Vietnam

What am I supposed to do with this Vietnamese language in my head?

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I worked hard to learn Vietnamese. I never got as good as I wanted to get, but I got pretty good. My wife and I were at the Foreign Service Institute for almost a year, most of that time in Vietnamese class. For five hours a day we were in small-group classes. Then, hours of homework and self-study after that. I didn’t have to take it quite as seriously. But I’m an overachiever. I filled up four (FOUR!) notebooks with vocabulary words. I made dozens of flash card stacks with Quizlet (highly recommended for language learning, BTW). I did my best.

After arriving at post, I continued to study, four hours a week with a private tutor (thank you, Post Language Program!  Xin chào Cô Tươi!). She patiently endured my over-analyzing her language, poor her.

“Arguing” with my language teacher twice a week was a highlight of my time in Vietnam.

 

I tested again in March, late in the evening over the Department’s video conference system (after getting an MRI that morning, but that’s a different story). Again, I didn’t score as high as I wanted, but I improved.

I asked the local staff in the office to help me practice Vietnamese. They were good sports, including me in their banter (the Vietnamese people are very good at banter, by the way). I followed most of it, and it got easier as I practiced.

I worked with some of the sweetest and nicest people. My favorite quote from one of my Vietnamese coworkers: “Hey, I just realized, I haven’t gotten mad at you yet!”

 

I invested a lot of sweat and effort in learning the language. I read several books, hundreds of newspaper articles, struggled though countless hours of television (television news in Vietnamese is really, really hard). I started talking to myself in Vietnamese, dreamed in Vietnamese, even accidentally used Vietnamese instead of Chinese with my wife. The language finally got a firm foothold in my brain. But now that my tour is over and I’ve left Vietnam, what am I supposed to do with this language?

I have to confess that I gave these quotes in English and the reporter translated them into Vietnamese. But I can easily read it and verify that she quoted me accurately.

 

Of course, we can try to go back to Vietnam for another tour of duty.  My wife and I have talked about it, and we both agree that another tour in Vietnam would be great.  Hanoi would be an interesting place to live and work.  So that would give me another chance to use Vietnamese professionally.  But that is at least two years in the future.  In the meantime, I have this head full of Vietnamese, some of it correct and accurate.  It might fade in two years, but it’s so firmly entrenched in my brain now that it won’t go away.

It’s a different situation from Chinese. Not being in a Chinese-speaking work environment isn’t weird for me.  I’ve been a Chinese speaker for more than half my life, and it’s our home language.  But I only spoke Vietnamese in the office and on the street.  Now that I’m out of a Vietnamese environment, I feel like I’m neglecting my language proficiency. I don’t regret the investment that it took to learn Vietnamese. But not using it anymore seems like a waste.

Don’t be me wrong, I’m not complaining. I’m grateful for the opportunity to learn another language. It’s just a little frustrating that I won’t be able to use it professionally for several years. After putting so much work into learning, I don’t want it to fade away.

Jazz in the Park

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I can finally share this Vietnam memory now. Enough time has passed that I can reflect on this particular evening without getting too emotional. But first, some context:

Taipei in the late 1980s was a lot less modern than it is today. Traffic was terrible, and public transportation was a network of busses that competed with cars and motorcycles. I lived pretty far from work at the time, and so my daily commute was boring.

Thank heavens for my Sony Walkman. I listened to a lot of radio on the bus.

The morning guy on Taiwan’s English-language radio station, ICRT, was entertaining. If I timed my commute right, his morning show typically wrapped up around the time I got to work. Lan Roberts always ended his show with Glen Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade.”

Being a twenty-something snot-nosed philistine, of course I didn’t know the name of the song. But I quickly associated the music with a formative period of my life. I have sweet memories my early career in Taipei. I met my wife during this time, so it was a romantic time for me as well. Needless to say, that song triggers nostalgia and powerful emotions for me.

But what does that have to do with Vietnam?

