hello to the lady who sells me mi gio heo (this morning not my morning).

Wave to the guy on the left with the weird shoulder length hair who is setting up his coffee stall.

Stop in at the small market to buy some potatoes and onions. The lady respectfully calls me uncle (in VNese).

Joke with the vendor selling bananas. Buy today? Not today.

Round the corner.

Short walk then another corner, back parallel to whence I've come.

Laugh and say good morning to the old dears who are walking always in opposite direction to me.

Wave to the guy & his wife who sell me bun rieu (not today).

Stop in at the next stall, sit on the footpath and eat bo kho with baguette. Filling. 23,000 VND (USD 1.20).

Wave to a guy who drinks hot tea at the next little stall.

Wave to the fat lady from Hanoi who sells lottery tickets and is always so nice to me. She drinks coffee with her friends. I hear talk about "ong tay" - the old westerner.

I round the next corner headed for home. The dishwasher guy at the grubby little eatery cheerily wishes me "chao" - hello.

I wink at the gorgeous 18 year old waitboy in the garden coffee shop. He diffidently looks away.

I am at the corner.

I go to the egg sandwich lady and buy one of her delicious sangers to take home and munch later in the day.

As I unlock my front gate I get lovely smiles from the cleaner next door and another pretty young mother who is leaving for work.

I go inside, get my fruit juice from the fridge, and return to my park bench aside my front gate. Perv time. All these lovely Lolitas heading for school on their bikes, nutbrown legs pedalling hard beneath tartan skirts. Older ones off to work or college. A gay boy driving to the gym.

This is why it is my village. These people know me now, though not one of them could call me by name. Many of them know where I'm from and what my job is. How old I am. Some of course know where I live. It is just like a big village, several thousand folks living in this small area in which I walk for my health. And without exception they are friendly to me, cheery in talk with me or at least wish me a good day.

I love it.

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It sounds great Ken. You paint a wonderful picture.

I believe we are close to the same age and I too in recent years have developed similar habits of simplicity that I enjoy tremendously. Early to bed, early to rise. Walks and daily exercise. Simple dishes and sitting on benches watching the beauty of youth breeze by. I smile as I think of the old adage: "if youth only knew and age only could."

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Great stuff Ken, really looking forward to reading about your life and times in the village, Recently enjoyed a first holiday in Vietnam, with wife, so strictly straight tourist stuff. We did one of thouse Vespa tours with the girls in traditional dress visiting various disticts and enjoying the street food. I remember as we drove through District 7 being told that maybe only 10%of apatments in a big block were actually occupied even though they were all owned, seems the investors can't be bothered getting tennants?

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2+ days with internet down. Sorry guys.

Some bastard had cut my phone line, left it dangling across footpath & street.

So much for my sweet lovely village.

Took the phone company 2+ days to get around to it, despite mobile calls every day.

Actually just as likely weather, or VNese technical incompetence. Old line worn out.

Back up today.

Thanks guys for the positive comments.

I must admit surprise.

I had opened this thread with great trepidation, thinking it would bore everybody shitless.

Posts, if any, saying: so fucking what, Ken.

But thanks, now I will try to build on this beginning.

Very depressed this morning, following 2 days sans internet.

Took some cash and spent the morn from 9 a.m. drinking Heinekens in a local beer bar.

But couldn't even find the energy to flirt with the pretty waitstaff. Polite only.

Home now and online. Hoo raaa.

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A couple of days depressed without internet gives one time for thought.

I ran an old question or 6 across my frontal lobes.

If Mrs Grizzleguts at the small market around the corner, and young Mr Goodbody who walks fast past me every morning, and all the others, define my village for me, what makes life that extra bit special here?

I raised this from an old thought at the back of my tired cabbage mush brain.

Do I have any genuine VNese friends?

Of course there are all the youth & beauty we screw, some of whom, perhaps only a few, become friends.

But I wanted to think about the kind of friend definition I would use in my native Australia, or anywhere else.

Do I invite these people into my house?

Do they invite me into theirs?

Do they leave my wallet alone, never making requests/pleas/begs?

Do they ever share things with me, without hidden agendas of obligation?

Do they give me genuine advice? (NOT of the kind: don't go with him, go with me.)

