Author: Anoir Pudin
Country: France
The phoenix is an apt symbol for Vietnam, it signifies beauty and a gutsy determination to rise above the devastating effects of a long, drawn out war.
“Two dollar, two dollar,” the voice is like a singsong pleading. “OK! one dollar! One dollar, OK?” The T-shirts jiggle encouragingly in front of my eyes.
“Why you no buy from me?” Her eyes, shaded by the ubiquitous non, that conical bamboo hat worn everywhere here in Vietnam, become mock-angry, her lip drawing down into pout.
She wants to sell me a T-shirt, five sizes smaller than my own, in a style that I would never wear, and a color and pattern I dislike but she just cannot understand why I am resisting her sales pitch.
“Two dollars,” she insists, “I give you two. Very ‘sheap’.” Neither she nor any of her colleagues touting nons, postcards, or Lonely Planet guides to Vietnam can understand the Western mind. If the price is right, how can you NOT buy?
These vendors do it tough. One chased us for blocks offering just two items: a zip down cabin bag and a green and yellow nylon hammock. I hated both and tried to make this clear to him – kindly – but materialized at every turn, ever hopeful.
You have to admire these people who just a few decades ago lost millions in the war. The Vietnamese revere the phoenix, and its shape appears on many pictures and designs. They say it symbolizes beauty – particularly womanly beauty. To us, it also speaks of rising from destruction, resilience and gutsy determination. This war-torn country embraces both.
The beauty of course lies everywhere: in elegant handicrafts and fashion, the flowing lines of the so-called ao dai, the national dress, magnificent galleries filled with paintings and craft, and the women themselves, slender and dignified.
The re-growth is apparent too, from the modern glass and concrete buildings to schools spilling out white uniformed youngsters at the end of either the morning or afternoon classes.
There are glitches of course, inevitable in a country grappling with the modernity, playing catch-up with the Western world. It was only in 1994 that the US lifted its trade embargo and there is much lost ground to make up for.
Traffic in this city with population of eight million is horrendous too. Thousands of motorbikes and bicycles and the odd car or truck or bus interweave as if practicing of a demolition derby. You have to have nerves of steel to cross through all of this.
“Just walk slowly,” I am told. “They will work their way around you.” Of course they do, and I discover yet another metaphor for this surprising country.
Vietnam may appear a little chaotic, but this is sense to it and the locals know what they are doing. Slowly, steadily it’s coming together, and I was happy to have seen it at this point before cars replace motor cycles, before the effects of the Western world dull its authenticity, and while there is still time to haggle with these street vendors and maybe come away with a deal that suits us.
4 comments:
wud luv 2 visit the place sometime, u do really well at telling us what its like to the places u've been to!
;)
gr8 one!
Very informative and interesting post.
I remembered one line from a song by Red Hot Chilli Peppers, it was "Destruction breathes creation". It makes all the more sense when you see a country like Vietnam, previously destroyed by war and now coming up slowly and steadily.
Aha. The same thing happened to me in Peru. If you look for two seconds, they chase you down the block :-) But you eventually realize their situation, what they're going through; how desperately they need money to survice.
Great post. This was exactly how I felt.
I agree with Zach: this happens in Peru all the time, too. Besides common tourism, shopping there helps us see the reality of the people in the country, and may inspire us to change it.
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