Every U.S. Embassy and Consulate around the world marks July 4 with a big party, or as we call it in diplomat-speak, a “representational event.” This is the day that we recognize our counterparts in the local government, and our contacts in the business community and civil society organizations. It’s a party for them, and a big work event for us.  We call it an “all hands” event: everyone is expected to contribute.

The theme of our Consulate’s July 4th party this year was: “Jazz in the Park.”

The Consul General knows that I love jazz, so I was “voluntold” to coordinate the “program.”  My job was to plan the ceremony, find someone to write the speeches, and arrange the entertainment. Last year’s theme was “State Fair,” and the entertainment part could be a lot simpler, because we had games and activities on the floor to keep the guests entertained during the event. This year the focus was different. Since the theme was jazz, the music was the main thing. I had to find enough jazz to fill the program.

The planning committee got excited when we started talking about the program, and thanks especially to inspiration from J in the Econ section, “we” (I) decided to go big. “We” (I) might have gotten a little carried away. “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” turned into: “How can we make that happen?”

“Wouldn’t it be cool to have a small acoustic trio playing near the registration desk, to give people a taste of jazz?”

“And have a small trio in the ballroom to provide atmosphere before the ceremony starts?”

The Consulate’s medical doctor is a musician on the side, and he plays in the only big band jazz band in Vietnam. “Wouldn’t it be cool if we could get an eighteen-piece band to play for us?”

“There’s a swing dance group in town. Wouldn’t it be cool if they performed?”

“Wouldn’t it be cool if we could get the biggest jazz musician in Vietnam to play one big number right before the ceremony started? And get his daughter to play with him? And have wireless microphones so they could walk down around the audience?”

Tran Manh Tuan, the most famous jazz musician in Vietnam, has wanted to work with the Consulate for years. U.S. medical care saved his life several years ago, he was educated in the U.S., and his daughter will go to study there this fall.  So he feels a special connection to the United States, and graciously agreed to share his music with us.

After they were done, the Ambassador led a standing ovation.

I sweet-talked a lot of people to perform for us for the insultingly low amount of money that the Consulate could perform for us. I called in some favors, too. But in the end, the event turned out great. The committees for decorations, food, traffic control, all came together.

My part of the evening was front-loaded with the various parts of the ceremony and program. The performances went off smoothly, the singers didn’t forget the words to the national anthems (that happened last year – embarrassing!!), the speeches wee well-received.  Once the Big Band started playing, and the socialization/networking part of the evening started, I could relax a bit and enjoy the rest of the program.

Then the band played “Moonlight Serenade.” I was talking with the swing dance band at the time (OK, to be honest, I was taking silly selfies with them).

I think this was two glasses of wine into the event.

When the song started, I got excited and exclaimed that I loved that song.  One of the dancers asked if I wanted to dance. Of course I said yes.  Being a Hoopingarner man, I can’t dance well AT ALL, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to dance to a song that was so meaningful to me.

I wasn’t there and then. I was thirty years ago, in a different country, dancing with a different person.

Having actual dancing skills, she led. That was more than fine with me. I think I might have talked with her during the song. But to be honest, during the whole time, I was carried back to my younger days.

Everyone agreed that this year’s event was the best ever. Even the Ambassador said so.

A lot of people worked hard on this event, and we all had to work together. For me, it was more than a successful representational event. We showcased a quintessentially American art form, and had a lot of fun. And of course the evening was especially great because this year I got to spend time with this wonderful person, too!

This was the best July 4 event I’ve ever done.  I put a lot of pressure on myself to make the program flow and to integrate the performances in with the rest of the event.  The venue was glorious, the decorations were beautiful.  I made new memories, and relived old memories.  And I got to share my love for jazz with old and new friends.  It was an emotional evening for me, and I will never forget it.