I am proud and pleased to be able to answer yes to these questions, or no as appropriate.

I have slept in maybe 30 VNese houses over the years (at no cost).

Including quite a bit of time in a real village, not the metaphorical suburban one I'm writing about here.

Drank and played in many many more.

I have had many VNese in my house (though less these days as I get more reclusive).

[Note here I am talking of non-sex event guests.]

No-one I would call a friend has ever asked me for a dollar.

I guess I have about 10 VNese males over the years who fall into this category. Two women.

Yes, those people have shared with me, for no gain of their own.

Example: my best VNese mate, who is half my age, with 2 university degrees including a Masters from the States, has had me at his home in the countryside, where he paid for everything except the 5 litre cask of vin ordinaire I carried up from Saigon. Grand lad.

Yes, they give advice, well meant. Same lad as above warned me that homosexuality was a disease. Ha! So much for the VNese education system. He bears up despite my apparent illness. [He is totally straight, but sympathetic & understanding - sort of.]

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This is in no way intended as a thread about: How great Ken is. Quite the opposite.

As I said at the outset, just a thread to give a feel, to those who might be contemplating such a life, for what it's like outside the gals and the glitter and the bars and the boys. The holidays among whores.

So another question I asked myself is: how many expats do I know who could answer same?

Very few. I know a couple who get on well with their wives' families. But I cannot name more than maybe 2 others who have genuine VNese mates. For example.

Repeat & repeat again: this is not to say I am right and they are wrong. Not to say I'm good and they're not. Merely to say to FMs, if you want to extract most enjoyment from a life in village SEAsia, perhaps these are the things you need to think carefully about before you embark on such a venture.

Do you want to mix in, learn a culture, become enmeshed? Or do you want to live a parallel life, amid a world of expats who spend vast energy whingeing (in my company at least) about our hosts as generalised others? (The way blokes whinge in Australia about generalised niggers/poofters/Muslims etc. None of whom they've ever met or interacted with.)

I think of my dear friend Big Tel. I hope he doesn't mind me saying this - I haven't cleared it with him. He speaks superb Thai and is literate, reading books off his own bat. A man truly competent in his host culture. You won't catch him making stupid simplistic generalisations about Asians.

Something to ponder.

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This is in no way intended as a thread about: How great Ken is. Quite the opposite. ...

Can I start that thread? :happy0148: In all seriousness, this is turning out as enjoyable as your previous thread about ladyboys in Viet Nam (which is about a lot more than ladyboys in Viet Nam. So this thread is great, at least.

Or do you want to live a parallel life, amid a world of expats who spend vast energy whingeing (in my company at least) about our hosts as generalised others?

This attitude that many expats seemingly share regardless of the land has always mystified me, even more so than those seekers of true love who are blinded to everything and everyone else. You aren't the only one who hears the bitching and moaning, unfortunately. I suppose that old adage is true: many people just like to complain.

Anyway, thanks again for a great read. I'm apparently plus one'ed out at the moment, so you have one in reserve. :drinks:

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Thanks again 4:17, nice to know someone appreciates.

My best expat mate, an Irishman, totally straight very sexually active hetero, has invited me over today for his wife's father's birthday. He is one guy who really gets on well with his VNese affines. They seem like a very nice family. He has two children (12 and 8) with his current wife, and they are very happy. But he's always on the lookout for a "bit of legover" as he puts it.

He doesn't know anything about my dark side. Thinks my trips to PP and Pattaya are to go with bargirls. (Well they are, in a perverted way. Ha!) He's not a homophobe, but told me once he just couldn't see what the attraction is for homosexuals. I let that one go through to the keeper. Beyond our Ken.

It will be a nice pleasant afternoon with plenty of Heinekens and who knows what else (possibly Irish whiskey), with heaps of homecooked VNese nosh. They live about 5 minutes walk from my house. So looking forward to a gentle beery Saturday arvo in the village.

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It is 122 years since Ho Chi Minh was born - as far as biographers are prepared to be certain at all.

It is 67 years since he stood on a podium in Ba Dinh Square, Hanoi, and declared Vietnam an independent country.

It is 43 years since President Ho died.

This weekend, a holiday long weekend here in VN, the people celebrate both anniversaries (2 September): Independence Day and Uncle Ho's death.

