VACATIONS FROM HOME: A DAY IN THE LIFE in VIETNAM

THE PEOPLE OF VIETNAM
Bulbul male

North and South Vietnam have been reunited since the 70s with the fall of Saigon, but though they share a common language and heritage, customs are different in either section of the country. Overseas Adventure Travel (O.A.T.) focuses on the people of Vietnam and not just her vistas and monuments. Interacting with the people of Vietnam has been the greatest joy for this humble scribe. O.A.T. calls their visits to experience the customs of Vietnamese people “A Day In The Life” and we have spent two separate days in both the North and the South seeing a bit of the daily life of the Vietnamese people. Depending on your mindset the nuances between the two were either miniscule or glaring.

NORTH VIETNAM

We visited a small village not far from Hanoi and met the chief and his family. To reach his village we had to take a short ferry ride across a river. The ferry was little more than metal sheeting being propelled by a motor.

He was a North Vietnamese war veteran which helped him get this government position, although he served mainly as a musician playing for morale. There was an ease about him as he talked about his ‘tasks’ as chief and he played for us several songs on various stringed instruments. One was a “lazy violin”, and he rested the one-string instrument to play. We had lunch with the family.

A Woman’s World

We also learned how to make rice paper while there. Rice paper is used to make spring rolls. After watching his daughter make several rice paper ovals and placing them on a bamboo rack, we had the opportunity to try. My attempt at this culinary staple was hideously deformed.

Before meeting the chief, we had stopped at a small local market to purchase food for offerings to the family altar which is ubiquitous in nearly every Vietnamese home. Pictures of deceased family members are sometimes displayed at the altar and incense is burned, blessing the offerings. They prepared lunch for us, using some of the ingredients we purchased at the market before we reached the ferry.

my rice paper

The visit to the market was the most remarkable part of the day. Mai, our guide, broke our larger group into small pairs of two couples and we were all given money and a shopping list of items in Vietnamese to buy.

Google translate helped identify what we needed thankfully.

We were supposed to ask for the item in Vietnamese and hand over the money and have the proprietor fill the bag. It was a great way to interact with the stall owners, many of whom were very happy that we paused at their stand.

what's on the
menu?

In purchasing, we often would give back a couple of items, like a tomato or a few limes, to the shop owner as a way of "tipping" and they were extremely gracious with our generosity. I was even given a few hot peppers in return for my "gift". We got a extra points if we took a selfie with the owner afterwards.

They do eat some odd things in Vietnam and some, like dog and snakes, both of which were on display in the market. Thankfully they were not on our shopping list.

While looking for our grocery items two precious little girls, one around 8 and the other around five approached us from a store. They were eager to practice their English and the elder girl in a halting cadence told us she was very happy to see us, and she hoped we enjoyed visiting her country. Touched, I gave her a $2.00 USD which is considered a lucky charm in Vietnam, said our good-byes and we started walking away. We got around 50 feet when she caught up with us to give back the bill, saying her father didn’t want her to accept the money, which I guess is a proper thing to do. At first, I felt I had offended them, but in hindsight that was good parenting.

SOUTH VIETNAM

We had focused on the woman’s role in Vietnamese society but for the South Vietnamese version of Day In The Life we experienced more of the man’s role in society. We were in Nha Trang, a beach resort halfway between Danang and Saigon. A long sandy beach edged by high rise hotels and apartments, Nha Trang is very popular with Chinese and Russian tourists. Lots of the menus are listed in these two languages as well as Korean and English.

Nha Trang

We did not visit markets in Nha Trang on this O.A.T. day trip excursion, and the only food product we learned to make was the Vietnamese version of a Mojito.

We also heard about life as the loser of a war though the eyes of the village chief.

Bird Watching Cafe

Not sure how the men make their living, though we’ve been told they work hard at several jobs to provide for their families. Yet, on this day trip to the South Vietnamese version of A Day In The Life we hopped on the back of scooters and the drivers weaved treacherously through the backstreet traffic of Nha Trang until we reached the Bird Watching Café. We would never have found this place if not for our guide, Mai. We stopped here at this very local place not only for Vietnamese coffee with sweet, condensed milk, but to watch and listen to the “girlfriends” of several men gathered there.

Bird brains

The cafe was nothing more than an empty lot covered partially by suspended tarps and some corrugated metal sheeting. Several pipes were suspended in the middle and from them hung several birdcages. The “girlfriends”, which were actually male Bulbul birds, chatted with each other as the men sipped drinks and chatted softly. They were as intrigued with us as we were of this Vietnamese cultural practice.

Turns out men take their pet birds from home to the café to enjoy some peace and quiet away from their wives. Transported here in covered cages, which keeps the birds calm on the harrowing journey to the café, the cages hang from the handgrips of the scooters. The covers are removed after a while and the beloved birds all talk to each other. Periodically a cage would be moved to another end or side so the Bulbul birds can make some new conversations with a whole other set of birds. As we marveled over this joyful scene, we watched a man prepare to leave. He covered two cages and placed them on the ground near his scooter. After a time, he hung the cages on his hand grips and puttered away.

History is written by the victors

We visited a Northern village, and now we had the opportunity to see life in a Southern village.

After the Americans left in 1973 the conflicts continued in Vietnam, but without the support of the United States Saigon and the South Vietnamese government fell in April 1975. The South Vietnamese felt abandoned by the U.S., and while some tried to flee the country, others had to endure a “reeducation camp” offered by the Communist victors to be indoctrinated fully in this new way of thinking in South Vietnam. Part of the process tasked these former enemies with rebuilding the infrastructure destroyed during the war before they finally were deemed properly indoctrinated. If you resisted indoctrination, you were invited to stay longer and longer.

We visited a village that was populated by nearly 2,000 people who had endured these reeducation sessions. The chief of the village had served with the South Vietnamese Airborne division as a Lieutenant and went to “school” for a year. Now 85 years old, he has served in this elected government position for the past 15 years, with elections held every 5 years. After he was first released, he worked as a farmer, mostly harvesting bamboo. The chief at that time had been appointed by Hanoi, but the villagers rejected an outsider, and he was elected to this current position.

White-haired and wiry, there was a spark in the man’s eye, despite the difficult past. He was quite happy to help his village in this capacity. During our visit to his home, he fielded phone calls pertaining to village business.

The chief also led us in making the Vietnamese version of a Mojito. All the ingredients are the same, but lemongrass is muddled as well. Our group drained a bottle of rum as we were offered shots after the concoction was finished. We had lunch with the chief and his wife and they served some odd foods too.

what's on the menu 2
duck embryo

On our way back to the bus we passed several women making chopsticks from bamboo. Three generations of women were working quickly and it was fascinating to watch how they carved and smoothed the bamboo to whittle them down to the appropriate shapes with very sharp instruments. We bought a bundle of chopsticks from them, happy to help with their economy.