When my Mom spoke Vietnamese

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“The Best We could Do” by Thi Bui is a graphic novel that tells the story of her family’s journey. The story spans four generations, from pre-war Vietnam, though their experience as refugees, and finally as immigrants in America. The book won several awards, and it Bui deserves them all. The book also revived a strange childhood memory for me, of my mother being able to speak Vietnamese.

I don’t like graphic novels, but the medium really brings Bui’s story to life.

Bui’s family, like many people from the South, saw that they had no future in the new Vietnam, so they took their chances and left by boat. We will never know how many people drowned when their boats sank, or were killed by pirates, or died of other causes during their flight. The lucky ones made it to a refugee camp in Malaysia or other Southeast Asian country. The very lucky ones had family in the United States, and were sponsored by their relatives to go to America.

My family was on the other side of the Vietnamese refugee crisis. We were the part of American society who helped the refugees to find a new life in America. My church “adopted” a Vietnamese family.

I think their name was Mai (I now know that Mai is a family common Vietnamese family name). They were a married couple with some children, I don’t remember how many. My church rented a house for them, donated clothes for the kids, and tried to help them adjust to life in chilly Michigan. Of course it was hard. Their English wasn’t good at all, and everything was new for them, from the weather to the food to the schools. We tried to communicate, but it was a huge challenge. But to my amazement and confusion, my mother could speak a few words of Vietnamese with them!

One Sunday afternoon we went to their house for a visit. I remember my father was talking with Mr. Mai about gardening. Mr. Mai’s English was better then the rest of the family’s. But they still had trouble communicating. Every once in a while, Dad would call out an English word to Mom, who would tell him in Vietnamese. Dad and Mr. Mai managed to have a conversation, thanks to Mom’s knowledge of Vietnamese(?!).

But how did my mother, born and raised in Michigan, ever learn Vietnamese? I remember being really amazed and confused. I wanted to ask her how the heck she learned Vietnamese. But I got distracted, and then forgot to ask her later.

As I started to learn Vietnamese, and to learn more about Vietnamese history, I learned that through the 1950s, French was the colonial language, so it was the language that a Vietnamese person would be educated in. The Mais, as part of the upper crust of Vietnamese society, would have spoken French. My mother also speaks French. So to my disappointment, I had to accept that my mother wasn’t speaking Vietnamese with Mr. Mai. Rather, they had found a literal “lingua franca” in French.

Mom couldn’t speak Vietnamese after all. Too bad, a little disappointing. She’s still awesome, of course. But man, she really blew my 8-year-old mind that day.

Good-bye for now, Vietnam

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“It’s probably too much to hope that my next tour will be as memorable as this one.” I wrote that at the end of my first tour in China. I really thought that a tour couldn’t be as eventful as that one. Boy, was I ever wrong. Not to discount my adventures in China, but my two years in Vietnam were so much more action-packed than my time in China. By a huge margin.

I didn’t write as much while I was in country, mainly because of the nature of the job. A lot happened, and it all happened so fast. I still have a lot to say about my tour in Vietnam. But I need some time to process it first. Like I wrote more than two years ago, I’m still not sure what the hell happened, and how to understand it all. But there I know some things already:

You can never really prepare.

I spent a year in D.C., learning job skills and Vietnamese language. Even after so much time in training, I didn’t feel prepared for Vietnam. I was right. I wasn’t ready. Toward the end of my tour, I mentioned to my boss that I felt incompetent and useless. He smiled. “How many years until you retire?” he asked. I told him I was planning to stay in the job until mandatory retirement at age 65. “You’ll feel that way until then,” he predicted.

We work in a country for two or three years, then move on. The Department doesn’t allow us to stay in the same country for a long time. That means that we are always investing time to learn about the country we serve in. There’s a ramp-up time before we hit our stride and get efficient. Then it’s time to move on to the next country. There are good reasons for this system. We should keep our perspective and always advocate for the United States. I’ve personally seen the loss of perspective in officers who stay in country too long. The huge investment in time and resources to train us can seem inefficient. But it’s like what Winston Churchill said about democracy: it’s the worst form of government except for all the rest. Maybe our system has problems, but it does work. We just have to get comfortable with some inefficiency and feelings of inadequacy.