Like at Tet (Lunar New Year) many shops and almost all large businesses are closed. But beer bars, restaurants and all sorts of entertainment places are not only open, but packed to the brim. Likewise resorts like Phu Quoc Island and Mui Ne are booked out, along with many hotels in seaside locations like Vung Tau or Nha Trang.

When I walked over to my Irish mate's house at midday on Saturday, my closest beer bar on the drag, which on normal weekdays has about a handfull of customers just arriving for lunch, was half full already. Many houses had people gathered in their parlours, men eating and drinking in a circle on the tiled floor, women in attendance, as well as burning paper money and making prayers with fruit offerings.

The party went all afternoon and much of the night. I am told I went home sometime around 11 pm. I remember neither getting home nor going to bed. But when I investigated next morning the house was locked up and all was in order. Thank heavens for small mercies and well practised motor habits.

I do have a memory, vague as it is, of the packed beer bars as I crossed the main drag to turn off to my house. The first day of the holiday long weekend was being well celebrated.

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Death anniversaries are the most important days in VNese culture.

In the old days it was rarely recorded when babies were born. It is still considered something to be very wary of, as it may entail some hubristic presumption, causing malevolent spirits to take the baby's soul away. Much is made however, of when the child is one month old, and even much more when the first year is successfully negotiated. By then parents and family become confident that the spirits are on their side, and the child will live a happy and healthy life.

Often a child's name is not made public, for reasons along the above lines. A nickname is given. A new name can be given when it becomes 1 year old (actually 2 years old in their reckoning - but that's another story), or even later. In some families at pubescence the kid gets a fresh name. It's as if they are in some conspiratorial way, keeping the malevolent ones confused and uncertain, their potential quarry something of a mystery.

The irony is not lost on Ho Chi Minh scholars. The child was born Nguyen Sinh Cung, later taking the name and persona Nguyen Ai Quoc (Nguyen The Patriot). Then much later he took on the Chinese nomen that the world would come to know him by. It means Bringer of The Light. (There was a stash of other names & personas too.)

And while Ho the conspirator and subversive shadowy figure, the political animal, changed his name and lied about his birth date, his survivors are suspected by cynics to have faked his death date to coincide with VNese Independence Day. Such writers suggest Uncle Ho may have died a week or weeks before, but was kept in the fridge until the symbolically appropriate day when his death was announced to the world.

Not all are cynics however, including the premier Ho scholar William Duiker, who reports his death as correctly taking place on the morning of 2 September. He countenances no doubts about this.

So, whatever the truth, 2 Sept is the most powerful day in modern VNese culture and history, and this long weekend celebrated as no other.

Independence and death, the 2 major anniversaries to be savoured and enjoyed, with appropriate tributes and prayers, family and public gatherings, lots of noise (but no fireworks), and plenty of respect.

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Against this background, I set off for a Sunday lunch on 2 Sept, in a real village.

It never ceases to amaze me that a place like Saigon (officially Ho Chi Minh City) can host 10 million residents, be a major bustling commercial metropolis, can contain what 4:17 called yuppie suburbs like mine, yet can offer a cheek by jowl countryside experience in real villages mere minutes out of the suburban area.

Bearing a carton of Heineken cans, I caught a baht bus equivalent on the drag, travelled for about 15 minutes, then disembarked where I had been invited for this lunch. Fare: 25 US cents equivalent.

Off the bus, walk down a side lane wide enough for motorbike traffic, to the end house, adjacent the swamp. Mine hosts.

About a dozen folks in attendance, family and friends, me the only foreigner.

Amid chickens clucking and pigs snorting around our feet, an occasional dog, we sat beneath thatch aside water filled with long weed abutting castoff plastic bags and assorted filth and rubbish. The breeze, coming off an impending storm, was fresh and delightful.

It was to be one those lunches I absolutely adore. A one dish affair: ga sum saa (pronouned as I have spelt it); chicken boiled with lemon grass then served with bun noodles (one of the thin rice noodles).

Done in a big boiler, they had killed and cut up 3 chooks (can't get much fresher than that), then boiled the chunks of it with lemon grass, mushrooms, slices of white radish, and a bigleaf tasty green whose name I do not know (leaf was crinkly a bit reminiscent of silverbeet). Helpings ladeled into small bowls for each eater, beers opened and iced, away we go. Dipping sauce of fish sauce with chopped up chilli and garlic immersed.