Loneliness is built in to the job.

They read this book to us during A-100. It’s all true, every word.

Because of some family issues, I was at post by myself for a year. It sucked. It’s hard enough being separated from your family, being alone in a foreign country is harder. They warned us about this. It still sucked.

I “celebrated” my birthday while on a business trip in Hanoi. The hotel noted my birthday when I checked in, and left this cake for me in my hotel room. Nice gesture, but it actually made me feel worse.

Friends help with the loneliness.

The locally-engaged staff at post are great. They are dedicated, professional, kind, good people. I will never forget them.

I worked with some friendly, kind, funny, loving people. They are like family to me.
I got to interact with the next generation of Vietnamese leaders. They made me feel optimistic about the future of their country.

Unlike my last tour, when I felt uneasy about making friends with the local people, this tour I made some life-changing friendships with Vietnamese people. One friend introduced me to the writings of a quiet Buddhist monk named Thich Nhat Hanh. I have a complicated relationship with religion, and don’t agree with everything about his religion, but his writings about mindfulness touched me deeply.

Maybe the purpose of life is the good that you leave behind.

Not to get too philosophical, but this job is like human life: we arrive at a place that was there before we got there. We’re there for a short time, do some things, meet some people, live, love, then leave. After we go, the world goes on. What’s important is to leave the world a little better than how we found it.

Me and Mr. Phi.

I wrote before about Mr. Phi, who works in my apartment building. He once told me that he wanted to work in the Consulate, and has applied several times unsuccessfully. The next time the Consulate posted a job opening for a local staff, some other officers and I helped him polish his resume, and helped him with his application. Just a few weeks ago, he received a job offer to work in the Consulate. When he told me the news, I might have been as happy as he was.

My tour is over, I’ve left Vietnam. My replacement has arrived and will take over for me. The work in Vietnam will go on. The Vietnamese people will live their lives. I will miss my dear friends. I hope that I did some good.

Coconut Guy

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I have been admiring Coconut Guy’s hustle for two years now.  It’s not a scam, there’s no crime, it’s soft-sell, everyone wins, nobody gets hurt, and it’s like that famous cologne: 60% of the time, it works every time.

Coconut Guy works the street in front of my apartment building.  Actually, there is more than one Coconut Guy.  There have to be at least ten different guys who work my street.  And that’s only on my street. There are Coconut Guys all over town, near every touristy place.  But for the sake of convenience, I call all of them Coconut Guy.

Here’s how his shtick works.  He spots a group of tourists (they aren’t hard to find).  It has to be a group, it won’t work with a solo tourist.  He saunters up to them with his yoke of coconuts, as if he’s taking care of business, without really noticing the tourists.  He looks like he’s just another working stiff delivering his coconuts.  You know, like when you order coconuts for delivery, and they’re delivered by a guy carrying them on a yoke, like coconut delivery guys have done for a thousand years  Someone has to deliver the coconuts, right?

I’m just Coconut Guy, doing my Coconut Guy thing.

As he passes the group, he makes some friendly chit-chat, like “where are you going?”  He points out the way to the local tourist site.  Just in passing.  He might also help the tourists cross the crazy Saigon traffic. Just a harmless guy, living his life, delivering coconuts.

“Museum’s just up that street, you can’t miss it.”

Then he starts to interact with the group.  Usually he points at the man in the group, and makes the muscle gesture, like: “wow, you look strong!”  And then offers to let the tourist carry his coconuts.

And of course he takes Coconut Guy up on his offer.  Of course he would!  What a great Vietnam experience!  They’ll never believe this back home!  I carried coconuts!

“Have a taste of my coconut-carrying life!”

Hurry, honey, get a photo, he says.  And look at that, Coconut Guy is posing for my photo!  This is great!