Yum. One of my favourite VNese dishes.

Still feeling a bit heavy from Saturday, I drank slowly, having only about 5 cans of beer. But the food was divine.

Around 2 pm I was driven home by one of my hosts' teenage sons (straight, as far as I could tell).

A lovely experience in a modern working village.

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This is all getting too mushy.

Next thing I'll be accused of being a romantic.

Everything I have related up to now has to be balanced against the realities, known by all old Asia hands, of what life in village or town or city in this region can be like. The lying, the cheating, the deceit, the dooyadown, the blatant arrogant mistreatment of foreigners especially, but any sucker will do.

It aint all sweet and plain sailing, by any stretch. To bastardise Tennyson, Asian cultures red in tooth and claw, ripping your money and your stuff to shreds, devouring every greedy morsel of your financial innards they can pick out of the dust or your pocket.

I have just had my house renovated and re-painted. This entailed a work crew invading my personal space for 5 weeks plus, trashing my stuff, stealing whatever was not nailed or bolted down, taking from cupboard and fridge as they pleased, running up a bill at my corner coffee shop (which I had to agree to at work commencement), leaving my furniture paint stained, every padlock in the house broken or badly damaged, one door glass cracked as the wind slammed it closed while my closing mechanism was ignored, a watch gone, money gone (out of pocket of clothing hanging behind a bedroom door - my stupid fault), light globes, locks and other things broken, all of which I had to pay to have repaired.

On the last point, I would think in a country like Australia, anything not strictly part of the work's collateral costs, broken or damaged by a workcrew, would be taken out of the bill I paid. That is, they admit fault, and in effect pay for it by my withholding costs. Not here. Sucker foreigner pays for it all.

Also the feeling that would not leave me, of being violated. At least 50% of the cigarettes finished by workmen resulted in dumpers being dropped where they were last sucked. To see my inner sanctum, my study, my most significant private space, converted into a room sized paint stained ashtray almost had me in tears. I don't like people smoking in my house, anytime, but in such a situation I could do nothing. These people just take you over, your place, your privacy, your most treasured objects, and dish out to you their version of zero respect.

OK, now I have a nice freshly painted house, with various repairs to kitchen, roofdeck, etc., ensuring my quality of life remains high. But shit, the cost to my nervous system of that month & a half will take months and halves of PP visiting and cum swallowing to calm.

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Guest JustSumGai

damn shame I was not in Asia, I could have done you a perfect paint job with none of that shit.

This sounds more like the KenW I read at the beginning of this thread. The one who was disgusted and LEAVING Vn for some greener pasture. What happened? Why did you end up back? Peronally I've kinda given up on Vn as reports I've seen make it seem less hospitible than Thailand with the smiling hordes who wheedle money out of you at every turn under any and all contexts. Sneaky aggressive sellers.

So what lured you back? you never tried PP? For all it's faults, I kinda LIKE Cambodia, tho I stay in much smaller cities like Kampong Cham or Pursat. and update us on that femboy waitstaff that suddenly lost the girly stuff, will ya?

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Mr. Ken,

Not knowing the size of your place or the extent of the required renovations and painting, I would think it would have been better to hire two young femboys to paint while you sat, watched their labours, and provided lip-smacking refreshments when necessary. It would have taken longer I am sure but it would have been a lot less stressful, perhaps even excitingly entertaining. Think about it! :biggrin:

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...given up on Vn as reports I've seen make it seem less hospitible than Thailand with the smiling hordes who wheedle money out of you at every turn under any and all contexts. Sneaky aggressive sellers. ...

Hmm, that hasn't been my experience here in Viet Nam at all. Outside of the Backpacker ghetto, at any rate (where you have to expect that sort of thing). In fact having lived in both places, I came across more people on the take in Thailand, when it comes to foreigners, than VN. Outside of District 1/central business district, I've never had anyone try and take advantage of me here in HCMC, other than the odd xe om driver try and quote an outrageous price. But then I don't have a house to maintain either, and don't even own a motorbike.

Sorry to hear the renovation was so problematic, Ken ...

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