See why this only works if there’s a group of tourists together? Someone has to take the photos!

Then, after the charming photo opp, Coconut Guy takes back his coconuts, and goes on his merry way.  Bye-bye, tourists, have a great day!  Enjoy your vacation is Vietnam!

Thanks for the memories! I enjoyed meeting your charming foreign selves!

Then, as an afterthought, he turns around, reaches into his cooler, and pulls out a coconut.  Oh, by the way, he says, would you like a coconut?  No pressure, you don’t have to buy, but they’re cheap, it’s a hot day, they are cold and refreshing, and besides, it’s another Vietnam experience for you!

Try it, honey, they’re really good!

And of course most of the time, the tourists take him up on his offer.

“Price” is such a relative term, isn’t it? Can you put a price tag on a true Vietnam moment?

This is where Coconut Guy wanders into morally fuzzy territory.  You see, coconuts are really cheap in Vietnam.  In fact, this year the crop is so plentiful that the price of coconuts has fallen to almost nothing.  Sure, Coconut Guy shaves the husk down to carry-size, and sure, he chills them, and even supplies a straw to make it easy for the tourists to enjoy.  Still, he’s paying a max of 25 cents for a coconut, and he’s getting anywhere from $2-$10 from each tourist.  One of my friends at post said that her brother paid $25 for a coconut (she really let him have it when he told her that).

But Coconut Guy isn’t just selling coconuts.  He’s selling the Coconut Guy experience.  The tourists seem to enjoy it.

Smile for the camera!

No one walks away feeling cheated, and they actually get a Vietnam Moment.  Of course, it isn’t a unique Vietnam Moment.  The scene is repeated over and over, every day, following the same script, with the same outcome.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

As hustles go, this one is pretty harmless.  Rich tourists pay way more than they should for a coconut, which keeps Coconut Guy employed.  The tourists can afford to pay what they’re paying.  The coconuts are fresh and perfectly good.  Coconut Guy isn’t lying to anyone, everyone is free to walk away at any time.  Some do, but enough people buy coconuts that there are more and more Coconut Guys on the streets.

Good hunting, Coconut Guy!

And lately, Coconut Guy has taken on a sidekick with this own shtick. But Shoeshine Guy is another story for another day.

This can’t be good

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Saw this car parked outside my building today. Should I be worried?

I feel very lucky that we’ve had almost no problems with pests in my apartment since I’ve lived in the building (knock on wood). That fact is especially remarkable, considering that this is a tropical country, with all of the little nasties that you usually find in tropical climates.

Reason #428 why I love my job

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It’s been a stressful couple of weeks. We hosted the commander of the Indo-Pacific Command, who visited Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. My team organized a press conference for the Admiral. I’ve been working with many of the journalists for nearly a year now. I encourage them to be more assertive and ask follow-up questions. To my delight, many of them did so.

The next day we hosted a CODEL (Congressional Delegation). Nine senior senators came to Vietnam for several days. They were mainly discussion “war legacy” issues like dioxin (“agent orange”) remediation. Again I was the press officer. There was a big ceremony to mark a cleanup project at a nearby air base.

For security reasons, everyone at the airbase had to have a badge. The Defense Ministry didn’t know what to do with me, so I was a “reporter” for the day.
April is the hottest month in Vietnam, and the airbase is a huge area of concrete runways. Tents could shield the CODEL from the sun, but we couldn’t keep them out of the heat.

The Bien Hoa airbase is the biggest remaining “hotspot” of dioxin contamination. It’s going to take a lot of money and a lot of time for us to clean up our mess. But I’m proud that our country is fulfilling our moral responsibility.

You don’t need to read Vietnamese to know that this sign is a warning that the entire area is contaminated. If this were in the U.S., we would be wearing hazmat suits.

This isn’t my first trip to the airbase, but I hope it’s my last. I later heard that just being there is dangerous exposure to Agent Orange.

You’d look angry, too, if your job was guarding a field of poisonous dirt.
A symbolic ribbon-cutting ceremony. That’s Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow second from the right!

When we were planning the events, I pushed for as much press access as possible. The local reporters really stepped during the interviews. The lead question was about the next generation of U.S. advocates for Vietnam war legacies. After the death of John McCain, we don’t have any more Vietnam vets in Congress. However, there is a Vietnamese-American congreswoman. Could that be the new direction in U.S.-Vietnam relations? From war legacies to people-to-people? The Ambassador and Senator Leahy were great on camera, and had a good rapport with the reporters. During the interviews, I had a nice chat with Mrs. Leahy, she is sharp-minded, strong, and pleasant.

How funny is it that I felt proud of the reporters for asking good questions? I guess I’ll always have the teacher mentality.

There was a short unstructured time period when reporters could do pull-aside interviews. I advised reporters about which Senators are on which committees, and told them to go hunting. Many of them got good one-on-one interviews, and they were thrilled. Vietnamese politicians don’t like to talk to reporters, whereas American politicians love it. So the reporters had a nice cultural experience as well as getting good stories.

I orchestrated a pull-aside interview with Debbie Stabenow for a local reporter. Stabenow is on the Agriculture Committee in the Senate, so she is influential in policies that directly affect Vietnam. But mainly because, you know, Debbie Stabenow. She made a great impression on several female reporters.

We were out in the heat all morning, and my the time I got home, I was beat. I wanted to take a shower and go to bed. But that wasn’t the end of my day. I decontaminated my clothes as best as I could, then I had to go on a field trip. But this field trip was not just work, it was a pleasure, too.

I’m on the program and entertainment committee for this year’s July 4 event. The theme is “Jazz in the Park.” My job is to find suitable jazz entertainment. Lucky for us, we have a connection with the best jazz musician in Vietnam. I went to his club to meet with him, and ask him to perform for us.

Yes, he’s playing two saxophones at the same time, and yes, that’s his daughter playing next to him. They put on a great show.

As luck would have it, I recently helped his daughter with some student visa advice, so we already had a good relationship. We came up with a great idea to have an interactive jazz performance. I was so excited that I got goosebumps. It’s going to be a really great event.

This job is never the same two days in a row. It’s usually exhausting, sometimes exasperating, occasionally baffling, but never, ever, boring. I can’t believe that I have to leave this country in only a few months. Just when I’m starting to feel like I’m not completely incompetent, that I understand more about the culture and society, I have to prepare to pack up and say good-bye.

Hanoi Old Quarter

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Vietnam has a long weekend to celebrate the Hung Kings. All I really know about the holiday is that celebrates in ancient dynasty in Vietnam. The dynasty supposedly created the first nation-state in Vietnam 3,000 years ago. So I guess this holiday celebrates Vietnam’s creation myth.

I took advantage of a calm before the storm next week at work, to get away and see a part of Vietnam that has become the newest hot tourist destination: Ninh Binh. It became famous a few years ago because it was one of the filming locations for a King Kong movie.

Ninh Binh really is this pretty, and it isn’t overly touristy (yet).

I flew to Hanoi then connected with a tour service to drive two hours to Ninh Binh. While in Hanoi, I stayed in an Airbnb in Hanoi’s famous “Old Quarter.”

That’s where I stayed

Old wooden staircase dating from the French colonial period. Please don’t say the phrase “fire trap.”

The apartment is tiny. It felt like a trip back in time.

Unfortunately I did not go back in time. I was in a small old apartment made out of wood, in the middle of 21st-century Vietnam. The ground floor is a nightclub that booms music until 1:00 am. The building is on the pedestrian street. At 6:00 am, the middle-aged ladies start their line dancing, playing their music on a big speaker on the street.

I like the Old Quarter. It’s lively and interesting. But now I know that although it’s a nice place to visit, until I can turn off my sense of hearing, I wouldn’t want to live there.